If you haven't heard, The Witcher Netflix Original Series is released and you can view the entire first season.
Spoilers, do not read unless you have finished The Witcher season one
There is a really cool paradox that brings these three characters together and unless you read the books or played the games, it likely will go over your head.
I wanted to discuss this one aspect of the story that is fascinating.
Before I do, I want to discuss two important elements of the The Witcher universe, Law of Surprise & Destiny.
Law of Surprise
The Law of Surprise is a very old custom in The Witcher universe. The law states anyone who saves another man's life can claim the Law of Surprise as payment. This surprise is something that is unknown to both the savior and the saved but is most often the saved next child. It is important that whatever is given is unknown to both parties at the time. If the saved knows of a child to be born, it cannot be given under the Law of Surprise.
Witchers generally demand gold as payment, but when a person cannot pay or his services are used in the moment to save someone's life, they will sometimes ask for the Law of Surprise. Many Witchers are the result of the Law of Surprise.
Generally there is two types of Law of Surprise:
"The first thing that comes to greet you" or "What you find at home yet don't expect".
Destiny
While The Witcher doesn't believe in destiny, it is an important element in the world of The Witcher. Many people believe in Destiny and even The Witcher begins to by the end of the season.
People will go out of their way and pay a great price to try to change their destiny. They will also go to great lengths to avoid turning destiny against them. A good example is not honoring the Law of Surprise which was a key story element in Episode 4. Destiny is considered real and binding in Geralt's world.
The binding of three
There is a really interesting dynamic that binds Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri that I think a lot of people will miss.
The main part of what I want to talk about starts with Episode four when you first learn of the Law of Surprise and where Geralt saves Duny and asks for the Law of Surprise as payment. Shortly later Pavetta throws up, signifying she is pregent. As both Duny and Geralt had no knowledge of this baby, it becomes the surprise that is his payment.
Geralt not being one that believes in destiny exclaims "Destiny can fuck off". The child of Pavetta and Duny is Ciri who is now bound to The Witcher by destiny. No matter what either do, they will be in each others lives. At the this time, Geralt doesn't believe in destiny and is happy to walk off. He is quickly warned by the local mage that you cannot out run destiny but Geralt leaves and attempts to do just that.
In Episode 5 Geralt finds a djinn's bottle and is granted three wishes. Before he uses his third, Yennefer attempts to control and adsorb the djinn in a ritual that puts her in grave danger. Originally she mistakenly thought the bard was the temporary master of the djinn for the three wishes but it was in fact Geralt. To save Yennefer's life, Geralt uses his last wish, a wish that is not disclosed in the show (nor the books).
There are a few theories what this wish was, but we know it is something clever.
The first theory is Geralt wished to have a child with Yennefer, this would require both The Witcher and Yennefer surviving this encounter, and all others in the future until the wish is fulfilled.
The second theory is The Witcher wished to die with Yennefer, seeing as the djinn cannot kill it's master, they would need to survive this encounter.
In the books the wish isn't revealed but Yennefer does hear the wish and says
"'Your wish,' she whispered, her lips very near his ear. 'I don't know whether such a wish can ever be fulfilled. I don't know whether there's such a Force in nature that could fulfill such a wish. But if there is, then you've condemned yourself. Condemned yourself to me.'"
Mages such as Yennefer can live to be as high as 500 years before death. Witchers are known to live around 150 years. Whatever the wish was, the main point is it created a bond between Geralt and Yennefer's life. In theory, it could mean Geralt could dramatically out live any known witcher.
This bond gets more complicated when with the bond of destiny between Geralt and Ciri via the Law of Surprise. In theory, this made Yennefer undefeatable during the battle with Nilfgaard as Yennefer cannot die until one of the two potential wishes are fulfilled, and the Witcher is protected until he is joined by Ciri.
By the end of the series, even Geralt believes in destiny when he says "People linked by destiny will always find each other."
There is an interesting bond between these three that potentially will ultimately protect them for some time.
It is a very clever paradox created by the author of The Witcher books and creates an interesting conundrum. I am looking forward to see how this plays out and hopefully find out the exact wish made by Geralt.