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The Witcher: How Yennifer's Season 1 Story Was Created

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After The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich decided that she was going to use Dunkirk as an inspiration for telling Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri's story all at once in Season 1, blending both the Geralt short stories and the "saga" elements of Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher books, she then knew an entire backstory needed to be crafted for Anya Chalotra's Yennifer. One the most recent Netflix Behind the Scenes podcast, Hissrich explained how Yennifer's first season arc had to be meticulously pieced together in the writers' room, based on very little from the early Geralt stories. When Yennifer is introduced in Sapkowski's pages, she's already a full-formed, powerful mage. Little else is known about her past. Readers knew that Yennifer was part of the Battle of Sodden Hill, which we saw take place in the Season 1 finale, but the rest of her "past" was mostly reflected in this passage from the short story "The Last Wish." "The witcher approached, watchful and silent. He saw her left shoulder, slightly higher than her right. Her nose, slightly too long. Her lips, a touch too narrow. Her chin, receding a little too much. Her brows a little too irregular. Her eyes . . . He saw too many details. Quite unnecessarily." "The are a couple of sentences in the books," Hissrich said. "Just a couple of sentences where she is reflecting on her past. Or where Geralt is surmising things about her past." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=midseason-tv-2020-34-shows-we-cant-wait-to-watch&captions=true"] "The writers and I culled through all of those sentences, pulled them together, and then crafted a story from them." Instead of relegating Yennifer's past to flashbacks, Hissrich decided to build out her entire timeline. "To me, for fans, I think it will be fun to watch Yennefer develop and say 'Oh, I recognize what was wrong with her before her transformation.' Or 'I recognize her reference to her abusive father.' But we actually get to see her abusive father. We actually get to see her experiences in her disabled body and to me that's the added bonus of being able to do this on television." For more on The Witcher, check out how The Night King crafted Geralt's battle against the Kikimora, Hissrich talking about the buzz surrounding Mark Hamill saying (joking) he'd Vesemir in Season 2, and our full rundown of Season 1's timeline. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/18/how-much-does-the-witcher-know-about-the-witcher"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

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