The Witcher series

[O_Bruce]

Excellent video. I am especially thankful for you sharing this, @Antimatter . It saves me some time for research (like with the article I linked earlier: now I know the source of it and I know it is part of CDProject's canon, not Sapkowski's original work). It also mentions lore from the most recent novel, which I haven't read as of yet.

And yes, the most important thing in all that: why Ciri would do this.

In the Witcher discussion, @O_Bruce is not pissed off at Andrzej Sapkowski, the author. He's pissed off at the video game company that's making the new video game.

I'm not "pissed" per say. I am passionate and I'll say it is typical for me to get worked up over things I love, since I want them to be best they can be.

 

[JustKneller]

How about this? I want to steer things in a different direction and put on the table liberty and freedom of artistic expression. Any line we draw is frankly going to be hypocritical. But, where's the line when it comes to what we write, paint, or put on the screen?

 

[JustKneller]

Here is a video from a hardcore Witcher YouTuber, with all the references to books, games, and even TTRPG.

Well then, that solves it.

 

[BelgarathMTH]

So, I'm not a fan of the Witcher. I've not read the books, and I've not played the games, and I probably won't ever, the reason for me being that games with pre-determined protagonists don't fit my taste. I've never played and probably won't play the Mass Effect series for the same reason.

However, that didn't stop me from reading the discussion this thread turned into with some interest.

I had a couple of thoughts, some of which may be tangential to the core of the discussion, but I'd like to state them anyway.

First, maybe the Witcher developers have practical business motivations other than DEI. The market share of female gamers has been rising over the last decade, from what I can tell from reading various sources. (I'm not prepared to back that statement up with specific sources, which would be needed if the discussion about it were more serious.) Maybe the developers just thought they could sell a Witcher game to more women if they provided an option for a female protagonist.

Question - Is the new game going to have *only* the female protagonist being discussed, or is this a choice between a male or female protagonist? If the new protagonist is female only, I would question their wisdom in possibly alienating a huge portion of their potential male market. I want good female representation in games, but I don't want to play as a female avatar and I won't buy a game where I can only do that, because I don't identify with a female avatar, which keeps me from the full self-immersion I want in a game.

Are any women here discussing this issue? I would be very interested in hearing a female gamer's take on this. I think any males-only discussion about female representation in gaming is suspect at best.

Okay, this second thing I thought of is way more tangential, so feel free to ignore this part: I was made to think of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time". That setting delves very deeply into the essence of male and female natures in opposition. In a nutshell, both men and women can wield "magic", referred to as "channeling the Source" in Jordan's setting, but the male half of the Source is tainted, such that male channelers are driven violently insane. Thus, men are legally forbidden to channel in the setting, and there is an entire government set up to deal with and police this fact, mostly run by women. The protagonist of the story setting happens to be a male who can channel.

To any Jordan fans, does this also tie into what is being discussed about the Witcher? If a game were made from Wheel of Time, would a similar potentially heated discussion about gender ideology be provoked?

 

[JustKneller]

So, I'm not a fan of the Witcher. I've not read the books, and I've not played the games, and I probably won't ever,

Honestly, I never even thought about it before this thread came up. It struck me as yet another power fantasy rpg when it first came out and I gave it a pass. However, because of this conversation, I noticed the first two games are on sale at GoG for a couple bucks so I'm probably going to pick them up and give them a shot.

First, maybe the Witcher developers have practical business motivations other than DEI. The market share of female gamers has been rising over the last decade, from what I can tell from reading various sources.

That definitely could play into it.

Question - Is the new game going to have *only* the female protagonist being discussed, or is this a choice between a male or female protagonist? If the new protagonist is female only, I would question their wisdom in possibly alienating a huge portion of their potential male market.

Based on what I've googled, she is the primary playable protagonist, which sounds like you might control other characters occasionally, but it's pretty much just Ciri. And that's a good point. Beamdog had this problem with SoD. I don't know how the sales went, but it was definitely review bombed and there was a lot of backlash. I can't imagine that helped things. But, they still got the licenses to do EEs of the other IE games, so I guess they didn't starve over it.

