Netflix’s The Witcher is heading toward one of the biggest threats in the series’ history, with showrunner Lauren Hissrich teasing that the fearsome Wild Hunt — a group of terrifying spectral hunters — will have a presence in the upcoming season.
“I think a couple of things are gonna happen right now,” Hissrich said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly when asked about the Wild Hunt. “We set up the Wild Hunt for Ciri in the middle of Season 2 as her thinking, ‘I don’t quite understand what this is. I don’t understand why they’re in this dreamscape that I’m having.’ And then, obviously, at the very end, she visits the dark elves’ sphere and she realizes ‘these people are after me.'”
In the second season of The Witcher, the Wild Hunt is teased after Cintra is given a vision of the Wild Hunt riders when Triss Merigold tries to learn more about Ciri’s magic. Hissrich also spoke about the Wild Hunt as it applies to Ciri and said that she’ll eventually have a run-in with the riders, which will make the threat of them even larger.
“When we were talking about the pressure on Ciri and what she is experiencing from all of these people that seem to want her, what’s great is she has a run-in with the Wild Hunt so it becomes much more palpable to her and much scarier,” said Hissrich. “One of the things that I love in the books that [author Andrzej] Sapkowski did beautifully is he teases the Wild Hunt for so long. They pop up, then they go away for a while. So we are definitely sticking to that school.”
Of course, Geralt (played by Henry Cavill in Season 3) will eventually be someone who finds himself involved in the battle with the Wild Hunt, with Hissrich noting that as of now, it’ll stay as an “ever-looming threat” to Ciri.
“We all know that, eventually, Geralt is going to learn a little bit more about the Wild Hunt, as will Ciri, but right now it stays this ever-looming threat to her. It sort of goes between her fingers. She can’t quite catch it and figure it out yet.”
