I. The Escape Artist: Ciri’s Unfinished Story in The Witcher 4

The cinematic reveal begins with young Ciri’s analogue – Mione. The peasant girl’s father has raised her for a fate of becoming a noble sacrifice on the altar of a god. Men make gods of all kinds of things, and the beast in the cave is no different. Ithlinne’s Prophecy, when it reached the masses and sprouted numerous interpretations, was no different. Mione’s father’s monologue applies as much to his daughter as to Ciri.

Powers that establish destinies exist, but fulfilling one is not at all a straightforward affair. The Witcher cycle takes issue with denying agents of destiny their choice in deciding the terms on which to engage with their fate, suspicious of self-sacrificial young men and women having to give up their lives for things others chose for them. All the more interesting then that when Mione's father apologizes to his daughter, saying this was ‘his only choice’, the scene somewhat echoes back to the ending of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. In Tor Gval'cha, Ciri did what she did because she chose to be the bringer of salvation; Geralt got no chance to influence her decision (only, we hope, the outcome). To be chosen by the Gods (or rather, ‘Purpose’) is, in Ciri’s words, always a choice – one the believers make. This includes herself.

The way Mione kneels before the Bauk’s lair, again, echoes the ending of The Witcher 3 and Ciri in the blizzard. And when Ciri tells Mione, ‘save yourself!’, she might as well be speaking on her own behalf. However, while befitting of the ending of Lady of the Lake, it’s also a noticeable shift away from her mindset at the end of the previous game.

‘What can you know about saving the world, silly? You’re but a witcher.’

What changed, Ciri?

Arguably, Ciri has not yet really fulfilled Ithlinne's prophecy — originally an elven prophecy concerning the salvation of the elves; the Aen Seidhe in particular, who are still being slaughtered on the Continent. Ithlinne’s prophecy, since CD Projekt Red chose to interpret it this way, suits the games’ White Cold from between the worlds, but that’s precisely how endless re-interpretations of prophecies arise. In the books, the Ice Age that awaits the Continent alone is unavoidable. It could be argued that The Witcher 3 did not wholly retcon this bit of lore though, as in the original drafts of the game Ciri endeavours to ‘close the passages between worlds’ from where the games’ White Frost seeps in. This, however, has nothing to do with the eventual glaciation of Sapkowski’s Neverland. In the final production, too, the cataclysm remains of vague, magical nature. And we do not know the outcome at Tor Gval’cha.

A controversial take to follow: what if Ciri's child's plotline comes back to haunt her? The gaming industry has done the father-child trope to death by now, but it has not touched upon the question of motherhood and women's bodily autonomy at all.

I think the Witcher 4’s trailer isn’t subtle in the slightest about what Ciri is struggling with. Bauk – the monster – preys specifically on trauma. Voices in its throat utter: ‘you cannot change anything,’ ‘fate cannot be changed,’ ‘you weren’t supposed to come back.’ Did Ciri manage to change anything after entering the tower? Or did she fail and was injured? Did she run? And then we have Sebastian Kalemba noting: ‘She’s almost obsessed with the way she lives.’

It’s as if Ciri is burying herself in witchering like an addict, seeking atonement (for not being what she was meant to be, but still wishing to do good; on her own terms) by saving a girl – her own inner child? – from a fate she has related to since forever. It’s incredibly neat how the Bauk lets it echo that ‘custom dictates’ there should be a Chosen One, a saviour bringing salvation. Not in this universe, perhaps; not the kind you’d like or expect anyway.

She is running from herself. Because Ciri remains much more than a witcher. Upon slaying the monster, there is an expression of elation, satisfaction, and release on Ciri’s face. It’s as if practicing the profession of a witcher allows Ciri to slay her own haunts over and over and over again. Or at least try.

