This article contains spoilers for The Witcher: Blood Origin.
Set 1200 years before the events of The Witcher, The Witcher: Blood Origin tells the story of the Conjunction of the Spheres and how the Continent was changed forever. This four episode miniseries follows a band of warriors on their quest across the Continent as they make their way to the Elven capital of Xin’trea to stop the tyranny of the new Elven empire. The final episode is packed with fight scenes, world-ending events, haunting music, and reveals that leave us with more questions than answers.
Power, Revenge, and The Fight for Xin’trea
The final episode begins with Merwyn (Mirren Mack) sending her first scouting party through the monolith. She has decided to trust Balor (Lenny Henry) to guide Eredin (Jacob Collins-Levy) and his soldiers to another world even though Balor hasn’t really done anything to prove he’s any less power-hungry than he was when she locked him up. Merwyn’s naivete quickly becomes her undoing as Balor betrays the others as soon as they make it through the portal to the chaos realm.
Balor sacrifices his apprentice Fenrick (Amy Murray) to prove his worthiness to the mysterious entity that he’s been communicating with all season and gain access to the realm’s chaos magic. He immediately uses his new powers to scatter Eredin and his party across the realm before coming back to Xin’trea to claim the throne.
Meanwhile, Scian’s (Michelle Yeoh) plan to get Fjall (Laurence O’Furain) to the beast in the throne room is going as planned until Merwyn betrays her and refuses to return her ancestral sword, Soulreaver, on some bizarre moral high ground thinking Scian actually betrayed her friends. Fjall’s anger toward Merwyn and her role in the murder of his familly triggers his transformation into a more monstrous form, as he prepares to kill the beast (nope not Merwyn)
In the town square, Éile (Sophia Brown) uses her influence as the Lark to convince the lowborn Elves to rise up and claim Xin’trea for themselves so that she and the others can use the commotion as cover to infiltrate the palace. Scian escapes the guards and lets in the rest of the crew. We get a badass hallway fight scene with Scian, Brother Death (Huw Novelli), and Meldof (Francesca Mills) that sees the latter take an arrow out of her own shoulder and then use said arrow to take out a guard with one swift movement.
It’s Éile, not Fjall, that deals the fatal blow to Merwyn, stabbing her in the chest before leaving her at the mercy of the people she’s betrayed. With one adversary down, Syndril (Zach Wyatt) and Zacaré (Lizzie Anis) confront Balor as he comes back through the monolith. Zacaré binds her brother to Balor, who then uses Balor’s own chaos magic against him to bring the monolith down on top of them both, triggering the Conjunction of the Spheres.
What is the Conjunction of the Spheres?
The Conjunction of the Spheres, that we now know was caused by the shattering of Xin’trea’s central monolith, is a moment that changed the Continent forever. Whereas Elves and Dwarves were the primary inhabitants before, now the land was filled with monsters, humans, and different forms of magic. While we don’t see any monsters after the Conjunction, nor much else of the cataclysmic aftermath, the wanted signs calling for brave Elves to hunt strange creatures at the end of the episode shows us how dangerous the Continent has now become, hinting at the future we’ve seen where the witcher formula is perfected (or at least has fewer deadly and monstrous side-effects).
Fjall successfully takes out the beast, by fully giving into the monster mutagen coursing through his veins, but he loses himself in the process. Éile is momentarily able to get through to him by singing to him of their unborn child (though I’m dumbfounded at how she already knows she’s pregnant given it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since they slept together, but that’s magic I guess). They share a tender moment together before Éile puts a dagger through his heart, freeing him from a life of rage and torment.
After the Conjunction of the Spheres brings men and monsters onto the Continent, the heroes we’ve been following go their separate ways. Scian is once again on her own. Brother Death and Zacaré hold a funeral for Syndril. And Éile returns with Meldof to the island where she first met Fjall, where she stays with Ithlinne (Ella Schrey-Yeats) and her mother.
How does Ithlinne’s prophecy connect to Ciri?
While staying with Ithlinne, Éile receives a prophecy for her unborn child, that says “The Lark’s seed shall carry forth the first note of a song that ends all times, and one of her blood shall sing the last,” officially tying her and Fjall’s child to Ciri’s (Freya Allan) elder bloodline in The Witcher and to Ithlinne’s final prophecy on the “White Chill” and “White Night” that will bring forth the end of times for the Continent, also known as the prophecy that Ciri recites before killing her would-be attackers in season 1. While this is a deviation from Ciri’s origins in the books and games, it would make sense for Ciri to be a descendant of the first prototype witcher given that her blood was able to recreate the witcher mutagen in season 2.
Hen Ichaer, as it’s also referred in The Witcher, is a powerful Elven curse passed from generation to generation that is said to bring about the destruction of mankind. Ciri’s connection to this bloodline was revealed in season 2, and now it seems we know the true origin of her power. Whether Ciri is truly the prophesied avenger of the Elves and destroyer of man is yet to be determined, but this is certainly an interesting connection between the two series.
Avallac’h and the Wild Hunt
In the final moments of the episode, we see Eredin treading through the desolate wasteland he’s trapped in before stumbling across a monster skull buried in the gravel. He picks this up and puts it on like a mask, hinting at his future as the leader of the Wild Hunt. We finally saw the Wild Hunt’s mysterious wraith-like warriors appear in season 2 of The Witcher, and they’re poised to be one of many villainous forces seeking Ciri in season 3. According to the Witcher book and video game series, Eredin is a ruthless warrior who wants to use Ciri’s Elder Blood to travel between worlds, and it appears like his motivations will be similar in The Witcher season 3, as his lover is seen mourning his loss at the end of Blood Origin.
But in all the chaos of the finale, there is another important moment that gets lost, especially if you aren’t super familiar with Witcher lore. Just before Scian and Fjall enter the throne room, Merwyn’s young mage Avallac’h (Samuel Blenkin) reveals that he’s discovered something in Syndril’s writings on the monoliths – the ability not only to move across realms, but across time as well. In The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, Avallac’h becomes a brief ally of Ciri’s as she tries to evade the Wild Hunt, but like most he also wants to use Ciri’s blood for his own gain, in this case to open gates between worlds. While Avallac’h hasn’t appeared in The Witcher yet, and didn’t play a large role in the events of Blood Origin, he could still be an important player in season 3 for similar reasons. In Witcher lore, Avallac’h is briefly aligned with the Wild Hunt before leaving them to do his own research on Elder Blood and it’s portal-opening potential.
The Witcher: Blood Origin ends with Ithlinne’s prophecy as Seanchai (Minnie Driver) abruptly whisks Jaskier (Joey Batey) back to the bloody fight between the Scoia’Tael Elves and Temerian soldiers, encouraging him to tell this story and sing the Song of the Seven to prepare the Elves of his time for “the great change to come.” Whatever Seanchai’s motives are, Jaskier certainly has his work cut out for him condensing this story into song. So much happens across these four episodes, that the series really could have benefitted from some breathing room and at least one or two more additional episodes to help us connect with the characters and better understand the Continent pre-Conjunction. Regardless, I can’t wait to hear the bop that Jaskier comes up with, no matter how ominous and foreboding its tone may be.