Making things confusing for fans unfamiliar with the video games and books of The Witcher, these timelines do not always play out in chronological order. Each of the three central characters’ stories takes place over different periods of time.
Yennefer’s story spans over 60 years, Geralt’s four decades, while the majority of Ciri’s timeline on The Witcher takes place over a fortnight from—Episode 1’s banquet to meeting Geralt in 8.
Luckily, Witcher.tv has released a timeline that puts all of these events in chronological order. This not only helps fans makes sense of what is happening in the Netflix show, but also allows us to see which events are taking place around the same time.
For example, Yennefer’s advising of the kingdom of Aedirn in Episode 4 comes to an end around the same time that Geralt meets Triss and Foltest in Episode 3 and at the same point as ‘The Usurper’ overthrowing the king of Nilfgaard. All of these take place 20 years before the fall of Cintra, according to the Witcher.tv timeline.
This chronology also reveals, for example, that Ciri was born about 15 years before Cintra fell, the year after the marriage of her parents Pavetta (Gaia Mondadori) and Duny (Bart Edwards).
Ciri, in fact holds the key to those who want to understand the narrative of The Witcher without having to constantly check a timeline. As Digital Spy notes, her story is told chronologically, so we should think of it as the ‘present,’ and what happens to Geralt and Yennefer as flashbacks from this central timeline.
As for Yennefer and Geralt’s more complicated timelines, most of what happens to Yennefer in Episodes 2, 3 and 4, like when she enters Aretuza, makes her transformation and begins to advise Aedirn, happens in the decades before Geralt enters the timeline. The famous hunter’s story then begins 40 years before the fall of Cintra, when he is named the ‘Butcher of Blaviken,’ as seen in Episode 1 of the Netflix series.
The Witcher is streaming now on Netflix.
