So.
Calanthe.
I've been avoiding Ciri's plotline and everyone related to it because it's spread across episodes more awkwardly, but the fourth episode is the center of Calanthe's character, so it's a good time to think about her. There's also the question of what the best way to present the information is - do we consider her chronologically, or in the order we're given information? While actually following the flow of time is by far less confusing, the order we're given information is, narratively, the more important one, so I'm going to make an attempt at the latter.
In that case, the earliest information we have is of Calanthe at the end of her reign.
Calanthe is being a calm and almost boring queen.
"As your queen, I grant you this commendation, which will symbolize your duty and bond as liegemen in fealty to the crown of Cintra."
Ciri was playing with other kids in disguise and gets dragged off and crammed into proper princess wear to stand around for this. Eist is also there but muttering jokes and carrying on a conversation with her.
"As members of the royal family, is it too much to ask that you exercise a modicum of respect?"
And Calanthe is the one shutting this down.
So Calanthe is a proper sort of queen.
When next we see her, it's at a party. People are dancing and not like, dramatic intrigue ballroom dancing either, just generally having fun.
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Again: kind of boring! They're just all sitting there, chatting. We find out the new guy at the table can do magic but it's "Tricks and illusions to delight." so nothing really spectacular. The king is hoping to just slink off because he's bored, which, okay.
Eist: "I saw the Wraiths of Mörhogg over the channel this morning."
Calanthe: "Yes, you mentioned."
Cirilla: "Who?"
Eist: "No good will come of it. They're an omen of war."
Calanthe: "The North has been at war since Nilfgaard took Ebbing. If legend is true, the Wild Hunt's years behind the curve."
Eist: "The Nilfgaardian force crossed the Amell Pass."
Calanthe: "Headed to Sodden, if they're smart. And if not, 50 of your Skelligen ships are on the way. We have more knights. We are prepared in case--"
Eist wants to talk about spooky omens and an army and war, and Calanthe is just eh, no big deal, it's probably nothing, if we absolutely have to I've done the reasonable and levelheaded thing of preparing for it, and anyway my preparations are exactly why they'll know to leave us be, look they're obviously going somewhere else... Good lord what a boring lady who doesn't want to do anything interesting.
Cirilla continues to try to be included in the conversation...
Cirilla: "Prepared for what?"
Calanthe: "Nothing for you to be concerned about."
And Calanthe continues to not have it.
Eist: "Should we fall to Nilfgaard, your granddaughter will rule. She needs to understand the way of things."
Calanthe: "We will not fall, because we are not under attack! She's a child."
Cirilla: "You won your first battle in Hochebuz when you were my age. I've heard the ballad."
Eist: "Pretty ballads hide bastard truths."
Cirilla: "It's a catchy song."
Calanthe: (swallows, blinks rapidly while staring straight ahead) "Three thousand of my men died."
So, it would seem Calanthe is someone who inherited war. She had no choice in it, she regrets what happened, and she's done her best to steer clear of it whenever possible. Cirilla is thirteen at this point according to the official timeline - Calanthe was winning a battle, one big enough that three thousand people died, at age thirteen. A boy comes up asking to dance with Cirilla and the girl is shoved away to dance, making it clear Calanthe does not think her granddaughter should have any involvement in this. Of course someone thrown against her will into battle at a young age would want to protect Cirilla from the same, and likely hate the very idea.
And this would appear to be backed up by the conversation shortly afterward.
Eist: "Reminds me of your daughter's betrothal feast. The night you finally saw sense, said yes. Made me the happiest man on the Continent."
Calanthe: "I did it to save my kingdom."
Now, she does smile, so it evidently wasn't the greatest sacrifice ever, but this is hammering in that Calanthe prefers preparation and diplomacy and allies over conflict. Eist is apparently the warmonger, which is further implied by the fact she says the ships coming are specifically his.
Man: "Your Majesty, my scouts have returned. Nilfgaard is on its way to Cintra."
Calanthe: "I stand corrected."
And it's not that she doesn't want to talk about war because she was just irrationally certain it wouldn't happen. Faced with actual evidence, she immediately agrees with it. She looks terribly upset by this.
Eist: "You should tell the girl."
Calanthe: "Let her enjoy this night in peace. It may be her last for a while."
So, fine, we have a female ruler who's competent and all but ugh, so bland and also disappointingly not into violence, wanting to avoid it herself and keep it from her kid.
(Also, over on Geralt's side, we have Renfri talk of it being specifically Queen Calanthe who won the Hochebuz battle, not Princess Calanthe running part of the war under her parents' direction. Really points to Calanthe being thrust into this early against her will and getting out of it as soon as possible.)
When next we see them, Calanthe has very grudgingly shown up for battle. It's clear she wishes this wasn't happening but, well, here we are.
The resulting battle is...unpleasant. Brutal. The scene we get backs up Calanthe thinking war sucks. The only slight hint there's anything more to it is that as the battle progresses, Eist starts shouting they're doomed and Calanthe says they'll fight anyway, followed by Eist dying and Calanthe not, but it's mostly down to chance. And by the time we return to the castle, Calanthe's severely injured or dying herself.
She continues to be a responsible queen, asking how many people are safe in the castle, if they have enough "supplies". She tries to comfort Cirilla, who is not nearly stupid enough to believe things are actually okay.
Cirilla: "Why are you saying all this? Are you dying?"
Calanthe: "My sweet child, when I go, it will be far more dramatic than this."
This is our first real clue there's more to Calanthe than just responsibility.
Calanthe: "Mousesack. He's in the gatekeep."
Mousesack: "Destiny may yet side with us."
And then there's this weird exchange, but, while unexplained, seems in keeping with Calanthe being a levelheaded and rational person prone to extensive planning.
Calanthe: "Lesson number two. Know when it's time to stop moving."
Cirilla: "You're conceding."
Calanthe: "Nilfgaard takes no prisoners. Which means that right now, my citizens are being tortured. Their insides are being pulled to their outsides while they watch. Their legs lit on fire. Their tongues fed to the dogs."
...
Calanthe: "In the face of the inevitable, Cirilla, good leaders should always choose mercy. In the future, you will be wise to do the same."
WELL THAT GOT DARK. And it's framed around moral behavior - she defines leaders as needing to be merciful. That fits with what we know of her character so far - someone who goes to war only when necessary, and hopes to avoid it until the last.
We discover that when she said "supplies" she didn't mean for a seige, she meant for mass suicide. Still her being very practical, just that we now see the lengths she's willing to go.
She attempts to give Cirilla a pep talk and then tells Cirilla to find some "Geralt" dude who is "her destiny" whatever that means. She and Mousesack discuss the fact that Cirilla's screaming actually made things move, yet another thing she has taken extremely calmly.
Calanthe: "Mousesack. Your service...has been an honor to us all."
Mousesack: "As has yours. Your Majesty."
So in conclusion: Calanthe. Started off pretty boring, managed to spice up being a extremely reasonable and calm individual who makes totally rational decisions and has no interest in bloodshed by continuing to be calm and competent as everything falls to pieces and she's staring down her own death and passing out suicide potions. An okay character, gets a few extra points for being female and for being a monarch who cares about her people, then a bunch more for the novelty of suicide as a solution. (Personally a bit less impressed that she seems to only care about the nobles having a quiet death since we see their servants being cut down, but that's pretty typical for these kinds of narratives and probably doesn't mean anything.) Also, she throws herself out of the window rather than take one of the limited death potions, so, good for her!
Episode 2:
Cirilla: "This food was provided by the queen."
