Can the Wild Hunt take The entire Empire?!

[Scholdarr]

I see Ciri is a very important character then.
she is like her mother, maybe she can end the wild hunt.

About Ciri:

Spoiler

Which mother? Yennefer, her adoptive mum? Yen is nowhere near as powerful as Ciri on a "global" level but of course she is a mighty sorceress. She can turn people to animals and stuff. But the elves from the Wild Hunt are very powerful sorcerers as well (and warriors) so it's very unlikely that Yen would stand a chance against a bunch of them. Ciri's real mom, Pavetta of Cintra, was quite powerful but she couldn't really control her blood based powers like we saw in the scene in which Duny - emperor Emhyr - appeared at the court in Cintra as a bewitched hedgehog-headed person.
Ciri is probably the most important and most powerful person in the witcher world. If anyone can end the Wild Hunt it's her. But she's also very vulnerable and can't stand a fight against a bunch of experienced warriors. She cut herself off from common magical powers so all that is left to her are her witcher fighting skills (which are quite impressive but not unbeatable). She probably cannot end the Wild Hunt or escape from it without help. That's where Geralt, Yen and all the other people we know from the wichter books and world come into the equation...

About the end of the books:

Spoiler

it's a somehow closed but also open end. We don't know for sure whether Geralt and Yennefer are dead and stay dead or not. We know that Ciri and the unicorns are very powerful and maybe there is a way to save them. The ritual which happened between Ciri and Ihuarraquax at the end of the books which led to Ciri disappearing with Geralt and Yen on a magical boat indicates that they may survive. But Ciri's reaction in the epilogue when Galahad asked her about them indicates the opposite. Same is true to what Triss thinks about the possibility to see Ciri once again in life. We know at least that Ciri stay disappeared after the events in the book and that she didn't do anything to stop the prophecy. In The Lady of the Lake Nimue talks to Condwiramurs many years after the events in the book about the likely ice age which will happen in about 3000 years because Ciri didn't give birth to a child. (It was also Nimue who helped Ciri to find Stygga castle in the witcher world while Ciri travelled through multiple dimensions.) It seems to be canon in the world of the witcher that neither Geralt, nor Yen nor Ciri were ever to be seen again after the pogrom in Rivia. Maybe the lived on in another dimension on another planet in another time? Who knows? But their apparent death is the culmination of one of the major motives in the novels: "something ends. something begins." Before the pogrom in Rivia happened Geralt came finally to the conclusion that he doesn't want to be a witcher anymore. He had enough of fighting for other people and shallow principles without seeing that the good really prevails in the end. He wanted to concentrate on his personal life, together with Ciri and Yen (which was unlikely alltogether since Ciri already agreed to be the concubine of the heir apparent of Kovir in order to give birth to a child who could prevent the ice age from happening). Geralt's destiny was to be a witcher. Without that he lost his sense of living and taking the sword for one last time was of course bound to only bring death. But then again predetermination - another major motives of the witcher books and novels - is also a double-edged sword. There is no real consensus in the world whether you can't change your destiny or the destiny of the world or if your actions and decisions can influence the outcome of events. Geralt doesn't want to believe in destiny or predetermination although he is conflicted about that. The elves strongly believe in predetermination and so do most of the inhabitants of the witcher world, sorcerers and sorceresses included. Only Philippa noticed at the end of the books that maybe there is hope that predetermination isn't all that condemning alltogether. She gave Ciri the possibility to visit to Rivia to meet Geralt because she finally thought that there are ways to influence destiny and that personal freedom should be maintained up to a certain level.
All this means that several interepreations of the end of the saga are possible. It's an open dialogue and so is the end. It's up to the reader to decide or to feel what happened to them and whether they could be saved or not. Destiny seems to be condemning and Geralt's flame of light was already small and at the end of burning out with another prophecy saying that he would die because of three teeth but there is also hope -even if small- in the world of the witcher. Make your own interpretation.

 

[Blothulfur]

Why would the Aen Elle bother invading the Witcher's world, they're only interested in Ciri, the rest of the Dhoinne can perish in the coming ice age. They might ocassionally gather a few slaves but i'd hardly think they'd bother with an actual land war.

 

[Dan_Normandy]

Why would the Aen Elle bother invading the Witcher's world, they're only interested in Ciri, the rest of the Dhoinne can perish in the coming ice age. They might ocassionally gather a few slaves but i'd hardly think they'd bother with an actual land war.

If I remember correctly, they need Ciri (and her future heir) to gain the power to travel between both worlds like Ciri does and not in a "spectre" form, and then, rescue the Aen Seidhe. Don't know if they will take revenge on humans though.

 

[Medy89]

The wild hunt is more like a mercenery band ... so kinda like a small raider group to capture ciri.
Also the Emporer wants to capture ciri. In the books his motives were clear.. but now it sounds like even the emporer wants to harm her? So basicly tge whole world is out to capture her.. you know where this puts geralt as ciris godfather :-D ... going to be interisting. Stuff is about to get real.tension will fill up the air & alot of awesomeness will unfold. Its kinda like the reapers invading earth .. except this isnt mass effect :-D ...

