I guess… what I’m really asking you is… is this what pleases you?
There’s a lot to love in season two of Netflix’s The Witcher, but many admirers of the fan favorite bard Jaskier are left, well, wanting. Our central protagonist, the Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia, opens up a good amount from the grunty hmm-er we met in season one—with a notable, confusing, and canonically heartbreaking exception.
In season one, their dynamic seems to be built on a mutual “this man is a disaster. I should protect him.” It’s notably one of the longest relationships we see Geralt maintain, and unquestionably the closest, though the show chooses to leave a lot of the basis of it offscreen. Jaskier is wrapped up in Geralt’s destiny, though he’s certainly not to blame for it—Geralt finds his way to both Ciri and Yennefer, through his own choices, but also undeniably because of Jaskier. Yet unlike the women Geralt’s bound to, the bond between Geralt and Jaskier is a choice, one that both of them make over and over for decades. The intricacy of their specific intimacy is founded on suggestions and quieter, smaller moments than most of the rest of the show, and in this way, Jaskier ends up being an emotional core of the show, and certainly for Geralt.
Jaskier, unlike almost everyone else in Geralt’s life, is interested in Geralt before he even realizes Geralt’s a witcher. While they wind up making each other famous, their relationship begins with Jaskier’s simple, blatant interest in the big man who looks like he could snap Jaskier in half. When he does find out Geralt’s a witcher, he doesn’t spend a single moment afraid of him.
The idea that they’re simply close friends doesn’t hold up, because they’re notably not—we see Geralt with Nivellen, with Mousesack, with Nenneke, with his brothers. He’s kind, playful, verbose, and understanding. But with Jaskier, there’s layers of emotion, pent-up and frustrated, shifting into a greater distance specifically when Yennefer comes into their lives, which she notably does because of Jaskier. The way he treats Jaskier is different, there’s something specific there. One could argue he just finds Jaskier annoying, but there are too many moments of tenderness, in twenty years of choosing to let Jaskier remain in his life, for that to be at all convincing.
Meanwhile, Jaskier’s feelings are frankly an essay of their own. They manifest in every look he gives Geralt. In the flirty head-tilt he gives him at their meet-cute, when he leaves behind his lute to go talk to the big, scary man in the corner before he ever knows he might get some stories out of him. In the way he never once doubts Geralt’s goodness, even after Geralt punches him in the gut. In how quick he is to defend Geralt from anti-witcher sentiment like no one ever has, how he makes a life’s mission out of it. In your lovely bottom and later bloated biceps. In the buttercup-printed doublet he puts Geralt in after the bathing they’ve so clearly shared before. In maybe someone, somewhere will want you, and, most intensely in the first season, we could get away for a while. Head to the coast. And when Geralt gives him the out of composing a new song? Jaskier doesn’t take it, looking at Geralt more seriously than he ever has, with his lip trembling and his jaw working, and says, no. Just trying to work out what pleases me, in a way that can only mean it’s you.
While season one may leave some room for interpretation, where we meet Jaskier in the second season makes it disingenuous to argue his feelings are ambiguous. He is canonically heartbroken over Geralt blaming him for everything that went wrong in his life and abandoning him in Caingorn. This could have been minimized—Jaskier could have been annoyed but over it—but instead, he takes his heartbreak seriously. Joey Batey delivers a masterful, nuanced performance yet again, and it is clear Jaskier’s heartbreak is his strongest defining characteristic in the second season. Jaskier could not be less over it, especially as it’s clear he’s been trying so hard to be.
Jaskier’s season two blatant break-up anthem evidences just how thoroughly Geralt’s rejection has wrecked him. Did you ever even care? he asks. After everything we did, we saw, you turned your back on me. It leaves no ambiguity as to whether this is solely about Geralt pushing him away the following morning. The crux of the song lies in Geralt’s rebuff of Jaskier’s mountaintop proposal, even Jaskier’s question in the bath many years ago. What for do you yearn? he wails and snarls, his voice breaking. It’s openly demonstrative, not least because he can’t even get through it without doing exactly what his song indicates he’s trying so hard not to do—getting lost in the very memories he shared with Geralt that he’s trying to “burn.” And ouch, the irony! It’s only a short while later that he endures hours of torture, of getting burned himself, to try and protect Geralt. For all his bluster, for all his I hear you’re alive—how disappointing, his burn, butcher, burn! and watch me burn all the memories of you, Jaskier suffered and would have died to protect Geralt and Ciri. When Yennefer rescues him, it’s one of the first things he says—you’ve got to warn him.
