The Witcher: The Emhyr Twist Explained

The witcher Season 2 is an absolute treat whether you are a fan of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher books or not. But those who have read the source material will experience some particularly exciting surprises, as the season consists mostly of new storylines that bridge the gap between the Battle of Sodden and the start of the first Witcher novel. However, it isn’t the addition of new mutant monsters to The Continent, the intricate evolution in the relationship between Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Ciri (Freya Allan) or Fringillas (Mimî M. Khayisa) major political moves that are likely to surprise fans of the fans Books most. That must likely lead to the decision to postpone one of the books’ final major twists and turns to season two of the series.

[Ed note: Extensive spoilers for The Witcher season 2 and all The Witcher books ahead. Seriously. Do not read if you do not want to know how The Witcher Saga ends.]

In episode 8, “Family”, the Nilfgaardian Emperor Emhyr var Emreis finally joins his forces in Cintra. That is when the character’s face first appears on screen, and it has been hidden up until that point for good reason: Emhyr is Ciri’s father, Duny (Bart Edwards), the former hedgehog man who became the Prince of Cintra for years than dead.

How are Duny and Emhyr the same person?

As explained in the books, Emhyr is the son of former Nilfgaard king Fergus, but his father was overthrown when he was a teenager. As part of the coup, the usurper had a wizarding curse, Emhyr, which resulted in him being transformed into an anthropomorphic hedgehog during the day and back into his human form at night. After Emhyr took the name Duny, Urcheon of Alder Forest, he met the injured King Roegner of Cintra in the forest and saved his life. As payment, Emhyr invoked the law of surprise, which 15 years later led to his marriage to Pavetta.

Although Emhyr never really loved Pavetta in the books – he married her because he rightly believed that union would break his curse – he was content with his new life at Cintra for many years. However, Vilgefortz, the show’s main puppeteer, convinced Duny that he was meant for far more. A few years after Ciri’s birth, Emhyr and Vilgefortz came up with a plan to fake Emhyr, Pavetta, and Ciri’s death on a boat trip so they could all go to Nilfgaard together. In the fifth episode of the second season, “Turn Your Back”, Ciri sees a vision of her parents on the day of the incident. While Ciri and Triss (Anna Schaffer) watch, Emhyr lies to Pavetta (Gaia Mondadori) and says he wants her to flee Cintra with Ciri because this would protect her daughter from those who want to prevent Ithlinnes prophecy from coming true.

The show hasn’t yet revealed what happened between that conversation and the fatal boat ride, but in the books, Pavetta rightly suspected her husband had ulterior motives and smuggled Ciri off the boat. When Emhyr found out, the two fought, and Pavetta fell overboard to her death. With his plan in tatters and Ciri still in Cintra, Emhyr traveled on to Nilfgaard alone. There Emhyr discarded his Duny identity, gathered his strength and successfully overthrew the usurper. During this time, Emhyr also gains the loyalty of Fringilla and Cahir (Eamon Farren) in the Netflix adaptation. Emhyr keeps his Duny identity a secret when he first returns to Nilfgaard, but on the show he reveals his true connection to Ciri to Cahir and Fringilla during the season two finale.

What does Emhyr want with Ciri?

As on the show, Emhyr was determined to chase Ciri in the books. But what left the Netflix drama to reveal is why. And boy, oh boy, is the reason to be a sucker You know, Emhyr didn’t try to find Ciri because he missed his daughter or even wanted to legitimize his claim to the Cintra’s throne. The real reason he wanted Ciri was because he wanted to marry her and get her pregnant.

Yes … there is a lot to understand. And as with pretty much everything in the Witcher universe, Emhyr’s incestuous motivations go back to Ithlinnes prophecy. The forecast, which has already appeared several times on the show, warns of an impending ice age and a child of older blood who will determine the fate of the world. As revealed in The witcherIn the second season of Ciri, Ciri has older blood because she is descended from the elf princess Lara Dorren (Niamh McCormack), whom we saw during Ciri and Triss’ vision quest for Dol Durza. That legacy, and the powers that result from it, is why Ciri believes this season she is destined to be the older-blooded child Ithlinne predicted would destroy the world. The problem with prophecy, however, is that it is frustratingly vague and people can interpret it in different ways.

Emhyr got it in the books, thanks to Vilgefortz’s manipulation, that Ithlinne predicted that if Emhyr had a child with Ciri, their offspring would not only save but rule the world. And Emhyr, always a pragmatist, was more than willing to overlook incest in order to fulfill that fate. His single-minded desire to save the world at all costs also fueled Emhyr’s ruthless imperialism, as he believed that humanity could only survive the impending catastrophe if it is united – under his rule, of course.

How is the Emhyr reveal different in the books?

So far, when it comes to Emhyr, the show has stayed very faithful to the books. There is one major variance, however, and that is When Emhyr’s true identity is revealed. In the books we only find out at the very end of the last novel that Emhyr is Ciri’s father. The lady of the lake. That means that for nearly five novels and nearly 2,000 pages, readers thought Emhyr was your ordinary fantasy villain who wanted Ciri to legitimize his claim to the Cintran throne and use her powers for his personal gain. When he learned in the last lesson that his motivations and identity were very different and more complex than previously assumed, it resulted in severe whiplash for the readers, as they only expressed their assessment of Emhyr for his arc – and the book series – had to adapt quickly. to terminate before this disclosure could be fully processed. It didn’t help that the Witcher saga novels ended with Ciri never knowing that Emhyr was her father, which left a large narrative thread unsolved.

So it’s a great relief that Hissrich has postponed the unveiling of Emhyr’s true identity until the end of the second of seven planned seasons. (There’s also the added benefit that it would have been extremely difficult not to show Emhyr’s face on screen until the last season.) Knowing Emhyr’s true relationship with Ciri this early means fans will appreciate the moral and emotional complexities of the plot as such, being able to question and appreciate unfolded instead of reevaluating events in retrospect.

Most importantly, it gives the Netflix drama the time to explore Emhyr’s character and feelings around this twisted plot with a depth and nuance that, frankly, Sapkowski’s books were never interested in. The best antagonists are those who are most human, and while there aren’t any, empathizing with a man’s desire to get married and get his daughter pregnant – even if he thinks this will save the world – it will be interesting to see the Netflix drama fill in the gaps, who Emhyr is under the armor, and why he makes the decisions he does.

One of the reasons The witcher is such a successful adaptation because it is ready to play with the source material and balances the desire to honor the original story with the need to remix and create new storylines. The advancement of the Emhyr reveal is a perfect example of how to take Sapkowski’s work and delve into it in exciting and thoughtful ways. Also, it’s not that there aren’t still many big twists and turns and revelations from the books to come. And who knows, we might even see Ciri find out the truth on the show. Well that would definitely be a reveal worth waiting for.