Every New Monster In The Witcher Season 3 Explained
The first part of the third season of "The Witcher" is now available on Netflix, and you know what that means — monsters. Big monsters, little monsters, scary monsters, and monsters you feel kind of bad for all make appearances in these first five episodes, and as usual, you practically need a guide to keep track of them all. With Geralt (Henry Cavill), Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), and Ciri (Freya Allan) reunited as a family but forced into hiding to keep the highly sought-after Ciri safe, monster attacks are especially ill-timed for our group throughout these episodes. Of course, that has not stopped them from showing up, ready to suck blood, render flesh, and all around cause the kind of public safety hazards that makes us cringe.
In the universe of "The Witcher," monsters first appeared after the Conjunction of the Spheres, in which three worlds collided and led to so many problems that we're still seeing the after effects play out throughout the TV series. While we've met plenty of these monsters through the wild world of Witchers, this season is flexing to give us some of the weirdest and most disturbing beasts yet to grace the small screen. Fortunately, we're here, notebook in hand, ready to break it all down. Some monsters are active threats while others are a little easier to deal with, but each monster is its own unique creature, and that's why we kind of love them ... even when they are very slimy and definitely freak us out a little bit.
Jackapace
When we first meet the dread jackapace, it's hidden in the recesses of a dimly lit dungeon. Imprisoned alongside a number of other monsters, all hidden behind trembling planks of wood that barely contain them, two men feed buckets of dismembered flesh and blood into small holes. When a nervous young elf pours a bucket for one monster in particular, he yelps and jumps away as his boss laughs, noting that the jackapace is trained to smell Elven blood. That's when the villainous Rience (Sam Woolf) appears, saying he needs to buy a monster that will find an elf, pulling out his vial of blood, which sends the unseen jackapace into a frenzy.
The dwarf Yarpen (Jeremy Crawford) tells Ciri about the Bellteyn festival, and she manages to convince Geralt to allow them all to let loose for a change. Sadly, this turns out to be a mistake, as they enter a maze only for the jackapace to immediately find them. Capable of turning into a roly-poly ball and rocketing itself down narrow corridors, the maze is well-suited to allow the monster's skills to shine. Ciri is able to dodge the jackapace and Yennefer and Geralt help her put it down, but the damage has been done. Rience knows where they are, and though he's smart enough to avoid a direct attack while Geralt and Yennefer are around, they are forced once again to go on the run.
Bodies monster
In perhaps one of the grimiest scenes of the season, Geralt again takes his life into his own hands by delving into a dank underground dungeon beneath the Castle Vuilpanne. On the hunt for Rience, who is in turn hunting for Ciri, he gets intel on some dark experiments taking place at the hands of an unnamed "powerful sorcerer." Geralt quickly takes his potion and goes into full Witcher mode, but even at that, he's completely unprepared for what he finds. First seeing three disembodied heads held up by grisly pink strands of flesh, he is visibly disturbed as they plead with him not to hurt them. Uncovering the young girl Teryn (Frances Pooley) in a pulsating cocoon, he tries to calm her only to realize that she's beyond traumatized from what's she's lived through and incapable of forming coherent thought.
Surprisingly, it actually gets worse from there as a monster assembled of the naked body parts of many different women rises up to attack him, apparently controlled by the three floating heads. Though Geralt is able to defeat this monster, there's an unshakable feeling of dread that comes from this one as we realize that this isn't just any monster — it's specifically a manmade one. Knowing that someone intentionally created this horror show as an experiment is easily one of the most disconcerting revelations of the season so far, to the point where we'd kind of rather not ever know the specifics of how it came to be (though we're pretty sure we're going to find out more in Part 2).
Werewolf
Werewolves in the Witcher world are significantly more sympathetic than they are sometimes portrayed in other media, but it doesn't hurt that we have the charming Otto (Dempsey Bovell) as their representative in the third season. At first, Otto cheerily greets Geralt, making fun of his pungent smell. In the next scene, he explains to Jaskier (Joey Batey) that he is in fact a werewolf, bit during "the plague of '21." Noting that he fled the cities to the wilderness to isolate in hopes of avoiding disease, he was caught off-guard by a werewolf attack. While Geralt was hired to kill Otto, he instead found a medallion that could stave off the transformation, thus saving his life.