 

[StaGiors]

The wild hunt is more like a mercenery band ... so kinda like a small raider group to capture ciri.
Also the Emporer wants to capture ciri. In the books his motives were clear.. but now it sounds like even the emporer wants to harm her? So basicly tge whole world is out to capture her.. you know where this puts geralt as ciris godfather :-D ... going to be interisting. Stuff is about to get real.tension will fill up the air & alot of awesomeness will unfold. Its kinda like the reapers invading earth .. except this isnt mass effect :-D ...

Spoiler

Emhyr never wanted to harm Ciri, he just wanted to marry her, without her knowing that he was actually her father.

Regarding the trailer, I do not think Emhyr wants to harm Ciri, "what she deserves" may actually be a reference to the throne.

 

[KnightofPhoenix]

Upon reading certain passages, I think I've uncovered the Wild Hunt's real motivation concerning the Empire and Emhyr specifically

Spoiler

they want to import a large amount of spices to their world

 

[Scholdarr]

If I remember correctly, they need Ciri (and her future heir) to gain the power to travel between both worlds like Ciri does and not in a "spectre" form, and then, rescue the Aen Seidhe. Don't know if they will take revenge on humans though.

Spoiler

Well, that's how they wanted to trick her to support their course. But that's only half of the truth. They want to help the Aen Seidhe on the witcher world. But at the same time they don't care about humans. The Aen Elle conquered their own world and butchered every human living there with a few of them left (and newly kidnapped ones) to serve them as kind of slaves. It's not their goal to help everyone in the witcher world and they would likely conquer the whole witcher world before they finally help the Aen Seidhe to escape from the ice age. Eredin himself really hates humans and he more or less thinks that they are like wild animals that have spread to much and should be reduced in numbers to be able to control them. The "arrogance" of the Aen Elle concerning humans is even way bigger than the one of the Aen Seidhe in the witcher world. Avallac'h has his own motives why he dislikes humans. It seems that he once loved Lara Dorren and that the thinks that the humans take her away from him and the whole elven race. So he might be more pro-human but only to a very limited extend. Ciri thought that Avallac'h and Eredin were like light and dark, good and evil but only concerning their own people. With both Eredin and Avallac'h ruling over the Aen Elle I see little hope for mankind if they ever got their hands on the power to open the Gate of the Worlds. And it seem's that Avallac'h can't rule without Eredin for whatever reason (maybe Avallac'h is the spiritual leader of the Aen Elle while Eredin is their military leader). That's why Ciri escaped from their dimension and is on the run ever since from Eredin and his red riders aka Wild Hunt. She would never allow the Aen Elle to invade other worlds and to conquer them by killing humans (or other beings). They betrayed the unicorns once and there is no guarantee that they wouldn't do the same again so all their arguments should be taken with a huge grain of salt...
And you're kind of right, Eredin and the other Aen Elle can only travel on the Great Helix and only in small numbers. But it's not known if their spectre form is just a spell or if they can't travel in their bodies to the witcher world. We know that they have the power to at least fully travel (in body form) to some worlds/dimensions so it's imo more possible that the Wild Hunt use a spectre/ghost form to disguise their real heritage and spread the legend of their invicibility.

 

[RockPL.516]

Spoiler

Well, that's how they wanted to trick her to support their course. But that's only half of the truth. They want to help the Aen Seidhe on the witcher world. But at the same time they don't care about humans. The Aen Elle conquered their own world and butchered every human living there with a few of them left (and newly kidnapped ones) to serve them as kind of slaves. It's not their goal to help everyone in the witcher world and they would likely conquer the whole witcher world before they finally help the Aen Seidhe to escape from the ice age. That's why Ciri escaped from their dimension and is on the run ever since from Eredin and his red riders aka Wild Hunt...
And you're kind of right, Eredin and the other Aen Elle can only travel on the Great Helix and only in small numbers. But it's not known if their spectre form is just a spell or if they can't travel in their bodies to the witcher world. We know that they have the power to at least fully travel (in body form) to some worlds/dimensions so it's imo more possible that the Wild Hunt use a spectre/ghost form to disguise their real heritage and spread the legend of their invicibility.

Exactly - I wanted to mention it (about Aen Elle motivation).

Spoiler

Trick her or not, after last winter would come they wanted to save brothers from "other" world (I'm not sure. Did all Aen Elle come form witcher's world which they left before, or some of them are from another dimension-world?)

About Ciri

Spoiler

1 thing about her powers = "She cut herself off from common magical powers"... yes and no who said that she cannot restore it back.
2 Ciri has another power = She is powerfull psionic too(I'm not sure is that is correct word)

@LordCrash Good job with "Beware, massive book spoilers inside!" and other informations.