The second season of The Witcher may not have been as hard to understand as the first, but there are still plenty of things to explain, analyze and discuss!
The Witcher 2×01: “A Grain of Truth”
The first episode of season 2, “A Grain of Truth,” is undoubtedly a great opener. It strikes a good balance between exposition, recap, the obligatory Nightmare of the Wolf reference, action and plot. Most importantly, it throws the audience right back into the moral question at the heart of the story: what makes a monster?
After establishing that Yennefer must have died in the battle of Sodden, Geralt and Cirilla make a stop on their way to Kaer Morhen. We’re not sure how long the journey takes; the lack of specifics about distances is one of the few things that bugged me this season, because we are aware this is a whole continent the characters are crossing, and yet people are easily traveling from one location to another, often appearing magically at the right second to save the day.
On the way to the witchers’ keep, Geralt decides they should stop at his old friend Nivellen’s, played by Game of Thrones alum Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane). Book readers will recognize the episode’s title as the name of a short story by Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski. Nivellen’s story, a sort of dark twist on a beauty and the beast narrative, is an unnecessary but welcome addition to the season, a good way to introduce fundamental themes.
Nivellen, a gracious host, entertains Ciri by telling her stories. Here we realize a few things: one, Ciri does not know much about her parents; she mentions that her old tutor Mousesack told her about a hedgehog man whom we know to be her father, but she has no idea. Nivellen also talks about blood and love, two elements that feature rather prominently this episode, and without knowing it, he tells Ciri more about her family. Without naming names, he tells the princess of an elven warrior who fell in love with a human mage. It’s only later that we possess the tools to realize he was speaking of the legend of Lara Dorren, Ciri’s ancestor that we will meet later in the season.
The events at Nivellen’s do not seem to impact the overall plot of the season, but there are certainly things to notice when it comes to our characters’ behavior. Geralt is clearly hurting over the loss of Yennefer and very unsure how to deal with a teenage girl. For her part, Ciri may be quick to trust and accept help, but we can see that recent events have made a lasting impact on her. You can see it in the subtle way she sympathizes with the “cat” hiding in the ceiling; even after she finds out it’s a monster, she still doesn’t want Verena hurt.
At one point she gets pensive and tells Nivellen he didn’t mean to hurt the people he killed, and it’s clear she is talking about herself as much as she is trying to reassure him. Now that Ciri has also caused death she is reluctant to judge others, giving everyone a second chance. Because if they are monsters, isn’t she one as well? This episode introduces a moral dilemma that is sure to stick with the princess. “Monsters are born of deeds done, unforgivable ones,” Nivellen tells her.
Meanwhile, Yennefer is unable to access her powers, which she attributes to the dimeritium chains the Nilfgaardian soldiers have put her in. She may be a war captive, but she never loses her wits or her spirit. As long as her old schoolmate Fringilla is her captor, Yen knows she has an advantage, for she knows Fringilla’s weaknesses.
Yen has always been someone who seeks out power, so she holds Fringilla in contempt for trying to gain the favor of other powerful people. Yen has never enjoyed being a pawn in someone else’s scheme. “Horses, whores, and mages, all useful until we’re not,” Yennefer muses to her old friend. Fringilla’s arc this season is about realizing the extent of her own abilities as a leader in her own right, not a follower.
Other forces are brewing, darker and more powerful than even the Brotherhood has anticipated. The episode closes with a cliffhanger about who attacks Fringilla’s Nilfgaardian guards and captures her and Yennefer.
The Witcher 2×02 “Kaer Morhen”
Episode 2 introduces a home and refuge for Geralt and Ciri in the form of Kaer Morhen, but Yennefer and Fringilla face a new danger as they’re taken captive by elves. In yet another reminder of how fickle power can be, we meet Filavandrel, once king of the elves, who now answers to Francesca Findabair, the new leader of their people. This should serve as a lesson for Yennefer, who’s spent her life seeking power only to have it taken away.
