Warning: spoilers for The Witcher season 4.
Netflix’s The Witcher is back with its fourth season, its first without Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, but the show found the best way to explain his recast. In 2019, Netflix’s adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher book series was released, with Henry Cavill as the title monster hunter.
After three seasons, Henry Cavill left The Witcher, and Liam Hemsworth was cast to take over the role of Geralt. There was a lot of anticipation, curiosity, and concern over The Witcher season 4, Hemsworth’s performance, and if and how the show would acknowledge its Geralt recast – and, luckily, The Witcher found the best way to explain this change while staying true to its universe.
The Witcher Season 4 Doesn’t Address Geralt’s Recast
The main question when Liam Hemsworth was announced as the new Geralt of Rivia was whether The Witcher would acknowledge that Geralt now has a new face. There were many fan theories on how this could be done – from a multiverse Geralt to using magic to change his face –, but to explain the recast, the writers of the show stayed true to the source material.
While The Witcher never explains why Geralt now has a different face, it justifies it from the beginning with the introduction of Stribog (Clive Russell) and Nimue (Eve Ridley). Stribog is a traveling storyteller who entertains children with the legends of many notable figures, including Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri.
Nimue is a young girl fascinated and inspired by Stribog’s stories, and she approaches him to talk about the stories of the witcher, the sorceress, and the princess. Stribog tells her she has skipped many chapters of their story, and so the season begins from there.
The Witcher season 4, then, is what Stribog is telling Nimue based on the book of stories of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, as written by Jaskier. Through this, The Witcher justifies its Geralt recast, as the audience isn’t watching the events as they happened, instead watching them as told by Jaskier and later Stribog.
The Witcher Season 4 Rewrites The Show’s History With Flashbacks
To make the transition smoother and the storytelling part of season 4 more believable, The Witcher rewrites key parts of Geralt’s story with flashbacks. Set photos from season 4 showed Hemsworth was shooting Geralt’s battle with Vilgefortz as seen in season 3, and season 4 showed this was part of a bigger plan.
While Nimue talks to Stribog about the tales of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, she mentions key moments from past seasons. Some of these are romantic moments between Yennefer and Geralt, Ciri and Geralt’s first meeting at the end of season 1, and Geralt’s fight against Vilgefortz, all of these now with Hemsworth as Geralt.
Thanks to this, the audience has a quick refresher of the most important moments of the show’s three main characters and gets a taste of what they could have been like with Hemsworth as Geralt from the beginning. This also helps viewers get quickly acquainted with this new Geralt, and makes Hemsworth’s arrival a lot smoother.
Geralt’s Character Arc In The Witcher Season 4 Subtly Acknowledges His Recast
The Witcher sneakily acknowledges that Geralt doesn’t look the same as in its previous seasons through Stribog and Nimue’s storytelling, but Geralt’s arc also plays a part in it. The Witcher season 3 was a turning point for Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, as they were finally together as a family and were suddenly separated by the Thanedd Coup.
Geralt in The Witcher season 4 isn’t the same cold and detached monster hunter seen in the first three seasons: Geralt now has a purpose, a much bigger one than he could have ever imagined, which has also helped him open up to friendships and more. Geralt is different in season 4, not just physically, but also emotionally and mentally.
Liam Hemsworth’s Geralt Performance Is As Close To Henry Cavill’s As Possible
Liam Hemsworth was facing many challenges when he joined The Witcher. The reaction of the audience to Cavill’s departure and Hemsworth’s casting wasn’t the best, with many voicing their disapproval on social media, and it all came from how good Henry Cavill had been as Geralt of Rivia.
Cavill has shared many times that he’s a fan of The Witcher, so he knew the character of Geralt quite well, resulting in a great adaptation of the character. Hemsworth had the challenge of joining an already established TV show as the lead character and following the steps of a near-perfect adaptation of Geralt, but he took the challenge and succeeded at it.
Hemsworth mastered the key Geralt characteristics established by Cavill, such as the grunts, the subtle swearing, the low voice, and how he tends to bottle his emotions up. Of course, Hemsworth’s Geralt also has some differences from Cavill’s, though these are justified by Geralt being in a very different place now than where Cavill’s Geralt was.
Liam Hemsworth succeeds as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s The Witcher season 4, and hopefully, he will continue to do so in the show’s fifth and final season, where Geralt will face even bigger and more dangerous challenges.
- Release Date
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December 20, 2019
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Lauren Schmidt Hissrich
- Directors
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Stephen Surjik, Charlotte Brändström, Edward Bazalgette, Loni Peristere, Louise Hooper, Bola Ogun, Alex Garcia Lopez, Gandja Monteiro, Sarah O’Gorman
- Writers
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Haily Hall, Clare Higgins, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jenny Klein, Tania Lotia
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Anya Chalotra
Yennefer of Vengerberg