Woman: "May she rot in hell."
Well! That sure is a surprising direction we're going.
While Cirilla is similarly baffled, a boy comes up to her who sees she's well-dressed and therefore someone worth bringing home to Mother.
And he has his own accessory, a necklace, to show he's worth her time: "They're elf ears. I killed them all. Doing my part to avenge human lives lost in Filavandrel's uprising."
Cirilla: "Filavandrel?"
Boy: "The elves call him 'King.' Last year, he tried to claim Cintran land. My brother got an arrow in the brain. Every day, I make sure his death's not in vain."
So, the elves are trying to conquer Cintra, and Cirilla's never even heard about it. Perhaps the woman has good reason to hate the queen, and perhaps Calanthe went too far with the whole avoiding war at all costs thing. Maybe that's why they're such easy prey to Nilfgaard now.
...odd, though, to call an invasion an "uprising".
Boy: "Our father just died."
Mother: "Fighting to defend that wretched bitch and her wretched family."
Boy: "Mother, stop. It wasn't Queen Calanthe's fault. Nilfgaard only got past Cintran borders because of elven spies."
Other boy: "Technically, it was the elves' land first."
Boy: "Our brother died for that land."
Mother: "And your father died for Calanthe's selfishness. One conflict after another. Robbing us of our homes, our men, and our lives."
So the plot continues to thicken. Calanthe is being blamed for her bad handling of the current affair and accused of selfishly trying to protect her own family, and we've also got a reference to the fact the elves were trying to retake the area, rather than invade - and the sort of person furious about that is the same sort to cut parts off a body for trophies. "One conflict after another" makes it sound like this and the elven uprising were far from the only wars she had her people fighting, as well.
Mother: "To order and dignity. Oh, child. Your shoes. Let's get you a fresh pair, why don't we?"
Cirilla: "That'd be wonderful. Thank you."
Mother: "Abbott."
And she calls over a short man who's presumably either a gnome or a dwarf to sacrifice his shoes. When Cirilla freezes up, the woman reassures her: "Don't worry. He's one of the clean ones."
So. Cintra took this land from elves - we know it was specifically through genocide because that's clarified in the other two storylines this episode. They have other nonhumans as servants/outright slaves. Cirilla was raised ignorant of both these facts.
While we don't know for sure why the Cintrans hate Calanthe, there's a possible connection between the fact the woman vocally condemning her is astoundingly racist while Cirilla appears to just now be discovering the very concept of racism. In comparison, we don't see anyone in the previous episode actually saying Calanthe's making tactical mistakes - she's wrong that Nilfgaard will pass them by, but she spent the episode doing everything she could to prepare for a possible attack either way, and none of the people around her suggest doing anything differently, the debate is just if they should be in panic mode now or not. And the nobles within the castle appear to have a great deal of faith in Calanthe, first that she'll win the battle and then that, if she thinks suicide is their best option, she's right. They're also the people interacting with Cirilla, which suggests they may have been her supporters in the whole "maybe less genocide and slavery" idea.
Alright, so that's a bit more depth to Calanthe. She was a reasonable person trying to run a country of assholes.
Also, I think it's very interesting that you've got the son of someone racist who hates Calanthe saying, "Technically, it was the elves' land first." as if it's known fact and even his brother with his string of elf ears can't actually contradict it, just say he doesn't care. In Geralt and Jaskier's side of things, Jaskier is prattling away about the elves gifting land and living in palaces, and is utterly outraged by the idea of elves taking anything because that's like a rich person rescinding the gift to a poor one. It's possible that's simply down to the fact the elves are openly fighting in the present day and so people are more aware of their grievances, but it seems it'd be easy to suppress that sort of information and insist this has always been human land that the elves are trying to steal. That suggests Calanthe actually threw her weight behind people learning the true history.
Because you see, if Calanthe wants to suppress information? She absolutely can.
Cirilla: "I'm looking for...for Geralt of Rivia. Do you know him?"
Mother: "Afraid I don't. He's a knight?"
Now, we don't know yet why it's particularly strange for someone in Cintra of all places not to know this name. But we know at the start of this episode Geralt is infamous as the Butcher of Blaviken, and we know by the end of the episode that Jaskier has said he's going to make Geralt famous by singing all sorts of songs about him, so it's starting to be a bit odd.
We get a bit of indirect context in the third episode: Cintra hates the Brotherhood of Sorcerers for reasons they don't seem to understand: "King Dagorad has banned mages from Cintra, God knows why." They suggest that Cintra might be using "druids" or "fortune tellers" in place of that, though it seems mostly so they can mock those groups, and it's not clear if King Dagorad actually considers those non-mages and acceptable or if he just wants nothing to do with any magic user.
Stregobor: "I've heard rumors he's taken ill. Now, if the king dies, perhaps his heiress will be more pliable. Princess..."
Tissaia: "Calanthe? Good luck with that. Word is she's even more stubborn than her father is."
We don't know how long Dagorad was ill. If it was brief, then Calanthe could be thirteen at this point, otherwise she's even younger. Despite her age she's apparently already established as so hellishly stubborn in her beliefs that a massive conspiracy of ageless mages has no hope of swaying her. Jeeze.
"Oh, we'd be spitting in Dagorad's face if we send Yennefer to their biggest trade partner. The only thing Cintra hates more than mages is...elves."
So in the farthest past with Calanthe, we're told Cintra loathes mages, that Calanthe is not going to be an exception, and then that they hate elves even more.
But then again, there's other reasons to be saying that and the Brotherhood doesn't even have a clue why Cintra hates them, so who knows if this is an accurate judgement of Calanthe's character in particular? Certainly Mousesack doesn't seem much different than any other magic user, and Calanthe seems to have no problem with him.
And so we move to the fourth episode.
We'll start with Mousesack's summary of the situation:
"These suitors will vie all night for Princess Pavetta's hand."
So, at least officially, Calanthe thinks the best way to marry her daughter is for the men to show off. That's not really the best way of doing it, but Mousesack quickly clarifies that the vying is futile because Calanthe actually made the decision based on what's best for the country, because she continues to be a good, diplomacy-focused queen.
"Marrying into this monarchy is a mighty prize. Who wouldn't want to be king of the most powerful force in the land?"
We see Cintra fall in the first episode, and the second episode has people shouting about what a bad queen Calanthe was, but here we're getting a different picture. Cintra under Calanthe, at this point in time, is the dominant power in the area. We don't know how true that was by the first episode, but it's implied to still be relatively true by Calanthe saying that the smart thing for Nilfgaard to do is attack the weaker Sodden instead of them.
"That red-headed scanderlout over there, Crach an Craite, will marry Pavetta. The Lioness has already arranged it with the boy's uncle, Eist Tuirseach. No one would dare make a move on an alliance that powerful."
So not only is Cintra the most powerful country, and they're going to ally with either the next most powerful or with someone whose ability complements theirs (we know back in the future of the first episode, Eist is offering ships, so the most likely guess would be that Cintra's the dominant force on land and this will let them lock up the sea).
So, why do the nobles in the second episode think Calanthe is a terrible queen who loses all the time and is bleeding their country dry? She went from military victories at a very young age to strong diplomacy in her middle age leading to Cintra being the dominant power, then she only furthered that power by marrying her daughter into the best alliance they could get.
Geralt: "Handy with women, too."
Mousesack: "All an act. Queen Calanthe refused his proposal three times after King Roegner died, despite the two of them gliding around each other like courting swans. No, no, no. She was not for living in her husband's shadow again."
