#also is there a whole lot of background for roche that i don't know about

[geraltrogerericduhautebellegarde]

Ciri and Roche both meet Eredin's description of a gemstone in a pile of humus. Because they're both good people who've had a lot of shit happen to them in their lives.

[arse-blathanna]

Hi!! Sorry for asking but I can't get blorbos out of my head and I need to annoy someone.

What do you think of Roche and Ves's relationship? Could Ves possibly turn against Roche and overthrow him? I still can't get over that quest with Milfgaard where Ves straight up disobeyed and maybe at some point questioned his leadership in her mind. It's sad to think that the most important person in Roche's life could just left him all alone and now I'm torturing myself by thinking about it :,)

Anon I think about the Vernon and Ves relationship so much you have no idea. The main thing that strikes me about it is the odd undefined space that they exist in, largely as a result of their circumstances. As commander and soldier, the other aspects of their relationship are there but sort of silent. To try and define it could potentially be an abuse of power on Roche's part. So we have to question as the audience: Is it father/daughter? Older brother/little sister? Potential lovers? We don't know, but we do know that these two are attached to each other, nearly inseparable.

Roche rescued a teenage Ves and she's been at his side for years. They've seen their king die, their country fall and possibly rise again, they've lost the Blue Stripes, their friends. Their community. All gone. But after that they were always together.

That one blip of separation and disagreement in the Witcher 3 is there. But it's not a failing of care or loyalty on either's part, not really. Roche was (necessarily) in a position where he had to keep alliances with Nilfgaard a secret. From what we've seen the only people who knew about that whole arrangement at the time were Thaler and Emhyr. Could Roche have been open with Ves about this? Maybe. But he kept it quiet, so we don't know.

Ves' side in that is also worth talking about. From her perspective, Roche is abandoning Temerians to Nilfgaard which is distinctly out of character for him. But its also a situation which directly mirrors her own background. A village being razed, it's people murdered? The only thing that changes is instead of it being Scoia'tael attacking it's the Nilfs. Of course she'd be upset by what looks like Roche's negligence from her perspective. She doesn't know that he's doing what he can to maintain a fragile tentative alliance.

Of course the interactions surrounding that gives the most credence to the father and daughter interpretation of their relationship. Between Vernon trying to ground Ves the first time, the complaining about what she's wearing not because it's tits out for Temeria but because he was afraid she'd be hurt, and then grounding her again. One thing is clear: he cares for Ves. A lot. He's terrified he'd lose her.

And if you're worried about her leaving, I'll remind you of what happens after. Vernon tries to go to Kaer Morhen alone, and Ves doesn't let him. She follows him, that whole issue with the village more or less behind them. They go back to Temeria together, Ves gets brought into the fold where killing Radovid is concerned. And if Geralt chooses it, they can even see their kingdom live again, even if they have oversight from Nilfgaard.

What happens to them after? We don't know. But I imagine they wouldn't separate, not unless they had to. They love each other too much, even if they don't get to say that aloud.

[bloededhoine]

I notice a lot of fans don't really bring up how Roche uses Ves for her "feminine qualities (for lack of a better word)." I hate that in Witcher 2 he sends her to Loredo dressed as a prostitute and it is implied she does this sort of thing regularly? I do know that Roche cares for her but sometimes his behavior needs a reprimand. Do you have any thoughts on this?

i absolutely love questions like this because they really make me think. plus, this is one of the rare posts that's a system special! give @claire-verlaine your love. she's simply amazing.

first things first, spoiler warning for chapter 2 of roche's path in w2 and big trigger warning for discussions of sex work, sex trafficking, rape, war, unequal power dynamics, and brief mentions of underage prostitution. also this is really fucking long. sorry.

let's start with the geekiness: prostitution as a cover for espionage has a long and awesome, albeit poorly documented, history. it was really big with the confederacy (read: racists) during american civil war, and while their motives were undoubtedly awful, these spies were simply amazing. rose o'neal greenhow was recognized by the confederate president for her role in their victory at the first battle of bull run. belle boyd seduced a union (read: racists but more covert) general, found out the date and location of the next war council, drilled a hole in the floor in the meeting room, and sat in the crawl space and took notes of the entire thing.

although there were many successful female union spies, most of them didn't use sex. there's no clear consensus on why this was, but it's entirely possible that such enlightened progressives figured sex work to be demeaning. clearly, union men were avid consumers, but also thought women didn't know any better and needed to be protected from men who would exploit them. meanwhile, these awful southern racists had no problem with "exploiting" women, but inadvertently granted them a shit ton of political agency and prestige!

