Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ Will Explore Geralt’s Disability Within Future Episodes

After reading a new Twitter thread diving into Geralt’s disability, Netflix’s The Witcher showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich has expressed her intent to explore this side of the character. The lengthy thread, which contained highlighted sections from the novels, was posted early Monday morning, and it clearly had an impact on Hissrich. She not only shared it with fans of the show the following day but also admitted that it will influence the way she writes Henry Cavill‘s Geralt in future seasons.

The thread written by a U.K.-based disability consultant opens with the fact that Geralt is disabled — following a battle injury that shattered multiple bones and caused nerve damage — which is unknown to some fans of the hugely popular video games. Publishers CD Projekt Red removed Geralt’s disability from the games, and the consultant offers a deep dive into the books to argue that the series should not make the same mistake.

“Why is it important that Geralt is disabled?” the consultant wrote. “It adds a lot to Geralt as a character and a protagonist. When you think about Geralt of Rivia, you think about a strong and capable (if sometimes reluctant) hero… That isn’t something you see very often in fantasy novels or the genre as a whole and as someone whose disabilities include osteoarthritis and nerve damage, it meant the world to see someone like me be a famed and powerful monster hunter.”

As the consultant notes, Geralt’s disability doesn’t appear until the final moments of the second Witcher novel, The Time of Contempt, which will presumably be adapted for the third season. This gives Hissrich plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments. “Geralt of Rivia is disabled and a hero and it’s important we don’t erase that part of him,” the thread concludes.

You can read the whole thread starting here, but be warned, it does contain spoilers for future seasons of The Witcher.