The Witcher: What Is Ciri’s Prophecy And Why You Should be Worried
Era of the Sword and the Axe is nigh…
The Witcher What Is Ciri’s Prophecy:
The Witcher is a world of prophecies. It is built on them. In every nook and cranny of the Known World in the Witcher, Geralt witnesses curses, spells, ancient rituals and grand old prophecies of the highest order. The world of The Witcher is reflected in the translation of the same in the Netflix series of the same name. Netflix’s The Witcher is pretty much based on the same storyline albeit a few dissimilarities and irregularities. Geralt of Rivia is traveling to the now conquered land of the once-powerful Kingdom of Cintra. He is the guardian of the Cintran princess named Cirilla. While he moves heaven and earth to get to Ciri, forces are at work to ensure Ciri meets a different fate entirely. The Prophecy foretells a future where Ciri’s role is absolutely necessary. This Prophecy we are talking about was enough to influence an entire Kingdom to go on an expansionist spree to make it happen. But what is this prophecy the series talks about?? Let us explore that in-depth.
SPOILER ALERT: Major Spoilers for The Witcher Season 1 up ahead. If you still have not watched it yet, we suggest you look away….
Whatever has happened till now in the first season of The Witcher has boiled down to one individual – Princess Cirilla of Cintra. All the events in the series are directly or indirectly converge to her journey. Princess Ciri is the sole heir to the Throne of Cintra. Granddaughter of the Lioness Queen Calanthe, Ciri has been in the central spotlight of The Witcher. She is extremely important to the continent but somehow the series has managed to evade the viewers from knowing the exact reason why it is so. Netflix’s The Witcher tells the story of Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher – mutant monster hunter, as he makes his way through the wilderness and the cities of the Continent, encountering friends and allies in the way. He soon discovers that his fate is connected to the fate of Princess Cirilla while unknown forces at play are hell-bent on getting to her before Geralt could.
Princess Cirilla is shown to be a child born within a palace she considers more or less to be her cage. She is seldom allowed outside and live life like a child of her age should. Trapped to be a person with duties and responsibilities to the nation, Princess Cirilla’s story is typical of any story of a princess in a medieval fantasy. But as the series progresses Princess Ciri shows that there is more to her than what meets the eye. An enemy nation is at the gates, ready to knock down the Kingdom and walk all over it. It is later realized that the enemy – Nilfgaard, is not here to invade Cintra but capture Cirilla. They have plans for her and Cirilla is absolutely necessary. They call it the will of the White Flame and everything the Nilfgaardians have done till now, conquering kingdom after kingdom until all of the areas south of the Yaruga River have come under their control, is to get to Cirilla.
Cirilla is extremely powerful and has many gifts bestowed on her. Her first show of power comes when she becomes emotional and loses control after coming to the revelation that she might have to leave her dying grandmother and leave Cintra to escape the enemy’s clutches. Her deadly scream is pretty much like a Banshee’s screams. It almost breaks a palette of glasses nearby. She uses it again in the same episode when Commander Cahir tries to take her away. Her scream is powerful enough to level a huge boulder and create deep caverns in the Earth. In the4th episode “Of Banquets, Bastards, and Burials”, it is revealed that Princess Cirilla’s powers make her immune to the magically induced hallucinogenic properties of the Waters of Brokilon, a substance that is known to induce in people a powerful trance-like state. She is then directed by the Dryad Queen to drink directly from the source – the Shan-Kayan. Drinking from the source leads Cirilla to experience a vision of sorts. She is seen standing in the middle of a desert where she is drawn to a voice coming from an illuminated tree. The importance of that vision is yet to be described in the series.
The reason Ciri is so important to the forces at play could be derived from the last book in The Witcher series of novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski. The final book tells of a grand prophecy that tells the coming of the end of days. The world will enter a global ice age after snow and frost takes over the world and leaves it uninhabitable for humans. This prophecy is called the White Frost and it is the central theme that is influencing Nilfgaard’s actions. They want to mitigate the White Frost and save humanity and they are doing that in their own twisted way. In the series itself, the coming of the White Frost is explained further:
“An old elven prophecy about the end of the world: ‘The Wolf’s Blizzard approaches, the time of the sword and axe. The Time of the White Frost and White Light, the Time of Madness and Disdain, Tedd Deireadh, the Final Age. The world will perish amidst ice and be reborn with the new sun. Reborn of the Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of a planted seed. A seed that will not sprout but burst into flames!'”
These are the exact words used by Cirilla in the seventh episode of The Witcher. When she is about to be assaulted by a group of Cintran refugees, Ciri utters these words before entering into a trance and waking up the next day to see the dead bodies of his assaulters half-cut and in pieces, lying everywhere throughout the grassland. Somehow, Ciri used her abilities to kill her attackers but she herself has no idea how.
In the novel and game series, Ciri’s blood is essential to opening the Ard Gaeth aka the Gates of the Worlds or High Doors that allow entire populations to move from one universe to another. Ciri cannot help push back the White Frost which is inevitable and will consume the continent, but at least it will allow humanity to escape to another world where they can live in peace. That is the Prophecy. That is the purpose of Ciri. Her elven roots will help her to become the savior of humanity
The Witcher was released on Netflix on the 20th of December this year. The official film synopsis for The Witcher reads:
“Based on the best-selling fantasy series of books, The Witcher is an epic tale of fate and family. Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts. But when destiny hurtles him toward a powerful sorceress, and a young princess with a dangerous secret, the three must learn to navigate the increasingly volatile Continent together.”
The Executive Producer of the Witcher, Tomek Baginski, shares just how amazing he felt Henry Cavill’s performance was as Geralt of Rivia, the titular Witcher character in the hit Netflix show. As a killer of monsters who supposedly has no soul or emotion in him, the character would have been tough to play on screen and not just anyone can do it. Tomek Baginski says and we quote:
It’s about Henry, and how he became Geralt, and how he embraced this character and he literally became this guy. He was walking around in the jacket to make it work, because the leather had to be worn out, and there is no other way than to just live in this wardrobe, in this cloth, to make it work. For many weeks he was sticking close to the set, so he can be closer to the Witcher world. He was there. He became this character. . . . You don’t have very often an actor who is so committed to the role, and this was beautiful. It was such a great, great thing to work with.