THEORY: Netflix Will Use Jaskier to Mock Witcher Book Canon in Blood Origin

Television

The closer The Witcher: Blood Origin gets to its release date, the more red flags appear, creating uncomfortable parallels betwixt it and Amazon’s The Rings of Power. Every piece of information released about this prequel series contains major canon contradictions. From the date of the Conjunction of Spheres, the creation of the first Witcher, the origin of Eredin and The Wild Hunt, to the depiction of elves, not a single atom of the true history is getting portrayed. With the recent information regarding Jaskier’s cameo in Blood Origin, something far more dastardly than mere ignorance and disinterest in the canon may be at play. If the theory that this information suggests is true, it’s veritable proof of Beau DeMayo’s claim that the Netflix Witcher writers “actively dislike” the source material.

Jaskier was confirmed to be in Blood Origin in October of last year, and details of this cameo were released in January. These details claim that the bard will open this series with a prologue; he will be in a Tavern, regaling the patrons with the history that Blood Origin will cover. However, he is interrupted by an elf, later confirmed to be Minnie Driver’s character, who corrects him, telling him the true history, leading into her narration of the show. Jaskier’s ignorance is “justified” by this paragraph in the article:

“As expected, Jaskier being Jaskier might have added a few more colors and drama to the original tale. Alternatively, the tale is 1200 years old and it would have been impossible to preserve all the details exactly how they happened.”

This is a reasonable deduction, considering Jaskier’s prevalence for embellishment and the clouded nature of such ancient history; however, it may be used to justify something far more insidious. The events that Blood Origin covers do not take place 1200 years before the events of the show in the books’ canon. As confirmed by Netflix, Blood Origin will cover “the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that led to the pivotal Conjunction of the Spheres.” Additionally, the previous speculation regarding the choice of Blood Origin for the title suggests that the show will also cover Lara Dorren. These three events are spread out across 1500 years’ worth of history.

The Conjunction of the Spheres took place 1500 years before the show and saw the forced immigration of humans and monsters to The Continent. The first prototype Witcher took place several hundred years later, once the humans were settled and capable of mounting a manageable defense against the monster hordes. Lastly, Lara Dorren died roughly 150 to 200 years before the events of the series.

In a more recent announcement, which confirmed Minnie’s involvement in this prologue, it’s revealed that Minnie’s character, Seanchai, is narrating the show to Jaskier to correct him and hopefully inspire him to start telling her “true version” of events. As a side note, Seanchai is described as “a shape-shifting time-traveler [elf] and collector of histories and lore.” While her shape-shifting abilities aren’t necessarily contradicting any canon, they are unusual and without precedent. However, the reference to time travel is only mentioned and possible through the Elder Bloodline, of which Ciri is a descendant. If they’re in any way attempting to remain within the canon, Seanchai must also be in this bloodline. The problem with this is that the bloodline is nearly extinct by the time of Jaskier. Auberon Muircetach, King of the Aen Elle elves who formed the Wild Hunt, has to resort to incest with his own descendant, Ciri, because there’s virtually no one else left with whom to strengthen the bloodline. Either Seanchai’s time travel abilities are anachronistic for being separate from the Elder Blood, or she is anachronistic for being an Elder Blood carrier at the time of the show. This is a no-win scenario for canon.

If the aforementioned book-accurate events are the ones that Jaskier is singing about, and Minnie’s character comes in to refute this history and replace it with the show’s, that would be a veritable insult to both book fans and author Andrzej Sapkowski. That is the theory of this article: that Netflix will use Jaskier to tell the true history of the books before a Netflix-created character comes in to virtually say, “That’s not what happened. This is what really happened. I’m right, and you’re wrong,” insulting fans through Jaskier. It’s their emphasis on Minnie attempting to convince Jaskier to start singing about the “true version” of events while her version contradicts every single point of canon, plus their emphasis on Jaskier’s embellishments and his previous quote of “respect not making history,” that leads to this theory’s conclusion.

While this may seem extreme to some, this isn’t the first time Netflix has used Jaskier to mock or contradict fans. In season 2 of The Witcher, a dock worker criticized Jaskier’s retelling of season 1, giving him several of the main points of criticism that fans had for that initial season. Jaskier resorted to insulting this dock worker, saying he wasn’t intelligent enough to understand why season 1 happened the way it did. This was Netflix telling audience members that they were wrong in their criticism of season 1 and too stupid to understand why it was genius. If they were willing to resort to such an anti-fan mentality, what’s to stop them from doing so again, mocking those who criticized the main show for being canon-inaccurate by calling their canon the “true version?”