The Witcher season three spoilers follow.
Everyone wants to know how Henry Cavill’s replacement on the Witcher season four cast list, Liam Hemsworth, is going to play out on-screen – and for that, we need to unpack Cavill’s final scene as Geralt.
But in order to get there, let’s rewind for a moment.
“Neutrality. It won’t get you a statue, but it will certainly help in keeping you alive.”
That was the advice Henry Cavill’s Geralt passed on to Ciri (Freya Allan) in the debut episode of The Witcher’s third season.
However, with that epic finale now behind us, it is safe to say that Jaskier (Joey Batey) will soon be singing a different tune when he regales the tale of the events that have come to pass in Geralt’s recent history.
Soul-shattering, life-reaffirming, body-breaking events that have led to him dashing away his symbiotic relationship with that neutrality in favour of a more proactive approach to rescuing Ciri. Witcher fans everywhere know just how much of a big deal this is for Geralt.
His devotion to remaining neutral has underpinned his moral code since he first slashed his way onto our screens, the black blood of the Kikimora demon trailing behind him. It also happens to be one of the first things we learn about him, through his conversations with Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen).
“If I have to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all,” he grunted in that intoxicatingly gruff voice we hope will still survive the transition from Cavill to Hemsworth.
Three seasons on, and his neutrality is still “very much intact”. In fact, despite all he’s seen and endured he has remained married to that code with more devotion than ever.
“Geralt has seen how politics work out,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Tudum when discussing Cavill’s final season as the White Wolf.
“A lot of it’s incredibly selfish. No matter which side anyone’s on, they’re doing the thing for them. He’s like: ‘Why would I pick a side when the same thing’s going to happen?'”
We see this when both Dijkstra (Graham McTavish) and Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu) urge Geralt to choose their side in the turmoil and war to come. Geralt, being Geralt, refuses with absolute rigidity.
“I shall continue on my path,” he told Vilgefortz matter-of-factly. “I shall respond to events, and I’ll adapt with the world as it changes.”
Ironically, it is Vilgefortz that gets him to sway from this path. Through his crushing defeat at Vilgefortz’s hand, Geralt learns that neutrality will not be enough in this next phase of his journey. If he is to succeed in getting Ciri back, he must abandon his old way of thinking and adopt a ‘whatever it takes’ mantra to see him back with the Lion cub of Cintra.
This shedding of the old and stepping into the new is underscored perfectly in his final scene by both Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), who can be heard in the voice over, and through Geralt’s own actions.
In order to cross the Continent into Nilfgaard, Geralt and Jaskier must pay a toll to the guards.
In lieu of money he hands over a very significant pin linked to his first on-screen, human kill in season one. The pin had belonged to a former exiled princess called Renfri (Emma Appleton) for whose death he was responsible.
Geralt turned out to be the pawn in her to-the-death conflict with the sorcerer Stregobor. Ultimately, he was left with very little choice but to kill her in his attempts to unwillingly protect Stregobor.
This situation was one of the very few times that Geralt’s hand has been forced and, in that moment, Hissrich has revealed that he wasn’t sure he even made the right decision.
Renfri’s death has lingered with him ever since, stuck like the monster-gut stench embedded in his Witcher attire, hence the callback to that moment in the finale during the flashback scene.
It is implied that the acquired pin has since served as a physical symbol of the importance of neutrality, which makes his next move in the final episode even more indicative of a shift in his character.
Geralt and Jaskier were granted permission to cross the border but when he hears a family’s struggles to pay the toll he intervenes. Instead of heeding Jaskier’s warning to let it go, which would have aligned with his former principles of neutrality, Geralt wades in, choosing a side.
He plainly asks the guard to let them through but when that request is rebuffed with a “piss off”, he insists, this time with blood.
“Neutrality be damned,” are the words Yennefer says as he sinks fist after fist into a pound of guard flesh, as he takes multiple lives in a literal cascade of blood, as he chooses a side.
One of the final shots in this scene lingers on the abandoned pin as he crosses the border and the message that comes with it is loud and clear. We won’t be seeing the Geralt of old again. The one whose neutrality was placed above all things. This next phase of his life requires a new version of himself. He’s placed down the pin baton on a fresh new slate for Hemsworth to cleanly pick up.
“Geralt’s big turn is about giving up neutrality and doing anything that he has to do to get to Ciri,” Hissrich explained before adding: “To me, it’s the most heroic send-off that we could have, even though it wasn’t written to be that.”
Hemsworth’s Geralt will tap into a new, never-before seen aspect of the character fans thought they knew well. His actions will perhaps be driven by his personal interests above his moral conscience as he strives to bring Ciri safely to his side.
“Geralt has a new mission in mind when we come back to him in season four,” Hissrich told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s a slightly different Geralt than we expected. Now, by the way, that’s an understatement.”
This marked change seems a fitting way to close the door on Cavill’s time as Geralt as fans welcome the Hemsworth era.
All episodes of The Witcher seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Netflix. Spin-off The Witcher: Blood Origin is also streaming on Netflix.
Source: digitalspy.com