🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

At the end of The Witcher Season 3, Episode 5, Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) discover that the person sowing discord across the Continent isn’t who they’d thought it was. Their main suspect had been the mage Stregobor (Lars Mikkelsen) — with his vocal anti-elf views, they’re certain he’s not only responsible for missing Aretuza apprentices, but has also been spying for Nilfgaard. But, as they find out, the real villain is actually Vilgefortz of Roggeveen (Mahesh Jadu).

“Our villain has been playing a very long game. A very long game — decades,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Tudum in April. “[The writers have] obviously known who the villain was since the moment we started writing Season 1. So the writers have also been playing a very long game, and there have been scenes and actions in the past where a character will seem to do something that is well out of character, or that’s not who the fans believe he or she actually is.” See? Long game!

The fun part, Schmidt Hissrich explains, “is being able to finally reveal it in Season 3 and go back and say, ‘That’s why that happened in Season 1. That’s why that scene had to be that way, which felt puzzling, but now you’ll understand.’ The villain has been holding up as many masks and red herrings as we have as writers. I’m most excited for people to learn who the villain is, and then go back to Season 1 and see just how much we’ve laid in.”

Who is Vilgefortz?

Let’s look to the official Witcher guide for a comprehensive description of the character: 

Handsome, tall and mysterious, Vilgefortz is a charismatic mage with a military history. Vilgefortz looks young for a mage of his ability, honed from years spent as a mercenary. But the fact that he chose the life of a soldier despite having innate magical powers was held against him constantly by certain members of the Chapter. The Battle of Sodden Hill — a battle that might never have happened without Vilgefortz’s influence — gave him a chance to redeem himself and prove his worth. There, he was beaten in a one-to-one battle with Cahir, a soldier with no magical abilities — a feat that leads us to believe that there’s more going on than we realize.

In the aftermath of Sodden, Vilgefortz knew he had to strike the iron while it was hot. So employing his talent for politics, he used the mages’ grief and anger at Nilfgaard to make a play for control. Together with Tissaia, his partner in love and politics, he is trying to steer the Brotherhood in a new direction — but he faces plenty of opposition among the old guard led by Stregobor and Artorius.

Susan Allnutt/Netflix

How do Geralt and Yennefer figure out Vilgefortz is the villain? 

As the duo recall their night at the Conclave Ball in Episode 5, they identify two very important loose ends: First, Tissaia (MyAnna Buring) drops her scarlet ammonite bracelet in Stregobor’s room after the big showdown — scarlet ammonite is a material only mined near the castle where Geralt finds Teryn in Episode 2. (And as the audience knows, Vilgefortz is the one who gave Tissaia this romantic gift.) Second, the dark magic that interfered with Yen’s portal from Redania in Episode 4 brought her to a location depicted in a painting, “The Ship of Outcasts,” that Geralt spots in Aretuza’s Gallery of Glory — and Vilgefortz says it’s one of his favorites.

Chalotra, however, thinks Yennefer might’ve had a gut feeling about Vilgefortz’s true motives all along. “I’ve always been looking at him quite odd,” Chalotra told Tudum. 

Regardless of how they learned Vilgefortz’s true nature, Yen and Geralt must now reckon with this information — and fight back against his evil plan. Says Schmidt Hissrich, “Stregobor is a master illusionist, so it makes sense that Vilgefortz [would frame him]. He’s trying to hide his moves. He’s trying to hide what he’s doing. So what I really want at the end of Volume 1 is to say, ‘Great, we know who our baddie is. We know no one else knows.’ And what are Geralt and Yenn going to do about it? How are they going to proceed?”

What happens with Vilgefortz at Aretuza? 

First, our heroes have to deal with the battle at hand when an armada of Redanian ships arrive in the harbor at Aretuza. Tissaia, now contending with the fact that her lover is a traitor, frees the captured mages and they all begin fighting each other. Vilgefortz, meanwhile, opens a portal to let Francesca (Mecia Simpson), Filavandrel (Tom Canton), Cahir (Eamon Farren), and a small squadron of Scoia’tael fighters into Aretuza. He also gets Istredd out of the way by shoving him through a random portal. 

Finally, it’s time for Vilgefortz to face off with Geralt one-on-one. Unfortunately for our hero,  Vilgefortz proves to be a fearsome competitor and leaves him beaten and bloody in the sand. With Geralt incapacitated, Vilgefortz is free to chase after the powerful Ciri, who is transported via a mysterious portal to the middle of a barren desert.

In the aftermath of the battle, Triss takes Geralt to heal in the Brokilon Forest, while Tissaia’s guilt weighs on her enough to take her own life. The remaining sorceresses — Yennefer, Triss, Sabrina (Therica Wilson-Read), Margarita (Rochelle Rose), and Keira (Safiyya Ingar) — vow to protect their magical legacy and defeat Vilgefortz once and for all, with Yen stepping into Tissaia’s shoes as leader at Aretuza. 

Find out how they move forward in The Witcher Season 4. 

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Additional reporting by Ariana Romero.