How Old is Yennefer in Netflix's The Witcher Canon?
Netflix took a few liberties with their adaptation, also changing Yennefer's age.
For Anya Chalotra, the role of Yennefer of Vengerberg in the Netflix adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's book series The Witcher is the biggest of her career so far. Not surprisingly, some fans of the original fantasy novels believe that the actress is too young to portray her character, as Yennefer is an old and experienced sorceress at the time of her meeting with Geralt and Ciri.
The fact is, while the books say that some enchantments make Yennefer look like she's in her twenties, she is actually over 90. But is the character's age in the book the same as in the show?
Since The Witcher Season 1 was based on both the short stories and Sapkowski's first novel, fans had to follow different timelines and were regularly thrown from the present to the past and back. Here's what Chalotra shared about the experience of playing her character at different points in her life:
'I was playing from 14 to, like, 77 [...] I had, like, prosthetics and dealing with her transformation, we see her at 45 and then 77. And then, that journey, I could only do through breath because I didn't have any — I wasn't aging. So that was something which I focused on more, and the points in her — I looked at all life experiences up until that point, which informed the decision I made within that scene.'
From that, we can establish that the Netflix canon made Yennefer 77 at the time of Season 1, which takes place in 1263, according to the first (and fourth overall) book of the saga, Blood of Elves. The events of the third season, based on Time of Contempt, take place four years later, which means that Chalotra's character must be 81 in the show's current timeline.
However, this contradicts the dates in the books, which indicate that Yen was born in 1173 and should be 94 at the time of the third season. Yes, it looks like Netflix has tweaked the character's age a bit, but we must also point out that the chronology in Sapkowski's original books is very inconsistent and contradictory, so the age difference is not that significant after all.
The first five episodes of the two-part Season 3 of The Witcher were released on June 29, and the remaining three episodes will come out on July 27, 2023.
Source: 441MANIA.