The Witcher: Did Queen Calanthe Make The Right Choice?

From the start of the show, Queen Calanthe, ever since we saw the fall of Cintra, looked like a brave warrior queen who would do anything for her people.

The fall of the strongest

In the first few episodes, we get to see her try everything possible to save her people, and when all is lost, she retreats and tries to save her granddaughter, the only family she is left with.

At first, we are thrown into a dilemma regarding why something like this happened to Cintra, one of the strongest kingdoms in the Witcher Universe.

Cintra has always been portrayed as one of the strongest kingdoms in the series, and true to its title,  fear has been sowed in the heart of every enemy of the kingdom. But we saw the kingdom fail quite quickly.

Ignorance or Pain?

While some say it is because the Queen stopped bothering about how strong her army is or how strong the kingdom’s defenses are after her daughter’s death, some say it was her ignorance that led to it.

Undoubtedly, Queen Calanthe is one of the best and strongest leaders we saw in the Witcher Universe. She is brave, unyielding, and smart when it comes to ruling and leading her kingdom in war.

If it was Queen Calanthe before her daughter’s death, then she would’ve taken the Nilfgardians a little more seriously and would’ve done some preparations to keep her kingdom and family safe, don’t you think?

Outsmarted or simply failed to take it seriously?

We understand the fact that Ciri was the only family she had left, and it was reasonable for her not to send her with Geralt, but after a while, even a person like her would’ve been able to calculate the outcome of the war.

Calanthe wasn’t famous just for her winning streak; she was also known to be smart, so for someone like Calanthe, she should’ve guessed the result way before and should’ve sent Ciri with Geralt.

Yes, she did think she was getting help from Skellige, but they never arrived, thanks to Fringilla. So, even without that unfortunate incident, it was kinda let down to get emotional and mess up for a character like Calanthe.

Maybe I am way off here, but if Calanthe had let down her pride and cleared her overwhelming emotions, she could’ve saved Ciri from a lot of trauma.

But, all is well that ends well, right? We finally have Ciri with Geralt now, and maybe we will get to hear her version of why Granny was so stubborn.