Why Henry Cavill Rewrote This Emotional Scene From The Witcher
Immortality sucks. It's the one thing fantasy stories pretty much universally agree upon, and it's something Geralt of Rivia in "The Witcher" (played by Henry Cavill for the first three seasons) knows a fair deal about. Witchers themselves aren't immortal and many die on the job battling monsters long before old age gets them, but they can live an inordinately long time thanks to the alchemical process they're subjected to as part of their training. This procedure also renders them sterile, so the only family they can have are those of the found variety — and seeing as Witchers can outlive most beings in the show's setting, aka The Continent (save for mages and elves), they naturally tend to prefer a solitary lifestyle.
The Continent's a big place, though, so unless they really enjoy walking for days on end (even Frodo Baggins isn't that high on cardio), Witchers tend to need horses to make their way from village to village as they work the monster hunting gig economy. In Geralt's case, he always has his trusty steed, Roach, by his side ... and by that, I mean he always names his current horse Roach, a detail that comes straight out of Andrzej Sapkowski's original "Witcher" novels (as well as their video game adaptations).
As darkly comical as Geralt's horse-naming practice inherently is, there's more to it than that. It's hard enough having to say farewell to our pets in a single lifetime; when you live as long as a Witcher, you do what you can to make their passing a little less painful. No doubt, Cavill had a similar thought in mind when he asked to rewrite the scene where Roach dies (where a Roach dies, that is) in season 2, episode 6, "Dear Friend..."
'Enjoy your last walk across the meadow and through the mist'
The scene in question finds Geralt and his Child of Surprise, Ciri (Freya Allan), on the go when they encounter a chernobog. Sadly, although Geralt ultimately manages to kill the creature, Roach is fatally injured during the skirmish. However, before putting his horse out of its misery by slicing its throat, Geralt delivers a short speech lifted directly out of Sapkowski's novel "Sword of Destiny," gently telling Roach, "Enjoy your last walk across the meadow and through the mist. Be not afraid of her for she is your friend."
In a 2021 interview with Polygon, "The Witcher" showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained that she and the show's other writers felt it was time for Geralt to bid farewell to the only Roach featured on the series up to that point. "We had already kind of pressed the boundaries of reality there," she said. The plan, then, was for Roach to die in a "very heroic way." The only problem was Hissrich initially planned to include a meta-joke about the situation, which didn't sit well with Cavill:
"Henry was so unhappy with the line. Finally I said, 'You know what, you come up with something. I trust you, you know this material so well, you know the book so well, you don't even have to pitch it to me.' And he came back the next day with a beautiful speech that's at the end of 'Sword of Destiny' when Geralt is facing death and it's such a pitch-perfect moment."
"The Witcher" has never shied away from self-aware humor, but cracking a "Which Roach are we on now?" quip wouldn't have sat right at all. What's more, this specific anecdote just goes to show that his performance wasn't the only good thing Cavill brought to the table on "The Witcher."