#The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf spoilers

[ebay-19]

The Witcher: Blood Origin spoilers follow. The Witcherverse is growing exponentially, and we're not just talking about the release of new prequels like Nightmare of the Wolf and now Blood Or...

[kaer--morhen]

hate hate hate how they handled the pogrom and sacking of kaer morhen these awkwardly handled metaphors of oppressed groups SUCKS they really went with somehow it's their fault also my mom got killed by a witcher like it's such lazy writing and the timeline is as ever, a fucking joke BUT I enjoyed it anyway, the animation was gorgeous and they had some compelling characters I also like how they portrayed vesemir. lady zerbst also a banger of a milf.

[seekingthemacguffin]

Just finished Nightmare of the Wolf and really enjoyed it!

Will I be quibbling about the timeline and canon contradictions whenever I discuss the movie with someone? Absolutely. (See full rant below)

Did that detract from my enjoyment? Not at all! It helps to think of it as a separate piece of media or even an alternate world. A lot of the specific details may be wrong, but they still managed to convey the mood and the tone that made it feel like a Witcher story. 

The production as a whole was really well done -- good voice acting, good soundtrack, and I especially liked the animation. 

Kudos to whoever decided that they needed to make young Vesemir hot. I think we all approve of that decision. Is it truly a Witcher property without a bathtub scene? Netflix didn’t want to risk finding out and we’re grateful.

Vesemir is not what I expected a younger Vesemir to be like character-wise, but I still liked him and enjoyed his arc.

I absolutely loved everything about the romance with Illyana. It managed to show some of the interesting story stuff you can do in a world where some of the population lives so much longer than the rest. And I really appreciated that in a franchise where I’m often frustrated with how the female characters are written (the games and the tv show have done a good job course correcting but I get so annoyed with how women are portrayed in the books) they decided to give us a visibly older woman with no magic who is still shown as a strong character. 

It was really neat to get glimpses of Kaer Morhen in its heyday as a functioning keep with lots of witchers running around. Really drives home how alone the witchers that we know are in the main part of the timeline.

I wasn’t thrilled with the plot decision to have witchers involved in making monsters -- it contradicts literally everything we know about them and their view of the world. Plus it distracts from one of the central themes of the Witcher stories which is that oppression stems from hatred, fear, and lies and it is never justified and violence begets violence. (Not that I’m saying the attack at Kaer Morhen was justified here, but maybe don’t have some of the people being attacked doing horrific experiments in the basement that need to be stopped when you’re trying to show that the attack itself is wrong unless you’ve got more time to actually dig into it properly.)

And the movie definitely showed us some of the true tragedy of the witchers, which is the cycle of intergenerational trauma they’re all trapped in. All the stuff with the Trials was heartbreaking. 

Overall it was a really good movie that had the right balance of moral quandaries and monsters that made it feel like a proper Witcher story. It definitely put me in the mood for season 2 of the tv show. Just don’t think too hard about the timeline and canon contradictions.

(Okay, but seriously, Vesemir is supposed to be SUPER old compared to the other witchers! Witchers don’t die of old age because they all get killed, so the fact that Vesemir has managed to survive to old age is a huge part of what shapes him as a character in the main timeline. And the only survivors of the attack on Kaer Morhen were witchers who were away from the keep at the time, which is how we know that Geralt, Lambert, Eskel, etc. were already adults when it happened. They were raised completely under the old ways, which is what makes their choice to treat Ciri better so important. If you make Vesemir the one who breaks from tradition that detracts a bit from Geralt’s choices. End rant.)

[graciegra]

Vesemir kissing 70yo Illyana is peak immortal romance

[srapsodia]

“Make ‘em somethin’ more”

Thinking about purpose, costs, and internalizing harmful lessons.

[fivequartersoftheorange]

Daddy Vesemir before he became Papa Vesemir.

Men will always need monsters. 

THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF (2021) dir. Kwang-Il Han

[bamf-jaskier]

+

+

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The Lake House

Nightmare of the Wolf, 2021

[ajaxskingdom]

I'm care them so fucking dearly, dude

[fivequartersoftheorange]

Who knew Geralt was a bald little shit 😂

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

[from-ib-to-asshai]

not to get in to tnotw but gotta LOVE that the love interest of the handsome young main character wasn’t the beautiful sorceress but instead was a GILF going on 70

[catchcrows]

i'm sorry i'm sorry i've been thinking about this ALL DAY

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Nightmare of the Wolf: Review

There be spoilers ahead! For both the movie and other canons.

Context: I was really excited about this movie. Really excited. It's no secret that my favourite part of The Witcher as a franchise is the lore behind the witchers. I was hoping this would give me faith in The Witcher: Blood Origin, even if the main show was a complete loss for me personally. Vesemir, Vesemir, Vesemir. Yes, give me more of a hugely overlooked character.

Summary: I am bitterly disappointed, and the more I think about what I've seen, the more disappointed I become. I would like to emphasise that this is my personal opinion, but I feel like the movie overlooked/understated a major lesson of the IP, and that's the power of hatred and prejudice to stir up fear, and how genocide/massacres are always "justified" with lies.

Positives (there are some):

Vesemir's characterisation in the movie will hopefully do a lot to equalise the Papa Vesemir headcanon that many have, but also the one that tries to paint him as an uncaring monster: he's more complex than both. In the movie, he starts off as a rogue that completely dismisses Fil's request for aid. This is a far cry from how we know/see Geralt behave, regularly sacrificing himself and his 'neutrality' to do the right thing (to the point he sacrifices his life in Rivia after finally deciding to live for himself). This is something he learns from his mentor.

