Small Details You Missed In The Witcher Trailer

You can't outrun destiny just because you're terrified of it.

It's finally here: the first full-length trailer for the hotly anticipated Netflix show The Witcher, based on Andrzej Sapkowski's book series of the same name, which has famously been adapted into a collection of acclaimed video games. 

With the help of series stars Anya Chalotra (who portrays sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg) and Freya Allan (who plays Yennefer's adoptive daughter Ciri, the princess of Cintra), The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich pulled the veil off the footage at Lucca Comics and Games Convention in Lucca, Italy on October 31. 

All the major players of The Witcher appear in this fresh trailer: Chalotra as Yennefer, Allan as Ciri, Jodhi May as Queen Calanthe, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson as King Eist Tuirseach, Emma Appleton as Princess Renfri, Adam Levy as the druid Mousesack, Eamon Farren as Cahir the Nilfgaardian, and, of course, Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia — the titular witcher who underwent a number of mutations and was trained from a very young age to develop superhuman abilities to hunt monsters of all sorts.

Apart from doing what trailers should do in laying the groundwork for what the show is about (destiny sends Geralt to Yennefer and Ciri, and the trio must work together to navigate the Continent in an increasingly volatile time) and confirming its release date (December 20), the first trailer for The Witcher includes several small details sure to make fans of the property smile — and total Witcher newbies get excited about the upcoming series.

In the first few seconds of the trailer for The Witcher, the footage flashes to show an extreme close-up of a violet-colored eye — Yennefer's eye. A skilled sorceress and the eventual love of Geralt as depicted in Andrzej Sapkowski's books and in the CD Projekt Red video game series (save for The Witcher 3 where Geralt has additional love options), Yennefer is described in canon as having "a pale triangular face, violet eyes, and narrow, slightly contorted lips."

Networks and showrunners have actually tried — and failed — to bring violet-eyed characters to the small screen before. Within George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones novels, each member of the royal Targaryen family has purple eyes, ranging from pale lilac to deep indigo, that create a contrast with their pale white, sometimes silvery hair. HBO's television adaptation of Martin's books got the hair right — the two living Targaryens that we meet, Emilia Clarke's Daenerys and Harry Lloyd's Viserys, are both platinum-headed — but the show opted not to make the Targaryens' eyes violet. 

Fans were none too pleased with the decision, as the violet eyes of the Targaryens are important to the lore, but Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss previously revealed that they did in fact try to make the characters' peepers purple. Both Daenerys and Viserys were originally filmed with purple eyes, but Benioff and Weiss ultimately chose to forgo the colored contact lenses because it hindered the actors' ability to emote. "Actors act with their eyes, and [the lenses] really hurt the emotion," the pair explained.

The Witcher trailer proves that the Netflix series is focused on accuracy no matter the potential discomfort, as Anya Chalotra's Yennefer appears exactly as she's written in the books — right down to that piercing violet gaze. 

Not long after we're met with Yennefer's striking purple gaze, we see something just as eye-catching in the trailer for The Witcher: a shot of Geralt holding a metallic trinket in his blood-caked hand. One may assume that the object is Geralt's own medallion known as Gwynbleidd (the Elder Speech phrase for "The White Wolf") that he can tune to detect beasts nearby — but it isn't. In actuality, it's the brooch of Princess Renfri. Andrzej Sapkowski's books depict Renfri as a brutal, badass version of Snow White — and let's just say that the princess' brooch isn't just used as an accessory. 

At one point in the trailer for Netflix's The Witcher, Geralt is shown riding on his horse called Roach (a name he gives all his equines), while another man treads the ground beside him. That mystery man is Dandelion (played by Joey Batey), a poet and bard also known by his Polish name Jaskier... whose real name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. 

In the Witcher canon, Dandelion becomes a close friend of Geralt's after the two meet during a fête in Gulet town in Aedirn, where Dandelion was trying to evade some particularly nasty dudes who wanted personal revenge. The shot of the two in the Witcher trailer does feature scenery that feels similar to that present in Andrzej Sapkowski's short story "The Edge of the World," which recounts Dandelion's first meeting with Geralt, so it seems likely that the Netflix series will indeed detail the pair's initial convergence. 

If you didn't know any better, you might assume that the Witcher trailer scene in which Geralt manipulates the air while facing off against some dastardly foes depicts the series crossing franchises and stealing Star Wars' Force pull power, or the eponymous air-bending skills of Avatar: The Last Airbender. However, this moment actually shows Geralt employing the Aard sign — a telekinetic thrust used by witchers that allows them to stun and knock down their opponents, break down barriers, clear paths, and remove other objects in their way. 

In the Witcher games, players can develop their skill in wielding the Aard sign depending on how they allocate in-game talents — and by the looks of the Netflix series' first trailer, Geralt has more talents than all 50 contestants at a Miss America pageant. 

Geralt of Rivia offers some powerful words in the first full-length trailer for Netflix's The Witcher — but they weren't written by the show's creative team. The short speech he gives in the newly released footage is actually taken almost verbatim from Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher collection short story "The Last Wish," which precedes the main Witcher Saga.

"Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same," Geralt says in the trailer (in "The Last Wish," Geralt says this while addressing the Kovirian wizard and illusionist Stregobor). In Sapkowski's work, he goes on to say, "Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all."

Diehard Witcher enthusiasts flipped their lids over one very particular moment in the series' trailer that casual fans and those unfamiliar with the property were probably a bit confused by: Geralt chillin' in the bathtub — his Gwynbleidd medallion around his neck, candles lit behind him, and Yennefer by his side. This isn't Netflix's attempt at using Henry Cavill's sex appeal to attract audiences — it's actually a near-exact replication of a cutscene from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the CD Projekt Red video game released in 2015. 

That game showed Geralt in supreme relaxation mode, sitting in a bathtub with his feet sticking out of the basin. Bathtub Geralt became an instant meme and was even turned into a "marvelously detailed, hand-painted polyresin statuette" issued by Dark Horse. He may not poke his toes out of the water in the scene on Netflix's series, instead opting to be a little more demure during his down time, but Bathtub Geralt is unequivocally here to stay. All the more reason to watch The Witcher when it hits Netflix on December 20.