#the parallels with ciri’s story makes me so emotional like…

[hanzajesthanza]

“what does geralt get from that friendship…”

another post examining the weight of geralt and dandelion’s friendship… because i don’t think people recognize how painful and debilitating loneliness can become.

the witcher as a deconstruction of the genre takes fantasy tropes to their most logical ends—it asks us to consider what The Lone Swordsman feels, looks into the humanity in a Cold-Blooded Killer. and it turns out he’s not cold-blooded at all.

that despite some superhuman abilities, he laments and worries and curses himself, just like any other worker of any other profession. just as the farmer is scorched by the sun, the washerwoman’s back aches, and the scholar goes half-blind studying, a witcher deals with all of the pains and annoyances and dangers of his job in a mundanely human way.

but the farmer, the washerwoman, and the scholar have something the witcher does not have—they’ll always be seen as human and part of their society. at the end of the day after enduring all of their labor, they have their wife to caress, festivities to attend, and taverns to frequent. but for a witcher? after the killing is over, what does he have? no one and nothing. not even a thank you. he is met with fear and hatred everywhere he goes, baseless bigotry and dislike.

I did my job. I quickly learned how. I’d ride up to village enclosures or town pickets and wait. If they spat, cursed and threw stones, I rode away. If someone came out to give me a commission, I’d carry it out.

so he faces not just loneliness, but being deliberately ostracized and cast out from society. geralt can’t even find a polite word in most settlements, much less a friend.

‘(…) Tell me, where should I go? And for what? At least here some people have gathered with whom I have something to talk about. People who don’t break off their conversations when I approach. People who, though they may not like me, say it to my face, and don’t throw stones from behind a fence. (…)’

this kind of loneliness is not a mere inconvenience. it’s completely altering to your self-perception and ability to see the positive in the world.

each day is not lived, but endured.

day in, and day out—forced to the most difficult and lowest labor in order to survive, and knowing that were you to die, no one would search for your body, few would miss you, hell, they might even spit “good riddance”.

in this situation, to find a friend, is not only friendship, but a rescue.

without dandelion, geralt may have drowned—drowned in solitude, amidst a sea of strangeness.

‘(…) And I’m alone, completely alone, endlessly alone among the strange and hostile elements. Solitude amid a sea of strangeness. Don’t you dream of that?’

No, I don’t, he thought. I have it every day.

because dandelion is not only a bright soul, characteristic rippling laughter and the strum of a lute, but someone who will intently listen to geralt, someone who mutually enjoys his company.

‘(…) you almost jumped out of your pants with joy to have a companion. Until then, you only had your horse for company.’

someone who doesn’t see him as strange and at the fringes of society at all, but as an utterly normal man.

and doesn’t impose demeaning, sappy sympathy onto him, but sobering and realistic “quit your bullshit” which ridicules the very thought that he should internalize societal hatred.

Do you know what your problem is, Geralt? You think you’re different. (…) [You don’t understand that] for people who think clear-headedly you’re the most normal man under the sun, and they all wish that everybody was so normal. What of it that you have quicker reflexes than most and vertical pupils in sunlight? That you can see in the dark like a cat? That you know a few spells? Big deal.

dandelion isn’t “willing” to accept geralt for himself—he already has accepted him. and to him, it’s no difficulty, it’s nothing worth discussing, because he sees no abnormality and no strangeness in him.

while others “prefer the company of lepers to witchers,” dandelion has already offered geralt to share his room and board. not out of sympathetic pity, not out of fetishizing curiosity. because… they’re friends.

and what else does this friendship save him from?

not only from others, but from himself.

worse than enduring others’ apathy and hatred is one’s own thoughts—the darkness and negativity which builds from witnessing and experiencing such behavior.

dandelion’s ability to counter and dispel geralt’s pessimism and self-flagellating tendencies—again, not out of pity, but out of friendship—is undeniably invaluable. someone to rescue you from your darkest thoughts, when you begin to spiral.

and in this darkness, all you can do is cry. you cry, beg for someone to help you, please—

Help! Why doesn't anyone help me? Alone, weak, helpless – I can't move, can't force a sound from my constricted throat. Why does no one come to help me? I'm terrified!

to be alone, the saga reminds us, is worse than a death sentence. to be alone is to “perish; stabbed, beaten or kicked to death, defiled, like a toy passed from hand to hand.” to be alone is to suffer, and to be with someone is to save them from that suffering.

'(…) I wouldn't like anything bad to happen to you. I like you too much, owe you too much-'

'You've said that already. What do you owe me, Yennefer?'

The sorceress turned her head away, did not say anything for a while.

'You travelled with him,' she said finally. 'Thanks to you he was not alone. You were a friend to him. You were with him.'

it is true that geralt has saved dandelion countless times, helped him, gotten him out of some scrape… but to ask what did geralt get in return? are you kidding me?

did you ever consider that it is dandelion who saved geralt?

by being with him. by being by his side. by being his friend.

indeed, dandelion has rescued geralt, countless times, from the yawning jaws of endless loneliness. he’s helped him, chased away the danger of geralt’s own rumination. and he’s gotten him out of scrapes, his own insecurities and bitter helplessness.

so what does dandelion give geralt? what does geralt get from their friendship?

an amusing question. what one gets from friendship is the friendship itself. and that is more than enough.

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

There was a bunch of twists and turns in this analysis but I frankly love the part about Radovid and his brother's relationships and how it could have affected him and his behaviour.

There are very interesting character deconstruction here also.

This show has very little time to breath but you can tell a lot from its actors who some are playing their arses off to tell the story behind their characters. Also, even if this series hasn't the best cinematic language, it does things and some shots are speaking. There are parallels and hints in the frames that are worth taking. The story told out loud isn't the only thing to look at. And I guess one of the things that made me love this show is that : the meta language, the acting and the echoes sent though the whole narratives.

That being said, I want to add some little things to the part of family structures displayed in the show. In my review of season 3, I tried to develop a bit this part but I never included Radovid.

Maybe it is time to rectify some things.

For me there is a strong parallelization between found families and blood families, through the course of the 3 seasons and a bit of BO. Most of our characters are in search for a found family and their blood family is dysfunctional.

Geralt abandoned by his mother. Yennefer sold to Aretuza for less than a pig. Ciri who was loved but whose father killed her mother and who is ready to do really nasty things to get her and her powers. Jaskier past is unknown but he seems to struggle with trust and abandon issues. They formed a found family of their own after many problems.

They are many other example of blood and found family oppositions and parallels : Fringilla and Francesca with the elves, Tissaia and the motherhood complexe, and in BO we have Eile, Fjall, Merwin, and the elves in general with the cast system, who struggle with blood heritage and family links.

Radovid is another example of being in a dysfunctional family. And in his quick arc, he has to deal with new opportunities and visions of love. He has to do the step very quick and with a lot on pressure on.

As you pointed out, he seems to receive "love" as a reward for pleasing a narcissistic person, Vizimir especially. And he is ignored by most. He stay away from troubles and he is in search for real love.

Radovid is not where he feels he should be and tries to make the best of each situation, navigating people the same way he navigates his brother. Find what are the wants and needs. Fulfill that the best he can so they leave him alone.

I bet that his conquests are interested in his position more than for who he is. So they are all just flesh pleasures and provides no emotional bond.

For me, the first times he deals with Jaskier he acts the same way, with interest. Meaning : he likes him a lot already (fan of his words and physical attraction) and the mission with Philippa is an opportunity to get near to him so he could discover more of him. The mission itself isn't important to him. This is just a way to please his brother.

When Jaskier makes his report, there is a new opportunity. The bard who loves his freedom (who can't imagine becoming a court bard) says that he could renounce to that if the people he loves are safe. There is a hint of a new understanding for Radovid but he still does the things he knows. This is just about logistic. "Bring Ciri here, everything is fine." But Jaskier needs a counterpart : Rience down. This is the current main threat for his family and a trauma that he needs to heal from.

Then Jaskier tries to get result quicker coming to Radovid directly. This is still a bit of "play" (but for both of them). Jaskier is like everyone else, wanting something from him. Radovid wants another thing and plays gives and wants to get to it.

Before the song, the prince plays it light, petting Jaskier's ego in way, like he would with everyone else, but you said it way more appropriately 😄. The song changes everything and Radovid perception of love shifts.

But he doesn't see yet how much Jaskier's found family is important for him because is own family base doesn't mirror to the slightest the one the bard has now. And he is used to find solution of his own. To give what Dijkstra wants and not be threatened, to make big brother Vizimir happy, and have Jaskier staying nearby, he chooses the only path he can think of. This is not a bad idea per se, but he think of Ciri as a "tool of leverage". This is not his fault. He just has his own family as an exemple to understand bonding.

Jaskier's reaction is hardcore to him but this is the first step to understand that the love Jaskier gives for his family is the one he wants. It's the one he needs. Not the simulacrum he gets at the court.

And the reunion in the ruins of Aretuza just settles down everything. You are so right about how he doesn't believe at first that someone he hurt could stay and listen and help without a counterpart. He sees and feels Jaskier's love for his family and how he can literally face death for them because this is how he loves. And he sees that if there isn't total forgiveness, there still is a place for him in Jaskier's heart - enough to protect him from dangers he isn't aware of.

And he is willing to do the same for him in return : leave everything behind, whatever the odds, just to stay with him, when he spent his whole time to try to bring him to him before.

Jaskier shields himself up because he cannot deal with another potential stab in the heart and he has to stay focus on his objective. No more deviation. He fell for Radovid once and he lost his family in the process - the one he spent 20 years to get - so he doesn't want to risk a repeat. But he does hear Radovid and I think he believes him, hence the "maybe".

And that maybe is more than Radovid ever had. He was nothing to most. He was a power tool for some. He was a deception most of the time for his brother, only have some recognition when he was a good boy or flattered his ego. He knows now that he will never be enough for his brother or anyone except his true love. The one that could see behind his mask and touch his heart like no-one did before. The one that can love people to death.

In the end, I believe that Vizimir is genuinely happy to see him back, safe and sound, but he doesn't care much about his little brother needs. What he gives him isn't love. This is barely a bonding. But this is all they know and then Radovid tells him that he goes to join someone he truly loves but he uses the only way his brother can understand that.

He devalues himself to fit the vision he expects his brother to have of him. Speaks of something before someone, because relationship are tropes in their family. I believe Vizimir still likes his brother somehow and was keen to give him his freedom but in a way he is just pushing a problem out of the equation.

And on the top of that they are the masks. Radovid's one becomes blatant when he has to face his brother. His brother, his own blood, doesn't know him, he only knows the mask he wears. And he puts it on before asking for his freedom.

And the lost of his freedom is also to me the thing that hurt the most Radovid. He is shocked by his brother's death of course. But he cries for the loss of his only chance to reach the one he loves truly and can love him back.

PS : Another thing I found interesting in your analysis is the approach to Radovid and Jaskier's empathy. They don't scan people the same way, and that leads to some missteps from both sides.

I have a bit of a sad interpretation of Radovid and Vizimir's relationship dynamic on the show, that I've occasionally touched upon, but never really took the time to fully address on its own; nor quite taken the time to reflect on how it affects his behaviors and the choices he makes on the show, as well as how he is experiencing his relationship with Jaskier.

As some of you may know, I was raised by a mother with a narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), and only discovered, at age 30, that there was anything unhealthy and abnormal about our relationship.

Looking back, there are moments when I go "How the fuck did I ever think that was okay?!", but that's just the thing. If the grass you've been walking on since you were young has always been purple, you can't know that it's supposed to be green.

Often, parents with NPD will treat their children as an extension of themselves, absolutely "adore them", and be very protective of their relationship with them...

...as long as the child provides them with a steady dose of narcissistic supply, and makes them feel like they are the center of their world, that is.

They will also manage to create this very "it's you and I against the rest of the world, and we can only trust in and rely on each other!" worldview, that will keep their child psychologically isolated from any outside interference/influence.

Instinctively, we learn to become our parent's "sidekick", confident, the only one they claim they can fully trust, and do our best to avoid individuating - becoming our own person too much - outside of what they are willing to accept or tolerate from us.

We will take center stage only when they are proudly showing us off to other people, and sharing in our accomplishments - that is, when our successes are making them feel good and proud about themselves.

But otherwise, we tend to make ourselves smaller and let them hog the spotlight, as we know that our job is to make them feel important, admired, etc.

Our job, in social settings, is to be their #1 fan and supporter!

And, the more we succeed in making them feel good about themselves; the more we are "valued" and "cherished" by them.

From the outside, the relationship between us can even be idealized, because all people can see is a smiling child that's really close to their parent: we make them proud, they make us proud, and we offer to the rest of the world the illusion of a happy and close-knit family unit (an illusion we often learn to believe in ourselves).

But the "love" we receive from them is not a healthy kind of unconditional love and acceptance.

It is a very conditional, almost contractual kind of "love".

There is this unspoken agreement between us that, if we do a good job at making our parent happily bask in the positive reflection of themselves we can offer them - then we shall be rewarded with their "love" and "approval".

