#this reminds me of all the witcher unicorn fic and aen elle fic i still have in my to-read queue too omg... aahhh

[kuwdora]

3x06 The Witcher Netflix Ciri screaming episode recap and reactions. I think it's been like 8 years since I felt so compelled to write a episode reaction that's 1k+ long and only focused mostly on one character. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, my god. my brain is reeling. maybe I will feel differently after it's cooled down but anyway. under the cut 3x06 only, some minor references to book events but my brain is too squishy to really... yeah just. yeah. CIRI.

Before volume 1 of season 3 had dropped I was really concerned and curious how they were going to handle the Ciri narrative from this point on with Tor Lara and being tossed across the Continent.

I’m happy to say that my immediate reaction is that I am fucking impressed. And wheezing from the nuance and direct approach they’re taking in addressing a woman’s rage. but right now it's this prelude to the rage... I'm surely forgetting some things but here!! I!! motherfucking go!!!

Holy fuck, we are seeing Yen explicitly dreaming of Ciri and Ciri feeling her connection, waking and running off to find Yen. To know and feel that Yen is in danger and needs her. She fucks off without looking for Jaskier who is busy sleeping off an orgasm, I guess. Will Geralt end up having Ciri dreams too?? Or is this a mother-daughter thing?? I'm still really digging the Yen-and-Ciri dynamic they've managed to build up in 8 episodes, whaaaaaaat. I was for sure skeptical because of the whole fuckall Voleth Meir nonsense last season but. Huh. Huh.

I don’t know how much time Ciri spent running around the island but that reunion with Yen in the valley??? Brilliantly filmed, absolutely wonderful acting with Anya and Freya here. Their pain, their joy at finding each other again. Yen calling Ciri her daughter. It was beautiful.

And if that wasn’t enough, Yen sees the growing lightning storm from what they namecheck as Alzur’s Last Stand (or Alzur’s Legacy? Last Resort? One of them) — all that flickering lightning above Aretuza. Yen feels the magic, she feels Tissaia’s power, her desperation and she’s so fucking fraught and devastated and scared. Her heart is tearing into two pieces—her love and need to protect Ciri, and her love for her own mother-figure. Tissaia’s pain is Yen’s pain. That was the refrain we’ve heard for two seasons now.

Ciri crying and telling Yennefer that she needed to go to Tissaia because Ciri understood what Yen was feeling as a daughter. My god I was also crying. Outstanding. Emotionally resonant. I LOVE IT.

Geralt had found Ciri and Yen by then, so Ciri stays with Geralt while Yen returns to Aretuza. They end up roaming the island trying to find a way off… finally encounter Cahir together. Ciri ends up with facing her literal nightmare, a source of her pain. Geralt watches on while Ciri is sobbing and crying with the sword pressed to Cahir’s throat. I wasn’t sure I was ready to believe netflix Cahir’s turning point, but I’m fascinated to say that seeing the accumulation of shit he’s taken over the last two seasons and his choice to throw himself to Ciri’s blade as an act of justice for her? For forgiveness? For everything that he’s taken from her? He saved her but he also knows what was taken from her and how he contributed to that. And he’s made the choice to throw himself to her. That’s some good fealty stuff right there. Dang.

But what was interesting is that Geralt never raises a blade to Cahir, there’s no fight with him and Cahir like in the books. In fact, we see the Scoia’tel on the hills approaching and Cahir breaks free and goes off to fight them so Ciri and Geralt can get away. He tells her he's going to hold them off. Dang dang danggg OKAYYYY. “I’ll find you.” Last words Cahir says to Ciri. Ciri is not really in a headspace to probably want or accept this or to know what he truly means since he was ready to die for her… but now he’s like REALLY READY to die for her, omg. *Chinhands* We don't see Cahir anymore this season.

Ciri and Geralt on the beach. Geralt feeling the danger nearby with his medallion and telling Ciri to run. She runs off to Tor Lara while Geralt gets the neutrality beaten out of him.

MEANWHILE AT TOR LARA.

Okay this is where I have scratched my head in curiosity and wonder but I am ROLLING WITH IT. Is this why they made the Blood Origins show to talk about the power of the monoliths?? Because I can’t remember if anyone in the show has referenced the portal at Tor Lara explicitly in the show. But all the monolith talk and I'm still forgetting things probably.

Tor Lara is a monolith that is speaking to Ciri. She races to the tower and Vilgefortz comes after her...she loses her sword and holy fuck, he just wants to train her he says. And she’s running up the stairs to the top and there’s this reverberating energy and crystalline part of the monolith. Runes are glowing beneath the surface. A voice is speaking to Ciri. 👀

In this scene with the Tor Lara monolith I’m loving the double-image effect on Ciri (and Vilgefortz) as the power of the monolith swells. Who or what is seeing them? What kind of reflection is this? I’m neck-deep in symbolism brain right now cause I've spent the last month writing all my witcher philosophy fanfic... but oh my god, Ciri is going through trauma and will be dissociating and being Falka for a good long while… While Vilgefortz had spent a large amount of time hiding his True Self in order to advance his plans. He hated it, the hiding. It exasperated him. But it's what he had to do in order to see his work through. And Ciri will relinquish her powers and partition her mind and sink into her rage, and it will be a summer of pain and catharsis for her. Double images all around here. Both of these characters end up embodying two identities in this strange amalgamation of self and non-self that they construct in order to survive. Someone remind me later to talk about Jean Genet and the tapestry art The Lady and the Unicorn. Or maybe I'll just write another fic for that tapestry in particular.

So the show is making more textually apparent that Vilgefortz wants Ciri’s blood, and he says he wants to train her. That he is the best one to do it. Which is different than in the forced pregnancy books and it’s not a change that I hate at all, but I still find it interesting and want to know what he actually….wants out of it. Though I don't think anything implies that he wouldn't go with the forced breeding angle again but if the show doesn't go that way, I won't be mad.

Alright... briefly in 3x07 or 3x08 (can’t remember) Yen, Rita, Tissaia, Sabrina, Keira and Philippa ended up finding the Aretuza girls that Vilgefortz kidnapped and mutated with magic. There’s still no understanding from any of the characters what his ends might be with these experiments, and I’m still not sure where he’s going with it, other than to figure out how to use Ciri’s blood. And that there’s some connection to the power of the monoliths.

Anyway, back at Tor Lara Ciri ignores Vilgefortz who says she’s not ready for that kind of power yet. The power is reaching out to Ciri. And Ciri reaches back... and we get BIG SHATTERING EXPLOSION and the tower encasing the monolith of Tor Lara just disintegrates. Another one bites the dust. Vilgefortz gets knocked on his smirky fucking ass.

Ciri has the magic touch, yo.

This is HER STORY. Slams hands on table and kicks her feetsies oh my god oh my god.

Freya is impressing the hell out of me. I wasn’t… I wanted to be hopeful but I didn’t let myself. And now holy fuck.

holy fuck.

CIRI.

let me have another few hours to breathe and write about 3x07 and 3x08. holy fuuuuuuck.