By the end of the movie, Vesemir is something of the man that will turn Geralt into what we know. I kept one of Geralt's lines while fighting the Wild Hunt from TW3 in the back of my mind ("Who taught you to fight like that?" "The man you slew."), because it encompasses their relationship for me. Probably because of Cockle's delivery of the line, to be honest.

Luka! Queer representation.

The one-armed witcher and other witchers with visible disabilities and deformities as a result of their profession. I figure he's half-dwarf (because we all know thoroughbred non-humans can't be witchers, right, Hissrich? RIGHT?)

Witchers as roguish bastards. Yes, please. More, I love it. Not all witchers are nice people (like not all humans are nice people); I like the emphasis on Geralt as the exception to the norm (and perhaps Eskel and Lambert too, based on my previous canon analysis).

There is lots of scope to write fanfiction about the relationship between Fil and Vesemir, but I haven't really liked the movie enough to spend time on it myself, so I will look forward to the efforts of others.

The soundtrack! Oh my - it was great.

Negatives (fuck, where do I begin?):

The Leshen. It's later explained that monsters have been spliced and mutated, but what the actual fuck was that? Other than the bursting into bats thing and the vines, it was wholly unrecognisable as a forest spirit.

What the fuck are those Signs? Vesemir makes a literal light display. I know it's "anime", but, c'mon.

Do we not have enough raven-haired sorcerers, Netflix? Could we not have adapted her character model a little to make her more unique and less generic?

They buried their gay because of course they fucking did. Why not behead one of the other witchers? Why not let Luka die in the battle with his brothers? It just felt so... predictable.

"Vesemir gave me my name" - are we to understand that scene right at the end was Vesemir giving Geralt his name? But Lambert and Eskel already had theirs while they were going through the Grasses? And Geralt's already been through, so he had his name? Is this an inconsistency or Netflix forgetting canon again?

Lambert and Eskel are older? Or is Geralt just that malnourished? Not only are you taking away Eskel as Geralt's closest friend from me, you're also going to take Lambert as the last to be mutated? The youngest wolf witcher?

A mage justifying hatred with corruption is... laughable. I think (I hope) we're meant to pick up on the absurdity of that, but I'm not convinced some viewers will.

They could have shown Tetra’s plans a little? Was she conspiring with someone else? How did she gather those mages? Why were they following her lead? Mages sometimes fight within themselves, did everyone support that group? Did the conclave know about it? (Some friends have said it could have been a mini-series; I agree, but then I would have had to endure a greater massacre of the IP I loved, so... you know).

They kinda fridged it (look up WiR or "fridging")? They killed Vesemir's love interest so that he had the motivation to... be a better person? To at least keep some of the promises that he made to her? To move his plot and story along? I... hmm, great.

And here it is. My main one:

They turned the pogrom into something that could be "justified/deserved"/gave it any reasoning whatsoever: the witchers were making new monsters to kill innocent people so they could keep working.

They literally ripped another part of the soul out of the IP. The pogroms were meant to be a product of fear, hate and prejudice. The idea that the Witchers - now they weren't really needed, because they had the audacity to demand payment for their work - were now unwelcome. It was part of a bigger anti-nonhuman sentiment spreading through the Continent; an extension of the one that had consumed the elves and every other non-human race. The "oop, we created this to serve us but now it's slightly problematic so we're going to try and bury them". Not a crusade by a pissed off sorceress that required her to 'reveal proof' of their duplicity.

There was a small nod to the fact that some witchers were looking for other work (therefore not all part of this scheme; Vesemir wasn't), but when mapped together with the rest of the movie? What the fuck.

Overall, the lore was a mess. I'm still trying to work out the timelines and where Netflix has decided to place Lambert, Eskel and Geralt. Needless to say, I won't be using any of this canon in my stories. Nothing. Zilch. I made a post saying it never claimed to be "based on anything" (spoiler: it claimed that in the actual credits though) so we could see it as fun, but it wasn't fun for me after the first 15 minutes. Because it so seriously missed the heart and soul of the witcher.

The Rivian Pogrom that kills Geralt is never really explained. You know why? Because hatred is illogical. That's the point. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. That isn't targeted at Witchers specifically, but non-humans.

But, according to the Nightmare of the Wolf: the witchers invited the sacking on to themselves. Fuck. Off.

And just in case you think you have to acknowledge any of this as canon? Here's the showrunner giving you permission to yeet her entire fanfiction and make your own.

Thanks, SparkNotes. I'll keep that in mind. You need to drop the "based on the books" bit and replace it with "loosely inspired by" (or did we just read two entirely separate series?)

[damaged-genius]

Kaer Morhen at the beginning of NOTW: A breathtaking castle, home to an extremely skilled and fierce army of mutated superhuman warriors with extraordinary combat skills and magic

Kaer Morhen at the end of NOTW: 4 chaotic ass toddlers and one (1) dilf

[demigoddessqueens]

Netflix understands so well

[nicestmeangirl]

Netflix canon: brunet.

Netflix fanon: redhead.

Nightmare of the Wolf canon: blond?!?!

[hungarianbee]

At the part where Kitsu's fox form was revealed, I genuinely thought, huh, that's an interesting plot point.

What I thought we would get: aguara! Female fox demons with illusion powers that kidnap little girls to make them akin to themselves. Just like how elves were disappearing, right? And Melitele be praised, her name is literally the start of kitsune aka japanese fox spirit!

What I got: an elven girl that was mutated beyond recognition by witchers (completely disregarding the original message of hate crimes and making the massacre justified), her gene spliced with a facehugger!ripoff

I know which version I would have liked more...