In the TV series "The Witcher", why does White Wolf only have one sword? Where did the Silver Sword go?

Last night Netflix released the first batch of stills and posters for The Witcher TV series, showing characters such as White Wolf, Ciri and Yennefer for the first time. But one thing caught IGN's attention: Why does White Wolf only have one sword?

All the promotional images of White Wolf released for The Witcher TV show show him carrying an iron sword. Players familiar with The Witcher series may wonder: where is White Wolf's silver sword? In the game, White Wolf's silver sword will help him complete the task of killing monsters, so its absence is worrying.

So why doesn't White Wolf have two swords in Netflix's TV series? Foreign media IGN gave its own guess and explanation.

First of all, it should be noted that Netflix's "The Witcher" series is based on the original novels, not CDPR's games. The short story collection and novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski both describe the White Wolf carrying an iron sword. The first short story collection "The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher" is written like this:

"When he took off his coat, those around him noticed that he was carrying a sword, which in itself was not unusual; nearly everyone in Wyzim carried a weapon, but no one would strap a sword to their back as if it were a bow or quiver."

White Wolf's second sword is made of silver and disappears and reappears throughout the Witcher novels, but most of the time, the sword is carried by his mount, Turnip, rather than on his back.

Differences between The Witcher novels and games

Also, a wizard can only kill monsters with a silver sword? This is mainly a game mechanic of The Witcher. For most monsters, the iron sword infused with meteorites is enough to kill them, according to a passage from White Wolf in The Last Wish:

"As you can see, I carry two swords. Every wizard does. Some people maliciously say that silver swords are for killing monsters and iron swords are for killing people. But this is wrong. Because some monsters can be killed with just a silver sword, and some monsters can be killed with just an iron sword."

There are probably a few reasons why CDPR's games don't store the silver sword with Turnip like in the novels. First, it's too cumbersome to have the player go back and forth to Turnip to switch swords. Second, Turnip doesn't become a major character in the Witcher series until the third game, The Witcher 3. Third, carrying two swords on your back looks so cool that author Sapkowski himself was inspired by the games and had White Wolf carry two swords in The Witcher: Season of Storms, a novel that was released after the first two games.