On December 13, the Twitter account for Netflix’s The Witcher revealed the details of their holiday campaign “The 6 Days of Witchmas”, which they had first teased back in November. For six days, from December 16 through 21, fans would be presented with a Twitter poll where they could choose between a gift presented by The Witcher account or invoke The Law of Surprise. Each day brought a unique piece of content for The Witcher‘s audience, from teases regarding the show’s upcoming second season to behind-the-scenes content, and even glimpses into the expanding universe of the fantasy series.
On the first day of Witchmas, fans favored the Law of Surprise over the presented gift which offered cuts from The Witcher’s first breakout season on Netflix. The surprise on day one was a closer look at three detailed set pieces from season three which included swords, a banner and medallions. Season two is to take Henry Cavill’s (Man of Steel, The Witcher) titular Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, and Ciri to Kaer Morhen, the ancestral home of the Witchers. For this reason, GamesRadar speculates that the swords in this photoset may be a training swords for Ciri, played by Freya Allan (The Witcher, The Third Day).
When offered a page from season two’s script on the second day of Witchmas, fans once more opted for The Law of Surprise. Another photoset was gifted to fans, this time character portraits of the bard Jaskier, portrayed by Joey Batey (The White Queen, Knightfall). Jaskier was one of the only major characters missing from October’s season two look-reveals on The Witcher’s Twitter page.
Though a sneak peek at an exclusive The Witcher toy was offered on day three, fans gambled with fate once more and were given a sequel to “Netflix Presents: The Witcher’s Bestiary”. The first of these videos was released in May of this year and offered fans a deep dive into the monsters and creatures that occupy The Continent. This second installment expands upon the vast bestiary on display in The Witcher‘s first season.
Day four marked the first day of Witchmas in which fans opted for the gift presented on Twitter – a blooper reel from the show’s first season. The reel featured Cavill and the rest of the show’s ensemble goofing around on set of the high-stakes fantasy. Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich (The Witcher, The Umbrella Academy) chimed in with her own embarrassing behind-the-scenes antidote that did not make it onto the reel via Twitter. Of course, with an action fantasy series like The Witcher, not all the blunders were a result of human error, as the reel featured stunts gone awry and the downfalls of having a horse on set.
After the hilarity he caused in the blooper video, Roach, Geralt’s noble steed, was given a spotlight of his own on day five of Witchmas. After fans rejected a compilation video of Geralt’s iconic “Hmms”, audiences instead received an equally silly interview with the horse Roach. “We were a little surprised with just how much shade he was throwing,” Bleeding Cool joked about the horse’s “hard-hitting” interview.
On the final day of Witchmas, fans could not seem to outrun destiny. While opting for The Law of Surprise over the offered sneak peek at the logo for The Witcher’s upcoming anime prequel The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, the surprise was that the movie’s logo was still the gift after all.
The Witcher’s official Twitter page had one last surprise for fans after Witchmas wrapped on Monday. All the opened and unopened gifts from “The 6 Days of Witchmas” campaign could be found in an interactive map on the show’s official website after-the-fact. One of the gifts that could be found on the map was a video of The Witcher‘s hit-song “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” sung in twelve different languages.
As it turns out, day two’s rejected gift of a page from season two’s script has been the biggest hit among fans thus far. Polygon notes that the details in the leaked script bear striking resemblance to The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski’s short story, “A Grain of Truth”. “The setups for the stories seem nearly identical,” reports Polygon “which gives us a good hint that the story might provide the inspiration for the first episode.”
Even after it wrapped, “The 6 Days of Witchmas” gave fans plenty to look forward to in regards to the show’s second season and spin-offs The Witcher: Blood Origin, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf and a third untitled series about magic users on The Continent. Despite all the teases given to fans throughout the event, a premiere date for The Witcher’s second season has yet to be released, though many sources speculate the series will return to Netflix in 2021.
Image Credit: Raymond Flotat