Even the reception of the song itself feels like a minimization of Jaskier’s feelings. Both within the story and how it was treated by the show, “Burn Butcher Burn” was never positioned to be a viral hit like “Toss a Coin,” a song that only celebrates Geralt instead of challenging him. Jaskier’s use of “butcher” is so specific and so vulnerable—it feels like the word that might hurt Geralt the most, like it’s Jaskier’s only line of defense against what happened on the mountain, and it emphasizes the depths to which Geralt hurt him. The entire song marks such a clear shift in Jaskier’s character. It’s a devastating evocation of Jaskier’s pain, and it hardly feels like the show takes it seriously. Geralt never even has to hear it.
The parallel of Jaskier’s season one introduction versus his season two is clear and jarring. Gone is the light-hearted, carefree flirt; he still goes through the motions but he’s distracted. Crucially, he has everything it seems like he wanted in the first season: He’s functionally the Continent’s hottest bard. He’s got fame, fans, probably fortune, and even a greater purpose, as The Sandpiper. And yet he can’t even get through the song without losing himself in the memories he can’t burn. He says it himself, to Yennefer: it did come from the heart. Perhaps even a broken one.
His dynamic with Yennefer is one of the strongest this season. Part of it is the actors’ easy chemistry and charisma, and the rich character dynamic that actually develops based on where both of them are on their emotional arcs. While this season demonstrates they have more in common than Geralt—their sense of survival, their inherent compassion—their entire rivalry is founded on him. Their banter, the way they compete for his attention and his affection. Indeed, the moment Yennefer meets Geralt and Jaskier, she clocks Jaskier as a romantic threat: just friends, I hope? The tension between them builds until Geralt shoves both of them away, in parallel, and then diffuses in their season two reunion, as they bond over their shared ex. We’re better off without him, Jaskier tells her, as he’s clearly been trying to tell himself, and neither of them believe it.
So his eventual reunion with Geralt, seven episodes into an eight episode season, stings. We know Jaskier’s been nursing a broken heart, and we know that for some reason Geralt doesn’t seem to spare him a thought until Yennefer brings up that he’d “gotten into some trouble,” which doesn’t really tell us if Geralt even knows Jaskier’s been tortured for him. It’s odd, because the entire time, it’s not clear if Geralt’s meant to be wrapped up in what’s happening with Ciri or if the show simply thinks it’s not worth dwelling on Geralt’s thoughts on Jaskier—yet Jaskier’s storyline, even though he spends most of it apart from Geralt, is centered on Geralt, because his heartbreak defines his character this season.
It’s so painful that that hug comes before the apology, even before Geralt says we need your help or I need you, even before I missed you! Jaskier clearly has his lecture ready to go! “You abandoned me on a mountain!” he says, “Don’t fucking Jaskier me, I’m talking to you, this is how it works.” He’s clearly not stopped thinking about that moment since it happened, he’s told himself and Yennefer they’re better off without him, he’s spent months and months singing did you ever even care? and watch me burn all the memories of you and burn, butcher, burn! and yet! And yet! It takes nothing on Geralt’s behalf for Jaskier to step into his arms! All he does is appear and Jaskier doesn’t even care, the lecture can wait, he keeps his eyes open in that hug because he knows Geralt’s about to disappoint him again and he does but “fuck it!” Fuck it, he says, because he can’t help it. I welcome my sentence / give to you my penance / garrotter, jury, and judge. He knows he deserves better at this point. Yet when the moment arrives, he finds he’ll take that hurt and that disappointment over and over if it means he gets to be part of Geralt’s story again, and all Geralt has to do, seemingly, is let it happen. If I had to do it over, I’d do it all again…
Also, the entire season we see him notably drinking. When he meets Yennefer, I’m not having this conversation unless we’re drinking, and then he’s clutching a wineskin and hungover for the last episode. Jaskier never drank this heavily in season one—indeed, the only time we saw him drink like this is when he’s been left by the Countess de Stael, and goes to find Geralt on a riverbank. When, in his words, he fears he will die a broken-hearted man. It feels like such a deliberate parallel—why would he be drinking so much again now? He’s heartbroken again.
