Question regarding Ciri and Geralt

+
As, ooodrin said, the Witcher Games are a non-canon sequel for the Geralt-Saga books. Many things are changed, or many things are not told about.
That's why you can show Ciri in such a "good" way ;)
 
Ya I did not enjoy the sections of the books where Ciri became a bandit. Honestly loathed when I would come to a chapter about that and felt like I had to sort of "plod through it" to get to the better stuff.
 
Yeah, besides the fact that this arc spoiled Ciri's character irremediably for me I really didn't find anything really appealing about it. Angouleme or Milva are for me a far better example of enjoyable characters that deed some horrible things in their past than any of the Rats, Angouleme in particular being also a bandit like them. Also I thing this are the poorest pages writing wise from the whole series, especially Ciri character swings :
She is good, then suddenly she is the evil incarnate (authors words), then once again acts like she is good, but feels no kind of remorse for her crimes (while continuing to be really evil, once again Sapkowski words)
. I mean many readers didn't even pick up on the fact
that she is evil,
even if this was the authors intention. This is just bad writing when you have to explain in later interviews something like that. It really feels like he wanted
to make Ciri evil, then for some reason (probably his or his publicist fear that readers will stop liking her) changed his mind, and he just ignored what she had her do in the Baptism of Fire, or what the Rats did for that matter
. If someone would only read
the Blood of Elves and Time of Contempt and then jumped to The Tower of Swallows and Lady of the Lake
, he won't have any idea who Ciri really is, because while the effects of what happened to Ciri are shown, the effects of what she did are not, they are just ignored.
 
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When did Sapkowski ignored the stuff Ciri did?
I can't remember the fact when he wrote "She is good now" or something like that. The story at the end is open. So I cannot see where Sapkwoski changed his mind about Ciri or ignored it.
 
What I mean by her past actions being ignored by Sapkowski in the later books is simple:

1) We never see anyone address it (for example
when when Bonhart tells Yen that he caught her and taught her to kill, which btw is a lie, since she loved killing before they met, and her crimes (with the rest of the Rats) are what led him to her. He wants to hurt Yen but he doesn't even say something like : she is infamous as Falka, she killed n persons, look what she became without you there etc),
2) We don't really see discussions between her and her parents or anyone else about what she did while she was with the Rats, we don't see her opinion about what she did (we don't know if she has bad dreams or good dreams about what she did, if she cries at night or touches herself
remembering her victims dying at her hand)
3) She never took blame for her actions,
or realized that those were the reason why she had multiple bounties on her head. She feels she was unjustly targeted by Bonhart, and that the Rats were Murdered, when in fact the Rats were just served the only kind of justice that worked in that world, maybe besides an army raid against them. She thinks Leo is just another person that hurt her and wanted to use her for who she is, when in reality who she is is the reason why she didn't deservedly suffered the same fate as the rest of the Rats.

4) We don't see how her past actions are affecting what she does now.
While her being a victim made her decide that "evil" men must die, and she is "death", she seems to be oblivious that she is as evil as them and she loved (or would still love) to do the same things.

5)
We don't even know if she would still love to kill indiscriminately but she doesn't do it because of a code. Or if she only killed peasants, merchants and their guards because they were available and they couldn't offer much resistance and now since she is stronger she can go after more interesting prey, while felling that she is "good" at the same time. Or if she could easily revert at killing anyone because that what she feels like in that moment.
 
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As I said: I cannot see where Sapkowski wrote that she is now "good" and not evil anymore. Only because he don't write explicitly that Ciri told all the things to her parents doesn't mean she didn't do it or that she left all that behind. After her rat time and her revenge untill Stygga we only see her a short time and then the story ends. So we never now what she will do now and then.

I mean... do you really want this: That Ciri tells everybody she met at the last 90 pages what she did? "Hello I'm Zoltan, sorry that your parents died" - "Hello I'm Ciri, I was a bandit and killed people, and I liked it" ; "We are the lodge" - "And I am Ciri, I kille a lot of people while I was a bandit" etc. *sarcasm* ;)
I for myself don't tell everybody I met, what I did wrong in my life, this is just normal, but it doesn't mean I never did it or ignore it. It just would seem weird to read such sentence in the last parts of the book, cause nobody act like this. We will never know if Ciri tell this to people she will know better, knew better or if she will keep it a secret for herself.