While the profession is where Ciri’s first notions good and evil come from, I believe she might have a romanticized view about the witchers’ life. Kalemba mentions that Ciri always chooses, but that includes choosing the greater evil often enough. That’s bread and butter for these games, but given Ciri’s unique position and her unaddressed, unresloved traumas, there is a lot more that can be done with it. Perhaps the Reds will decide to engage in greater depth with what Sapkowski once mentioned:

‘I’m not going to be a princess. I’m going to be…’
‘Yes? What?’
‘It’s a secret.’
—Ciri & Geralt, Sword of Destiny
 

‘Ciri personifies evil, that’s how i intended her to be – a monster, because (almost) everyone is trying to make a monster out of her. […] Geralt dies, and Ciri stops representing evil. Who is she, then? That, she doesn’t know. And I won’t tell you.’
—Andrzej Sapkowski, Interview at RusCon in 2001

This subversion of a ‘chosen one’, who saves nobody in the manner prescribed by the traditional narratives of chosen ones because she has not even been able to save herself, is rich in possibilities. At heart, Ciri wishes to do good, but it can get confused with ‘doing right’. Justice and Good are not necessarily the same thing.

But is it contemptible of the Chosen One to seek justice for herself; or to wish to save herself?

Destined for Tragic Spirals?

Geralt always – eventually – chose. His entire journey in the saga was about realizing that it’s impossible to remain neutral: the idea about ‘preferring not to choose at all’ was an obvious red herring instantly falsified in The Lesser Evil. The Witcher games were compelled to keep him more like his short-story self, since player agency is the name of the game, but by-and-large this realization comes through there, too.

Ciri, on the other hand, does NOT try to deconstruct and subvert moral choices like Geralt, because Ciri usually acts first and faces unintended consequences later, enmeshing herself ever more deeply. As Madam Rita once advised her:

‘Ciri, listen to me and learn. An enchantress always takes action. Wrongly or rightly; that is revealed later. But you should act, be brave, seize life by the scruff of the neck. Believe me, little one, you should only regret inactivity, indecisiveness, hesitation. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret.’
—Margarita Laux-Antille, Time of Contempt

Can Ciri become too efficient at choosing between two evils, though?

Each quick decision, while made with good intentions, can gradually erode her connection to the human impact of those choices. This would create a feedback loop where each subsequent decision would become more detached, more ‘efficient’, and, contrary to her good intentions, lead to worse outcomes, because Ciri would be losing the nuanced understanding of human consequences. Choosing the greater evil without question.

It would be particularly tragic because it would stem from Ciri’s greatest strength – her willingness to act decisively where others might hesitate. Without Geralt’s habit of questioning the premises of her choices, however, she might not notice when she would be working with false binaries and missing out on less destructive alternatives.

As a witcher, Ciri has deliberately chosen to operate on a smaller scale than what is possible for her. Still, she carries the weight of knowing that she could be making more impactful, far-reaching decisions. Every local choice she makes as a witcher, therefore, should be coloured by the following perspective: ‘I’ve seen whole worlds die, so I’m not going to waste time debating the philosophical implications of this village’s monster problem.’

The threat of tragic spirals emerges as a result of her quick choices, which could also function as self-justification: proving to herself that she can bring about meaningful change even within the constraints of a witcher’s limited role. With this, we return, again, to the motif of Ciri escaping from herself.

II. The Price of Walking Away: Ciri’s Omelas Dilemma

The intersection of personal autonomy and collective responsibility unites Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher cycle and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas through a fundamental ethical challenge: does possessing the capacity to help create an obligation to do so? Were we to run with the idea that Ciri may have chosen the witcher Trials in the upcoming The Witcher 4 because she is running from her destiny – and in particular the part that deigns her descendant a saviour (or destroyer) – then might Ciri have chosen, or is yet to face choosing, the Greater Evil?

