#tv 2

In the books, Geralt, Triss, and Ciri have a run-in with the Scoi'atel, a group of non-humans (mostly elves) perhaps best described as freedom fighters. Humans had treated non-humans pretty atrociously in the previous centuries and took over most of their land, so understandably there is some very violent pushback against that.

Looks like the Scoi'atel (or at least some group of elves) make an appearance in the show as well, though not necessarily against Geralt (for now).

Instead, Yennefer meets the elves.

Yennefer just kind of disappears from the books post-breakup (short story #2 in book 2) and only returns to save Jaskier from Rience and later train Ciri (book 3/novel 1). Yeah, that whole battle at Sodden Hill? Not a scene in the books. The show filled in that gap, so it's unknown what happened to Yennefer in the large gap between Sodden and Ciri. Apparently, she gets captured possibly by Fringilla first:

and then by the elves, with Fringilla.

How she escapes from the situation is unclear, but surely she makes it happen.

Also, someone we know appears in the first teaser trailer:

We do not know much about what Jaskier has been up to since season 1.

However, we do know that this mf ended up in jail somehow.

His sexy lute was also broken, which sucks. For the record, it appears to be Filavandrel's lute from Jaskier's first adventure with Geralt (s01e02), so that really sucks. (However the settings of the lute shot/Jaskier shot appear to be sufficiently different that maybe the events are unrelated?)

The broken lute is a divergence from the book/games; to cite a couple of mentions, Jaskier still has Filavandrel's lute in The Time of Contempt post-Thanedd, and in the first Witcher game he tells Geralt about how he got his lute during their first adventure together.

Anyway, what's he in prison for? There are a few reasons he's gotten in trouble in the books/games. In the novels, he's sentenced to death for cheating on the Duchess of Toussaint. In Witcher 2, he was going to be hanged for debauchery and burning down a building; in Witcher 3 he was imprisoned for helping Ciri in a heist. I guess debauchery is definitely possible. The man is pretty debaucherous.

In the first book in particular, though he avoids imprisonment, he does run into trouble. First, he shares a little too much about the Lion Cub of Cintra during a performance, and is tortured for information by Rience and co. (It's okay, Yennefer saves him.) Second, he works as a spy for Djikstra and then lies to him about Geralt.

However, I don't think either of these reasons is why he's locked up when Geralt comes to find him. Again, it diverges from the book in how Geralt comes to ask Jaskier for help; in the book, they just kind of meet up in Oxenfurt and Jaskier helps him out because they're bros, and that's just what they do. In the show, Geralt barely likes Jaskier and certainly wouldn't ask him for help lightly.

So the book and the show presumably are going to diverge wildly and the cause of Jaskier's imprisonment and broken lute is unrelated to anything in the books.

But it looks like later he's doing better. He gets a new lute! And a new hat :)

So why does Geralt really need Jaskier's help? In the books, Jaskier plays a big part in helping Geralt track down Rience; he keeps an eye on Ciri at the Isle of Thanedd; and he later joins up with Geralt to help track down Ciri after her disappearance. Probably Geralt will need help from Jaskier with all these things.

Okay, finally there's this shot of Geralt headed to Cintra with someone. It's unclear who that person is.

The jacket is brown vs. Jaskier's red jacket from other shots; his boots don't appear to be the same style. But the shot from above shows brown hair and who else could Geralt be going with?

In the books, Jaskier does head towards Cintra with Geralt, though they never actually get there. So what could they be doing there?