Why Bard’s Called Jaskier and not Dandelion in Netflix the Witcher?

For people who were kind of confused like us – well, you don’t have to research, we are going to explain that. Hi guys, welcome back to Superheroera. Let’s quickly discuss the variations of one of the Witcher characters’ names, which as you can probably guess from the title. 

In the TV series, Jaskier is played by Joey Batey. Jaskier, who is one of the most important characters of Netflix the Witcher. The comedic and entertaining bard and best friend of the lead Joey Batey have made a lot of fans who are in love with his performance as well as fans are really loved him as Jaskier’s.

So, Dandilion or Dandelion or Jaskier as we know him from the Polish version, so if you are completely new to the Witcher universe, this guy is Geralt’s closest friend and he takes part in a big chunk of his storyline, so even in the TV series he’s a prominent character.

Different people use different variations of this name, we kind of feel like this is something worth explaining because you know it’s just going to be easier later on, and you guys will not be surprised why we are using this name and not another.

So the problem with this name is that it was translated inconsistently throughout the Witcher media. For example, all the Polish materials & the source materials call him Jaskier, which is his original nickname. In English, it means Buttercup, and it’s probably too feminine a name to actually use for this guy in the English version of the books.

So what the initial translator did is that she changed the name of the flower and she translated him as Dandilion and now yes, the name of the flower is Dandelion, but she twisted the letters so that instead of having Dandelion we have Dandilion. It was either done as just a spelling error which we personally doubt or it was done to kind of differentiate him from the flower in a way making his nickname a bit more special.

Then, the translator that came after this initial translator changed it from Dandilion to Dandelion and in the games also his name is Dandelion. So that’s probably how many people who are not familiar with the books know him. Then the TV series probably decided to just stay closer to the source material. So instead of calling him Dandelion, they’re going to call him Jaskier. 

And according to the sources, this could be because of Sapkowski’s influence on the TV series, I know that they are working quite closely with him to make sure that they stay true to the source material, and this is fantastic. Everyone is very happy with this, but you know this creates a weird situation were in the TV series, the guy has another name, and in the books, he has two different names.

Then in the Polish books, he has the same name as the TV series and then in the game, he has the same name as part of the books, so it just became a mess. In general localization, it is a very good thing, and it should be done in games, movies, TV series and books because usually, it plays in favour of whatever materially you are translating. But in this case, it’s just an example of how it can go totally wrong.

The original translator Danusia Stok, who called this guy Dandilion, translated two books, so as you can see, the volume that was supposed to be the second volume, Sword of Destiny, suddenly became the fifth volume in the series.

The second translator David French. He is an English guy living in Poland which is a perfect choice for a translator, so if you haven’t read the volumes that he translated, but even without reading them you will definitely like this one much better compared to the initial two books translated by the Polish translator.

Everyone is actually really happy that the publishing house decided to make this choice and change the translator, but you know, it created a little bit of mayhem.

To conclude, the creative team was thinking about it and finally, they decided that they will call him by the word Jaskier because first of all that was his nickname in the original Polish version and second of all because of Sapkowski’s influence on the TV series. 

And that’s one of the reason that Netflix has a perfect hit, thanks for adopting The Witcher, the series starring Henry Cavill as a mutant monster hunter has jumped to being one of the most popular television shows right now, competing in the same league as baby Yoda with all the monsters timelines and characters.

And after the release of the season 2 teaser of The Witcher “Nightmare of the Wolf”, fans got really excited and thrilled and waiting for the 2nd season.