Between The Wild Hunt, The White Flame, and why everyone seems to want a piece of Ciri,
there are a lot of head-scratching moments in the first five episodes of Season 3 of
"The Witcher."
Francesca lost her newborn daughter in Season 2, and that set off a series of catastrophic
events for not only the Elves but for everyone who has come into contact with them.
After a tentative alliance with Nilfgaard orchestrated by Fringilla, the Elves were
lulled into a false sense of security only for devastation to ensue when her child was killed.
This led Francesca to lash out and kill several Nilfgaardian children.
The reveal that the Nilfgaardian king, Ciri's father, was the culprit in this horror makes
it all the more upsetting.
The grief over her child is overwhelming, and it makes sense that Francesca's judgment
is completely compromised.
But no one else seems to be making particularly good decisions either.
Francesca's only purpose now is revenge, but that's all the more reason why her support
system should be stepping up and giving her time to properly grieve.
We know that the Elves have had serious problems with their leaders in the past, so it's kind
of surprising that there aren't better safeguards in place for taking care of her.
Yet, the only attempts made to bring Francesca back to her senses have been either gentle
coaxing or outright betrayal.
Both of these strategies have made the situation drastically worse.
As it is, she's a mother who has lost not just her child, but the hope for a better
future for her people, making her the most dangerous kind of leader.
Maybe it isn't so much that Elf history is confusing, just that we don't know all that
much about it, and everything we learn leaves us with more questions.
For instance, "Blood Origin" did the handy work of explaining a bit of context around
the Conjunction of the Spheres, an event that saw worlds merge and delivered an influx of
humans and monsters to the world.
Even still, we get the feeling that the four-episode spin-off only scratched the surface.
We met some major players and saw the beginning of the decline of the Elven empire, but that's
a far way away from actually explaining the full history of the Elves.
When Geralt is captured by Elves in the first season, they're hanging on by a thread after
centuries of anti-Elf aggression and attacks.
In Season 3, we hear a bit more about Elven history as Yennefer and Geralt tell Ciri the
tale of an ancient hero.
Even that legend seems entirely open to interpretation as Ciri offers counterpoints to Yennefer's narrative.
When it comes to the Elves, we're getting a lot of exposition in a very condensed format,
but if you have questions about what the Elves have been up to since, well, forever, we're
right there with you.
Considering that they didn't particularly want to be bothered by Geralt or his friends
to begin with, Codringer and Fenn's untimely demise at the hands of Reince came as a bit
of a shock.
When Reince arrives at the library, it's not clear what his true motives are for torching
the place and its occupants.
The two researchers gave Geralt only a sparse amount of intel during his visit, but it costs
them their lives, and we can't help but feel it was a bit of an escalation.
While it shows us that Reince is willing to resort to abject cruelty to accomplish his
goals, we kind of already knew that.
We can't help but feel that these two were of way more use alive than dead.
"Please, not the cat."
"Tell me everything."
All of our confusion around this one may be rooted in our love for the lovably curmudgeonly
Codringher and Fenn, their cat, and their stellar book collection, but their deaths
still feel like a bit of a waste.
Yennefer taking Ciri to Aretuza makes a lot of sense.
It's clearly a decision she struggles with, as does Geralt, but they agree together to
split up for the good of the Princess.
Yennefer takes her to train with the best mages on the planet while Geralt goes after
Reince who continues to work in service to a mysterious benefactor.
This is a choice they all struggle with, particularly Yennefer, who knows the Brotherhood's hypocrisy
and balks at the idea of taking Ciri to them despite her faith in their ability to keep
her safe.
Though Yennefer explains her own history to Ciri, she doesn't prepare Geralt's adopted
daughter for how hard the mages are on their novices.
She also doesn't fully explain the strange political climate that made it such a struggle
for her to train there.
When Ciri first meets some of Yennefer's fellow mages, she's immediately treated like a servant.
She bristles at this, and though Yennefer explains to her that this is how you play
politics in the world of magic, it's not enough to convince Ciri, who flees on horseback.
Though Ciri's brash flight from the town is in character for her, it definitely exposes
a lack of understanding about the severity of her situation.
Yennefer's feelings toward Tissaia, the Brotherhood, and Aretuza are complex.
She views Tissaia both as a mother figure and friend while still acknowledging her more
severe personality traits.
Life at Aretuza is what gave her power, but she suffered at the hands of her teachers
and fellow students.
Finally, the Brotherhood has long served as a thorn in her side due to its hubris and
unwillingness to change.
But she admires their power and sees herself as one of them, even if she occasionally chafes
at the idea.
Tissaia's fondness and pride in Yennefer are clear, but she continues to keep secrets from
her pupil.
This is certain to cause more harm to their relationship.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood watched Yennefer almost single-handedly end the Battle of Sodden
Hill at the end of Season 1 only to more or less put her on trial in Season 2.
In Season 3, they're universally annoyed by her presence but most of the mages ultimately
see the benefits of her plea to a more united Brotherhood.
