The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf expands lore in prequel

The latest addition to The Witcher franchise just dropped on Netflix! And, spoiler alert, it’s awesome.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf takes a different direction from the first season of the Netflix original series, as an animated film rather than live-action.

The Netflix movie not only expands on the lore within the hit series but also creates the opportunity for more spinoffs for the franchise.

While the movie was announced earlier this year, we didn’t get a proper look at it until months later. Trust me, it was worth the wait.

What happens in The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf ?

Spoilers ahead!

The movie takes place years and years before any of the events in the show. This prequel story is about Vesemir, a boy who runs away from his servant post to become a witcher. He leaves behind his father and his sweetheart Illyana, who is content with her life, unlike Vesemir.

As a fully grown and infamous witcher, Vesemir saves a noble boy Sugo from death at the hands of a leshen. The first scene of the movie showcases unique fighting styles and magic that we hadn’t seen in the show. Before the leshen dies, the supposedly mute creature utters a phrase in Ellyon, a dead language of the elves: “Beware the den of my dead”.

In the nearby city of Kaedwen, sorceress Tetra Gilcrest avidly spreads propaganda against the witchers as a whole. She wants her king to condemn the witchers as a community, seize their home Kaer Morhen, and exile them for their crimes. She even implies that witchers are creating monsters so that humans will pay them to slay the beasts. Lady Zerbst is the only one who protests, demanding proof of this claim before any action is taken.

Meanwhile, Vesemir is visited by Filavandrel, who we’ve seen before in the series. He asks the witcher to search for the female elves that continue to disappear from their already depleted community.

Vesemir returns to Kaer Morhen, the birthplace, training ground, and sanctuary of witchers. Here we get to see how unique and different witchers actually were: not everyone is as white-haired and brooding as Geralt. Here, Vesemir and his childhood trainer Deglan are now equals. Deglan complains about their place in the world: that witchers are only tolerated by humans because of their trade of killing monsters. The more monsters they kill, the less monsters there are, and in turn, there are fewer jobs to make money from. If monsters cease to be an issue, humans will have no use for witchers, and will turn on them. Just as they did with the elves.

In the past, Vesemir is one of the only survivors in the group of boys that were being trained. Even as he mourns the loss of his friends, he continues to go through agonizing treatments and trials in order to become a witcher. The mages that create witchers also live in Kaer Morhen, including their head mage, Reidrich. He explains that mutagenic alchemy is not only what created witchers, but also is abused to create crossbreeds of monsters.

In the present (in the movie, at least), Vesemir plus his friend and witcher, Luka, are imprisoned after killing two knights that instigated a fight with them. Instead of being executed, Lady Zerbst (who turns out to be Illyana, his sweetheart, now old!) convinces the king to hire Vesemir to slay whatever beast has been killing the citizens of Kaedwen.

Tetra Gilcrest chaperones Vesemir through the forest, where they find a kitsu who is capable of extremely powerful illusionary magic. She sics her corrupted basilisk on the two, who fight together and kill the monster. The kitsu mourns her beast and flees.

The unlikely pair follow the kitsu to abandoned Elven ruins, left over from the Great Cleansing. In the depths of the place, they find the bodies of female elves Filavandrel had asked Vesemir to find. Also, the elf king himself, tied up but still alive. The kitsu is actually a hybrid with a mahr, created by mutagenic alchemy. She was experimenting with female elves to try and create more hybrids. Only one girl was a successful subject, and Filavandrel takes her, promising to be accountable. For Tetra, this is proof that the witchers are creating monsters. After the other two leave, Tetra destroys what’s left of the ruins. She finds the kitsu, and feeds her lies that it was Vesemir who had destroyed her home and killed her “daughter.”

Vesemir returns to Kaer Morhen to find out the truth, and yes, Deglan has been behind the creation of these new monsters. Illyana comes to the keep to warn the witchers: Tetra has already killed Luka, and is bringing an army to exterminate them all. She’s convinced the kitsu to help her lead the charge. Humans and monsters side by side storm Kaer Morhen and kill all the witchers and mages they can find. The children who had recently passed their witcher trials escape through a back door, avoiding slaughter.

