Explain the appeal of The Witcher to me
IgnatiusReilly
Member Posts: 28
Try as I might, I have never been able to get into this series, and its appeal has always eluded me.
Some background: My first experience with The Witcher games came after the release of Dragon Age II. I absolutely detested that game, and I kept hearing, again and again, that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was the superior RPG in every way. So naturally I decided to give the series I try, taking the time to read some of the books to give myself some knowledge of the setting.*
The Witcher games, on the surface, seemed like something I'd enjoy. They were developed for the PC first and foremost, there would be no hand-holding or dumbing down, they would treat the player like an adult, and so on.
Except I hate these game. Hate...hate...HATE. But why, you ask? Well, let me tell you:
Games ought to be fun. That doesn't mean that everything in them has to be sunshine and rainbows, but they ought to offer gameplay that is enjoyable, a world that is compelling, or characters that are interesting. The gameplay of The Witcher games isn't enjoyable, it's just perfunctory. The world isn't compelling because it's a total sinkhole of misery and despair where the potential to do lasting good is slim to non-existant, and the character's aren't interesting because so many of them are loathsome, foul-mouthed bellends.
* I found the few books I read to be totally forgettable, which, to be fair, was partly the fault of the translator, who made them read like dry, high-school textbooks.
Some background: My first experience with The Witcher games came after the release of Dragon Age II. I absolutely detested that game, and I kept hearing, again and again, that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was the superior RPG in every way. So naturally I decided to give the series I try, taking the time to read some of the books to give myself some knowledge of the setting.*
The Witcher games, on the surface, seemed like something I'd enjoy. They were developed for the PC first and foremost, there would be no hand-holding or dumbing down, they would treat the player like an adult, and so on.
Except I hate these game. Hate...hate...HATE. But why, you ask? Well, let me tell you:
- Geralt is a wholly unappealing protagonist. I would have found the games more enjoyable (or at least less insufferable) had they let me create my own character. That's not what The Witcher is about, however, which means I'm stuck playing as someone who feels like a tired relic from a mid-nineties comic book. A grim, gritty, gravelly-voiced, grimacing, grizzled anti-hero who stabs and shags his way through a morally ambiguous world...the misunderstood loner who's actually a decent person beneath his tough, emotionless exterior...haven't we gotten tired of seeing this kind of character after the thousandth time or so?
The moment that defined his character for me was early in the first game, where it was revealed that witchers are A: completely sterile, and B: totally immune to disease. It doesn't take much effort, then, to put two and two together and realise that this means Geralt can have copious amounts of consequence-free sex with all the women who all but throw themselves at him, despite the fact that witchers are supposed to be regarded by most people as freaks and mutants, scarcely any better than the monsters they hunt. It became painfully obvious that Geralt is little more than an overwrought, juvenile power fantasy. (If his attempts to get women into bed typically resulted in them telling him "Go plough yourself, mutant!" then it just might have made Geralt just a wee bit more sympathetic). - The choices meant nothing to me. One aspect of The Witcher that fans kept harping on were the "difficult" moral decisions that the player would have to make - choices that did not fall squarely into the category of "good" or "evil." In fact, one of the developers had said something to the effect of "The conflict between Good and Evil doesn't interest us."
But what makes a decision difficult is not just that it is "morally grey," but because one cares about the outcome. If you don't care about the consequences of a decision, you might as well just toss a coin to decide. Which precisely describes how I felt about the world of The Witcher, because nearly every single character is some variety of irritating, loathsome, despicable, or completely monstrous. The tone of the game is so unrelentingly cynical and negative that the characteristics of NPCs become tiresomely predictable. Are you someone in a position of power, such as a king or nobleman? Then you are corrupt and treacherous. Do you believe strongly in a cause? Then you are a violent zealot or fanatic. Are you a commoner? Then you are stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and racist. There a few exceptions to this, of course, but they are few and far between.
As a result, I had zero investment in the story or the outcome of my choices. It felt as though every major decision boiled down to "What group of unlikeable knobheads do you want to support at the expense of the other?" Do I side with the Order of the Flaming Rose or Scoia'Tael? Do I follow Iorveth or Roche? Would I rather die of ebola or rabies? - The Witcher games engage in a constant, obnoxiously aggressive, super-macho posturing which very quickly grates on the nerves. The first game had the infamous sex cards. The second game OPENS with Triss being completely naked, a blatantly transparent attempt to get some bare breasts on screen as soon as possible. And when characters talk, they invariably talk in these short, sharp, barks of profanity like rejects from Tarantino or Mamet film, no matter whether they are kings or commoners.
