Henry Cavill’s Final ‘Witcher’ Fight is a Beautiful Full Circle Moment

Henry Cavill‘s final scene in Netflix‘s The Witcher was neither a noble death nor a stunning cliffhanger. Instead, it was a potent reminder of how his journey as Geralt of Rivia started in the first place. Throughout the last two episodes of The Witcher, Geralt is haunted by the memory of Renfri (Emma Appleton), a beautiful princess-turned-bandit whose twisted Snow White-inspired story didn’t end at all like a fairy tale. She’s a character whom we — Witcher fans and Geralt alike — met all the way back in The Witcher Season 1 Episode 1 “The End’s Beginning.” There, she posed a unique threat to the titular witcher. Not only was she close to his equal with the blade, but she was able to challenge Geralt’s devotion to neutrality. When Geralt leaves her beautiful gilt and bejeweled brooch behind, it’s a metaphor for him finally choosing a side. It’s the side of Ciri (Freya Allan) and, after decades of letting her down, the side of Renfri.

The Witcher originally premiered on December 20, 2019 and the series opened with Geralt hunting down a monster called a kikimora on the outskirts of the town of Blaviken. Almost as soon as Geralt enters Blaviken, he meets Renfri. He soon learns that Renfri is a powerful warrior who leads a band of loyal soldiers. She’s also being hunted by the wizard Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen), who believes she is cursed because she was born during the Black Sun eclipse.

Geralt finds himself pulled into Renfri and Stregobor’s conflict despite his goal of remaining neutral. He doesn’t pick sides, he attempts to explain. It doesn’t matter how much money Stregobor offers him, he hunts monsters, not people. Oh, Renfri wants to counter Stregobor’s offer? She asks him to help her kill Stregobor? Also not going to work for Geralt.

Complicating the matter is the fact that Renfri clearly pulls on Geralt’s heartstrings. Besides being attracted to the beautiful woman, Geralt feels a kinship. It is true that Renfri has some sort of mutation that keeps her immune to magical spells worked against her. Because of this, Stregobor believes she is the last of the 60 cursed girls prophecized to bring the return of a demon queen. After Stregobor was told by Renfri’s stepmother that the girl was maliciously cruel to animals and servants, the wizard wasted no time in dispatching a hired assassin to take the princess into the woods to murder her. Obviously that didn’t work.

Renfri’s would-be murderer actually rapes her. In order to survive, she plunges the sharp pin of her jeweled brooch into the assailant’s ear. Renfri spends the next few years on the run, starving when she couldn’t steal food or sell her body. Eventually she becomes a killer, first preferring to impale her enemies and then becoming a master of the sword. While roaming the lands of the Continent, her stepmother continued to try to kill her — almost succeeding with a poison apple — until Aridea herself was poisoned.

When Geralt meets Renfri in the first episode of The Witcher, he is encountering her at a pivotal moment. She has traded being hunted for being the hunter and her quarry is of course Stregobor. Because Geralt refuses to take a side, he offers Renfri an ultimatum: she leaves Blaviken and promises never to return nor kill Stregobor. Renfri comes to Geralt and accepts and they make love. When she’s gone the next morning, Geralt realizes Renfri lied and is determined to kill Stregobor.

What follows is a horrific battle in the town of Blaviken itself. Geralt has to fight off each of Renfri’s warriors before facing his lover himself. What’s worse is Renfri is forcing the fight by holding a kind village girl hostage and demanding they spar. Geralt kills Renfri, who predicts the arrival of Ciri as she dies in his arms. As the town turns on him, labeling him the “Butcher of Blaviken,” Geralt retreats with Renfri’s brooch as a souvenir.

Renfri’s brooch returns in The Witcher Season 3: Volume 2 when Yennefer sends it to Geralt while he convalesces with the dryads in Brokilon. As he thinks on it, he remembers his time with Renfri in flashback form. Then, after he’s well enough to pursue Ciri, Geralt does something that surprises Jaskier (Joey Batey): he offers the brooch as a bribe to get them across the border into Nilfgaard. It seems that Geralt just wants to avoid conflict on his path to rescue his second (potentially cursed) princess, Ciri. Geralt wants to continue to stay neutral…until he doesn’t.

Upon hearing how the guards rough up a poor family behind him, Geralt decides to intervene. Words lead to weapons and soon Geralt (with the help of Meng’er Zhang’s Milva) has killed all but one of the soldiers. This last soldier he sends to Nilfgaard with a message that he’s coming for Ciri. Neutrality be damned. Geralt has at long last picked a side.

Geralt doesn’t just pick a side, but he seemingly has finally processed his experience with Renfri. He leaves the brooch behind as he continues onward in the fight.

We always got the feeling that Geralt would have preferred to take Renfri’s side. His obsession with neutrality, however, got in the way. Now he no longer feels that tension. He is all in for his girls, be they Ciri, Yen, or the memory of Renfri.

By rescuing Ciri, Geralt can atone for not saving Renfri. The irony is Ciri is now heading down the dark path towards becoming a second Falka that Stregobor worried Renfri was fated to do.

All in all, it’s a exquisite cap to Henry Cavill’s three seasons on The Witcher and a sign that when Liam Hemsworth takes over the role in Season 4, Geralt is going to be a very different character indeed.