Since this is a really big community of people very knowledgeable about this world, I figured this was the right place to go. I just finished binge-watching season 1 of The Witcher and absolutely LOVED it, but as someone who has zero prior knowledge from books or games I'm also...very confused. Thank God I saw a comment online after watching episode 3 that explained there were three different timelines, or I would probably be even MORE confused. So I got the three timelines bit and how they eventually all merge, I love that method of storytelling, I think it's creative and interesting. What leaves me confused is...basically everything else. The politics and names of places and families and such are all going straight over my head, so before I rewatch I wanted to get a clearer picture of what's going on. If someone could clarify WITHOUT SPOILING stuff from later in the story, that would be awesome!

As far as I can tell, there's an evil kingdom (Nilfgaurd? Right?) that wants to take over the world for...reasons. The king guy (was he the person that killed the other king in the beginning battle and tried to kidnap Ciri before she screamed him away?) wants Ciri for some unknown reason (which I assume ties into the mystery of her powers and all so that's fine if their motivations remain vague). Apparently this evil kingdom was once a backwater place but because Yennefer didn't go there...it...got powerful? Or something? And this new guy rose to power? Bc that other mage went there instead? Who is she exactly?

I'm especially confused with how the princess Geralt saved from the curse ties into anything. So this princess's parents... were incestuous (right?) and they were the kids Geralt saw in the painting, who were young when Yennifer first came to court. But then...was that the same king (the father of the monster turned princess) that showed up in the final episode as reinforcements? How long ago did Geralt save the princess, then?? Is she still alive?? How do these timelines line up, exactly?

A general overview of how many kingdoms there are and what their names are etc would also be helpful bc as of right now the only ones I picked up on are Cintra (Ciri's home) and Nilfguard (the evil guys). Everything else is noise and I really don't know how they relate to each other.

I'm sorry if these are dumb questions, I enjoyed the challenge of figuring stuff out while watching, but these are questions I just can't answer. I'm hesitant to look them up and do a deep dive into The Witcher world for fear of spoilers (I'm REALLY excited to continue to explore this world and lore in future seasons), hence I came here. Thank you in advance for helping a very lost but still very excited new viewer.