The Witcher Showrunner Teases Ciri's Transformation in Season 2

The Witcher is on some pretty epic footing going into its second season, now that its trio of interconnecting storylines have come to a pretty epic head. Fans have been eager to see how Geralt (Henry Cavill), Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), and Ciri (Freya Allan) form their sort of "found family", especially considering how early on Ciri is in her hero's journey. According to showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, Season 2 will see Ciri gradually begin to shift into the warrior she becomes -- but also honor her heritage and journey at the same time.

"We're really trying to savor it." Hissrich recently told TVGuide. "I think one of the things that, of course, happens when you are adapting material is that you have these eight episodes, they're an hour long each, [and] we had much more of Ciri's story in Season 1 that we ended up having to trim down. And it's one of the things that when I look at the season, I see she's not as present, Ciri's not as present as I would have liked her to be. So in Season 2, we're really digging in with her character and we're going to understand her a lot more. And yes, that growth that you're describing, where she starts training, where she actually becomes the character that we know from the books and later from the video games, we will see her become that person. But she doesn't change on a dime. What we don't want to do is forget where she came from."

While Allan's casting as Ciri was initially met with backlash, fans have definitely embraced her take on the character after seeing the first season of the series. And as Hissrich explained in a previous interview, the process of Allan becoming Ciri was slightly unconventional.

"What's great about Freya is that she was cast as another role at first," Hissrich said in an interview last August. "A much much smaller role in the first episode, and when we hadn't found our Ciri yet, we had seen over 200 girls and we hadn't found our Ciri, and Sophie Holland our casting director said 'I want you to think about Freya for this.' And I remember saying 'how are we going to call Freya's agent and say we know we cast you, it's not that we don't want you for that role but we may want you for something slightly bigger, and I flew into London and we met and cast Freya that day."

"So each of these processes were totally different but look at what we got," Hissrich added.

Are you excited to see what's in store for Ciri on Season 2 of The Witcher? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Season 2 of The Witcher is expected to debut in 2021.