I’m not particularly interested in participating in the argument as to whether or not this reads as deliberately, intentionally queer within the first two seasons. I’m very aware how I’m intended to take it. It’s the default. And I also know what I’m seeing. How I’m to take “and sooner or later they will come for everyone. Anyone that they deem ‘the other,’ so… sooner or later no artist is safe,” when we’ve never once seen artists as a marginalized identity in The Witcher, Jaskier’s a very popular bard and a viscount, and all we have seen of Jaskier at that point in the season are his feelings for Geralt. Or lines like “left quite the sour taste in your mouth.” Or the moment Jaskier sees Geralt for the first time since the mountain and speaks his name like it’s the most precious, ruinous thing he’s ever experienced. Jaskier’s storyline is queer to many queer viewers. For me, the point is, no matter how you see the shape of these feelings, the fact is that Jaskier has unrequited feelings for Geralt. He’s remade by them, wrecked by Geralt’s actions at the beginning of the season, and when we leave him he’s only more so, with the show allowing a newly communicative Geralt to demonstrate absolutely zero interest in acknowledging Jaskier’s feelings specifically.
Ultimately, season two fails to deliver on the season one promise and premise that Geralt cares about Jaskier, which complicates our understanding of Geralt’s growth. In both seasons, most people see Geralt as an arbiter of destiny, a means to an end, or a monster. Jaskier, meanwhile, notably keeps asking Geralt what he wants. He’s preoccupied by it. You must want something for yourself, when all this witchering is over, he says, before Destiny even comes into their story. What’s going on, Geralt? Talk to me, he says before the djinn attack. We could get away for a while, he offers, before Geralt breaks his heart on a mountaintop. It’s at the heart of his most iconic song this season: what for do you yearn? And each time, Geralt deflects. When it comes up this season, in such a perfect, verbatim callback to the last thing he asked Geralt, I guess what I’m asking is… is this what pleases you? Geralt still deflects. He says that he thought ignoring Ciri would make everything better, but it hasn’t. He once again addresses what he has to do, what he believes he’s destined for—which is not, in fact, what Jaskier asked.
It would make sense if, at last, after everything that’s happened since they parted ways, after all the growth Geralt’s meant to have gone through, Geralt answered him. At the very least, if Geralt and the show acknowledged what, exactly, Jaskier is asking. Yet Geralt seems to have no idea anything is wrong with Jaskier. He brushes Jaskier off when Jaskier tries to talk to him about it in the prison cell, and seems to take Jaskier’s deflection of his apology as sufficient. If life could give me one blessing it would be to take you off my hands was brutal, and such a specific cruelty to the one person who’s been trying for years to ask Geralt what he actually wants out of life. The witcher who’s meant to be more thoughtful, more communicative now, should know better than to imagine a simple apology that doesn’t get anywhere close to accountability is, well, putting salve on a tumor.
And for his part, when Jaskier realizes he’s still not going to get Geralt to speak openly about what happened on the mountain, he deflects with humor to protect himself. He’s even told the audience he deflects his heartbreak with humor: “watch me laugh as I burn all the memories of you,” he says, while visibly falling apart. Oh Jaskier, I’m so sad and complicated, he teases, and you can see it in the set of his jaw, how close he comes to confronting how Geralt’s never acknowledged what Jaskier confessed pleases him. How he can tell Geralt just wants to go back to normal, how he’ll give him that because after being without him, fuck it, he’ll take shut up, Jaskier over losing him again in a heartbeat, even if it means settling for the dynamic he’s so clearly promised himself he wouldn’t go back to.
There is a queer reading here—there is a queer reading in every Jaskier scene of the series, but it’s painfully potent and blatant in this moment. He can’t answer that question, the one only Jaskier asks, because it doesn’t matter what Geralt wants, perhaps. He’s never been able to confront to himself why his relationship with Jaskier is different, why he still can’t call Jaskier a friend. What matters is his duty to the woman and the child for whom he’s always been destined.
