Netflix's The Witcher hit the Internet hard when it came out last December, and fervor for the show has seemingly not died down even with the turn of the decade. A second season of The Witcher is already in development for 2021, and showrunner Lauren Hissrich has been actively discussing some of what fans can expect to see during a Reddit AMA — including more queer representation like in the original books.
Hissrich, whose credits as an Executive Producer also include streaming shows like The Umbrella Academy and Marvel's Daredevil, opened her AMA on the r/wiedzmin subreddit (a bilingual English and Polish forum dedicated to discussing The Witcher universe in all its incarnations) January 6.
Among the questions she received was from Reddit user dracapis about whether season two would have any "queer representation," to which Hissrich said, "One of my favorite things about the books is that they are full of subversion. Yes, we're gonna represent."
It was not the only question on diversity that Hissrich fielded, as one coming from JagerJack7 wanted to know why fictional races in the show were seen with "human ethnic and racial differences," rather than diversifying by culture like HBO's Game of Thrones (from which a future Witcher cast member may have been poached).
Hissrich said there were long conversations with Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the original books which saw a huge uptick in popularity following the Netflix show's premiere, on the subject. They essentially came to the decision that "racism" in fantasy worlds is experienced by species rather than skin color, so in a "big and diverse" real world it made sense to hire a range of people because folks in-universe would care more about markers like horns.
The AMA also broached deep-cut subjects about the construction of the show and characters within it, such as one user asking why Joey Batey's Jaskier was not used as more of a narrator, or another asking about how they depicted the Nilfgaard — though that question specifically avoided mentioning their armor design, which is a point of contention Hissrich has previously addressed.
Even beyond the AMA, Hissrich has been incredibly active with fans of The Witcher season one; be it answering questions about the removal of Jaskier's hat or interacting with Witcher crossover memes on Twitter.
That kind of enthusiasm from the crew behind The Witcher — both Hissrich and leading star Henry Cavill, who posted a video on Instagram discussing impending Witcher pre-production — bodes well for the future of this popular Netflix series. Not only is there a lot more monster hunting fun just on the horizon, but chances are that fun will be more refined thanks to the input of dedicated fans.
The Witcher is available to stream now on Netflix.