Ciri is “very determined” to become a witcher in season 2

The second season of The Witcher is just around the corner, and fans have a lot to look forward to. The first season ended with Princess Ciri (Freya Allan) finally meeting up with Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) after a season spent scrambling all over the continent following the fall of Cintra. Where are these two heading next?

“So [in] Season 1, her entire life just changes within one night,” Allan told Observer. “She is having to experience a world that she’s never experienced before; she’s had a very sheltered upbringing. And then she’s suddenly thrown out into this very brutal world, and she sees things she’s never seen. She’s been hidden from all of that kind of brutality, and now she’s suddenly being faced with it on her own. That’s obviously going to change her, and I think her trust in people is lost a little bit through her experience. She’s been holding on to the one thing that she’s been left with—she needs to find Geralt. So when she does finally find him at the end of Season 1, it’s a huge relief, because this could be her potential family and her protection.”

"[In] Season 2, it picks up not long after Geralt and Ciri have met, and they’re trying to navigate one another because Ciri lacks trust, so she’s keeping a lot from him, and Geralt wants to find out information from her. So it’s that kind of dynamic that continues and eventually, though, their relationship obviously evolves through that. And sometimes you have to go through knocking heads a little bit with someone in order to get closer with them, so you see all that happen."

So Geralt and Ciri will eventually form a partnership, but there will be some growing pains first. The first step is to get her somewhere safe, and if the show follows the path set out in Andrzej Sapkowski’s book Blood of Elves, that means taking her to the witchers’ keep of Kaer Morhen.

“I think, when she gets to Kaer Morhen, she meets all the witchers and they become like her brothers,” Allan said. “There is an element of wanting to be like your older siblings, which is kind of the relationship she has with them. That’s the environment she’s in though. They’ve all trained to be witchers, so why wouldn’t you, therefore, think, God, I want to be that as well? And she’s always had that element in her when you see in Season 1. She can tell that she likes hanging out with the boys on the street; she doesn’t want to be all the time like a princess. She also wants to get dirty. So she becomes very determined, very passionate about becoming a witcher, and that’s actually one of the problems that she has with Geralt.”

"Geralt is not quite letting her reach the potential that she wants to reach, and that’s very frustrating for her. Because from where he stands, he needs to protect this girl—and her trying to become a witcher is not the way to do that, because it is a very dangerous process. Obviously, training in general could be dangerous, as you’ll see and find out. But also, there’s a whole process that you have to go through—people can end up just dying from that. So it’s not an ideal situation with Geralt, but Ciri is very determined and she says she wants to be a great fighter, and that’s just her aim."

It sounds like the relationship between Geralt and Ciri will be pretty fraught. But it sounds like Ciri will get way eventually. “Episode 3 is great,” Allan teased simply. Noted.

Ciri and Yennefer will bond in The Witcher season 2

Ciri had only one scene with Geralt in the first season of The Witcher, and none at all with Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), Geralt’s on-again, off-again sorceress girlfriend. That will all change in season 2.

“I would say that Ciri knows that Yennefer is an incredible mage, and she’s been very terrified about the thought of using her power, because she’s only seen it do things that aren’t necessarily good. She’s accidentally killed people, so for her, it’s very frightening,” Allan said about this new relationship. “But she’s faced with this sort of evidence of how you can use it and you can use it to become something quite beautiful. She’s not entirely convinced, because for her, it’s just terrifying. But that’s what Yennefer provides her with: the space to actually try and use it. I think that is the main aspect that we get to see.”

The Witcher season 2 drops on Netflix on December 17.

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