The promotional season for Netflix’s first live-action spinoff has finally begun and Netflix has started rolling out some of the first items on the menu for the Michelle Yeoh, Sophia Brown and Laurence O’Fuarain-starring limited series.
The main trio
Always three there are. No more, no less.
In the first batch of images we see Michelle Yeoh‘s Scian, Sophia Brown‘s Eile ‘The Lark’ Lithe and Laurence O’Fuarain‘s Fjall ‘Stoneheart’, the backbone of The Witcher: Blood Origin and the characters we’ll the the most.
The three elves come from three different clans. Scian is from the Ghost clan, Eile is from the Raven clan and Fjall is from the Dog clan. It is implied that not all the clans get along very well, so this dynamic will be interesting to see.
A band of renegades
The next two photos depict Francesca Mills as Meldof the Mad and Huw Novelli as Callan, who is also known as Brother Death.
Meldof is described as “a brilliantly, sharp-minded assassin with restricted growth. Described as a ‘true-wildcard’, who revels in carnage, violence and chaos.”
Callan is described as a “physically imposing warrior from a clan fighting with axes.” He is also Fjall’s brother.
The royals
Next up we see Lenny Henry as Chief Sage Balor and Mirren Mack as Princess Merwyn. Balor is the advisor of the king, much like Mousesack was the advisor of Queen Calanthe.
Merwyn is the king’s daughter. She’s described as ‘the flower that no one noticed had poison blooms beneath her thorns’. Intelligent and sharp-minded but hiding behind the mask of a feckless girl. In a patriarchal world, she was raised as a chess piece to be married off and forgotten. Biding her time, she leant how to appear docile, concealing her true intelligence and tactician’s mind in order to strike when no one would expect it.
Merwyn also has a brother, Prince Alvitir, played by The Last Kingdom‘s Mark Rowley.
An old lore collector
Finally, there’s Seanchai, a shapeshifting storyteller and a collector of old lore. She is played by Minnie Driver. Seanchai will be the series’ narrator and the connection between the past and present. She will most likely do so by passing the true version of Blood Origin‘s story to a certain bard we know.
Season 3 of The Witcher is in post-production for a Summer 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin has been set a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.