‘The Witcher’: Can Elves Be Witchers?

Despite The Witcher focusing on the story of the great Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, the show covers an era when the glory days of Witchers have long passed. The same goes for the Elves, who are now a dying race. However, the Elves ruled the land when most of the monsters that Witchers were meant to kill arrived on the continent. For some reason, the elves didn’t create their own Witchers, so many fans wonder whether elves can be witchers.

There is no explanation in the books as to why elves didn’t create their own witchers after the Conjunction of Spheres since they clearly needed them. There is also no evidence to prove their genetic makeup prevents them from becoming Witchers either. Blood Origin revealed that elves had the magic and technology for creating witchers long before humans did, or at least a version of witchers, as Zacare did with Fjall.

The Trial of the Grasses, used by humans to make Witchers, leads to many deaths, and the elves probably didn’t have that many children to put up for such a process. However, if Zacare’s procedure in Blood Origin is anything to go by, elves had a more refined method of creating the serum for converting people to witchers that isn’t as deadly as the human version. So, what happened to Fjall and the elven technology for creating witchers? Let’s delve into it.

Can elves be turned into Witchers?

The first Witcher, or at least a hybrid version of one, was actually an elf named Fjall, who was introduced to Witcherverse in Blood Origin, the prequel series to The Witcher.

Fjall Stoneheart was an elven warrior of the Dog Clan who agreed to an experiment by the mages to give him enhanced powers to defeat a flying beast created by an evil mage called Balor.

Although he wasn’t called a Witcher in Blood Origin, the process gave him some of the features witnessed in Witchers, including increased speed and agility, yellow eyes, and the ability to see in the dark.

However, Fjall deteriorated and later turned into a total monster killing everything in his path, just like the monster he was created to kill, so the mages killed him.

Our working theory is that the monster heart that was merged with Fjall’s heart to turn him into the hybrid wasn’t a safe ingredient in the creation of Witchers.

Vesemir later told Geralt that Elder Blood was a key ingredient in creating Witchers, although it is unclear whether the mages that created the first Witchers had it.

It is still possible that the mages had the right ingredients and that Fjall’s deterioration was simply because elves are not meant to be Witchers.

Fjall was also grown and full of hatred and vengeance by the time he became a Witcher hybrid, while human Witchers are converted as children.

Training and nurturing discipline in Witchers in the Witcher Schools from childhood could also be why the human process is more successful.

Zacare retained the knowledge used to transform Fjall and is believed to have taught it to other mages, leading to the knowledge reaching humans after the Conjunction of Spheres.

The human mages refined the knowledge to ensure that the Witchers they created didn’t turn into monsters like Fjall.

However, after Fjall, there is no record of the mages creating any other version of an elf-Witcher.

The games also feature some half-elf-witchers, including Gezras of Leyda, although there is no mention of full-breed elves becoming witchers in any of the schools.

Why are there no elf-witchers in The Witcher?

There is no evidence that elves that dwell on The Continent (Aen Seidhe) ever started a program to create Witchers or any version of enhanced/mutated warriors.

As a result, no elf-Witchers were ever created in the Universe after Fjall Stoneheart was destroyed.

Witchers would have helped Elves defeat both humans and monsters, but it doesn’t seem like they ever thought of creating such a program after the Conjunction.

Human mages and kings, on the other hand, came up with the project when they realized that the monsters were a big threat to their expanding settlements.

It is unlikely that they would welcome elves to the Witcher Schools even after the Order of Witchers failed because the two races were at war, and the process of making Witchers was a heavily guarded secret.

Our working theory is that the elves were too occupied with trying to survive their battles with humans and didn’t consider monsters as their biggest threat at the time.

Elves were not united in purpose either, and their division only worked in favor of humans, who continued to expand their settlements and outnumber the elves.

The weapon the race trusted to defeat the humans was the Elder Blood, carried by their would-be hero Lara Dorren who ended up marrying a human sorcerer instead.

In the end, having lost their land and the Elder Blood, creating fighters as powerful as Witchers was out of Elves’ hands, so the humans took over the continent, forcing elves to join dwarves at the edge of the world.

Is Geralt the last Witcher?

Despite being one of the last Witchers, Geralt of Rivia is not the last Witcher in both the books and the games.

The show is a story told in Geralt’s eyes, which is why hardly any other Witchers are shown.

His mentor and older Witcher, Vesemir, is the only other Witcher revealed in the show as of the third season’s first half.

Events in The Witcher start in 1210, after most witchers, elves, and monsters on the continent have been wiped out.

However, according to books and games, Geralt’s fellow graduate from Wolf School, Eskel, is alive at the same time as he does.

There is also a younger Witcher called Lambert, believed to be one of the very last Witchers to be created.