Yeah Bonhart didn't tell Yennefer much about Ciri, he wants to tell her about his strength wants to frighten her, that's why he show her the medallions and wants to rape her. This is no moment to have a long nice talk about Ciri ;)
Ciri, Yennefer and Geralt went to the places where Ciri was before after Stygga. So she had to tell 'em why they go there. Or maybe she didn't cause she feel shame, hate for her actions. But we don't know, cause we never know is she "really good" now or "still bad".
And never forget, only because she adress people as bad and murderer, doesn't mean she cannot be this for her own. Another murderer can call a other murderer murderer and it's still true (weird sentence). Maybe it's bigot, but true. So your point "she never took blame for her actions, is true. She never did so far as we know, but this doesn't mean Sapkwoski decide ot make her "good" again or that he ignored her actions.

We will never now, untill Sapkwoski write a new story which takes places after the 5th novel. But this will never happen. So yeah, we don't know if Ciri will become a good person and will regret her actions some day or not. We will never know. She is what she is now: A person with a rough childhood, some good action and some really bad actions.
 
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Dan_Florian_Eremia;n10832071 said:
[...]2) We don't really see discussions between her and her parents or anyone else about what she did while she was with the Rats, we don't see her opinion about what she did (we don't know if she has bad dreams or good dreams about what she did, if she cries at night or touches herself [...]

It seem to me that Ciri speaks about it with Vysogota of Corvo, no? I agree with Deemonef and for my part, I do not see how Sapkowski ignores the past actions of Ciri. The reader knows.

Dan_Florian_Eremia;n10832071 said:
[...]4) We don't see how her past actions are affecting what she does now.[...]

Otherwise even if Something Ends, Something Begins is a non-canon humorous story, Ciri remained the same :

"South," she interrupted him at once, without averting her face. "Smoke is still rising from the ground after the war there, the restoration is under way, people fight for survival. They need protection and guard. I'll be of use there. And there is also Korath... And Nilfgaard. I have my unfinished business there. We both have our unfinished business there, Gevir and me."

She fell silent. Her face hardened, her green eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted in a hateful grimace. I remember, thought Geralt, I remember. It was like this that time, when they fought together hand in hand on the stairs of the castle Rhys-Rhun. The stairs were slippery with blood, and on them stood he and she. Wolf and Cat, two deadly machines inhumanly fast and inhumanly cruel, drove into a corner, pushed back against a wall. Yes, then the Nilfgaardians, awestruck, retreated before the flashes and whiz of their blades, and they slowly moved down, down the stairs of the castle Rhys-Rhun, wet with blood. They moved down, leaning on each other, linked together, and before them went the death, death on two shiny sword blades. A cool, calm Wolf and an insane Cat. Flash of the blade, cry, blood, death... Like that, that time it was like that... That time...

Ciri threw back her hair and among the blond strands shone a snow-white streak on the temple.

That time, her hair whitened.

"I have unfinished business there," she hissed. "For Mistle. For my Mistle. Even though I revenged her, but for Mistle one death is not enough."

Bonhart, he thought. She killed him out of hatred. Oh, Ciri, Ciri. You're standing on the edge of an abyss, daughter. Not a thousand deaths would revenge your Mistle. Beware of hatred, Ciri, it consumes like cancer.

"Watch out for yourself," he whispered.
"I'll rather watch the others," she smiled ominously. "It pays off more, it has more sense."

Source : https://witcher.gamepedia.com/Fan_translation_of_Something_Ends,_Something_Begins

P-S : Please, excuse me for my poor English.

