ancestry

The Witcher: Blood Origin Adds a Lore Change to Ciri’s Ancestry

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The time of promos and interviews related to The Witcher: Blood Origin is nigh and we get more and more interesting tidbits every day. This time The Witcher showrunner Lauren Hissrich dropped an extremely curious fact about the origin of Ciri’s blood and a significant lore change.


Eile is Ciri’s millennia-distant ancestor

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Sophia Brown as Eile

During a new interview with Naekranie.pl, The Witcher showrunner and Blood Origin producer Lauren Hissrich revealed that Ciri and by extension Lara Dorren are distant descendants of Sophia Brown‘s Eile. Here is what she said:

Eile’s pregnant at the end and we know that’s part of Ithlinne’s prophecy that there is a seed in her that will eventually lead to someone important in The Witcher world. So as someone who on The Witcher side follows Ciri and the origin of her genes and her blood, it’s like I kinda wanna know where that character’s gonna go, I wanna know if those things are gonna crash into each other at some point.

To refresh the memory, here is the part of Ithlinne‘s prohpecy itself that talks about the seed that will lead to someone important:

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf’s blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame.

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Ithlinne in Blood Origin

This means that in the show version, Eile becomes Ciri’s earliest known ancestor, instead of Auberon and Shiadhal and their daughter Lara Dorren. In other words, either Auberon or Shiadhal are now the descendants of Eile. For instance, Auberon could end up being Eile’s son, making Eile Lara’s grandmother.

Judging by the trailer, it appears that Laurence’s O’Fuarain‘s Fjall is the father of Eile’s child. This partly explains the title of the show: Blood Origin. The origin of Ciri’s Elder Blood.

Despite all of that, Lara Dorren still exists in the Netflix version of The Continent. We saw a little bit of Lara in The Witcher Season 2 when she was played by Niamh McCormack.

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Niamh McCormack as Lara Dorren

Elder Blood and the creation of the first witcher

It’s curious to point out that in Season 2 of The Witcher, Vesemir sought to use Ciri’s Elder Blood to make more witchers. And here, in Blood Origin, the very first prototype Witcher will be created, also very likely using Elder Blood.

Showrunner Declan de Barra commented on the creation of the prototype witcher in Blood Origin:

The first official witcher didn’t happen until way after the arrival of the humans, with the creation of various witcher schools, etc. But the actual initial mechanics for that witcher, and the Trial of the Grasses, that was open [to explore]. It’s like, “How did that come about?” So, that’s what we delve into: What is the prototype of the witcher?

He continued: “Say, Geralt is version 13.0, the upgrade. Ours is the 1.0, rough and ready — the concept of a witcher. It’s the [original] model. What was the story there, and how did that get lost? And who found that critical element later?

In any case, the Elder Blood holds a lot of significance and in the show also is a major component of the witcher mutagens. It will be curious to see how Blood Origin decides to explore this idea born in Season 2.

Additionally, in the main trailer, Zach Wyatt‘s Syndril says to his companions “We merge the creature’s power with one of you“, indicating that monster blood or other monster parts are also components of the mutagen. What is the result of all that, we’ll get to see soon on December 25.


Season 3 of The Witcher is in post-production for a Summer 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin has been set a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.

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