WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Witcher, Season 1, streaming now on Netflix.
Game of Thrones‘ last two seasons missed the mark on a couple of things, especially the final one where Daenerys’ descent into a Mad Queen left fans divided. One notable flaw people highlighted was the show’s usage of its dragons, wondering if they were being maximized in the narrative as forces to be reckoned with.
As such, many fans waited to see them unleashed in big arcs but apart from some fire-breathing cameos here and there (hey, we understand HBO had a budget to work with), the dragons’ overall stories felt a bit lackluster. Netflix’s The Witcher tries to follow suit with a nuanced dragon arc of its own, but unfortunately, this feeble attempt at a spectacle is even worse than what the HBO series offered.
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Now, don’t get us wrong, it was cool seeing Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal grow up from tiny reptiles over the course of nine years. They looked great and apart from the spot-on CGI, we got a lot of drama and emotion from them as they rebelled against Dany, then fought for her in the alliance against the North and Cersei. Still, they were very much under-serviced. Apart from Viserion, who was killed and turned into the Night King’s ice dragon, Rhaegal was shot out the sky by Euron Greyjoy in an anticlimactic sequence that didn’t do him justice at all as Jon’s potential partner. Then there’s Drogon, the pack leader, who was simply used to burn King’s Landing and the throne, fleeing with Dany to make some kind of political statement against power corrupting the hearts of mankind. Ultimately, we waited so long and expected way more.
The Witcher, likewise, wants to create something deep when Geralt (Henry Cavill) is approached by Borch (Ron Cook) in the sixth episode “Rare Species.” Here, Borch wants Geralt to join his camp in a dragon hunt which pits them against the dwarves, a group of mercenaries known as Reavers and the noble knight Eyck of Denesle, all of whom are competing to kill the beast ravaging Barefield. Geralt initially turns him down but when he sees Eyck’s consort is the woman of his dreams, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), Geralt signs up. He wants to be close to her to protect her in case things go awry, as she wants to use the dragon’s egg to get pregnant through sorcery. But when they do meet the dragon, it’s disappointing and seems like Netflix had an even smaller budget to work with than HBO’s.
Earlier, Geralt thought he lost Borch and his bodyguards, the Zerrikanian warriors, Téa and Véa, as they all fell off a cliff, but when he and Yen find the dragon’s cave, they spot the trio guarding the egg. The mother, a green dragon known as Myrgtabrakke, is dead due to the harsh conditions of the village, and Borch reveals he’s actually the fabled golden dragon, Villentretenmerth, he told Geralt about — in human form, as he can apparently shape-shift. When the other soldiers come for the prize, Geralt, Yen, the two bodyguards and Borch (who transforms into the dragon) defend the egg but it’s a scene that looks so cheap, one would think it’s a B-list fantasy movie from Saturday nights on Syfy.
Borch’s design is terrible, so much so even 1995’s Dragonheart is lightyears ahead in comparison. In fact, Dragonheart even had Draco (Sean Connery) talking and that worked pretty well, but here, Borch communicates via telepathy and it cheapens the product even more. Honestly, this is one aspect from the source material the series should have changed. Hearing Cook’s voiceover, which doesn’t match the dragon’s facial expressions, makes you wonder how this made the final cut. It feels like the ’80s (in a bad way) and to make matters worse, Borch doesn’t even use its flames that much to safeguard the egg.
Borch earlier told Geralt in a tavern the golden dragon was a mutation, like the Witcher, who held immense power, but we never get a glimpse of that here in battle as it just shifts around lazily and burns one set of attackers when it could have roasted everyone trying to get the egg.
The way Borch is used doesn’t even fit this medieval universe because there’s real no violence with him as the father of the egg. It’s not like when we saw Dany’s dragons leaping to her side to protect their family. Instead, Borch comes off like a puppet from The Dark Crystal franchise or the Lizard from Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man: stiff and wooden, with no personality. It’s a shame because The Witcher’s other monsters are scary — on the level of Silent Hill. Unfortunately, this dragon leaves you laughing when you should be intimidated.
