#and then sapek sues them or something for yoinking plot points from his new book xd

[stillness138]

So Jinzee's video about the trailer brought me to a realization, it's kinda neat that Ciri has an association with the cat school in the light of this new direction.

Everyone is still screaming crying throwing up that Ciri having undergone the grasses is way too lore breaking but here's the counter argument again; her entire plot in the books is about her and only her getting to decide what to do with her life and with her body.

And not to get derailed too much but diverging from what Sapek or even cdpr themselves said before doesn't have to be a bad thing. Think about Thronebreaker - it's a great adaptation of Baptism despite not literally having the same storyline or the same characters because it's ultimately about the same things, a perilous journey to save what you care about the most, familial relationships and a family-like unit brought together by circumstance, how much war sucks. I think this new game is going to be about autonomy, something looming over Ciri's entire book arc. And again, it's okay to "break lore" in service of a good, meaningful story that still carries the spirit of what Sapek was trying to say; the witcher books certainly aren't about "adult women can't be turned into witchers", they are about, among other things, family, abuse, and making choices.

Jinzee in her video proposes that perhaps the lynx school is going to be a group of people who choose whether to undergo (likely altered/adjusted, re: the future potential of Uma's uncursing) mutations and that made me think about Gezras and the story of the cat school in gwent. Because it doesn't appear in the ttrpg it seems it was written specifically for gwent by the mysterious lorekeeper, so it is cdpr approved at least. I talked about Gezras quite a bit already (here, under Thaler) and concluded that his and the cat school's story is beside revenge about reclaiming the trial as something that gives mistreated people means to protect themselves. Autonomy and even ability to choose. It's not perfect in the cats' case, not at all, these are back alley mutations that leave them fucked up forever, but the concept is not unheard of.

I don't think Ciri would have forced anyone into it. The lack of much of a choice (Geralt does talk about choice being a factor in the trial but is it a real one when you're a literal child given up by your caretakers) is what makes it an abuse cycle and she's had enough experience with abuse - and with falling into a spiral where she becomes a perpetrator - to avoid doing it again (she also has an on-page mini arc of getting out of that spiral, with Vysogota, but it would be interesting if the game explored her history, especially the years spent in the Arthurian world). Maybe her mutation will be a one-off like i initially thought, but if not, choice is a word already attached to her by the game director and indirectly by the trailer itself. That girl's autonomy is a point in it too. She believes she has to sacrifice herself but only because she's been told as much by people around her. In that sense it's personal for Ciri, and probably why it's the plot of her first trailer to begin with.

And i guess the best closing words i can muster is that it also is just that, a first trailer - we don't know the plot of the game and can only speculate what it's going to be about and how it's going to explain the trial and even the medallion for that matter. Not to have expectations too high because cdpr is definitely prone to comically wasting their potential, but so far it's really not looking bad. The ground for good storytelling and even apt political commentary is there, we will have to wait to see if they walk it.