Sadly, that unspoken rule doesn't give you a lot of room to figure out who you truly are outside of that relationship, and become your own person.

It doesn't give you a lot of room to believe that becoming your own person even actually matters!

And it also comes with the hidden threat that, should we no longer be someone (or rather "something", because they tend to see us as objects and possessions, rather than full-fledged individuals) they approve of, we'll no longer be accepted by them, nor any longer truly be safe around them.

Our own wants, needs, and concerns are often minimized, ridiculed or downright dismissed, and treated as unimportant whenever it's something they do not wish to be bothered with, and/or they have no clue how to address and handle.

And, while I know that Vizimir isn't Radovid's father (on the show, that is), I still can't help but see a similar dynamic going on between them.

We don't know how old the two brothers were when they lost their parents, but there's this distinct sense that King Vizimir sees Radovid as someone that depends on him, rather than an equal.

Philippa also refers to Radovid as King Vizimir's "baby brother".

So, there seems to be this idea that Radovid is supposed to be young enough, compared to Vizimir, for the King to feel like he's someone that Radovid should look up to and rely on for guidance.

The idea that - although the two of them are full-fledged adults now - Radovid might still allow Vizimir to infantilize him and make decisions for him, is something that is actually suggested in later scenes.

Ex: Radovid stating that Vizimir is the one that has been trying for years to find him a purpose at court. Vizimir more or less deciding that Radovid is to attend the conclave without consulting with him on it first. The way he goes "let's get you hosed down with a quickness!", expecting him to go get a bath right away!

And, in true narcissistic fashion, Vizimir also has a strong lack of empathy for anything and anyone that does not belong to him, and/or that does not personally affect him.

He's annoyed by being blamed for the murder of that "stupid elven baby", while making it sound like it's something trivial the elves should just have gotten over. He makes it very clear that the one thing that upsets him the most about the failed Thanedd coup is the fact that his people might start doubting him, not the losses of lives that people suffered.

His baby brother - that he supposedly "adores" - goes missing and is presumed possibly dead...

...and there he is! Getting his portrait painted (how's that for symbolism?), joking about corpses showing up to the castle faster than living people, and upset about things not happening the way that he was promised they would!

Sure, he does ask Dijkstra for news of his brother, but only after he's asked him about what he's heard from the front.

And he talks about his little brother being "dead in a ditch somewhere" with a sense of angry entitlement. Basically, as a way of justifying his decision to get rid of Philippa to Dijkstra.

When I watched that scene, I actually couldn't help but wonder if that wasn't one of the reasons he'd sent Radovid with them.

Not that I think he'd ever have planned or intended to let his brother be endangered to the point of him potentially ending up dead, mind you.

But, because I think he's fully aware that his little brother is the kind of annoying little shit that you ask to stay put, briefly turn around, and then by the time you look back he's already gone off to catch lutes and seduce bards Gods know where!

So, I think he's using Radovid to purposefully make things more complicated for them.

I mean, come on! Philippa complaining that Radovid was no longer at the last place she left him (when he suddenly showed up during her meeting with Jaskier), and the idea of a whole fucking group of guards being unable to keep track of where a single prince with a bright red doublet and a heavy fur cloak "suddenly went" is kind of hilarious!

Just picture (or conceptualize, for those of you like me with aphantasia) in your mind, if you will, that large group of guards we later saw dead in the room Radovid was found weeping in by Jaskier, escorting Radovid through those woods...

...and suddenly! Radovid's gone! And none of them are able to figure out in which direction he took off, nor catch up with him!

The fact that they just went back to Aretuza to wait for him without launching a big search party through the night also suggests that this might be a bit of a recurring occurrence.

I can just imagine the scene...

Guards: *Walking, walking, walking...*

Guard #1: *Feeling things have grown awfully silent.* Say, which one of you currently has a direct visual on the prince?

Guard #2 [who's been newly hired]: Ah, why are you all talking like he's no longer with - *turns around, can't see him* Wait. Where did he go?

Guard #1: *Sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.* Not again... I suppose all of you guys walking behind him didn't see anything?

Guard #3: I swear he was right in front of me a moment ago!

Guard #4: There was this noise right *points to an area in the woods* over there, and I only turned my head FOR A SECOND to try to see where it came from!

Guards #5, #6, #7, #8, #9: Me too!

Guard #10: So, what do we do now?

Guard #1 : We follow the usual protocol.

Guard #2: And what's that?

Guard #1: Go back to the common room, stay put, and cross our fingers he doesn't get himself hit by a carriage, permanently adopted by a new family, or attacked by some wild creature and killed out there. He'll turn up eventually! If it takes too long, we can always try attracting him with his favorite food... Or walk around the area a bit, trying to follow the sound of -

Guard #3: We shan't be doing that again!

Guard #1: Oh, come on! If you'd just knocked, or asked if he was okay and needed anything before barging into the stables' stack room...

Guard #3: I thought he was in danger, alright?! It sounded like he was being strangled or something!

Guard #1 : *Shrugs* By this point, I'm just grateful we don't have to worry about him getting pregnant on top of it...

Guard #3 : And I really could have done without having to explain to King Vizimir why we brought him back home looking so disheveled, dirty, smelly, and with strands of hay sticking out from his hair and the fur of his coat!

Guard #2: Ah, are we still talking about the prince or the King's pet cat?

Guard #11: Yes.

Guard #2: *Looking even more confused.*

Guard #12: Just give it a few months, it'll make sense.

Guard #3: *Still mumbling to himself.* And the smug bastard had the audacity to just strut back into the castle like he owns the place, rub his shoulder against the King's, and head straight for the kitchen...

Guard #2: But what about that secret job Dijkstra gave us?

Guard #1: Well, to kidnap that princess we first needed to find that bard.

Guard #7: *Sighs heavily.* Yeah, and to find that bard, we needed the bard-locating gay prince that Dijkstra was hoping would lead us to them. Trust us, it's hopeless! We're going back and staying put.

So yeah, if Vizimir was operating under the assumption that Nilfgaard had no idea that the Redanian Intelligence planned to purge the Brotherhood of Vilgefortz and his spies, and he believed things would be relatively safe for his little brother at the Conclave Ball, he could very well have sent him there with them as a bit of an "insurance policy".

If things didn't perfectly go according to plan, and Vizimir felt like Radovid had been endangered in any way, then he'd have been able to use it to justify virtually any punishment he'd have wished to impose on his advisers for their incompetence.

It's not even about strategy, but simply about that instinctive need to keep that sense of control and power - of adding and imposing certain conditions, that he can then use to his advantage.

In essence, I fully trust that Vizimir would be smart enough to know that if Dijkstra and Philippa's plan doesn't perfectly work out, and Radovid goes through some "unpleasantness" as a result, he'll be able to use it to his advantage and double down on their incompetence, because complaining about how incompetent others are gives him the illusion that he's the smartest or most skilled person in the room, and from what I've seen on the show, it's one of the things that brings him great joy!

But I don't quite trust that Vizimir had the required level of wit to fully grasp the potential consequences of his actions - i.e. that if things went REALLY went south while Radovid was there, he could have accidentally gotten his little brother killed.

Essentially, I believe that Dijkstra's own reading of his motivations, when he said "No, it's all for show. Vizimir just needs to remind everyone who wears the crown," after he decided to assign Radovid to their team, at the beginning of the season, was pretty spot on.

He's basically just using Radovid to send them the message that "even a drunken idiot like my brother, with absolutely no experience in politics or intelligence work, could do a better job than you two!", and remind them of their place.

(Problem is that Radovid is far from being as idiotic, drunk, and clueless as he appears to be, and I'm pretty sure that Vizimir had no idea!)

To Vizimir, however, his little brother is basically just another tool for him to use.

The only person that Vizimir does seem to treat as an equal / idealize on the show appears to be Queen Hedwig.

I tend to see their relationship a bit as a "Thénardiers situation", where two narcissistic partners, with little to no empathy for people outside of themselves, have such highly compatible overall needs, goals, and ways of viewing themselves in relation to the rest of the world, that they'll form a very tight partnership, and get attached.

But even there, King Vizimir - until he eventually grew impatient - was totally willing to consider marrying Cirilla and having her replace Hedwig as his new Queen.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past Vizimir to be so naive and self-absorbed that he'd think Queen Hedwig would have been content with being relegated to becoming the "Princess Consort" to the King, or something.

Hedwig, however, was apparently perfectly happy with the idea of handing an innocent girl over to the Emperor of Nilfgaard, so she could remain in power.

And surprisingly, clever enough to manage to organize secret meetings with a Nilfgaard envoy right under Dijkstra and Philippa's noses, without either of them suspecting or noticing anything...

... until Radovid said something about it, that is.

It's no wonder that Dijkstra and Philippa chose to eliminate her, because she'd proved to be an actual adversary with the power of swaying King Vizimir's political opinions and decisions, thus threatening to reduce Dijkstra's level of influence over the King.

But Radovid?

He's really seems to just be this adorable little source of narcissistic supply to his brother - with no level of personal agency nor specific role in his world other than making Vizimir feel good about himself - and being a tool that his brother can use to pressure others, and/or prove a point.

Because, the King might have been overjoyed to discover that Radovid was still alive and enthusiastically went to hug him...

...as soon as he caught a glimpse of his own image (the portrait), he immediately stopped paying any attention to his brother and physically stepped away from him.

While the goal of that sidestep might primarily have been to allow the audience a clear view of the portrait; narratively and visually, it shows Vizimir's own ego as creating this "wedge" between the two brothers.

Actually, there's barely any room left for Radovid himself to be in that shot anymore (no, I didn't make the gif narrower here, it's really the way the scene is framed on the show)!

He's quite literally pushed aside and Vizimir himself - with his portrait - almost takes up the whole space!

Then, it's like Vizimir's instincts kick in and he "suddenly remembers" that he's not alone in the room;

and that he's got a "big brother role" to play if he wants Radovid to keep treating him like he's just the greatest in the world!

And even there, he "plays his role" by managing to make it more about him being upset, and what he intends to do to get reparation for the worry that Radovid's disappearance had caused him, rather than showing any interest in learning about whatever Radovid might have gone through, or whatever he might be feeling or needing now, following his ordeal!

"I should never have left you!" (i.e. I'm so important and powerful that only I can truly keep you safe, obviously! Had I been with you, clearly this never would have happened!)

"Don't worry there will be consequences!" (i.e. I'll use the fact that you were endangered as an excuse to punish people, so I can feel all powerful and important, again, while pretending to be doing it for your own sake !)

This scene does a superb job of reminding Radovid of his "rightful place" within the family, and that he should essentially be grateful for any bit of attention that King Vizimir is willing to bestow upon him.

Otherwise he's the spare, the invisible child, the one that doesn't matter and has no particular use other than being this adorably cute little doll that his brother likes to have around, but with no sense of agency or purpose of his own.

And his expression in that scene kills me every single time:

Because I think being around Jaskier is starting to make Radovid realize what real love and genuine concern for those you care about is and looks like...

And this isn't it...

Sure, his brother does not fully belong to himself and his first responsibility, as a king, should be to his people, first and foremost...

So, it's not like he could have expected him to abandon all of his duties and the threat of an ongoing war to personally go lead a search party for him out there!

Radovid can't really expect King Vizimir to fight for him the same way Jaskier and his family are willing to fight and risk everything for each other.

But how about... Oh, I don't know? Coming out of that hug while sparing a moment to really look at him, ask him if he's okay, and if there's anything he needs?

Instead, the scene pretty much goes:

"Yay! You're alive!"

"Wait. Hold on! Don't I look dashing?!"

"Oh! Right! You're still here, and I'm supposed to care about you!"

"A-hem! Here we go: you had me so worried!"

"But don't worry! Thanks to you, I'll finally be able to get rid of Philippa!"

"Ah, crap. She found you?" *Sigh* "Not going to lie, that sort of messes with my plans to have her executed, bro'..."

"No matter! You look absolutely awful and you stink! Let's order you a bath!"

In my humble opinion? That's not a big brother showing any freaking tiny bit of actual love, care, and concern for his little brother...

That's essentially someone that:

is happy that their lost car has finally been found and brought back to them,

accidentally catches their reflection in one of the windows, and takes a moment to admire their new stunning outfit,

is then annoyed to discover that the one they were planning to blame for stealing stealing the car is, in fact, the very person that found it and brought it back home safely;

and now, they want to have it sent to the carwash, because someone took it for a joyride while it went missing, got sweat, dirt, and a bunch of other things all over its seats, and it stinks!

I know that this scene made a lot of people see Vizimir as having basically a single redeeming quality - i.e. genuinely loving his little brother and wanting his happiness.

And I'm not saying that it can't be interpreted that way. That we can't see Vizimir as sorely lacking social skills and being very clumsy in his affections, rather than having full blown NPD, etc.

But, to me, it hit extremely close to home, and was borderline triggering.

Because Radovid could have died out there, according to Vizimir he looks awful and he stinks...

