The Witcher season 3 changes Ciri’s book story for the worse

Ciri is put through her paces in The Witcherseason 3 She’s chased by the Wild Hunt, trapped by Vilgefortz, and fights a giant sea monster. But even after all of that, the Lion Cub of Cintra’s greatest test comes in the deserts of Korath, where she finds herself alone in the season’s seventh episode. It’s supposed to be a crowning moment for the character, a chance for her to come into her own and for all her hard work to culminate in some kind of self-realization. She is let down by the show, which squanders her big moment.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for The Witcher season 3 and the Time of Contempt novel.]

The Witcher season 3’s seventh episode, “Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan,” finds Ciri alone in a desert. Ciri’s arrival in the Desert is a result of Ciri fleeing Vilgefortz during the coup in Aretuza. Ciri lunged through the portal on top the Tor Lara tower, which transported her into this new land. In this desert, Ciri finds a unicorn (a rare sight anywhere in this world) and monsters she’s never seen or even heard of before. The harsh sandy wasteland is also a struggle to survive for Ciri, who struggles with finding water and food.

Watching Ciri claw her way to survival makes for a grueling stretch of 20 or 30 minutes, but there’s the promise that it’s building toward something, some grander moment of realization from Ciri about how to best harness her magical talent or what it means to wield power. Unfortunately, that’s not really what happens.

Instead, following an attack from one of the desert’s many terrible inhabitants, Ciri finds that her unicorn companion, who she names Little Horse, is wounded and suffering from poison. She can’t seem to find a way to make her friend better, until she is suddenly tempted by a vision of a mysterious and powerful witch named Falka, a figure that fans of the books will recognize as a near-mythical representative of brutal revenge.

Photo: Susie Allnutt/Netflix

Falka tells Ciri that the only way to save Little Horse is with fire magic, an art that is supposed to be forbidden to mages, feared for its power, destructive force, and difficulty to control — as we saw with Yennefer in season 1. Falka shows Ciri new visions and says she can rule the entire world by using the power of her Elder Blood Magic. Ciri succumbs and uses fire to heal Little Horse. But amid the swirl and confusion, Ciri resists the Falka phantom’s temptation and instead renounces her powers, seemingly giving them up completely.

The moment is one of the most dreadful moments in history, which shatters even modest successes The Witcher has achieved in building Ciri’s character so far. It removes Ciri’s agency and feels more like a momentary speed bump in her journey rather than the meaningful moment it should be.

This is due to a major change made by the show from its source material. One of the main reasons for this is a significant change made by the show to its source material. Time of Contempt, the book that season 3 is based on, Ciri’s desert journey involves her coming to the conclusion that she should use fire magic all on her own. Its power is apparent and she feels that her control of it can be effective. She then succumbs, in order to save Little Horse. The power that it releases in her makes her see herself as a cruel and powerful witch who rules the world.

Critically, this version of events makes Ciri’s temptation internal and places the events squarely inside her head. The revelation that Ciri could give in to this temptation is terrifying and causes her to abandon the possibility of having it ever again. While the vision presents her with an imagined idea of what the world could look like under her thumb, Ciri’s pivotal moment is one that both starts and ends within her own mind.

Image: Jay Maidment/Netflix

It’s Ciri’s version of Galadriel imagining herself with the One Ring, seeing a vision of Middle-earth as she would rule it, then passing on Frodo’s offer and finding herself relieved not to be burdened with that kind of power. It’s a tremendous culmination of everything Ciri has learned and felt so far in the series, and the perfect time to send her somewhere new for a different kind of learning and adventure.

In the show’s version of things, however, Ciri’s temptation is external. She’s convinced to use fire magic, then gives it up, making us wonder what she’s so scared of to begin with. If she can seemingly control it, and hadn’t even considered using it on Little Horse, then she shouldn’t have to worry about giving into the temptation of it, like she does in the books.

Meanwhile, the visions from Falka don’t really show Ciri a world she commands or could bring about, but rather gives her a trite and simple speech about the subjugation of women in this world and shows her images of all the wrongs she could right with her power. Ciri’s vision here isn’t of a great and terrible queen, but a fine enough ruler who happens to have a few extra-flashy magic tricks. It’s neither tempting nor scary, and it certainly doesn’t deserve the rise it gets out of Ciri, or call for her to renounce her powers.

Just like so much else in Netflix’s The WitcherThe execution of the show, especially the third season is flawed. There’s a certain undeniable draw to making Falka a less villainous and more tragic character. Recasting her into a powerful woman seeking justice who fell victim to a witch hunt because the people feared her power certainly feels like a subversive change that could make Falka’s story more interesting — and it does. But it does so at the expense of Ciri’s plot, sanding down her complexities and motivations and removing her agency and power.

The show’s version of Ciri isn’t a powerful mage, or a potential ruler. She’s a child who does what she’s told most of the time, either by the plot or other characters around her. It would have been better to let her develop into her own character by letting her travel through the desert. The Witcher’s writers chose to underline her subordination instead.