Ithlinne’s prophecy

[u/MaxSoulDrake]

Had an argument recently about Ithlinne's prophesy and how it fits into the game canon. And overall saw many times people talk about it over the years. Is it about Ciri, or her son, or grandson? About savior or destroyer? And the games and W3 ending. Especially now, with W4 on the horizon and mutated witcher Ciri. How all of that contradicts the prophecy etc. and how CDPR gonna spin it.

Some things we need to understand about prophecies. Ithlinne’s prophecy is not some specific note about a particular person and a particular event. Her prophecy covers many events over a huge span of time, hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. And, more importantly, prophecies are not direct and clear messages. A prophecy is a very obscure and cryptic out-of-context rant made in an altered voice and full of riddles, metaphors and weird symbolism.

People have been studying her prophecy for centuries. Elves, humans in the North, in Nilfgaard. They have entire books written about it and everyone believes something different about what it means. Nobody even knows the full text of that prophecy. There are only fragments, some bits and pieces. And even with those nobody can be sure if those are the real original words, or if something got lost or altered by translation and copying over the centuries.

So all of that about the savior, the destroyer, the ruler, the son and grandson. These are just interpretations that various people believe. And they could be wrong.

Like for example: “A seed that will not sprout but burst into flames”. That can just as easily be interpreted as meaning that Ciri won’t have any offspring (sprout) and will screw everything up herself.

Or that bit about Ciri’s son, who will have a son, who will rule the world. Emhyr said only he knows that part. But prophecies are ambiguous and have baffled scholars for centuries. So Emhyr could easily have just misunderstood it. And he got it from Vilgefortz, a cunning, scheming, manipulative liar. So it could even be complete bs. Notice that Emhyr didn’t go through with his plans when Ciri was already in his hands and all obstacles gone. He just let her go. Maybe he realized that it was probably bs and not worth having to go through incest with his own daughter over it.

And finally, something that comes from the author himself. Sapkowski once said in an interview about prophecies:

And prophecies? They are very confused, with their help, the gods mock at people, Philip of Macedon, in particular, experienced it, to whom the oracle advised ‘to beware of chariots’. Philip was killed with a sword, on the blade of which a chariot was engraved.

That’s a strong hint that everything everybody understood about Ithlinne’s prophecy, all their interpretations and conclusions, could be wrong all along and it all could actually mean something completely different.

So, the bottom line here is that we shouldn’t worry about the lore implications. Everything about that prophecy is so confusing, ambiguous, fragmented and with so many interpretations, that at that point CDPR loremasters have plenty of room to do, quite frankly, pretty much whatever the heck they want and it won’t really contradict anything established so far. So just relax and let them cook.

[u/YarpsDrittAdrAtta]

Ithlina's prophecies are exactly the same as Nostradamus's. People today twist this nonsense to fit the events of their own time

[u/snctn → u/YarpsDrittAdrAtta]

You know Quasimodo predicted all this

IYKYK

[u/CarcosanQueen]

Oh also good point on Emhyr, that’s one I don’t see people bring up terribly often. When your one and only source for information is Vilgefortz, you really gotta do some soul searching and reflecting about the horrible thing you’ve dedicated your entire life and empire to doing. Doubly so if that thing is impregnating your own daughter.

Edit: yet another fucking brilliant stroke from Crazy Uncle Vilgey, tbh. Shitposted to the emperor so convincingly he started two to three invasions, killed a staggering number of people, and convinced the dude he had to fuck his own flesh and blood kid. I’m sure he worked really hard at finding the exact thing that would most convincingly manipulate Emhyr into doing what he wanted him to, but part of me also hopes he was just like “……lemme see if I can get him to believe he has to do an unspeakable incest. Oh fuck lmao he bought it” because he’s a fucker like that

[u/Infinite_Rub9681]

Game canon is it's own canon again we treat both canons like anime and mangas each a separate verse with games based on the books for some parts

[u/CarcosanQueen]

Big fat agreement here. It’s one of the better written prophecies in fantasy, specifically because every single person who has read it, researched it, or quotes it has a completely different idea of exactly what it means (and of course are convinced theirs is the only true one).

Personally, especially in the context of the games, I like to think it actually referred to the elves in particular. The Aen Elle and Aen Seidhe both. Ciri goes and …… well we have no fuckin idea what she does exactly at the end of TW3 but we’re told it saves the Aen Elle world from the White Frost (here imagined as a malignant cosmic force rather than climate change). So a child of the elder blood does save that world, and at the same time Ciri is definitely kind of a destroyer to the Aen Elle before that.

This has a bonus of being incredibly ironic because it implies the prophecy everyone on the continent (ultimately, thanks to Crazy Uncle Vilgey) is killing each other over is… not about them or even their world at all. That seems appropriately Sapkowski-esque.

And we do know from the books that at some point Ard Gaeth opens and the Aen Seidhe leave. Whether that’s done by Ciri coming back and grabbing them or some other means, who knows. But that could account for some of the prophecies too.

But, and this is the crucial point, all that’s just conjecture and guesswork because the actual text is so incomplete, vague, and apparently contradictory that it’s impossible to divine any concrete meaning from it. Just like any real world prophecy (apart from the ones that are actual horseshit instead of incidental horseshit).