Witcher....

So… what is witcher?
Asked probably no one ever these days, the franchise is huge! However, I have to start somewhere. Witcher begun as a single story in Polish sci-fi and fantasy magazine “Fantastyka” by Andrzej Sapkowski. It was released in the December , or twelfth since “Fantastyka” releases monthly, magazine of 1986. The short story was titled just “Witcher” (pl. “Wiedźmin”) and later it was compiled into a collection of stories and published by supernova under the title “Last wish”, much later because in 1993. After which there was published the next collection of stories (“Sword of Destiny”), followed by the five book long saga (in order, “Blood of elves”, “Time of Contempt”, ‘Baptism of fire”, “Tower of the Swallow” and “Lady of the Lake”). Later, in 2000, there was released a collection of stories titles “Something ends, something begins” in which there are two witcher-related stories, both which aren’t canonical to the books (They are: the titled, “Something ends, something begins” and “Road, from which you don’t come back”). It was later in 2012 expanded with two extra stories (Both not related to witcher) and released again under the title “Maladie and other tales”. In 2013, “Seasons of storms” was released. It’s also a story canonically placed shortly before the “witcher” story. On the stream of writing prequels, Sapkowski in 2024 released “Crossroads of ravens”, which describes Geralt’s early adulthood.
But, but but! Books aren’t exactly what got this franchise popular were they? Let’s talk about CDPR’s games as well (not only netflix’s!) shows!
There are currently three main witcher games, completing the post-book trilogy. These are, witcher 1, witcher 2: assassins of king and witcher 3: the wild hunt. These games are a direct continuation of the books. In an interview attached to witcher 1, Sapkowski confirmed that neither Geralt or Yennefer die at the end on “Lady of the lake”, but none the less, the games aren’t canon to the books. The trilogy follows Geralt as he comes back to the continent without his memory. In November of last year witcher 4 and the begging of a new trilogy was announced! It will follow adult Ciri and her adventures.
Excluding The main games there are two card related spin offs, “Gwent: the card game” and “Thronebreaker”. Gwent, is well, playing the card game gwent from witcher 3. There are some interesting pieces of lore in the chests and cards, but the game itself has no “lore”. The cards in my humble opinion are beautiful and I liked them much more than the ones in witcher 3. Thronebreaker is card based as well, but it had exploring elements and follows Queen Meve of Lyria during the second war with Nilfgaard. I will be talking more about it below(mostly in relation to Hanza, I think CDPR nailed the references here!)
Visual adaptations, ah, these evil visiual adaptations… First there was the 2001 witcher (Hexer), movie. It’d say it deserves the title of a “too long trailer for the series”, which followed in 2002. I have to say I had to rewatch the series for the sake of making this shire ~~(and totally not because I wanted to watch it again and needed an excuse)~~ and I really would recommend it. It gives some characterization to Geralt, which more or less correlates to his attitude through the later event of his life ~~(Being casted out and later insisting on relying on himself ??)~~ . The show sometimes very directly quotes the tale is relates. It’s a good adaptation, but I don’t think it stand by itself. On the topic of itself and stranding from the canon I have to address the elephant in the room. The most popular and admittedly most disliked adaptation is the 2019 “witcher” from netflix and to be honest… I didn’t watch it. I’m sorry, but I refused and still do to watch anything which Henry Cavill plays in. I cannot explain my irrational hatred for this guy, but he repulses me. I’m honestly glad he’ll be gone so I will watch the following 4 season and expect my knowledge of the booklore to keep me afloat. Might upload this section there. I heard this and that about the series, but I honestly don’t know if I can base my opinion of people who are mad about dark skinned actors playing in the series.
There are probably more witcher media and fan project I didn’t even touch, not even mentioning any of the comics… I’ll try to upload this section in the future regarding them!