Obviously, this isn't a problem for me, if you've seen any of my play reports. I'm very much a boring straight dude, but I have no issues with female protagonists or playing female characters in games. My own personal take on gender is that men and women have far more in common than we have differences, so playing a woman vs. a man is not as different as we make things out to be.

I think any males-only discussion about female representation in gaming is suspect at best.

Nah. This is totally above board. But, I agree. More diverse voices would only add to the conversation.

Thus, men are legally forbidden to channel in the setting, and there is an entire government set up to deal with and police this fact, mostly run by women. The protagonist of the story setting happens to be a male who can channel.

To any Jordan fans, does this also tie into what is being discussed about the Witcher? If a game were made from Wheel of Time, would a similar potentially heated discussion about gender ideology be provoked?

My first thought was, "yet somehow, in a matriarchy, they still found a way for a male to take center stage".

I could see a heated conversation coming from it, but not as much as the flip side. Or, in other words, discrimination against women is far more prevalent than discrimination against men. So, the social outcry for discrimination against men would be much quieter.

 

[Eternal]

I'm a woman and have been a gamer since childhood. Unfortunately, the secret meeting of female gamers held last Thursday again rejected my candidacy as a global ambassador of femininity . So I have the right to speak only for myself .

Most games I've ever played have had a male protagonist. I've always been totally ok with that. Furthermore, I could easily play as a blue hedgehog, a colony of ants, or a cell floating in a primary broth. In games with a free protagonist, I choose a character purely based on my mood. The protagonist’s gender makes no difference to me at all. Therefore, no game company will ever sell me a game over the protagonist’s gender alone.

What I do pay attention to is good writing, layered characters, the lack of stereotype characters, having a strong motivation for actions, and my personal connection with the character. There are female protagonists in games that annoy me, there are male protagonists that piss me off.

I easily get involved in a good story of a character of any gender, crying with them and laughing with them, worrying about their plight, and rejoicing in their triumphs. I like stories told by different characters with different points of view, and I think personality traits and character background affect the angle more than gender.

What bothers me about the presentation of Ciri as a witcher is the possible care the writing team might take with her new status. That would be artificial and upsetting for me. I'll only believe in equal presentation if REDs have the guts to write a bully joke about two swords, but for Cirilla.

Here is that joke you can often hear from common peasants in The Witcher 3:

 

[Cahir]

I'll only believe in equal presentation if REDs have the guts to write a bully joke about two swords, but for Cirilla.

And Ciri's version of famous Lambert epigram

 

[Cahir]

Honestly, I never even thought about it before this thread came up. It struck me as yet another power fantasy rpg when it first came out and I gave it a pass. However, because of this conversation, I noticed the first two games are on sale at GoG for a couple bucks so I'm probably going to pick them up and give them a shot.

A bit of head's up. Both may feel dated from a visual point of view, and especially Witcher 1 can feel dated from a gameplay point of view. AFAIK it was created on modified Aurora engine, the same that NWN was built on.

Personally, I find both W1 and W2 stories even better than W3, so if you can get over the visuals and gameplay, you should like them.

 

[m7600]

Sapkowski wrote Wiedźmin (Witcher) from the POV of a Polish person (a "Pole") that was aware of the horrors of WW2 and of the post-war occupation of Poland, but he was not aware of the fall of the Wall of Berlin. Why? Because Wiedźmin was published in 1986, and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. So, that major historical event was not part of Sapkowski's life, because it had not happened yet. So, his national identity as a Pole was different than the ones that O_Bruce and Cahir have today, or even the one that he himself has today (he's still alive, isn't he? So he actually did live to see the Berlin Wall fall, but he saw it after publishing Wiedźmin in 1986).