 
I think there is a problem of communication, sorry, like I said English is not my first language. I never claimed that Ciri is good now, quite the opposite, from my first post in this thread I argued that she is not, maybe too vehemently at that. What I said is that after Baptism of Fire her evilness was so downplayed by the author that someone who didn't read that particular book would not even imagine what Ciri is really like. Many readers on forums claim that Ciri is and always was good but only made some bad choices just because that. We certainly know that is not the case because of that authors interview, but the fact that many readers didn't even pick up on the fact she is indeed evil I think it proves my point.

I don't know if the author was afraid her character will become too unlikable or if he was trying to be more ambiguous, leaving to the reader the chance to reach alone to the idea he was trying to drive through, that the tragic circumstances did indeed turned her into a monster. But one thing is certain, pretty much the only monsterlike thing that can be imputed to her in later books is her lack of a conscience and the lack of regret of for her murders, once again only clear to people that read Baptism of Fire (and realized that her behavior in that book was the one of a spree killer and not the one of a romantic Robin Hood copycat). But people wanted to like Ciri, they have "seen" her growing up, they loved her and the protagonists of the books loved her. So it was easy to minimize all the evil that she did, to find excuses for her crimes (not unlike family members do for some of the most vile killers IRL), to find the silver lining (she learned to survive, she was finally free or she became a better character), or simply to ignore what she did since there where only a few pages stretched in a book and a half. And the fact that her crimes were never mentioned again helped them in their conviction, to maintain the idea of a "good" Ciri, one that is exactly the opposite of the one the author claims he meant.
This could be a study of case, how if evil is wrapped in the package of an attractive and charismatic young woman, with a tragic story, no matter how awful she acts, people don't even realize what they see:worried:

To be clear, while she doesn't act anymore like the monster that she is in the later books she still isn't good. For example I can't really remember a singe selfless thing she did in them. When she kills she still kills for her own interest (revenge or self preservation), only the type of her victims are different. It is unclear if she still has the same fascination with death and killing, it depends on everyones opinion.

Now to replies

Deemonef;n10832651 said:
I mean... do you really want this: That Ciri tells everybody she met at the last 90 pages what she did? "Hello I'm Zoltan, sorry that your parents died" - "Hello I'm Ciri, I was a bandit and killed people, and I liked it" ; "We are the lodge" - "And I am Ciri, I kille a lot of people while I was a bandit" etc. *sarcasm* I for myself don't tell everybody I met, what I did wrong in my life, this is just normal, but it doesn't mean I never did it or ignore it. It just would seem weird to read such sentence in the last parts of the book, cause nobody act like this. We will never know if Ciri tell this to people she will know better, knew better or if she will keep it a secret for herself.

It would have been easy to bring up her actions if the author really wanted to show us how she felt about them, not in the last 90 pages, but in the entire 2 books after the Rats are killed. He could have shown us Ciri talking about them with Vysogota, Geralt, Yen. He could have shown us what she felt about them in all the pages that presented her POV. I don't think that she could just ignore them unless she is a true sociopath.
"We will never know if Ciri tell this to people she will know better, knew better or if she will keep it a secret for herself"- This is my point, we don't know any of this points because none of them are addressed in the last 2 books.

Gwynbleidds;n10833031 said:
It seem to me that Ciri speaks about it with Vysogota of Corvo, no?

Not really, she does have a small quote that is not the wicked or immoral people that sink into the abyss, but the decent, good honorable ones . But then she says this to him before starting her story: "I'll tell you what happened to me" and then the chapters from her POV start with the Rats meeting with Hotsporn when they found out about the fact Bonhart was chasing them because of the large bounties on their heads. True Ciri claims they should haveraped the barons daughter, and Spark recounts happily how she killed someone to make him an example, and how they are terrorizing the post office, but we don't get to actually get to see Ciri actually do anything worse than taking drugs.
So she only tells Vysogota what happened to her, not what she did to actually deserve it. She only acknowledges how she was victimized again, but she doesn't really takes responsibility for her victims.

Deemonef;n10832651 said:
or that he ignored her actions
Gwynbleidds;n10833031 said:
I do not see how Sapkowski ignores the past actions of Ciri
How does he not? They aren't mentioned again , we don't know how many characters in the book know about them, how they feel about them (the ones that do know), what Ciri feels about them and how these past actions influence her current actions (if they do influence them at all).
 
