Blood of Elves

Blood of Elves, written by Andrzej Sapkowski, is the third book in The Witcher saga, but the first novel since the previous two volumes, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, are structured like a collection of short stories. This transition proves to be problematic, however: Sapkowski still offers an ironic and melancholic story, but now without a solid structure holding it together, being marred by chapters that are loosely connected with each other and a conclusion that is deeply anticlimactic.

The novel’s opening follows the events that closed Sword of Destiny. The witcher Geralt of Rivia, having found his pre-destined child, decides to adopt her and teach her the arts of his craft. To do so, he takes the girl, Cirilla, to the fortress of Khaer Morhan, where she undergoes intensive training. Meanwhile, assassins, sorcerers, and kings begin a tireless search for the child, as she is the only living heir to the throne of the war-torn kingdom of Cintra.

Unlike previous books, Geralt is not in the center of the story, being only a protector and teacher for the princess: it is Ciri the novel’s true protagonist. The beginning of Blood of the Elves marks the importance of the character: her nightmare, in which she’s running scared and helpless through a burning city while a knight chases her and slays her protectors, is brief but effective in pointing out the nature of the character’s conflicts and concerns – besides building suspense by suggesting that the witcher will soon find himself facing the same knight.

Ciri is haunted by the trauma of watching her city being seized, but remains an energetic and curious child, always ready to train some more and ask questions. She carries the heavy burden of her past, but at the same time delights everyone around her with her pranks and sharp answers: when asked by a witcher about what she had on her face, for example, instead of “makeup,” she replies “Greater self-esteem.”

Dialogues are predominant in the narrative: the training sequences in the third chapter, for instance, are made up exclusively of them. Sapkowski uses well the format, creating minor twists that surprise us precisely by the lack of descriptions – such as finding out at the end of a scene that one of the characters has been blindfolded for the entire time. Sapkowski also deserves credit for giving each character their own voice, which can be seen in the passive-aggression of the sorceress Yennefer, in the failed politeness of the witcher Vasemir, and in the crudeness of the dwarf Yarpen.

Due to this overabundance of dialogues, the descriptions – when they appear – gain some weight. In the first chapter, for example, there is a very long passage – by the book’s standards – describing the disposition of certain peoples in a public festival, which tells us a lot about the racial grievances of that world:

“Elves stayed with elves. Dwarfish craftsmen gathered with their kin, who were often hired to protect the merchant caravans and were armed to the teeth. Their groups tolerated at best the gnome miners and halfling farmers who camped beside them. All non-humans were uniformly distant towards humans. The humans repaid in kind, but were not seen to mix amongst themselves either. Nobility looked down on the merchants and travelling salesmen with open scorn, while soldiers and mercenaries distanced themselves from shepherds and their reeking sheepskins. The few wizards and their disciples kept themselves entirely apart from the others, and bestowed their arrogance on everyone in equal parts. A tight-knit, dark and silent group of peasants lurked in the background. Resembling a forest with their Resembling a forest with their rakes, pitchforks and flails poking above their heads, they were ignored by all and sundry The exception, as ever, was the children.”

The novel further addresses these issues by placing a group of elven rebels near Ciri, who never thinks ill of them because of their race. After all, the closing sentence of the aforementioned passage already hints at how she will look at these issues with different – and better – eyes.

It’s a pity, therefore, to attest that the Blood of the Elves’s story never really concludes. The book may end, but the characters’ narrative arcs are still open, the villains are still colluding, and the novel’s central theme is still being developed. In short, the novel seems to tell only half of a story. Its climax, for example, never functions like one, since it mainly involves a secondary plot and supporting characters.

Also noticeable are the author’s difficulties in adapting his style of narrative to a novel. Some of the book’s chapters end and start abruptly, as if Sapkowski was still treating them as isolated tales. The problem is that Blood of Elves is a novel, not a collection of short stories, which makes the book’s structure feel disjointed. The worst offender is certainly the transition to the fifth chapter, which suppresses the conclusion of the previous one and also suddenly shifts the focus from Ciri to Geralt.

In the end, Blood of the Elves shows potential, but doesn’t capitalize on it. Andrej Sapkowski skillfully develops his characters and their relationships, but, by postponing the conclusion, leaves the narrative without a real climax.

August 13, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on May 17, 2015.