One piece I think is getting overlooked in everything else is that, while Calanthe is making a practical choice in the alliance, it actually is one that favors Pavetta as well.
We don't know much about Calanthe's marriage, but it doesn't sound particularly happy.
The official timeline has some definite problems with the more minor characters, but:
Cirilla is 13 in the present, and that's how old Calanthe was for her first battle.
Renfri dies in 1231, saying that it's when Calanthe won her first battle, so Calanthe is 13. (She'd be born in 1218 going by that.)
The betrothal party takes place in 1249, which would make Calanthe 31. And Pavetta is 15. Meaning Calanthe had her at 16 and so was most likely pregnant at 15, so she was married at 15 or possibly 14. And while there's various reasons someone might have only one child, a teenager geting pressured into sex by her brand-new husband she didn't have a choice in marrying and then refusing him as soon as she gets enough power to do so seems entirely too much of a possibility here.
Calanthe is marrying her kid off at either the same age she was married off at or maybe a year later, and that didn't go great for her, but in this case, Calanthe has Pavetta's intended husband by the balls. Calanthe is still alive and very much not giving up the throne anytime soon, he's marrying into the stronger country, and the kid's uncle is besotted with her.
(...we'll also find out she has an additional reason why she needs to get Pavetta married off right now, and that otherwise she may have been fine waiting longer.)
What a smart and reasonable woman who is doing a great job levering her diplomatic power to handle her country.
"Her Majesty, the Lioness, Queen Calanthe of Cintra!"
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Huh, I don't remember one giant throne from before...
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Oh. That's why everyone kept calling her a lioness.
It wasn't just some mixture of flattery or that she had any presence on the battlefield despite being a woman.
"Apologies, noble sirs. A few upstart townships in the south needed reminding who was Queen. I find it's good for one's blood and humors."
It was that, like a lioness, she enjoys reducing others to giblets.
This wasn't even aimed at another country. This is something she did to her own people. They did something - possibly not even all that much given they're "upstarts", and now she's covered in blood and gloating about it.
That sure does recontextualize things, doesn't it.
"Ready your suitor's tales of glory, good lords. My daughter is eager to have this over with. As am I."
...so...the party...which is secretly a foregone conclusion...is also something neither of them even want?
"Bard, music!"
Also, I would put money on Calanthe having no clue who Jaskier is. She told people to hire some bard for this bullshit party she had to have. The only question is if one of the people actually involved in the decision had some reason to pick Jaskier - did they think Calanthe would appreciate songs about a witcher, or songs about murdering elves? Did they make the more accurate assumption that Calanthe was unlikely to care much, and they personally liked Jaskier, so they hired him? Were they aware of Jaskier's reputation and hoping they could get Calanthe through one goddamn party, just one, without her killing someone if she was entertained by watching someone else pull a sword on Jaskier and chase him around?
We don't know. What we do know is that Jaskier gets as far as singing the single word "She" before Calanthe cuts him off.
"No, no, no! A jig! You can save your bloody maudlin nonsense for my funeral."
She may have just been reacting to the fact it sounded slower than she wanted, but "she" + "my funeral" + Cirilla's first episode comment about having heard the ballad about her grandmother's victory make me suspect Jaskier was trying to flatter her by singing about one of her battles. We don't know if 31-year-old Calanthe feels the same way about it as 45-year-old Calanthe, but... Three thousand people is a lot, and even more for the timeperiod and size of her country. Even if she's precisely as gleeful at killing opponents as she seems, it doesn't sound like the battle went all that well for her. It was also her first battle and she was thirteen, so it's unlikely she did anywhere near as well as she would as an adult.
Calanthe approaches Pavetta, who's on the verge of crying.
Calanthe: "It will be done soon. You think I wanted to marry your father? I'll have none of your waterworks here. You're the daughter of the Lioness, behave like it!"
We now have Calanthe herself saying her husband sucked, because it's pretty noticeable she did not continue the sentence with, "But then things improved." Now, no one's muttered anything about her murdering the guy, so I think we can assume he wasn't an all-around terrible person, but yeah, marriage wasn't great for her.
Pavetta is introduced to us on the verge of tears and that's contrasted with her far more forceful mother, so you'd expect Pavetta to be some shrinking violet...
Pavetta: "Perhaps I should have some starving serfs brought in to slaughter, then. Or I could decapitate some elves and have their heads hung about as a lesson to those who would defy me."
But like Calanthe, Pavetta has more to her than that.
And now we have context for more of what we see from the Cintran refugees. Calanthe didn't just inherit a racist country, and at least in Pavetta's opinion, she's not doing a great job running Cintra either. Pavetta's implying that those "few upstart townships in the south" were doing it because Calanthe pushed them to the breaking point first. Calanthe may be using the elves as a way of flexing her power - she can't slaughter humans without any reason at all but she can make a show of what she can do and get across that she's just waiting for an excuse to do it to you, so best to behave so as not to be targeted. She may also be using the elves as scapegoats for when people go hungry, though if so, she's not pulling it off well if she's still got "upstart townships".
Why, in the present, does Cirilla run into incredibly racist Cintrans? Well, it can't have helped that past-Calanthe likely killed a lot of the ones who weren't.
And yet, look at how Pavetta talks about this. The Brotherhood of Sorcerers say "Cintra" absolutely loathes elves, and certainly, they must've hated them enough to kill them off and take their land. But Pavetta is portraying what Calanthe does as a cynical show of power and/or for personal enjoyment. The elves are being killed "as a lesson to those who would defy [her]" and not "because they're evil" or even "because she hates them". It's possible Pavetta came to this conclusion all on her own, but Calanthe doesn't dispute what she's saying by saying that elves and serfs are shifty bastards, just says she shouldn't be upset about it. Calanthe either never bought into the prejudice herself and just used it as another way to keep power, or she realized better very early on, and she raised Pavetta knowing it.
The consequences for Pavetta saying this to the genocidal lioness who solves all her problems by stabbing people and laughing about it to other people is...
"I will not have your hysteria turn this night upside down."
For whatever reason, Calanthe has not been responding to her daughter objecting to how Calanthe runs the country by beating her bloody, shoving a sword in her hand, and then kicking her onto the battlefield. The relationship between them is awful but Calanthe cares about her. In fact, she's pretty much the only thing Calanthe cares about - she isn't mourning her dead husband, she's fine starving and/or killing her own citizens, and she will at least act unconcerned about her soldiers dying in the upcoming fight or the looming threat of Destiny over her whole country.
"Besides, that boorish lout is the key to Cintra holding power after I taste clay."
Calanthe's present behavior casts doubt on whether or not that battle she had at thirteen was actually necessary or only seemed like a good idea because she was thirteen and just crowned with no one to stop her, but it's clear battlefield prowess and terrorizing her own people is how Calanthe thinks you keep power. She might hope Pavetta will come around to her way of thinking, but in the meantime, she needs someone around who understands the value of killing and picking fights so you'll have an excuse for more killing and look, there's a boorish lout with good connections to lots more boorish louts in lots of boats.
Calanthe: "He's from good stock. You could do worse."
Pavetta: "I could do better!"
It's easy to assume Pavetta matches what you'd stereotypically expect from a sad princess getting married off to a boorish lout, but Pavetta isn't actually upset at the idea of marriage. Her assertion here is stronger than just that it's not fair to expect her to settle for such a bad husband, and it's our first real hint that there's something else going on here. Pavetta is already in a relationship and is facing down the very real possibility that she's about to see her lover murdered. Under the circumstances, she's holding up quite well.
