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He came from the north on horseback,
With white hair and a frosty face,
Walk in the fog of reality and legend.
In the last lecture, we explained in detail the fourth episode of the first season of the American drama "The Witcher". It mainly commented on this part of the story about the Sintra princess, the Paveta election meeting.
This plot is taken from the first volume of the original novel, "The Problem of Price" in "The Rise of the White Wolf", which happened 15 years before the Sintra massacre.
It was from this pro-election meeting that Geralt the White Wolf won his accidental son of Law, Princess Ciri. This lioness of Sintra will be closely linked to the fate of the white wolf for a long time to come.
Similarly, this plot can also be regarded as the origin story of the main plot in the future.
Princess Paveta showed the magical energy of the blood of the ancient elves at this marriage ceremony. Duny, the mysterious knight who married the princess through accidental law, behind their fantastic love story is the surging political pattern between the north and the south.
It can be said that this election meeting is the beginning of all original sins in the whole witcher story.
A detailed understanding of the ins and outs of this story can help us better understand the witcher's worldview. So, in this episode, we're going to review the story line about Yennefer and Ciri that appeared in episode four.
Note that these two plots have undergone drastic rectification or even original work compared to the original. Let's look at Ciri's story first.
Ciri's performance throughout the first season was, in general, running all the way, avoiding all kinds of pursuits she didn't know the reason for.
She managed to escape to the Sintra refugee camp, but the entire refugee camp was taken over in a blink of an eye. In the end, under the guidance of fate, Ciri walked into a virgin forest.
And the elf boy Tok behind her was seriously injured by the cold arrow shot from the forest.
It turned out that the forest where Ciri came to was the famous Brokilon Forest. The creatures that live here are the famous tree spirits.
In the world view of the witcher, the dryad is the guardian and aboriginal in the Brokilon Forest, and there are only women in the clan.
Dryads love forests, plants, and nature, and hate the humans who enter their forests and cut down trees...
Therefore, when seeing a human entering the Brokilon Forest, the dryad responded by throwing a cold arrow. This is why the black elf boy Tok was shot by a cold arrow.
Some people may ask, since tree spirits are all female, how do they reproduce?
The way the group of dryads spreads is particularly interesting: the first is to directly capture an adult male among humans into the forest and ask him to force mating like a stallion.
These children were born, without exception, naturally inherited the characteristics of their mothers: they had skin as green as a plant, and they were all girls without exception.
But their eyes and hair color were inherited from their fathers. These girls are of dryad ancestry and can be regarded as descendants of dryads.
Then, another way is more simple and rude. When necessary, dryads will kidnap young human girls and turn them into one of their own.
They are often swaddled or taken away at a young age. The kidnapped girl will be forced to drink the water of Brokilon. The water of Brokilon has a strong hallucinogenic effect and seems to obscure the memory of ordinary drinkers.
Most of the tree spirits transformed by humans do not remember their former names. Abandoned his original identity early, lived with the tree spirit, and became a tree spirit over time.
It can be said that in the past ten years, with the increasingly intensified war between the North and the South, the conflict between tree spirits and humans has gradually heated up.
This is also a sub-line hidden in the Northern War. Ciri and the black elf boy Tok came to the forest and met Lady Esina, the ruler of the dryads.
I have to complain a little, this Aisina is actually played by a black actor.
There is really no racism here, but I personally think that the appearance of black actors is not suitable for such a smart and individual species.
During the conversation here, Ciri revealed to Tok that she was Princess Ciri, the cub of Cintra.
The black elf jumped into a rage when he heard it. As we said before, Sintra has historically been very unfriendly to elves. Even Queen Calanthe herself had massacred the elves.
The kind Ciri also seemed to question her identity after hearing Xiao Hei say this. And expressed disappointment to his grandmother for such a cold-blooded act of murdering the elves.
So, Ms. Esina pushed the boat and said: "Or you can drink some of our unique Blokilon forest water."
This kind of water is like Meng Po soup, drinking it can forget all troubles. After drinking the water, Ciri suddenly saw a glowing tree. And he didn't forget the world and escape into the empty door as Ms. Aisina said.
So what exactly is this tree? Why didn't Ciri forget her past memories? Let's sell it, and we'll reveal it in the next episode.
In the next episode of the fifth episode, the arch-druid Mossack broke into the forest to find Ciri .
So the Cintra lion cubs happily followed Mossak out of the forest to face the challenges behind.
Therefore, in the TV series, the story of Ciri and the dryad can be summed up as follows: After the Sintra massacre, Ciri accidentally entered the Brokilon forest.