this all brings us to our next point, which is that nothing is inherently wrong with sex work, although it does put workers in incredibly vulnerable positions. for every spy that successfully used prostitution as a cover, there were likely many others that failed. without even considering the consequences of being discovered as an enemy spy, sex trafficking was (and continues to be) a very real risk for anyone in that situation*.

nearly the whole history of sex work legislation shows how little people, especially upper class men, understand it. the spies in the civil war were both lucky and unlucky in that they operated quite independently. they didn't need to take orders from someone who was entirely unqualified to give them, but they also had no safety net in case something went wrong. if belle boyd so much as sneezed while eavesdropping, there would be almost no chance she'd get back home alive.

however dangerous this job was, most lady spies during the civil war began spying before they were even recruited by the army. these women weren't doing it on anyone's orders, they were doing it because they had the skills and believed in the cause (remember that in this case that belief was not an admirable quality).

rose o'neal's (possible) handler, thomas jordan, had a huge network of spies, and all evidence points to him giving her way more independence than usual. thomas jordan wasn't who rose went to for orders, he was who she submitted her reports to. in my opinion, the sex she had to obtain this information was consensual.

ves' scenario is obviously different in regard to her chain of command. she is going into sexual situations under the direct orders of a (male) commanding officer. just writing this has the alarm bells going off in my head. what good is having someone to get you out of a dangerous situation when they were the one to put you in that situation in the first place? but this is where we get to what's special about roche. he is, as they say, not like other girls.

it's no secret how much roche loves his team. when the blue stripes are killed he says that everything he loved died. if ves dies in an eye for an eye he is absolutely devastated. the blue stripes aren't just roche's subordinates, they're his family. when you see the stripes outside of battle the camaraderie is even clearer: they fist fight their commander and each other to blow off steam, they play games, have contests, etc. ves' knowledge of roche's dark and troubled past is more proof that the trust goes both ways.

roche would never put his family in an unnecessarily dangerous situation, nor would he have them do something he personally wouldn't do. even if it's just from a morality perspective (like double crossing radovid for the man that had foltest killed), roche goes it alone.

so, we know roche is a (compratively) good guy. but we also know that intention, often, doesn't mean shit. i mentioned earlier how most of the people making decisions for sex workers have little to no idea of what they are doing. it doesn't help that their intentions are all about controlling (mostly) women and getting rich in the process, but even the best meaning legislator could unknowingly do a lot of damage. roche is way more involved in ves' missions than thomas jordan was in rose o'neal's, but i think that's a good thing.

as i'm sure you lovely witcher connoisseurs know, roche is a literal whoreson. he is very aware of what goes on in brothels, and, depending on how you read into his relationship with foltest, what it's like to not really be able to say no. if anything, roche's involvement here is a good thing, since he has years of first hand experience with exactly what ves is going through, but without the safety net of an elite team that loves him and are frighteningly good soldiers.

plus, ves is far more capable than your average soldier, even in a blue stripes-calibre group. she's an absolute badass. most women who used prostitution as a cover for spying went into it with no combat or espionage training whatsoever. they knew how to be personable, how to be seductive, and how to use men's biases to get them to spill all their secrets. clearly, this knowledge served them well, but what about the occasions when it didn't? they were not fighters. at all. ves has both the "feminine charms" and the terrifying combat skills. of course, these scenarios usually have her acting as a spy, not an assassin, so those skills are more of a failsafe, but it's still very important to her own safety and the morality of the whole situation.

TL;DR

to sum up, anon, i do agree with (what i assume to be) your reasoning, but not the conclusion you came to. if someone told me an older male superior was having a younger female subordinate act as a prostitute to gain intel during a time of war, i'd be ready to start cutting off dicks.

but that's not the whole story. the older male superior has a personal background in (possibly) coerced and underaged sex work. the younger female subordinate is a highly skilled soldier, and second in command of an elite unit. both of them have a very close familial relationship developed over several years. a similar relationship exists between the the other members of the unit in their command. personally, i think those factors make this a completely new situation.

that being said, i'm certain that my beliefs aren't the only ones out there. as long as we can all agree that the base scenario is unequivocally wrong, there should be absolutely no reason to (civilly) not discuss whether or not the special circumstances make it okay.

* i'll take this as an opportunity to say that the enforcement of anti-sex work laws force sex workers to be either a criminal, a victim, or dead. these laws are the problem, not the solution. the solution would be supporting unions for sex workers, giving them the same legal protections given to any other worker, and treating them like humans, not statistics.