No matter how you read their dynamic, though, where is the Geralt who snarled “Leave off! He’s just a bard. And you can let him go,” when he himself had just hit Jaskier in the gut? Where is the Geralt who told an incredibly powerful sorceress “Fix him and I’ll pay you, whatever the cost”? Where is the Geralt who lets Jaskier dress him up in a buttercup doublet and bring him to a party, who stopped correcting some insufferable nobles about manticores because Jaskier pouted at him? Where is the Geralt who’s immediately ready to protect Jaskier against a hirikka—because this season’s Geralt doesn’t appear to spare a glance for him in a final battle up against monsters who easily slaughter far more equipped men. Jaskier gets tortured this season because of Geralt, and Geralt doesn’t even so much as ask him about it. It’s emotionally incongruent.
The thing is, his season two relationship with Jaskier is inherently such a missed opportunity to demonstrate Geralt’s character growth. Geralt’s dynamic with Jaskier is such an interesting, unique part of his character, and it feels oddly truncated here. We could’ve seen regret, accountability, atonement. We could’ve seen him earning back Jaskier’s trust. When he’s being tortured, Jaskier screams “Geralt does not have friends, and he does not have weaknesses!” This could have set up Geralt refuting exactly that—because clearly, as we saw this season, he’s capable of having both.
Frankly, it feels like the only reason it’s not explored more is for passable deniability of Jaskier’s feelings.
Especially in season two, when we find out how Jaskier’s been helping the elves as the Sandpiper, which is a storyline I adore, though I’m afraid of where it might be going. I don’t love The Witcher’s overall fantasy racism plots, but I do love Jaskier’s role in this season. While everyone else is embroiled in magic and politics, Jaskier is on the ground, helping the people who need it. He does this single-handedly and the moment he recognizes it’s necessary. Not for fame, not for power, notably not because of destiny. He does it because it’s the right thing to do. This is real growth, because the first time we met Jaskier, he believed the propaganda he’d learned about the elves. One of the first moments we get real depth to his character is when he finds out through Filavandrel that he’s been lied to. It’s a packed scene, but Joey Batey’s acting in that single moment is so special—you can see something in Jaskier shift. And now, we find where that shift has led him. He’s a humble bard, he’s not going to influence politics or fight in the war. He sees those who are suffering the most in the machinations of larger forces, and he risks his life over and over, to help however he can. Jaskier has become, in fact, the exact sort of protector of the common people that a young Geralt himself once fantasized about becoming.
What would I have given for Geralt to ask Jaskier what he’s been doing since Geralt abandoned him, for Geralt to react to Jaskier’s role as the Sandpiper. It would have made sense—he’s talking to everyone else now, right? Even Nivellen, even Istredd. Geralt would have to see Jaskier differently, gain a deeper understanding of the bard he dismissed and continues to take for granted. To see who Jaskier’s become without him, perhaps to admire that Jaskier defaults to helping people, even though nothing binds him to it but his own sense of justice. It makes Geralt seem selfish. It seems like he doesn’t care, and when we see him capable of care for everyone else this season, even a girl he spent roughly twelve years ignoring, it stands out as strangely cruel. Is it guilt, or is it just new ambivalence?
In a season that’s concerned with Big World Destroying Destiny, Jaskier is so crucially focused on caring for those who need it most, those in immediate risk. That used to be not far off from Geralt’s role—protecting small towns and individual farmers from the monsters that plagued them. There’s so much rich potential for their dynamic to develop this season! It simply fell by the wayside, and Jaskier suffered for it, alone. He entered the season with deep scars, to not only have those same scars ripped open to bleed anew, but gain fresh ones as well. Jaskier is such a selfless protector this season, not only with the elves, but instinctively, with Yennefer. Even while she’s saving his life, he’s trying to protect her. Not because he’s “destined for it.” It comes naturally, and it has since he saw a witcher in a tavern with a blood-soaked story and decided to single-handedly and successfully change it forever.
There’s room for Jaskier to bring thoughtfulness, humor, and brightness within the rest of the central cast too. The show keeps suggesting Geralt teaches Ciri to be a witcher, Yennefer teaches her magic, and they’ll both teach her to be human… yet neither of them have been human for a very long time? He’s so notably that energy in their lives. It would have been wonderful to watch the two of them interact.
