Hi. Omg i just read your response to that anon about Calanthe’s grief and the comment about Calanthe’s death was soooo painful to read but I’d never considered that element of her su*cide. When I originally watched the series I just that her choice was just to avoid being violated and killed by Nilfgaardian soldiers; but I wonder now if she knew that they might keep her alive to get to Ciri. Maybe she knew she could do no more and just desperately needed to get back to Eist. The scenes following his death show a desperate and lost part of her that we don’t see at any other point in the series. I think it differs from the banquet scene because she actually is lashing out then, but after Eist dies she just accepts that she can no longer fight, Can no longer live. Ughhhhh I have a lot of feelings about this 🥺
I have Feelings™ about Calanthe's final scene and what her motivations were/might have been. Once again, unending blessings upon the head of Jodhi May for giving us such fucking depth 🙌🙌🙌
So originally I saw it as her finally just giving up. Eist's death wrecks her and she's also badly injured when she returns (I mean you know she went full on murder gremlin beserker trying to get to Cahir once Eist was shot). She knows she can't fight, and she can't run. She tried to save her city but failed. So...as she's told Ciri before, she knows it's time to stop. Now she survives long enough to ensure she's ended the pain of as many of her citizens as possible, and that Cirilla and Mousesack have escaped.
Over time (and yes several rewatches later) I started putting in bits of other parts of Calanthe's story and her sense of the world, as seen through the few glimpses we have of her before her death. And...it got a little more complex than that. Mainly because until this moment, we see that Calanthe isn’t someone who just rolls over and accepts her fate. She very much will give the gods themselves the middle finger while yelling out in explicit detail exactly what they can go do with their fate and destiny.
Calanthe's fatal flaw, like every Greek tragic hero, is hubris. And in tragedies, there is almost always only one price to be paid for it: your life. Obviously Greek tragedies don't exist in their world, but the concept of hubris and downfall obviously do. She's aware of her faults, even if she refuses to correct them, and I think she genuinely believes her spirit and determination to be greater than any consequence her faults might create, to be honest.
We see it at the betrothal feast: Calanthe hubristically refuses to bow to destiny and "any law made by men who have never borne a child" (fucking icon, we stan). She nearly loses her life because of it--as well as Eist's, potentially, and possibly destroying any chance of reconciling with her daughter. Even when Pavetta insists on making her own choice, Calanthe pushes against it, because she just can't let Destiny fucking win, even on a technicality. She believes, right up until Pavetta's power is revealed, that she can trick her way around it and murder Duny to prevent the marriage (granted, there’s more at play here--I think she genuinely believes she’s making the right choice for Pavetta).
Now, she gets knocked onto her arse, quite literally, and sees sense, somewhat (I theorize that she now knows that Pavetta can defend herself and doesn't need a powerful marriage alliance to help her hold onto the crown, which is the only reason she doesn't simply try to murder Duny again).
But she gets thrown for another loop minutes later as she helplessly watches history repeat with Duny giving away her unborn grandchild to the Witcher. In the book, we learn that Calanthe was so fucking set on breaking Destiny’s hold that she commanded Mousesack to kill Cirilla before she was even born. However, once the child is born, Calanthe suddenly rescinds her order (I think perhaps actually holding the baby and realizing the full extent of what she was asking finally kicked in...plus Ciri obviously looks like her mother and I think it triggered some nostalgia for Cal).
Calanthe learns a lesson of sorts (one she won’t fully learn/accept until the sacking of Cintra, though): when you push against Destiny, it always pushes back harder and takes more than it originally asked for. For every refusal, there is an added cost.
When Geralt comes back to claim Ciri (granted, to save her), Calanthe once again wages war against Destiny with her “will Destiny carry a banner into battle?” speech. Even when she most likely sees the logic of Geralt’s argument (and maybe even believes that he would bring her back), she simply cannot let go of this fight against a fucking supernatural divine concept. She let it go once, and in her mind, it is ultimately what cost her Pavetta’s life.
And so, when her city is burning around her, and her lover is dead and abandoned on a field of war, and her own life is slowly bleeding away as her granddaughter’s life enters a new and dangerous phase--Calanthe finally tries to bargain with Destiny.
I genuinely think that is partially what Calanthe’s death is, in her mind: she made a foolish choice, and lost, and now fears losing Ciri in the bargain as well--because remember: Destiny will push back harder and take more now, in Calanthe’s mind. So in an effort to appease Destiny, she accepts her fate and stops fighting, and gives her own life, hoping that it is enough of a defeat/apology to ensure that Destiny does not punish Cirilla for Calanthe’s prideful and arrogant choices.
Because as disdainful as Calanthe is about it, I think she genuinely does believe in Destiny as a supernatural force. She just thinks she can overcome it, right until the very last moments of her life. And in the very last moments of her life, she thinks she can bargain with it, in order to save her granddaughter.
There is also this to consider: Calanthe’s discussions with Mousesack and some of her final comments to Cirilla imply that she’s well-aware of why Nilfgaard is coming here, and what they’re really after. Which means she might know the truth about Duny, somehow. If she does, then her death is one last “ha, fuck you, you can’t kill me because I kill myself!”
It also aligns with a phrase I feel like she genuinely lives by (and I have had her utter in a few fics): death before dishonor. It is interesting to note that two potential reasons for choosing death over capture (degradation/mutilation of her body, and potentially being used to find/lure Ciri) are still enacted, even after her death: her body is mutilated by the mage who eats the bit of her arm to track Ciri. Once again, Calanthe’s attempts to prevent a situation are met with Destiny choosing its own way, regardless.
I know Sapkowski was influenced by a LOT of various countries and cultures, but I feel like Calanthe and Eist’s story in particular is extremely reminiscent of Greek tragedies (I mean, Eist sees his fate in the stars and still chooses to pursue it? Calanthe is hubris personified, on steriods?). While obviously I get super emosh thinking about how their story ended, I do have to applaud the original storyteller for how well he crafted it, and how fitting it was, in the grand scheme.