Calanthe: "You can have who you want when you're married. You have your mother's blood. You'll be fine."
Like I said, Calanthe really has arranged things so that Pavetta is, at least, going into this marriage holding a lot of the cards, and she'll have the support of her mother in every aspect that is not getting to actually pick her own husband.
Anyway, the boorish lout she could do worse than marry proceeds to get into a shouting match with one of the other men about who totally for real killed a manticore and who's bullshitting. See? Good stock. You want a man who knows how to start an unnecessary fight or else you might not have enough fights in your life.
Meanwhile, someone's informing Calanthe of more interesting news:
"Your Majesty, that's Geralt of Rivia."
And what does that mean to Calanthe? Why does the woman think that's the first thing to tell Calanthe about? And is it that Calanthe didn't recognize him, or just that she overlooks him in the crowd?
It's possible that Calanthe is interested solely because she's about to need murdering done. Given how upset Pavetta looks, her mother may have been making pointed comments to the court for the past few weeks about the value of having someone around to murder other, unwanted someones who might show up. So when a good candidate to help out with that arrives, you can guess Calanthe would want it brought to her attention.
It's also possible Calanthe thinks witchers are cool. They kill whatever they want with swords all day long and nobody makes them go to stupid betrothal parties, they only show up if they want to and can leave whenever.
And yet, if she's a fan of witchers, you'd think she'd be a fan of Jaskier's songs, wouldn't you? Yet she demands a lyrics-free jig rather than that he sing a different song, one about witchers. Could her dislike of ballads outweigh any like of witchers?
"Enough!"
I think the most likely thing going on here is simply Calanthe throwing her weight around. She may well find the argument amusing but acting irritated is a way to remind everyone that when she's in the room, they'd better be thinking about her and what she wants.
"We have a renowned guest here tonight. Perhaps he can declare which esteemed lord is telling the truth."
I have no idea if she knows Geralt wants to stay out of it. That would require a very good understanding of Geralt and she's only been aware he's even at this party for about a minute. He's standing quietly off to the side, but that could be for any number of reasons, and given his status, who knows, maybe he desperately wanted a chance to correct these idiots but was politely keeping out of it until one of his betters gave the go-ahead?
Of course, "renowned guest" is getting paired with "esteemed lord" so we can't necessarily take this at face value. When Geralt calls them both liars, Calanthe doesn't back him up and tell the lords to get over themselves.
One of the things that makes the interplay here particularly confusing is that Calanthe will show she doesn't have the best grasp on Geralt's motivations, so it's hard to tell who she's being a dick to here. For all we know, she was trying to liven up a minor battle between two lords by siccing them both on a witcher, assuming he'd leap at the excuse to beat the shit out of some people for questioning him. Or, given it's Calanthe, she could also be well aware that's the last thing a witcher would want and just not care.
"Perhaps our esteemed guest would like to entertain us with how he slayed the elves at the edge of the world?"
What we do know is that when Geralt wiggles out of a fight, Calanthe finds this hilarious and continues to engage him. It seems unlikely she's fishing for another fight here, since everyone seems enthusiastic to hear it. Now, she does seem to like fights and she actually knows about fighting elves, so she could know the song is bullshit and want to see if he'll back up the lie - it is a valid thing to judge Geralt for, if he's calling the lords liars while lying about his own exploits. But I think it's supposed to be a softball. Calanthe has an actual job she needs from him and that means she needs to talk to him more privately. It seems likely she intended to respond to anything that comes out of his mouth next with, "Yeah great, come sit next to me."
Of course, Geralt just says he got beat up and then let go. And that definitely gets Calanthe's attention. She's bellowing with laughter but when Geralt starts in on his version of the story, that goes away and she actually looks serious.
Eist attempts to get her attention by kissing her ass: "It would have been your blade at Filavandrel's throat had you been there, Your Majesty. Not that any elven bastard would crawl from their lair to meet you on the field." Like I mentioned, I feel like he's trying to hint that her concerns he'll be taking over if she marries him are unfounded and that he's completely fine with their introductions being The Lioness of Cintra and some dude's she's fucking. But neither the ass-kissing or the implied please please marry me are enough to switch her attention from Geralt.
"Any man willing to paint himself in the shadow of his failures will make for far more interesting conversation this night."
Now, as I said, she was going to say something to get him up to the table. But given how much goes on every episode, I think this is best taken as her real feelings on the matter.
To return to the first episode, after all...
Cirilla: "It's a catchy song."
Calanthe: "Three thousand of my men died."
It is very unlikely to me that Calanthe truly changed her mind about this. But she can't admit it in the present. Her hold on power, or at least her perception of it, is that she can't even afford to marry a guy shouting to everyone that she's the biggest badass in the room because she thinks that simply by virtue of him being male everyone will decide he calls the shots. She has a massive throne so everyone knows she's in charge. Calanthe doesn't show feelings other than "murderously angry" and "drunkenly entertained" and she berates Pavetta for not keeping herself under similar control.
So I think it really does throw her to have someone say they fucked up. She'll compare herself to Geralt in a minute and witchers do seem, in the broadest of senses, to have some similarities when it comes to needing to worry about public opinion. In the second episode the man says he trusts Geralt to murder the devil because he's the Butcher, in the opening of this one the man says they knew they needed the expertise of specifically the White Wolf. Who'd want to hire someone who got their "arse kicked by a ragged band of elves"? And who'd follow that up, to an audience wanting to hear about how elves are scum, with, "Filavandrel let me go"?
And we follow shortly with,
Dara: "Your grandmother slaughtered my family!"
Cirilla: "No, that's not true."
Dara: "She ordered it. After Filavandrel's uprising--"
Cirilla: "She wouldn't do that."
Dara: "Her soldiers...they laughed when they did it. Killing, raping... They laughed the hardest when they were swinging babies from their legs, smashing their heads in. I was the only one left. Because I hid."
So now we have more or less the whole of it.
The Brotherhood says, "The only thing Cintra hates more than mages is...elves." Pavetta describes acting like her mother as, "I could decapitate some elves and have their heads hung about as a lesson to those who would defy me." And now Dara says, "Her soldiers...they laughed when they did it."
Cintra, as a whole, hated elves and probably all nonhumans. Calanthe's control of Cintra as queen was tenuous, or at least she feared it was. (And the fact she inherited the throne yet found herself playing second-fiddle to her husband, a man whose only other mention here will be needing a teenager to save his life, would seem to back that up.) Sending her army to wipe out elves to the last child was both a show of power and a people-pleaser.
Also worth mentioning is that Pavetta talks about Calanthe's elf-murdering as an ongoing thing needing no particular reason, but Dara attributes what happened to his family as retaliation rather than just Calanthe hating them. I wonder if Calanthe had considered moving away from running her country through constant purges, only for this to happen and then respond with even greater brutality as a way to turn something that would make people question her rule into something that instead makes them support her even more.
It's easy to understand why Calanthe wouldn't tell Ciri about the details Dara's giving, but Ciri wasn't fed the sanitized version where the Cintran army defended everyone from evil elves. She didn't even know the uprising happened. It's also interesting that every other time we've seen or referenced the Cintran army, Calanthe was leading it personally. Here, Dara doesn't say she was taking part or even that she was there. She gave the orders - he's completely right to say she's the one to blame - but for the only time, she isn't in the thick of things herself. We're not shown or even told she was delighted/pretending to be delighted on the field.
(Ciri notes that she's been isolated and protected her whole life, and assumes this has to do with her mysterious destiny. While that's certainly part of it, it seems like Calanthe was doing far more than just trying to keep Geralt away.)
