Been watching The Witcher on Netflix, just finished Episode 4. It bears noting that I have neither read the books nor played the video games (tried one, couldn’t get into it). So obviously there’s a lot of context that I’m missing here.
Anyway, the episode’s timing didn’t make sense. It seemed to be taking place at the wedding feast of Ciri/Fiona’s mother, which would put the events a solid 12-13 years or more before the events of the main time line. But yet Geralt’s Bard that he picked up somewhere along the line was there, too, seemingly the same age as he’s always been.
So was this plot line a flashback sequence?
Also, in Yennefer’s plot line, she seemed to be fully immersed in her duties as a Mage, and indeed even mentioned having worked at court for 30 years. Just the previous episode she was leaving Mage School in a huff. So was her plotline 30 years in the future? Was she being hyperbolic?
It has confused virtually everyone who didn’t know the backstory prior to the show, so don’t feel you missed something obvious :). Three distinct plot lines, three distinct timelines.
Sorcerors and witchers have enormously extended lifespans and sorcerors don’t age externally at all until they die, while witchers do so very, very slowly. Which makes it all the harder to distinguish when exactly you are, time-wise.
That’s where my wife and I realized the three character arches were not happening in sync at all. It’s not easy (possible?) picking that up just from what is in the series I think.
There drop hints even starting in the first episode( i.e. the line to Ciri about young girls being imprisoned in towers “a very long time ago” ). But unless you are specifically looking for them they are very easy to miss.
I thought episode 3 had the first blatant reveal of the timelines - in Geralt’s timeline, Foltest is 50ish and Adda has been dead for years, but in Yennefer’s timeline Foltest and Adda are young children at the ball.
In Episode 1, Renfri mentions that Queen Cilantro has just won her first military victory right after the scene where Ciri says, “When you were my age…”
From internal evidence in the series, and no knowledge of the books or video games, I think this is the timeline:
Apprentice Yennefer (her apprenticeship seems to be on the order of months) -> 30ish years -> Mage Yennefer in the coach -> ? (there’s no real internal evidence of how long between when she flees and when Geralt encounters her in Random Pseudo-German Free City) -> Geralt, Jaskier, and Mage Yennefer (since Jaskier is baseline human and doesn’t seem any older at the end of this arc it’s probably months to a few years at most) -> 12 years -> Ciri
I couldn’t keep track of the names of people (other than Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri) or countries or places straight in my head, so no wonder all the “hints” went over my head.
I noticed that, in this episode, Nilfgaard is apparently not, er, evil? At the very least, they appear to be willing to form an alliance with Cintra through marriage instead of invading. And their choice to compete for the hand of the princess didn’t seem all that impressive, so maybe they’re not as powerful?
Judging by the difference in the response to the show between my wife (a Witcher naif) and myself (read and played all versions, and even watched the Polish tv series), I have a suspicion about the intent of the folks behind the Netflix Witcher series.
One, I note that the jumping around the timeline is somewhat akin to the way the original stories are written, with many being essentially stand-alone tales but with numerous references to previous events (some of which only turn up in later stories depicting or discussing those earlier events). The series definitely takes it to another level, though.
Two, the little details that require a fair amount of knowledge to grasp and place together are intended to be pleasing to the die-hard fans.
Three, for the more casual (and more numerous) viewers, I think the intent was to have you relax and enjoy the ride without worrying about the timeline. The story doesn’t rely on you having a stranglehold on precisely how the events relate to one another in time. What’s important is that the scenes are grouped together thematically, and should make sense and the show should be an entertaining and satisfying story regardless.
Personally, I think the show was good, but the risk didn’t quite pay off. The timeline confusion was a little too off-putting or intense. Especially when you consider how engagingly this sort of trickery has been done by the likes of Tarantino in Pulp Fiction or Vince Gilligan.
The Witcher is pretty comfortable playing with varying shades of gray, but Nilfgaard is pretty firmly in the darker end of that spectrum, with a suggestion that the current emperor has made things even darker than they had been historically.
But, well, there are reasons for Nilfgaard’s special consideration of Cintra…
There are some familial connections at play here, as well as some strategic considerations. Not to mention some pretty profound prophecy-related stuff.