The Witcher Novels in 16 Minutes

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]After the success of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski's short stories about the mysterious Witcher named Geralt, Sapkowski drops the episodic monster hunting adventures and gives us a comprehensive look at the interpersonal conflicts, wars, and politics going on in the various kingdoms of the Witcher universe, and a better sense of which characters are aware of who and who matters to the general populace. Geralt is presented as the world's most famous Witcher, the bard Dandelion is revealed to be a reluctant informant for the Redanian spy Dijkstra, and we're introduced to a host of new kings and wizards. With the threat of war from Emperor Emhyr var Emreis and the Nilfgaardians, who have already taken over the kingdom of Cintra and probably want to take more, the northern kingdoms have a meeting to discuss their next move. Namely, King Vizimir of Redania, Foltest of Temeria, Henselt of Kaedwen, Demavend of Aedirn, and Meve of Lyria.

[00:00:50]Unfortunately for our heroes, they decide that what's best is to kill the Cintran heir, namely Geralt's adopted daughter Ciri. The magicians, meanwhile, such as the devious Vilgefortz, are excluded from the monarchs' negotiations and are a bit miffed about it. In the south, Emhyr has dispatched a magician named Rience to track down Ciri for unknown reasons, while Geralt is chilling with Ciri at the dilapidated Witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen, and by chilling, I mean subjecting Ciri to intense physical training and secret Witcher reflex-enhancing mushrooms, alongside the tutelage of his friends Eskel, Lambert, and Coën, and their mentor Vesemir. But when Ciri starts exhibiting Elder Blood powers like her mom, they phone in Triss Merigold.

[00:01:30]Grading on the curve of the Witcher universe, Triss Merigold is kind of the only morally good person in these stories and seems to be a genuine idealist who thinks she can help bring peace and stability to the northern lands, which she does in part as an advisor to King Foltest. But Triss is also madly in love with Geralt, who is too hung up on his ex Yennefer to give Triss much notice. Once Triss gets to Kaer Morhen, she furiously tells the Witchers to feed Ciri fewer magic mushrooms because they're having a negative effect on her physiology, and Triss analyzes Ciri's strange powers.

[00:01:59]Eventually, Geralt, Triss, and Ciri adventure into the wider world. And after running into a group of Elvin terrorists called Scoia'tael, Geralt decides to leave Ciri with Nenneke at her temple, where Yennefer shows up to train Ciri in her magical powers. Geralt then meets up with Dandelion in Dandelion's medical student friend Shani, and they cross paths with the enigmatic sorceress Philippa Eilhart, who kills some Nilfgaardian assassins before they can give Geralt any information, leaving more mysteries for the next book. The Time of Contempt opens with Ciri casually prophesying the death of a poor random messenger, who does in fact promptly die after a Scoia'tael archer shoots him.

[00:02:34]Geralt visits a witcher named Codringher, who switched careers and is now an information broker, who tells Geralt that Rience worked for Nilfgaard, among others, probably. Codringher also explains that most of the monarchs want to kill Ciri. Yennefer, meanwhile, is trying to enroll Ciri in a school for magic. Shortly after, Geralt and Yennefer get back together, and they attend a party for sorcerers, where a host of new people are introduced as part of the mages guild. But lots of them are about to die and will shortly not matter. After the party, two sorcerer factions splinter and start killing each other. One led by Vilgefortz and supported by Nilfgaard, and one led by Philippa, representing the northern realms, more or less. The Scoia'tael also show up to support Vilgefortz because Nilfgaard has promised the elves their own territory if they win. And the Elvish sorceress Francesca gets installed as a queen by Nilfgaard for her efforts. Triss, Keira Metz, and various randos like Dijkstra are on team Philippa, while Yen does her own thing as usual. Geralt tries to have an epic showdown with Vilgefortz, but gets his butt kicked immediately, and Triss has to teleport Geralt to dryad forest rehab. The northern realms essentially collapse and refuse to support one another as Nilfgaard advances upward, and some of the kingdoms become willing vassal states rather than be completely destroyed, though King Vizimir is killed.

[00:03:48]Meanwhile, Emperor Emhyr is presented with the lost heir of Cintra, Ciri, and it's rumored that he's thinking of marrying her to secure an alliance. But Emhyr mentions to his lackeys that he knows this Ciri is a fake. And sure enough, the real Ciri escaped in the confusion. Ciri goes on a vision quest through a desert with a unicorn and loses her magical powers before briefly being captured by Nilfgaardian hunters and then getting unexpectedly inducted into a team of cutthroats, which is where the story ends.

