Netflix's The Witcher Is Based on a Fantasy Book Series With a Few Key Differences

The Last Wish and the rest of Sapkowski's eight-part literary series is written from Geralt's point of view. All the short stories written in The Last Wish revolve around Geralt, and he is basically the main character in almost every scene. But in The Witcher, other characters like Yennefer and Ciri are given time to take center stage, and parts of the larger storyline are told from their points of view.

In an interview with BGR, The Witcher writer and producer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained that she wanted to write the series with a sense of the present and include Yennefer's experience as part of the narrative. "In the books, Geralt is our lens through which all the rest of the world is filtered," she told the outlet. "So, you're on Geralt's journeys, and Yennefer sort of comes in from the side; to me, I wanted to know who she was before she met Geralt. And there's a lot of things in the books that alluded to this. We culled together a lot of those instances in the books, and then we made that story the present day, as opposed to just a character waxing poetic about something that has happened to them in the deep past."

The Last Wish is a collection of seven short stories about Geralt of Rivia, each focusing on a different time and experience in his life. The Witcher takes this jumping around timelines even further, by showing events that take place with other characters (not written in the book), and blending them into Geralt's larger storyline.

For the most part, Geralt of Rivia is very close to the character from the book. However, one notable difference is that he is a little less talkative on the Netflix series. When speaking to Digital Spy, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained that this change made Geralt look like a stronger character on screen. "One of the things that probably shifted the most once we cast Henry is Geralt speaks a lot less than I initially intended," she noted. "In the books, Geralt's actually quite chatty, he talks a lot. What I found though is on screen, especially with Henry portraying him, a lot can be done just in looks and grunts — It's kind of amazing what's accomplished in silence and that makes him that much more powerful of a character."

One of the biggest differences between The Last Wish and Netflix's The Witcher is the appearance and backstory of Geralt's great love, Yennefer (played by Anya Chalotra). In the book, Yennefer does not appear until she meets Geralt in the last chapter. And aside from portraying her as a powerful sorceress, the book doesn't dive into any major details about her or her past.

But the show brings Yennefer's character into the fold from the beginning, and starts to tell her backstory from an earlier timeline. In an interview with BGR, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said that "one of the biggest storytelling shifts" she made was introducing viewers to "Yennefer and Ciri before they meet Geralt."

Another major difference between the series and the novel is the introduction of Princess Ciri (played by Freya Allan). Her character doesn't make an appearance until the second book, Sword of Destiny. The only mention of her in the The Last Wish, is when Geralt asks Pavetta and Duny to make their unborn child a witcher. However, the Netflix series introduces Ciri early on, featuring a backstory and experiences not found in the first book.

While Triss Merigold is featured as a supporting character in The Witcher, she is not at all mentioned in The Last Wish. The character actually doesn't show up until the third book of Sapkowski's series, titled Blood of Elves.

When talking to Comic Book, the show's producer and writer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich said that she introduced Triss early on in the series to set the stage for the future. "What we're trying to do is set up the appropriate building blocks for our story, so there is stuff that I know that I want to happen to Triss in Season One and Season Two, and, God willing, beyond that," she explained. "So I need to make sure that that story is set up appropriately, and the best way to do that was actually to bring her and introduce her in a story that she's not in in the novel."

In The Witcher, Geralt's poet best friend (played by Joey Batey) is called Jaskier, but in the English version of the novel, his name is Dandelion. However, this change actually is in line with the original Polish-language version of the story, in which the character' is called Jaskier, a name that translates to yellow flower. Also, in the book, Jaskier aka Dandelion does not accompany Geralt to Cintra when he first visits Queen Calanthe, but in the Netflix series, he's by the witcher's side the whole time.