On Monday morning, Netflix released the first poster for its upcoming adaption of The Witcher, reigniting an age-old debate between warring factions of The Witcher fandom: How many damn swords does Geralt carry anyway?
Show of hands! Is it just the one, as is displayed on Henry Cavill’s, er, backside? Or is it two swords, one steel (for people) and one silver (for monsters)?
Well, as it turns out, they’re both right (kind of).
Basically, the answer depends on whether you’re talking about book!Geralt or game!Geralt.
In the original Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, Geralt indeed has two swords, one steel and one silver. However, as some close readers on Reddit helpfully pointed out, he mostly only carries the steel on his back, keeping the silver one tucked away in his saddle for easy access. Accordingly, the covers usually show Geralt as single-sworded:
Meanwhile, in the games (which are an adaptation of the novels), Geralt and his fellow witchers carry two swords. During gameplay, each sword gets its own equipment slot, and players switch between the two depending on the type of critters they’re coming up against (non-magical living things get steel, while supernatural beings get silver).
This is further complicated by the fact that some of the newer covers, clearly influenced by the games, strap two swords across Geralt’s back, instead of one:
Since the Netflix series is based on the novels, not the games, it only makes sense that TV!Geralt would have only carry one sword.
The worst monsters are the ones we create. pic.twitter.com/OIJeWwCYFK
— The Witcher (@witchernetflix) July 1, 2019
Get your first look at Geralt (Henry Cavill), Yennefer (Anya Cholatra), and Ciri (Freya Allan) in #TheWitcher pic.twitter.com/2l0R2vgBZt
— Netflix Queue (@netflixqueue) July 1, 2019
So that settles that.
The books may be inconsistent. One of the subplots of the most recent novel is he runs around without any sword or with borrowed ones because his *one* sword was stolen while he was in jail (framed). He certainly didn’t have a regular sword to fall back on.
The games form a sequel to the novels (although they are not regarded as canon by Andrzej Sapkowski). The first Witcher game picks up a few months after the events of the seventh book in the series.
Another detail I noticed: the sword is carried considerably higher on his back in the trailer. I wonder if that comes from the actor drawing it and realizing where it really needed to be for easy access.
“Or is it two swords, one steel (for people) and one silver (for monsters)?”
They’re both for Monsters.
A good article, but you’ve made a slight mistake. The cover that you use for The Sword of Destiny doesn’t actually picture Geralt. That’s Cahir, you can tell from the fancy armor and black hair.
As someone who works out daily with an English backsword (a basket hilt single edged sword – hence it has a back) for Historical European Marital Arts, I cringe at the sight of those idiotic back scabbards. They were not used historically and are utterly worthless in reality. You can not draw a long blade off the back like that. Perhaps a small (20″ ~ 25″) blade but the ones shown in games, on covers and probably in this show that I’ll not bother watching would be too long to come all the way out of a scabbard and over the shoulder with normal human length arms. Perhaps if he has a third section of arm between his wrist and normal lower arm with a second elbow :LOL:
@1: I just read that one a couple of weeks ago, and it’s both his swords that are stolen, one steel and one silver. Not the one sword. He spends the novel unarmed or with one random sword or another, all of which he promptly loses in some fashion until he gets his two swords back in the end.
@6: It’s a fantasy show about a mutant sorcerer/warrior who kills monsters with a sword made of silver. The way he’s depicted carrying his sword is the least of the premise’s problems from a “is that possible in real life?” point of view.
@6: I’m no expert, but looking at that scabbard it seems to be designed specifically to get around the arm-length issue. Only the bottom third of the blade is fully enclosed, after which it seems the tip could flex outward allowing a sort of circular forward pull to have the blade clear the scabbard. If this is the case, I hope they make a point of showing a full sword draw on camera.
@8 – It appears to have straps further up though.
If the quality of the “armor” in the promo is indicative of the quality of the show generally, this is a hard pass. How hard would it have been to use something even as fantasy-reasonable as that depicted in the cover art shown above?
@wlewisiii: “Historical European Marital Arts”
Marriage was rough back then…
@11 Heh. I’ll blame my phone’s auto-correct but I wish I’d seen if first so I could have made that joke! Good one.
On whether it can be drawn: https://youtu.be/HBVGRxydnZE?t=20
The blades in that video are well more than 25″.
But it’s still not generally viable:
https://www.quora.com/Are-back-scabbards-for-swords-actually-viable
Fun side note: the sword Wesley Snipes uses in the Blade movies is a standard-length one, however he was able to carry it and draw it off his back because he has unusually long arms.
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@6 – I have a decent Witcher costume based on the Bear Armour from the third game… I have both swords strapped to the back. I cannot draw them in a smooth motion, nor can I sit while wearing them. I have not tried, but I assume that I would also be unable to ride a horse.
Looks cool, but super impractical.
This is a cover that actually depict Geralt that is not based on the video games. Two swords but only one on the back.
@7 “It’s a fantasy show about a mutant sorcerer/warrior who kills monsters with a sword made of silver. The way he’s depicted carrying his sword is the least of the premise’s problems from a “is that possible in real life?” point of view.”
We don’t have rules/physics about sorcerers, or killing monsters with silver swords. We need to rely on the movie to explain those rules to us. We do, however, know the physics of drawing a sword from a back scabbard. So from a “is that possible in real life?” point of view, the back scabbard is the only thing we *can* argue about.
Well it depends on how many seasons your planning in the game witch one which is based on the first novel he carried a silver sword and a steel dagger later on he switched to his iconic two swords when he was draged into a war to help reclaim his memory in Witcher 2 and he stuck with those two swords in witcher3
@19: Or we could just accept it based on the fact that, as mentioned above, Wesley Snipes actually did it in real life in Blade because of his long arms. At least it’s not like the “Highlander” movies and TV show, where almost everybody went around their business normally and suddenly produced a full length sword out of nowhere under their coat once a duel was imminent just like a Looney Tunes cartoon taking out a giant mallet out of their pocket.
@1, in the novel you reference, “season of storms”, it is made clear that both swords are lost (or swindled, if you prefer).
There are and were always two swords, whether in the novels or in the games; the one difference being the method of transport for the silver sword.