Because they can't accept the slaughter of the elves by the Sintra people. At the time of self-doubt, he followed the advice of the tree spirit leader, Ms. Aisina, and drank the Worry-Free Water.
As a result, the curative effect did not work, so happily, he left the forest with the doubtful Grand Druid Mossak. The dryads were also very friendly to her and let her go. The audience of the TV series may not feel it, and the original party must have been shaking their heads. That's right! The story of Ciri and the dryad in the center of the Brock Leon Forest is a plot that the screenwriter has changed a lot.
It can be said that only the location of this section has not changed. At other times, the characters and the significance of the story to the whole plot have undergone great changes. TV viewers may feel that this forest scene is just a small episode in Ciri's escape.
But only readers who have read the original can clearly understand what this unexpected journey means to Geralt and Ciri. Let's take a look at how this plot is described in the original novel.
This plot is from a short story in Volume Two of the original book called "The Sword of Fate",
Among them is a classic line that can be called an eye-catching line: The sword of fate has two blades, one is you and the other is death.
First, this story does not take place after the Sintra massacre. But in 1252, a year before Sintra was destroyed. Secondly, the main point of view in this story is not Ciri, but Geralt himself.
At that time, Geralt was entrusted by a king in the north to come to Brokilon Forest to discuss the division of territory with the dryad. Once in the forest, Geralt found a baron on the ground badly wounded. Taking a closer look, it was his old acquaintance, Baron Fissnet of Wieden Kingdom. Freixette disregarded the injury and hoped that Geralt could help him find a girl who strayed into the forest. But before Geralt could ask the details, a group of dryads surrounded them. The dryad took the injured baron away, and escorted the white wolf to meet the ruler of the dryad, Esina. In the middle of the forest, Geralt met a little girl with gray hair.
The little girl herself said that she was a princess. Her parents died while out at sea, and her grandmother wanted to marry her to the prince of Verdon. But she was not interested in the prince, so she ran away on horseback and strayed into the Brokilon Forest. When Geralt asked which princess the little girl was, the girl refused to tell Geralt.
Afterwards, in the middle of the forest, Geralt saw that the injured baron, Fresnet, had been healed by the dryad. But the condition is: the baron must stay in the forest and mate with the dryad for a certain period of time. At the same time, the little princess must also stay.
This scene actually reflects the difficult survival situation of the tree spirits at that time: after years of fighting with humans, the tree spirits have lost a large number of people. So on the one hand, they desperately need to breed new offspring with adult men. On the other hand, it does not miss any opportunity to transform a ready-made human girl.
These are also the two methods of breeding dryads that I mentioned earlier.
However, Geralt realized: This girl is a princess, with an unusual identity.
Taking the princess of a country rashly is very likely to cause the war between the Brokilon Forest and the surrounding kingdoms to resume. So Geralt decided to persuade the dryad to lead Esina and give up the little princess, but Esina sternly refused. Geralt had no choice but to upgrade the previous negotiation plan to divide the territory. Attempts to save the crisis with generous peaceful conditions, but were still rejected by the tree spirits.
Geralt is in trouble now, how can he resolve this crisis? At this time, the little princess suddenly suggested that she wanted to leave with Geralt. This made Geralt overjoyed. This little princess, who had never met before, actually trusted herself so much. However, Ms. Aisina firmly disagreed and asked the little princess to drink the water of Brokilon before making a choice.
We said before that the function of the water of Blokiron is to clear the memory of human girls. Let them have a sense of identity with tree spirits, and then be transformed into tree spirits. Geralt immediately objected, but Esina pointed to the writing on the cup that contained the water of Blochron. She told Geralt that it was an ancient language that meant: "The sword of fate has two blades, and you are one of them". She respects the arrangement of fate.
At the same time, the little princess had already drank the water of Brokilon. However, she still firmly told Esina that she would follow her fate and leave with Geralt. This surprised Geralt. At first, he thought that this was Esina's trick, and she had already decided to return Ciri. It was only to give himself a step down that he filled the cup with fake Brokilon water. So Geralt also drank the water of Brokilon in one gulp in order to verify the authenticity.
The sudden distortion of the surrounding space made him understand that this was indeed the real Blochron water. Why did this little princess drink the real Brokilon water, but still said that she would follow the arrangement of fate and go with herself? Unless, the little girl herself is closely linked to her own destiny.