 

[m7600]

the secret meeting of female gamers held last Thursday again rejected my candidacy as a global ambassador of femininity .

Huh. I always saw you as the global ambassador for the Goth community. You have Morticia Addams as your forum Avatar, after all. Or am I way off here?

The protagonist’s gender makes no difference to me at all.

To me, it does. My main characters in solo cRPGs are always female. By contrast, in tabletop RPGs, my main characters are always male. Why do I make female Charnames in cRPGs? Because I want to understand what it's like to look at the world (even a fictional world) from a female POV. I never succeed, though. I always end up looking at such worlds from a human (and not just "female") point of view instead.

I like stories told by different characters with different points of view,

100%.

I'll only believe in equal presentation if REDs have the guts to write a bully joke about two swords, but for Cirilla.

I'll take that bet. Why not? I'm feeling lucky. And my alignment is True Neutral. What do I have to do? And BTW, What's "REDs"?

 

[m7600]

I'll say it more clearly, in one simple sentence: Wiedźmin is literally the product of Sapkowski's severe identity crisis as a Pole, of his light identity crisis as a European, and of whatever personal crisis he was undergoing as a person.

It's not exactly a fairy tale.

 

[JustKneller]

Most games I've ever played have had a male protagonist. I've always been totally ok with that. Furthermore, I could easily play as a blue hedgehog, a colony of ants, or a cell floating in a primary broth.

I think that's the key point right there. We've all played characters in games that are so much further removed from ourselves than having a single chromosome difference. Like, if the protagonist is female, it's a conversation, but if the protagonist is a sun goddess in the form of a wolf (Okami), a dolphin (Ecco), or an aquapunk automaton (Bioshock 2), it's business as usual?

 

[m7600]

Ecco the dolphin was such a creepy game. You think it's an eco-friendly, "let's save the Planet" type of deal, but it was actually an Alien Horror game, Ecco gets abducted in the end or something like that. It was super creepy.

 

[Antimatter]

I totally missed these details (shared by the game director Sebastian Kalemba and executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga on Dec 19 in an interview with GameSpot):

"So let's look at Ciri also through the prism of the trailer because when you look at this, there are no surprises. We specifically wanted to tell the story of a young girl that is not able to confront her destiny, [something Ciri can relate to]. Ciri was running for almost her whole life, and she finally found peace in Kaer Morhen. [...] That's why she's the very first witcher by choice. She decides to become a witcher because [she enjoys it]. It gives us a lot of room to explore some really cool emotional stakes, and some cool tropes to tell some great stories. There are common denominators [between her and Geralt] like the way she fights and the way she behaves, but she's also very passionate, very determined, and very engaged in anything she encounters and this is what we love [about her]."

"We cannot explain what happened [yet], but for those who played the previous game, know she was not mutated back then, [but she has] definitely passed the Trial of Grasses [at this point in the story]. This also gives us a lot of possibilities for her to become a true Witcher and still find how she wants to perform that on her own terms. And the player will be able to grow with her and help her to make those choices."

The Witcher 4 Director On Ciri, Gwent, And In-Game Romance

The Witcher 4 aims to continue CD Projekt Red's tradition of dark, mature RPGs with difficult decisions and complex side quests.

www.gamespot.com

This came as no surprise to me because of what Bauk says to Ciri in the trailer:

"One of us has to be chosen.." "The ritual works!.." "you cannot change anything," "fate cannot be changed," "you weren't supposed to come back."

I think that would be one of the main topics of the game to explore - can Ciri actually run away from her destiny by becoming a witcher?

 

[m7600]

She decides to become a witcher because [she enjoys it].

That sounds dumb to me. If the Trial of the Grasses is so unpleasant as everyone said it is, how could she enjoy it? If this were a Session Zero in tabletop D&D, and a player wanted to make a character like Ciri, I would just say "Your character sounds stupid, make another one or find another table to play at."

some cool tropes to tell some great stories.