...and yet, his big brother is more interested in getting rid of the smell (what bothers him), and moving on; rather than asking him what happened, why he looks so awful in the first place, why he stinks, and if there's anything he can do to make things better, or offer him support.

He's showing Radovid no actual love nor concern for what he went through. He's just glad to have gotten his favorite "pet" back!

By contrast, when Jaskier had found Radovid weeping alone in a corner, he'd stopped, sat down, asked him what happened, and then offered him some actual help.

Jaskier looks at Radovid while caring about what he's going or has been going through - even after he'd behaved in a way that had disappointed him earlier - while Vizimir utterly lacks the ability to see him, and only cares about how his disappearance had him - Vizimir - worried.

Like Radovid himself said, Vizimir isn't "bad", and I don't believe he would go out of his way to hurt Radovid under normal circumstances (not unless he suddenly started perceiving him as a threat).

Narcissism, after all, is a spectrum, and I don't perceive Vizimir as being a highly malignant nor skillfully manipulative one.

He is actually awfully quick to "forgive" as soon as you flatter his ego, and you suggest a course of action that he thinks will make him look good, or feel influential (he got over Yennefer's "betrayal" within seconds!).

But Vizimir wanting his little brother to be happy, for example, wouldn't be proof of actual "love", nor a proof that he can't have NPD, either. On the contrary!

People seem to believe that individuals with NPD are never interested in doing anything that benefits or pleases others, when some of them can be huge people pleasers, to the point where it can become a problem!

Because, should you fail to be in awe of their generosity and profusely thank them for what they've done for you - should you dare say "no" to one of their grand, generous offers (or say "no" in a way that fails to first take note of that generosity) - you might just risk getting yourself on their shit list!

So yeah, there's absolutely no denying that, ultimately, King Vizimir chose to let his little brother go - he took the decision that most pleased Radovid - but we don't see how the whole argument between them went, and what motivated him to make that decision.

Just that Radovid seemed elated to be allowed to leave (and with good reason!)!

Our brains can therefore take it in a variety of directions.

And mine personally found that scene both "funny" (in a Gilderoy Lockhart exaggerated caricature of someone with NPD kind of way... Especially since paintings and mirrors are often used in stories to symbolise NPD... ), and really painful, borderline triggering to watch.

It hit very close to home, and made me feel like the only reason Vizimir and Radovid had any kind of relationship - at all - was because Radovid had been smart enough to behave in a way that would avoid setting his big brother's insecurities off, and allowed Vizimir to be made to feel as self-important as he needed to be in their relationship.

It made me feel like Radovid had instinctively found a way to remain safe, and stay in King Vizimir's good graces at court, by simply adopting this gentle and seemingly inoffensive baby brother persona, and had never shown any interest in ruling or even simply occupying any space that Vizimir had been unwilling to offer to share with him.

And it gave me the very distinct vibe that, to King Vizimir, Radovid simply is not his own person.

He's basically just this cute little "pet brother", that he can dote upon to his heart's content, thus making himself feel good about how great a big brother he is!

It made me genuinely feel like Vizimir absolutely does not love nor see him; he simply loves how Radovid makes him feel, and the positive image that Radovid keeps reflecting back to him.

And I think that, within that context, Radovid did the smartest thing he ever could have done by asking King Vizimir to let him go the way he did. Because he made it sound like Vizimir had done everything he could to try to find him a place that would make him happy at court, and was being very non-confrontational about it.

Radovid made it sound like the "problem" came from him, not from his brother nor his environment, and made sure to express some form of gratitude towards his brother at the same time as making his request to leave.

He sort of went: "Despite your best efforts, I pretty much suck at everything here and won't be of any help to anyone. But, I've found something out there that I feel might suit me and would like to give it a try. Will you please let me?"

What I find interesting, too, is that, in the next scene, we see Radovid asking his manservant to go sell some of his valuables to get the coins he'll need for his journey.

This either suggests that Radovid has always been using whatever money his brother gave him to buy stuff for himself with it right away, thus putting no money aside for emergencies...

...or that the "annuity" Prince Radovid has been receiving from his big brother has actually always been offered to him in the form of luxuries, rather than actual money (that would have provided Radovid with a greater sense of financial/personal autonomy from his brother).

This also suggests that, while Radovid was successful in convincing his brother to let him leave, Vizimir didn't exactly go out of his way to offer to help him on his travels, either.

So, I tend to imagine that the conversation between them having ended with something like "Fine! But know that if you're determined to do this, you'll be on your own! I can't afford to spare any resources to help you go chasing after love in the middle of a war!" or something like that, with Vizimir fully expecting that his little brother would come running back to him, tail between his legs, as soon as he'd be forced to face the world on his own out there.

And the other aspect that makes me highly suspect that, deep down, their whole relationship wasn't based on genuine unconditional love and trust, but on some kind of unspoken narcissistic agreement, is that Radovid truly was concerned that his big brother might believe Dijkstra's lies over his own word and have him executed for treason, to the point where he kept the truth behind Queen Hedwig's murder to himself.

So, King Vizimir and Prince Radovid both appear to be wearing masks and playing roles with each other, to either receive narcissistic supply (Vizimir), and/or have the King's "love", "approval", and "protection" (Radovid).

And Dijkstra's threats to Radovid were so effective, I think, because it made Radovid doubt not only in:

a) his own ability to keep his big brother's love and approval in the face of Dijkstra's lies, but also

b) his brother's own ability to keep him safe at court from Dijkstra and Philippa...

After all, if Dijkstra and Philippa were confident enough to commit regicide and openly tell the Crown Prince about it - while 100% believing that they would be able to get away with it should Radovid rat them out (i.e. that Vizimir would side with them over his own "baby brother") - well...

... let's say that Radovid better find a way to keep everyone happy with him, and get himself out of that difficult situation!

Up until that "head in a box" moment, I think Radovid could afford to be a little shit and condescending towards Philippa and Dijkstra because, as "King Vizimir's favorite pet", he thought of himself as being untouchable.

But he's not. As the text accompanying his casting card said, to him, "It's all games until someone gets hurt."

And the interesting thing is that Radovid's contempt towards the two spymasters, until then, seemed to be related to their methods, that he appeared to highly disapprove of, and even find ridiculous (" Yes, Dijkstra. Use me. Shall I, uh... chat with kitchen hands? Uh, watch for shady carriages rolling up? Shadow my brother's wife? You seem nowhere close to finding this powerful Princess Cirilla.").

He also clearly tells them:

"And I'm wondering if perhaps our methods of obtaining the girl would be more easily achieved with a carrot than a stick."

And, to me, that was one of the most important lines that Radovid has spoken on the show - to people that aren't Jaskier - that reveal who he truly is, deep down, and hopefully the kind of leader that we could expect him to become.

Because I think that, despite being the product of a highly manipulative and narcissistic environment, and having been conditioned to see all that "purple grass" as being "normal", somewhere along the way, Radovid has managed to develop the belief that power is more effectively gained by building alliances, and offering people something they want or they need in exchange for their help/services, rather than constantly resorting to threats and deep political intrigues.

At his core, Radovid is not at all dominating, controlling, nor seeking to take advantage of people...

His instincts appear to be geared towards negotiation, collaboration, and seeking solutions that will benefit everyone involved as much as possible.

There's also the fact that, when asked what was going on through Radovid's head when he's crowned king in the aftermath of Vizimir's murder, Hugh Skinner answered: "I think it's absolute disbelief. He's been so sort of directionless and trying to stay under the radar in this world full of death. And then he finally meets the love of his life, and then he's sucked right back in. I think he's absolutely terrified and totally gutted."

There really is this sense that the loss of his brother isn't as traumatic to him as the fact that he's now unable to leave that highly toxic, loveless, and manipulative environment behind.

Another thing that feels like a bit of a red flag, in terms of Radovid being the victim of narcissistic abuse, is how much effort he instinctively keeps putting into trying to make Jaskier feel good about himself, and/or the way he's seen attempting to fix everyone's problems on his own (rather than asking for help).

I mean, he did say "I'm scared, Jaskier".

And again, I'm not blaming Jaskier for his response, because that's usually what people are seeking from him: reassurance and acceptance.

"Just saying that, makes you braver than you know," is not a bad response at all! That's actually typically what people expect or want from Jaskier.

Because, if you want to offer someone courage, and let them know you don't think any lesser of them for being human and having fears, that answer is absolutely excellent!

But, if I'm remotely right about Radovid, then openly asking for help would be extremely hard for him.

Because when your concerns, worries, fears, etc. have systematically been treated as a nuisance, and/or the people that have claimed to love you have been systematically threatening to withdraw their love and approval if you brought them more trouble than satisfaction throughout your whole life, then you learn to avoid complaining about what bothers you, and you instinctively try to solve your problems (and sadly, often other people's problems) on your own.

And it can be extremely hard to trust that the person you are growing attached to will still like you if you are in a situation where you need their help, unless they are the ones to openly offer to help you.

So, when Jaskier didn't ask Radovid why he was scared, nor showed any open interest in helping him handle what scared him, Radovid immediately went back to offering Jaskier a positive reflection of himself - letting Jaskier know that what makes him so special is how he sees the best in others.

Radovid went right for what usually allows him to get any bit of love, approval and comfort from the people that are closest to him in his life - i.e. focusing on the other person's needs, and letting them know how great they are - while keeping the source of his own troubles to himself.

He's still being genuine with Jaskier - as I believe that the positive image Radovid is offering him is an entirely sincere one - but Radovid's instinct is to push his own needs aside, and attempt to earn Jaskier's love and approval by positively feeding Jaskier's ego.

Then, there's also the way that he seemingly internalized Jaskier's disappointment in him to such levels that he felt the need to tell Jaskier that he "shouldn't have to stay and listen to him" (when Radovid had simply been answering Jaskier's own questions until then, not asking for his attention), while sounding like he genuinely believed it.

Or the very sincere and heartbreaking confusion on his face when Jaskier expressed concern over Radovid's safety, and offered him an escape route (sending him to friends that he trusted would help him reach Tretogor safely).

Because normally, in the world Radovid has been living in, the mistake he'd made, and the way he'd failed to earn and effectively maintain Jaskier's approval of him, should normally have been sufficiant for Jaskier to completely stop loving him, totally wash his hands clean of him, and let him be captured and killed!

In a "purple grass universe", love is something conditional that must be constantly earned, rather than something that naturally occurs between two people that emotionally connect and choose to look after each other's needs and well-being.

You want your heart broken into a thousand little pieces?

Re-watch the scene where Radovid takes that piece of paper from Jaskier while answering "I don't get it."

And consider that, perhaps, he genuinely doesn't. That it might be the very first time, in Radovid's life, that he is experiencing what it's like to have someone genuinely care about him, acknowledge him as simply being human, and act like he still deserves help and understanding regardless of his flaws and mistakes.

Servants and guards are duty bound to tend to his needs and see to his safety...

Vizimir treats him as a pet, and only cares about Radovid making him feel good about himself...

Courtesans are more or less usually looking to increase their own social status, and access luxurious court entertainment, by associating with him...

And then, there's Jaskier...

Jaskier, that notices he's only pretending to be a drunken idiot to keep himself safe, so the vipers in the nest he's living in will pay him no mind...

Jaskier, that is willing to take the risk of being emotionally raw and vulnerable ("Extraordinary Things") with him, in the hopes that Radovid will know it's safe for him to be honest and authentically himself with Jaskier as well...

Jaskier, that sees him cornered and weeping in a room full of dead guards, knows he is at risk of being found and captured if he remains there without any protection, and spontaneously offers to share his own resources to hopefully help him reach safety...

Jaskier, who clearly states that his plan (to allow Radovid to walk out of his life) has changed, refuses to go with him only because he needs to find his family first, and seems distraught at the thought of Radovid coming with him instead, because he doesn't want to put him in harm's way...

Jaskier, that fears for him, cares for what happens to him, and worries about him, regardless of Radovid having disappointed him earlier that day...

Jaskier, that chooses to help Radovid and take responsibility for him out of love, and because of his ability and desire to connect with what Radovid is going through - to understand him...

He's not duty bound to serve him or look after his needs, he's not after increasing his social status, he's just able to connect with him as a person.

And so, when Hugh says that Radovid makes this connection with Jaskier that he's never made before, I don't think this even is about romance... I think it's literally about experiencing for the first time in his life what genuine love - of any kind - directed at himself, feels like.

Radovid is portrayed, on the show, as someone that has the capacity to love unconditionally and accept others as they are as well, but has never been allowed to fully realize the implication that, technically, he deserves to be loved unconditionally and accepted despite his own fears, flaws, issues, and mistakes, too.

And that's why the way that Jaskier spoke to him in that cabin, when he found Radovid looking for Ciri, hurt me so much...

His whole life, I believe that Radovid has been forced to suppress his own identity to be safe at court and "loved" by his brother (and perhaps his parents before him).

I don't think he's ever been loved and appreciated simply for who he is, nor been free to fully figure out - and especially openly express - who he is!

Jaskier had every right to be disappointed and criticize Radovid's actions and behavior, this is true.

