How 'The Witcher' balances monsters with story in Season Two

Season Two of The Witcher focuses a lot on the relationship between Geralt of Rivia and Princess Cirillia. – Photos: Netflix

Last week, we spoke to actor Henry Cavill about how The Witcher's Geralt of Rivia is the character that he feels 'the closest to', ever since he first read about him in The Witcher novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, on which the hit Netflix fantasy series is based on.

While Season One of the series mostly adapted stories from the collections of shorts by Sapkowski (namely The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny), Season Two, which is now streaming, is where the story really dives into the main Witcher saga, which begins with the first novel, Blood Of Elves.

The story picks up where the previous season leaves off, with Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) finally meeting Princess Cirilla (Freya Allan) in the aftermath of the Battle of Sodden, in which Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) unleashed a devastating wave of fire magic to win the battle for the Northern Kingdoms.

Presuming Yennefer is dead, Geralt brings Ciri to Kaer Morhen, the headquarters of the Witchers, where she begins learning how to fight and also to explore the mysterious power inside here. Meanwhile, Yennefer has to deal with the loss of her magic, while being caught up in the deadly political game between the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview with StarLifestyle, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich talks about how they managed to balance the monster-slaying action of Season One with a greater focus on the relationships and personal development of the main characters.

If you can't find a shoulder to lean on, at least find a good tree instead.

Oh, I think that's absolutely it. In Season One, we really focused on world building, making sure that we understood what the Continent was, what were the chess pieces on the table, the politics, and all of the different parties.

This season, we're really able just to get into slightly more personal stories. So we learn more about what makes Geralt tick. What sort of inner thoughts does he have? And how does he go from just being a witcher to being a father figure to Ciri. That's the biggest shift in the show in general.