Fantasy fans with a Netflix subscription are now just a little less than a week away from the release of The Witcher Season 3, Vol. 2, which will see star Henry Cavill end his run on the sword-swinging series. Liam Hemsworth is taking over as Geralt of Rivia for Season 4, and while many audience members have remained angry about the switch, likely to the point of causing the show’s viewership drop in the current season, there are some questions from those who remain about whether or not the story will actually address the change. Now, it sounds like we’ve gotten a hint about it from an executive producer.
What Did The Witcher’s Executive Producer Say About Addressing The Switch From Henry Cavill To Liam Hemsworth?
As noted, many fans who were previously very committed to The Witcher have been up in arms since the October 2022 news that our current White Wolf was hitting the road and turning his monster fighting duties over to someone else. While we’ve heard that there will be a “heroic sendoff” for Cavill’s version of the character, and his departure is also “a big deal” for everyone on the show, with a few episodes yet to come, there’s still the question of whether or not the plot will put any focus on the change.
When speaking with RadioTimes about the fourth season, EP Tomek Bagiński alluded to there potentially being a story-based reason for Geralt’s new appearance, and said:
This is a very little thing that I will tease - people who know the books really deeply also know that this is not a typical fantasy book. It's not just one world. It's not just one story happening in those books, in those stories. It's a huge, huge world which is very, very complex... I will stop here!
Alright, guys. Here is where I tell you that I haven’t read all of the books that the drama is based on, but that from what I’ve read about the story which will likely be adapted next, Baptism of Fire, there’s nothing in the book, specifically, that even alludes to Geralt undergoing a massive physical transformation which would necessitate a new actor in the role.
In fact, this is at least the second time that Bagiński has talked about the books offering an explanation for Cavill’s exit with him saying a little less than a month ago that it will be “very lore accurate” and “very, very close to the meta ideas” of all the books and the one mentioned above, in particular. I also noted at the time that there’s nothing I’ve heard about the books that directly points to whatever meta concepts he’s talking about, which does kinda make me worry that they’re going to go way too far trying to explain something that doesn’t really need an explanation.
With the new info that the EP has given us, though, there are two possibilities that I can think of which might give audiences such reasoning. First, if you know what happens in The Time of Contempt (the book that was adapted for Season 3) then you know where things are basically heading. The events at the end of the book appear to be on the way, based on what we’ve seen so far, meaning that something big is coming for our hero by the time the credits roll on Cavill’s final appearance. Though it’s not an event that automatically makes it easy to see why we’d have a new Geralt, in a world with magic it would be pretty easy to spin it that way.
Secondly, as Bagiński said, the whole reason the Continent is the way we see it now is because of the Conjunction of the Spheres, the ancient event when many worlds magically (and accidentally) collided. The Wild Hunt occupy one such other world that’s not currently as connected to the one that’s home to the Continent, so why couldn’t there be one where things are essentially the same, but where a different young boy was named Geralt and became the White Wolf?
Now, how he becomes our new Geralt in the world that we’ve been following for three seasons is still a mystery, but, again, The Witcher’s got all kinds of magic, so they could easily woo-woo these questions away. Speaking of which, the EP added:
Lauren [Schmidt Hissrich, showrunner] and her team - and there are a few really good writers returning to the writers' room for Season 4 - I think they cobbled together a really nice opening which is really true to the books.
OK. Look, while everyone will miss what Cavill has done as the lead, I’m still hopeful that Hemsworth will make a great Geralt, and prove totally undeserving of being thrown “under the bus” in those Witcher ads. Honestly, I can’t wait to see how this switch shakes out in Season 4.