Dan_Florian_Eremia;n10836801 said:
How does he not? They aren't mentioned again , we don't know how many characters in the book know about them, how they feel about them (the ones that do know), what Ciri feels about them and how these past actions influence her current actions (if they do influence them at all).

I would so much like to debate unfortunately I am limited by the language. :( But for how many characters in the book know about them, I imagine that there is only Geralt and Yennefer. There is certainly also Jaskier :

To say I knew her would be an exaggeration. I think that, apart from the Witcher and the enchantress, no one really knew her. When I saw her for the first time she did not make a great impression on me at all, even in spite of the quite extraordinary accompanying circumstances. I have known people who said that, right away, from the very first encounter, they sensed the foretaste of death striding behind the girl. To me she seemed utterly ordinary, though I knew that ordinary she was not; for which reason I tried to discern, discover — sense — the singularity in her. But I noticed nothing and sensed nothing. Nothing that could have been a signal, a presentiment or a harbinger of those subsequent, tragic events. Events caused by her very existence. And those caused by her actions.
Half a Century of Poetry​

 
Gwynbleidds;n10837661 said:
I would so much like to debate unfortunately I am limited by the language. :( But for how many characters in the book know about them, I imagine that there is only Geralt and Yennefer. There is certainly also Jaskier :

To say I knew her would be an exaggeration. I think that, apart from the Witcher and the enchantress, no one really knew her. When I saw her for the first time she did not make a great impression on me at all, even in spite of the quite extraordinary accompanying circumstances. I have known people who said that, right away, from the very first encounter, they sensed the foretaste of death striding behind the girl. To me she seemed utterly ordinary, though I knew that ordinary she was not; for which reason I tried to discern, discover — sense — the singularity in her. But I noticed nothing and sensed nothing. Nothing that could have been a signal, a presentiment or a harbinger of those subsequent, tragic events. Events caused by her very existence. And those caused by her actions.
Half a Century of Poetry​

Yeah, but even that is just a supposition. Maybe she told them that the Rats really were some kind of heroic Robin Hood wannabes, robing bloodlessly Nilfgaardians nobles to give to the poor, only to be murdered by that evil Bonhart, and that she never killed innocents. Hell maybe she even believes it from what we know, at least the first part. She surely still has a pretty high opinion about them, including the dude that tried to rape her, the girl that did raped he and the rest of those Psychos. And now she can definitely differentiate between good or evil.
 
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Not two entire books. Only a few pages ;)
The time with Vysogota was mainly a part where she told her past, and yeah she never said to Vysogota that she feels sorry about it, she just talks like it happend. After this, there is a time where she seeks for revenge, try to escape and no time to make a point about what she is now.
But if you want to see it like this: Yeah she is evil, cause she never told in a explicit way, that she feels sorry for all of this. But as I said, as you said, as everybody said: We don't know, cause the book ends without an answer.

You made your point and this is okay :) She never told Vysogota that she feels sorry for the poeple she killed, and like you feel about this now, tells me that you don't see her as a good person.

...but... well I don't see the meaning of go on with this discussion. As I said, and other: Sapkowski never ignored the actions Ciri did. It is a difference in ignoring and sugarcoating things and in just not mention 'em again.
The last pages of the books are for other things: Tell how the war ends, how Geralt and Yennefer die, how Ciri acts with the lodge etc, not to bring back many parts of the things of the past of the story.
There are many things that are not mentioned again, and this is not for ignoring it, it is just... well... I can't say it cause you simply cannot mention everything again. A book would be a never ending story...
Just because the curse lift of the Strzyga was never mentioned again, doesn't mean Sapkwoski ignores it. Just because Borch was never mentioned again, doesn't mean Sapkwoski ignored him. Just because Sapkowski never mentioned the Dziki Gon after the first half of the 5th novel again, doesn't mean he ignored them... and I can go on with this forever...
 
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Dan_Florian_Eremia;n10814211 said:
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...

...Anyway,after venting my frustrations, let me congratulate again all the book readers that enjoyed Ciri deveploment, wish I was you.