Games ought to be fun. That doesn't mean that everything in them has to be sunshine and rainbows, but they ought to offer gameplay that is enjoyable, a world that is compelling, or characters that are interesting. The gameplay of The Witcher games isn't enjoyable, it's just perfunctory. The world isn't compelling because it's a total sinkhole of misery and despair where the potential to do lasting good is slim to non-existant, and the character's aren't interesting because so many of them are loathsome, foul-mouthed bellends.
* I found the few books I read to be totally forgettable, which, to be fair, was partly the fault of the translator, who made them read like dry, high-school textbooks.
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Comments
I can agree that Geralt is not really pleasant character, but an interesting one nonetheless. He is dry, sarcastic, unpleasant and tries to avoid making decisions between good an evil, since in the past making such decisions backfired at him. Of course, he still has to make choices because circumstances are forcing them on him. A lot of his character traits are due to the fact that he is treated by people - even ones who are hiring him - as necessary evil at best. Given that he's about 90 years old by that point, if not older, he experienced a whole ordinary human's life as being treated like a freak (and believing himself being a freak). He also have been throught a lot. His personality traits being shaped like this aren't unexpected.
I guess you just don't like characters like this. Fine. But I am actually glad that you can't create your own Witcher, since it would pretty much violate the lore and deprive the character of any personality and relations with characters from the books. I agree, if you don't care about the setting, character or consequences, then your choices probably won't feel meaningful. The thing is, I am sure that many people just enjoy the tone of the world in which the Witcher series, games and books alike, are taking place. For myself, the appeal of the world in the Witcher is that it is very similar to ours in various aspects, but at the same time, different. You think that not all people who hold power are evil? Think again. It was actually proven that the greater power position person has, the weaker emphaty of that person is. Low ammount of emphaty equals treating people below you like tools to be used, and many, if not majority, of politicians are like that. If you don't see it, then said politicians are good liars.
Commoners nowadays aren't really all stupid, ignorant, bigoted... But in the middle ages? Oh boy... they were. Same could be said about priests, in times when Catholic Church had actual power... Look it up.
Feminatzi alert cringe. First game had sex cards = bad. I agree on that. Second game opens with Triss = bad. But rather than naked Triss, I'm more concerned about the fact that 1. second game ignores players choices regarding romance option 2. Geralt shouldn't be in relationship with Triss in the first place. She was not love of his life. Aside from that, second and thrid games have much more mature approach to erotica and you fail to note that. And aside from this one cutscene, you can beat the game without seeing scenes such as this. It's player's choice. And you are fixated about sex in this series, somehow.
I can add that the thrid game starts with Geralt being naked in the bath. I wonder how much problem you will have with that. The Witcher games and books feels very different to what Tolkien did. And the differences are not about elves, dwarfes or other fantasy tropes like that. It's about the mood, the way people and the world is described. In Tolkien's case, there are clear concepts of good and evil, the evil being often in form of unnatural creatures, or corrupted humans. In the Witcher, it is made clear multiple times that people can be much worse monsters than the "evil" creatures Geralt slays for a living. In Tolkien, the language is proper, sometimes poetic even. In the Witcher, the language is rough, simple, often foul. In Tolkien, the world and mythos are very well defined, but the pacing of the story suffers. In the Witcher, the narration is more focused. You know about the world as much as you have to, and narration has better pace. There are probably more of differences like that. The most beautiful thing about the Witcher world are instances when you can find some good among all this filth. Makes you appreciate it more.
But I pretty much know, what your problem with the game is. The overall feeling of the world and character just aren't appealing for you, because many things you stated you hated are actually pretty much liked by other people. Of course, I think your focus on some points is on the wrong places (or rahter: throught the wrong lences, if you know what I mean). Answering your question short: you hate what other people like in this instance. That's about it. Translating the book like this is a crime towards the original author.
The Witcher tells a story of a protagonist, with all its ups and downs. The fact that Geralt's personality is less than ideal actually enhances it for me. Nothing is more bored than reading about perfect characters saving the world. Or at least for me. *shrugs*
Then again, I've started by reading the novels first and played the games later on. So this may have made a difference in my view to some of yours. I can wholehearty recommend them for a good read.
1) it is completely alright for you to not like the game, setting and characters. Different people, different tastes. There is a lot of people that like the Witcher games, but dislike DA II...
2) The Witcher (Wiedzmin / Zaklinac) was written roughly 20 years ago. That's why it probably feels like old anti-hero schtick from the 1990s. It is. Witcher's world is a pretty dark and depressing fantasy and the underlying tone of the books is, that humans are sometimes worse than monsters. Main hero is despised, beaten and abused physically and mentally throughout all the stories. "Humans are Bastards" could be the poster quote for the world.