Anica (Szandra Asztalos), a friend of Geralt's mother Visenna (Frida Gustavsson), explains that she and Otto met while they were both in mourning; he for his family that died in a fire and she for Geralt's mother. Anika agrees to help Teryn, the young girl convinced by dark sorcery that she is in fact Ciri, but when Geralt pushes her too far in his search for the truth, Teryn begins screaming, then speaking in a demonic voice not unlike Linda Blair in "The Exorcist." This possessed child pulls the necklace from Otto, nearly forcing him to transform into his monstrous state. Fortunately, Geralt is able to act in time to return the amulet to save him from this horror. Despite his werewolfian tendencies, Otto is a great character who has been through a lot, so here's hoping we see him again soon.
Wyvern
Remember when we said that sometimes there's a monster on "The Witcher" that you actually feel kind of bad for? Introducing the baby Wyvern, who we meet in "Reunion," the third episode of the third season. Ciri is sent off to keep herself amused while Geralt goes to visit Anica and Otto to find help for Teryn. This is ultimately a wild good time, with Ciri actually making new friends for the first time in a while. Of course, a bit of chaos breaks out first.
Seeing an exploitative man boasting about his captured Basilisk, Ciri is disturbed, calling him out publicly for keeping a baby Wyvern in a cage and starving it to make it highly aggressive, putting on more of a show for the gathered crowd. The man argues with her, but during their spat, the Wyvern is knocked free from its cage. Scared and trying to flee but unable to escape the crowd, the Wyvern pounces on Ciri, and she's forced to slay it. Maybe this sounds weird, but this was a pretty sad moment, considering the fact that Ciri was trying to defend the creature she ultimately kills because it was simply confused.
This is a short scene and Ciri moves along quickly as she's trying (badly) to keep a low profile, but it's a little heartbreaking to see this literal baby be eviscerated while trying to get to freedom. Sure, it likely would have grown up to be a very scary monster, but as it stands we can only ask that someone call the Humane Society on this man today.
The Wild Hunt
Technically, this is not the first we have seen of The Wild Hunt, which has in some form or another appeared via short glimpses since the beginning. Briefly mentioned in the pilot episode of the series, showing up in small clips in the second season, and even getting a little context in "Blood Origin," this is one of the most hyped groups of monsters in "The Witcher." However, this is where we see them jump into action as a group to make a play for capturing Ciri, meaning that this is where it becomes more than clear that our Princess isn't going to shake them as easily as she might have thought at the end of Season 2.
We have met at least two members of the Wild Hunt in the past, with "Blood Origin" giving us some backstory for their commander, Eredin (Jacob Collins-Levy). Once a commander in the Xin'trean army, Eredin allied with the wrong people at the wrong time, and ended up banished. Though we don't know what happened after to turn him into one of The Wild Hunt, we saw him don a mask of bones that marks the members of the group. Similarly, the Deathless Mother (Ania Marson) who antagonized our group and nearly corrupted Yennefer to her core while eliminating several Witchers by possessing Ciri rejoined the Wild Hunt at the end of that arc.
Though the group is rapidly dispelled by Geralt, the feeling of pending catastrophe is strong as we realize that the Hunt has been ready and waiting to catch Ciri off-guard the moment she's alone. When she dismisses them as merely being ghosts, they agree, only to counter, "You are death itself!" One of them manages to place a hand on Ciri's shoulder, rasping a command to join them before they are vanquished. Pretty ominous stuff, frankly.
Aeschna
In the season's fourth episode, "The Invitation," Ciri and Geralt are tasked with returning to Aretuza, where Yennefer and the Brotherhood await. They hit an impasse when an elderly ship's captain refuses to travel, explaining that he's convinced there is a sea monster awaiting them. Ciri teases Geralt that they shouldn't allow her defense skills to rust and that it likely won't be all that dangerous anyway, convincing him to strike a deal with the old man. If he takes them to where they need to go, they'll kill his monster for him, allowing his business to resume undisturbed. At sea, our dynamic duo have a sincere heart-to-heart during which Geralt encourages Ciri to find her own path, telling her he'll support her in anything. "If you want to be a queen, be a queen," he says. We're not crying, you're crying.
Naturally, this moment of teary-eyed peace is immediately wrecked by a group of singers ruining Jaskier's day, and ah yes, that sea monster we mentioned, the aeschna. The singing troupe antagonizes the creature by bursting into song, provoking it to attack them (injuring at least two members of the band in the process). Ciri and Geralt act fast, and they're able to make fast work of the beast together, which is a bonding moment of a different kind. The aeschna is a pretty scary creature, but as of now, the threat this particular entity posed to the sea has been laid to rest.