The Witcher: Yennefer's Magic (And Its Limits), Explained - Collider

Now on its second season, Netflix’s The Witcher has established itself as the go-to show for lovers of epic fantasy in a post-Game of Thrones world. Based on the series of novels of the same name by Andrzej Sapkowski, the series created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich follows the titular witcher (aka monster hunter), Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Princess Ciri of Cintra (Freya Allan), sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), and charming bard Jaskier (Joey Batey) on their journeys across a war-torn land known only as the Continent. It’s a world full of mystery and magic, as good fantasy usually is, but not all magic creatures in The Witcher are created alike. At least plot-wise, some are much more relevant than others, like Geralt’s on-and-off ally and love interest Yennefer.

But how do Yennefer’s powers work? And what happens to them in Season 2?

Like nearly everything else in The Witcher, Yennefer’s powers are connected to the Conjunction of the Spheres. Barely understood by the show’s characters themselves, this cataclysmic event of interdimensional proportions is behind the creation of the Continent as we have come to know it. During the Conjunction, different planes of existence collided, leaving humans and monsters stranded in the Continent, previously inhabited only by ancient races, like elves and dwarves. The event also allowed a magical deluge into the world, flooding it with the mystical energy known as Chaos.

While Geralt gets his powers from a series of mutations that allow him and other witchers to perform low-level magic, among other things, Yennefer was born with the ability to conduct Chaos. She is what is called a conduit, someone capable of harnessing the magical energy of the universe without undergoing any kind of modification. With due training, conduits of chaos are able to perform feats that surpass those of witchers by far, both in power level and complexity. But studying to become a mage is no easy task, and being a conduit isn’t in any way a guarantee. All it means is a one-way ticket to magic school.

Yennefer of Vengerberg trained in one of the Continent’s many schools for mages, a former elven fortress known as Aretuza. She first arrives there in a moment of distress. Born with a hunchback and a crooked jaw, Yennefer was frequently abused by her stepfather and the people of her hometown. After being caught spying on a young couple, dreaming of love and tenderness she believes she’ll never have, she’s attacked, beaten, and insulted. The nightmare ends when she’s magically transported to Aretuza’s Tower of the Gull, where she meets Istredd (Royce Pierreson). The mage is impressed by her abilities and warns Yennefer that someone will come for her.

Back at home, Yennefer receives a visit from Tissaia de Vries (MyAnna Buring), the rectress of Aretuza. Tissaia offers to buy her from her stepfather, and the man promptly accepts, giving the young girl away for four marks — less than he would charge for one of his pigs. Yennefer is reluctant to be taken away and tries to kill herself by slitting her wrists on her first night at Aretuza, but she soon realizes there might be more to her than she was led to believe.

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Yennefer doesn’t excel in her first lessons at Aretuza and falling behind means a dire fate for aspiring mages. As Tissaia explains to the girls in Yennefer's first class, being a conduit of Chaos doesn’t necessarily mean you are capable of doing magic. “Magic is organizing Chaos”, she tells them, and, in order to achieve this goal, a mage must find balance and control. “Without them”, Tissaia continues, “Chaos will kill you”.

The balance aspect is the more pragmatic of the two. In order to do magic, sorcerers in The Witcher universe must know the proper incantations, yes, but they also need to understand the basic exchange rule that governs the use of Chaos. To do magic, mages need to take their energy from something, be it a flower or their own bodies. The important thing is that nothing is given without something else being taken. Magic requires sacrifice.

Control, on the other hand, is a little trickier. Aspiring mages must learn to control Chaos, of course, but they also need to know how to keep their emotions from taking over. This is important especially due to the political role sorcerers have in The Witcher, acting as advisors for the Continent’s many kings and keeping the Brotherhood of Sorcerers on top of things.

Yennefer’s anger and insecurity render her a weak student in the eyes of Tissaia, at first. The rectress comments on the girl’s attempted suicide and scolds her for nearly killing another student. Thankfully, however, she manages to prove her worth. The Aretuza girls that fail to yield proper control over Chaos and their own emotions are turned into eels and thrown into the pool at the Tower of the Gull, harnessing power for the school. They keep their power but lose their control.

Yennefer proves she has control over her emotions by spying on Istredd at Tissaia’s behest. As for her ability to do magic, she’s shown to have a talent much greater than that of her colleagues, conjuring portals with little to no effort and channeling lightning through her own body. This aptitude is attributed to her elven lineage. As Yennefer explains to Istredd, her biological father was a half-elf. This elvish heritage was responsible for her deformities, but also for her natural familiarity with magic. After all, even if magic has become a human discipline over the years, elves in the world of The Witcher were the ones originally responsible for harnessing the energy of Chaos and putting it to use. They later passed their knowledge on to humans and were subsequently massacred, but having elven blood can still give you a head start when it comes to yielding magic.

What an elven lineage doesn’t give you a head start on is politics. Prejudice against elves in the Continent, especially in Cintra, prevents those with elvish blood from reaching positions of power, and Yennefer’s parentage is used against her when the time comes to choose her posting. Though Tissaia initially wanted to send her to Aedirn, she’s relegated to Nilfgaard, a country ruled by a foolish king that treats his mages as mere sex objects. Dreading this fate, Yennefer decides to take matters into her own hands and wins over the king of Aedirn against the wishes of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.

To understand how she does that and why King Fergus of Nilfgaard is so anxious for an advisor he has no intention to listen to, we must take a step back on Aretuza’s preparatory process. After mastering different forms of magic, from crafting illusions to mind-reading, female mages are submitted to a magical procedure that rids them of all physical “imperfections”. They are to be considered the most beautiful women in the world. The enchanting, as the procedure is called, is painful and bloody, not so different from real-life plastic surgery, and Yennefer undergoes it without anesthesia in her rush to revert the Brotherhood’s decision.

Alas, no magic comes without a price: the enchanting costs Yennefer her fertility, something she later comes to miss. After failing to save a young princess from an assassin, Yennefer goes rogue and dabbles in dangerous, unpredictable kinds of magic in an attempt to regain her ability to have children.

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Season 2 of The Witcher also has Yennefer looking to regain something she’s lost, but, this time, it’s her powers. Following the events of the Battle of Sodden, she discovers she is no longer a conduit of Chaos. The energy has abandoned her after she used a dangerous, forbidden kind of magic: fire magic. In order to repel a fireball shot by Fringilla's (Mimi Ndiweni) men, Yennefer has to tap into powers hidden deep within her, which results in all Chaos leaving her body. It is, as Tissaia explains, a sacrifice.

Yennefer does eventually get her powers back. It’s a gift she receives after slitting her own wrist and virtually sacrificing herself to save Ciri from Voleth Meir (Ania Marson). A gift from whom is still anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was Voleth Meir keeping her promise to give Yennefer back her powers in exchange for Ciri even though things didn’t go as planned. Perhaps Ciri is a lot more powerful than the others believe. Perhaps it was someone or something else entirely. This is a question for Season 3 to answer. So far, all we know is that Yennefer is back and just as powerful as ever.

Season 2 of The Witcher is currently streaming on Netflix.