The Witcher season 3: Everything you need to know about Falka

The character of Falka is an overarching presence in The Witcher universe. In the Netflix series, Stregobor introduces us to her legend during the show’s second season while teaching a classroom of apprentice mages.

Stregobor’s version of events depicts Falka as a power-hungry war criminal who led the slaughter of countless innocents because her father, King Vridank of Redania, disinherited her due to her elven blood.

But there are dissenting opinions on Falka’s rebellion and whether she was at fault for the peasant war that transpired in its aftermath. For example, Istredd is more sympathetic to Falka than Stregobor, a known elf-hater, and pushes back against his narrative during the classroom session.

Major spoilers ahead for The Witcher season 3 part 2

Despite being long dead, Falka becomes integral to Ciri’s life in The Witcher season 3 part 2. Ciri hallucinates the disavowed princess while she’s wandering the Korath desert. Ciri’s version of Falka convinces Ciri to stop holding back her chaos and to use forbidden fire magic.

Of course, “Falka” is a manifestation of Ciri’s subconscious. She wants Ciri to follow in her footsteps, and there are evident parallels between the two princesses. Both have elven blood and have had everything ripped away from them despite being the true heirs to their respective thrones. Falka, or at least, Ciri’s version of her, wants Ciri to burn everything to the ground so she can reclaim Cintra and everything that is rightfully hers.

Under Falka’s influence, Ciri accepts her power and kills her first human. At the end of the season, Ciri further embraces Falka’s ideals by using Falka’s name to protect her identity.

What was Falka’s rebellion?

In the 1150s, Falka led an uprising through Temeria and Redania to reclaim the throne after King Vridank disinherited her. She killed the king, his second wife, and her two half-brothers. Falka’s rebellion set a massive war between the nobility and peasants into motion, with both sides committing horrific war crimes against one another.

What happened to Falka’s child?

Falka became the figurehead for the entire rebellion. She’s become something of a martyr to some individuals in-universe, though there are a lot of dissenting opinions on Falka both in The Witcher universe and within the fandom. The show also seems to be painting Falka in a more sympathetic light than The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski did.

Falka is later sentenced to death by being burned at the stake, but before that happens, she gives birth to a child. When she dies, she curses everyone in attendance (and their offspring) to die by a descendant bearing her blood.

Is Ciri a descendant of Falka?

We know that Ciri is a descendant of Lara Dorren, but is she also a descendant of Falka? During Falka’s rebellion, the Temerian Queen Riannon—the orphaned daughter of Lara Dorren—was mistakenly imprisoned. She gave birth to twins and eventually went insane in captivity.

Before her execution, Falka gave her child to Riannon to take care of, despite knowing Riannon had gone mad. The three children became known as the Houtborg triplets (because that’s where Riannon had been imprisoned), named Fiona, Adela, and Amavet. Because Riannon was mad, she didn’t know which children were biologically hers and which one was Falka’s. Since the court couldn’t tell them apart either and didn’t want to execute an innocent child, the three triplets were raised together as Riannon’s.

One of the triplets, Fiona, later became the Temerian princess. She carried the latent Elder Blood gene, and her blood was later passed down to Calanthe, then Pavetta, and finally Ciri. It would make sense that Fiona was Riannon’s daughter, thus, making them both Ciri’s ancestors.

However, there is some discrepancy because, in the books, Codringher and Fenn learn that Fiona could be Falka’s daughter and not Riannon’s (they previously thought Adela was Falka’s). But if that’s true, then how could Fiona have Elder Blood? It has never been confirmed that Falka carried the gene, though it is possible due to her elven blood.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that Codringher and Fenn were just mistaken and that Fiona is Riannon’s daughter. Sapkowski never clarifies it, so Falka’s heritage remains somewhat ambiguous.

We know for a fact that Ciri is descended from Lara Dorren and, therefore, Riannon, but her connection to Falka remains murky. Either way, her seeing Falka in the Korath desert has many symbolic meanings because their stories share several crucial parallels, even if Ciri isn’t directly related to her.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.