But, instead of keeping the focus on what Radovid did wrong (i.e. something that can be corrected, changed and improved), Jaskier lashed out and attacked the core of who Radovid is...

And he did so, shortly after Radovid had expressed to Jaskier that he believes he has able to see people for who they truly are, not what they pretend to be, and to see the best in them.

It hurt - deeply - because Jaskier is apparently the very first person that Radovid has been able to make an honest connection with (according to Hugh, at least). The first person that he's trusted enough to allow himself to be vulnerable and sincere with.

And all it took was one mistake on his part for Jaskier to immediately be so disappointed in him that he withdrew all the love and approval he felt for Radovid (what victims of narcissistic abuse are conditioned to systematically fear, and believe will happen to them if they make a mistake they can't effectively justify), and tell him that he's nothing but a lie at his core - empty.

Behind the masks that Radovid has learned to wear to keep himself safe at court, Jaskier is now unable to see anything worth loving, caring for, or continuing to connect with anymore.

Radovid doesn't exist. He's no one. He's nothing­.

And, for Radovid, I think that Jaskier's response- withdrawing any love or approval as soon as he fails to meet his expectations - is normal.

Because he's spent his whole life being taught that the moment others became disappointed in him, or he became more trouble than he's worth, they'd be totally entitled to stop caring about him. And he'd only have himself to blame.

Radovid didn't even look or sound alarmed at the thought of being abandoned by Jaskier - to be captured and found - in that little corner of that room by that point, because it's all normal.

Jaskier is fully entitled to abandon him to die, should he wish to.

That, Radovid perfectly understands.

But then, Jaskier does something unexpected. He seems to realize that he let his own issues and fears get in the way earlier, that Radovid had been telling him the truth (perhaps not the whole truth, but he'd been honest about the risks he'd taken by ditching his whole security detail to keep him and Ciri safe, at the very least...), and shows Radovid that you don't stop caring about people just because they made a mistake that disappointed you.

Despite what Jaskier said earlier, the love and connection between them is still there - just shaken - and Jaskier still sees something in Radovid that feels precious enough to be worth saving and protecting.

He can't and won't abandon his family for Radovid (something that's entirely reasonable), but he's not abandoning him, either. He's fully willing to share some of his own Sandpiper resources with him in an effort to get him to safety.

And, when Radovid offers to go with Jaskier instead, Jaskier's main concern is to make Radovid understand that he's planning to basically rush headfirst into something very dangerous that could very possibly get him killed.

Again, he's worried about Radovid's own well-being and safety, first and foremost.

I think that's why I don't perceive Radovid's desire to go with Jaskier as some grand excessive foolish romantic gesture, but more as Radovid finally choosing to embrace who he truly is - give himself a chance to fully figure it out -over what other people want or expect from him.

Radovid, by this point, has literally nothing left to lose, but everything to gain - himself, most of all - by leaving his brother and his old life at court behind.

Radovid was literally making a choice that was worth dying for. The kind of emotional well-being and safety that a relationship with Jaskier offers him is 100% worth following him on some suicide mission.

Especially given that Jaskier himself doesn't exist all alone in a vacuum. He has a family, friends, social connections so precious to him that he's willing to risk everything to preserve them.

If Radovid is to begin making a life for himself, he might as well start there - do everything he can to help Jaskier be safely reunited with his loved ones, and explore the possibility of developing his own relationship with the members of Jaskier's family - integrate their group rather than attempting to have Jaskier all to himself.

And the funny thing is that Jaskier's family is filled with people that Radovid might have an easier time relating to than most.

Jaskier himself was born into nobility, and eventually chose to drop his title (and often his birth name) to pursue his own path and do what he feels like "he was put on this Continent to do", instead of what was expected of him as Viscount.

Cirilla is literally the Crown Princess to the Cintran throne.

Yennefer was once mage adviser to the King of Aedirn.

And then, there's the family goat... That's just as stubborn, principled, and grumpy as Dijkstra; but, as opposed to Dijsktra, Geralt greatly values, prioritizes, and respects the lives of all living beings over the prosperity of a single nation.

And, given Radovid's favorite song is (or likely was, before "Extraordinary Things") "Song of the Seven", I'm guessing that Radovid's own worldviews likely aren't purely human centric, either, and he might find Geralt's perspective on the world highly refreshing.

Actually, considering Radovid's own disdain for Dijkstra's and Philippa's political schemes and the games they enjoy playing, I could easily imagine them sharing a drink, while openly mocking and complaining about all that political pompous nonsense, fully agreeing that humans can really suck.

So, Jaskier's own family, oddly enough, would actually have been one of the easiest families for Radovid to be able to successfully integrate, and the most likely group of people to be able to appreciate Radovid for who he is as a person, first and foremost, rather than for the inherent political power he represents.

And it makes his forced coronation all the more heartbreaking and tragic.

Because until he met Jaskier, he could pretend that purple grass world was normal and go through the motions of his emotionally empty life...

But now he knows there's a whole world out there with green grass that "suits him" and that can offer him the type of emotional connections he actually needs...

And now his path to that world filled with warmth, love, and possibilities has been significantly blocked to him and he's stuck in a world that he finally knows he was right to fear.

Someone please just fucking get him out of there.

Another thing I find interesting, in relation to Radovid's behavior, is that victims of narcissistic abuse, that grew up in a narcissistic household, will also often struggle with boundaries - be it setting bounderies with others or identifying other people's boundaries - and when we accidentally cross them, we may experience a lot of shame and guilt, disproportionately so.

Which is another reasons why having Radovid sort of make Jaskier's problems his own, and having him go see Ciri without explaining his plan to "fix things" for everyone first, makes a lot of sense to me, too.

He single handedly decided that "it would make things easier for us" if Ciri came to live to Redania, because I genuinely think that he came to the conclusion that it would fix things for the most people involved, not out of any desire to trick Jaskier or go behind his back.

- He'd be out of Dijkstra's thumb and his brother might stop insisting that he keeps "playing spymaster" to annoy Dijkstra and Philippa.

- Ciri would have access to the support and protection of the most powerful army in the North.

- Jaskier and his family would be safe.

- A war with Nilfgaard would likely be averted, since it would create a powerful slliance between the North, Cintra, and all the nations having sworn fealty to Cintra... And, since Ciri is Elder Blood, Nilfgaard might also lose the support of the Scoia'tael.

- Ciri likely would refuse to come to Redania if Geralt and Yennefer aren't allowed to follow, perhaps bringing with them some much needed change to Redania.

- As narcissistic as King Vizimir is, as long as you present things to him in such a way that he can take credit for it, and it will make his people love him, he'll be on board with pretty much anything!

- And yes, obviously, if Jaskier's family "move in" and Jaskier himself chooses to "stick around", they'll be part of the same group, and free to be fully honest with each other.

I obviously can't say for sure what Radovid's whole reasoning behind going to see Ciri was, but I'm pretty sure that when he said that it would make things easier for "us" he pretty much meant it as in Jaskier, his whole, family, even the whole freaking Continent, and not just himself.

We are basically trained from birth to constantly "read into people's minds" (then made to feel inadequate whenever we misread them) when it comes to their wants, needs, and intents, because narcissists will keep their demands vague to escape responsibility, and it's our job to figure out what they want.

We thus learn to constantly anticipate other people's needs, and find solutions before they even ask for our help, in order to feel safe.

So Radovid just taking initiative like that and trying to make things easier makes tons of sense.

And that's also where the similarities and differences between Jaskier's empathy and Radovid's empathy are so fascinating to me.

Like Radovid said, Jaskier sees people for who they really are, not who they pretend to be. And Jaskier will tend to treat them in accordance to how he sees them, rather than the way they act - often at his own expanse (sadly), when that person isn't ready to show the sides of themselves that Jaskier sees in them.

Geralt never "changed" over the course of 3 seasons. Who he is, in season 3, is simply starting to finally resemble the person that Jaskier has always been able to see buried beneath all of Geralt's own fears and abandonment issues.

I believe that Jaskier saw the way Geralt kept self-sabotaging his relationships, and trying to cut himself off from his own emotions, sensitivity, and visceral need to connect; and he stubbornly refused to let him destroy and isolate himself.

That sort of "no matter how hard you try to push me away and prove to me that you're the monster you claim to be, I'm not going to do the same thing your mother and the rest of the world did, and abandon you. Because I see you, and I know you're wrong about being unlovable."

Geralt basically spent 20 years regularly "acting out" with Jaskier; testing his limits as well as the strength of his affections...

...until he went way too far with what he told him on the mountain and, I think Jaskier realised then that you simply can't save someone that doesn't want to be saved, no matter how much you love them, and no matter how much you empathize with them.

And, while Jaskier "saw" Geralt, he couldn't be everything that Geralt needed, back then, in order to allow himself to heal and start trusting that those familial bonds could truly be real and enduring.

I mean, Geralt and Yennefer are two people that did attempt connecting with others in the past - only to be seen as outcasts and monsters by society - that eventually reached the point of losing faith in people's ability to put other people's needs before their own, and ever see in them something genuinely worth loving.

Whereas Jaskier was this 20 year-old innocent, wide eyed, overeager puppy that imprinted on Geralt the moment he laid eyes on him, and decided he loved him and would follow him to the end of the Continent!

I'm not saying that Jaskier's love isn't valuable to Geralt, far from it!

But I could imagine how Geralt would be unable to trust that Jaskier would be able to love him as he truly was, and not an idealized version of himself that only existed in Jaskier's own mind.

I can understand how hard it would have been, for Geralt, to feel worthy of that level of devotion and affection, when he can't see what Jaskier sees in himself whenever he looks at his own reflection, and when he's utterly lost sight of those parts of himself.

And Jaskier treating Geralt according to how he saw in him rather than how Geralt pretended to be, while continuously forgiving or dismissing the sometimes awful way Geralt treated him, only increased Geralt's insecurities, I think.

Geralt locked away parts of himself so deep that he managed to make himself believe they didn't exist anymore; that his "true self" was that emotionally detached "Butcher" that needed no one (except Roach), and that the last thing he wanted or needed was someone wanting and needing him.

And yet, here they were...

Because all Jaskier could see in Geralt, despite the Witcher's best efforts to hide it, was a loyal protector that feels, loves, hurts, and connects with others deeply.

Someone that judges people not according to their nature nor physical appearance, but according their intentions, their potential for healing and for change, all the while being keenly aware of any outside and inner forces and influences at play.

If a werewolf only becomes murderous and dangerous to others because he can't control his actions while in wolf form, he'll find him a medallion that prevents him from turning into the wolf to keep others safe, rather than assassinate him.

Geralt has a deep respect for life and for all living creatures, and he deeply struggles in a world where people are willing to carelessly sacrifice lives for power, or out of blind senseless fear.

He is a deeply sensitive and beautiful soul.

Jaskier saw it. He saw him, loved him, and basically kept trying to remind Geralt that he was beautiful and worth loving; but sadly he wasn't ready to see and embrace it. He wasn't ready to see and love himself, nor believe that he could inspire such feelings in others.

Essentially, to Geralt, it's entirely possible that he feared Jaskier would eventually leave and abandon him the moment he realised that the person he loved didn't exist, and that he couldn't love the monster that Geralt believed he'd become over the years.

And Yennefer chose to abandon Geralt the very moment she learned that he had chosen to tie his fate to hers in order to save her from the Djinn, too.

Yes, Yennefer was grappling with her own insecurities, abandonment issues, and her own beliefs that she was "unlovable". She feared that Geralt's affections for her were just the fabrication of some Djinn's magic, not something she could genuinely inspire in the heart of another being.

She feared no one could ever love her for herself and for real.

But it still sent the message to Geralt that - once again - the decisions and choices he made, with the best intent in mind, were so terrible and awful that people would rather desert him than stay with him to try to figure things out together.

He tried doing the right thing, and still ended up hurting those he loved.

And, despite all evidence to the contrary, in Geralt's mind, I can imagine that it might just have been a matter of time before Jaskier would have realised that Geralt is basically cursed to continuously make things worst by trying to make things right, and hurt or kill those he loves the most as a result.

He might have instinctively felt like the best thing he could do was push Jaskier away before Jaskier finally abandoned him, too; or worse he winded up getting him killed.

Anyway, going off a tangent here, but my point is that Jaskier tends to see and love people for who they are at their core, rather than who they pretend to be...

...except when he's afraid of being wrong, and that accidentally seeing someone as better than they actually are might make someone he already deeply loves and feels protective of suffer.

Ex: He couldn't see Yennefer properly at first, because he saw her as someone that was highly manipulative, selfish, and predatory, that could take advantage of and hurt Geralt.

And he hesitated to fully trust what he saw in Radovid, too, because he was afraid that Radovid could be a knife that could harm Geralt or Ciri (and was struggling with his own trust and abandonment issues in relationships as well).

Whereas Radovid appears to very quickly have the ability to figure out what people most want and need, the motivations behind their actions, their vulnerabilities, and the lies they tell themselves.