Back to the banquet and the Calanthe of then, we even have her complaining she'd rather stay in armor. Personal violence, smashing heads herself and laughing as she does it is who Calanthe is.
She tells Geralt she'll need him because there's going to be some rare violence that, sadly, she will not be able to partake in.
Geralt: "I'm not for hire as a bodyguard."
Calanthe: "You were hired just so by the bard."
Geralt: "I'm helping the idiot free of his coin."
Calanthe: "And he's the idiot?"
While one may question Geralt's chain of reasoning here, let's keep in mind Calanthe's own emotional issues. She absolutely cares about her daughter, and she's expressed this by telling the girl to stop being so teary-eyed just because Calanthe is going to murder her lover in front of her before marrying her off. Mousesack also states that she's just as interested in Eist as he is in her but won't admit to it.
Calanthe, in other words, would absolutely demand to be paid. She would probably demand double just to make it really, really clear how she was only doing this because of that and it had nothing to do with being any sort of pushover who has feelings.
"I'd do so myself, only I'm bound to uphold an artifice of decorum and... fairness."
We'll shortly see her idea of "decorum and... fairness" will be ordering her soldiers to kill someone, then when they don't do it fast enough, yanking the sword from someone's hand and wading in to do it herself.
I wonder if, getting back to the emotional aspect, she understands that what she's about to do to her daughter is horrible enough without her being the one to personally kill him, and that's part of why she's trying to do it by a proxy.
Mind you, she's still discussing her plans to murder her daughter's lover with her daughter sitting to her other side.
Geralt: "Hey. I can't help you."
Calanthe: "So perilously direct. As Queen, I could command it."
Geralt: "If I were one of your subjects."
Calanthe: "I could torture you so very slowly into compliance."
Geralt: "Her Majesty will do as she wishes. I'm not for turning."
So, Geralt's reaction from here on was definitely weird, but Calanthe's hard to read because when she's furious but not able to immediately stab, she's pretty breathy. The only thing that points to this not just being sheer incandescent rage is that she's also able to keep up the conversation pretty civilly after this point.
Does Calanthe like being refused? Probably not. (More on that when we talk about Eist.) Do people normally refuse her? Definitely not. Is she planning to respect that no? Even more absolutely not. Does she think Geralt even means it?
Calanthe: "Oh, come now. Everyone has their price."
Quite possibly she thinks he's just trying to posture about how he doesn't take orders, or perhaps bargain for a bigger price. If that's the light this conversation is taking place in, it makes her other statements marginally less totally evil - she's not necessarily threatening to do this for him refusing, she's trying to head off him asking for something enormous by saying well maybe she doesn't have to pay at all so keep that in mind while we dicker over price.
And now it's time for the suitors. Lord Peregrine of Nilfgaard, who are still a joke country this far into the timeline, attempts to introduce himself and gets interrupted twice by one of the other groups.
"Make another sound, Draig Bon-Dhu, and I'll have your guts sewn into pipes and sent to your mother."
So Calanthe is at least willing to treat them with respect and -
"Cintra is indeed the jewel of the north, yet Nilfgaard remains the shit rag of the south, and that's saying something! Tell me, is it true you drink piss water and feast on your own young?"
Or not!
I mentioned back when she interrupted the manticore argument that I suspect Calanthe might act annoyed as an excuse to throw her weight around, and may have only objected to the SUDDENLY BAGPIPES interruption for that reason.
That said, it's quite possible she was entirely willing to be polite until the guy spoke.
See, for some reason, Peregrine thinks the best pitch he can make is that he'll do a good job of putting many boy baby heirs in her precious daughter. This isn't just your regular misogyny, he's saying this to a ruling queen who has a single daughter as an heir. Either it's an attempt to neg his way into the marriage or he's so far up his own ass that he thinks Calanthe already agrees with him that she's awful for failing at her one job and so will love to hear that his balls will be able to keep Pavetta from a similar fate of bearing worthless daughters.
Pavetta gives her mother such a look of outrage, too. (Another clue there's more to this than just a timid girl anxious about getting married off.) This fits with the idea Calanthe wanted Pavetta as her heir, possibly to the point of intentionally not having further children. It's noteworthy there's not even any mention by anyone else at the party that Pavetta is a disappointment to Calanthe, which is especially strange when she and her mother seem so different.
(And while this is initially just a WTF moment, we're about to jump scenes to another queen lamenting that her husband hates that all her children have been girls, followed by the discovery her husband has decided to kill her for it. And as that's Yennfer's side of the plot, it takes place before this - going by the timeline, Pavetta would've been six and Calanthe twenty-two at the time. So they know what happened to Queen Kalis, and given how easily everyone involved accepted that's what was happening, they're likely aware of other times men have done terrible things to their wives over them not producing a son. So it's not just that Peregrine is saying to a woman about her daughter that only male children are of any value, there's also the element that Peregrine is indicating he thinks so little of Pavetta that he believes even her own mother wouldn't care about the fact he's advertising himself as unsafe in this way.)
We return from powerless Queen Kalis to find Calanthe lamenting not always being able to throw her weight around.
"How much more of this peacocking must I endure? This... All this because male tradition demands it. If I were a man, I could simply tell the whole lot of them to fuck off, declare outright who Pavetta should marry and have done with it."
I'd like to take a moment to highlight how Calanthe first says this is a "male tradition", ie, this is how kings are expected do it, followed by that if she was king, she wouldn't have to. It's not that women run betrothal parties to marry off their kids and men make pronouncements. It's that men are allowed leeway to break from tradition.
Let's return again to Calanthe's husband. He has exactly two known traits: she was in his shadow, and he needed his life saved by somebody. How was this person able to overshadow Calanthe, daughter of the previous king who singlehandedly ran the country and won battles at thirteen? Because they're judged by a different metric. Because he was a king even if he did nothing beyond being one, while Calanthe, as a queen, has to do a lot more for a lot less. (Or, even if people might accept something different, it's an unknown and a risk she doesn't want to take.)
"Or, better yet, let the poor girl decide her own fate."
So, probably Calanthe is grumbling for the sake of grumbling, but I do wonder if she sees this marriage as more of a necessity than it would be if she was a king.
We know that at the end of the night when Pavetta doesn't play along with the betrothal narrative, Eist preemptively threatens anyone who might object ("React poorly, and you won't just face the Lioness, you will be facing the sea hounds of Skellige.") suggesting that not marrying Pavetta off to the right person in the right way, even after Calanthe made every effort to force that to happen, is still something people could claim offense over and result in outright war. And we know when he reminds her of it in the first episode, she says, "I did it to save my kingdom." The consequences for letting Pavetta pick are more than just not getting the right alliance. And Calanthe may have similar concerns about how willing people will be to respect the succession of power from old queen to new queen.
That said...
"Something tells me this isn't the first time you've navigated the vagaries of male tradition. In fact, I'd wager you thrive on it."
Is there a reason why as a queen, Calanthe might feel she needs to regularly kill large numbers of people to keep her rule? Yes. Does Calanthe enjoy it? Also very much a yes.
This is, murder aside, actually a very reasonable ground for a female character, and yet one we get surprisngly little of. If a society is broadly misogynist and a few women are succeeding despite that, you're going to mostly see the ones who are good at handling it, and people generally like things they're good at/are good at things they like. But that does not mean they like every aspect of it, or that they can't still resent that they're being held to a different standard. Perhaps King Calanthe would've done exactly the same things, but in his case, he'd have had the choice.