Lost track of the discussion -- sorry!

What you say here is exactly what literature is all about. I'm a strong believer in "the writer is dead" the minute a story is shared. It's up to readers to glean meaning from whatever they have in front of them. Plus, I'm also basing my understanding on a mostly incomplete reading of the novels and the adaptation of characters in the games. That definitely makes for loose foundations.

I simply view Ciri as follows (based on what I do know):
- She had no solid upbringing.
- She was used by many people.
- She had her "home" continuously uprooted.
- She possesses a power that tempts her and terrifies her in equal measure.
- She was forced to survive in horrific circumstances.
- She was abused in pretty much all ways imaginable.
+ Despite all this, she somehow manages to identify and hold onto love.

So did she do "horrible things"? Yup. Did she fall along the way? Sure. I simply keep in mind that Ciri in the novels was not an adult with a a solid understanding of the world around her, nor the maturity needed to truly deal with the challenges life was throwing at her. She was a child whose entire world would be transformed repeatedly and without warning (...perhaps, ironically, exactly what she needed to get her ready for her later life.) I also separate someone being honest with themselves from a child not understanding what they're doing. (Even if they understand their actions on an intellectual level, they often cannot relate at all on an emotional level. It's not until they've committed the "crime" and have "the blood on their hands" that they begin to understand why it's a crime. It might be another 10 years before they're old enough to fully and truly understand it.) What I don't see is Ciri ever once denying to herself what she is. Only struggling head-to-head with it.

Another consideration is the fact that she grew into adulthood largely without boundaries. Her power means that absolutely no one can "force" her to do something. That means that even as a child (teenager), there was no way to "punish" her when she "did something wrong". That would be quite a mind-job even for many adults.

I'm surprised she didn't completely crumble into a force of pure destruction for herself and anyone around her. But in the end, those failures helped to shape her into the woman portrayed in TW3. Is this what Sapkowski originally intended? Who knows? But we do see Ciri give a paradise to Geralt and Yennifer, then intentionally flee through time and space to keep the Wild Hunt away from them.

So for me, in the end, it's not about what she's done, it's about what she overcame. I view her character to be something of a parallel to Yennefer. I don't even want to consider the decimated lives that Yen left in her wake to become the sorceress she is in the stories...but she still winds up being an incredibly positive element in the end. I believe that's the type of world Sapkowski was creating. Goodness and evil are subjective, and one cannot exist without the other.

Separate thing, what do you mean by her unborn child being the Source? I either haven't read to that point or completely missed this.
 
SigilFey;n10855221 said:
Separate thing, what do you mean by her unborn child being the Source? I either haven't read to that point or completely missed this.

I think he means that Ciri is not the "important" person for the people who want her. Due to the prophecy Ciri's child/grandchild will be the (for the Dziki Gon) person who saves the elves from the White Frost; (for the human kind) the mightiest ruler who ever exited or (for the sorceresses) the one queen that will rule with magic over the world and bring freedom.

PS: Amazing comment, thanks for it.
 
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Deemonef;n10856941 said:
I think he means that Ciri is not the "important" person for the people who want her. Due to the prophecy Ciri's child/grandchild will be the (for the Dziki Gon) person who saves the elves from the White Frost; (for the human kind) the mightiest ruler who ever exited or (for the sorceresses) the one queen that will rule with magic over the world and bring freedom.

PS: Amazing comment, thanks for it.

Indeed that's what I meant. Ciri is not the one who will have to decide the fate of the world. Her yet still unborn child (or her grandchild) is the "the one". The only decision in the books that could affect the fate of the world that Ciri can make is the one of who the father will be.
 
SigilFey;n10855221 said:
I simply view Ciri as follows (based on what I do know): - She had no solid upbringing. - She was used by many people. - She had her "home" continuously uprooted. - She possesses a power that tempts her and terrifies her in equal measure. - She was forced to survive in horrific circumstances. - She was abused in pretty much all ways imaginable. + Despite all this, she somehow manages to identify and hold onto love.