[00:04:16]A lot of interesting stuff happens in Baptism of Fire. It fills in a lot of the gaps in the lore of our storyline so far and various alliances shift around.

[00:04:24]Emhyr is still hunting for the real Ciri, though most ordinary people think the fake Ciri is the real one.

[00:04:30]Vilgefortz and his sidekick Rience betrayed basically everybody at this point and they're up to their own shenanigans apart from Nilfgaard, including the attack on the sorcerers during the last book, which the Scoia'tael were told was on Nilfgaard's orders, but it super wasn't. Ciri spends the entire book as a murder hobo who joins a gang and she starts straight up killing guys for sport with her witcher training. So, that's a thing. Geralt, meanwhile, recovers enough to go search for Ciri with the aid of an archer named Milva and the unavoidable Dandelion who comes too. But along the way, Geralt is plagued by prophetic dreams of Ciri's life as a brigand. The remnants of the sorcerers from the various nations have a big magical zoom call and they decide to found a new no boys allowed society of magicians called the Lodge, allegedly dedicated to the pursuit of magic above national interests, with Philippa inviting key people from all over, including Triss, Keira, Margarita, Sabrina, Sheila, the elf Francesca, and even Assire, the Nilfgaardian mage. As Geralt's journey continues, he meets up with the thieving dwarf Zoltan Chivay and his party of refugees in Temeria.

[00:05:31]Together, they run across the mysterious and absolutely awesome Emiel Regis, who knows a surprising amount of vampire lore for a non-witcher. Wow, I wonder why. Geralt also joins forces with a Nilfgaardian defector named Cahir, who was the guy who got Ciri out of Cintra originally and who now just wants to help find her. Geralt and Dandelion are separated from the group and captured by Temerians who initially are pretty okay with Geralt. Unfortunately, a Cintran loyalist shows up who's super annoyed that Geralt took Princess Ciri, so he tries to have Geralt executed, but then the obvious vampire Regis shows up to one-shot the camp so Geralt can escape.

[00:06:07]Back with the Lodge, Francesca shows up with Yennefer who Francesca has had frozen as a magical statue for the entire book, but who Francesca is now trying to convince to join the Lodge.

[00:06:16]The sorceresses then spend a freak ton of time lore dumping about Ciri's entire family tree, the short of which is what we already know, which is that Ciri is a magical child of prophecy, and that her far remote ancestors were the elf Lara and the human sorcerer Crach an Craite.

[00:06:31]We also learn that Yennefer has even more evil than previously thought because she and Francesca were running secret eugenics programs for hundreds of years using love potions on various noble families in order to force them to produce ideal offspring, and Triss is giving Yennefer the side eye this whole meeting as this info dump happens.

[00:06:47]Philippa, for her part, like seemingly everyone, has big plans for Ciri. In Philippa's case, she wants to induct Ciri into the Lodge and eventually marry her off to a northern king in order to secure a magical monarch with real power. Yen is not really into this and pieces out. Geralt, meanwhile, doesn't trust Regis, but everybody else is cool with the god-tier vampire helping them out. And the book ends with Geralt randomly getting knighted by Queen Meve after Geralt stumbles into a battle and kills some Nilfgaardians.

[00:07:15]Tower of Swallows is an interesting story explained in the most unhelpful way possible by Sapkowski, who tells the whole story out of order and from way too many different points of view. Maybe he's doing this because Ciri learns she can time travel in this book, and the messed up chronology could be thematic, but it's mostly just confusing.

[00:07:32]Sapkowski is also not very good at keeping track of his own chronology, which is compounded by the English translation listing the wrong age for Ciri, which makes everything worse. From my understanding, the story chronologically starts with Ciri who's still a murder hobo, but Ciri gets sick of being evil and decides to follow her destiny. Unfortunately, a bounty hunter named Bonhart shows up, kills Ciri's gang, and abducts Ciri, forcing her to fight in an arena. Yennefer is also in this one, going on a basically inconsequential side adventure where she wanders around the Skellige Islands for a bit, and then gets captured and tortured by Vilgefortz and Rience.