Would King Calanthe have this party? Well, Queen Calanthe keeps complaining, but it's hard to be sure she actually hates it because, like Pavetta, she's really worried about the coming interruption of the party, and that makes the entire affair more miserable. Also, Mousesack describes Eist and Calanthe as acting like they're not as into each other as they are, so I suspect she'd never admit to liking anything that Eist shows up to. But that she has other reasons to say she hates parties doesn't mean she likes parties.
"Spoken as one who has navigated his own share of fools. Tell me, Witcher, why are there so few of you left?"
It's hard to be certain given she has something she needs from Geralt, but Calanthe really does seem to genuinely like, or at least have an interest in, Geralt/witchers as a whole. This won't be the only time she draws a comparison between them. There's a couple possible angles for this. One is simply that she likes the romance of being a lone stabby wolf, since Calanthe appears to excel at violence but complain about other aspects of ruling. Another is that, like her, he's not exactly a "man", so this could be a gesture of solidarity - Geralt just had to navigate some vagaries of male tradition in that manticore argument, after all. And a third is actually somewhat taking this at face value, that she respects his ability to handle things diplomatically. As forceful as Calanthe has been, we haven't actually seen her blunder at this point in time. When she pushes people, it works and everyone else claps, and even in the later period when Cirilla's meeting refugees who hate her grandmother, she seemed to have all the nobles under her roof completely in hand. (And she certainly managed to keep Cirilla from hearing anything she disapproved of.)
(The question also establishes a certain floor on how interested she is in witchers - she knows some things (and that's probably not super common knowledge, because Jaskier's conversation with Geralt strongly implies he doesn't know witchers are dying out or really anything much about them) but hasn't been hunting down every scrap of information about them.)
Geralt: "Tell me, Your Majesty...why do you risk your life on the battlefield when you can rest on your throne?"
Calanthe: "Because there is a simplicity in killing monsters, is there not? Seems we are quite the pair, Geralt of Rivia."
So in conclusion, Calanthe doesn't seem interested in Jaskier's songs but I do think she's enjoyed hearing the odd story about witchers and daydreams about being able to solve all, instead of merely most, of her problems by hitting them with a sword. She did know Geralt of Rivia by name, which in turn suggests that she knows the songs but that Calanthe really hasn't a clue who Jaskier is or possibly that there even is one particular bard behind the sudden spat of witcher songs. She might realize something's up when Geralt tells her he's here for bard-related reasons, but if so, by that point she'd rather talk to Geralt than have someone else sing about him.
It's at this point things go south - some dude shows up and Calanthe makes it clear she was expecting this and wants the guy dead.
Calanthe: "Witcher...kill it."
Geralt: "No."
Calanthe: "Whatever the price."
Geralt: "This is no monster."
Calanthe: "I order you."
Geralt: "This knight has been cursed."
Calanthe: "You're as useless as the rest of them. Slay this beast!"
Ah, and here we get another great look into the whole "monster" thing. As a whole, this is another example of how the definition is whatever's convenient to the people in charge at the moment.
And for Calanthe herself, it's already hinted that she knew this guy was showing up and it'll be confirmed in a bit that yes, she knows damn well this is a cursed human. Her father may have honestly believed the anti-nonhuman sentiment of broader Cintra, but everything points to Calanthe using it because it benefits her. She orders the helmet off so people will see he looks monstrous, then she shouts that it's a beast and she demands it be killed. She knows if she presents this as an anti-nonhuman thing, she can keep him from having a chance to talk.
Despite her efforts, the "beast" gets enough breathing room to shout that this is a Destiny thing, which means other people start getting involved exactly like she worried they would.
(Eist, and the relationship with Calanthe, will be discussed next, because this is huge enough already and at least this I can separate out.)
Calanthe grudgingly calls a halt, Pavetta throws herself into the mess, Duny tries to explain himself, Calanthe just gets more angry.
"And you...carousing with the beast that swindled your stupid father!"
Calanthe doesn't just know someone's going to show up for her daughter. She knows the two of them have been meeting, and it's very likely she knew they were fucking, and that, in turn, suggests the real reason she's doing this betrothal party is because she knows she's got to marry Pavetta off fast. She even says to Pavetta that Pavetta can fuck who she wants after she gets married but she has to be married first.
"I waited until the twelfth bell when the curse breaks. I never intended to meet her. Just to watch from afar. Until destiny intervened...and our hearts collided. And at dawn, I awoke with her in my arms and me...like this."
Also, if she didn't know they were fucking, she definitely does now.
(Actually, how did Geralt miss that? More evidence that he's drunk, I guess.)
Mousesack: "Honor destiny's wish, or unleash its wrath upon us."
Calanthe: "There is no us! I bow to no law made by men who never bore a child!"
So this gets back to Calanthe really does seem to prioritize Pavetta over everything. It's not clear how much she believes in Destiny, but she doesn't bother arguing it's bunk, unlike Geralt, which suggests she believes it has some impact, as does the fact the argument she does make is about not being afraid of Destiny's consequences rather than that there are none.
We do know that by the end of her life in the first episode, she absolutely believes that Destiny is a real thing. She thinks she may be able to win a fight with it, the same as she's arguing now, but she's willing to take actions to play along with it too.
"I love Duny, Mother. I will marry him. I will finally be free."
I don't know what she means by "free" here - it sounds most like she means she doesn't want to inherit the country, though it could also mean getting out from under her mother's thumb.
And Calanthe stands quietly, takes note of the fact everyone thinks this is a good idea, allows Eist to take her sword, and then, when Duny lets her get close like a sucker, pulls out her dagger.
Does Calanthe love Pavetta? Yes. Does she in any way respect Pavetta's feelings? No.
Pavetta screams, there's magic.
When it fades, Eist asks, "Do you believe in destiny now?"
I don't think she does, or at least, not more, because what she says next makes it clear she didn't think what happened is all that inexplicable:
"I thought your grandmother's gift had skipped you...as it did me."
But either it was convincing enough, or for another reason, she's suddenly fine with the marriage.
(Note that both times this has happened, the response has been awe at this "gift", not oh shit a woman has power make it stop. You can get your hand-wringing about women and their uncontrolled power being so very bad absolutely everywhere else. The world absolutely does not need you to helpfully fix their scenes here to be the same.)
"It seems I was wrong. About so many things. Destiny has spoken! And I have listened. The Law of Surprise will be honored."
Personally, I think the bigger thing for Calanthe is that Pavetta demonstrated the ability to fuck shit up when things don't go her way. She was set on the marriage because she wants a strong Cintra for Pavetta. If Pavetta can take care of herself, she doesn't need to be married off.
(Also possibly Calanthe just reevaluated the odds of Pavetta murdering her assigned husband.)
Additionally, some part of these events have convinced her that actually marrying Eist does make political sense. He at least presents it as a need to make a quick alliance now that everyone else is going to be annoyed Pavetta didn't marry any of them and that could be her reasoning - at the least, that's the story she's sticking to in the future. Or it could've been that watching her kid make a murder vortex made her reevaluate how she's been dealing with her own relationships, or it could be that her issue before wasn't exactly a worry her husband would overshadow her but a worry he'd get in the way of Pavetta inheriting (and, just as Queen Kalis illustrates that kings murder queens over a lack of male heirs, Renfri establishes stepparents murder princesses over inheritance) and she thinks it's much less of a concern now.
Geralt: "I...claim the tradition as you have, the Law of Surprise. Give me that which you already have but do not know."
Calanthe: "No! What have you done, Witcher?"
