A short wait and one anime tie-in film later, Netflix released the second trailer for Season 2 of The Witcher. The clip recapped the events of Season 1 before finally introducing the last member of the School of the Wolf, Vesemir. Netflix's quickly expanding Witcher universe introduced the character before, but this is the first time audiences will have seen Kim Bodnia in full costume as the oldest witcher at Kaer Morhen.
"You're home, finally," Vesemir says in the trailer. When Geralt explains that he has brought Ciri to the mountain fortress to keep her safe, Vesemir responds, "That's hard to do when I don't know who I'm protecting... or what I'm protecting her from." Viewers hear a few more lines later on, but with that and the few fleeting shots of him early in the trailer, fans get a decent idea of what they can expect from the character.
In terms of appearance, Bodnia's look should please fans of both Andrzej Sapkowski's novels and CD Projekt Red's video games. The slicked back, grey hair and beard, as well as his slightly rounded features, seem like they could have been taken straight out of the video games. He certainly appears to carry all the wisdom and experience as his novel and game counterparts. There is just one thing that may seem off about the character here. It may seem nitpicky, but it's his accent.
Back in August, Netflix released The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, centered on a much younger Vesemir. Audiences watched him grow from a frightened boy in the employ of Northern Kingdom nobility, to a powerful witcher-- one of a handful of survivors after Kaer Morhen was attacked. Before that, The Witcher teased the arrival of Vesemir with a simple voice cameo in the season finale, saying, "Geralt, I've been waiting for you." Theo James voices the character in both of those appearances, which is why Vesemir has a strong RP accent (or what some who aren't familiar might imagine when they think of upper class British people). Bodnia has a distinct Danish accent, which is clear throughout the Season 2 trailer.
It is possible that the lines he uttered in the trailer were the only accented ones. He could turn out to be more like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, another Danish actor, who played Jamie Lannister in Game of Thrones and whose accent never broke in any noticeable way-- not for those without trained ears, anyway.
But why is this so important? It's important when it comes to world-building. Vesemir was a child of the Northern Kingdoms, who have been shown throughout the Netflix adaptations as possessing accents akin to the United Kingdom variety. More importantly, Netflix's Witcher universe has already shown audiences what Vesemir sounds like.
None of this is to say that Kim Bodnia was the wrong choice, or that he won't play Geralt of Rivia's mentor wonderfully. He looks the part and even sounds the part. Accent aside. There's no reason he won't dazzle franchise newcomers and longtime Witcher fans with his performance. Still, it's another argument against this universe's consistency.
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