Netflix has confirmed the names of returning and new members of The Witcher‘s cast ahead of the show’s anticipated 2021 season 2 release date.
Every major member of the show’s original cast will return for season 2 (including Henry Cavill, Freya Allan, and Anya Chalotra), so it’s the new cast members that have really caught everyone’s attention. Among them are Yasen Atour as Coen, Agnes Bjorn as Vereena, Paul Bullion as Lambert, Thue Ersted Rasmussen as Eskel, Aisha Fabienne Ross as Lydia, Kristofer Hivju as Nivellen, and Mecia Simson as Francesca.
We’re going to start discussing these new characters from this point on, so if you want to avoid all possible spoilers, you should turn back now and check out some of the other Witcher content we have available. May we suggest our review of the first season, Netflix’s report on the show’s incredible success, or even our breakdown of what happened at the end of the first season?
With that out of the way, the first name that may jump out to you amongst that list is Kristofer Hivju who many of you will remember from his work as Tormund Giantsbane in Game of Thrones. We suspect he will do a great job as Nivellen who, in the books, is a quite literal beast of a man who was cursed by a priestess to undergo a brutal transformation. Interestingly, this bit of casting tends to suggest that the show’s second season will also feature “one-off” adventures in some capacity.
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As for the rest of the characters, Coen is a fellow witcher who suffered through a rough transformation process. Vereena is a woman in love with Nivellen whose presence once again suggests that character will be given quite a bit of screen time in the upcoming season. Lambert is another witcher who helped train Ciri in combat. We assume that means that we’ll get into that storyline starting in the second season.
Eskel is also a witcher, so we imagine the show’s second season will dive heavily into the culture of withers and their community. Lydia is a sorceress who we imagine might get an expanded role in the series, and Francesca is another sorceress who potentially has a major role to play in the rest of the series based on how closely the show follows the books.
In summary, the total takeaway from this casting news is that The Witcher‘s second season will tell the Nivellen storyline, introduce even more witchers, likely dive into the early days of Ciri’s training, and will deal with the evolving power dynamic of the magic users in the series’ universe. We also imagine that the continued success and popularity of the show will continue to mean great things for the sales of the games and books.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.