In his latest interview with Entertainment Weekly, Henry Cavill discusses his character of witcher Geralt’s new role of a father to Ciri (Freya Allen). He also talks about a new inclusion to the family, Kim Bodnia who plays Vesemir. 

With Henry Cavill taking the wheel with his to-die-for appeal, it is safe to say that we will see Geralt of Rivia play the daddy witcher with ease. 

The Witcher season 2 is adapted from Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s book called Blood of Elves. Cavill explains EW in the interview that in the series, we will see the ostensible witcher embodying the fatherly role for his Child of Surprise Princess Cirilla (Freya Allan). This will be portrayed when he prepares her and helps her channel the power she possesses within her. 

“He’s got this deep down White Knight Syndrome, even though every time he acts upon it, it gets him into some serious trouble — and puts him and everyone else in a worse position than initially intended,” Cavill says. “But with Ciri, she’s definitely bringing out the paternal side of Geralt. While he hasn’t necessarily been someone who craved children, he does take quite naturally to being a protector.”

The Witcher Season 1 travels through various timelines. As a reward for saving the knight Duny when he came to the kingdom of Cintra, Geralt of Rivia claimed the Law of Surprise as his prize for the deed. The Law of Surprise is known to be an ancient custom of sorts. It states that when a person saves the life of another person, they must offer their gratitude by a gift that is unknown to either one or both the people concerned. As Geralt’s Law of Surprise, Queen Pavetta, who was surprisingly pregnant with Princess Cirilla then, made the unborn princess the claim. 

It wasn’t until years later that Geralt learned of this, and as soon as he did, he made it his own to look for her. This was after Cintra was defeated by Nilfgaard Empire. We see Geralt and Ciri finally meet in the season finale. We also learn then that Ciri is endowed with a mystical power, which when not tended to, was massive enough to hurt everyone close to her. 

Henry tells the EW that while season 2 would move at a simpler pace instead of working through multiple confusing timelines the way season 1 did, it would still be filled with “multiple cliffhangers throughout a [single] episode.”

Other dominating characters from season 1 like sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) have moved on to their own stories. Which means the episodes in season 2 would revolve more around Cavill and Allan as they “focused on Ciri’s journey and her experience, and what she is feeling about this awakening of who she is and discovering these powers that she has.”

The story arc goes something like this. Geralt brings his supposedly adopted daughter, Princess Cirilla to Kaer Morhean to coach her. Kaer Morhen is known to be a mountain fortress used by the witchers of the School of the Wolf to teach the younger ones to channel the powers of a witcher. In the Netflix animation movie Nightmare of the Wolf, the fortress devastated. And ever since, the place became a safe haven for witchers. In the winters, the group rests here and gathers their strength for the coming spring, to hunt monsters. 

Another exciting addition to the series is Killing Eve’s Kim Bodnia, who is set to play Geralt of Rivia’s father figure and mentor, Vesemir. 

“Kim and I were discussing the emotionality of these characters, and Kim brings some powerful emotion to [the role] and a real sense of soul and heart and connection to the wild and connection to nature,” Henry points out. “It’s beautiful to watch and beautiful to be a part of. Some of my favorite scenes I got to perform with Kim. He does bring something really special to the character, and I think people are really going to enjoy it.”

Cavill says that it was his intention to “bring [out] more of that intellectual, philosophical, wise Geralt” in this season as opposed to his former version who was “a bit of a grumpy, dark, mysterious hero”. And this shift undoubtedly comes with Geralt becoming a daddy. 

“I really wanted to avoid him being too one tunnel,” Cavill explains. “Even though he may be dark and mysterious at times, I wanted him to come across as this incredible character that [Sapkowski] wrote. Those are things that I really pushed for and tried very hard to get into the show.”

However, this does not entirely dismiss the brooding Geralt, and we are sure to see some of him. 

The Witcher season 2 premieres on Netflix on December 17, 2020.