The episode opens with an oneiric sequence. Yen dreams of leading an ordinary life where she is not a mage and Geralt is not a witcher; they are peasants living off the fruits of her garden that he sells at market. There is infinite love in their eyes and words and they are elated at the prospect of having a baby and growing old together. The dream could never be directly prophetic; both of them are what they are, immutable and barren and dangerous. But they will form a family and have a daughter of sorts. It’s thanks to the elven baby and the robed figure appearing in the dream that Yen is able to secure another audience with Francesca, and the three mages realize they’ve been dreaming of similar omens.
Her manipulative instincts kicking in, Yen jumps at the opportunity to tell Francesca and Filavandrel that she is also an elf. They don’t buy it. “Do you sing our songs?” Francesca asks. “Have you ever shed a tear over anything elven?” Yen has no answer. She may have elven blood, but she feels little connection to the elves. Part of her arc this season is to acquire a sense of community.
That is precisely what we find at Kaer Morhen once Geralt and Ciri arrive. The audience has been misled to consider Geralt a lone wolf, but he actually has a family and a place to go back to every winter, brothers welcoming him home with affection and cheers, and a father figure imparting lessons. Even in the semi-empty, frozen walls of the witchers’ keep, there is warmth, pride, loyalty and love.
Yen has none of those things at the moment, only ambition. The Deathless Mother manifests differently in the dreams of all three women who see her, appealing to their desires and feeding on their pain, but also willing to offer solutions to their problems. Francesca and Fringilla emerge from their visions resolved to make an alliance, but Yennefer is still lost. “You’d rather be blind than see the truth,” the girl in Yen’s vision tells her, a nod to Yennefer losing her sight in the book.
In the show, the blindness is metaphorical, but it’s her magic that is gone. If Fringilla is on a journey of self-empowerment (“The path to true strength lies not in humble faith, but to believing in oneself”), Yen has never been so powerless. Her dear, beloved magic, what she loved most about herself, is gone in a sacrifice she didn’t know she was making when she unleashed her chaos at Sodden.
Yen desperately — but privately — mourns the loss of her magic because of what it represents: power, in its truest form. Power is what she has been seeking all her life, something to fill the void in the absence of purpose, love and family. Power, Yennefer believes, is the only thing that she could ever matter for. “I dreamed of being important to someone,” she said once, and when that dream seemed to shatter, she turned to power to fulfill her.
Elsewhere, Geralt discovers that not even Kaer Morhen is safe for Ciri. The keep is threatened by a mutated leshy that possesses the body of of his fellow witcher Eskel. Vesemir and Geralt fight the monster and kill it. Geralt realizes that nowhere in the world can be ever truly safe for Ciri and there is no point in hiding or running away. It takes seeing her in danger to understand he cannot always be at her side, that Ciri deserves to be able to defend herself. Her best chance is to face her fear and her enemies, to “find power and purpose.”
By the end of the episode, Ciri and Geralt strike a balance in their complicated relationship; they are no longer complete strangers thrust together by destiny, but mentor and mentee. He imparts one important lesson: that witchers do not kill out of hate or fear, but to protect. In the beautiful last scene, Geralt places a wooden sword in the hand of the Lion Cub of Cintra and starts teaching her to fight.
The Witcher 2×03 “What Is Lost”
One month has passed by the time Episode 3 opens with a montage of Ciri training under Geralt’s supervision. We can see signs of time passing in the familiar way the two of them now speak to each other, in the glimmer in Geralt’s eye when Ciri contradicts him, and by the way the princess feels at home in the keep and banters with the other witchers.
We see Geralt’s private pain over the loss of Eskel. If Geralt is mourning a brother he had trained with since they were young, Vesemir is a parent grieving a child he lost and trying to find warning signs he missed.
Vesemir does not blame Geralt for finishing Eskel; he understands that it had to be done. As the two finally lay Eskel’s mauled body to rest, they mourn together and connect on a deeper level than ever. Geralt now shares Vesemir’s burden and vice versa; if anything should happy to Ciri, the older witcher would share Geralt’s pain.