Uniquely, Ciri’s descendant is believed to possess extraordinary abilities – not just prophesised, but through the genetic engineering of the Elder Blood line itself. The Aen Elle’s selective breeding program, developed over countless elven generations, was designed to create individuals of immense power. A sufficiently powerful individual would be able to access the Gate of Worlds, the Threshold of Time, and stabilize an Ard Gaeth – a great and permanent pathway – through which entire populations can pass, from one reality into another. While Ciri's own ability to accomplish these feats remains uncertain, her choice to potentially eliminate this bloodline through the Trials transcends personal destiny. It becomes a decision with far-reaching implications for multiple civilizations.

This framing transforms what might appear as a simple act of personal agency – Ciri's right to control her own body – into a complex moral calculation. By choosing bodily autonomy, she may inadvertently condemn an entire race to extinction. This positions Ciri’s ethical struggles as a twisted mirror of Geralt’s. Where Geralt, relatively powerless in the grand scheme of things, must carefully choose when and how to intervene with his limited means, Ciri faces the burden of near-limitless potential. Her reality-spanning abilities make her perhaps the most consequential being in existence. Her struggle is not about finding ways to help despite constraints, but about the profound implications of choosing not to help when one has the power to do so.

It raises questions about the responsibilities that come with power and the ethical implications of choosing not to use that power for the greater good. Can inaction in the face of suffering be justified when one has the capacity to prevent it? Or does such restraint itself become a form of moral abdication?

The Dilemma

Stories about chosen ones – those who have no choice but to choose – revolve around how necessity and choice interact. They frequently involve the question of utilitarian sacrifice, and their subject’s agency manifests in how they trade off personal freedom and welfare against the greater good.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s parable of Omelas presents a critique of the false binary of the utilitarian sacrifice (utopia or a child’s suffering), while Andrzej Sapkowski critiques and subverts the chosen one narrative wholesale. Where Le Guin exposes the moral bankruptcy of justified suffering, Sapkowski reveals how destinies themselves are fashioned by the powerful—how convenient interpretations of prophecies and prejudices become tools of control and manipulation, draping a veil of inevitability across the fact that a chosen one has a choice.

Ciri bridges these critiques as she is both the chosen one and the potential sacrifice. Sapkowski digs into the trauma of being ‘chosen’, emphasising its gendered nature and exposing how this role frequently reduces women to their reproductive potential. Women are often ‘chosen’ for motherhood—new generation renews hope—but in consequence women’s bodies are also transformed into a battleground for others’ ambitions. The dark parallel to Omelas sees the suffering child grow up to be the mother whose purpose is demanded for the greater good, perpetuating the cycle.

Sapkowski does not offer a hopeful narrative at first glance, but appearances can be deceptive. Geralt, the cynic, stands in for the part of the author that sees the system as so askew thanks to the corruption of power-seekers and run-away processes of ‘progress’ that it is impossible to trust any agenda. Ever. It befits the point of view of a relatively powerless outcast in the Machine, who nevertheless has enough agency to save his own life and that of those he loves. Geralt, who doesn’t have the power to change the system but will do all to fight for his loved ones, can walk away form Omelas.

Ciri, the idealist, poses a counterpoint, as Ciri is both the suffering child and the potential ‘walker’ simultaneously. Except Ciri is also very powerful. Ciri’s bodily autonomy is pitted against her ability to save and alter the fate of multiple peoples and worlds. Hers is the burden of Power, and the more power one has the harder it is to walk away. If Ciri chooses to walk away, the repercussions ripple far beyond her own person. Power is a burden and possessing it will bring you suffering. But it can also pave the way toward reconciliation and transformation if you can set the terms of your sacrifice. In Andrzej Sapkowski’s world Choice makes all the difference.

Beyond Simple Utilitarianism

This emphasis on choice complicates the seemingly straightforward utilitarian calculations that often drive narratives of destiny and sacrifice. While Sapkowski critiques authoritarian uses of utilitarian rhetoric that ignore individual autonomy, he also by and large straw-mans utilitarianism. J. S. Mill’s arguments for rule utilitarianism, for example, recognize and respect individual liberty, arguing against the negative utility of the systemic effects of normalizing violations of individual choice. Meanwhile, Peter Singer focuses on the importance of preference satisfaction: forcing Ciri’s preference produces intense negative utility and should be minimized.