In a show ostensibly about found family, why is Jaskier the one who so openly wants it only to end the season alone again? It feels like he’s being narratively punished for his feelings, because they’re his guiding force this season. He’s as vulnerable as an open wound and it never gets tending—his storyline is hurt without the comfort, heartbreak with no catharsis, and it’s so primed for comfort, it’s jarring. If anything, we had a central villain who preyed on pain this season and she didn’t even seem to consider Jaskier’s, though it’s as blatant as anyone else’s.
I have hope that some of this gets addressed, that they’re setting it up for confrontation and catharsis in season three, but it’s still unfair or at least unpleasant to end this season where it does emotionally for Jaskier, to make him and his fans wait so long yet again.
Yet I worry that the audience, like Jaskier, is meant to be contented by Geralt’s “I am sorry, Jaskier”—even though Jaskier clearly isn’t, so I’m not either. (Sidenote: without even looking him in the eye? Honestly, couldn’t Geralt have bartered two horses? Also Jaskier would have definitely asked about Roach.) Anyway, I also worry that there’s the possibility of Dijkstra enticing Jaskier to turn on the very people he loves, and the bright, compassionate, selfless light of Jaskier’s character would turn dark and cruel. Hard to blame him, after the way Geralt’s treated him—but it wouldn’t behoove the show to darken one of its few elements of heart and humor, at least not without confronting exactly why Jaskier feels so betrayed and abandoned yet again.
I’m hoping part of Geralt’s arc will be reckoning with the way he’s treated the very first person who saw him as the hero he could be. At the very, very least I hope Geralt has to hear “Burn, Butcher, Burn” and take some genuine accountability.
Because I can’t stand the thought that for the second season in a row, Geralt is still oblivious while that beloved bard makes his way down a mountain, broken-hearted and alone.
Maya Gittelman is a queer Fil-Am and Jewish writer and poet. They have a short story forthcoming in the YA anthology Night of the Living Queers (Wednesday Books, 2023). She works in independent publishing, and is currently at work on a novel. Find them on Twitter (@mayagittelman) or Instagram (@bookshelfbymaya).
I was jumping up and down this entire article going YES! EXACTLY! Thanks for putting it all into words so beautifully.
This is the most beautifully written articles I’ve read in years. Your accurate description of their interactions and Jaskier’s surrender to the changes Geralt wrought on his life brought me to tears like I was watching the show all over again. This was so passionately and thoughtfully worded. Truly masterful.
Literally exactly this. It’s so emotionally unsatisfying it’s impossible for me to rewatch. One of my friends has said they think they’re winding it up to be resolved in season three, but to me that’s bad writing, if you can’t resolve a season 1 conflict until season 3, and butcher (no pun intended) the characters and their relationship because of that. It’s just dissatisfying, and disappointing, and honestly I expected more. You wrote this incredibly well, thank you for saying it. I feel seen.
I think it only fair to point out that (A) Geralt has probably never heard Dandelion’s Big Break-Up Song and (B) It’s not impossible that while the Witcher feels something for the Bard, theres’s no guarantee he feels exactly the same towards the Song-smith (being a very different person with a highly distinct personal history) and it’s at least a little unfair to suggest that he should.
Having said that, YES, we need a bit more Geralt-Jaskier bromance in Season 3, if only so we can enjoy the sight of Princess Cirilla & Geralt reacting to our favourite sorceress & our favour bard giving each other life advice & the evil eye by turns.
“favourite bard” dagnabit!
To me the bard was the worst thing about The Witcher. Just plain annoying.
Stunned by this article. I love bards. I love Jaskier. I hope he gets the reconciliation he deserves in season 3. Thanks for this wonderful essay!
Yes, yes! I love everything about this article.
From how Jaskier’s storyline can be read as queer by a queer viewer (guilty), to how Jaskier keeps asking Geralt what he wants, when the Witcher’s life is so entrenched with Destiny (one of my favorite aspects of their dynamic), to how little the writing seems to take his feelings and his actions seriously (like he’s given depth and pathos, but ultimately we are to be constantly reminded that he is the comic relief, the sidekick, the plot device).