In Aretuza, Tissaia has been unable to accept Yennefer’s death. When her favorite pupil finally shows up, it’s the purest relief we see in her eyes. She’s a long way from that “no one will ever love you” speech she gave back in the second episode of the series. There is pride, affection, care and understanding there. Tissaia knows, without Yen telling her, that Yen has lost her magic. She tries to protect Yen from the brutal demands of the Brotherhood, but eventually that bill must come due.
Yennefer was never one to compliantly accept her fate or quietly follow orders. When it’s time to sacrifice her integrity to prove that she is not a traitor, she runs away with the enemy she was supposed to execute. She may be without magic, but she will not be powerless or at the mercy and whims of another. She goes rogue, a literal agent of chaos, and it’s not Cahir she is saving, but herself.
The tensions within the Brotherhood are a result of the precarious balance of power between the northern kingdoms after the elves start immigrating to Cintra and ally with Nilfgaard. Politics aside, Francesca and Fringilla’s partnership is refreshing. They establish a level of personal trust in a world where everyone is looking to betray and backstab each other. I can’t help but think they form a bond because of their position in the world, because they are two women that destiny has temporarily graced with power and leadership, and they are determined to work together to preserve that state of affairs.
Ciri, too, is determined. She wants to learn to fight and trains relentlessly. She feels slightly babied by Geralt and welcomes the challenge provided by Lambert to try harder, to prove she can succeed despite them seeing her as a refined princess. She runs a witcher obstacle course over and over again, finally earning the witchers’ respect. Geralt understands he can’t protect her all the time. He takes a chance, and together, they hunt down the leshy that killed Eskel.
“What’s lost is lost,” many characters repeat through the episode. But that’s not always true. While some things may be lost forever, some can be found again. We just have to be resilient enough to keep moving.
The Witcher 2×04 “Redanian Intelligence”
Episode 4 deserves five golden stars for folding Jaskier back into the narrative. His character is no longer just comic relief, if he ever was. He is using his connections and fame to smuggle elves to safety, an unsung hero in his own right. Joey Bates, who plays Jaskier, said the Sandpiper storyline “reminded me of the work of Josephine Baker, who was a performer who used her influence and fame in the French Resistance to do some good for the world, whilst hiding behind the veneer of performance and frivolity.”
I am still trying to get over the fact that Jaskier became the medieval equivalent of a sensational pop star with a breakup song he wrote about Geralt where he damns the witcher for abandoning him. The bard’s pain is so raw that even Yennefer refuses to rub it in. Their reunion was more emotional than I would’ve expected considering their history, but a joy to watch. What were the odds that Jaskier would be the Sandpiper, and exactly in Oxenfurt where Yen needed him? It’s almost as if the show is playing with its prophetic line that “people linked by destiny will always find each other,” because these two are undoubtedly linked, be it by fate or Geralt’s love.
A guest arrives at Kaer Morhen: Triss Merigold is absolutely enamored with Ciri from the moment she lays eyes on her and takes her under her wing. Ciri has developed relationships at the keep, but it’s clear she needed someone to guide her through magic and through femininity, someone who is not afraid to scold witchers.
Triss is haunted by the memory of Sodden and is happy to be in a place where people speak honestly to each other with no ulterior motives and where she can be of help to someone who needs her. She even seeks solace in Geralt, but does not let that distract her from their mission to investigate Ciri’s mysterious power.
Meanwhile, Yennefer and Cahir are on the run and in hiding, short of options. It’s interesting to see that he does not abandon her when he learns she has lost her powers. We glimpse a new side of Cahir; he is more than a one-dimensional ruthless general of an imperialistic force. When the two team up with elven refugees, they witness the brutal oppression their race has been subjected to. Yennefer begins to feel some connection to the elves, and even Cahir chafes at their unjust persecution.
