The Witcher's Season 3 Casting Hints at Plotlines From Books
Recent casting news about the upcoming third season of The Witcher provides a confirmation of sorts that the show will continue to adapt parts of the original novels. Earlier this week, Netflix announced that four actors were joining the cast of The Witcher for its upcoming third season. While most of the focus was on Robbie Amell's casting as a character new to the world of The Witcher, the announcement confirmed that two major characters from the books were also appearing in the show next season. Meng'er Zhang was cast as Milva, a talented huntress adopted by dryads, while Christelle Elwin will play Mistle, a member of The Rats street gang.
Both Milva and Mistle first appear in Time of Contempt, the second full-length The Witcher novel written by Andrzej Sapkowski. And while Netflix's The Witcher series has taken considerable liberties deviating from the plot of the novels, the casting of both Milva and Mistle hints that we'll see plotlines from Time of Contempt adapted for the TV series. Considering that Season 2 of The Witcher introduced The Wild Hunt and other elements that weren't significant in the books, the castings seem to indicate that the show will continue to roughly follow the novels in some format.
Milva and Mistle both have significant roles in the novels. Without delving too heavily into spoilers, Milva becomes a member of Geralt's company and accompanies him until near the end of the book series. Meanwhile, Mistle plays a significant role in what Ciri does after she is separated from Geralt during the course of the second novel. Based on the character descriptions released by Netflix last week, we're guessing that Robbie Amell's Gallatin will intersect with Milva in some format and could represent a potential romantic interest that fleshes out some of Milva's history before she meets Geralt.
As for the fourth casting announcement, it does represent a deviation from the novels. Hugh Skinner's Prince Radovid is a character from the novels (and he also makes a fairly significant appearance in The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt) but his role in the books is relatively minor, as he's a child that's younger than Ciri. Given that Skinner is nearly 40 years old, we can safely assume that Radovid's role in The Witcher TV series will be different than his role in the books.
Season 3 of The Witcher is currently filming. The first two seasons of the show are available on Netflix.