As mentioned earlier, I think Radovid's biggest mistake, with Philippa and Dijkstra, came from his belief that he was safe from them given his position as Vizimir's "favorite pet", and Radovid's general disdain for how they tend to use their own intelligence to play senseless "games" with other people, in situations that could be handled much more easily, directly and effectively by offering them something in return.

Radovid's disadvantage towards them, I think, also came from him having always attempted to distance himself from politics and court intrigues, and therefore having a poor sense of how far some "players" are willing to go.

Philippa and Dijkstra are expert manipulators that revel in that sense of power and control, and will find sadistic pleasure in catching an opponent off guard.

Radovid strikes me as a potentially expert counter-manupulator, that could give them a run for their money and oppose them if (and this is important) he is given access to the right tools and resources to do so.

He's someone that could clearly see what they are doing, why they are doing it, use their own motivations and vulnerabilities against them, and flip the tables on them when they least expect it.

This is often why manipulators tend to be highly drawn to those with very high levels of emotional intelligence and empathy.

Their intelligence type - the way they think and analyze people's behaviors and are able to guess their motives - are extremely alike.

But whereas one (the sociopath) thinks: how can I take advantage of others for my own benefit, so I can stay in control and remain on top?

The other (the empath) thinks: how can I find the right balance between their needs and mine, so we can all grow stronger together, and build community?

One seeks to take power for themselves.

The other seeks to share power and empower others.

And whereas one feels energized and delights in their ability to skillfully "play games" with others (and will continuously seek challenges and conflicts so they can continue to prove their own intellectual superiority and dominate situations).

The other will only "play those games" and go head to head with manipulators out of necessity (generally, to keep themselves or others safe from those that are trying to take advantage of them), would rather avoid conflict, and will find it generally unpleasant and energy consuming to engage in these types of strategic plays.

People like Radovid represent a juicy and often irresistible challenge to manipulators with more antisocial traits.

They are a bit of an oddity, you see...

Because expert manipulators, like Dijkstra and Philippa, are often utterly unable to fully trust anyone but themselves, and they essentially believe that everyone is like them - that they would all take advantage of others if they could, and the only reason they shy away from power is because they aren't intelligent or cunning enough to outsmart those like them at the top, and take control.

They will attempt to morally justify their own actions with a "dog eats dog" mindset, convinced that if they hadn't gotten to you first, then you'd inevitably have attempted to get to them.

And someone like Radovid - that finds honesty and authenticity deeply beguiling, doesn't appear to be driven by a desire to take advantage of people nor seek power for himself, and would rather use his talents to empower and help others, rather than dominate them - challenges those beliefs.

So, manipulators will often try to put them in situations where they are cornered into using their own abilities to influence/manipulate "the game" - to perversely "help them" fully realise, and accept, that they are fellow wolves in sheep clothing, just like them.

There's this very weird, toxic, and highly dysfunctional sense of kinship and respect that might even develop in certain cases.

It's actually a concept that has often been turned into a trope, and romanticised in fictional stories.

i.e. The sociopath that becomes deeply attached to the highly emotionally intelligent and empathetic "hero", that is able to understand the way the sociopath thinks, and anticipate their moves, yet stubbornly remains "good", regardless of their best efforts to corrupt them and have them accept that, deep down, they're just like them.

So, Philippa's sudden interest in Radovid and her reflection that he is "good" at this game, to me showed that sort of natural sense of attraction that occurs between sociopath / empath.

She sees something of herself in Radovid that fascinates her and that she's curious to explore - see if she can push him to embrace those gifts they both share...

But, unlike Philippa, Radovid is not someone that derives any joy in taking advantage of others for his own gain.

He may not see or know people the way Jaskier appears to be able to see them, but he's very good at listening and figuring out what makes them "tick", and what to do or say to convince and influence them.

And, like I've just explained, those are abilities that you can either use to manipulate, dominate and stay in control (be a knife that cuts through them)...

...or to share power, find the balance between different people or groups of people's needs, empower them, and help them heal (be a spoon that feeds them).

And Radovid displays those skills in a variety of ways on the show.

For example, it was pretty clear Philippa was going nowhere with Jaskier, because she doesn't understand him - at all.

If she'd listened to his songs, she'd have known that Jaskier is a fiercely loyal friend, that has faced countless life threatening situations and dangers by Geralt's side, and would probably be willing to endure horrible pain and die rather than betray those he loves.

Fortunately, however, they have the most powerful army in the North, and Ciri and her family so happen to be in need of protection.

So, if Ciri allies with Redania, then Cintra and all the nations still loyal to Cintra will join forces with Redania. They'll have a big enough army to keep the Scoiat'ael, Nilfgaard, and pretty much whatever and whoever is going to try coming after her, Geralt, and Yennefer at bay.

And okay, maybe he might have gotten carried away for a moment there, when already suggesting to Jaskier that they get married he becomes their royal bard, but he's not wrong!

Despite Redania not being perfect it's still, technically, their "least bad option".

When he asks Jaskier to sing him a song, he also asks him to pick his favorite - thus showing interest in listening to Jaskier sing about what pleases him, rather than the song that Radovid himself would have enjoyed most (Song of the Seven)...

... AND he mentions that his guests would love a song about his "white-haired Witcher" - again, showing a care and awareness of other people's needs.

But the way he says that Geralt is Jaskier's is also something I find extremely significant.

It may seem a small detail, but telling someone "I'm perfectly comfortable listening to you passionately singing the praises of a close companion you deeply love" is a pretty strong way for Radovid to show compersion, and let Jaskier know that the idea of him being on the ambiamorous and/or polyamorous side (note: I consider that the term "amory" refers to different forms of committed companionships, not just romantic ones) does not bother him.

With a simple single request, Radovid is able to convey that he wants to listen to Jaskier tell him about what pleases him; that he's someone with the ability to take other people's needs into consideration rather than making demands that will solely benefit himself, and that there's no need for Jaskier to pretend that the love he feels for the significant people in his life means less to him than it does when he's with him.

And yes, I really do like to headcanon that the first verse of "Extraordinary Things" was improvised on the spot by Jaskier.

Because, as an ambiamorous person myself, the day I discovered that my romantic interest not only accepted, but strongly supported, my closest and most intimate friendships without any hint of jealousy or feeling remotely threatened by the idea that my heart could love multitudes, I fell even deeper in love with him.

I believe that this is when I started perceiving him as my primary partner, rather than an "interest"; and that this unconditional acceptance I experienced from him is what naturally lead him to eventually become my monoamorous romantic life companion (though many of my friendships have remained fairly queerplatonic).

That sense of complete and utter freedom to be myself, and to love the way that I love - rather than the way others would want me to love based on any social rules and conventions - triggered some very deep and visceral sense of attachment and connection towards him.

Especially since, back then, I didn't have all those terms and labels to describe how I felt, and help me conceptualize and even fully understand it.

Until then, I had been used to my boyfriends or girlfriends expecting me to adopt certain specific "romantic behaviors" towards them, and "friendship behaviors" towards others.

I'd been taught that, apparently, snuggling up to your best friend to watch a movie, while allowing him to play with your hair, should be reserved to romantic partners, especially if you're a woman and said friend is a man.

I'd been taught that your "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" should apparently be "entitled" to feel jealous, or even disrespected, if they catch you doing such a thing, and it's unnatural to want to express platonic emotional love and intimacy through physically sensual behaviors.

But why?!

How is my snuggling up to my best friend preventing me from doing the same with my boyfriend or girlfriend later on to express romantic attraction instead? And/or why should it hinder my ability to fully commit to my romantic relationship with him?

Frédérick is thus pretty much the first partner (a cisgender heterosexual man, no less!) that didn't enter the relationship with any expectations, and allowed us to define our romance and set our own boundaries according to our respective needs and wants, rather than how we "should" behave with each other and with our friends as "boyfriend and girlfriend" according to society's conventions.

He trusted me, was deeply curious about me, excited to discover where the relationship would take us, and he couldn't see why my being emotionally, sensually, and even sexually close to any other friend that I had platonic feelings for should take anything away from the romantic relationship and companionship that we were sharing and slowly building and defining together.

And I swear, if I'd had a lute between my hands, and the ability to spontaneously improvise songs like Jaskier can back then, I'm pretty sure that what would have come out of my mouth would have been something akin to "Extraordinary Things".

Because such an approach to a relationship - that feeling that the other person is attempting to get to know you, figure you out, and simply attempting connect with who you are rather than come at you with a list of everything they think you should be to meet their needs - makes you feel safe, wanted, accepted, and like you are finally enough.

With him, I have enough. And with him I am enough.

And we know Jaskier's able to do it! If he came up with "Toss A Coin To Your Witcher" on the spot, you bet that he can improvise the first verse and chorus on "Extraordinary Things", just because Radovid keeps looking at him like Jaskier is absolutely fascinating, and wonderful, and he's drinking up every single word coming out of his mouth while he sings!

So yeah, my headcanon is that the first part of "Extraordinary Things" was 100% improvised by Jaskier when he finally realised that Radovid's attention and interest in him and the content of his songs was entirely genuine, rather than him pretending to like his music so that Jaskier would be tempted to let his guards down around him.

That when he saw how eager Radovid was to listen to Jaskier sing about what pleases and inspires him, Jaskier's mask totally fell off, and the words and melody just spontaneously poured out of him!

And I like to headcanon that the second part of the song might have been written after the Thanedd coup.

"Drop the sweet disguise,

Your heart's beating too loud,

The fairytales and little lies can't drown out all the sound,

So take this heart and break this heart for extraordinary things... "

Because it acknowledges that Radovid seemingly going behind Jaskier's back broke his heart, and that he was hurt by him having hidden his full intentions from him the night before...

While stating that those mistakes ("the fairytales and little lies") aren't enough to make him lose sight of the love that is there, and all the extraordinary things that they could gain by being (enough) together.

There's a sense of forgiveness, hope, and understanding in that second part of the song that makes you feel like Jaskier already knows Radovid is way more than a mask, and that the connection between them has indeed been tested, but was not broken.

That he doesn't perceive what Radovid did as a betrayal, but as "fairytales and little lies", something Radovid has learned as a result of having grown up a "fairytale prince" in a dangerous "purple grass kingdom" where being truthful and fully lowering your mask can get you killed.

It's something he's learned, not who he is. And to show who he is, he needs to feel safe and be allowed some room to stumble, fall, and learn.

When it comes to Radovid displaying his empathetic skills on the show, I also headcanon that one of the reasons why Jaskier had been hesitating to sing, until then, and saying he wasn't in the mood, was because Radovid had been pretending to be drunk and to have no idea what he was talking about as he'd been sharing intel with him. 

Jaskier came to him with a genuine request for help, not to play games. 

But, in Radovid's "purple grass world", playing games is the default way of communicating. That's all Radovid has ever known.

And, unlike Jaskier, he has no personal stakes in the situation other than Jaskier himself. 

It's not Ciri that fascinates him and that he'd like to grow closer to... 

It's Jaskier himself.

So, while he is wearing his mask and lying about having no idea who Codringher and Fenn are, I believe that he was genuinely more interested in getting to know Jaskier during that scene, than talking strategy (he was also aware that his brother intended to hand Ciri over to Nilfgaard by that point... So, it's entirely possible that Radovid's sudden lack of interest in discussing plans that would get Ciri closer to coming to Redania had to do with him knowing Jaskier was better off not trusting his brother to keep her safe for the time being)!

And while listening to "Extraordinary Things", I think Radovid realises that Jaskier is taking a significant risk by being so open, honest, and vulnerable with him. That his request for help is genuine, because he can feel that Radovid cares about him, and that he might be in a unique position to help him.

And Radovid truly paid attention to his song. He takes the time to express to Jaskier that he finds them irresistible, because he sees people for who they are, not what they pretend to be... He manifests a strong desire to continue to get to know him - sending Jaskier the message that he's worth putting in time and efforts to learn to understand him...

In the meantime, he agrees to do what he can to help him find out more about Rience, expressing a willingness to be someone that Jaskier can rely on for help.

And he is seen hesitating briefly, before asking Jaskier "Does the Witcher know how lucky he is to have you?", having seemingly correctly guessed - from listening to him singing about "being enough" (and probably having heard "Burn Butcher Burn") - that Geralt hasn't always been appreciative of him, and Jaskier still carried some of those scars. 

And the dazzling smile he got in return pretty much told Radovid all he had to know - that he'd been right, and it was exactly what Jaskier had needed to hear.

Radovid doesn't use Jaskier's vulnerabilities against him, he offers support and validation to help him heal and grow more confident in his own worth.

He then then attempted to use Dijkstra's own influence over his brother to prevent him from handing over Ciri to Nilfgaard the moment she joined with them (while tragically miscalculating how far they'd be willing to go)...

Because Dijkstra is actually the only person that Vizimir listens to, besides Queen Hedwig.

Dijkstra and Vizimir have a very symbiotic relationship, and no matter how much Dijkstra likes to pretend that he and Philippa are a team, he's utterly unwilling to share power with her when it comes to King Vizimir. 