Although the episode is called “Redanian Intelligence,” Redania and its spies do not feature too heavily. The head of the kingdom’s intelligence network, Sigismund Dijkstra, advises King Vizimir, unmasks traitors, schemes and moves pawns to collect information. His goal is to uncover Emhyr’s strategy, which is impossible to predict. We begin to understand the aura of mystery around the emperor, a crescendo that will build until the very last scene of the season.
The Witcher 2×05 “Turn Your Back”
Episode 5, titled “Turn Your Back” from the incantation to access the Deathless Mother’s hut, reveals that there are many more forces at play than we thought, and that some truths we may not be ready to face.
At Kaer Morhen, Ciri feels left behind by Geralt. We appreciate how Triss has really come to respects Ciri as a person rather than just think of her as a means to an end. The mage is always very considerate towards the princess. When Vesemir realizes Ciri has Elder blood and tells Triss, the latter does not agree to use Ciri’s blood to create more witcher mutagen. She only relents when Ciri makes it clear that it is her choice.
Vesemir doesn’t need to do much to convince Ciri to give her blood; in fact, she convinces him. But this is unchartered territory, and Vesemir refuses to jeopardize Ciri’s life; she’s Geralt’s child, and they all care about her now. It’s devastating to think that Ciri wants to do this to make up for all the things she’s destroyed and all the lives that have been lost over her, as if she was responsible for the people hunting her down.
As they continue to investigate Ciri’s power, Triss suggests they perform a ritual called the Dol Durza to find out things about her past that she is not aware of. We see glimpses of her life and finally get to her parents, Duny and Pavetta, arguing over a prophecy that will be Ciri’s downfall if people find out. Ciri is scared but also enthralled, wishing she could see more of the parents she never knew. At one point, Ciri and Triss find themselves elsewhere in time, and we know without knowing that the elf dying with her baby in her arms is Ciri’s ancestor Lara Dorren, the one from Nivellen’s story. Lara prophecizes that the child — she could be referring to her baby or to Ciri — will destroy the world. Scared, Ciri calls for her protector.
Geralt is on a recon mission with the mage Istredd to figure out what happened to the monolith outside of Cintra that Ciri destroyed the night she escaped. The two understand that the Conjuction did not merge the spheres, merely united them and then separated them again. The strange monsters that have been targeting Ciri have not mutated, they’re just new to the Continent because they come from other spheres. The monoliths call out to them and act as gateways.
Before portaling home to help Ciri, Geralt and Istredd share a comedic moment where they realize they’ve both been Yennefer’s lovers. I appreciated the funny scene and the slight pissing contest, but it felt slightly forced that Geralt would find out that Yen is alive from Istredd, and not Triss who’s been living at Kaer Morhen with him.
But the real show-stealing duo continues to be Yen and Jaskier. Yen, stowed away on a boat to Cintra, is close to safety but she abandons it to make sure Jaskier is okay. This is a sacrifice she makes willingly, and it speaks volumes about how much she’s changed. The two might fake annoyance with each other, but they care deeply about one another. They risk their lives for each other with no backup plan and no hesitation.
Yen pretending to be Jaskier’s drunken wife to save him from Rience was comedy gold. Yen is caught by soldiers and as Jaskier tries to free her, she is able to transport herself away. The bard is left wondering if she hadn’t truly lost her magic, probably thinking that she, like Geralt, had abandoned him after an adventure. Give Jaskier’s heart a break, please.
The Witcher 2×06 “Dear Friend…”
Episode 6 brings us perhaps the most awaited moments of the entire show: the scene where the three main characters are finally in the same room. We know, deep down, this is what everything has been leading up to, and yet the circumstances are probably not what we had imagined.
In a welcome change of scenery from the empty halls of Kaer Morhen, Geralt and Ciri travel to the Temple of Melitele. It says a lot about Vesemir that he guesses correctly when Triss asks him where he thinks they’re headed. After all, he may have disappointed Geralt, but he is and always will be the closest thing he has to a father.
We suffer one of the greatest losses of the season when a monster slices up Roach. Geralt helps the horse pass peacefully (Henry Cavill revealed he added those words of prayer from the books). It’s not the first time Geralt loses a Roach and it won’t be the last, but the loss hits us hard.
