The Witcher returns with more action, more magic, and even more monsters, but the second season of the popular sword-and-sorcery series on Netflix has a new approach to evil and the enemies Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer face. While the trio isn't a stranger to double-crosses and backstabbing by those around them, the foes it faces in Season 2 do not always present themselves as such.
The Continent is going through a great deal of change since the Battle of Sodden, with the Nilfgaardian army regrouping and moving towards Cintra, the elves gathering their forces, and the Brotherhood wondering with whom to form an alliance. The season examines how the characters transform with the knowledge that malice lurks in the hearts of those who know them best, a realization that tests not just their magical abilities, but their resilience, and their bonds.
Stregobor
Stalking the halls of Aretuza, Stregobor is out for blood and answers in Season 2, manipulating the Brotherhood to hold Yennefer, a recent prisoner of war, in contempt for sedition. His tactics become muddied when she suspects his plan and pleads her case to Tissaia, but her mentor's hands are tied by Stregobor's machinations.
The wizard has long been one of the scariest characters on The Witcher, capable of extreme malevolence (including nearly leading Geralt to his death early in Season 1), but Season 2 sees him utilizing more insidious means to get what he wants, including a medieval version of Star Trek's mind mels that looks particularly torturous to experience.
Vereena
Evil takes on a beguiling form in Vereena, the shy woman living in the walls of Nivellen's magic manor. But when Geralt learns she might be responsible for the disappearance of nearby villagers, her coquettish ways betray a savage secret. A powerful bruxa, with the ability to transform herself into a giant bat creature and drain the blood from a human in seconds, she becomes a great threat to Geralt and Ciri during their stay.
It's difficult not to feel some amount of pity for her, and though she doesn't make The Witcher's best romantic partner for Nivellen, their tragic connection raises the question, "Can monsters change their natures?" Ultimately she, like the boar-man, is doomed to encapsulate the traits of what she is.
Rience
Freed from the dungeons of Cintra by Lydia on the condition that he will find Ciri, Rience appears as a major antagonist in the second half of Season 2. A powerful mage with something to prove, he not only kidnaps and tortures Jaskier, he also bends fire magic to his will and attacks Kaer Morhen just as Geralt and Ciri make their way to the Temple of Melitele.
Fans with knowledge of the show's source material will know Rience to be a pawn in a much larger geopolitical game playing out across the Continent, but until the motives of his shadowy master are truly revealed, Rience presents himself as a vengeful, ambitious mage committed to accessing Ciri's Elder Blood.
Nivellen
While Geralt is suspicious of Nivellen's new form in Season 2, he doesn't suspect his old friend capable of malice. Though the man has been cursed by a priestess of the Lionheaded Spider Temple to walk the Continent as a boar-like beast, he comes across as gregarious and generous. Even when he harbors Veneera, the bruxa responsible for the attack on the village below his manor, it's clear he does so out of love, and Geralt and Ciri are almost prepared to forgive him.
Once the real reason he was cursed emerges, however, the series draws an interesting conclusion about humans being the true monsters, only exculpated from their transgressions because they don't appear to have claws and horns. It's at that point that Geralt realizes his friend's curse didn't make him something he wasn't but revealed what he was all along.
Eskel
Continuing the theme of old friends becoming new enemies, Eskel emerges as one of Geralt's greatest foes, inflicting both physical and emotional pain on the Butcher of Blaviken. Raised as witchers under Vesemir's watchful eyes, they were brothers in arms since boyhood, and when Geralt returns to Kaer Morhen, it's a happy reunion for the pair.
When Eskel mutates into a hybrid monster after receiving a wound from a leshy, Geralt has to make a difficult decision; kill his friend, or watch his mentor Vesemir die. The end result stacks more guilt on an already heavily burdened man, and it serves as just one more reason why "the world is changing." The monsters Geralt kills now are the people who know him the best, leaving him even more alienated and alone in an increasingly isolating Continent.
Voleth Meir (The Deathless Mother)
Disguised as someone each of the women would trust, Voleth Meir, aka the Deathless Mother, appears to Yennefer, Fringilla, and Francesca, the leader of the elves, in dreams, promising to alleviate their pain and give them what they most desire. These visions repulse Yennefer, push Fringilla deeper into her faith, and give Francesca more command over her tribe, but they all serve the crone's greater purpose.
A demon imprisoned by the first witchers since the Conjunction of the Spheres, the motives of Voleth Meir become clear later in the season when it's revealed she is using the three women to escape her confinement. Her character represents an interesting plot device to tie together several very disparate characters and works effectively as a more insidious evil than more behemoth monsters.
Leshy
Not seen for ages, a leshy appears in the forest of Brokilon outside Kaer Morhen and attacks Eskel, leaving him with an infected wound. When Geralt and Ciri hunt it, they discover its formidable abilities to command roots and vines that reach far beyond its twisted, towering body.
Geralt has more trouble from Eskel's hybrid human-leshy than the monster itself, as no sooner has he engaged it in combat than it's torn apart by an even greater creature. The appearance of the leshy indicates just how different the Continent has become, where "monsters who should be hibernating" have come to cause chaos.
Myriapod
Even Geralt's impressive fighting abilities are put to the test when he goes up against the myriapod, a creature that resembles a centipede, mantis, and leshy in one frightening amalgamation. It effortlessly tears the leshy that infected Eskel apart, going after Ciri after knocking Geralt to the ground.
The myriapod is not only one of the vilest creatures in the season, it's also the most mysterious, proving a daunting being to classify even for Triss, who knows the ecology of the Continent better than anyone. It's a character that represents a diversion from the series source material that is highly effective for its terrifying screen presence and also its intrigue.
Cahir
The Black Knight was one of the main antagonists in Season 1, and by Season 2 he's a broken prisoner of war, but his disheveled appearance hides a cunning survivor. He will stop at nothing to return to the Nilfgaard front at Cintra and plan his next move on behalf of the White Flame.
Cahir might not seem as evil as he originally appeared, but Yennefer knows she can't trust him, especially since he remembers that her fire magic helped defeat his forces at the Battle of Sodden. The depth of his evil may not be fully understood because he's been declawed, but if he had access to his legions, he would no doubt be a force to be reckoned with as he was in Season 1.
Wraiths Of Morhogg (The Wild Hunt)
Mentioned in the first episode of the season and appearing in the finale, the Wraiths of Morhogg are the striking skeletal riders, once elves, who left the Continent at the time of the Conjunction of the Spheres, traveling through a portal to another land to claim for themselves. After eradicating the humans they found there, they realized they still needed slaves, and so ride the skies as "the Wild Hunt" in search of souls to claim.
They are drawn to Ciri and the incredible powers she possesses thanks to her Elder Blood, but are prevented from claiming her thanks to the combined forces of Geralt and Yennefer. While they have been stopped for now, their presence opens up a portal of possibilities for Season 3.