‘The Witcher’ boss finally spills the beans regarding the elusive bard’s strangely youthful appearance.
‘The Witcher’ has been all the rage since the beginning of this year, it is one of the hottest Netflix shows right now and can even give ‘Game of Thrones’ a run for their money in the fantasy genre. The show was preceded by the hugely popular video game ‘Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt’, the game which earned a ‘Game of The Year’ title and catapulted the franchise into mainstream popularity. The TV series is based upon the series of fantasy fiction novels authored by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, more specifically, “The Last Wish” and “Sword of Destiny”, which are a series of short stories that preceded Sapkowski’s main body of work. Some time back, the showrunner let a major secret slip regarding ‘Jaskier’, the friendly bard and Geralt’s companion. Here’s everything we know so far!
Highlights —
- The story so far on Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’
- Who is Jaskier?
- Why doesn’t Jaskier age at all?
As soon as Netflix dropped the entire first season of ‘The Witcher’, fantasy fans went into an absolute frenzy. Fans were surprised to see how well the character of Geralt suited Henry Cavill and how Netflix managed to pull off such a difficult series. Even now, almost a year since its initial release, fan circles are rife with fan theories. Jaskier, the witty sidekick of Geralt and the show’s comic relief, has been the target of some of these fan theories lately. Besides the question of him not aging at all in the series, there are also other questions that the show has left unanswered. Let’s look into it!
The story so far on Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’
The Netflix fantasy web series is somewhat tough to follow along with if you are completely new to the franchise. The show switches timelines and periods swiftly; somewhat too fast for some viewers. So, let’s go over the story so far just so we are on the same page. The series begins with Geralt getting involved, somewhat involuntarily, into the conflict between Renfri, a runaway princess, and Stegobor, a powerful mage. Stregobor forces Geralt’s hand and he ends up fulfilling the prophecy of the ‘Butcher of Blaviken’. Yennefer, a deformed girl is adopted by Tissaia who trains her along with other girls to become a mage just like her. Geralt is recognised by Jaskier, a bard in a local bar who sticks with him in order to immortalize his journeys and exploits.
They end up getting nabbed and taken to the elf king who’s hiding from the humans. Ciri manages to escape the clutches of Cahir of Nilfgaard after he destroys Queen Calanthe’s armies. Geralt and Jaskier are asked by Borch, a wealthy treasure hunter, to go on a dragon hunt atop a mountain. It turned out that Borch was a dragon himself and was trying to protect the dragon egg from other treasure hunters, with which Geralt eventually helps him out. The season comes to a close with the battle of Sodden Hill which saw several mages sacrifice their own lives fighting against Nilfgaardian troops which were led by Fringilla, a mage and Yennefer’s peer.
Who is Jaskier?
Jaskier is the merry, outgoing, and cheerful bard that spots and recognises Geralt in a local bar. He invites himself along when Geralt takes up a contract to kill a “grain stealing devil” at the same bar. He promises Geralt that it would be greatly beneficial for a witcher to have a bard as his companion so that his feats live on in his rhymes forever and spread throughout the land. Since then, the two have become travel companions and close friends.
Why doesn’t Jaskier age at all?
Fans pointed out that from the time Geralt first met Jaskier and the time they both went hunting dragons with Borch, there was a time gap of 40 years; so the question was how did Jaskier not age at all? Was he something more than human? To this, showrunner Lauren Hissrich replied–
“No, that was just a mistake”, she laughed. “We have this enormous timeline in our writers’ room that takes up, like, two whiteboards and it’s how we laid out the stories from season 1, sort of tracking to make sure that everyone fits in. Jaskier was always the outlier because Jaskier would have aged a lot in that season. No, he just had great genes, you know, clearly.”
If you’d like to, you can find out more from Hissrich’s Reddit AmA (ask-me-anything).
Jaskier, Geralt’s sidekick in Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’, does not age at all in the series even though he is a normal human being. The reason was revealed by showrunner Lauren Hissrich to be a “mistake”. What do you think? Share your views in the comments section below.