Ciri is sad and passive-aggressively upset with Geralt; she does not know where they are going and is sad to be leaving the witchers’ keep. She feels unheard, like her wishes do not matter to him. He doesn’t really care about her, she accuses, only about his duty to her. We know this is not the case. Geralt has been a father for approximately six episodes and still stumbling in the dark about how to deal with a teenage runaway princess, still unsure of the right thing to say to make Ciri feel better, how to help her. So he brings her to someone he trusts, someone who helped raise him.
Nenneke is a priestess of Melitele and the head of the temple, which is a place of healing and learning. It seems we have entered a completely different world, an oasis, a quiet and calming place, a true refuge from the bloodshed and war raging throughout the Continent. With its Indian and Spanish-inspired architecture and warm tones, the set designers built the temple brilliantly. And yet, despite all that, from the moment Geralt hands over his weapons at the temple, we can tell that they will not be safe.
Nenneke begins instructing Ciri and tells Geralt the girl needs balance, that he needs to find what is missing in Ciri and deliver it to her. And right on cue, Yennefer appears like the last piece of an unfinished puzzle. However, she only wants to kidnap Ciri so she can have her powers back, as per the Deathless Mother’s prophecy.
In Cintra, Francesca and Fringilla’s plans are flourishing, although there is some resistance from Nilfgaard’s generals. Their friendship continues to develop as well; they’ve become each other’s confidante. The elf encourages the sorceress to value herself and stop acting like she’s inferior when she’s the one holding the power. It’s clear that there is darkness in Francesca, even if we are just glimpsing it. When Francesca and Filavandrel’s baby is born, Fringilla rejoices with them, unaware of what it will do to her plan. Cahir cautions Fringilla to be careful and reminds her of their original mission: to find Ciri.
When Rience, the fire-wielding mage who attacked Jaskier, finds Ciri in the temple of Melitele, Yennefer seizes her chance. Geralt trusts her with the child as he fights off their enemies and Yen escapes with Ciri, leaving Geralt behind. After seeing the three of them interact in a couple of lovely scenes, it’s horrible to watch Yen turn her back on Geralt and betray him. Even after she realizes what Ciri is to him, Yen is so desperate to get her powers back that she would compromise anything, even Geralt’s trust and his child’s life.
This episode’s title, “Dear Friend…” is a reference to what Yennefer and Geralt call each other in Blood of Elves when writing to one another. That whole scene where Ciri walks in on their reunion and finds them kissing in his room was epic, with the right tinge of awkwardness mixed with curiosity.
Ciri immediately feels a pull towards Yen and Yen towards her, but she misinterprets it as the Deathless Mother’s voice. It’s adorable that the show kept “dear friend” in, and it’s hilarious when Geralt uses the same expression to refer to Istredd in the following scene, where the three of them act so much like a family — despite having just met — that it almost hurts. How will these fractures heal?
The Witcher 2×07 “Voleth Meir”
I feel like more than Episode 4, this one truly revolves about intelligence, about the way information is obtained, received and perceived. News of Francesca’s baby, Djikstra planting seeds of conflict, word of and from Triss, rumors of Ciri’s whereabouts and her powers…all of it is in the mix, and all of it inspires drastic measures. The other theme of the episode is undoubtedly trust.
The elves have found hope in Francesca’s newborn daughter, the first new pureblooded elf in decades, and many are deserting the Nilfgaardian army. Fringilla is dangerously close to losing her grip on the situation on the eve of Emhyr’s visit, so she takes matters into her own hands to hold on to power. After a desperate, clandestine visit to her uncle Artorius to beg him to protect her if she comes back to the Brotherhood, she assassinates Nilfgaard’s generals except for Cahir, whom she has learned to trust.