To recap, Calanthe does not consider that Pavetta might be anxious about having sex but instead tells her to stop acting like marriage matters when she can still "have who you want" after this. Later she accuses Pavetta of "carousing" with Duny. And it's followed up by Duny admitting to that.
She knows the two idiots have been fucking behind her back. I don't think this is her assuming Destiny is just out to get her, I think it's her having a solid grasp of probability.
Episode Four may be Calanthe's episode, but there's still more tidbits to go.
In the fifth episode, we learn more about the actual running of her country from the dryads of all people:
"When Queen Calanthe closed the borders of Cintra, it was to protect her people. The General wants to protect us. We all make decisions."
Unfortunately it's really unclear exactly what that involved, when it happened, or how it helped. We can't even be sure it did protect people because this is a dryad's opinion and we know their idea of safety revolves around border security.
Then in the sixth episode, at a time between the banquet and Cirilla's present, there's people talking about Nilfgaard taking over the south and heading for the northern countries, including Cintra.
"No. Queen Calanthe would die before letting them take what's hers."
This is, in fact, what happens, but we can see at the time, no one believes that Calanthe could fight to the death and still lose. Cintra is a powerhouse.
In episode seven, Geralt's getting anxious about Cintra and checks up on the situation.
Mousesack: "Nilfgaard is set on sweeping the Continent. But since that night at Pavetta's banquet, the Queen's done everything she can to keep her family safe from threats. Shut the walls. Fortified the gates."
Ah, the perils of imprecise language. Does this mean she fortified the castle, or is he metaphorically talking about the country as a whole, or both? Who are the "threats" this is supposed to be defending against?
We know Geralt is a threat. Closed borders or closed castle gates don't seem to have done much to keep him out, but that could just be down to it being really hard to keep Geralt out of a place and she wanted to but just couldn't quite pull it off. I think we can assume he's part of the motivation for this. But unless Mousesack is being just insanely diplomatic, to someone who would absolutely not appreciate that diplomacy and he knows it, "threats" means Calanthe had more worries than just Geralt.
It seems likely they're connected, though, because Mousesack is saying Calanthe locked everything down after the banquet, not after Pavetta's death. My guess is Calanthe has been prepping for a war against Destiny at large - if she keeps Geralt out of Cintra, that just means that to meet him Cirilla needs to leave Cintra first, and also there seems to be a concern that picking a fistfight with Destiny leads to random bad luck just happening.
Are there any other reasons?
Well, we know Tissaia seems to believe all kids with chaos powers should be carted off to More Deadly Hogwarts, but while we know at least 2/6ths of the girls we see did not want to be there, we have no idea if Tissaia actually steals children if their parents say no. On the other hand, we do know Calanthe doesn't like the Brotherhood because she never accepts a mage from them, so it may not matter what they actually do, only what she fears - and given the Brotherhood seems to not like Cintra back, maybe they might decide to steal the heir of Cintra even if they wouldn't normally do so.
There's also the fact that Calanthe just does not seem rational about it by the end of the party. Her reaction to Duny is much stronger than just that this is a subpar match compared to the one she wants. She's behaving as if she feels Duny is here not to marry into the family but take her daughter away. (Pretty much the same as with Geralt, which is actually very strange given it makes perfect sense to worry a witcher is going to run off with your kid but a lot less that the princess' husband is going to run off with her.) Given there's magic in the family line, possibly she has some sense this is going to end badly, but whatever the reason for her initial opposition, her attempt to keep control over her daughter failed, which is exactly what tends to amp up such tendencies even further. She may not be defending against any particular threat at all but just the concept of things happening without getting her permission first.
And if she was acting like this before Pavetta's death...
"After Pavetta died, Calanthe would wake up howling in the night. The Lioness, nearly broken. Someone who's able to pull themselves out of that, they'll have my confidence till my final day."
Eist doesn't tell us if the Calanthe who came out of that was changed. We only know that there's a big difference between the Calanthe of the party and the one we see at the end of her life, and that there wouldn't be much point in telling us that losing Pavetta almost destroyed her if it had no lasting impact.
Calanthe does seem to have kept things running, but it's very hard to tell if it's been going well.
"We've taken on every pissant pretender for a dozen years. If Nilfgaard need to learn the lesson the rest of them have, we'll be ready for them."
On the one hand, she's handled it so far. On the other, why have people kept trying? And "pretender" in particular is a word you'd use for someone claiming a right to your throne. And why has this been happening for a "dozen" years in particular?
Well, Cirilla is thirteen. We don't know when Calanthe lost Pavetta, but it does seem like she was raised by her grandmother and the sooner the disaster hit, the more it makes sense for Calanthe to insist it had something to do with Destiny - "I did listen once. Let a hedgehog into my court. It got me Pavetta dead." sure makes it sound like one thing happened very sooner after another.
Twelve years ago, then, is probably a bit after Calanthe loses Pavetta. It may be that she's actually neglecting her country in her grief, it may just be that people see weakness the moment she stops riding out to stick heads on pikes for fun. This makes sense as where some of the present-day resentment comes from, if Cintra weathers repeated attacks because Calanthe's reputation isn't enough to dissuade people, and if it starts when she loses her daughter. The hatred for Calanthe keeps coming back to her family as a whole, and there's the sense that all of them share the blame .
Which may tie in to the puppet show Cirilla sees.
"Oh, sweet Cintra, you were so promising, from your spoiled princess to your stupid old king!"
This appears similar to what the woman at the refugee camp says: "that wretched bitch and her wretched family".
We have two possible reasons for Calanthe to keep her granddaughter isolated, for her own safety and to control what she knows. Everyone seems to be aware of the first one and resent that, and given Calanthe says she's willing to doom her country to unknown Destiny reprisals first for Pavetta and then for Cirilla, they have a point. The only ones who describe Calanthe as caring about her "people" are the dryads. Everyone else says Calanthe is doing this to protect her "family".
It's also possible it was first one and then the other - Calanthe at the very end of her life does act concerned with what happens to Cintrans as a whole and advise that's part of being a good ruler, and possibly it's just that everyone assumed she was only concerned for her immediate family because that's how she acted for most of her life and because she was never big on explaining herself. At the least, the nobles we see at the castle thought she had their interests at heart, it's just none of those people survived.
Cirilla's non-noble playmate seems far less enthused when he shows up, of course, and given Calanthe decided a painless death was only a priority for nobles, it does seem like even at best Calanthe had a pretty narrow view of who mattered. (She also tries to send Geralt off with a different kid. Though in her defense, I'd guess she figures he probably won't kill the kid when he realizes he was tricked, and since he only wants the kid due to destiny, might even willingly return her. So it's possibly not exactly condemning another kid in Cirilla's place and arguably he's more likely to bring this one back than one Destiny says is his, but on the other hand, it's possibly getting the kid straight up murdered by an angry witcher or abandoned in the middle of nowhere.)
It's unclear if the stupid old king is Eist, who admittedly did seem irreverent and there may have been concerns about divided loyalties, Calanthe's first husband who got them on Destiny's radar (it's not clear if people have any idea what happened at the party, but that half of it doesn't need to be kept secret and is going to be a lot more noticable given you need some explanation for why Pavetta married an unknown guy) or even Calanthe's father who died and left the country in the hands of Calanthe.
It also doesn't sound like Calanthe's decisions are well-regarded by the Brotherhood. We know they don't like Cintra just for not letting them in, so it's a bit hard to tell if Cintra's actually being run badly or this is just an extension of Stregobor's enthusiasm for the current king to die in the hopes the next ruler will do what he wants. And we know Fringilla thinks she can convince the Brotherhood that they should let Nilfgaard attack by saying Cintra is a mess.