(Quick sidenote: “putting salve on a tumor”, I love that reference)
Ok. I resisted a few days before reading this because I thought “it can’t be THAT good”. God was I wrong.
I had to stop reading to stare at the ceiling clutching my chest almost 5 times.
Everything makes so much sense, and it’s so beautifully written, with so much love, that it makes it even more heartbreaking to read.
It’s such a shame that the showrunners and writers seem to not like Jaskier? It feels to me that that is the only reason why they misplace him, ignore him and torture him with no resolution.
It even makes you dislike Geralt in turn, and it doesnt make sense. They actively tried to make Geralt more relatable, empathetic and emotional than in the previous season, and honestly I think they went backwards.
What wouldn’t anyone give for a friend like Jaskier.
Your post was beautifully written, but . . . authors, movie-makers and TV show writers love to put characters together who constantly misunderstand, undervalue, and ignore each other, even while they ought to “be together.” Apparently, the suspense is considered more effective. Anyway, I’m sorry (not sorry) to say that instead of sympathizing, all I could think was what do you think the rest of us have been suffering through for years?
I think they’re failing to acknowledge that you can have main relationships without making the others smaller. This doesn’t only happen to Geralt’s relationship with Jaskier, but also to his relationship with his own family in the last episode, when his brothers are dying and his home is being destroyed and he never even looks around. I know he is trained to never lose focus on what he is fighting, etc., but it was important for us to see he cared and that what was happening was affecting him too. The way they did it, it’s like he barely cares 2/3 of his family died when Voleth Meir is gone.
YES!!!! Jaskier literally deserves so much.
Did he ever have his hands healed on screen? Yennefer knows he was tortured, but she didn’t have magic/chaos to heal him.
Jaskier is left luteless and hurt. His very identity being stripped away from him in his pursuit for following Geralt.
I really wish we had more Jaskier and Ciri content as well. Like the travel across the continent together basically, from Cintra to Kaer Morhen, but we didn’t even get to see them talk.
Geralt is so frustrating to me because of his blatant mistreatment of Jaskier. He calls Mousesack and Nivellin a friend, but the man who has been following him for 30+ years and singing praises about him has yet to be called a friend onscreen!
Jaskier is just ignored time and time again; and he and Yennefer had more chemistry than Geralt and Yennefer this season. Like cmon Netflix!!! If you can’t write the main canon pairing (Geralt and Yennefer) right, then just get rid of the romance altogether. Or at least have Jaskier admit his feelings because Melitele’s tits the dynamics in this season are frustrating.
It’s the way Jaskier deflects Geralt’s apology with humor; and though his voice seems light, it’s clear from his facial expression that he’s faking it and he’s bitter.
Jaskier deserves so much more and Joey Batey is soooo good!!! He is my driving force for watching this season.
I agree! I think that Geralt and Jaskier’s relationship makes very little sense in season 2! They set up the end of season 1 with their mountain argument for a grand resolution, but their actual reunion was brushed aside and played for comedic affect.
No matter how you read it Geralt seems heartless, which is not the kind of character growth you want to see in your MC! He is similarly stunted in his interactions with Yennefer, where he takes very little time to reflect on their past conflict and instead jumps back into either loving her or hating her! Can we see Geralt genuinely reflect and apologize for his actions once please! He has made a lot of mistakes, and it worries me that the show does not have him acknowledge that.
This beautifully expresses so much of what I’ve been thinking and feeling about season 2.
I feel like, for a lot of people, Jaskier is a character we can actually relate to. Most of us don’t have Great and Terrible Destinies or Immense Chaotic Power or an Entire Nation Counting on Us. We’re just regular people, trying our best. Even the writers obviously project onto the bard (what else could that scene on the docks be if not a bit of vindictive writer-wish-fulfillment? “It’s a bit complicated. And it took me until the fourth verse to understand there were different timelines…” It’s not an overly subtle moment.). If the very people writing the story relate to him, it’s inevitable that the audience will be inclined to do the same.
And so you have this character who is seemingly the most relatable, the most empathetic (Joey Batey himself has said that “Jaskier’s superpower is empathy“) AND who’s one of the only bright spots in a story jam-packed with angst and grime. But somehow the creators of the show seem consistently mystified by the audience’s desire for good things to happen to him?
