The Witcher: Blood Origin has captured its audience with a promising first look. The series is set to take fans 1200 years before the events of the original series, exploring the origins of the first Witcher, and telling the story of the Conjunction of Spheres, the fateful event which fused the realms of monsters, elves, and humans together. Not much is known about the event except what we have read in the books, or seen in games or in The Witcher series — in fact, author Andrzej Sapkowski didn’t provide answers to a lot of things in his books either. It was showrunner Declan De Barra, who mapped out ideas on how this could all have happened and what the world pre-Conjunction looked like, while serving as a writer on Season 2 of the original series. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the showrunner along with Sophia Brown, Laurence O'Fuarain, and Michelle Yeoh tells what fans can expect from the upcoming series.
Per De Barra, the pre-Conjunction world was dominated by the elves and divided into social strata where “the royals are at the top, and then the mages and sages. Then we have the warrior class. Then we have the lowborn." He also wanted to focus on the fact that “how the story is told by victors.” This brings in our three unlikely protagonists: Scian (Yeoh), Brown's Éile, and O'Fuarain’s Fjall. Fans were instantly drawn to Yeoh’s character's first look, which sees her as a fierce warrior, her body is covered in distinct tattoos and all of them have a special meaning. It’s a reflection of how the elves of the Ghost clan lived by the ideals of promise and integrity.
Yeoh says that the tattoo on her forehead translates as "promises made shall not waiver." When the entire Ghost clan is poisoned by a King of the Dog clan for refusing to fight by his side, she was “saved by Raven Clan, who adopted me and I became the sword mother of Éile, who is the Lark, and that was our bond," Yeoh says, though she taught Éile more than swordsmanship.
Brown's Éile is the daughter of the chief of the Raven Clan and has been trained to become part of an elite guard known as the Lark. However, she chooses to live a life of a traveling musician. The actress thinks of Eile as “the compass” of this ragtag trio, but she’s unaware that she's leading the journey. Brown explained that she didn't want a woman who is tough and self-sufficient to just be seen as cold. "I liked the fact that, even though there was a lot of fighting and there was a lot of toughness to the character, I brought a softness to her that was crucial to the world, to her, and to the people that she interacts with."
O'Fuarain’s Fjall belongs to the same social strata as Eile, raised a warrior he guards his royal family in the Dog Clan. The actor explains that Fjall has lost a loved one who he was trying to protect, in battle, and “he just can't get over that," adding, "It's eating him up inside an awful lot. He can't make peace with himself or the world around him. So, when he gets cast out of his clan, he's trying to find his place in the world. While that's happening, the Continent is in total turmoil."
The Witcher: Blood Origin debuts on Netflix this Christmas. Meanwhile, take a look at the teaser below: