10 Burning Questions for The Witcher Season 3 Volume 2

This story contains spoilers for The Witcher. If you haven’t caught up yet, check out our spoiler-free review of Season 3 Volume 1.

Volume 1 of Season 3 of The Witcher is now on Netflix, and even with only its first five episodes available to watch, it’s already been a doozy. Pressures are high as the show starts the beginning of its farewells to star Henry Cavill before he passes the torch to Liam Hemsworth next season. (Don’t worry, you still have all of Part 2 with Cavill before the switch is made, and no, we don’t know what they meant by “meta” either.) 

With tension escalating through this adaptation of key elements of Andrzej Sapkowski’s second novel of The Witcher Saga “Time of Contempt,” the tale of Geralt of Rivia and his found family unit with Ciri and Yennefer is at a crucial stage. Dropping the first five episodes has given us plenty to chew on until the slated July 27th, but, as usual, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a whole boatload of questions about how this season is going to resolve.

What Happens When the Wild Hunt Gets Hold of Ciri?

The famed “Wild Hunt” (aka the Red Riders of the novels) has been teased as major antagonists going back to a very brief hint in the pilot episode. Up to now, we’ve seen little of them directly, but there has been a lot of foreshadowing along the way. Individual members have made lengthy appearances, such as the Deathless Mother, who appeared as the major antagonist in Season 2, and Eredin, the doomed Elf commander of the Xin’trea army in “Blood Origin,” but we have only just seen the group finally taking collective action as of Season 3. We still don’t actually know what their deal is or what their intentions are for Ciri other than they have presumably nefarious interest in “the child with the Elder Blood.” For that, they’ll need to get in line, considering that most of the Northern Territories are on the hunt for Ciri at the moment, but out of everyone looking for Yennefer and Geralt’s adopted daughter, this group of ghastly skull-faced wraiths likely have the best odds of actually finding her. The build-up for this has been lengthy, but given that one of them actually manages to land a hand on Ciri’s shoulder while hissing an invitation for her to join them before being temporarily vanquished by Geralt, here’s hoping we see their story finally set in motion in Volume 2.

What’s up with Vilgefortz?

Since the first season, Vilgefortz has been — at the very least — a minor antagonist for Yennefer, but there have been a lot of hints along the way suggesting that he might be a much scarier guy than we ever knew. Watching him mercilessly kill a fellow mage during the Battle of Sodden Hill in Season 1 and lose his cool at Tissaia for her secrecy in Season 2 suggests that there is something nefarious hidden behind all that charm, and frankly we’re a little scared at the prospect of seeing it out in the open. For Volume 1, Vilgefortz has been upsettingly laidback, making peace with Yennefer, turning on the charm, and playing the part of the fair-minded mage, but that’s actually somehow a little bit scarier when he was being actively murderous in Season 1. While readers of the books will be aware that Vilgefortz rates as one of the great supervillains of the franchise, the TV series has diverged on some major plot points and there’s no promise it’ll follow the same route. Though we can assume that he’s up to no good due to his past criminal actions, there has been little in the way of confirmation of what his end goal is. Volume 2, please deliver!

Where Did This Tissaia/Philippa Tension Come From?

To say Philippa is a little terrifying is to say that water is a little wet. A mage wielding the unique ability to shapeshift into the form of an owl with a penchant for delivering sexy threats to most of the players currently on The Witcher board on a regular basis, Philippa is the definition of a riddle wrapped in a mystery. Similarly, there is just about no one in this franchise that holds their cards closer to their chest than Tissaia, making these two a clear match for one another. While Tissaia casually noted that her friendship with Philippa had simply run its course, Episode 5 showed Philippa dropping the implication that something much more serious went down between the two. What could it be? Inquiring minds want to know. Sure, we’re also curious as to what the end goal for Philippa’s clearly corrupt team-up with Sigismund Dijkstra is, but at present, it’s the sheer drama of Philippa/Tissaia that is keeping us up at night.

Is Jaskier Really Going to Settle Down?

While King Vizimir of Redania is an uncontested fool, his brother Prince Radovid is easily one of the more intriguing new characters of the series. He and Jaskier close out their role in Volume 1 by sharing a night of passion together, though we’ll have to wait for Volume 2 to see how the aftermath of that plays out. After both Radovid and Jaskier contemplate what it might be like for him to enjoy life at court, or to “settle down” as Jaskier puts it, it seems that his weariness of a life lived hand-to-mouth is starting to get to him. Radovid’s great skill is his breezy charm, asking people questions that encourage them to look into their hearts rather than trying to force them into things, and it’s clear that he’s hooked Jaskier. Where this will all lead is up in the air, but here’s hoping these two kids work things out.

What’s Going to Happen to the Elves?

Being as the Elves appear to have had several centuries in a row of only bad days, one of the major questions for the third season is if things are going to improve for these people anytime soon. Although we learned in Blood Origin that their history of aggression toward the Dwarves is not pretty, Elves have similarly spent the last many years being hunted and killed by humans after the Conjunction of the Spheres brought them to this realm. Currently, a mourning Queen Francesca is in command of a people that are rapidly losing faith in her ability to lead, which is understandable considering the fact that most of her major decisions have led to countless deaths. Wanting revenge for her murdered daughter is beyond sympathetic, but, as Queen, Francesca lashing out has serious consequences. And, sadly, most of those have fallen on her people rather than on her enemies. Where will it all end? 

What Will Happen When Cahir and Fringilla Find Each Other?

One of the more offbeat partnerships of The Witcher saga is that of Cahir and Fringilla, two Nilfgaardians who are loyal to the throne, very much to their own personal detriment so far. If there is one thing they have in common, it’s their absolute ruthlessness, with Fringilla openly murdering a table of Nilfgaardian generals for attempting to undermine her in Season 2 and Cahir committing multiple outright war crimes dating back to the first episodes of Season 1. Together, these two might be the only ones capable of potentially taking power from The White Flame, but Cahir currently believes his partner in crime to be deceased. However, we know that she’s very much not, although she was sentenced to a sort of living death as a taste-tester for potentially poisoned wine. With Frigilla now on the loose once more and Cahir reeling from having sacrificed a friend to please The White Flame, what’s going to happen when they inevitably meet up again? Murders, we’re guessing. Lots of murders.

What’s Going to Happen When Geralt Finds Reince?

The creep Reince has been causing problems left and right since he first appeared, and that has not ceased with these most recent episodes. Volume 1 has seen him needlessly murdering beloved cranky elderly partners Codringher and Fenn despite how adorable they were and nearly succeeding in kidnapping Ciri for mysterious but dubious reasons, meaning this guy is way up on our list of people we are waiting to see catch Geralt’s sword. It’s inevitable that Geralt is going to track Reince down soon, but with Reince completely over the edge and his shady dealings still mostly obscured, chances are that he might wish he hadn’t when the time finally comes. Reince’s end goal hasn’t been made known to us yet, but we have a feeling that this is a reveal that is just right around the corner, and we’re not sure we’re going to like what we learn.

Is the Brotherhood Doomed?

If there is anything we have learned over the last three seasons of The Witcher, it’s that the Brotherhood of Sorcerers is an absolute disaster waiting to happen. With heavy hitters like Vilgefortz, Stregobor, Triss, and Tissaia on the council, this is an undeniably powerful group capable of changing the rules of the game as they see fit. However, they’re under attack both from the outside world as well as from within, as Episode 5 saw them imprisoning one of their own, Stegobor, for keeping secrets and hiding an enormously important volume in his chamber. However, that seemed like a bit of a rookie move for the incredibly savvy Stregobor. Was he framed? What will Tissaia do when she realizes that Vilgefortz is maybe not that great of a person? Is Yennefer’s call for unity a moot point? We have our concerns, we’ll say that much.

What Does The White Flame Want With Ciri?

Perhaps the most alarming revelation of Season 2 of The Witcher was that Ciri’s father Duny, long believed dead, was actually alive and going by the title of The White Flame, aka the King of Nilfgaard. Not only has Nilfgaard spent the series invading cities and committing major crimes against the people of the Northern Territories, but we also discovered that he was the one who murdered Queen Francesca’s infant daughter, making him a sketchball of the highest order. For now, we know he bothucks and wants his daughter Ciri returned to him immediately, but his master plan as the commander of a colonizing army has not yet been made known. What we do know is that he is alarmingly close to accomplishing his goals, whatever they happen to be.

What’s Geralt’s Next Move?

We’ve already seen a surprising amount of growth from our guy over the last few seasons. Embracing his responsibility to Ciri, accepting his friendship with Jaskier, and getting vulnerable with Yennefer are major character beats that he wasn’t capable of when we first met him. 

While it’s possible that this season will see Geralt’s family torn apart once more, that still leaves the question of where he will go next. The last we saw of Kaer Morhen (or “The School of the Wolf”) it was not doing too great. Many of Geralt’s fellow Witchers had been killed in the fight against Voleth Meir (or “The Deathless Mother”), and much damage had been done to the structure. While Vesimir has been known to rebuild from scratch many times over, as seen in Nightmare of the Wolf, we’re still wondering if Geralt is going to come home to take on the mantle of mentor to a new generation of Witchers.