How Is 'The Witcher: Blood Origin' Related to 'The Witcher'? Let's Break It Down (SPOILERS)

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for The Witcher: Blood Origin.

The wildly successful Netflix fantasy series The Witcher is returning for another season, but that's not all. The new limited series The Witcher: Blood Origin explores another facet of the Witcher universe, with an all-star cast including Michelle Yeoh, Minnie Driver, Sophia Brown, Laurence O'Fuarain, Mirren Mack, Lenny Henry, and more.

Fans are delighted for more Witcher-related content, but how exactly are the two series related? Keep reading for everything you need to know about The Witcher: Blood Origin.

According to the show's executive producers Declan De Barra and Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich, The Witcher: Blood Origin serves as a prequel to The Witcher series, set 1,200 years in the past before the first Witcher was created. The show follows the Seven, a group of warriors who have banded together to fight the Golden Empire.

During an interview with Collider, Declan and Lauren explained that they drew inspiration from author Andrzej Sapkowski's original Witcher mythology to remain more faithful to the book series. As such, despite no mention of the word "Witcher" in the limited series, the character of Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain) sacrifices himself to become the first prototype Witcher and effectively create the basis for the characters fans see in The Witcher.

Declan explains, "It [the prototype Witcher identity] shifted around a lot once it was going to be Éile and then the idea of sacrifice. Witchers are always sacrificing themselves, or someone is sacrificing an innocent essentially to become a Witcher, [there] is always this element of sacrifice and sacrifice them."

He added, "The idea of sacrifice between two lovers where someone co-opts, or steals, the other person's sacrifice because they love them, without admitting that they loved them, that was something really strong. When we hit on that, that's when we realized there'll be a flip."

There is another significant connecting element to the story: Jaskier the bard, who appears at the beginning of the limited series to learn the story of Éile and her friends and restore it to the present day.

While sadly, Geralt is not involved in the limited series at all, it's clear that the events of The Witcher: Blood Origin could come back to haunt Season 3 of the series.

Seasons 1 and 2 of The Witcher and all episodes of The Witcher: Blood Origin are now available for streaming on Netflix. And fans should keep an eye out for The Witcher Season 3, which will premiere on the platform during the Summer 2023.