Why Does Yennefer Look Different In Netflix's The Witcher?

Yennefer from the games and the Netflix series are two different characters!

The Witcher is arriving on Netflix his fall, and ever since the series was announced, there’s always been a little skepticism surrounding the show as a whole. The main problem people everyone was facing was with the hiring of the actors for the roles they were brought in for.

The first look of the series was a mess and people were angry with the way Henry Cavill looked. The hiring debacle reached a fever pitch when a relatively unknown woman was hired to play one of the most powerful women in the continent, Yennefer of Vengerberg. Anya Chalotra was hired to play the character of Yennefer and people, who wanted Eva Green for the role, were unhappy after an actress of Indian descent was hired to play the role of Yennefer.

Source: YouTube

The problem people were facing stemmed from the fact she didn’t look like the version in the games. The Witcher is a beloved game series in the US, and there are some drastic changes from the game Yennefer and the series Yennefer. Well, the game is not being adapted into the series; we got the confirmation from series creator Lauren S. Hissrich at comic-con. She said there is no plan as of yet to bring the games into the series adaptation. This is precisely the reason why Yennefer looks different from the games and in the series.

Netflix’s The Witcher is based on the book series by writer Andrzej Sapkowski, and the games are sequels to the book which is why the Yennefer we see in the trailer released at comic-con and how people perceive Yennefer are two totally different characters.

Watch: The trailer for Netflix's The Witcher

In the trailer, the first shot we see of the Yennefer is when we see her disfigured jaw and crooked back being caressed by a witch. The next scene is more of a clear picture of the disfigured jaw of Yennefer, she is looking up with tears in her eyes, and this is a drastic change from the Yennefer people see in the games. The game Yennefer is a beautiful, powerful woman and all we see in the trailer for the series is a broken woman with all hopes lost, living with disfigurement and pain.

The whole thing is pulled from the books, “But he suddenly knew the truth. He knew it. He knew what she used to be. What she remembered, what she couldn’t forget what she lived with. Who she really was before she had become a sorceress. Her cold, penetrating, angry and wise eyes were those of a hunchback.”

Source: YouTube

As the trailer progresses, the witch says, “Yennefer, imagine the most powerful woman in the world,” and we slowly see her transforming from a hunchback disfigured women to a powerful sorceress. Her powers remove the physical deformities, and all which is left is beautiful women who look pretty but carries all the pain with herself.

Whatever you may think of a woman only being strong after she becomes pretty is up to you but what the trailer shows clearly is the series is going to deal with the transformation of the character of Yennefer. They are going to show how she became the most powerful sorceress in the world. There was also sizzle reel at comic-con where we see Yennefer lamenting with herself, but then the camera pans out to show she is talking to a dead body of a girl and telling her it was a good thing she died because this world treats women as vessels. This portrayal of Yennefer was a dark overview of the character, which was prevalent in the books.

The outlook of the world and the way the sorceress views the place she is in is similar to the games, but the backstory of the character being pushed to the forefront is what makes the character so drastically different from in The Witcher game series. Anya Chalotra is a great actress and she, whether she does justice to the character, is to be seen when the series comes out in the fall of 2019 only on Netflix.