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Andrzej Sapkowski II


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10 hours ago, SeanF said:

That's true, although there are significant parts of Witcher 3 that can't really be reconciled with the text of the Lady of the Lake.

Yeah, that's why there's the idea that the games are one possible continuation of the books and not "the" official continuation, as Sapokowski may still write that (but probably won't).

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But what continuation are we talking about here?

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They are all dead, save Dandelion and few less important others, after all. Right? Wish you guys heard the national public hysterical debate about the ending that erupted in Poland when The Lady of the Lake was first published back in 1999. Are they all dead or not, dammit? :D And Sapkowski has just mysteriously smiled under his moustache. :)

 

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13 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

But what continuation are we talking about here?

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They are all dead, save Dandelion and few less important others, after all. Right? Wish you guys heard the national public hysterical debate about the ending that erupted in Poland when The Lady of the Lake was first published back in 1999. Are they all dead or not, dammit? :D And Sapkowski has just mysteriously smiled under his moustache. :)

 

Of the major characters, Cirri is very much alive.  And, there are still a fair number of pretty significant characters, like Dijkstra, Triss Merrigold , Philippa Eilhart (although, she will come to a sticky end) Zarpen, Emrys, and Francesca Findabair, as well as a lot of lesser characters.

I think there's not much doubt that Geralt and Yennefer both died.  But it's ambiguous whether they were reunited in an afterlife, or brought back to life and taken to one of the alternate worlds by Cirri

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On 3/11/2017 at 10:20 AM, SeanF said:

It answers Roose Bolton's Pet Leech's point about why do sympathetic people willingly serve the Dark Lord.  The treatment which the rulers of the North have meted out to non-humans ranges from very discriminatory (at best) to genocidal (at worst). Unsurprisingly, when the Dark Lord offers them a better deal, many of them jump at the opportunity (however much they may suspect his motives).  The surprise is that so many of them remain loyal to their human rulers.

One thing which is different from the books than the games is also the fact the elves and humans were doing fairly well prior to the Nilfgaard war. Yes, "pureblood" elves were dying out but most of the North had a little elven blood mixed in with them and there was peace. Nilfgaard then stroked the fires of nationalism and stabbed in the back mentality to create the Scoia'tael that proceeded to murder and butcher countless humans.

Which THEN started the current mass lynchings and murders and inspired more violence.

It's a nice commentary on terrorism, which you normally wouldn't find in fantasy novels.

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@C.T. Phipps

Who is the dark Lord? Emhyr? He isn't worse than any of the Northern kings, in fact, it could be argued that he is better and there is more prosperity and less discrimination in the Nilgaardian Empire rather than in northern realms.

Also, the elves weren't doing fine before the Nilgaardian attack. They just weren't getting killed that much. To me it looked the typical 'treat people like animals for a long time, and they will eventually start acting like animals'.

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1 minute ago, TheRevanchist said:

@C.T. Phipps

Who is the dark Lord? Emhyr? He isn't worse than any of the Northern kings, in fact, it could be argued that he is better and there is more prosperity and less discrimination in the Nilgaardian Empire rather than in northern realms.

Also, the elves weren't doing fine before the Nilgaardian attack. They just weren't getting killed that much. To me it looked the typical 'treat people like animals for a long time, and they will eventually start acting like animals'.

I only refer to Emhyr as "The Dark Lord" because he is the most powerful of the rulers in the series, and an antagonist to the North.  But, I agree he's no worse (arguably better) than the Northern rulers.

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8 minutes ago, TheRevanchist said:

@C.T. Phipps

Who is the dark Lord? Emhyr? He isn't worse than any of the Northern kings, in fact, it could be argued that he is better and there is more prosperity and less discrimination in the Nilgaardian Empire rather than in northern realms.

Also, the elves weren't doing fine before the Nilgaardian attack. They just weren't getting killed that much. To me it looked the typical 'treat people like animals for a long time, and they will eventually start acting like animals'.

Uhm?

I'm one of the people who really doesn't buy into Nilfgaard apologism. They're not only much much worse than Northern Kings, they're pretty much embodiments of evil. He's an enormous scumbag who created racial tension, ordered war on the civilian populace of the North (the "war on the castles, peace on the peasants" speech), and repeatedly attacked the North for the purposes of conquest. The North may be racist but it's also not a practitioner of slavery--which Nilfgaard is.

I don't blame him for sacking Cintra but given he planned to marry his own daughter, I'm not cutting the guy any slack. The Northern Kings are scum, don't get me wrong but fight Niflgaard every step of the way.

Also, attempts to treat the elves as the victims ignores they're also involved in the indiscriminate murder of human civilians before the war. Ethnic conflict is no stranger to Eastern Europe with the point of Sapkowski, I think, being it rarely has heroes but plenty of villains.

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18 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

One thing which is different from the books than the games is also the fact the elves and humans were doing fairly well prior to the Nilfgaard war. Yes, "pureblood" elves were dying out but most of the North had a little elven blood mixed in with them and there was peace. Nilfgaard then stroked the fires of nationalism and stabbed in the back mentality to create the Scoia'tael that proceeded to murder and butcher countless humans.