At Aretuza, Triss confesses what she knows about Ciri to Tissaia, and when Vilgefortz demands answers, Triss feels deeply betrayed. Triss, who professed to be loyal to Tissaia alone, loses her faith in her. When Tissaia stands up to Vilgefortz, it seems that something is broken between them. To him, it’s not personal, as information is a weapon in their arsenal, but Tissaia’s girls have always been her weakness in the eyes of the Brotherhood.
Yennefer convinces Ciri to go to Cintra, which is right where she needs her according to Voleth Meir, on the pretext that Geralt will be there. Ciri is desperate to get to him, convinced that he has been captured by Nilfgaard. She is beside herself with worry, and admits aloud for the first time that Geralt is the father she never had. Yen is touched by the words, and Ciri in turn asks about her relationship with Geralt. Yennefer’s answer, “longing, regret, hope and fear” comes straight from Blood of Elves.
We have seen time and time again that Ciri is of a trusting nature, so we cannot blame her for trusting someone that Geralt himself entrusted her to. Yen even helps Ciri control and direct her Chaos. They’ve only known each other a very brief period of time, but the betrayal nonetheless feels very personal. It’s only at the very last moment that Yen has second thoughts and confesses the truth to Ciri, but it’s too late; Nilfgaardian soldiers are already upon them.
Desperate to find Ciri, Geralt leaves the temple and goes to free Jaskier from an Oxenfurt jail. I’m not sure why he makes this stop: is it because he feels he owes this much to Jaskier? Because Jaskier has met Rience before? Or because Geralt is going to have to entrust Ciri to someone, and there is no one else he loves who hasn’t betrayed him?
Their reunion is so in character it hurts. Geralt apologizes for abandoning Jaskier and Jaskier can’t hold a grudge, although he pesters Geralt the entire journey, talking about feelings and teasing him and making jokes and doing impressions to cheer him up. It’s striking that at this point Geralt is ready to kill even Yen for Ciri. It’s Jaskier who speaks in her defense, how far we’ve come!
Geralt, Jaskier, Yarpen Zigrin and the dwarves descend on the Nilfgaardian soldiers attacking Ciri, and I am again annoyed by the convenient timing and the nebulous distance they had to travel. But only slightly, because Geralt sweeps in like a knight from Ciri’s stories, ready to wreak havoc and exact vengeance on everyone who’s hurt her. Yet he barely glances at her, only orders her to go back to Kaer Morhen with Jaskier. His attention is entirely focused on Yennefer and the broken bond between them, fury evident on every line on his face.
When Yarpen asks him whether Ciri belongs to him, Geralt utters only one word, looking into Yennefer’s violet eyes: “Mine.” Then he looks at Yarpen and repeats it for good measure, as Yen displays all the shame she can muster.
The two of them go find Voleth Meir and discover that she is no longer bound to the hut in the forest. Yen’s desperation has freed her.
This episode was an emotional rollercoaster. I went from crying to laughing multiple times in the span of the same scene.
The Witcher 2×08 “Family”
The last episode of the second season of The Witcher is aptly titled “Family.” Family, Ciri has learned, is many things: the family we find along the way, the family we leave behind…and, she will soon discover, the family that is revealed was there all along.
Voleth Meir has taken possession of Ciri’s body and entrapped her in a dream vision where she is back at Cintra, safe and happy, attending court with her grandmother Calanthe and her tutor Mousesack. In the meantime, the demon has used Ciri’s body to kill the witchers in their beds as they sleep. Geralt and Yennefer arrive at Kaer Morhen as the girl is about to murder Vesemir. (Have I mentioned how convenient timing is this season?)
Geralt has come to know Ciri better than anyone and is immediately suspicious. He realizes after a few words that she is being possessed. The remaining witchers armor up to fight Voleth Meir, as Geralt begs them not to hurt Ciri. Vesemir is willing to kill the girl rather than see his last few sons die. Geralt is convinced he can bring Ciri back without violence, but the demon is summoning monster after monster to keep the witchers occupied. The medallion tree turns out to have grown around a monolith, which Ciri’s scream has opened.
