Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf plot confirms a major theory about Season 2
Fans of the games and books won't be shocked to see a certain character.
Netflix has confirmed The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf will be a Vesemir origin story, set long before Season 1 of the show. This is almost certainly a major clue about the old Witcher's inclusion in Season 2.
Netflix released an official description for The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf on January 29, after formally announcing the project a week earlier. The anime takes place within the same dark fantasy universe of The Witcher live-action series, but is set many years before.
"Long before mentoring Geralt, Vesemir begins his own journey as a witcher after the mysterious Deglan claims him through the Law of Surprise," the description reads. The original announcement tweet also said, "The anime film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, will take us back to a new threat facing the Continent."
What is the new threat? We won't know for quite some time, but we do now know that "take us back to a new threat" refers to the time period of this story.
If Vesemir is only just beginning "his own journey as a witcher," based on the games and books, this story takes place at least a century before the earliest scenes in The Witcher Season 1. (Yennefer's early years are the show's earliest scenes, by the way.)
All of this basically forces us to ask: Why would the movie focus on a character we don't even know yet? Well, after we get to know Vesemir in Nightmare of the Wolf, he'll probably become a central character in Season 2.
Vesemir and a young Ciri as they appear in the 'Witcher 3' video game.
In The Witcher canon, the first thing Geralt does after finding Ciri is take her to Kaer Morhen, the secretive keep that serves as the home base for Witchers. There, Ciri trains to be a Witcher with Geralt and Vesemir.
Given the timeline alone, it's pretty obvious Vesemir should have a significant role in Season 2 of the live-action show. But if Netflix is devoting all of these resources to building up Vesemir as an important character within Nightmare of the Wolf, then it seems clear that he'll become a main character in the next live-action season, second only to the central trio of Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer.
There's still no word on who might play Vesemir in live-action, but many fans have pitched Mark Hamill as a contender, something the actor himself has gamely "agreed" to on Twitter. There's a single line of voiceover from the Season 1 finale spoken by actor Theo James, who's credited as Vesemir. James has done vocal work for some of Netflix's other productions, namely Castlevania and Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. So he'll likely voice Vesemir in Nightmare of the Wolf. James is younger in real life than Henry Cavill, however, so it wouldn't make sense to use the same actor for live-action.
No matter who is cast as Vesemir, expect the elder Witcher to get a lot of screentime in the upcoming season.
The Witcher Season 2 should be released on Netflix in 2021, with The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf being coming to the platform sometime before that.