Jaskier is a character we root for because we see ourselves in him, and because it feels like, if we met him, he would root for us in return. We want to believe that a person isn’t powerless because they’re ordinary, that our own sacrifices and good deeds mean something. We want proof that Jaskier matters, to Geralt, to Yennefer and Ciri, to the elves he’s helped, and to the show itself, because we want to know that we matter.
I (clearly) have a lot of feelings on the subject, and this article captures a lot of them perfectly. It even clarified and articulated things I’ve had in the back of my mind and the tip of my tongue, but couldn’t quite put into words. Thank you so much for this!
Having read the novels years before the series was even announced… it took me by surprise to see Jaskier’s queernes in the series. Not that I’m complaining, it brought one more layer to an already amazing character, one who, along with Geralt seem to be the only ones who stay true to their novel counterparts. This article was so beautifully written I couldn’t help but to agree with every sentence. Except when it came about the White Wolf himself.
He knows about the bard’s feelings for him, and that’s why he doesn’t ask about it. Because that would mean breaking Jaskier’s heart once again. Not only his love for Jaskier is a different kind than the one the bard has for him (which causes Geralt to feel as akward as anyone would when they find out a close friend has romantic feelings for them that they don’t exactly share), but he can’t focus on that. Not now, not with his major concern being this girl that because he ignored for so long, is now being chased by every king, sorcerer, elf and sentient magical being in the Continent.
Asking of Geralt to defend Jaskier on Season Two’s final battle would be asking him to let go of Ciri – his responsibility. The girl who became so important to him that led him to put a sword on Yennefer’s throat and follow to refuse any and every apology from her – a nice twist from their relationship in the books, where Geralt is the one asking for forgiveness and Yennefer gives him the cold shoulder. Ciri became to him what he and his brothers are for Vessemir. A daughter who he loves unconditionally and would turn the world upside down for.
Do I think the bard deserves better, even if that means throwing away the canon from the books? Absolutely yes. After all this Jaskier is similar to his book counterpart, but far less irritating and far more willing to accept his own emotions, while Yennefer is a major departure from her books counterpart, highlighting all of her negative qualities and deleting the good ones. Although Yen starts off the same – selfish, power-hungry, impulsive and willing to sacrifice anything to achieve her goals -, she’s grown out of it even before Ciri was even born.
So by all means, the best version of Jaskier deserves the happy ending far more than the most toxic version of Yen to see the light of day.
But this wasn’t the right moment. And Jaskier understands it.
This article made me feel a lot of things and I found it a refreshing change to all the poorly written and researched articles so often published about The Witcher.
BUT it leaves out major parts, its as if the writer barely skipped through the Episodes Voleth Meir and Family!
Geralt being Geralt can’t express his love and faith in Jaskier any more clearly! Dropping everything to break him out of prison! Heck, using a portal, which he hates, to get there!
Telling him that he needs him and that he missed him! And that hug, very different from hugging his other friends! Letting Jaskier tease him and barely containing his grin. Holding his coat and letting him bathe even when he is desperate to find Ciri.
And then Geralt trusts Jaskier to take Ciri safely to Caer Morhen, when he wouldn’t trust anyome else. That alone: letting Jaskier in at Caer Morhen, to stay. Its huge, it’s massive. I could go on. After Yennefer’s betrayal, Jaskier is the only adult person left Geralt truly loves, trusts and cares for. More than he does for his brothers even. I dare say, even more than he cares for Vesemir, who nearly subjected Ciri to the trial of the Grasses as soon as Geralt left.
And of course he treats Jaskier differently to his friends. Of course he doesn’t call him a friend. Because Jaskier isn’t just a friend. They love each other and care for each other deeply. And that’s not just my words: Lauren has said so herself, repeatedly. It’s the most beautiful thing of The Witcher and my one biggest hope is that we will continue to see it grow.