In the dream, Ciri is distracted by the people she loved who have left her. There are many references to the very first episode, like Calanthe telling Ciri to “exercise a modicum of respect” or Martin Marbury asking her to dance at a ball. Ciri is aware that something is off. She asks Mousesack questions about her bloodline but receives no real answer.
Ciri’s late parents, Princess Pavetta and Ser Duny, also show up. It doesn’t click that they should not be there until Geralt’s voice breaks through the illusion, telling her to hold on. Pavetta and Duny encourage her to stay with them, and Ciri is torn between the perfect illusion of her biological parents and the reality of an imperfect family at Kaer Morhen. In the end, it’s not just Geralt’s voice that drags her from the vision; it’s also Cohen and Vesemir and Lambert, broken and wounded but fighting for her.
She can’t fully go home to them, though. The witch can’t leave Ciri because her hut burned and Ciri is now her vessel to exist in this sphere. Yennefer chooses to right the wrong she did and risk it all for Ciri, because she is the missing piece to her own life. As Ciri says goodbye to her family in the dream — in a contrast to when she chose to stay with her mother in the Dol Durza in Episode 5 — they disintegrate like Avengers after a snap of Thanos’ fingers, although we should note one important detail: her father Duny does not shatter next to Pavetta.
Once Ciri is back, she uses the monolith to open a portal to another sphere where they release Voleth Meir from Yen’s body. Before they go back, the Wild Hunt calls to her. Yennefer’s powers are restored, and she and Geralt reach an understanding. He may not forgive her for the betrayal, but he does trust her to train Ciri in magic.
In Redania, Francesca is out for a vengeance for her murdered baby. Like a biblical god, she marks the doors of all the newborn that are to die, and kills them with a wave of her hands. Francsca’s violent nature has been long foreshadowed, as when she proposed to send Yen and Fringilla’s heads to Aretuza as a reminder of eleven supremacy or when she told Fringilla she had slit her own father’s throat…she only appeared benevolent because she was guided by faith, but it was our mistake in assuming she was soft.
Her scouts bring her Istredd, who has figured out Ciri’s genealogy and tells the elves that Ciri has Elder blood. Francesca’s world turns upside down as she realizes Ciri is the one Ithilinne prophesied, the only one who can save them. Hopefully this means the elves will team up with Geralt and Yennefer next season. They will need all the help they can get to protect Ciri, since the Brotherhood has put a price on Ciri’s head and that of anyone who protects her.
In the only way this season could possibly have ended, we finally see Emperor Emhyr in the flesh, after hearing about the White Flame and the loyalty he commands for two seasons. He arrives in Cintra and unmasks Fringilla and Cahir’s fake plan. We learn it was he who sent the assassin to kill Francesca’s child. Losing a daughter, he knows, can move mountains.
In a reveal worthy of a comic book villain, we find out that Emhyr is Ciri’s father. That is why Nilfgaard attacked Cintra at the very beginning of the show: Emhyr — who was only ever posing as Duny — wanted his daughter back, probably as a weapon of mass destruction.
I imagine Ciri will discover the truth about her real father sometime in season 3. Not that it will matter, of course. Ciri has found her real family with Geralt and Yennefer. Yennefer’s choice to sacrifice herself for and then stay with Ciri isn’t borne out of guilt or the fact that she’s Geralt’s child. Yen feels a pull towards the girl, as though she is only whole in her presence. Like Nenneke said, Ciri was missing something she had to find if she was going to gain balance, something only Yen can give her. Geralt and Yennefer could never be together because they were not destined to be a couple, but rather to be a family.
We finally understand the meaning of the dragon’s words from Episode 1×06: he told Geralt and Yen that they were made for each other but that nothing would come of it, because destiny alone is not sufficient; that “something more” was needed. That something more was Ciri.
This season has been something else, a journey spanning an entire continent and the deep valley of the human soul. Three people who were linked by destiny found each other and overcame everything the world threw at them. But the stakes will be even higher in season 3, and I cannot wait to go on another ride with these characters.
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