Does Avallac'h love or hate Ciri? In a twisted Grail Quest, Merlin condemns himself to the Lady of the Lake who becomes his salvation through unexpected compassion. The Swallow does bring rebirth to the elves, but it is impossible to heal the whole world. Only the Waste Land of the (non)human heart.
The Lady of the Lake confuses The Witcher's readers because Nimue is us – the lighthouse that completes the story. Ciri, adrift in timeless mythosphere, searches for one more moment with Geralt and Yennefer, waiting for someone to believe. For a fairy tale ceases to be just a tale when readers do.
What do the Aen Elle want? What does 'eternity' mean in a meta fantasy? The Conjunction closed the door to infinite stories, trapping them in The Witcher's. So the freedom they seek might be about existing across literature's infinite possible worlds rather than sci-fi time and space travel.
The Conjunction of Spheres trapped elves and other fantastic beings in The Witcher's historical time. Before, legendary, pre-rational elves moved freely between story-worlds. Elder Blood preserves this power and Ithlinne's prophecy could be seen as the elves' map back into eternity.
Why is Ciri so powerful? Can Ciri time travel in The Witcher books? With Elder Blood, the Lady of the Lake accesses Mythic Time where past, present, and future exist simultaneously. Sapkowski writes fantasy about fantasy, showing a fairy tale unfolding endlessly.
Andrzej Sapkowski wrote Ciri as the Holy Grail. Drawing from Celtic mythology and Arthurian scholarship, The Witcher and The Hussite Trilogy explore the Triple Goddess, Wiccan theology, female sovereignty, and love as the Grail's power. The Grail is a Woman.
Why is there an elven Tower, Tor Gval'cha, on Skellige? What is Ragh nar Roog really? Why are the Aen Elle taller than the Aen Seidhe? The Witcher 3's cut content tells of Freyja the elf, Alderwalk, Leib-Olmai, the white ships, and even the cult of the Eternal Fire - created as a joke.
Who created the Wild Hunt? Why did Eredin and Avallac'h fight? Who will be the new king of the Aen Elle? The Witcher 3's cut content digs into the 'family drama' behind elven politics.
In the Witcher games, Eredin is a template death knight. In game-fanon, he is frequently a BDSM, ultra-top/dom, plotting maniac. In the Witcher books though, Eredin is a reckless but loyal servant of the Aen Elle, disillusioned, haunted by the prospect of failure, and resolved to do what’s needed.
In The Witcher 3, we discover that UMA - the Ugliest Man Alive - is actually Avallac'h, transformed by a curse. Cut content reveals how CDPR used the Curse of Inversion to transform Avallac'h from the books' antagonist into Ciri's mentor.
The loneliness and alienation, the Waste Land of the human heart, is a recurrent motif in The Witcher. Re-reading "Pirog, or There’s No Gold in the Gray Mountains" by Andrzej Sapkowski I get stuck on how he analyses Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle.
Between every reality in The Witcher lies a mirror-like barrier. As Ciri travels through time and space, we discover how the Gate of Worlds functions. Ard Gaeth, for example, seems but one special manifestation of interdimensional travel. And what about the elven towers? Let's see.