Sapkowski’s scenarios usually involve false dichotomies between individual freedom and collective benefit: a more nuanced utilitarian would seek solutions that maximize both. The Witcher 3’s portrayal of Avallac’h suggests a more sophisticated utilitarian approach. His evolution from trying to control the fate of an Elder Blood bearer to learning about Ciri as a person and supporting her agency demonstrates how true utilitarianism might recognize that forced choices produce worse outcomes than voluntary ones. Finding ways in which Ciri can help in her own time, on her own terms, or in ways that she herself is ready for, shapes fate more productively. This transformation is crucial because it suggests that the apparent conflict between individual autonomy and collective good might be artificial. Sapkowski’s naive utilitarian villains are not making their case the most persuasively.

In The Witcher 3, Avallac’h has managed to convince Ciri with arguments which speak to Ciri’s desire to do good, but also no longer force her to do anything against her will. Ciri chooses to enter Tor Gval’cha. What happens next, we do not know, though a lot hinges upon this. We know, however, that Ciri picks sides and wants to help the suffering.

In the books, Ciri is still very young and has not properly grappled with the fable of Omelas. Sapkowski has noted that you cannot expect a 16-year old to make such decisions. By the time Ciri’s Trilogy launches in the hands of CD Projekt Red, she will be in a much different position; though one wonders how substantially, really? It may be that Ciri still makes decisions from unresolved trauma rather than true wisdom. Her decision to undergo the Trials early in this new trilogy may represent another form of premature decision-making—reclaiming her bodily autonomy but also, potentially, permanently removing a dimension of choice— echoing but inverting her younger self’s inability to fully comprehend the implications of her choices.

The Triple Burden of Choice

Can one walk away from a destiny that is inscribed in one’s own body?

In Omelas, the suffering child has no choice. Chosen ones typically retain agency to reject their destiny, though doing so often means condemning others. This makes the moral weight yet heavier – they must actively choose between personal freedom and societal obligation.

Ciri faces a triple-layered moral choice:

1. Her right to choose her own path (personal freedom, bodily autonomy).
2. Potential salvation of elves—a dying race facing systematic extermination.
3. Implications for future generations of Elder Blood carriers who may have power to effect change.

If Ciri chooses to render herself infertile, she's essentially walking away not just from others' plans for her, but from the possibility of preventing a genocide. This transforms her choice from a simple rejection of personal exploitation into something far more complex – she would be choosing personal autonomy at the cost of an entire civilization. The irony deepens when considering that the Elder Blood itself derives from elven lineage – her attempt to escape could become the final act in the erasure of elven heritage from the Continent, using elven-derived powers to inadvertently ensure elven extinction.

In the original story, walking away from Omelas serves as moral protest that actively neither worsens nor betters the situation. The Witcher’s world, moreover, is no utopia. Nevertheless, Ciri’s knowing ‘walking away’ would actively contribute to allowing an ongoing tragedy to reach its conclusion. This creates her own version of Omelas, where her personal liberty (her own greater good) would be purchased at the cost of thousands of lives.

The intergenerational implications add another layer of complexity. Ciri’s choice affects not just her own body and life, but potentially eliminates future Elder Blood carriers who might have found better solutions or made different choices. Yet the deeply personal nature of reproduction complicates this moral calculation – having children must be a choice made for its own sake, not merely as a means to an end. We cannot fall into the same moral trap as Omelas – justifying the sacrifice of individual autonomy for collective benefit. Yet if we defend absolute bodily autonomy regardless of consequences, we might engage in different kind of abhorrent moral abdication.