By the end of Episode 5, it seems that she's been invited back into the fold, but this
is a pretty tempestuous bunch of people, so we'll have to wait and see.
This is one where we can rest assured that we'll find out more about it soon, but that
doesn't change the fact that we still have pretty much no clue what's going on with Ciri's
dad, the White Flame of Nilfgaard.
Perhaps the biggest twist of the second season was the reveal that he was alive at all, with
Ciri believing that he and her mother perished at sea many years before.
More shocking, he's the Emperor of Nilfgaard, meaning that he's responsible for the damage
we've seen his invading army cause to the Northern territories.
In the novels, the White Flame is fascinated with his daughter's elder blood.
Her lineage inspires him to make choices that are some of the most controversial plot points
of the book.
While the Netflix series has stayed relatively true to the source material, it made a few
major deviations last season that clued us in that there would be more changes on the way.
At present, all we know of Emperor Emhyr is his glorified tale of taking back his kingdom
with the power of his sword, but he has a tendency of being an unreliable narrator,
so we have to take his claims with a grain of salt.
The build-up for the Wild Hunt has been extreme, with "Blood Origin" diving into the distant
past in no small part to introduce us to the "leader" of this mystical group of wraiths,
Eredin Bréacc Glas.
The captain of the Xin'trea military makes several bad moves in a very short period of
time during the lead-in to the Conjunction of the Spheres, and it costs him.
First, he plans a coup with Balor then sides with Merwyn in hopes of securing a better
future for himself and his lover, Brian.
He is ultimately banished with several of his men to an alternate dimension.
While we haven't seen much in the way of his transformation to the leader of the Wild Hunt,
we can guess the story isn't a particularly cheery one.
Though this season has given us glimpses of the awesome power of the Hunt, and we know
that their pursuit of Ciri will continue, we're still not sure what their ultimate goal is.
It's hinted that Ciri's power could act as a key to unlock the barrier between realms,
but perhaps they want to induct Ciri into their group.
Either way, we're still very much at the beginning of their story.
"Child of the Elder Blood, starry-eyed daughter of chaos, join our hunt."
When we first met Vilgefortz he was manipulating Yennefer to return to Aretuza to help him
avoid being drafted into service by the king of Nilfgaard.
After that, we saw him slay a fellow mage during the Battle of Sodden Hill.
This created significant doubt about where his loyalties lie.
While Tissaia sees the good in him, even that has become fairly questionable at times, particularly
when he lashed out at her during Season 2.
Having taken leadership of the Brotherhood, Vilgefortz seems calm through the first few
episodes of Season 3.
He even charms Yennefer who has good reason not to trust him.
Using their shared love for Tissaia, he wins Yennefer over, but to what end is still unclear.
Though there are plenty of theories swirling around him as of the fifth episode, and there
might be a major blow-up on the horizon.
With Stregobor imprisoned for hiding a book that he denies having taken, we suspect that
this could have easily been planted in his room by Vilgefortz.
Cahir has been a mysterious character from the start.
He lead the invasion of Cintra and attempted to kidnap Ciri.
He continues his pursuit of Ciri and in his search massacres a group of Cintran refugees.
He continues his rampage by enlisting a doppler to kill Ciri's childhood mentor Mousesack
and take his form.
The doppler tricks her into trusting him but traumatizes her by leveraging her only true
friend against her.
He later kills an entire tavern of people just to make sure none of the people inside
are the doppler.
Without a doubt, Cahir is one of the most terrifying characters in the series due to
his unsettling dedication to The White Flame.
In Season 2, he and Yennefer are forced to flee together after she refuses to take his
life on behalf of the Brotherhood.
This sets off a chain of events that sees him returning to Nilfgaard and allying himself
with the equally ruthless Fringilla.
When she murders several generals for treachery but leaves Cahir alive, it becomes clear that
these two have some kind of connection, but is it just their commitment to The White Flame?
We have seen time and again that Cahir will do anything for the king of Nilfgaard, but
will discovering that Fringilla is still alive despite the White Flamed claiming she has
died change any of that?
For someone who has appeared in so many episodes, we still don't know much about what drives Cahir.
So far, we know very little of Philippa, making her a confusing character.
We met her in Season 2 as an owl working in tandem with Dijkstra, but as for what her
specific motivations are beyond a wild grab for power, we're still pretty clueless.
We've seen her involved in S&M with Dijkstra and engaging in an affair with one of Vizimir's
staff, and we know she's orchestrated more than one brutal murder, but we still don't
know why.
One fascinating tidbit that has been dropped in the third season is that she and Tissaia
had a falling out.
When Yennefer asks Tissaia what happened, the mage dismisses what happened as two friends
simply growing apart.
"There's nothing to understand.
The friendship just ran its course."
Yet, Philippa seems to have plenty more to say on the subject, leaving us to wonder what
exactly went down between these two powerful mages.
And Philippa's mystery goes even deeper with her connection to Aretuza and her unique mastery
over shapeshifting still mostly unexplained.
At this point, these plot threads could go in just about any direction, so we're on the
edge of our seats with Philippa.