The Witcher Season 4 Kills Off Book Survivors Again — Here’s Why
The Witcher swings the axe in season 4 — and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich breaks down the shocking casualties, the ruthless logic behind them, and the fallout to come.
The Witcher just swung its sword through a couple more characters who live in the books, and yes, the showrunner knows you have thoughts. Lauren Schmidt Hissrich says the body count isn’t about cheap thrills — it’s about what the survivors do with the grief. Agree or not, she lays out the logic.
Spoilers ahead for The Witcher season 4 finale.
Talking to GamesRadar+, Hissrich acknowledged the ongoing debate around the show killing people who make it out of the source material. If you remember the season 2 blowback over Eskel’s very Leshen-y exit, that’s the vibe. This year, two more names joined the list, and both are big ones in the world of the show.
- Vesemir: Geralt’s mentor falls during the Battle of Montecalvo, killed by Vilgefortz. That’s a gut punch for anyone invested in Kaer Morhen’s old guard — and a very deliberate pivot from the books.
- Istredd: At Stygga Castle, the mage sacrifices himself to seriously mess with Vilgefortz’s plans. It’s a strategic play, not a random death, and it puts extra weight on the conflicts still to come.
Hissrich’s argument is that these aren’t dartboard decisions. The team uses certain deaths to force the characters left behind into new shapes — to show how loss rewires you and changes how you see the world. She also points out there are multiple deaths this season that come out of nowhere and affect different characters in very different ways. That tracks with the show’s long-running theme: even when monsters aren’t on screen, the world itself is hostile.
"I don’t think anyone is sitting around going, 'Let’s just kill that person. Let’s have that shock value.' One of the things that our characters have to deal with is the trauma of losing someone and how that changes who you are and how you view the world."
She adds that across the last two seasons, there’s simply a lot of death — because The Witcher is not exactly a happy place. It’s a creative choice that will always rile the book-faithful, but it’s also clearly the show’s message: survival has a cost, and the currency is people you care about.
The Witcher season 4 is streaming now on Netflix. Season 5 is on deck, so there’s time to catch up before we head back to the Continent and see who’s left standing.