Geralt suddenly understood that the little girl in front of him was Princess Ciri, the unexpected son whom he had agreed with Uchiwon at the wedding ceremony of Princess Paveta more than ten years ago. And Ciri actually knew Geralt's true identity early in the morning, and also knew that she and Geralt would have a fateful connection, so she was determined to follow Geralt. Of course, a sideline here is: since the water of Brokilon is real, why didn't Ciri forget her memory after drinking it?
This is most likely because Ciri has the ancient blood of the elves in her body, and the water of Blok Leon does not work for her transformation. In this way, Geralt took his accidental son, Ciri, and left the dryad's territory. In the later journey, they met their old acquaintance again - the great druid Mossak who once helped him at the Princess Paveta election meeting.
He told Geralt that Queen Calanthe had cancelled her marriage to the Kingdom of Verdon, so he was here to pick up Ciri back home.
At the same time, he hoped that Geralt would fulfill the requirements of the Law of Accidents and make Ciri a witcher, because he believed that the Law of Accidents was inescapable.
If Geralt can't follow the law of accident this time, then the law of accident will probably manifest in a more brutal way. But in the end, Geralt rejected Mossack.
From the previous vision of the water of Brokilon, he understood that the sword of fate has two blades, one is himself and the other is death. He couldn't let Ciri go with death. So, while Ciri was sleeping at night, Geralt embarked on the journey alone again.
This is the story of the "Sword of Destiny" in the original book, which is the story of Princess Ciri and the dryad in the Brokilon Forest. After listening to this story, do you think the changes to the TV series are really big? First of all, in terms of time, this story in the series takes place after the Sintra massacre Ciri escaped, but in the original book, the massacre has not happened yet. Secondly, in terms of character relationships, the TV series only talked about the harmonious family life between Ciri and the dryads, and Geralt the White Wolf also participated in this dispute in the original book. These two changes have led to the fact that the fate relationship between White Wolf and Ciri has not been well reflected in the TV series.
Before the White Wolf finally adopted Ciri as his adopted daughter, he experienced two accidental laws and two abandonment, which made their relationship closely linked by fate. Only by understanding the story about the Sword of Fate in the original book, can you understand why Ciri is the accidental son of White Wolf. Why did the hug between the two of them in the forest at the end of the TV series brought tears to the eyes of countless fans.
The screenwriter of the TV series has changed in this way, although there is one less time line, it simplifies the narrative of complex issues and makes it easier for the audience to accept. However, the meeting between Geralt and Ciri was objectively delayed, and the element of fatalism in the original book was reduced, which I feel a little regretful. Compared with the story line of Ciri and the Dryad, the story line has been changed greatly and the time line is confused, Yennefer's story in this episode is almost absent in the original book.
In the previous episode, Yennefer healed her hunchback and crooked mouth at the cost of losing her womb, and became a radiant goddess-level warlock.
In this way, he successfully served the king of Aedirn, firmly in control of his own destiny.
In this episode, then, the timeline moves forward another 30 years. At this time, Yennefer seemed to be in her 50s, but she was still radiant.
However, in the past 30 years, she has been accustomed to the dark political situation in the northern countries, and felt deeply confused about the future and the future.
In this episode, the queen she's fighting to protect has been bossing her around, posing as if she's looking down on the sorceress.
But in fact, the queen was hunted by assassins sent by King Aedirn himself all the way because he could not bear male heirs.
Yennefer, who returned from her studies at the Magic Academy, lost her fertility and was ready to make a big splash, but she ended up doing the work of wiping the buttocks for the royal family.
She was particularly frustrated, and after failing to save the baby, she deeply reflected on whether her decision to trade fertility for opportunities was the right one.
She was also disgusted by the dark political struggles in the northern countries, which laid an important foreshadowing for her subsequent series of choices.
Well, the above is the plot evaluation of the second half of the fourth episode of the first season of the American drama "The Witcher". To summarize, in this episode, Ciri escapes into Brokilon Forest and forms a friendship with the Dryad
The story is even more legendary in the original novel, highlighting her fateful bond with Geralt.
And Yennefer was conscientiously cleaning up the mess for King Aedirn. After 30 years like this, she got tired of everything around her and began to doubt herself...
This self-doubt laid an important foreshadowing for her subsequent series of choices.
Then, in the fifth episode that follows, White Wolf and Yennefer will finally meet. The two parallel storylines eventually come together, linking to each other forever in Three Wishes. Everything is exciting, and it will be in the next lecture, so stay tuned!
Everyone is welcome to pay attention to my public account: Bian Jiang said, there is an exclusive broadcast of the interpretation of the audio version of "The Witcher" with graphic analysis, and the original novel is given away. Welcome to participate!
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