The Witcher Season 3 Episode 2 Finally Debuts False Ciri - But Who Plays Her?
Contains spoilers for "The Witcher" Season 3, Episodes 2 and 3
As fans of Andrzej Sapkowski's work well know, The Continent is lousy with victims of circumstance (or is it Destiny?). Such is the case, particularly in Season 3 of Netflix's "The Witcher," for an innocent Aretuza student named Teryn — a Ciri (Freya Allan) doppelgänger and imposter who, after being subjected to cruel experimentation, becomes convinced she's Ciri.
It's no secret that Lauren Schmidt Hissrich's adaptation is an adaptation in the truest sense of the word, meaning the series — for reasons ranging from the logistical to the artistic — has chosen to alter or add to the nuts and bolts of Sapkowski's narrative while attempting to maintain its themes and overarching ideology. Its "False Ciri" is no exception to this pattern, and the series' various changes allow it to efficiently relay more of Geralt's (Henry Cavill) backstory and moral conflict.
In "The Time of Contempt," it's Codringher and Fenn who (originally) intend to use the girl in place of Ciri — a plan Geralt rejects for the same reason he struggles with the notion of "the lesser of two evils." As Codringher tells him, "someone you love will survive. A girl you don't know, and whom you've never seen, will die." Unsurprisingly, Geralt nobly refuses to endorse such a trade-off.
In Episode 2, Geralt rescues Teryn from an even more certain, literally monstrous demise. The set-up makes an otherwise philosophical quandary all the more tangible, particularly since he risks the girl's safe recovery in the name of protecting the real Ciri. The alteration also allows us to sympathize with Teryn as a character in her own right, and it appears the actor who plays her — Frances Pooley — was cast for much more than just her Ciri-reminiscent looks.
Frances Poole played another princess-as-pawn
Pooley's resume, though short, is composed entirely of critically-acclaimed and/or high-profile projects, like the British soap "Doctors," Lucy Brydon's BAFTA Award-nominated "Body of Water," and Chris Van Dusen's Emmy Awards darling, "Bridgerton." But it is, undoubtedly, her break-out role in "Versailles" — Canal+'s spin on the Sun King's infamous French court — that most closely parallels (and even foreshadows) her role in Hissrich's adaptation.
In "Versailles," Pooley portrays the ill-fated Marie-Louise, Louis XIV's (George Blagden) niece. Faithful to the real Marie-Louise's story, the series sees the young noblewoman used to secure King Louis XIV's relationship with Spain, and unhappily married off to the ailing King Charles II. Sadly, the Spanish hated their new French queen, a position that was not helped by the fact that, in their eyes, she was responsible for the inbred (and almost certainly impotent) king's lack of an heir.
As her stepmother Princess Palatine (Jessica Clark) explains to her in Season 3, Episode 6, "Women are just pawns in a game played by men." This is certainly the case for the ill-fated Teryn, and for Sapkowski's False Ciri as well. Like Marie-Louise, False Ciri is a noble whose life takes a drastic turn when she falls victim to the politics and power plays of men with little regard for her health and well-being. Louis XIV may not be the villain that Vilgefortz is, but it's hard not to see Pooley's role as reminiscent of the performance that launched the up-and-coming actor's career.