WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Season 2 of The Witcher, now available on Netflix.
Netflix's The Witcher brings a few new monsters to Season 2. Some are not just new to the series, but to every branch of the property, including Andrzej Sapkowski's novels and CD Projekt Red's video games. The major antagonist throughout the hit-fantasy series' second season, Voleth Meir, was made especially for the show. What is she and where did she come from?
Audiences won't find references to the mysterious being anywhere else, but she was inspired by some of the same muses that inspired Sapkowski. Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich explained that The Witcher Season 2 features more monsters than Blood of Elves, which inspired much of its story, simply because the novel doesn't have that many monsters in it. She later expanded on this issue and explained that she and the writer's room discussed a monster that would help connect Geralt of Rivia, Ciri and Yennefer of Vengerberg and somehow push them all forward as well. Voleth Meir was born.
Based on the slavic myth, Baba Yaga, Voleth Meir is a demon whose name, as Yennefer, Fringilla Vigo and Francesca Findabair reveal, means "The Deathless Mother" in the Elder Speech-- the language of the Aen Seidhe and various other races on the Continent. She was stranded on the Continent after the Conjunction of the Spheres, where she wrought havoc until the first witchers trapped her in an enchanted hut beneath Elven ruins.
Voleth Meir is a powerful entity who can take on many forms and possess people. But her true power lies in being able to tap into an individual's pain and insecurities. She feeds on anguish and it makes her more powerful. It took the pain of Yennefer, Fringilla and Francesca to break her magical binds. Once free, she hunted the Child of the Elder Blood, Ciri, and possessed her, using her power to open a portal through a monolith hidden at Kaer Morhen. It was then that she showed she could not be dealt with in the traditional manner -- not with silver or steel swords -- since she could heal herself and her host.
But as Geralt suggested to Ciri, while she did feed on despair and pain, it seemed she was more intent on returning to her own world than anything else. Once there, she took on the form of a rider of the Wild Hunt, hinting that she was simply one member of the Wraiths of Mörhogg. In that way, the show hints that more than one member of the Wild Hunt is capable of inflicting the same kind of damage and suffering on their own.
With her connection to the first witchers and the Conjunction of the Spheres, it's likely that audiences will be seeing the demon again. Not in Season 3, but in the upcoming prequel series, The Witcher: Blood Origin, which is set 1,200 years before the events of the main series.
See Voleth Meir in action in The Witcher Season 2, now available for streaming on Netflix.