Perhaps our viewpoint is binary without good reason. Just as the citizens of Omelas accept the premise that their happiness requires a child's suffering, we might be accepting too readily the premise that Ciri's bodily autonomy and the elves' salvation (or any other grand goal) must be in conflict. Ciri's choice – whatever it may be – might need to come from a place of genuine agency rather than obligation or escape. If she stays true to her nature – which says ‘I will never remain neutral’ – then she will aspire toward heroism. The question simply becomes, how to do it so as to keep her soul intact as she transforms the very conditions that created the dilemma. The key lies not in which choice she makes, but in how and why she makes it.

This aligns with Sapkowski's broader themes about the nature of destiny – that it often works through choice rather than despite it, and that the most powerful changes come not from fulfilling obligations but from authentic decisions made with full understanding and acceptance of their implications.

III. Mutating the Lady: CDPR’s Vision for Ciri

Ever since The Witcher 3 was published, concurrently with which I first read Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, I have fantasized about a new trilogy about Ciri. Above all, I would have liked to imagine her story beyond Lady of the Lake. I wanted to read more about Ciri. Period. Any fanfiction would have done, including one crafted by CD Projekt Red. Fanfiction, because I honestly believe Sapkowski wished to leave Ciri’s future open to the imagination of everyone. It’s part of her character’s charm – she gives hope that anything at all can happen. Consequently it’s somewhat ironic (or perhaps appropriate) how this character, who is constantly escaping destiny, keeps getting pulled back into new narratives. Consequently, I am now elated, but also terrified.

Ciri is the witcher girl. It’s her identity of choice among multiple legacies she is unable to ever fully erase. It’s possible though, that she would try. I don’t take issue with Ciri, the witcher girl, but I take issue with Ciri going through the Trial of the Grasses, business as usual. I hope CD Projekt Red will make it work differently on Ciri – the Child of Destiny – than on boys who undergo the mutations in adolescence.

A case is to be made for it affecting her in unexpected ways based on Rozdroże Kruków (Crossroad of Ravens), where it is revealed that witchers were initially intended as a new ‘transitional form, from which, through natural selection, a new, better human race would arise.’ Implying that, for example, the witchers’ infertility was not intended nor universal.^[1] It’s also said: ‘Mutations can mutate spontaneously. Errors are inevitable in the production of elixirs. And pathogens produced and stored in basements degrade.’

Furthermore, as Geralt notes in Sword of Destiny, the witchers believe the Child of Destiny would, in principle, not need the Trials. Ciri is special. A mutant – bearing mutated blood of elves. Yes, further mutation is possible – in fact, it’s sought after by parties who seek to control the course of such mutation, e.g. the Aen Elle – but by way of the Trial… is it necessary?

An Elder Blood princess, witcher-trained, magically capable, an heir of a human Emperor and a descendant of an unhuman one from beyond the stars, the prophesised mother to an even more powerful saviour (if not the saviour herself). Ciri is extraordinary, but chooses to do what witchers do despite of it all, despite not getting or needing the mutations.

‘What can you know about saving the world, silly? You’re but a witcher.’
—Ciri, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

But now she is just… also one?

The sceptic in me thinks the main reason CD Projekt Red went for Trials for Ciri was to keep it close to how the gameplay and PR hold up: to have a cat-eyed protagonist upholding the brand. So it could be about potions and signs additionally to what Ciri would have had access to by default: oils + magic + Elder Blood. I would love to get witcher-Ciri, but book-Ciri – a witcher girl setting off after monsters while remaining herself, with her unique struggles, abilities, and perspective. Even though an image of a gruff Ciri tickles my heart in a special way.

It feels a little cheap. And not because of the ridiculous uproar over her gender or looks. There are other ways to gamify her abilities and add to the brand rather than subject her to it; they are giving her magic use anyway, after all.^[2] In fact, I can see how Elder Blood – Ciri’s uniqueness – is precisely how CD Projekt Red can handwave away the Trials, but isn’t the cosmetic aspect of the handwave exactly the point? A tad hollow, this.