[00:08:05]Vilgefortz doesn't really want Ciri herself, but literally wants to cut out her placenta so he can birth the child of something called Ithlinne's prophecy in a laboratory setting. While Yen was in town, she received help from Yarol Croc an Crait, who in turn spilled the beans to Triss when she passed through looking for Yennefer. They both think Yennefer is dead and don't know that she's been captured by Vilgefortz. The most interesting part of these conversations with Croc is that we learn about how Ciri spent most of her childhood in the Skellige Isles, growing up with the islanders. Also, Croc and Yennefer used to date possibly. Back with Ciri, the bounty hunter takes her to Stephen Skellen, also known as Tawny Owl. Tawny Owl is Emhyr's guy in charge of finding the real Ciri, but he's done such a sucky job so far, he wasn't really worth mentioning until now.

[00:08:48]Rience is also there after torturing Yennefer and needles Ciri about it.

[00:08:52]Tawny Owl has a telepathic magician with him who tries to pry into Ciri's memories, but instead accidentally reawakens a sum of Ciri's magical powers, so Ciri gets the heck out of there. The fleeing Ciri is seriously injured and permanently scarred, but is saved by a scholar turned hermit named Visegard. As thanks for saving her, Ciri forces Visegard to listen to her entire life story. Geralt meanwhile, after getting knighted by Queen Meve for his bravery during what has been dubbed the Battle of the Bridge, shortly deserts the army with his ragtag team in order to hunt for some druids who are supposed to help find Ciri. Geralt and company cross the Yaruga River into Nilfgaardian territory, and shortly get roped into a side quest for a Nilfgaardian guy. On their journey, Geralt meets Avallac'h, the racist and anti-human Elven sage who lore dumps about Ethlin's prophecy and the time of the white cold, which will be the end of the world. He also rehashes the story of Lara, which everyone keeps bringing up, and claims that through prophecy, Avallac'h knows that Geralt will lose Ciri forever. But, Geralt thinks that that's hooey and ignores him. This book is also the first time we get the chance to visit the Duchy of Toussaint, a vassal state of Nilfgaard and the only good part of the Witcher universe where people still believe in honor. Geralt abandons his perception of himself as a Witcher because he's basically stopped being neutral with all the fighting he's been doing. Aside from these adventures, Geralt and company are not heard of for like the entire rest of the book, and Sapkowski seems to be making this the Ciri story with special guest star Geralt. Back with our heroine, Ciri recovers enough to brutally start killing Tanny Owl's men, but she leaves a few alive. Bonhart tries to recapture her, but he's told to leave this to the professionals when the ghostly interdimensional Wild Hunt Elf warrior show up. Ciri then unlocks god mode when she finds out she can teleport through space and time, which she does at the Tower of Swallows and meets an elf I assume is Avallac'h. There's also other side tangents in this story, like Dijkstra negotiating with Esterad, the King of Kovir, for financial assistance to Redania against the onslaught of the Nilfgaardians, or the head of Nilfgaardian intelligence Vattier getting seduced by a spy working for the sorceress Assire. But, these anecdotes are more to explain the geopolitics surrounding the main story, and they don't immediately impact our heroes. The Lady of the Lake is the longest book yet, and like the last one, features way too many different points from various points in the timeline while Ciri was teleporting around. But, the gist is this: Everybody wants to co-opt the future by forming a dynasty with Ciri and controlling her prophesized hypothetical offspring who will save the world. On the one hand, you have the Aen Elle in Tir na Lia, which are snooty elves who still live in the elf dimension and never came to the Witcher world, and they want Ciri's family tree to include their king. Although, this is not really the elf dimension, they just killed all of the the inhabitants. In another corner, you've also got Emperor Emhyr in Nilfgaard, who wants to marry Ciri and make his child the child of the prophecy. This was a big reason behind conquering Cintra in the first place, even though that doesn't really work out. Vilgefortz is also up to his own thing along the same lines, but he intends to make Ciri's baby in a laboratory. And finally, the women of the Lodge are also going to throw their hat in the ring, and they eventually want to set up Ciri with some royal as part of the Lodge's elaborate schemes.

[00:11:56]Ciri goes along with the elf plan for a bit, but after a falling out, she escapes with the help of the mystical unicorn from the earlier book, and Ciri goes on a journey through space and time all over the place as she tries to figure out how to get back to Geralt and Yennefer.

