‘The Witcher’: Why Don’t Elves with Elder Blood Exist?

Elves are a dying race in The Witcher, banished by humans to the edge of the world. Their last hope is a child with Elder Blood who can save the race from annihilation. In the show, that child is Ciri, and she isn’t very fond of elves so far. The last known elf-carrier of Elder Blood was Ciri’s ancestor Lara Dorren, but she betrayed the race by marrying a human. So, fans wonder whether the elves could have had more carriers of Elder Blood apart from Lara Dorren.

While the elves created Elder Blood after years of experimenting, there is no record of any other elf having it before or after Lara Dorren. Lara Dorren was the peak of these experiments because she could portal between different worlds with no need for portals, something elves had sought for years. It took centuries of breeding elves with magical powers to get a person with Dorren’s abilities, which is why she was irreplaceable.

Lara Dorren was actually Aen Elle (Elves that live in the other world), but her powers meant she could save both species of elves from the dreaded White Frost. It is unclear whether the elven mages that created Elder Blood (Aen Saevherne) continued their experiments after Dorren ‘betrayed’ the race. Elves still had the ingredients for recreating Elder Blood, though, so let’s look at how more Elder Blood carriers could exist in the race.

Where did Elder Blood come from?

Elves needed magical powers to enable them to conquer other worlds whenever they wanted to avoid the race’s extinction as a result of White Frost, which engulfed their original home.

A group of powerful Sages known as Aen Saevherne of the Alder Folk (Aen Elle) started experimenting with genes of different elves with multiple powers.

They interbred elves with magic to create even more powerful offsprings whose powers continued to increase with centuries of interbreeding.

It is not clear how long it took for them to finally get to Lara Dorren, but she was the ultimate mage the sages were looking for.

Her magical powers had the unlimited ability to portal between dimensions and even time, and she didn’t need portals.

Unlike the Red Riders, whose ability to portal between worlds is limited, Dorren could move unhindered across different dimensions, which is how she made her way to the continent.

She was supposed to marry an elven mage and potentially create even more powerful elf offspring with Elder Blood.

Lara instead married a human sorcerer called Cregnan of Lod, effectively denying the elves of their last hope for surviving The White Frost.

The fallout from Lara Dorren and Cregnan of Lod’s union was catastrophic for both of them as they were both shunned by their races.

Aen Elle tried to remedy the situation by kidnapping children they believed to be Lara’s descendants on the continent, but there is no record that they found any.

Does anyone else have Elder Blood apart from Ciri?

There is no record of any other descendant of Lara Dorren apart from Ciri, although it is possible that Amavet’s son Crispin survived, which could lead to other descendants.

Ciri, however, possesses a special combination of the Elder Blood genes because she is a descendant of both Fiona and Amavet (Lara Dorren’s grandchildren).

Fiona had the potent part of the Elder Blood known as the Latent Gene, while Amavet had the inactive gene called the Activator gene.

Both genes combined when Ciri’s great-grandfather, King Dagorad of Cintra, married Amavet’s granddaughter, Adalia, who had the activator gene inherited from Amavet.

That combination of genes is what makes Ciri’s Elder Blood so special because she can harness innate magical powers that no one else has ever done before.

However, for Ciri’s Elder Blood to achieve its full potential, she has to learn to control it and use it without blowing things up.

Some carriers of Elder Blood, such as Ciri’s mother, Pavetta, have been known to lose control of their powers and cause destruction.

The huge potential of destruction by carriers of Elder Blood led some Elves to describe it as a curse, which is why some elves don’t like Ciri.

Can Elves recreate Elder Blood?

With enough elven mages of reproductive age, it is probably possible to recreate Elder Blood, especially if the technology used by Aen Saevherne can be replicated.

However, it is a herculean task since both Elder Blood and the technology used to create it don’t originate from The Continent.

The knowledge of how to create Elder Blood is rare because the experiments were conducted by Aen Saevherne (the knowing ones) from the Aen Elle species of elves.

Therefore, Aen Seidhe (the elves on The Continent) don’t have the technology to create Elder Blood since the only known Elven carrier of Elder Blood, Lara Dorren, was an Aen Elle Elf that portaled onto The Continent.

It also took centuries of interbreeding elves with magical capabilities for Lara Dorren to be born, and the elves on the continent just don’t have that luxury because time is not on their side.

Their fertility rate has also dwindled significantly, as have their structures of leadership, including their Aen Saevherne.

With no technology, mages to interbreed, and time to conduct the experiments, elves’ recreating Elder Blood on The Continent is impossible.

Lara Dorren interbreeding with a fellow elf was their only for multiplying and spreading the gene.

The only viable path now is through Ciri interbreeding with an Elf, which is why both species of elves are desperately looking for her.