I’m shamed to admit that I’d never gotten that reading upon first watching the show, and… how ??! Everything you wrote, every argument you made makes perfect sense, even more so with Jaskier’s evident heartbreak in season two. Speaking of heartbreak, it’s breaking mine that I don’t think the beautiful subtext in Geralt and Jaskier’s relationship will be more realized and explored in season three… And it’s a bloody shame, because in my opinion, character interactions in this show are so much more interesting than all the “destiny and world-ending prophecies” nonsense :(
I have never seen an article represent my own thoughts so accurately , bravo!
I feel so frustrated with season 2 (and the show as a whole tbh). The typical viewer doesn’t see it ( or perhaps refuses too), but it is so obvious that the writers have purposely written their relationship to queerbait. Even worse, they then gaslight their audience when the audience rightfully interprets said relationship as queer. Seriously, they use the same techniques (lingering gazes, fruity compliments ect) that Gay Chinese dramas do to portray a canon romance between two male characters whilst under heavy censorship. It’s not just fangirls overanalysing again, the techniques are easy to recognise when you know what to look for.
I’m not mad that they changed their relationship to be this way (I have always considered the relationship between Geralt and Jaskier in the source material to be the ultimate form of male friendship that transcends conventional romance), and actually quite enjoy it, but the writers should at least respect their audience enough to follow through with the changes that they have made. Why bother making Jaskier angry and heartbroken when there is no confrontation or accountability? Why bother torturing him (through an incredibly cruel way that would affect his livelihood as a bard) and never acknowledge it again? He feels like an afterthought in a story that he should be (along with Geralt, Yen and Ciri) front and center in. Please do consider checking out the books, their relationship is a lot healthier and does have development.
I really really hope that they do something, anything, with him in season 3 (what I wouldn’t give to see him double cross and spy for Dijkstra). Actually hold that thought- I’ll write a fic for it, at least there will be actual character development and payoff
.
I actually do think they deliberately downplayed Jaskier’s role this season because he’s going to be a central part of the story in season 3. That one hint by Dijkstra about Jaskier owing him a debt was a huge spoiler, IMO.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus, because this was indeed very well-written.
From my own limited perspective, Jaskier’s relationship with Geralt seemed to be framed as comic relief more than anything else. In fact, most of his scenes have this lightness to them, with the background music and the witty dialogue serving to confirm that to me.
But after reading this I feel almost ashamed to have missed the clear romantic undertones. I suppose it says something about me, that I mistook romance for comedy. And I’m not sure I like what it says.
Still, I enjoyed reading this. It’s the mark of a good writer when their work manages to widen your view of the world without coming off as preachy. Thank you, and I hope we get more like this in the future.
This is one of those articles that I really hope Hissrich and the other writers lay their eyes upon and take it to heart. It’s so well framed and provides evidence from the first two season so any guessing or uncertainty is addressed from the start.
This show is so brilliant and has such great nuances but in letting Jaskier’s drop makes me fear for not only the third season but the several they hope to make after the third.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I look forward to seeing what you think of the third season!
Regardless of Jaskier’s sexual orientation, which seems to be bi in the TV show, the most important question to me is the name. Dandelion or Julian Alfred Pankratz, is the name I got used to in the books. I just checked my memory and found that Jaskier is Polish for buttercup. I also found out that in the original books his name was Jaskier and he became Dandelion in the English translation. I’m a stick in the mud. Because I read the books first in English Dandelion is the True Name to me.
In the books the bard guy always seemed, in spite of his compulsive womanizing, to be not 100% straight.
Oh! I hadn’t seen this interaction in the same way – yes I was puzzled there was so much less Jaskier and that it started out with him and Jennefer.
I can see now how his humour was a carefully crafted veneer over what he was truly feeling.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD INSIGHT AND SUCH A WELL WRITTEN ARTICLE!!!
I need to watch it again with this in mind and be heartbroken along with poor Jaskier.
Jaskier isn’t unquestionably the closest person to Geralt, Yennifer is (and I think Vesemir is closer as well). Jaskier sees what he wants to, not Geralt himself, so he’s constantly disappointed. Yennifer and Geralt understand one another on a deeper level than the rest of the characters and are honest about both the good and the bad of themselves, and that is what often puts them at odds.
Jaskier may be in love, but Geralt is not. Geralt tolerates Jaskier the way he would a younger brother. He’s already found the love of his life, as evidenced by the future of the characters in the original media.