What Henry Cavill Wants Witcher Fans To Know About Geralt And Renfri
In Netflix's hit series "The Witcher," Geralt (Henry Cavill) deals with a variety of monsters and fantastical creatures. One of the earliest he encounters is Renfri (Emma Appleton), who appears in episodes 1 and 2 from Season 1, "The End's Beginning" and "Four Marks" (via IMDB). Renfri was born under a Black Sun, which gives her the ability to turn into a monster form. After being cast out by her nobleman father, she becomes a sort of twisted Snow White figure, even down to her criminal band of seven gnomes.
In "The End's Beginning," the sorcerer Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen) hires Geralt kill Renfri. When Geralt meets Renfri, he learns that Stregobor wants to use her for experiments and comes to sympathize with her. Eventually, when Geralt realizes Renfri won't give up on getting revenge, he's forced to kill her — along with several of her followers in the city of Blaviken.
According to Henry Cavill, the series presented Geralt's actions as a romantic gesture. However, the star felt differently.
The way Geralt dealt with Renfri shows how Geralt is different from most heroes
Cavill talked about the difficulties of playing a character like Geralt, who's different than the other roles he's played recently, like Superman.
"He's a particular character," Cavill said in a Live Q&A with IGN (via YouTube). "And that's what's so wonderful about him. He does things the average hero wouldn't do and is fine with it. Like the idea of killing all the guys in Blaviken. He was only really bummed out by killing Renfri because it was just such a misunderstanding there. I know the show represented it as a love thing, but it was more of, 'It didn't have to happen.' And he gave her a chance."
Cavill continued. "[Killing Renfri] was sad, but Geralt was fine with murdering everybody else. And that is a really interesting hero character, because it subverts everything. And it makes you question his actions, and he also questions his own actions. And it becomes an interesting philosophical which is constantly darting and weaving all over the place."
"The Witcher" Season 2 will be available on Netflix starting December 17, 2021.