Moving on. This was the only part I did not jive with and, as ever, there are ways of writing yourself out of this. I simply hope the ‘powers debate’ won’t undermine the focus on Ciri’s psychology. There’s darkness and depth in her the games have not done credit to so far; we’ll see if they dare to go there now.

When the Witcher 4 begins, a few years have passed since the end of the last instalment. Ciri, the witcher girl, wants to be the hero. Ever since youth, she has always wanted to do the right thing; always picking sides. She is young, idealistic, and furious. It’s what she was like before the world got to her in the books. It’s what seems to unite the Ciri in The Witcher 4 with her self at the end of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

‘She's almost obsessed with the way she lives. There are some moments where you have to go with your heart instead of always going with the calculated calls. And this is what I love in Ciri. She's less calculating, following her heart, her passion, her gut feel.’
—Sebastian Kalemba, Source

In both the published and draft endings to The Witcher 3, Ciri chooses potentially fatal, self-sacrificial rituals for the greater good. She makes the choice; you, the player, cannot do anything about it. (In the drafts you could, but it turned out to be a bad decision.) In the trailer though, by the way she dives into being a witcher, it seems almost as if Ciri were running away from her former self. This intrigues, and it has storytelling potential – getting what you have always wanted can be one of the most dangerous things in the world.

The Reds look to be revisiting important beats from The Witcher 3 and from the books, and, after only a few years, might handle threads that came loose with the cuts. As the monster in the trailer not very covertly insinuates: ‘fate cannot be changed’, ‘you weren't supposed to come back.’ Ciri’s struggle is with having been born into exceptionality, to a destiny larger than life, yet desperately trying to make it smaller for the sake of her soul.

The insinuation made about Ciri’s life through Mioni, the peasant girl offered in sacrifice to a local god for the greater good of the community, is not subtle. This is Ciri fighting off the echo of her own story, trying to change such fates in principle. For others, if not for herself. Saving a girl from being ritually sacrificed as is tradition. The monster she faces preys on trauma. No subtlety here whatsoever.

‘At first glance, it seems that it is just the flower that is floating on top of the water,’ says Kalemba of a cleansing sequence in a bathtub. ‘But the fun fact is that this is a very Slavic kind of flower. This is a special flower that people in the medieval era were using in special moments to defeat evil. It is very symbolic. Every single frame here is very meaningful.’
– Source

But the world keeps disappointing: Ciri's good deed goes unrewarded and Mioni dies anyway. Because in principle the Mechanism is set up in a certain way and it is running and it is not easy to grind it to a halt without casualties. How much then is Ciri ready to sacrifice if she wishes to fight no matter what? Because Ciri comes off as in The Tower of the Swallow: she has figured out philosophy! It’s a little naive and lacks in experience, seeing the world narrowly, focusing on her truth. It’s youthful and powerful. And it’s also – curiously enough – backtracking on the end of The Witcher 3.

What happened in the in-between? I predict the Reds may be doing a parallel to the ending of Lady of the Lake – with Ciri running and attempting to build a new life. It’s relatively safe for a beginning to a new trilogy, it’s solid. Besides, in one of CDPR’s original concepts for the ‘witcher ending’, Ciri was meant to experience profound disillusionment with the witcher’s path, after which she would abandon it in favour of traversing the universe in search of ways to atone for running from helping in ways only she can. Maybe we have a double bottom hiding in plain sight

I hope they will explore a truly morally ambiguous Ciri, letting her be messy and problematic rather than simply heroic.

I hope they address her past experiences with nuance, not shying away from the ugliness.

I hope they let her get drunk in her obsession with the witcher life for a while, break hearts, slowly begin stitching her own back together, perhaps.

I hope they navigate into the heart of her magic, touch the painful humanity within without forgetting that she has an origin story already, and dare to explore her as Her.

Footnotes