That's an oxymoron. How can you tell a great story using tropes? It's a lazy concept. Great stories are the ones that innovate, not the ones that use already-existing tropes. Lord of the Rings is a great story precisely for that reason.

she's also very passionate, very determined, and very engaged in anything she encounters and this is what we love [about her]

is that why she enjoys being a Witcher? It's a stupid justification, IMHO. Like, you're the devs, you're supposed to do better than this, in terms of explanations. It's just lazy Lore design and lazy Lore writing.

how she wants to perform that on her own terms. And the player will be able to grow with her and help her to make those choices."

Then what is the player doing, if he, she, or they, don't have agency as a player? Are they mere spectators to Ciri's personal story? Because that's what it feels like. If so, then this won't be much of an actual game, if you can't really play it in any meaningful way. If the playing is reduced to the mechanics, then I'd rather play Torchlight or some trash mobile ARPG for my cellphone.

 

[JustKneller]

How can you tell a great story using tropes? It's a lazy concept. Great stories are the ones that innovate, not the ones that use already-existing tropes.

I would be tempted to make an argument that virtually everything is a trope at this point. Most likely everything fantasy, at least. But even things in other genres could still be telling the same story at its core.

That sounds dumb to me. If the Trial of the Grasses is so unpleasant as everyone said it is, how could she enjoy it?

That actually makes sense to me. I'm sure she didn't enjoy the Trial, but enjoys the actual being of a Witcher. It frees her from her destiny, and empowers her independence.

Then what is the player doing, if he, she, or they, don't have agency as a player?

Well, that's a double edged sword. You either get agency or a good story. My Terraria character has tons of agency, but there's no story there. TNO from PS:T basically has zero agency (ultimately), but it's a killer story.

 

[Antimatter]

I agree with @JustKneller.

The concept of destiny/fate is present in The Witcher world. Przeznaczenia in Polish. It's one of the key topics affecting both Geralt and Ciri in the books and in the games.

Destiny

Destiny Many people believe in the existence of Destiny, a mysterious force which binds certain people together, determining their fates. According to believers, one can either follow the path of Destiny of one's free will or try to resist it, although the latter can bring grim consequences. On...

witcher.fandom.com

That's why I'm so interested in seeing how the writers will explore this topic in the upcoming game.

 

[O_Bruce]

I am currently reading the new novel "Rozdroże Kruków". So far it isn't especially mindblowing, but I think it can be quite a treat for the fans.
My research progress: nearly non-existent.

I also want to link to two videos by Wera. I just found her content, and while she's not the Witcher youtuber specificially (she's a Polish fan though), her videos are quite good. About the Witcher 4 trailer:


And, if anyone's interested, a plot summary for the first book (The Last Wish). I think that one is interesting in that it makes me realize that many things may were lost in translation from Polish to English, and that affects how one can read the scenes/characters.

 

[JustKneller]

I think that one is interesting in that it makes me realize that many things may were lost in translation from Polish to English, and that affects how one can read the scenes/characters.

I think that's a good point. I can only read English, but I've seen plenty of foreign movies and their American remakes. One in particular that comes to mind is "Låt den rätte komma in" (Swedish) versus "Let Me In" (American). Despite being American, I connected more with the Swedish one in that it felt a little more "real" where the American one felt like I was watching a horror movie, if that makes sense. I mean, they both were good in their own right, but I felt like they told a slightly different story. The same goes for "Spoorloos" (Dutch) and "The Vanishing" (American). They actually changed the ending in the American one (which I think undercuts the story's power). But, hell, I've rarely felt as sad for people in a movie as I had at the end of Spoorloos.

 

[Antimatter]

The Witcher 4 trailer video you've shared is so good. I definitely can recognize myself in Wera in terms of her excitement and the points she shares. CDPR hasn't failed me yet, yep. Don't fall for rage-baity titles. As long as I get an OK explanation that justifies the Ciri's situation and a good story, all lore retconning will be OK.