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Dandelion:: Let me guess. A bunch of warriors join forces to fight against all odds. It has been done to death.
???: Has it? Seven estranged warriors who come together to fight an unstoppable empire, bring humans and monsters to the world via the Conjunction of Spheres, and create the very first version of a Witcher. That's been done to death?
Dandelion:[...] You're telling me the first version of a Witcher was a badass elf? *grinning* This is really gonna piss Geralt off.

The Witcher: Blood Origin is a spin-off limited series that serves as a Prequel to The Witcher. It is loosely based off Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher mythos.

Over 12 centuries before the Fall of Cintra, the Elves ruled supreme in the Continent with their three great kingdoms dividing all between them. It is a golden age for the Elves, but also a time of bloody endemic war and scarcity. When a bloody betrayal and usurpation casts down the monarchies and a Golden Empire rises in their place, seven unlikely heroes will put aside their differences and grievances to bring down its tyrannical rule, and bring freedom to the people: Fjall of the Dog Clan (Laurence O’Fuarain); Scían of the Ghost Tribe (Michelle Yeoh); Brother Death (Huw Novelli); the mages Zacaré (Lizzie Annis) and Syndril (Zach Wyatt); Meldof the Dwarves (Francesca Mills); and their leader, Éile of the Raven Clan (Sophia Brown), also known as the Lark.

Their quest to put and end to the machinations of the Golden Empress Merwyn (Mirren Mack), Chief Sage Balor (Lenny Henry) and General Eredin (Jacob Collins-Levy) will put them on a collision course with destiny, bring about the Conjunction of the Spheres, and summon the unstoppable infestation of man(kind) and monster to their world.

The series premiered on Netflix on December 25, 2022.


This series contains examples of:

  • Adapted Out: The Aen Elle elves and their world do not appear to exist in the backstory lore of the show, with Eredin and Avallac'h here portrayed as ordinary Aen Seidhe elves of the Continent, and there is no mention of King Auberon Muircetach existing or being part of the Elder Blood lineage, despite Lara Doren existing in the main show.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Everything that is expected to go right goes right, and everything that can go wrong goes horrifyingly wrong. With Merwyn and Balor assassinated and the central monolith destroyed, the monarchies and militaries are truly defeated, the threat of multiversal conquest is thwarted, and elven civilization finally evolves into a nascent democracy where all of elvenkind will be treated equally... just in time for translocated humans and monsters to appear from the Conjunction of the Spheres due to the chaos of overloading the monolith, where they both start their own bloody war for control of the continent, which leaves millions dead and humans in charge of dozens of oppressive kingdoms, restoring the status quo. With the death of the Beast, Fjall is cemented into legend as the First Witcher, but succumbs to 'witcher-psychosis' and has to be put down by Éile. Their child and her lineage go on to build a bloody legend that saves the world at the cost of millions more deaths. And Eredin survives to become the Lord of the Wild Hunt, the Big Bad of the main series.
  • Call-Forward: The song Éile sings in Episodes 3 and 4 has the same melody as "Toss A Coin To Your Witcher" (minus the chorus).
  • Came Back Wrong: After their mother's death, adoptive siblings Zacaré and Syndril attempted to bring her back via magic. We're not told exactly what happened, only that "whatever we brought back to life, that thing wasn't her."
  • Come with Me If You Want to Live: Said verbatim by Meldof when she meets the other six, granting them shelter from the prowling beast.
  • The Coup: Merwyn, Balor and Eredin pull one off in Episode 1, massacring the leadership of Xin'trea, Pryshia and Darwen, and declaring all three kingdoms united as the "Golden Empire".
  • Crapsaccharine World: For a so-called "golden age" things are pretty shitty in the Continent, what with the Thousand Year War still ongoing, the economies of the three kingdoms on the verge of collapse and outright famine looming in the horizon. To say nothing of all the Fantastic Racism and occasional intra-species genocide.
  • The Empire: Once the Golden Empire unifies all three Elven Kingdoms under its rule, it wastes little time becoming quite tyrannical.
  • Eternal Recurrence: It is implied that the world the Continent is in is locked into one of these, as it is revealed that 1,500 years before the events of this series, it was the Elves who came to the Continent as conquerors from somewhere else, destroyed the cities of the Dwarves and built Xin'trea and the other cities on their ruins, driving the Dwarves to the fringes and treating them as second-class citizens… exactly what the humans are shown to have done to the Elves in the parent series.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Balor ultimately has no loyalty to anyone but himself. Everything he does is to the end of making himself the world's most powerful mage, and using his power to rule. He's even willing to murder his apprentice Fenrik, the only other person he was shown to care about, in order to gain the power of Chaos Magic.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Inverted. When Meldof (a dwarf) meets Éile for the first time, she remarks that she'd thought she'd be shorter.
  • Fantastic Caste System: The Elves have a rigid caste system, with intermarriage between classes strictly forbidden. These restrictions are the reason why Fjall is exiled for having sex with Princess Merwyn, and they are later used as leverage by Empress Merwyn to get General Eredin to do what she wants.
  • Fantastic Racism: Not only do the Elves treat the Dwarves as second class citizens, the Elves of the various kingdoms are also pretty prejudiced against each other.
  • Foreshadowing: In the final episode, Avallac'h reveals to Merwyn that the Monoliths can be used to travel, not just through space, but through time. The mid-credits scene reveals that he's done just that, arriving in what is presumably the main show's present.
  • Framing Device: The series is framed as a lost story being told to Jaskier by a mysterious supernatural Storyteller, who wishes for Jaskier to pass it on to the Elves and give them hope despite their desperate situation.
  • Genre Savvy: The importance and effect of tropes in stories are discussed by the characters, both in the framing device and in the story itself:
    • When the Storyteller tells Jaskier what she wants from him, he tells her that stories about a bunch of warriors who join forces to fight against all odds have been done to death.
    • Balor's main concern regarding Fjall and Éile is not that they have any chance of succeeding on their own, but that the longer they are out there, the more their legend will grow. He knows that their circumstances are ripe for a great story that can cause the empire a world of trouble as a rallying point for the lowborn.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Deconstructed. While Merwyn's desire to be a legend like her childhood idol Solryth was innocent enough, it drives her to ally with Balor willingly and be complicit in the murder of her own brother and her family's protectors, the Dog Clan. Merwyn gradually becomes more ambitious and ruthless as the Empress of the newly-founded Golden Empire, determined to not let herself become a mere figurehead and seeing herself as the hero who will bring civilization to other worlds and prosperity to elfkind. By the time she offers Fjall the chance to be her consort, Merwyn has allowed her dreams to excuse her crimes, resulting in her being genuinely shocked when Fjall furiously rejects her. After she was stabbed by Éile, Merwyn drags herself onto her throne and lets herself bleed to death in front of a rebellious mob, wanting to be remembered to the very end.
  • Multiversal Conqueror: The goal of the leadership of the Golden Empire is to use the monoliths to lead the unified forces of Elfkind to conquer other worlds of the multiverse and "civilize" them.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Destroying the Master Monolith in Xin'trea so Balor cannot use it is what ends up causing the Conjunction of the Spheres, bringing the humans and monsters responsible for the downfall of elven civilization to the Continent.
  • Our Founder: Between the city walls of Xin'trea and the sea there is a colossal statue of Solryth, the Elven Empress who conquered the Continent from the Dwarves and started the first golden age of the Elves.
  • Portal Cut: After Syndril's portal accidentally transports the group to another world, they are forced to leave in a hurry pursued by a huge monster, which is halfway through the portal when Syndril manages to close it, cutting it in half. The carcass later proves very useful.
  • Prequel in the Lost Age: The series takes place in the so-called Golden Age of the Elves, when they were absolute masters of the Continent, having taken all power from the Dwarves.
  • Praetorian Guard: Each of the Elven kingdoms has a dedicated Clan of warriors whose role is to protect the monarch. They also serve as elite enforcers of the monarchs' will if need be.
  • The Puppet Cuts His Strings: Empress Merwyn is fully aware that the coalition between the military and the sages intends to get rid of her as soon as it is convenient and starts schemes of her own to retain power. She succeeds.
  • Puppet King: Balor and the military intend for Empress Merwyn to be nothing more than a figurehead, and fully intend to get rid of her as soon as they feel confident that they can control the Golden Empire directly.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Scían's fake betrayal of the others to Merwyn, the empress calls her "a disgrace to your ancestors" and orders her execution. She escapes, though.
  • Trojan Horse: Scían's master plan. First, she pretends to sell the party out, getting assigned as a captain for the regiment meant to kill them. Then she calls in every favor she has and ambushes her own regiment with a guerilla army. They don the dead regiment's armor and infiltrate the city while Scían delivers a gift-wrapped, secretly super-soldiered Fjall to the empress' palace. Once inside, the party riles up a revolution with the lowborn while Fjall and Scían mess up the palace.
  • We Can Rule Together: Merwyn tries this on Fjall in the final episode. He flat-out tells her she's demented.
  • You Monster!: Fjall summarizes to Merwyn before Hulking Out:
    Fjall: You're a monster. I should know.

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