[00:12:09]As she travels, Ciri accidentally causes her universe's worst plague, called the Catriona, by bringing an infected bug between dimensions, which doesn't seem to matter at all to the wider story, but it is a fun detail. Ciri eventually gets back to the right point in the Witcher universe with the help of a lady called Nimue, who Ciri met earlier in Nimue's personal history, and then that gave Nimue time to figure everything out by the time Ciri swings back around because time travel. Geralt, meanwhile, hangs out in Toussaint for a bit and starts dating the sorceress Fringilla Vigo, while Dandelion gets together with Fringilla's cousin, Duchess Anna Henrietta.

[00:12:44]Fringilla is only dating Geralt to keep him from leaving Toussaint and going after Ciri because the Lodge wants her for themselves, but Fringilla falls for Geralt and decides to be kind of helpful, giving him information and a new medallion for detecting monsters. In the wider world of international politics, all the northern kingdoms team up to push back Nilfgaard, but the Lodge convinces Triss not to help in the battle, which makes her feel very guilty. Ciri arrives at Vilgefortz's base to rescue Yennefer, but gets immediately captured, too. I feel like I should mention at this point that although Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri see each other as a family, I feel like there's not really much reason for that.

[00:13:19]Like it makes some sense that Ciri would see Geralt as her foster father because he was the one who invoked the law of surprise and tied their destiny together. So, even though he didn't spend much time with her, there's a pre-existing connection. But, Yennefer is literally just some lady. Her Djinn wish connection to Geralt notwithstanding. And I don't know why Ciri sees Yennefer as her mom. They spend barely any time together in the larger narrative of the story. Next, Geralt and friends go to kick Vilgefortz's butt. And they're a lot more successful. But, Vilgefortz wipes their entire party, leaving just Geralt.

[00:13:50]But, lucky for Dandelion, he stayed in Toussaint. Geralt decapitates Vilgefortz and Ciri kills Bonhart. Bonhart had previously killed some witchers and kept their medallions as trophies. So, Ciri distributes them between her and Geralt, so he can have a proper wolf medallion again. Everything looks like it's going to work out. But, then Emhyr's soldiers show up. Emhyr drops the big reveal that he's actually been Duny in disguise this whole time. And quite unfortunately, he has to kill Geralt and Yennefer to make his plans work out. But, Duny has a change of heart. I hope, because he realized his plan was very bad for the genetics of his future child. And Duny decides to let them all go. And instead, it implies he is going to form an alliance with fake Ciri instead. Yen, Geralt, and Ciri go on a little crusade for Ciri to get back at the people who wronged her during her adventures. And then Geralt separates and visits Rivia, reconnecting with old friends like Yarpen and Zoltan. Unfortunately, while there, a riot breaks out and dwarves are being killed, causing Geralt to jump into action with Triss and Yen showing up and lending support. But, Geralt sustains a mortal wound from a pitchfork, which kid Ciri once prophesied would happen. However, I Day Machina, the magical and Ciri take Geralt and Yennefer to what I guess is like the Witcher heaven dimension. And so, Geralt recovers. My overall impression from these books is that Sapkowski is kind of a wet blanket.

[00:15:06]Every story he writes is ingrained with this deep-seated pessimism, which he seems to mistake for realism, which I don't think is an overreading of his work, because he has his characters like the dreamer Tilly essentially break the fourth wall and talk about the difference between aspirational stories and realistic ones. But, I don't really think the Witcher stories are actually realistic to how human beings are. To take just one example, I find it really interesting that someone like Sapkowski, who never fought in a war and heard everything second-hand from his war veteran father, would grow up to write these brutal stories featuring soldiers who are overwhelmingly these deeply vicious people who constantly abuse others. And then someone like J.R.R.

[00:15:43]Tolkien, who actually was a soldier, came back and wrote stories of the heroic deeds of men who, despite their flaws, are largely fighting out of genuine altruism. Ultimately, my impression of the Witcher novels, though I know this will disappoint some people, is that the games are simply a lot better than the books because they're not quite as misanthropic, even though they also take place in a very morally bankrupt universe. Also, Triss is just better than Yennefer, even though I know Sapkowski hates that ship with every fiber of his being.

[00:16:12]Sorry, I kind of flamed the entire series at the end there. Let me know if you want me to do another video on the games and I might get to that at some point. And thanks for watching.