In the basement, Vesemir faces off against Tetra to save Illyana, Reidrich, and the few remaining mages. Tetra reveals that her hatred of witchers stems from watching her mother, an innocent sorceress, be murdered by a witcher. In the midst of battle, Vesemir manages to ward off the kitsu’s illusionary attack, kill Tetra, and save everyone, although he loses a hand in the process.

Only… he was still in an illusion. Tragically, Vesemir had unknowingly killed the mage Reidrich and fatally wounded Illyana. Deglan is able to kill Tetra before his timely death, and the battle is over. The castle of Kaer Morhen burns, along with all the experiments and bodies of witchers.

As a last act of love towards the dying Illyana, Vesemir takes her to a lake, as one of her childhood dreams was to own a lake house. He mourns her death, and it’s the first time we see him cry. Again, we see the truth that witchers do have feelings.

Vesemir manages to find the children, the last of their line. He takes on the duty as their trainer and surrogate father. The movie ends with Vesemir addressing one of the young boys:

“There will always be another monster, Geralt.”

Who is Vesemir in The Witcher?

While he’s been in the game franchise for a while, he hadn’t been introduced in the Netflix version until now. Vesemir is Geralt’s mentor and the last surviving witcher from the old age before the fall of their kind.

He’s been old and grizzled in all versions… until now. Netflix decided to spice up this character by giving him a prequel movie in his handsome prime. He’s calm in the face of danger, confident to the point of cocky, and believes he’s chosen the right path for himself.

Vesemir was not in the first season of The Witcher. However, he’s confirmed to be in season 2. Geralt will return to Kaer Morhen to train Ciri and meet back up with Vesemir, played by Kim Bodnia.

What did we learn in The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf?

We now know that the reason there are no new witchers or mages to create them is because of the genocide brought upon them by humans. Just like with the elves, humans decided that they’d rather kill than tolerate the existence of a different race.

The creation of witchers has been hinted at, but never explicitly stated in the show. The movie details the horrors that young boys go through to become witchers: experimentation, deadly trials, malnutrition, and constant fear. It’s a numbers game to see how many children survive. Vesemir is the only boy in his group who had come to Kaer Morhen willingly, as the others had been sold or abandoned by their parents.

Mutagenic alchemy is detailed by Reidrich in a flashback to Vesemir’s days as a child in the trials. While monsters cannot crossbreed, they can be created by magic. This abuse of magic creates new, more powerful monsters, weaponized for the creator’s intentions. Mages made monsters, and then made witchers to kill them. Reidrich explains that today, it’s different, and the secrets of mutagenic alchemy are protected by mages from further abuse. Only, it turns out that he and Deglan were using this magic for their own purposes.

The movie also had a ton of new monsters that hadn’t been shown in the show. Mahrs, basilisks, leshens, kitsus… there’s no limit to the monsters that could be introduced in the future. The designs for these creatures are always so unique and terrifying, you’ll never be let down.

Is The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf worth watching?

Absolutely.

If you thought that animation can’t capture the intensity of The Witcher‘s gore and nudity, this movie proved you wrong. In fact, there are some scenes that feel even more graphic and nauseating than the live-action show. The movie keeps true to the tone and world created in the show, although this time we have a much more talkative protagonist.

The main difference between the first season of The Witcher and this movie is the medium. Netflix decided to contract Studio Mir yet again for The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, and they did not disappoint. The Seoul-based studio is known for its work on Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, The Legend of Korra, and Voltron: Legendary Defender. The seamless use of 3D to create dynamic environments and action sequences absolutely blew me away. The movie and show may be in different formats, but the production value of both is jaw-dropping.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf has set a new bar for feature animation. It also breaks the mold that a franchise has to be all one medium. The Matrix series was one of the first to add to their lore with animation in The Animatrix. While it received great reviews and is looked back on fondly, this tactic hasn’t been used again. Hopefully, Lauren Hissrich can bring animation to the franchise again in the form of more movies or even a spin-off show. As Netflix has signed a contract with her, there’s definitely a possibility!

Do you want more animated The Witcher movies?