If the last couple of seasons of Netflix’sThe Witcheris any proof, Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) is a man that thinks on his feet. Navigating complicated moral choices in life or death scenarios is second nature to him.Though the cast includes many,The Witcherlives and dies on its characterization, and nowhere is that more true than with our hero. Watching Geralt convey deep philosophical thought while wielding a sword against terrifying monsters tells us a lot about him, but many of the lessons he learns can teach us a little something about ourselves, too.
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Witchers live very long lives, and theoretically, that gives them plenty of time to Get Smart. While known for subduing their feelings, it has been confirmed that they very much experience pain, and even their fast healing isn’t without a cost. This complicated balance between being honest and keeping your cards close to your chest is a difficult one to strike, but one benefit is that it allowed Geralt to become surprisingly good at giving advice.
You Do Not Have To Always Be Involved
Being a Witcher means being always on call. The villagers hate you, but they constantly need to hire you, and, as a Witcher, you constantly need money. Traveling life is hard, and that’s why it’s important to set boundaries. Geralt does this easily, often waving off jobs that seem too ethically complicated in favor of taking on work that means something to him on a personal level.
There are plenty of examples of this, but in the very first episode, Geralt immediately declines to kill the bandit Renfri despite the wizard Stregabor’s extravagant offer of financial compensation and excessive villainization of her. He then urges her to move on rather than force a confrontation. Likewise, in episode four, Queen Calanthe orders him to kill “a monster,” but he immediately deduces that the creature is not a monster and calmly stays seated as a fight breaks out. Geralt is great at knowing when to sit one out.
Kids Are A Lot Of Responsibility
The first season ofThe Witchertold the story of how Geralt came to meet Ciri, and frankly, it was quite a ride. It took a lot of things going very wrong over many years to get the band together, but once they were united, they could never be parted. As both of them had been told many times over, they were each the destiny of the other.
Yet, a major obstacle to them joining up was Geralt’s own obstinance. He accidentally ended up linked to the girl before she was even born, and steered far from her hometown to avoid meeting up. When Yennefer sought out increasingly desperate methods to restore her fertility, he plainly told her that they would make terrible parents due to the dangerous lives they each led. Yet, Ciri found him anyway, teaching Geralt that though responsibility is scary, it’s also very rewarding. So it was that the second season was all about how seriously he takes his role as a surrogate parent. Talk about growth!
It’s Okay to Ask for Help
Though Geralt is a mighty Witcher and famed throughout the Northern Territories, he meets his match in Yennefer, a mage with incredible power. She’s great at magic, but her best quality is arguably her ability to learn massive amounts of information about others without trying very hard, and that goes double for Geralt. Though they are equally emotionally unavailable through much of the show, Yennefer is a little more willing to jump down a few rungs on the moral ladder. Yet, there is no question that the two of them need one another as each has saved the other’s life at various points.
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In regard toher role as Yennefer, actor Anya Chalotrahas expressed that asking for help can be a crucial element of growth. On the show, Geralt has some understandably complex feelings towards Yennefer, but even as she causes many of his problems, she also solves quite a few of them. After her season two betrayal of him, he coldly pushes her away, but she continues to work on his side. In the end, he concedes that, even if he doesn’t forgive her, he needs her to help him with Ciri. This draws the three together into a neat family unit, though we’re assuming that we’ll see in season three how well it works out for them.
Sometimes You Just Have to Move On
Though Geralt works against the odds in order to create a more righteous world, the fact is, sometimes even he fails. When Renfri (Emma Appleton) asked for his help in fighting Stregabor, he earnestly begged her to simply walk away. When she expressed a need for revenge, he urged her to let it go for her own well-being, emphasizing that forgiveness should be more for yourself than the person that wronged you. Though his intentions were pure, Renfri was set on revenge at all costs, and many people died.
Later in the first season, when Geralt and Jaskier are captured by elves, emotions are high as they threaten to kill him and the bard on the spot. Geralt calmly assures them that he’s ready to go to death if he must, but rather than fighting for land that they cannot hope to keep control of, they should move on. The elves are bound by tradition, but their king sees Geralt’s point and they agree to keep it moving.
You Can’t Judge Someone Based On Their Appearance
This is one of the recurring lessons of the series, and to his benefit, Geralt does a great job at seeing through surface-level pleasantries to what lies beneath. When Ciri’s grandmother, the great Queen Calanthe, invites Geralt to sit at her table, she does so assuming he will take orders the same as most people around her do. Yet, when a man with a hedgehog-like appearance shows up to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage, it is Geralt that notes that he is clearly under a curse.
This is a skill that has saved his life many times over, but it does occasionally endanger it, as well. When he is asked to kill a monster in the third episode of season one, Geralt guesses that the task is more complicated than he knows. At the last minute, he learns that the creature is a Stryzga, and that underneath the terrifying demeanor is a child. This forces him to fight the creature until she reverts back to form at dawn, but he manages to save her in the end.
Get Yourself a Hype Man
Even a Witcher needs friends, and though Jaskier (Joey Batey) is very much not the one Geralt would have chosen for himself, he is the one that Geralt deserves. While Geralt is gruff and prefers solitude, Jaskier is loud, boisterous, and hungry for approval. What we’re saying is that this is a match made in hype man heaven, because nobody sings the songs of Geralt’s many exploits like our guy Jaskier. Over years, it led some people to shift from open antagonism to a live and let live attitude towards Geralt.
Of all the supporting characters on this show, perhaps none are quite so emotionally vulnerable as Jaskier. Though he often works double-time to put a poetic spin on even the most troubling of events, he holds onto old feelings like nobody’s business. Even years after he and Geralt parted ways during an argument, Jaskier is moody and hurt. Yet, the second Geralt returns, he immediately lets it all go and bounds after him once more. Truly, a one-man support system.
There is No “Lesser of Two Evils”
Perhaps the best lesson of them all was expressed in the series debut when Stregabor launched into the lengthy and impassioned pitch of a man trying to get you to invest in a timeshare, only his aim was to convince Geralt to kill Renfri. When Stregabor admits that it’s an unpleasant business, he stresses that Renfri is prophesied to cause great harm, making it the lesser of two evils. That’s when Geralt says, “I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, I prefer not to choose at all.”
Spoiler alert, Renfri definitely dies anyway, and it is one of Geralt’s great failures in the series. He carries it with him throughout the next many episodes and only seems to truly open up again years later when Yennefer comes along. That’s a story for another day, but this one line defines much of Geralt’s ethics in one easy-to-repeat mini-monologue, and true to his word, he follows his own advice about not making deals with devils throughout the series.
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