Vizimir doesn't feel threatened by Dijkstra, because Dijkstra presents most of his ideas while being very careful to make it sound like they are Vizimir's, and gives the King the illusion of being a great and brilliant strategist. 

While Dijkstra's level of control and influence over Vizimir gives Dijkstra the illusion of being king, and therefore the true power behind Redania's throne.

Philippa did the right thing for herself by not involving Dijkstra in her strategy, I believe, because Dijkstra has kept proving, in the season - over and over again - that he's not listening to her, nor is he willing to consider doing things in a way that doesn't force her to always rely on him for influence.

Dijkstra would prefer to fucking die while he's still on top - let Philippa kill him - than ever consider the possibility of getting rid of the threat to Philippa's life (a.k.a. King Vizimir), knowing full well that if he (Dijkstra) dies, Vizimir won't "magically" start trusting her and listening to her once he's gone!

She's got no direct relationship with Vizimir.  She's - not unlike Radovid - Dijkstra's freaking "pet owl", rather than an equal with her own agency as the king's adviser.

King Vizimir has his "pet brother" (with no agency of his own at court. He doesn't even have his own money, apparently!).

Dijkstra has his "pet owl" (that has no direct working relationship with King Vizimir of her own).

And Dijkstra's mistake, I think, was believing she'd be content with forever remaining his sidekick, and exerting an indirect influence on the King through him, rather than directly sharing and seeking power. 

She keeps hinting to Dijsktra that she's unhappy with the way things are, and asking him to show interest in Radovid - as a favor to her - all season.

I think King Vizimir's decision to have her take the fall for what happened at Thanned was the very last straw that may have forced her hand; but it seemed pretty clear that, as long as Vizimir remained in power, she'd be forced to remain Dijkstra unofficial subordinate rather than his true partner.

There's something a bit poetic in the idea that Dijkstra's "pet owl" 's solution for reclaiming her own power was putting King Vizimir's "pet brother" on the throne, though.

And now, it's her game they shall all be forced to play... 

If Dijkstra wants to continue to have any influence and power, he'll either need to learn to truly share with her, or go against her. 

And Radovid, well... 

He might need a Sandpiper.

So, there really is a lot of similarities between Jaskier and Radovid's empathetic abilities and insightfulness, but in a way that really complement each other. 

One of them sees and falls in love with people's potential and everything they could be.  He seeks to inspire them to embrace the parts of themselves that they are too afraid to fully acknowledge, and nurture their potential. 

While the other quickly perceives people's strengths, vulnerabilities, wants, and needs; and will know how to address them to help them heal, deal with their issues, and/or find efficients solutions to their problems. 

They are, in a way, almost perfect for each other. 

Because Radovid seems to have grown up being the "spare", the "invisible child", the one whose whole individuation process was heavily stunted by a brother whose ego kept pushing him out of frame, in a highly toxic and manipulative world where his survival depended on blending in, while appearing completely witless. 

But he loves Jaskier with the trust, abandon, and innocence of someone who's never truly been hurt in love before, simply because he's never been truly loved. 

It's a new kind of connection for him.  Something that feels freeing, safe, and wonderful. 

Meeting Jaskier showed Radovid a world where the grass is green.  Where people from the same family love, support, and are willing to make sacrifices for each other.  A world where it's safe to trust, make mistakes, show concern, share power and elevate each other. 

A world where the parts of himself that he's had to hide his whole life are what drew Jaskier to him, not something undesirable, dangerous, or to be mocked. 

And, the moment Radovid finally realised that the reason why he'd been so adrift until then had been because he doesn't fit in his brother's world, Philippa stopped him from leaving, and put a bloodied crown atop his head. 

Radovid's bound to undergo one hell of an identity crisis from that point on! 

And the truth is that I believe he's got every single required quality to be an amazing King and foster positive change on the Continent. 

But he might need someone that's able to see that potential in him, and inspire him to have faith in himself. 

He might need someone that has already built trust with the outcasts of the Continent, has developed his own underground network and contacts, and might allow him to reach out to various groups of people that might be able to help him to take power back from Philippa and Dijkstra. 

He might need someone with such a talent for influencing the public's perception of who someone is, that he could easily make the whole Continent fall in love with Radovid and see him the way Jaskier himself sees him. 

What Jaskier did for Geralt - create a positive, heroic image of himself in people's minds - in he could do for Radovid. 

He's the fucking "Sand Lark".  Regardless of him being the descendant of Fjall and Éile or not, Jaskier is as influential as a bard as the Lark ever was. 

If he wants to make the people of the North rally behind Radovid as their King, that wouldn't even be a challenge for him! 

And once Radovid's got his people's attention and trust - once he's finally seen and known for who he is - he should be able to lead and influence them directly.

Because accurately guessing what people need, and coming up with strategies to help them meet those needs is what he does.

All he needs is people's willingness to trust him and follow his lead, and the actual power to make decisions.

And Jaskier could definitely use someone like Radovid that makes him feel seen, valued, and appreciated, sees all he has to offer, and is likely to be understanding of Jaskier's emotional struggles and issues. 

Because Jaskier's problem isn't figuring out who he is or being invisible.  He's loud, flamboyant, fills any space he walks in with his presence, and doesn't go unnoticed. 

But he's the scapegoat, the one that's too loud, too annoying, too impulsive, too much... and yet he's also never enough!  At least, not to the people that matters most. 

We don't know why he chose to become a bard and stopped using his Viscount title. We don't know if his family might have treated him as a disappointment, and/or why he never talks about them... and perhaps we never will!

But the way Geralt essentially blamed him for ruining his life did leave some scars, and likely heightened his hypersensitivity to any real or perceived rejection (that I believe was there even before he met Geralt, because he's extremely ADHD coded, and RSD is often something that tends to co-occur with ADHD). 

Jaskier knows who he is...  but he doesn't trust in what he's worth.  

He's "just a bard", he keeps getting into trouble, making matters worse, tends to hide his sausage in the wrong royal pantry, people want to kill him, throw things at him, and break his things, often over the way he loves too differently or too much... 

It's only very recently that Geralt has finally learned to openly show him affection, appreciation and reciprocity. 

To be clear Geralt, in season 3, is absolutely wonderful with Jaskier!   He's taking full responsibility for the way he hurt him, and doing all he can to make sure not to add to his self-doubts and issues. 

Ex: He clearly states that the only reason he doesn't want him to go with him is because he's scared of Jaskier getting hurt, and promises to come find him right after he's done.  He's not abandoning him nor pushing him away. 

He quickly reassured Jaskier that he's not upset that he's been talking with Philippa without having told him about him - that he trusts and loves him regardless of what he does - he's just curious to know what this is about. 

He reaches out for Jaskier's hand for comfort and allows himself to emotionally rely on him.

Geralt is finally embracing who he is and the person that Jaskier fell in love with and saw all along.  This is also helping Jaskier overcome his insecurities. 

Yennefer and Ciri have also adopted him as one of their own, and even freaking Yarpen Zigrin expressed his thanks for the way he risked his life for his men, and seems to have gained a new appreciation and respect for him. 

But it took him 20 years - and a lot of hurt and doubt - to finally get there. 

His found family mean the world Jaskier, and there's plenty of healing to be found there. 

But the thing is that it's healing he's finding amongst those that once made him deeply doubt about being enough, or worry about being too much.  Even Ciri's first response to meeting Jaskier was to just walk by and utterly dismiss him. 

Every now and then, Jaskier's bound to continue hearing those ugly voices in his head that are telling him that he's the one shoveling the shit that happens in people's lives!  

The voices telling him that his songs are nothing but pies without filling, and those that listen to him sing would realise he's got no substance, and stop loving him.  That the best thing that could happen in one's life would be for him to be taken off their hands.  Etc.

But then, there's Radovid, that calls his songs irresistible, is drawn to what Jaskier expresses in them, and fascinated with the way he sees the world... 

Radovid, who genuinely believes that the only good thing in the whole mess this season was meeting Jaskier, when Jaskier is the only reason that Radovid has gotten himself involved that deep in this whole mess to begin with!

Because Radovid only started showing some level of competence and willingness to play his own game with the spymasters because of that connection he developed with Jaskier. 

Otherwise, he'd probably have continued to pretend to be a drunken idiot and passively tagged along or annoyed Philippa and Dijkstra out of boredom, rather than made any effort to bring Jaskier and his family to Redania to help keep them safe.

Jaskier is the reason Philippa saw Radovid's potential, and ultimately chose to put him on the throne!

Once again, Jaskier made it all happen!

And yet, Radovid feels that meeting Jaskier - that Jaskier himself - is a GOOD thing.  The only thing he's grateful for.

He's not getting angry at him because he got himself in a pile of shit that Jaskier shoveled his way!

Because Jaskier's not to blame for Radovid's world being so screwed up that revealing parts of oneself to dangerous people out of love triggers such a mess. 

Radovid's voice is the ultimate countervoice to all the ugly voices that were put in Jaskier's head. 

Having Geralt say that he's lucky to have him might not be enough for Jaskier to truly believe it anymore...  Because what's to say his friend is not just feeling guilty over how deeply he hurt him, and is just attempting to make Jaskier feel better regardless of what he really thinks? 

But having Radovid say "Does the Witcher know how lucky he is to have you?" gives some much needed extra credibility to the idea.

If someone - from outside his relationship with Geralt - sees how wonderful he is, and how lucky Geralt is to have his friendship, devotion, and support...  Well, maybe what Geralt said in the past was just Geralt's own issues talking, and he truly didn't mean any of it.

Maybe, if Geralt says "I'm lucky to have you, Jaskier," he truly means it.

Radovid's relationship with Jaskier - the way he readily offers him words of affirmation and appreciation completely unprompted - has the potential to heal and strengthen the bonds between Jaskier and the rest of his found family as well.

It may sound counter-intuitive but as much as the cabin scene hurt, I think it shows just how much Jaskier instinctively trusts or wants to trust Radovid, too.

Because he's utterly unafraid to confront him, and show Radovid the deeply wounded and even more vicious side of himself. 

Their connection feels real, healthy, and like it has all the foundations of True Love™, because neither of them appear to be looking at the other with rose tinted glasses and expecting the other person to be perfect, or to change who they are and what matters most to them to suit each other's needs.

They have both complementary empathetic skills AND emotional damage, of all things!

So yeah, I think this is literally the longest piece of meta I've ever written on anything probably EVER, but I've been really (over)thinking about this for a while now, and had a mighty need to put the bulk of all of these thoughts down.

Like I said, I don't mind if people choose to interpret Radovid's relationship with Vizimir in a different way, and see the two brothers as sharing a loving brotherly bond with each other.

But Radovid is so survivor of narcissistic abuse coded on the show, and King Vizimir's utter lack of interest in asking his little brother if he's even remotely okay, or needs anything upon his return (just going on about how HE was worried sick, and how HE never should have left him, and how HE intends to punish someone about it... Oh, and by the way he looks awful, stinks, and needs a bath!)...

Well... Let's say that sort of cemented Vizimir as very much lacking any sense of genuine human empathy towards his baby brother in my mind.

The only act of actual "love", in that scene, to me, happened off-screen, when Vizimir agreed to let Radovid leave to go pursue something - someone - that suits him. And I have absolutely no idea how that conversation ended, and what was said between them in that moment.

Only that Radovid looked really happy to be allowed to escape from there, and needed to sell some of his valuables to get the funds he needed to travel and go help Jaskier.

But the scene between King Vizimir and Radovid? I personally couldn't feel the love there. 30 years with a narcissistic mother have taught me that hugs don't mean much, and "I was worried sick" is more about the person's own feelings, rather than expressing actual concern when it's not accompanied by something like "are you alright?"

King Vizimir is a ridiculously entertaining character that's a lot of fun to watch, but the implication of some of his behaviors are rather heartbreaking for Radovid.

So yeah, if you needed more reason to feel very protective of Radovid, and wish for him to get plenty of love and extraordinary things in future seasons, here are a few others for you!