Which THEN started the current mass lynchings and murders and inspired more violence.

It's a nice commentary on terrorism, which you normally wouldn't find in fantasy novels.

The Squirrels made life worse for everyone, undoubtedly.  But, even prior to their terrorist campaign, there's certainly plenty of evidence of ill-treatment of non-humans.

That doesn't make non-humans good of course.  Elven resentment towards humans is based mostly on the fact that they aren't the ones in charge any longer.  I think Sapkowski has compared them to elite Romans after the Western Empire fell to the barbarians.  Some were killed and dispossessed, others did pretty well under the new regimes, and many of them intermarried with the conquerors. But, there was always a basic resentment that they were no longer masters. 

 

In the world that Cirri enters after the Tower of the Swallow, it's plain that Elves treat humans as cattle

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12 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Uhm?

I'm one of the people who really doesn't buy into Nilfgaard apologism. They're not only much much worse than Northern Kings, they're pretty much embodiments of evil. He's an enormous scumbag who created racial tension, ordered war on the civilian populace of the North (the "war on the castles, peace on the peasants" speech), and repeatedly attacked the North for the purposes of conquest. I don't blame him for sacking Cintra but given he planned to marry his own daughter, I'm not cutting the guy any slack. The Northern Kings are scum, don't get me wrong but fight Niflgaard every step of the way.

King Foltest fucked his sister for a few years, right? And then got that abomination, with Geralt having to fix things. Is that much worse than Emhyr wanting to fuck his daughter (which he didn't do in the end) in order to fulfill a prophecy.

Also, the Northern kings were at times fighting each other, and only the unification against Nilfgaards made them stop doing so. Even then, they were still planning to get territories of other kingdoms, and they actually did so when Emhyr invaded those 2 countries and gave them favorable terms (i.e get some part of other's territories). In addition to that, they persecuted non-humans (or allowed people to do so), religious fanatics gained power, etc etc. 

At the end of the first game, I went with the Nilfgaardian Empire mostly because I thought that Ciri might be the only one who can make the world a better place, and because the North was already either on deep shit (after the death of Foltest and Helsen), or lead by lunatics and religious fanatics. Allowing Emhyr to win the war (with a strong hint that he will abdicate in favor of Ciri later) and Roche getting some type of independence for his country looked to me the least of two evils.

I think that both in books and games, the Northern kings are described as bad/evil as Emhyr, but I think that Nilfgaardian Empire is a better run country and so a better country to live with (as long as you don't have problems with Emhyr).

...


I think that Sapkowski is really one of the best when it comes to writing politics. Scoi'atel are definitely terrorists, the use of them by Emhyr has many parallels in real world (when some strong state uses some proxy to get their goals, or even making countries fight each other like Iran-Iraq) etc. He doesn't go too much into details like Martin, but I think that it is right there with Martin and Cook when it comes to politics.

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11 minutes ago, TheRevanchist said:


I think that Sapkowski is really one of the best when it comes to writing politics. Scoi'atel are definitely terrorists, the use of them by Emhyr has many parallels in real world (when some strong state uses some proxy to get their goals, or even making countries fight each other like Iran-Iraq) etc. He doesn't go too much into details like Martin, but I think that it is right there with Martin and Cook when it comes to politics.

I agree.  It was certainly realistic to see both Emhyr and Francesca hanging the Scoi'atel out to dry once they were no longer needed.

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I don't think northern kings were meant to be pictured as bad as Emhyr, but, more importantly, they're not homogenous, unified bunch. Foltest was a scumbag alright, but Vizimir much less so, not to mention Esterad Thyssen, who was a pretty decent man and a capable ruler (or was it Zuleyka?). Anyway, any of you guys thinking North was as bad as Nilfgaard rooted for the blacks in the Battle of Brenna?

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3 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

I don't think northern kings were meant to be pictured as bad as Emhyr, but, more importantly, they're not homogenous, unified bunch. Foltest was a scumbag alright, but Vizimir much less so, not to mention Esterad Thyssen, who was a pretty decent man and a capable ruler (or was it Zuleyka?). Anyway, any of you guys thinking North was as bad as Nilfgaard rooted for the blacks in the Battle of Brenna?

I don't think I'd want Nilfgaard to win.  And, most of the Northern POV's in the battle were sympathetic ones.

I agree that Estered Thyssen seems like a decent king.  But, he's the exception, IMHO.  If the Northern Kings had carried out their planned invasion of Cintra, I don't doubt they would have employed similar tactics to Nilfgaard.

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Eh, the invasion of Cintra was done by Emhyr's political rivals and Dandelion states the atrocities committed were far in excess of what was normally done during wars in the North.

"Not this war, Geralt. After this war, no-one returns. There will be nothing to return to. Nilfgaard leaves behind it only rubble; its armies advance like lava from which no-one escapes. The roads are strewn, for miles, with gallows and pyres; the sky is cut with columns of smoke as long as the horizon. Since the beginning of the world, in fact, nothing of this sort has happened before. Since the world is our world... You must understand that the Nilfgaardians have descended from their mountains to destroy this world."

