Yennefer Of Vengerberg
Episode 2 of The Witcher deepens the lore for our characters and in particular, offers up a lot more backstory for Yennefer. This fascinating character is given a fair amount of screen time here and although there isn’t a whole lot of action, replaced with comedy instead , The Witcher certainly sets the foundation for the season to come. We begin with a young girl called Yennefer transported to the Tower of the Gull. There, a boy greets her and as he speaks the elder tongue, conjures up a different sort of portal to bring her back home again. Before she leaves however, he tells her his name is Istredd. As she returns to her village, she’s sold off for four marks. Meanwhile Ciri wanders the unforgiving forest, hiding behind a tree while evading the guards as they frantically search for her. Bleaching her hair with mud, she hurries through the forest upon seeing soldiers from afar and thanks the heavens, believing she’s now saved. In Posada, a tavern singer called Jaskier talks to Geralt and decides to tag along as he heads out on a detour to find a creature that looks like a devil. It ambushes him and tells Geralt to leave him alone while Jaskier continues to interject with quips and jokes. Despite getting the upper-hand in the fight, Geralt lets his guard down and is attacked from the side. Tissaia De Vries awakens Yennefer and brings her before a group of other girls, intent on teaching her magic and how it works. With a task infront of her, she and the others are introduced to the way of magic, using the basic rules of Give & Take – as Yen struggles to conjure up the magic required. Despairing, she speaks to Istredd again and discovers he can read minds. Soon after, she’s awoken in the middle of the night and given the task of catching lightning in a bottle. Unfortunately all of them fail to conjure the elements, except for Sabrina. In a fit of rage, Yennefer unleashes a thunderbolt from her hands. Tissaia berates her emotional reactions and questions whether she has what it takes to succeed. This brings her back infront of Istredd where they discuss her future before kissing, all of which a ploy to bring Tissaia the flower. Meanwhile Geralt awakens to find himself tied up and infront of his captor, Filavandrel, while Ciri wakes up to find the village in disarray. The strange elf Dara helps her escape and she sneaks away. Geralt marches away with Jaskier too, who comments on the ludicrous manner they were able to get out of their predicament. He tells the bard to leave and as he does, begins singing as we receive a final musical montage, showing Yennefer push the eels into the water where they ascend. Fans of the game may well be scratching their head over Yennefer’s looks here but as the episodes progress, it does become more apparent why her appearance is disfigured. Having said that, the show does do well capturing the essence of these characters and Jaskier’s quips actually work quite well against Geralt’s gruff demeanor, even if it may be a little jarring for some people given the dark and gritty feel of the first episode. So far so good though, and The Witcher is shaping up to be a decent fantasy offering.
