The Witcher Being Entirely Rebooted After Henry Cavill’s Exit?
A fan podcaster suggests the end of The Witcher: Blood Origin opens the door for the main series to be completely rebooted after Henry Cavill's departure.
If you follow news about Henry Cavill and/or Netflix’s The Witcher, then you no doubt already know the star will be replaced in Season 4 of the series by Liam Hemsworth; but so far there’s been no word if this will impact the story. However, a new fan theory suggests that the events of the mini-series The Witcher: Blood Origin hint toward the main series’ events rebooting after Cavill leaves. In particular, the theory speculates that a Blood Origin post-credits scene proves the timeline of the main series has been changed, thus opening the door to a clean slate.
The theory raised by YouTuber The Sporking News (via Bounding Into Comics) points to the post-credits scene in which the mage Avallac’h (Samuel Blenkin) travels to the future and makes eye contact with Ciri (Freya Allen) as she plays dice in Cintra; just like when we first meet her in The Witcher. The YouTuber theorizes this moment, which unfolds differently in the main series, has changed the narrative’s timeline.
The YouTuber argues this is the creative team’s way of “letting us know” that The Witcher Season 4 will essentially be a new version of Season 1. He believes that when Hemsworth takes over from Cavill, the former will either play Geralt in a rebooted timeline, or he will play a completely different character (though presumably still one of the Witchers).
On one hand, there would certainly be at least one big advantage to such a reboot, regardless of the change in cast. With many viewers expressing confusion over the differences in time between the narratives of Geralt (Cavill) and Ciri, Season 1 of The Witcher is so far the least well-received chapter of the show. So that kind of reboot could be a chance to correct things.
On the other hand, most fans are clearly not thrilled about losing Henry Cavill in the lead role of The Witcher, and rebooting the continuity would no doubt be seen as adding insult to injury. The audience may take it as essentially, “Not only are you losing Cavill, everything he did in the show is being erased.” Particularly with the reports that series writers have been openly disrespectful to the source material — and that this may have been a contributing factor in Cavill’s departure — rebooting the show wouldn’t seem like the best way to win back the hearts and minds of the fanbase.
The idea put forth by The Sporking News that Liam Hemsworth will play a completely different Witcher has promise; as long as you divorce that from the reboot idea. If they were to make Hemsworth a Witcher other than Geralt of Rivia then — assuming they don’t kill off Geralt — that would open the door for a possible return by Cavill, should situations change.