I agree with most of these, minus the first one. I think she had a way more solid upbringing than most people in that world. Also, while she indeed was used by many people, that mostly came after she already ran with the Rats. But the the fact that "Despite all this, she somehow manages to identify and hold onto love." leaves me cold. The world is full of terrible people IRL (mobsters,tyrants) or in literature that truly love a few selected people. A small anecdotal story :I recently read in my country an interview with the family of a torturer for the old communist regime and they were raving about what a kind and loving father and husband he was. Somehow I fail in rejoicing in the fact that he managed to hold onto love.
To be clear, I realize that this is just a work of art and there are many beloved characters that would be hated in real life. My point is that you cannot use the fact that someone is capable of love or willing to sacrifice himself for a loved one as a proof of "goodness" (btw this argument was also used for Yen). In my own definition of what being a good person is, how you are treating other people is more relevant than how you treat the few you love.


SigilFey;n10855221 said:
(Even if they understand their actions on an intellectual level, they often cannot relate at all on an emotional level. It's not until they've committed the "crime" and have "the blood on their hands" that they begin to understand why it's a crime. It might be another 10 years before they're old enough to fully and truly understand it.) What I don't see is Ciri ever once denying to herself what she is. Only struggling head-to-head with it.
That is the thing, in previous books she proved that she understood on an emotional level too that victimising others is wrong, she was quite full of righteous indignation against some of those perpetrators.

SigilFey;n10855221 said:
Another consideration is the fact that she grew into adulthood largely without boundaries. Her power means that absolutely no one can "force" her to do something. That means that even as a child (teenager), there was no way to "punish" her when she "did something wrong". That would be quite a mind-job even for many adults.
I honestly don't know how you reached to this conclusions. For one like I said she isn't the one with the great power but her child. She is a medium and she does have the ability to jump between worlds but besides that she is just like any other young sorceresses full with untapped potential. Secondly both Geralt and Lady Yennefer proved to be more than capable of disciplining her when it was needed. Nenneke also had her respect and I doubt that the sorceresses at the Academy would have had any real troubles in educating her.

SigilFey;n10855221 said:
So for me, in the end, it's not about what she's done, it's about what she overcame. I view her character to be something of a parallel to Yennefer. I don't even want to consider the decimated lives that Yen left in her wake to become the sorceress she is in the stories...but she still winds up being an incredibly positive element in the end.
Once again I disagree. I believe that someone actions are the only way in which someone can be judged after all is said and done.
How positive of an element really is Yen (besides Geralt and Ciri) is another discussions altogether

SigilFey;n10855221 said:
I'm surprised she didn't completely crumble into a force of pure destruction for herself and anyone around her. But in the end, those failures helped to shape her into the woman portrayed in TW3
I really don't believe that killing a bunch of people for selfish reasons (especially reasons as sick as the ones Ciri had) has ever made someone a better person. I don't believe it ever will. But even if that would be true, since I don't believe that some lives are more valuable than other, taking a lot of lives to self-improve one, even the one of a main character, still wouldn't feel like a silver lining or something to be celebrated or even accepted.

In the end how much Ciri has grown up, if she still is the monster that Sapkowski (and me )claims she was, is up to debate. Everyone will have their own opinion. What I did find telling, something that remained with me after finishing the books, is the moment when Ciri goes with her parents to visit the graves of the rats. Her angry claim that the Rats were murdered, when they were the ones that cowardly tried to attack Bonhart, 6 against 1, while he was pursuing them to collect on the justified and legal bounties placed on their heads. To me that is proof that she still views the Rats as the victims and not the real victims. Also is interesting the discussion about what happened to their bodies, I don't remember her and her friends ever burying the poor people that they killed. Well you can say that when they burned the houses of the people that informed on them those houses were some kind of funeral pyres for those people and their families, but besides that they either leaved the bodies were they fell, or they dragged them like some sacks of potatoes out of view.
 
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Dan_Florian_Eremia

Like I said earlier, it's all about perspective. Why do some people love Macbeth while others can't stand it? People will glean what they will from literature, and it may hold diametrically opposed meanings to different people based upon their own, subjective understanding of the world in general.

