“Four Marks” | Around The Table: The Lore, Culture, and History Behind The Witcher
The world of Andrzej Sapkowski and Netflix’s The Witcher draws inspiration from real life history, folklore, and culture.
Join Alyssa from GoodMorhen, the host and producer of Breakfast in Beauclair, and Witcher content creators Anita and Karolina of Witcher Kitchen, Brett from Whispers of Oxenfurt, Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye, Cyprian from Berlin, and Lars from Witcherflix in this episode as they share facts and tidbits about similarities between The Tower of the Gull at Aretuza and the Paris Catacombs, the Law of Equivalent Exchange, parallels to Greek and Roman mythology, differences between the adaptation and the original source material, and details from author Andrzej Sapkowski about the backgrounds of his characters and the development of the world.
Transcript
ALYSSA: What inspired author Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantastical characters on The Continent, such as the elves and sylvan? Where can you find a real-world equivalent of a film set from this episode? Welcome to Breakfast in Beauclair’s “Around The Table,” a segment where we go around the Beauclair breakfast table with other Witcher content creators sharing facts and tidbits about the production and real life history, folklore, and culture behind an episode of Netflix’s The Witcher. This week we’re diving into Episode 102, “Four Marks”.
ANITA: Hello, it’s Anita from Witcher Kitchen. Do you sometimes want to know more details about the selected hero? Well, Sapkowski intentionally left gaps in his works. In the interview in Historia i Fantastyka, Sapkowski stated that he doesn’t have a diary hidden somewhere in a drawer, in which he wrote down the characteristics of the characters and their biography from beginning to an end. Or such details as maps, history, and religion. As he says, if something about a character is not stated in the book, it should be so. However, he added that if someone wants to convert a book into an RPG, he’s free to give each character special features, like hair, eye color, or whatever he wants. Such a statement leaves the open path and wide possibilities for the creators of the series to answer the unsaid things about the characters. And this new information in the light of Sapkowski's words doesn’t have to be considered bad at all. Thanks to this approach, we can even discover a deeper, more detailed story of Yennefer's fate than in the books. For example, where we get the episode about her story before meeting Geralt. This way, Netflix series can fill the gaps with new puzzles, but the ones fitting into the already set frames, so the audience can better understand the particular characters from the books.
CYPRIAN: Hey! This is Cyprian from Berlin. Have you wanted to visit the Tower of the Gull? Well, I might have something aesthetically similar for you in our world. Well, not a “tower”—arguably, the opposite thereof. The Paris Catacombs are not fit for the faint-hearted. These former quarries underneath Paris are filled with orderly arranged human remains, tunnel systems to get lost in, and creepy tales of occult meetings and missing people, and have some strikingly similar, let’s say… interior design choices to the place where Yen meets Istredd for the first time.
CHARLOTTE: Hi everybody, this is Charlotte from Vengerberg Glamarye. One of the real world, traditional laws of magical practice, the Law of Equivalent Exchange, is referenced heavily in this episode and throughout the books. The Law of Equivalent Exchange seems pretty simple, but it can be very complex and pretty dangerous. Everything has a price. Magic conserves a given level of value and a given effect must be paid for with something of at least equal worth. Part of the fun of magic, where this applies, is making absolutely sure you understand what you are paying before you seal the deal. This is why Fringilla’s hand shrivels up because she did not focus on what she must exchange. This is why Tissaia says, “Sometimes a flower is just a flower and the best thing it can do for us is die.” This is why all sorceresses are made sterile. For power, you pay a great price. The sorceresses of the Witcher world are trained to follow the Law of Equivalent Exchange.
LARS: Hey! It’s Lars from Witcherflix. Geralt and Jaskier are meeting Torque the sylvan in this episode. Did you know that this creature is based on fauns and satyrs of Greek and Roman mythology? There, they are spirits of the forest and appear alongside the god Dionysus, or Bacchus in Roman mythology respectively. He is the god of wine, harvest, and festivities... or, as you could say: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Satyrs are also depicted as goat-like. By the way, the sylvan from the Witcher world, could have gained his name from the Latin word for forest, which is silva.
KAROLINA: Hey! Here is Karolina from Witcher Kitchen. The Witcher world is diverse not only in monster species, but also in the races inhabiting The Continent and the languages used by individual characters, as benefit every fantasy world. Topic of the elves was also introduced for the needs of the Witcher stories, but also at the same time it was a Sapkowski tribute to Tolkien and his work with the language of the elves. What connects the Witcher elves with those from Middle-earth? First, female names, which usually end in "iel". The second thing is the language itself—Sapkowski used the database prepared by Tolkien and then added to this a mix of real languages, which are ear-friendly for Polish speakers like Latin, Italian, French, and English. Sapkowski also spiced up the elven language with Celtic additions, as according to him, it composes well with the elves.
BRETT: Hey, this is Brett from Whispers of Oxenfurt. It might have been a creative decision, but the ending of this episode is very different from the source material. In the story “The Edge of the World”, Geralt comes across a peasant girl named Lille, an aide of sorts to an old woman of the village. Later, when Geralt is about to be executed by Filavandrel, Lille returns, but in this time in her true form as a literal floating goddess: Dana, the Queen of the Fields, who orders the elves to release the captives. Maybe this is a way of secularizing the story, as I have always wondered the implications of having a legit existing goddess present in the world.
ALYSSA: Thanks for sharing breakfast with us in this installment of “Around The Table.” The Witcher Universe has so much to uncover! Let us know in the comments below what you found interesting from today’s segment and if you have something new to share with our hanza about this episode. We’ll see you after the next episode of Breakfast in Beauclair.