She was actually made up to be pretty ugly for most of the first season, but they hotted her up at the end as the result of some magic shit.
I watched it once four years ago, so don’t remember the details.
Most sorceresses in that universe enhance their beauty/youthfulness with magic. Most sorcerers do not because they’re taken more seriously as they age. It’s essentially a commentary on what each gender derives power from. Yennefer is like 80 years old by the time the main story begins.
In the books yen uses magic to hide her hunchback and ugliness. Geralt being a Witcher and therefore trained/experienced to analyse magic in front of him quickly sees through the illusion. If the show had the character look uglier to begin with then that’s probably a result of adapting the books. I haven’t watched the show as I don’t really like adaptations. Btw it’s not just Yen that uses magic to hide ugliness either, almost all other sorceresses do as well in the books including Triss.
Interesting, in the show it isn’t really an illusion, they physically change her.
It’s also like that in the books. In the book Geralt can somehow see it in her eyes. He says they’re the eyes of a hunchback or something along those lines.
