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WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Witcher Season 2 and Nightmare of the Wolf. Both are available for streaming on Netflix.
Between the widely successful premiere of The Witcher Season 1 and the delayed release of Season 2, fans were treated to an anime tie-in film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. The anime offered audiences and newcomers to the franchise a little history behind the School of the Wolf and the mountain fortress they are about to see brought to life. Season 2 makes more than a few references to the tie-in, some of which are more subtle than others. They’re all important, however, as they each say a lot about the people residing in Kaer Morhen, as well as the fallen fortress itself.
The references begin when Ciri and Geralt arrive at Kaer Morhen and the Cintran princess begins to ask more about the witcher profession and their current sorry state. When they are well within Kaer Morhen’s broken walls, Geralt explains that there are less than 20 witchers left wintering at the fortress, which makes sense following the events of Nightmare of the Wolf.
Directed by Kwang Il Han, Nightmare of the Wolf is set long before the events of Netflix’s main series and follows Vesemir from his childhood to his initiation into the witcher guild. But more than introducing Geralt’s mentor in his prime, it showcased the reputation that witchers had acquired over the decades and how their relationship with the Kaedwen and the rest of the Northern Kingdom had grown increasingly tense, until the Kaedweni king and nobility were persuaded to launch an assault on the witcher fortress. As a result of the attack, the mutagens and knowledge of the Trial of the Grasses were lost and the once powerful School of the Wolf was left virtually annihilated.
During one of Geralt’s talks with Vesemir in Season 2, the de facto witcher grandmaster reminds the White Wolf of those ancient events, warning him not to get embroiled in the political conflicts surrounding Ciri. “Remember what happened the last time witchers shoved their noses into the dramas of courts and kingdoms,” Vesemir tells him.
This is likely a reference to the fateful bar fight that took place in Nightmare of the Wolf, during which two knights were killed and Vesemir was forced to rid the forest of Kaedwen of what was thought to be a monster. The monster, Kitsu, was far more than it seemed to be and resulted in the revelation that Vesemir’s masters were in the midst of flooding the Continent with new monsters in order to survive as witchers. The truth came out and the sorceress Tetra Gilcrest was ordered to destroy the witcher keep. The resulting chaos from those knights’ deaths and the intrigues of Kaedweni court clearly left a lasting impression on Vesemir and he won’t allow his fellow witchers to forget it.
Season 2 of The Witcher shows that several artifacts from Vesemir’s time survived the destruction of Kaer Morhen. Ciri sees several as she wanders through the halls of the fortress, and when Vesemir finds her, he explains some of these items to her, one of them being the armor of his old mentor, Deglan. Although it may not bear much of a resemblance to the anime armor.
For those who might have Nightmare of the Wolf fresh in their memories, it might seem strange for Vesemir to have kept his mentor’s old armor. After all, it was Deglan — alongside the mage Reidrich — who created the hybrid monsters and helped instigate the collapse of the School of the Wolf. It was Deglan who lured Vesemir in as a young boy and traumatized him through merciless training and the Trial of the Grasses. Of course, even with all of that, the life of a witcher had a lot to offer Vesemir — power, travel, gold and a sense of family. Even if his only father figure could seem heartless.
It’s possible the armor serves as a reminder of what Kaer Morhen was and what Vesemir was shaping it to be — a stronger, tightly knit family. Of course, that may make one of his major choices in Season 2 of The Witcher — involving Ciri and the future of the witchers — seem that much stranger if that is the case. It says a lot about Vesemir’s views on the profession that he would, on some level, want it to continue, given the chance. Keep in mind that the world is no longer filled with as many monsters. This is more about family.
The Witcher Season 2 drops several more connections to The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. Some of the most difficult to miss are certain points of interest throughout the fortress itself. There’s the medallion tree, which holds the medallions of fallen witcher, and the colossal skeleton in the courtyard of the keep. Without having seen the anime series, it might be difficult for viewers to determine what vanquished creature that could have been. It was likely the monstrous griffin from the climactic battle in the anime tie-in. Vesemir himself was snatched up into the sky by the beast and forced to slay it in mid-air. Its body crashed back down into Kaer Morhen and, evidently, was never removed from the grounds.
It could be the case that there just were not enough hands left at the fortress to remove the carcass. It could also be that Vesemir left the beast their intentionally as a stark reminder of what happened at Kaer Morhen and what young witchers like Geralt, Eskel, Lambert and Coën face when they travel the Path across the Continent — the jaws of death.
See exactly how Nightmare of the Wolf ties into The Witcher with Season 2, now available for streaming on Netflix.
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