Witcher: Blood Origin completely changes the origins of witchers

Blood Origin: The Witcher is a prologue to Netflix’s fantasy series and tells the story of some of its universe’s most important events, or at least it’s supposed to. The Conjunction of the Spheres is among the plotlines that crops up in this miniseries, but the most important and perhaps most disappointing is the origin of the series’ most important order: the witchers.

Blood OriginThe first witcher transformation is shown (or so we believe). but it also changes Witcher lore in a big way that throws into question the whole universe of the Netflix show — and it’s not even clear what the point of the retcon is.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for The Witcher: Blood Origin.]

Blood Origin follows the story of Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain), an elf warrior who lived just before the Conjunction of the Spheres. Along with Éile (Sophia Brown) and some other elves, including the sorceress and general magic-user Zacaré (Lizzie Annis), attempts to prevent the evil mage Balor (Lenny Henry) from harnessing Chaos Magic to conquer other worlds. Fjall must undergo the first witcher-level transformation in order to stop Balor from unleashing a beast from another world.

This is a rather large departure from the series’ history. However, Blood OriginThe prequel series explores a period in the Witcher Universe that is mostly unexplored. It takes place within the Netflix universe, and does not follow the same timeline as the games or books. However, it still pulls off a confused lore change that completely rewrites who the witchers really are.

Based on what we knew of the witchers’ creation and origins, they were a distinctly, and exclusively, human order. Mutated hunters were a means for humans in an expanding world to defend their villages and towns on the new worlds. It was also important to note that their creation took a lot of effort by the humans who were desperate to create a means to escape the darkness-bound monsters. The early witchers of humanity were partly monsters, and were often hated by the people. They also lacked control over their fury, which was necessary for safe living among them. Their enhanced capabilities made them indispensable protectors to those they hate.

This makes the circumstances of the first witcher’s creation in Blood OriginIt was disappointing to say the very least. Sure, there’s a somewhat imminent monster threat, and sure, our band of merry elves was certainly going to need more than their regular combat prowess to take it down, but the details and risks of the transformation, or where it even comes from, are vague at best.

Rather than an arduous new process, or the dangerous combination of several different magics in a desperate attempt to protect people living in fear of monsters, it simply feels like Zacaré throws together a well-known series of herbs and roots to make her special superhero monster-killer serum. And if we’re to believe that this is just the first seed of the witcher idea that humans would later pick up, then Blood OriginIt is difficult to distinguish between the two.

The first witcher being an elf and the whole thing being an elvish creation certainly feels like it should say something new and important about the world of Netflix’s Witcher universe. But after two seasons of the show it’s not clear that it means much at all, considering how thoroughly human the organization is by the time of Geralt and Ciri. Which raises the question: If none of this matters to the larger story, and if Fjall’s transformation isn’t important to the witchers more generally, then why does Blood Origin exist at all?