"In Nilfgaard, we know what it's like to have corrupt leaders. But under our new leader, Emperor Emhyr, we've changed. We've strengthened trade. We've funded research. We have torn down walls, whilst Queen Calanthe has done nothing but put them up."
Of course, it's also possible the Brotherhood, given they don't belong to any single country but are trying to manipulate all of them, is just inherently in favor of weak borders because it makes their lives easier. We know the Brotherhood doesn't care if a leader is hurting their own people, just if it's being done so in a way that creates too much unrest.
It's even possible the Brotherhood doesn't have any opinion about how Cintra's being run and Fringilla isn't trying to convince them by finding common ground on why Cintra should fall, just that Cintra and only Cintra has this trait that Nilfgaard dislikes, therefore they definitely won't attack anyone after they take Cintra so don't worry about it. Going off about the import of trade and research and tearing down walls to an audience who can't imagine giving a fuck and already thinks you're crazy zealots might actually be a good way to convince them that no really, you only care about attacking this one country and not all the other easy targets too.
So, that was the events as they unfolded across the episodes. To summarize what I think the actual timeline was:
Cintra is a racist shithole where people hate elves and keep other nonhumans as slaves. This may be related to why they distrust the Brotherhood, or it may be that the Brotherhood did something and was caught, or it could be unrelated. It's also unclear if they're an unusually racist shithole. Our only point of comparison is they hate elves more than Aedirn does, and Aedirn was fine massacring elves too.
Calanthe's father bans mages from the country. He dies. To our knowledge, there's no connection between these two events.
(There is, in the Netflix timeline, an issue that this is happening when Yennfer is leaving Aretuza, but Renfri references Calanthe and that takes place much later. In order for both things to be true, the Calanthe we meet would have to be Calanthe the 2nd.)
Calanthe, age thirteen, wins her first battle. Three thousand of her soldiers die in the process. We don't know if this was a necessary battle, and we don't know if the three thousand was unavoidable or a misstep on her part. We do know that while everyone around her speaks well of it, when Cirilla brings it up near the end of her life, she finds it upsetting.
At some point between thirteen and fifteen, Calanthe marries. The relationship does not appear to have been outright terrible, but Calanthe explicitly says she didn't want to marry the guy, does not go on to say "but I came to realize I was wrong" so it sure seems she kept resenting having to marry him until he died and possibly after, and at the least we know she was stuck in her husband's shadow and it convinced her to never remarry. (And her response to the law of surprise being over saving the guy's life is that he should have died then.) Also, they only had a single child. That child is a girl, and Calanthe's overall storyline makes it clear girls inheriting is unusual, suggesting either something prevented them from having more children or Calanthe refused to have more to make sure her daughter would have a clear line of inheritance. This may also be part of why she doesn't want to remarry.
(She is, after all, extremely devoted to her daughter, even if it largely manifests as repeatedly trying to kill a man for her over her daughter's own objections.)
Calanthe's rule of Cintra is a violent one. We don't know if there's greater inequity than other countries - Pavetta talks of starving serfs, but dumbass kings starving their people comes up a lot - but we know her solution to the problem is to pull out a sword. Maintaining military power is extremely important to her. There is also a racial component with her killing elves in particular as a periodic show of force/play to her racist power base. It's not certain, but it seems very possible Calanthe inherited a shitty country and actively made it shittier by killing people who objected to these sorts of things.
Marrying Eist, and possibly Mousesack being around, seem to have made her reconsider at least some of this. Certainly, losing Pavetta was an enormous blow and likely made her rethink things. However, if she did stop using elves as a punching bag at some point, that went out the window with the elven uprising, at which point she ordered them murdered to the last infant. She may or may not have personally taken part in that, but that we're given a description where for once she isn't present suggests some greater separation from the act than when she rolls into the betrothal party covered in blood and gloating about what she just did. Her not being on the battlefield at all could also fit with how the woman Cirilla meets thinks Calanthe is selfishly throwing her soldiers' lives away, though she includes the Nilfgaard fight when we know Calanthe was on the field for that. There's the possibility that halfhearted attempts to dial back the racism were getting her into conflict with her nobles, so when something happened that could be blamed on those policies, she panicked and tried to regain control by amping things up to new and horrible heights - especially if she'd already screwed up by spending her early years empowering the kind of people who want to murder babies and killing those who disagreed with wanton slaughter.
Calanthe raises Ciri ignorant of all of this. Ciri's surprised by how the dwarf (?) is treated by the wealthy Cintrans, so the castle itself appears to have been kept slave-free, and the nobles who visited either had to leave theirs at home or didn't keep them in the first place. She has no opinion on elves and she doesn't even know Filavandrel's name, let alone any of the things that happened. It's possible this started with Pavetta, who seems vastly more liberal-minded, and Calanthe wanted to honor her daughter's wishes in the matter, but whatever the initial reason, Calanthe went to an absurd degree to keep absolutely everything bad about Cintra from Ciri, including things she seems to have once been proud of.
For the final dozen years of her reign, she seems to have become more reactive, fighting against "pretenders" showing up rather than finding excuses to kill people. This does not seem to endear her to her people, but it's hard to say if it's really her fault and things would've been better if she'd been more proactively violent, or if it's more an optics thing - easier to sing about a war she chose to have and then won than a war she was forced into, even if she actually was keeping the death toll lower. It's also possible that part of the issue was she stopped being quite so into murdering all nonhumans and people took that for weakness.
We have a reference to her closing Cintra's borders but not a clear idea of when/how/why. The one reference to time is Mousesack saying it was right after the party, so the most likely answer is that she closed everything down then rather than bit by bit. We also don't know what precisely the borders being closed involved but at the least, it's going to be an expense (if you object to people moving across your borders, you need other people to patrol them to enforce that) and going to hurt your economy through slowing or stopping trade, as well as making whatever does get through more expensive due to the hassle. And the amount of control it's going to take to keep even songs from crossing your border... The dryads characterize what she did as protecting her people, but it's not clear from what, and also the dryads are obviously big fans of closed borders so they may not be the most objective about its effectiveness, and furthermore I'm suspicious of how much they even know about how the outside world works. Fringilla claims that Cintra is being attacked because Nilfgaard hates corrupt leaders and the example she gives is Nilfgaard tearing down walls while Calanthe puts them up, so the idea this was bad for Cintrans is at least plausible.
(While not suggested in any way, it's also just very, very hard to keep such a lockdown on information that no one, even people who hate her, even knows Geralt's name and so it seems really likely she enforced that on pain of death.)
Calanthe was calmer in her old age, but not necessarily more levelheaded. On the other hand, when Geralt tries to reason with Eist about honoring the Law of Surprise with Cirilla, Eist says that he now completely sees Calanthe's point about fuck you that's my kid, so maybe she's not that unreasonable about it.
We do know that to the very last she prioritizes Cirilla over everything, given one of her solutions is to take someone else's kid and try to hand that to Geralt.
Also, just to repeat: Calanthe thinks the magic scream powers are awesome. Her kid having so little control she wrecks the room while defying her mother and ruining all the carefully laid plans still ends with Calanthe thrilled that wow, Pavetta inherited the power after all! Cirilla similarly manifesting for the first time during an argument is only upsetting because Calanthe's worried the Nilfgaardian soldiers might agree it's great and be coming for Cirilla in particular because of it.