[gayregis]

you might've already answered this but i adore all your takes on the show SO what did you think abt twn having the timeline all out of order? i didn't mind (even tho i read the books after) but i know it bothered a lot of people. thanks !

honestly, this is something that bothers me the most. it is on-par with the sincerely bad mischaracterizations of all of the characters and removal of the significant messages and themes of the short stories.

i feel that it’s insanely confusing for the majority of people when watching to have timeskips that are many many years apart without as much as a text card to say (20 years later). it’s good that you didn’t mind, but yeah i have heard from basically everyone, even people who loved the show, who say that the timeskips were the one thing that super confused them.

now, i watched the show having had read the books and legitimately dissecting any little thing as i watched. i went at this show with fucking tweezers and a scapel. i don’t get to say that i was confused by the timeskips, because during every single shot and scene, i was literally taking notes in a text document as to where the narrative was going and which scene was which from the books, where they were on the continent, what short story they were doing... although i was confused when things diverged so wholly from canon during the brokilon arc, i don’t get to say i was confused by the timeskip between the events of the lesser evil and the massacre of cintra, because i knew these stories already. 

but as a viewer, i was confused as to why they felt that was necessary. there was no reason to add in timeskips. there was no great parallel being made. they didn’t connect the two stories at all besides renfri making a side comment about how she was jealous of calanthe, then-princess. there was no thematic parallel. it felt like a gimmick to keep people from being bored with the first story (which it was, because there was a lack of interesting dialogue and i got very bored with it).

and it gets worse when i try to think of what it would have been like if i had NO prior knowledge of the witcher, or even just knowledge from the witcher 3. i... would have had no idea where cintra geographically is. i wouldn’t know who vesemir is when geralt mentions him. i wouldn’t have the faintest fucking clue as to why the story is switching between this man and this girl, and i’d be trying to establish their connection with no luck. because there’s literally nothing by this point which tells you that ciri is his daughter.

i think it’s a fucking stupid gimmick that lauren hissrich did because she wanted to gain more viewers by being “progressive” and including female characters yennefer and ciri earlier in the story even when it makes everything all the more confusing to have them there. i think it was a really stupid move that isn’t justifiable in any way because it’s sincerely disorienting to the viewer and makes everything make no sense. in the books, the stories are laid out in a certain order with a certain framing story for a reason. ciri appears as a character when she does for a reason. 

geralt finding ciri in brokilon was... such an incredibly significant moment and the fact that they didn’t introduce ciri in this way was really heartbreaking and sore to me. when geralt realizes that ciri is not just some random girl, but his daughter, that she is his child and she is not his destiny but something more... as ciri says to yennefer in blood of elves, you should have seen the look on his face. i wanted to see the look on new fans’ faces, on even my own face because it’s worth it to see a story retold. it was meant to be a surprise... she is the surprise child, as geralt says, she’s the biggest surprise he’s ever met. and the fact that geralt has to part with her, that he HAS to because otherwise he would bring danger to her, is incredibly painful. that was ciri’s introduction for a reason. the saga begins to follow her from that point on, that distinguishable point in brokilon. after this, the next story is something more, which revolves around many significant people in geralt’s life, but is focused on his desire to become ciri’s father for real. this point is very important because it’s a turning point for the series. it stops being about geralt, and begins to be about ciri.

similarly, yennefer is introduced as she is for a reason. in the last wish, she is not meant to be immediately likable. she antagonizes geralt and is actually kind of the antagonist of the story for a good part of it. the netflix series introduces her with her sad backstory, making the first emotion you feel towards her be pity and outrage at her treatment. yennefer in the book series was slowly developed, yennefer in the book series is carmelized onions. at first she is like raw onions, when you chop a raw onion your eyes might water, and raw onion is very strong and overwhelming taste that a majority of people find unpleasant (think of biting into a whole onion). but over time, when you put these chopped onions into the pan with olive oil and salt, they begin to get softer, sweeter. even when they’re not entirely browned yet, they’re palatable and delicious. yennefer in the bounds of reason shows sincere depth as she defies her trope and is sincerely emotionally hurt by geralt for leaving her without a word. she gets even more developed in a shard of ice, and her relationship with geralt is developed even when she is not present in a little sacrifice, and by the end of the sword of destiny, it makes sense as to why they are together as a couple. then in blood of elves as she becomes a mother to ciri and in time of contempt, baptism of fire, tower of the swallow, and lady of the lake, she is such an incredibly selfless and caring mother and you learn her backstory that she develops this incredible depth that you would never have thought she had the potential for in the last wish. 

the timeskips are really detrimental to not only yennefer and ciri’s characters, but also geralt and dandelion’s. geralt is introduced in the specific order of stories for a reason. in the witcher, we learn what a witcher is. we learn what he was created to do, but also how he as an individual is incredibly different from many of the rest of his guild and how he has this inner depth and humanity that he has to keep hidden. i’ll admit that a grain of truth is skippable, but i appreciate how it also shows that geralt will go out of his way to help others even when there is no contract and no reward involved. in the lesser evil, we learn why he has committed himself to neutrality and how society views him as a witcher. this is very significant for how he interacts with others, especially ciri, as he does not want to pass this legacy down to her. in a question of price, we see him choosing the route of pacifism yet again and also are introduced to the concept of destiny linking him with ciri. then in the voice of reason 5 / the edge of the world, we learn more about his humanity as his relationship with dandelion is explored and we get to see geralt in a closer, more intimiate friendship light, not on the job or embroiled in a conflict. we also see him acting pacifist again and learn of his opinions on otherness, the otherness that he himself is classified as. in the last wish, we learn how human he really is, we see his real devotion to dandelion and then his choice to assist yennefer and his vulnerability with yennefer. of course it’s not meant to end there because it has yet to take down the trope of a happy ending that it ended with, but you can see geralt’s linear character progression in just this first collection of short stories. you understand him as a character and what his motivations and relationships to others are.

tl;dr: the timeskips in twn do more damage than everyone thinks; they’re not just annoying and super confusing for new fans, but they are a major enabler of poor character development and bastardization of the books they were meant to be an “adaptation” of 

[hamliet]

Tragic Snow White: Renfri as a Mirror to Ciri

So in my initial review of The Witcher (the show version) I talked about how I thought it was fitting that Renfri’s story was the one the show adapted first, because it perfectly articulated what the story’s main questions and themes would be. At the time I’d only read the first two books and hadn’t even started the main saga, and now that I’ve finished the main saga, I think Renfri’s story is even more important than I initially thought.

The story is a tragic foil to the entire Witcher saga, with Renfri as a foil of Yennefer to an extent, but especially a foil--even more of a parallel--to Ciri. It pretty much tells you exactly how the entire saga will end, even.

Spoilers for the books and potentially disturbing subject matter below.

Vilgefortz is to Ciri what Stregobor is to Renfri. 

Stregobor and Vilgefortz both want to control little girls because of the circumstances of their birth. 

Stregobor hunts Renfri because she was born during an eclipse known as the Black Sun (which is an alchemy reference, fyi). He believes all the girls born then are evil and hunts them to vivisect them. He claims Renfri was strangling puppies even as a child, but he is hardly a reliable source of information, so it’s impossible to say. All we know is that he persuaded Renfri’s stepmother, the Queen, to hire a huntsman to murder Renfri. But she lives, just like Snow White... or not. Here’s how she summarizes it to Geralt:

Like Renfri, Ciri is a princess whose life is thrown into chaos and violence. For Ciri, though, it’s because her kingdom fell, and she has to run. Vilgefortz and Emhyr (and like, the mages, also the elves, also half the world) hunt Ciri because of almost the exact opposite reason: after years of genetic experiments, Ciri is prophesied to give birth to a son who will save the world from a coming calamity. However, no one thinks that Ciri might have opinions on what is done to her own body.  

Vilgefortz, in particular, is notably similar to Stregobor in that what he wants to do to Ciri is absolutely grotesque: artificially inseminate her and then rip out her placenta to study it, so that he might obtain power. Both men look to treat these girls’ bodies to suit their own selfish needs for prestige while under the guise of the “greater good.” It’s disgusting, and as Geralt says to Emhyr:

“The ends justify the means,” the Emperor said flatly. “I do it for the future of the world. For its salvation.”

“If you have to save the world like this,” the witcher lifted his head, “this world would be better off disappearing. Believe me… it would be better to perish.”

Like Ciri, Renfri takes on another identity that isn’t really who she is. She becomes known as Shrike for her method of killing, but she asks Geralt not to call her that. Ciri goes by Falka when she runs around with the Rats, the name of an ancestor of hers who was a princess sent away by the king as a baby, who grew and led a rebellion, killing her family in revenge before ultimately being executed herself. 

Shrike and Falka are the worst of Renfri and Ciri, and so it is meaningful that Renfri asks Geralt not to call her Shrike. She tells him to kill Stregobor to save the town, because she cannot renounce her vengeance, going so far as to risk her safety to sneak into his room and ask him. She asks him not to make her Shrike, not to let her kill, but she cannot let Stregobor live after all she has suffered. 

Geralt believes Renfri can change, urges her to leave her past, cares deeply for her, yet ends up having to kill her because he wasn’t able to fully understand the depths of Renfri’s pain (I’m not saying he should have killed Stregobor, merely pointing out that he does fail here). He cannot make a decision and reacts instead of acting, and by then no good options are left. Yet, at the very least, he refuses to allow Stregobor to touch her body. The Witcher is a decently straightforward fictionalization of the argument that women have the right to control their bodies.

We see Geralt responding to Ciri’s predicament as if she is a second chance for Geralt after Renfri. Instead of being reactive, he is proactive, trying to protect her before the fall of Cintra and then trying to destroy her enemies. However, he still struggles to understand just what it was that Renfri was asking him for. It wasn’t just to act. It was to empathize with her pain. Ciri, too, winds up feeling abandoned by Geralt, and after a series of terrible events, winds up following a similarly murderous path just like Renfri. In trying to prevent a repeat, Geralt almost caused a repeat. 

However, thankfully, this does not happen, because Geralt and Yennefer’s genuine love for Ciri, even if imperfect, helps Ciri pull out of her spiral, whereas Renfri was never given the chance. Yennefer is absolutely instrumental to this, because, like Renfri, she’s a bitter, emotional, and violent person, determined to get what she wants. And that is why when Yennefer is so determined to self-destruct just to control the djinn, Geralt chooses to empathize and use his last wish to, presumably somehow, tie her fate to his to save her. Ciri has seen this empathetic part of Geralt even as he tries to cloak it in other coping mechanisms, and so she has hope, while Renfri did not know Geralt beyond their time in Blaviken. 

Notably, the narrative does not condemn Renfri for this even though she dies. It’s seen as a tragedy, with Renfri as someone worth mourning. Additionally, her death and her questions haunt Geralt. Her questions are the ones he essentially finally answers with the above quote to Emhyr: what is the lesser evil? And his answer is that you can’t make a right world on the foundation of hurting someone--anyone. 

As Renfri states, Geralt is terrible at making decisions, and this is why he has to repeatedly struggle to make decisions and learn to pursue people and to give people second chances--Yennefer, Jaskier, Regis, Cahir, Angoulême, Ciri. Through helping others redeem themselves, he redeems himself; through finding others, in learning to empathize with them and to trust them, he finds himself. 

[kalinara]

"I don’t know that I agree with the idea that Geralt intentionally holds Jaskier at arms’ length. I think that there is definitely a level of guarded wariness to their interaction" Could you please expand more upon why you think that? If you feel like it, that is. :)

I don’t mind!

I should clarify that I don’t think the guarded wariness is something specific to Jaskier.  I think it’s a reflection of the character arc that the show designed for Geralt.

So let me tangent here for a bit:

Lauren Hissrich has done something really interesting with the way that she’s chosen to structure the first season of the show.  We have the three separate storylines, each serving a particular function.

Ciri’s is like the framing story in a short story anthology.  It’s basically the very beginning of Blood of the Elves, keeping us grounded in the stakes and the destination while we follow the other two on their journey.

Yennefer’s storyline can be divided into three parts:  her backstory, which I understand is extrapolated by what is gradually revealed in the novels, two of the short stories that she shares with Geralt (Last Wish and Bounds of Reason), and then splits off into what she was doing during the fall of Cintra.

And then there’s Geralt’s storyline, which is simplest in a way.  Each episode represents one of the short stories from either Last Wish or Sword of Destiny.  It’s very straightforward.  But the catch to Geralt’s storyline is that, because it’s crafted from separate stories, there’s no real character progression.

But it’s not a very satisfying television show if your lead character doesn’t have a character arc, right?  So Hissrich cleverly arranged the short stories to give him one.

So she starts with “Lesser Evil”.  This story is not the first story in the Last Wish anthology.  It’s actually somewhere in the middle (the striga story is first), but here it provides us with a really great starting point.  We can see Geralt as he is at the start of the story: a bit taciturn, but actually quite communicative when approached friendly.  He has substantial conversations with Marilka, Renfri, Roach and even Stregobor.  He is reluctant to get involved of course, but gets invested in Renfri’s well-being anyway.  The parallels between them: treated as monsters for something outside of their control, are established very strongly.  Geralt wants so much to save her.  And then everything goes very badly.  And it breaks him.

Renfri casts a long shadow over the rest of the season.  She’s always somewhere on his mind: in the brooch he fastened to his sword, he dreams of her when injured and delirious.  A princess in danger becomes a loaded issue for him.  

After Renfri’s death, Geralt closes off.  He goes from taciturn to nonverbal.  Wary to downright hostile.  He’s a bristling bundle of stress and nerves and that’s when Jaskier enters the picture.

I’ve seen book fans complain about the contrast.  Geralt and Dandelion are close in the stories and novels.  They’re relaxed and comfortable.  And that might be where they end up in the show too.  But they’re not there yet, because when Jaskier meets Geralt, he’s meeting the walking wounded.  And Jaskier can’t really fix that.

