Anna Daniels
Back to Geralt and his witching ways and slow, sure march towards a destiny which will shake the entire world. Intercut throughout episode three of The Witcher is Geralt’s hunt for the mysterious striga. The story leading up to the striga fight is a twisted one, almost Shakespearean in the depths of its tragedy.
A cursed being has been terrorizing a local village for years, killing its inhabitants. Geralt is called in by Triss Merigold to help apprehend the beast and get to the bottom of the curse. The witcher finds that the striga is actually a product of Lannister-style consensual incest between the king and his sister. A jealous advisor, in love with the king’s sister Adda, attempted to curse the king, but the spell went awry and wound up cursing and killing the mother instead, causing her baby to become a monstrous, bloodthirsty, violent striga.
Yikes! While the story is as gruesome as it gets, it does give us this amazing monster battle scene. The scariest monsters are always the ones you can never quite see, and they use that movie magic to full effect here. The shadowy lighting and quick cuts, interspersed with slow, tense waiting, make this fight sequence one of the highlights of the whole first season.
This monster was so elusive that we smashed that double bar button trying to get a good glimpse of the striga and figure out just what the heck is going on with that mouth.
Written by: Looper
