The second season of Netflix's The Witcher, whenever it arrives, will feature a young Geralt and a young Vesemir at the start of the former's training to become one of the most influential Witchers the world has ever known.
A lot of pressure to place on a youngster, I will admit. In the finale of the first season, Geralt battles necrophages who have sniffed out the countless bodies slain in war that cannot be buried by one person alone. He is bitten, and the poison causes him to hallucinate due to the intense pain. In his delirium, he remembers the time where his mother Visenna left him alone on a road for Vesemir to find him and take him to Kaer Morhen. This little Geralt was played by Tristan Ruggeri, and though we didn't see his face, Theo James voiced Vesemir. We do know that Kim Bodnia has been cast as Vesemir in the second season, but the prospect of further flashbacks to Geralt's youth has piqued our curiosity.
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Redanian Intelligence claims that Ruggeri won't return to the role and that Netflix has been seeking a different actor to play an older Geralt who might be in the midst of his journey of the School of the Wolf. In order to become a Witcher, a child must survive the four major trials. The first is the Trial of the Grasses, where alchemical ingredients and mutagenic elixirs are injected into the body to transform their physiology. Only three in ten children live through the process. The second is the psychedelic visions in the Trial of Dreams, which grants Witchers their night vision but also sterilises them. The Trial of the Medallion asks the trainees to "swim across a pond near Kaer Morhen, get through caverns inhabited by an old cyclops called Old Speartip without waking him up, then climb Troll's Head, deal with its mistrustful rock trolls, and get to a Circle of Elements," together to teach the lessons of cooperation.
There is also the Trial of the Forest Eyes, where the candidates were taken to the woods in the Morhen Valley, blindfolded. In order to pass, they needed to return to the fortress by morning - if they were late, they failed the Trial. Because Geralt showed exceptional strength and resilience throughout the standard set of Trials, he endured additional Trials and the stress on his body caused him to lose all of his pigmentation, leading to his white hair and extremely pale skin. It would be awesome to see these events play out in the Netflix show, with Vesemir's snarky comments contrasting with Geralt's brighter personality in his youth.
It has been noted by Redanian Intelligence that Bradley Jaden has auditioned for the role of Vesemir, insinuating that Theo James might not be planning on coming back. However, James has worked with Netflix in the past, with roles in Castlevania and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and he might have signed on for the second season. Alternatively, it could be that Jaden is playing the character in the live-action show and James is playing the character in the animated prequel following his early years as a Witcher. At the moment, it's all to play for, but the show has wrapped filming today. Perhaps, once post-production is complete, we'll hear about a release date.
Featured Image Credit: Netflix, CD Projekt RedTopics: News, The Witcher