For quite some time now I’m openly indulging myself in the love for a very underappreciated character from the books (and God knows how hard that is with secondary characters…) who becomes empress in Ciri’s stead. She was meant to appear in the games and was even mentioned in TW2 yet was cut out before release. Ever since I got my hand on mods I tried to ‘reconstruct’ her with the help of mods using a modified version of Ciri’s head and eyes, Vivienne’s hair and a swaps.
Now I know that most people on Tumblr only know the games but please don’t reblog my False Ciri/Cirilla Fiona stuff and tag it as #Ciri, that’s sick and wrong because most of them are shipping posts. And even those which are not *sigh* I think everyone who makes edits and gifs for characters with not so much fans know what a shitty feeling that is (also it’s really bothering me).
I get asks about her nearly daily and so I decided to make a longer post to an ask I recieved today, half way through I decided to make an own post on the matter explaining it and adding quotes from the books. This got a bit longer but I’d be very thankful if all of you would read it (and share if you like). c:
I apologise for my english, I’m not a native speaker.
Small spoilers ahead but if you know the game,
they aren’t spoilers anymore.
First, here is her Wiki Article.
Now, Fake Ciri is a term made by CDPR, I don’t know why because she has named False Ciri or Cirilla Fiona ever since and fake really has a very negative connotation it’s not like she’s a bad person.
She is of cintrean nobility though not of such noble origin as Ciri is yet she does look a lot like her. As Nilfgaard attacked Cintra she had to flee (nothing of her family so I suspect her family to be dead but she does make a small remark on them which suggests that it hasn’t been very happy there) and travelled just like Ciri through several refugee camps to end up working for a tailor in Brugge, Temeria. There the emperor’s men found her and abducted her to sell her to Emhyr even though they knew it wasn’t her. Emhyr did recognise it but send her to Darn Rowan as a kind of a placeholder until the real Ciri was found, whom he wanted to crown Queen of Cintra and he wanted to fullfil a prophecy by having a child with her which would save the world or some kind of weird shit. (SO, GUYS, PLEASE FOR FUCK’S SAKE DON’T TAG MY FALSE CIRI STUFF AS CIRI!! I don’t think I have to mention this but Ciri does not quite agree with the whole marrying and having a child with her father-part, while False Ciri, always called Cirilla Fiona… kinda does…?)
That time Nilfgaard was just conquered Cintra but there were still forces fighting against them so if the queen was found, made queen, and this queen would marry the emperor, Emhyr’s rule over Cintra and the mouth of the Yarra would be secured. Now it was suggested that Emhyr should marry the false Ciri, she would wear a thick veil at the wedding and she would be replaced by the real Ciri once they found her, which meant that she’d be murdered and silently get ridden of. Emhyr always disagrees with these suggestions but sends her to Darn Rowan, a fortress kind of somewhere at the end of the world where nobody would see her so nobody could ask awkward questions later. She is sent there together with Stella Congreve who is instructed to train her to be princess/queen Ciri.
He visits her once and tries to find out her real name but she’s scared (touches her necklace as if it’s choking her) and nearly cries (but does not because it would be against the etiquette), that’s when he notes to himself that they must have trained her unter the threat of death and torture. Somehow they make it through this audience and he gets all puppy-like the moment she looks directly into his eyes and speaks honest with him (I’ll put a quote here because I’m super bad at describing this):
I tried to put the quotes here but they’re a bit long so find them under the cut.
As the story continues the real Ciri is found, Geralt, Yennefer and Emhyr have a conversation, followed by the happiest cliffhanger ever, leaving Ciri in another kind of awkward moment but all book-readers jumped while reading it I can assure you. So later she explains Emhyr had some weird emotional father-daughter-moment (considering he wanted to have a child with her, Jesus), tooks his men and rode away leaving Ciri with Yennefer and Geralt.
Emhyr has another meeting with Cirilla aka False Ciri in Lady of the Lake where they have a walk and he tells her a story from his childhood but she’s still sad (She only has three short scene’s but mostly looks/is sad, understandable to be honest. First a war refugee, then abducted and threatened, now has to marry the emperor, cheers luv.) and he tells her to cheer up. Literally. And when the emperor tells you to cheer up, you better cheer up. He’s not mean (not until later of course) but you can tell he’s bad at this being charming thing.
To himself he marks that she’s brave much like his daughter ‘a diamond that doesn’t scratch’ though she’s very different to Ciri more like a princess, not arrogant or selfish or something but just better made for court and being a wife, while Ciri is… well, our Ciri as we know her. He decided that Vattier will not kill her, even though he doesn’t have much of a choice now that he sent away the real Ciri… Then he’s mean and then he’s even more mean, makes her cry, is sorry, feels bad and hugs her and calls her “My poor reason of state.”
I tried to put the quotes here but they’re a bit long so find them under the cut.
In the next scene she’s only mentioned but her portrait is ‘shown’ to the monarchy and a few other people where it’s clear that all who don’t know of the secrect take her for the real Cirilla, Queen of Cintra, Empress of Nilfgaard and so on, and so on.
She was meant to appear in The Witcher 3 (and mentioned in The Witcher 2) though was cut out in the end (but I’m happy they included her in Gwent, I literally fed my half monster deck to the houds to get her) which doesn’t make any sense at all because Emhyr still has Cintra and now everybody would find out that he wanted to marry his own daugther and that he is Duny of Erlenwald. The last time Geralt sets off to save Ciri he also does it because of dreams, I don’t know why they needed Emhyr AND the Empress ending which basically messed up the whole storyline because the fantastic and ironic thing was that False Ciri, the girl that made it through a war-plagued land, a nobody, was put in the throne of Nilfgaard, and paid for Ciri’s freedom, to be with Geralt which she always wanted to be.
Not to mention that there would be other questions the Nilfgaardians and their opposition would ask about Ciri and her aptitude to be empress, like her knowledge of court manners, her training in ruling an empire (she witcher) and the virginity thing.
Under the cut are quotes from The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski with all the scenes of False Ciri sorted in chronological order.They’re really not that long. Easy to read, no spoilers.
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