3) something that might be overlooked - the author is Polish and most of the stories come from Central European and Slavic mythology, tales and culture. The undertones of that are different, than the anglo-sphere mainstream culture (USA, Britain, Australia, NZ...).
I myself am a Slavic person living in an "anglo-sphere" country. The cultural differences are sometimes huge.
But you know what? None of this really matters, because fantasy was never about faithfulness to history. It's more King Arthur than King Richard. Whinging about how Lord of the Rings (or similar works) isn't a "realistic" depiction of the Middle Ages is akin to whinging about how Star Wars isn't a realistic depiction of space travel. I mean, if you're in a world with albino mutant monster slayers and dragons, you've quite clearly left "historical realism" far behind.
As for Geralt being a flawed character, well, I never had that impression. Instead, he was a brazen Gary Stu: he's strong, badass, ruggedly handsome, has all these scars to prove what a badass he is, he's stoic and emotionless, he's surrounding by astoundingly beautiful women, most of whom are completely willing to sleep with him, and so on. He's basically Clint Eastwood meets James Bond in a fantasy. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; most RPGs protagonists are power fantasies to one degree or another, but I don't buy the idea that Geralt is any more "realistic" or "grounded" than any other fantasy hero.
That's the problem when you have a pre-set protagonist. I didn't care much for Hawk either, although I managed to finish his story on the second attempt. Shepard was okay.
Or is there something about Gheralt in particular that puts people off? Him being an overgrown man-child has already been mentioned, but for me his biggest fault is his lack of a sense of humour. Shepard may have a machismo overdose, but he at least doesn't take him (or her) self too seriously. "This is my favourite store on the Citidel".
As for the idea that Witcher is based firmy in Eastern European mythology, the inclusion of a Private Detective called Phillip Marlovich rather kills that. And, as far as I know, barghasts come from Yorkshire.
So, with that said, I will just agree with what other have said above. You dislike the very things that define the setting; Geralt as a protagonist, the world, the events etc. Nothing anyone here will say will change that, so why bother trying?
Thank you for your valuable insights and observations; they're very helpful in my analysis of The Witcher. I'll note that the possibility and capacity to derive fun, amusement, fear, pain or other sensations from interaction with anything is subject to the individual who experiences it, and their tastes. Game developers may only aim to incite particular sensations by imitating pathways from their own past experiences or from that of others. Like any other piece of creative craft, a game is most fully experienced by one deeply familiarized with the culture, mentality and circumstances of its makers. You speak of enjoyment, compulsion and interest as of definitives. I'm intrigued. Would you mind to indulge my curiosity and shortly describe your perception of these concepts? I'd also greatly appreciate if you cared to list and define any other sensations that playing The Witcher series might have provoked in you, or that you found lacking or under-represented. From what you are saying, one could presume you prefer to regard good as a definitive as well. Do you feel that The Witcher series could benefit from the protagonist having opportunities to exact a one-good-serves-all approach? If so, perhaps you could give some examples where such opportunities would be desirable throughout The Witcher games, as well as comment on the proposed outcome of these good actions. Do you feel that a similar implementation of evil acts could benefit The Witcher series?
Last but not least, do you have any suggestions with regard to changes in the games' world and character design that could dramatically improve the way you view them?
In my opinion, the discord comes when a person tries the games without realizing what genre they're getting into. For example, I despise pulp fiction so much it makes me want to throw up when I see it. Having such a negative reaction to it, I consciously choose to avoid it.
So, the OP's experience would be similar to my picking up a pulp fiction novel and beginning to read it without realizing what it was. I would have the normal emotional reactions of disgust, and a certain amount of anger, that the thing I was consuming was something unexpectedly nauseating. That's just human nature.
So this thread amounts to a warning to other people who find "the hard-boiled detective", or pulp fiction, distasteful or disgusting, to stay away from the Witcher series. It need not be taken as any insult to people who do like it.
And sewers! Yet another pseudo-medieval city with &*%$ sewers!
You're not overly shoe-horned by Geralt being Geralt really after the starting tutorial area - that's partially why they went with the whole "amnesia" angle so it could open up some narrative freedom for the player to remake Geralt in their own image.
As far as the setting goes it heavily borrows from late 19th century English literature fairly heavily and then mixes in Slavic cultural traditions (the way vampires look for example) to add some spice. I thought it was pretty interesting since one isn't often exposed to this sort of thing. I mean, the idea of vampirism was so pervasive in Eastern Europe that the Austro-Hungarian emperor had to create a special government commission to get to the bottom of, and combat, vampire hysteria.