There's a racial component in Nilfgaard which is interesting as they consider themselves superior to the humans of the North due to their elven blood, which inclines them to treat elves better but their fellow human beings worse.

“War to the castles, peace to the villages,” Coehoorn said to his commanders yesterday. You know that principle,’ he added at once. ‘You learned it in officer training. That principle applied until today; from tomorrow you’re to forget it. From tomorrow a different principle applies, which will now be the battle cry of the war we are waging. The battle cry and my orders run: War on everything alive. War on everything that can burn. You are to leave scorched earth behind you. From tomorrow, we take war beyond the line we will withdraw behind after signing the treaty. We are withdrawing, but there is to be nothing but scorched earth beyond that line. The kingdoms of Rivia and Aedirn are to be reduced to ashes! Remember Sodden! The time of revenge is with us!’

I also draw a distinction between Sapkowski's vision of the Witcherverse and the CD_Projekt Redverse. They're pretty much the difference between the Star Wars films of George Lucas and the Star Wars Legends universe. I consider both to be "my" canon but they're not quite the same thing.

The Witcher 3 SERIOUSLY whitewashed Nilfgaard, IMHO, and basically ignored all of the downsides of Nilfgaard rule to make Roche's treason against Temeria appear justified. I went with Dijkstra because the only way Ciri would ever be safe from her father was if he was overthrown and assassinated. Geralt doesn't betray his friends but friends don't use each other either and Roche/Ves/Thaler used Geralt as their hitman without letting him know it was a prelude to a surrender agreement.

So my Geralt walked away.

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On ‎3‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 11:52 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

Eh, the invasion of Cintra was done by Emhyr's political rivals and Dandelion states the atrocities committed were far in excess of what was normally done during wars in the North.

"Not this war, Geralt. After this war, no-one returns. There will be nothing to return to. Nilfgaard leaves behind it only rubble; its armies advance like lava from which no-one escapes. The roads are strewn, for miles, with gallows and pyres; the sky is cut with columns of smoke as long as the horizon. Since the beginning of the world, in fact, nothing of this sort has happened before. Since the world is our world... You must understand that the Nilfgaardians have descended from their mountains to destroy this world."

There's a racial component in Nilfgaard which is interesting as they consider themselves superior to the humans of the North due to their elven blood, which inclines them to treat elves better but their fellow human beings worse.

“War to the castles, peace to the villages,” Coehoorn said to his commanders yesterday. You know that principle,’ he added at once. ‘You learned it in officer training. That principle applied until today; from tomorrow you’re to forget it. From tomorrow a different principle applies, which will now be the battle cry of the war we are waging. The battle cry and my orders run: War on everything alive. War on everything that can burn. You are to leave scorched earth behind you. From tomorrow, we take war beyond the line we will withdraw behind after signing the treaty. We are withdrawing, but there is to be nothing but scorched earth beyond that line. The kingdoms of Rivia and Aedirn are to be reduced to ashes! Remember Sodden! The time of revenge is with us!’

I also draw a distinction between Sapkowski's vision of the Witcherverse and the CD_Projekt Redverse. They're pretty much the difference between the Star Wars films of George Lucas and the Star Wars Legends universe. I consider both to be "my" canon but they're not quite the same thing.

The Witcher 3 SERIOUSLY whitewashed Nilfgaard, IMHO, and basically ignored all of the downsides of Nilfgaard rule to make Roche's treason against Temeria appear justified. I went with Dijkstra because the only way Ciri would ever be safe from her father was if he was overthrown and assassinated. Geralt doesn't betray his friends but friends don't use each other either and Roche/Ves/Thaler used Geralt as their hitman without letting him know it was a prelude to a surrender agreement.

So my Geralt walked away.

Well, we see some Northern forces doing  pretty vile stuff in their own right, murdering and torturing villagers, lynching and otherwise abusing prisoners, and raping Nilfgaardian women being repatriated to the Empire.

That's not to whitewash Nilfgaard, which I view as more of an equal opportunity oppressor. One doesn't get a pass for mass murder and slavery, simply because one isn't racist.

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7 hours ago, SeanF said:

Well, we see some Northern forces doing  pretty vile stuff in their own right, murdering and torturing villagers, lynching and otherwise abusing prisoners, and raping Nilfgaardian women being repatriated to the Empire.

That's not to whitewash Nilfgaard, which I view as more of an equal opportunity oppressor. One doesn't get a pass for mass murder and slavery, simply because one isn't racist.

Oh, yes, the Kadewin chapter talk about how they can't do their usual "rape, pillage, and burn" because they don't want to look like bad guys but they give permission for rape if it's done discreetly. Vile stuff. I just give the North something of a pass because if you're going to side with the conquerors or the conquerees, it takes a lot to get me to side with the former.

Geralt, of course, doesn't care about Nilfgaard for the most part.

It's just Emhyr personally screws with his life.

That and Nilfgaard is much more efficient at ruining lives than the North used to be.

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