Female sorcerers resisting patriarchy in the Netflix series The Witcher

Abstract

Lauren Schmidt’s Netflix series, The Witcher (2019), centers around the witcher, Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster hunter and his adventures in a fantasy world known as the Continent. While Geralt is the central character, the series also delves into the lives of female sorcerers who are trained by Brotherhood; an organization of skilled magic practioners who are determined to restore stability and order by governing and regulating the use of magic between kingdoms. This paper will analyze four sorcerers, Yennefer, Fringilla, Cirilla, and Tissaia, by focusing on the power of womanhood, especially the female power coming from what Silvia Federici in her book Caliban and the Witch (2004) underlines as women’s “sexuality,” “control over reproduction” and “ability to heal.” This paper argues that these three innate female traits push these four sorcerers to exert their own agency and code of ethics and, thus, dismantle the patriarchal control of Brotherhood. Drawing upon feminist literary theory, especially Silvia Federici’s book Caliban and the Witch, this article aims to analyze the power dynamics and resistance between the sorcerers and Brotherhood, the motives driving the sorcerers’ rebellion, and how these sorcerers emerge as symbols of resistance throughout the series.