As far as some of the potential draw-backs of the game one could take from various angles.
1. The sex cards are a reference to things you could find all over Europe basically up until the invention of the television. You can actually still get the modern equivalent if you go to Las Vegas where sex-based post-cards are all over the place. It was an interesting integration of history with the setting. But you don't actually get anything out of the sex cards themselves, so if you'd prefer not to take advantage of them, there's nothing wrong with that and it doesn't hurt you in any way. Sexuality in video games is like adding salt to a recipe - some people want more, some people want less, some people have a heart condition, so you just put some salt on the table and call it a day.
2. The story doesn't have a clear "good" and "evil" the game's choices are more about unintended consequences. For modern RPGs that's a well that could be dug for ages. The only real risk is that the player feels cheated because they *thought* x would result from w, but instead they got z. It felt fairly reasonable in Witcher 1. I also really liked how almost every choice you make has *visible* consequences. Characters talk to differently, make different facial expressions (sometimes), or move around the map or die, etc.
3. The character system over all. For me one of the harder things to understand was how to manage making potions, leveling Geralt, etc. But once you get the hang of it it's not so bad. The potion crafting system is *really* interesting and if you're into that kind of thing can be really rewarding once you figure out how to manipulate ingredients to make super potions that can give you a huge edge in harder fights. Some people get pretty irritated with the combat as well since it's meant to be somewhat difficult, you certainly have to be a lot more active when controlling Geralt than you are in most games, at least if you play on the higher difficulties - even on easier settings it's a good idea to dodge periodically lol.
As far as other points. The treatment of sexuality in the witcher isn't something isolated to the 90's. Ian Flemming's James Bond character is probably the modern scion of the guy who gets all the girls, but there are innumerable other characters who exhibit the same behavior in European literature. Rebelais was a Catholic monk living in the 1500s and some of the stuff he wrote would *still* be considered excessively pornographic lol. To make no mention of Njall's Saga, an even older story, that includes copious amounts of sex. One poor viking named Hrut even gets cursed with a ring that makes his sex organ too large for it to be useful as punishment for cheating on his wife - and this is major plot point/turning point in the story lol. Geralt's proclivities are by no means unique to modern times.
The "sex cards" and gratuitous nudity didn't offend me, they just made me roll my eyes in the same way that the Dead or Alive games did. Now, I'm a straight man; I like seeing beautiful woman as much as any other straight man, but I hate it when obvious fanservice is thrown at me (think of all the times in Mass Effect 2 when the camera lingered on Miranda's posterior). When I see this sort of thing, it makes me wonder what age of players the game is aimed at.
I didn't feel that The Witcher "treated me like an adult" as the fans kept telling me. It felt like it was aimed at a teenaged version of me - someone who didn't want to deal with "kiddy stuff," someone who thought that darkness and despair were how the world "really" works. As a teenager I thought James Bond was just the coolest character ever. He was sauve, sophisticated, and badass. He drove fancy cars and had amazing gadgets. He never lost his cool, always had a witty quip at the ready, and always had beautiful women hanging off his arm. But as I grew older I started to see James Bond as a fundamentally broken, damaged individual...someone who was just kind of pathetic, really.
Which was how I felt about Geralt. He's a broken, damaged person, and yet for some reason I just don't feel any sympathy for him at all. I really have no interest in playing as a character that strikes me as being pathetic.
As for "suggestions" on how to improve the game, well, others have already pointed out that many people enjoy The Witcher games for the same reasons that I hated them. I'm not about to go stomping onto CD Projekt's forums and demand that the developers change the game to suit my tastes.
That said, one game series I kept comparing The Witcher to as I played it was the Thief series of games (Thief: The Dark Project, Thief 2: The Metal Age, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and the fourth game I like to pretend doesn't exist). The world of Thief is similar to The Witcher in a many ways, being a combination of film noir, steampunk, and gothic horror. The protagonist, Garrett, is similar to Geralt in many ways, too: he's jaded, cynical, and an outsider. He's not necessarily a bad person; he won't go out of his way to hurt someone, but neither will he go out of his way to help them. He's a criminal, basically, and criminals must, by necessity, develop a hard, exterior shell over their hearts. The world he inhabits is dark, gloomy, and rife with corruption and malice.
But for whatever reason, I utterly adore the Thief games, absolutely detest The Witcher games. And I started asking myself why I felt this way.
