Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Witcher Season 4
Endings have never come easy on The Witcher. For all its monsters and prophecies, the series has always been about the people caught between them—those who fight, falter, and keep going. Across its run, The Witcher has traced the uneasy bond between Geralt of Rivia (Liam Hemsworth), the monster hunter bound by destiny; Ciri (Freya Allan), the princess whose power could save or destroy worlds; and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), the sorceress torn between ambition and love. What began as a story of survival in a brutal, war-torn continent evolved into something more intimate—a saga about found family, fate, and the cost of becoming who you are.
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By the time the Season 4 finale “Baptism of Fire” arrives, that transformation is complete. Geralt realizes his childhood dream only to find it hollow. Ciri loses the last of her innocence. Yennefer stands among the ashes of Montecalvo, gathers what remains of a broken order, then walks into a storm to face the man who destroyed it.
None of them win. But fire isn’t about victory—it’s about what you become when the burning stops. The finale serves as a bridge, carrying its characters from Season 4 into The Witcher’s final chapter.
“We wrote Seasons 4 and 5 back-to-back, and it created a really unique challenge: How do we craft something that feels like an organic and sort of satisfying end of a season, but still says to the audience, ‘There’s still more to come?’” creator Lauren Schmidt Hissrich tells TIME. That meant letting the characters break instead of triumph. “Each of them is in their own traumatic place, and in some cases, darker than we’ve ever seen them before.”
The finale isn’t about closure—it’s about what remains when everything familiar burns away, and the painful work of rebuilding after finding yourself in the ash.
The architect of what remains
In the aftermath of Montecalvo’s fall, Yennefer stands in the smoky ruins, surrounded by the names of the dead: Istredd (Royce Pierreson), Margarita (Rochelle Rose), and Vesemir (Kim Bodnia). The cost of victory weighs heavier than defeat. She confesses to Philippa (Cassie Clare) that she regrets rallying the sorceresses into battle against Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu) earlier in the season, a fight that ended in devastating loss. “I thought that in order for us to survive, we sorceresses had to become soldiers. I was so wrong,” she says quietly. “This whole time, I’ve been overlooking what was right in front of me.”
But she begins again and builds something new: the Lodge of Sorceresses. The act signals a shift in her power and her purpose. Yennefer tells the group that the “future of magic” remains at risk—and though they will eventually find Ciri, their first task is to build a home for her to return to.
“Yennefer has really arrived this season,” Hissrich says. “She’s no longer seeking power for power’s sake. She’s now seeking to control things for the safety of The Continent, for her fellow mages, and especially for Ciri, Geralt, and their family. What she’s trying to do is make things safe again.”
With Ciri missing and Vilgefortz still at large, Yennefer’s ambition hardens into purpose. Before she departs to hunt him, she entrusts the Lodge to Triss (Anna Shaffer)—a gesture that says as much about faith as it does about leadership.
Ciri’s story, meanwhile, has always been one of escape—from Cintra’s fall, from Nilfgaard’s assassins, from a prophecy she never asked to bear. By the time she joins the Rats in Season 4, she’s exhausted, renaming herself Falka and vanishing into a band of young thieves who want nothing from her but loyalty.
For a while, it works. The Rats live fast and without fear, stealing from tax collectors and nobles. They give her something she’s never had: friends her own age who don’t see a princess or a weapon—just a girl like them. “That’s part of why their deaths feel so heartbreaking,” Hissrich says. “We’re stripping away that final bit of humanity for her.”
The massacre comes like an unending nightmare. Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley), the bounty hunter sent to kill them, lures the Rats to an inn. When he descends the stairs, he moves with the calm of someone who’s done this before, counting the heartbeats between the blade entering and the body realizing it’s already dead. The Rats don’t stand a chance. Only Mistle remains alive. Later, Ciri watches helplessly as Bonhart beheads her.
The Rats’ deaths mark a brutal turning point for Ciri. “It represents a loss of innocence, but of course, I think a lot of people would say the Rats aren’t exactly innocent,” Hissrich explains. “That’s what makes them perfect Witcher characters.” Ciri loses not her purity but the illusion that she can keep running from her true self. By the finale’s end, she’s alone once more, understanding that power doesn’t vanish. It waits until it demands to be faced.
The dream that no longer fits
Geralt has had the same dream since childhood: to become a knight, a truth viewers learned in a flashback from Season 1. Now, that dream finally materializes.
The Battle of the Bridge is a heroic stand. Geralt and his companions—a circle that came to be known as the “hanza”—arrive by ferry and step straight into bloodshed. The camera stays close as they defend a crossing between warring armies. Swords clash. Chaos reigns.
Filmed partly in Wales and partly on a built-out parking-lot set, the sequence merges practical stunts with visual effects. “We wanted to keep this sense of chaos: the idea that all these parties arrive in this place and have no choice but to engage and to fight,” Hissrich says. “Geralt has no choice, and I think we get to see him at his most heroic.”
After the clash, Geralt is knighted for his bravery, fulfilling his oldest fantasy—but at a cost. In a beat of levity that carries new weight, Geralt quietly curses afterward. “His dreams have changed,” says Hissrich. “This thing that used to feel like the pinnacle of his fantasy of the future is not enough anymore, because he wants his family more.”
Across the season, Geralt’s companions became a family: Jaskier (Joey Batey), his longtime confidant; Milva (Meng’er Zhang), the archer mourning the dryads who sheltered her; Cahir (Eamon Farren), seeking redemption; and Regis (Laurence Fishburne), the vampire healer who proves even loners crave connection. “Found family has been my major theme from the very beginning,” Hissrich says. “In Season 1, if you asked me what the show was about, I would say ‘family.’ It’s about finding your people on The Continent.”
The Witcher, reborn
When Henry Cavill left the series after Season 3, many wondered whether anyone could step into the character he made iconic. But Hissrich says she knew almost instantly that Liam Hemsworth had found his own way into Geralt. The first scene he shot was also the first of Season 4.
“He showed up and just did it,” she recalls. “There was no warming up. It was as though we’d always been there.” What impressed her most was the balance he struck—reverence for what Cavill had built paired with the quiet confidence to make the role his own. “He knew how to honor how the character originated but also bring his own flavor to it,” she says. Surrounded by a cast and crew who’d been together since the beginning, Hemsworth was “embraced” from the start. By the time they wrapped that first day, she adds, “It was like, ‘We’ve got it.’”
Hemsworth’s Geralt carries the same weight as Cavill’s but with a quieter kind of fatigue. This Geralt accepts that destiny doesn’t care what he wants—and that love, real and messy, can undo even the strongest among us.
What’s left after the fire
Baptism means immersion—water, fire, blood. You go in whole and come out changed. “Baptism of Fire” earns its name. Ciri finds herself stripped of everything, including her chosen family. Yennefer walks into a storm carrying her promise to Geralt and the names of the dead. Geralt, meanwhile, rides bearing a knighthood he doesn’t want and companions he can’t afford to lose.
Each one walks away changed after everything they’ve fought for. “The end of the season is a bit heartbreaking, but we really wanted to seal in that sense of redemption to come,” Hissrich says.
Season 4 closes not with certainty but with an omen. In the shadows, Emhyr (Bart Edwards) unleashes a monster—one we never see—to hunt Geralt, striking the first spark of what’s to come in The Witcher’s final chapter. What follows may bring redemption or ruin. But for now, amid the ashes, there’s light and the faint, stubborn glow of hope.