Funny how different people people can read the same thing and draw totally opposite conclusions.
I also haven't finished the books, I just finished The Tower of the Swallow, so maybe my opinions will change. But the last 2 books haven't done anything else than to confirm my feelings. I'm glad that you felt that making Ciri the worst kind of murderer was necessary. It means that at least you can enjoy her chapters in the books. To me sadly they have became an incredible chore, I just wish I would be able to skip chapters when reading books, at least then I could enjoy this series.But I also can't remember a single instance in any other book that I read in which I felt that what a protagonist really needs to build character is to kill a bunch of innocent people and to watch fascinated his victims bleeding to death, so there's that. Also I would think that you don't actually need to kill a bunch of innocent people, and terrorize countless others, just to know that that is bad. And anyway even if that were true, Ciri is NOT the Source in the books, her unborn child will be. So if anyone needed to go on a murderous spree of innocent people for philosophical reasons that would have been her child and not her.
You call Ciri incredible honest about herself while I find her incredible hypocritical. Like when she called Leo a murderer, after killing the Rats (in self defense). Or for calling evil the 4 bandits that waited her in the village for doing exactly what she and her friends loved to do. Man,y times in the discussions with Vysogota she leaves the impression that she still considers herself to be good and different than the other bandits even after all that she did. And lastly, the peak of her hypocrisy: calling herself a witcheress when she is nothing like them, even Letho when he killed innocent people actually did it for what he thought was the greater good, not for his sick pleasure. And btw, since she claims she will kill human monsters that do what she does (or did), why doesn't she takes a hard look in the mirror and cuts her own throat, since she is so honest? Honestly, if you want an example of a sincere and realist bandit, Angoulême is the one, not Ciri.
Also the fact that she doesn't have any kind of remorse for her actions means to you that she just embraces her flaws and imperfections. To me just means a lack of empathy and conscience.
I agree that in the books there aren't many good guys. But there are some of them: Shani, Nenneke and her volunteering pupils, Vysogota, Fringilla and Margarita (so far) for example, and there are plenty of those that are close enough like: Geralt, Cahir, Triss (so far), Yen (less in the first books, more in the last), hell even Three Jackdaws and many others. Many of them have been her tutors or role models.
But my problem is not that she is not as good as them, is that she is a lot worse than many antagonists or people with dubious morality in the books. I will take any day someone like Phillipa, The Coroner, Dijkstra, who killed or get people killed because they are truly patriots or for some ideals over someone who kills and terrorize for her pleasure. I prefer Leo to her, at least while a sadistic bastard, he only killed or hurt people that deserved it, at least in this book. I can get behind someone like the Scoiatel guerrillas who envision themselves freedom fighters or even behind Milva who takes her own people to be slaughtered by dryads and elves because she has an obligation to the Matriarch dryad, at least those were soldiers. I can't get behind someone like Ciri. To me she is only under Rience, Schirru and Vilgefortz on a scale of "not goodness". In a world full of gray characters calling her not black makes to me as much sense as calling the sky not blue but green.
Look I know that I sound very vehement in my dislike of Ciri after the Baptism of Fire. Probably because she was my favorite in the games and I loved her character in the early books. My point is that while I have no problems enjoying darker characters as villains or antiheroes I do have a problem in presenting basically a spree killer (or serial killer depending on definitions) as a hero we should root for because we saw her grow up and the main protagonists love her. I hate that just by changing her name back to Ciri from Falka all the evil that she did is just ignored like it never happened and that the only character that tried to punish her, and somewhat succeeded in doing that, is vilified.
Anyway,after venting my frustrations, let me congratulate again all the book readers that enjoyed Ciri deveploment, wish I was you.