‘The Witcher’: Who Is Falka & Why Did Ciri Use Her Name?

Episode 7 of season 3 of ‘The Witcher’ focused almost entirely on Ciri after the events that occurred at the end of episode 6. In this episode, Ciri is in survival mode after getting herself lost in Korath after the incident at Tol Lara. That was when she started seeing different visions while trying to survive the desert, and one of the things she saw was a girl named Falka. So, who is Falka in ‘The Witcher,’ and why did Ciri use her name?

Falka was a princess o Redania 100 years before Ciri was born and was a rebel who revolted against her father to get back the throne that was supposed to be hers. She became a feared princess due to her actions. Ciri used her name to hide her identity and to mark a new part of her journey.

If there’s one thing that we know about ‘The Witcher,’ it has always used symbolism as a way to make the characters’ storylines more meaningful, especially when there is so much history that covers the lifetime of the Continent. In that regard, Ciri used Falka’s story as a way for her to move on forward with her own life, especially with what happened over at Aretuza.

Falkia’s history explained

One of the things that we saw in the second part of season 3 of ‘The Witcher’ was that Ciri was in deep trouble. The Redanians and the Scoia’tael attacked Aretuza and ended up weakening the mages when their numbers were cut down. Of course, the attack’s goal was for Nilfgaard and Vilgefortz to get their hands on Ciri due to how important she was to Emperor Emhyr of Nilfgaard.

Geralt got severely injured in his fight with Vilgefortz, and that meant Ciri had to flee to Tol Lara, which was supposedly going to help her learn how to use her powers. When Vilgefortz got to Tol Lara, he warned Ciri that she wasn’t ready to use this kind of magic, and that was when the entire tower imploded due to the massive amount of energy coursing through it.

The implosion opened a portal that sent Ciri flying to the desert of Korath, far away from the civilized world. While in Korath, she had no access to magic due to the lack of chaos in the desert. As such, she had to try to tread her way back to Geralt and Yennefer without food, water, or magic. And that was when Ciri started seeing visions of someone who believed had been watching her while she was in the desert.

Eating poisonous food and collapsing time and time again under the desert sun made Ciri see visions of a robed woman. She also dreamt of the same robed woman when she passed out due to hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. And this woman finally revealed herself to be Falka.

Ciri was shocked that this woman was Falka because she knew her history. According to legends, Falka was one of the most feared people to ever live on the Continent due to the revolution she mounted years ago.

According to history, Falka was the eldest daughter of Redania’s King Vridank and his first wife, Beatrix, around a hundred years before the events of ‘The Witcher. Andrzej Sapkowski’s book detailed that Falka was supposed to succeed her father as the next ruler of Redania until Vridank divorced Beatrix and sent Falka away to live in exile.

Meanwhile, Vridank started favoring the brothers born from his marriage to his second wife. At the age of 26, Princess Falka wanted to take her rightful place on the throne of Redania because she believed that her father had taken away her birthright. She rebelled against the entire kingdom of Redania and killed her father and his new family. In that regard, Falka became one of the most feared people on the Continent as she had no problems killing her father and half-brothers for her ambitions.

Falka ruled as a hated person due to what she did to her family. Falka eventually got pregnant and gave birth. But shortly after that, the Redanian army defeated her rebellion, and she was captured and burned alive at the stake. In her dying breath, she cursed all the people present at her execution that their descendants would suffer from someone coming from her future bloodline.

The thing is that, due to Ciri’s confusing bloodline, she was related to Falka because the child that Falka gave birth to was one of her distant relatives. This was because Falka had left her child with one of Ciri’s ancestors, and that was when things got confusing about her family tree and bloodline.

Nevertheless, in season 3, Ciri saw Falka and accused her of being an elven demon, only for her to find out that she wasn’t a demon but was just someone who cut her ears to make herself look like an elf to live up to the stories about her, as she said:

“Stories created to convince naughty children to do their chores. Ultimately, it was much easier to cut my ears into points and let myself be what they accused me of being. For simplicity’s sake.”

In short, we know that Falka had a dark and tragic past soaked in blood. She cursed Redania and everyone there to see her death in her dying moments. And this could be something related to what Ciri is about to do in the future.

Why did Ciri use Falka’s name?

After Ciri was found passed out in the desert, she was captured by some brigands that were about to bring her to Emperor Emhyr even though there had already been a fake Ciri sent to Nilfgaard.

When the Rats rescued one of their own, who was also captured by the same brigands that had captured Ciri, she decided to introduce herself to them using the name “Falka” instead of using her own name. And this symbolized what Ciri was now ready to do in the future.

We know that Ciri would never use her real name when introducing herself to strangers because she is an important person that could very well get herself in trouble if she were to tell her name to dangerous people. That’s why she had to use an alias. But the fact that she used Falka’s name tells something more about the trajectory of her story.

Using Falka’s name was an acceptance moment for Ciri because she no longer had a reason to fear her power. She learned to use fire magic in the desert to heal Little Horse, her injured unicorn friend. But the unicorn ran away out of fear for her power. And Falka, in the background, told her that people would always fear her for her power, similar to how the people of Redania feared Falka for what she did.

In that regard, Ciri now accepts that people would end up fearing her and her power, regardless of her motives. But the thing is that she no longer has to fear who she is and what she is capable of because she knows that she has the power to change the world.