Look at it this way: You share the mindset of any character in the novel who would want to shackle Ciri or try to kill her. And I'm not just talking about the Wild Hunt and other "villains", but even Yen and Triss at times. Any number of other sorceresses. Definitely Emhyr. As for how she's portrayed in the novels and how people like Geralt and Vesemir think of her...it's unconditional love. Regardless of her flaws, they're her family.
 
SigilFey;n10861471 said:
You share the mindset of any character in the novel who would want to shackle Ciri
Well unlike most of them I don't think shackling Ciri will bring me world domination, so isn't quite the same mindset :smiling2:
In my case I just don't think that Ciri getting away with multiple murders (or "heroically" overcoming her murderous streak for now) is something to be celebrated.
Look at it this way, her only punishment in all the books for all her horrible deeds is the lashing she receives. To that you can add being forced to kill in self defence willing combatants (which is So much worse than killing for pleasure innocents) of being forced to take fisstech (once again apparently so much more worse than willingly taking it before and after that moment). This is insignificant compared to what she did.She took and destroyed countless lives Her friends deservedly died for doing the same as her!
SigilFey;n10861471 said:
Like I said earlier, it's all about perspective
True. What to some is just another step in personal growth to others is her defining (and unforgivable ) trait.
SigilFey;n10861471 said:
As for how she's portrayed in the novels and how people like Geralt and Vesemir think of her...it's unconditional love
The problem with unconditional love is that loving unconditionally a villain can turn you into a villain too. Just look at poor Lydia van Bredevoort. And parents especially need to do way more than just love their children. For example turning into an accessory after the fact while emotionally understandable is still profoundly wrong from a moral point of view. Let's not forget that while Ciri represents Evil, Geralt is supposed to represent Good going by Sapkowski interview.

 
But that's how the world goes, I like this realistic parts of Sapkowski's stories. No real Happy end, not all the villains are beaten, not all the heroes are safe and sound, not all good deeds were rewarded and not all evil deeds were punished. And a story have to end, it can't go on and on till every liitle thing is fulfilled etc.
It's more realistic that way and I like this.
 
Deemonef;n10867591 said:
But that's how the world goes, I like this realistic parts of Sapkowski's stories. No real Happy end, not all the villains are beaten, not all the heroes are safe and sound, not all good deeds were rewarded and not all evil deeds were punished. And a story have to end, it can't go on and on till every liitle thing is fulfilled etc.
It's more realistic that way and I like this.
I agree that is more realistic and I also like that. But that doesn't mean that I don't feel sad when good deeds go unrewarded or when evil goes unpunished, when good characters suffer or die and when undeserving ones thrive. For example
I really enjoyed the Stygga castle confrontation,especially the death scenes, but I still regretted every time when one of the Geralt Hanse died, more so considering for whom they sacrificed their lives. Arguably every single one of them, including the vampire, was a better person than Ciri.
BTW I think most of the villains did get punished in the end. I didn't have a problem with Emhyr, the Lodge or Avallac'h with his elves going unpunished, or Djikstra and Insegrim keeping their lives, because besides the fact that how much of a villain they are is debatable, also no one is presented in another light, the readers and the other characters in the game know exactly who and what they are.
I don't say that Sapkowski should have punished Ciri, or even that everyone should dislike her. I'm just saying that while realistic, her going unpunished, beside her lack of atonement, is what makes me personally dislike her, more than everyone in Sapkowski books.
 
I just started playing Heart of Stone in my second game, first time after reading the books, and I found interesting similarities between Ciri from the books and Olgierd. Basically Olgierd before the pact is the male version of Ciri in the books (bandit, murders for pleasure but still has a heart and loves someone) and Olgierd after the pact is what Ciri was fast becoming if not for Bonhart and later Vysogota. I am very curious to see Geralt dynamic with Olgierd, considering the history of his beloved daughter. I wasn't paying to much attention the first time, Olgierd was just another asshole. I did get a kick now from the "You'l get what you deserve" (or something like that) line though.
 
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