The first and most obvious answer is that the Thief games are not RPGs - they're stealth games mixed with a bit of survival horror. The player's interaction with the people of the world are generally limited to cutscenes and overheard conversations. You are left to learn about the world yourself. In the third game, for instance, you enter an orphanage that had been converted into an insane asylum. But once you're inside, you learn that it was used as both an orphanage and insane asylum at the same time. You read stories about the sadistic "treatments" the patients would undergo, how one of them would carry around the ashes of her dead baby with her at all times, and in one of the patient's cells you can find the nightgown of one of the little orphan girls stashed behind some bricks. You think to yourself that this is really dark, horrifying stuff, but the game doesn't ram it down your throat.
Which is where The Witcher fell flat for me. It's just trying too hard. They just keep rubbing in your face, again and again, that this is a harsh, brutal, "grown-up" world, and this "grown-up world" is incapable of straying, even for a moment, from this dark, murky path. Which is just as shallow and unrealistic as a fairy tale world where Goodness and Light always win. I've heard people say that The Witcher "deconstructs" fantasy tropes, but the only tropes it deconstructs are the ones that make fantasy literature humane: goodness, love, human decency, compassion...anything that deviates from the cliched "crapsack world" has been excised. Other fantasy cliches are played completely straight: the big, bad evil empire, the lone badass swordsman, the sexy, manipulative sorceress, the stock fantasy races, the grab-bag approach to European mythology.
If I wanted a deconstruction of fantasy tropes, Terry Pratchett does it much better. And he does so without making me want to slit my wrists.
Summa summarum:
It is a matter of personal taste, but I think that in terms of renewing M&KB combat mechanics for "real time", The Witcher has rendered great service to revitalising PC gaming overall (with DA:O).
This is one of those rare cases where I excuse the blind spots in writing becasue I rate the game mechanics so high - plus the writing is unintentionally hilarious in TW, IMO. And so transparent in trying to branch out in TW3 it's endearing. TW2 I meanwhile boycott after a single play-through left me cold and bothered, personally.
Why am I a fan?
I credit Dragon Age: Origins and The Witcher as having been the standard beareres and harbingers of the renaissance of PC RPG genre. As a committed PC gaming fan, I am very thankful of this overall.
While DA:O modernised the party based tactical combat, from my perspective TW had wonderfully innovative and fresh real time combat mechanics for M&KB that uplifted that style from button mashing.
With DA2, I find TW one of the rare series where I imagine that both M&KB and the controller feels at par, even if TW3 & TW3 had more of a console first feel.
NB: before getting the timing and flow of combat right, The Witcher combat it was super unforgiving to me, - but there was something that kept me persisting.
"Dr Stragelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Writing Blind Spots."
Well, maybe not love, exactly, but...
I hope I am not mocking Geralt excessively when I consider him simply to be an Ultimate Papal Fantasy Gigolo-Boy - PG 13 version that.
When an old, formally childless male cleric has any sort of de facto moral weight and practical bearing in telling people that human sexuality is generally speaking an impulse of human corruption except when ritually sanctified between a life-long couple of opposite sexes, contraception is sinful and abortion should be illegal - you get Geralt of Rivia.
As such, he represents acceptance of that ethos, in being exceptionally freed of the harmful practical consequences without any particular criticism to the value system as a whole. It is a needy fantasy, so Geralt's char has difficulty transcending its limitations - in TW3 it gets a bit better, thou. But at least the gimmick makes sense: compare James Bond never reaching for that condom!
When Geralt goes Pokemon, I just raised a sordonic eyebrow, and find it more unintentionally humorous than offensive. When otherwise supposedly high-powered women are desparate to play house with Geralt dragging along the first tyke they find, I find that presonally just superbly ridic even if it is not intentionally funny.
The Witcher 3 is best effort thus far. If for whatever they do next, CD Project RED manages to drop the notion than "mature storytelling" = a fetish about decorating the world with hanged persons + no excuse is small enough to get those boobies out, preferably to be prodded with hot irons...
Well, I think they could genuinely write for everyone, and produce a really good game.
What I feel very uncomfy with or critical about:
I will never replay TW2 because I personally find NPC Dethmold's characterisation homophic to a disturbing degree, and postponed TW3 until the price came down to signal my exception as a fan. That would have been second strike out to me, if the writing had not become more nuanced. No, it was not an issue that Dethmold was evil and trecheours - I perso drew the line with pimple popping to an affected voice in his execution scene, the sole purose of which was to render him ridiculous and disgusting, combined with an implied slave raping that was to highligh how unredeemable and depraved he was.
Eroticized torture. Torture is a horrible real world problem, and in my view should serve a more serious story device than that.
Fan service for one particular group in expense of all others.