Geralt’s story in season one involves making connections.  It’s easy to joke about how Geralt insists he’s alone and hated, but actually seems to have made cautious allies with elves, picked up a bard, fell in love with a prickly sorceress, earned the goodwill of multiple rulers, recruited by a dragon, and saved by an old merchant.   But his emotional wounds aren’t going to be healed until he meets a princess that he can save, hopefully BEFORE years of torment turn her into a monster.

So tangent completed:

I do think that Geralt and Jaskier’s friendship is genuine, but that Geralt really isn’t at a point in his life where he can be open and honest and expressive.  He can’t relax his guard yet.  But he does value him.  And I’m still of the opinion that his tirade in episode 6 was specifically designed to make sure that Jaskier wouldn’t follow him into a warzone.  (If you look closely, right before Jaskier approaches, Geralt almost looks like he’s counting or bracing for a cue).

I am looking forward to seeing their interaction with season 2, because I do think that we’re going to see Geralt in a bit of a different place.  Of course whether that place is good or bad probably remains to be seen.

[musesofolive]

💡💕💢 for whichever muse/s you want to answer for! ^_^

Bold of you to assume I won’t try to answer for all! Lol

💡- What inspires you to write the muse(s)?

This is actually an answer for all of them but just because I love them so much. I put all this time and effort into them, I want to let them go out and explore the world, see new things and people. And especially for those of my muses who require character development, I want to see them grow. For those who don’t need it, I want to challenge them and their ideals to see if they still stick. And it’s my favorite part to continue on with a rp and get inside their head, it lets me learn so much more about them.

💕- Favorite ship for the muse(s)?

This is a bit hard to answer for all of them, because not a lot of them have had romantic encounters with other rpers just yet. I think my favorite for Isla so far is the one with her and Aaravos (beautifully dubbed Islaavos.) Their chemistry is just simply *chef’s kiss*! I love the way they bonded in the mirror prison and it was amazing watching them grow in their relationship and care for one another! And it was so nice to give Isla a romantic relationship that didn’t end in pain for once lmao. Ugh. Those two make my heart sing with joy whenever I go back and read the rp where it all started.

Riley, though he hasn’t quite had a chance to shine anywhere, there are two people I have in mind that I like for him. On the canon side: Viren, surprisingly enough. I think they have enough similarities between them but just enough difference because Viren does care for his family in his own weird way, and it might encourage Riley to do the same. Plus, I love the teasing flirt x grumpy one who hates it, especially when they both have trust/emotional avoidance issues lol, makes things ✨ spicy ✨. On the other hand, there is another character I’ve been developing for his story, who still doesn’t have a name other than Mr. Bounty hunter. What can I say? I love a good rivals to lovers, it’s got beautiful work for angst and again, that push to make Riley a bit better than he is. Make him understand he does have a heart in his body, he just needs to let it out of the fortified prison he’s put it in.

And then there’s Ciri, who yes is aroace, but I love the idea of her and Isla being in a QPR together. I think it would be adorable, I love their interactions so much, and they’ve already had years to build up mutual trust and love. Everything’s there, just one more step in a slightly new direction for both of them. Plus they both have pretty giant families, and two giant families combining to make an even bigger family would be so neat to write!

💢- Something about the muse(s) that annoys you?

We’re gonna start right off the bat with Riley ‘cause he’s the easiest. He’s an asshole. Plain and simple. He’s a player, a dirty, lying conman and will sacrifice you without a second thought because he’s convinced himself he has no heart nor a soul. And it’s very frustrating because you would be wrong sir! You do have a heart and soul! And they could be good if you’d just stop mentally and emotionally destroying yourself! The most annoying thing about him is that he could work himself out to be better if he would just take that leap. But he never does, because he’s ridiculously stubborn.

Then there’s Nova, and I’m annoyed with her for largely the exact same reason. Was she severely traumatized? Yes, and I do still feel sorry for that. And she’s technically trying to make herself better and heal herself, but she’s going about it in the wrong way. She thinks fixing the outside will fix the inside, when it’s really the other way around. But she’s got such tunnel vision that she won’t listen to that. And she doesn’t even realize that she’s destroying herself even further by looking for this white stag that just doesn’t exist. (Yes technically they do in Xadia I think but I’m speaking metaphorically here) But she refuses to accept that it doesn’t, because she thinks accepting that she can’t fix her appearance means she’s accepting that she’s broken beyond repair, that Dorian won, and she would rather die than admit that. Which actually makes her more frustrating than Riley because she’s so close to recognizing what she needs, but she’s running parallel to that line and I very desperately just want to give her a shove to get her there.

[riviae]

so this is long & rambly but i’ve been working on this for awhile now.... anyway, starts out very introspective!regis-y but becomes geralt/regis fluff real quick lol. hope y’all enjoy: 

Before crossing paths with a witcher who proved himself to be a man worth following into the very jaws of death, the seasons hadn’t meant much to Regis. 

He knew the cycle of things--life and death, warmth and cold, planting and harvesting--but he was an outsider to these things just as everything else on the Continent. Time passed. Wars were fought. Blood was shed. Empires rose and fell. All the while, Regis remained, burdened by an immortal life lived alone. To take part in humanity, to love it to some extent, but disappear into the shadows when a curious eye took interest in him. When a hand reached out--something that rarely occurred, unless holding a sword, pitchfork, or torch--he knew it was time to pack up and leave, lest he get too attached. 

Self-preservation, for higher vampires, was confined to the affairs of the heart and the mind--their bodies were not in danger of ruin, but memories and emotions were often ruinous for his kind. 

Yet, whatever contentment he could find as a bystander to the world’s happenings and goings was dashed the moment he met Geralt. All those years ago, Regis had fled from Dillingen to his home in Fen Carn, a cottage in the midst of an elven cemetery, in an attempt at avoiding the ever-encroaching war. 

And in perhaps the same cosmically infinitesimal chances of the Conjunction of Spheres occurring, Regis’ entire life changed at the sight of milk-white hair and amber cat-like eyes. He stepped out of his hiding spot, brushed away the stray leaves that clung to his clothes, and faced his destiny with a reserved, tight-lipped smile. 

He’s a witcher, Regis thought, the wolf medallion at the man’s sternum sparking a tiny flame of uneasiness in the vampire’s gut. Then, a more logical thought followed: I’ve always wanted to meet a witcher under amicable circumstances and now, here one is, practically at my doorstep. What luck! 

As his journey with Geralt and the hansa continued, as they traveled and fought, bled and healed, wintered in a land akin to a fairytale, Regis had a startling realization. Something had thawed inside him and he was fairly certain it was the stirrings of love. Like a change in season, like the subtle shift from winter to spring, where one wakes in the morning and sees that all the snow has seemingly melted in the night, unaware of the slowly melting ice with each sunny day until it was completely gone, so Regis was caught unaware by what he felt for the hansa--by what he felt for Geralt in particular.

Just how far would he go for these humans? How much would he sacrifice for these flickering beacons of light, here one moment, gone in the next? It was the ghost of himself--the monster he once was--that would have asked these questions. But the Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzeiff-Godefroy of the present loved his friends even more for their fragility, their tenacity in the face of a world that seemed at the ready to send them into an early grave. Love, he decided, staring at the smiling faces of the hansa at their breakfast table in Beauclair Palace, was a good enough reason to die for--and a good enough reason to live for, when he was on the cusp of nothingness. When any other sentient being would have longed for death in the throes of agony, Regis held on. For them. 

Memories spilled from his head at the first touch of magic-touched flames, nails clawing helplessly at the air. Fear burned him alive, ate away at his flesh until nothing but a pillar of ash remained. It was a pain worse than anything he had felt before--worse than anything he could have ever fathomed. He was neither alive nor dead, but something grotesquely stuck in the middle, unable to pass on to the comforting abyss of oblivion. 

Between the coldness of fear and not-death, between the pain of a body futilely attempting to regenerate from nothing, Regis did find some respite. He dreamed. And dreamed. And dreamed. He was transported to memories of the past, and while some were happier than others, even the painful recollections felt better than the aching emptiness that threatened to swallow his consciousness whole. 

Angouleme’s encouraging laughter whenever he used one of her... unique phrases. A warning pinch from Milva when he veered too far off topic, followed by an apologetic, but brief pat of his hand. A comfortable silence between himself and Cahir as they stayed up to guard the group during the night, sharing a small tincture of mandrake hooch to pass the time. Dandelion’s rapt attention to Regis’ stories, one time so transfixed that he caught his sleeve on fire as they all sat around the campfire and didn’t even notice. Geralt telling him about Ciri, voice warm, eyes crinkled in a rare unguarded expression of fondness. 

He thought back on his journal entries, the once severe, cerebral scrawl now sprinkled with mentions of the hansa. 

Angouleme somehow stole a dozen baguettes from the last tavern we stopped at and took only a quarter of one for herself before distributing the rest to the unfortunate people living in the slums of the city--and I never would have noticed (her prowess as a bandit is not something to be dismissive of, regardless of her youth) if she hadn’t also tried to search through my satchel while I “slept” in the hopes of finding olive oil to spread over her bread. For a child raised by cruelty, her morals are far better than mine when I was her age--or, rather, when I was developmentally at her age. Well, better in certain respects. She’s been quite a menace to the echelon of Toussaint... 

Milva means to show me how to hunt like humans do, meaning that I must learn how to be an archer. I don’t have much skill with human weapons--for nothing is as deadly as a pair of claws or teeth built to pierce and bleed flesh--but I will try my best all the same. Perhaps after this we can continue our reading lessons. For as much as she bemoans academics and learning for the sake of learning (as in things not readily helpful in her everyday survival), she is a naturally charming and brilliant pupil. Her “common sense,” as Angouleme often calls it, has kept us from harm plenty of times--which is why her ability as a student doesn’t surprise me. Now, if only she would stop climbing up a tree whenever our lessons start to bore her... 

Cahir, to my surprise, has taken on the role of doing the laundry for the group. Granted, we all have very few vestments to spare, but what clothes we do have that can reasonably benefit from a soak, Cahir takes and washes in the lake. Which, while I appreciate the sentiment immensely, I still found myself mildly panicked when I went to dress in the morning and my trousers were nowhere to be found. The man is quite young, probably no more than twenty-two years, but he has an old soul, as the saying goes. I would not be surprised if he finally grows sick of war, having grown up in an Empire where bloodshed is the status quo, and decides to make his living as a fisherman or farmer after we reunite Geralt with his ward. I sincerely hope that he gets the chance. 

Dandelion, ever the poet, has shown me his latest ballad. And imagine my surprise when I realized it was about me despite my immense caution on writing anything regarding higher vampires at all. It’s incredibly vapid--a shame, since he is quite the wordsmith when not preoccupied by romantic affairs--but I admit, if it were published, it would become popular within a week. He took the story of my youth and twisted it into something nearly unrecognizable, save for the titular character being named Rex. A two-crown romance with the nominative case of my name attached... perhaps this is a caution to everyone: never make friends with a writer if you value your privacy. 

Geralt dozed off beside me with his head on my shoulder. Now, him sleeping close to me is not all that uncommon--we spent many nights as a company huddled around a dwindling campfire together. What was uncommon was that he sought me out--practically barged into my room--to take his late afternoon nap... all the while I remained as still as a statue, attempting to process the sudden show of affection. Toussaint had softened Geralt in a way, so much in fact, that he apparently saw no harm in falling asleep next to a higher vampire, his swords still leaning in the corner of his room. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of his unusual straightforwardness. Where others might embellish their words, dress them up (or down) to suit their agenda, Geralt forgoes words entirely, instead letting his actions speak with a refreshing honesty. I heard the “I trust you, Regis,” as clear as day.

He thought back to all the times were his cowardice had kept him from voicing his feelings and it paralleled to his past, as if he were the same blood-abusing fiend of his youth. Centuries had passed and glimpses of the same shy, timid vampire who drank blood to be accepted, to make friends, only to lose himself in addiction, still rose to the surface. Blood was no longer a problem, but the fear of otherness, of being ostracized by those he cared about, still tempered his actions. And he was absolutely tired of it.

It was then that Regis made a vow to himself: If I live, If I become whole again, I will tell him the truth. He got his chance almost a decade later, when he was as whole as anyone could be after regenerating from nothing but dust and a drop of blood.

After Dettlaff was placated, no longer a danger to himself or others, Regis visited Geralt at Corvo Bianco. It was summer then, a season that saw him at the witcher’s door just as the last of the rows of sunflowers turned towards the sunlight in the midday heat. 

He knocked on the front door, politeness dictating his actions. A disheveled witcher opened the door, familiar cat-eyes widening marginally at the sight of Regis, as close to a slack-jaw moment of surprise as anyone were bound to get from Geralt. 

“Expecting someone else?” Regis teased, clutching the strap of his satchel as he crossed the threshold into Geralt’s home. He gave a cursory glance about the homestead--it had been decorated fairly well since the last time he visited to drop off the mutagenerator. In fact, the interior was downright cozy, a far cry from what he imagined a witcher keep to look like. 

No matter what Geralt says, his years spent on the Path have influenced him. Only someone who expects to wake in the morning would bother to decorate their home--or to have a home at all. 

The witcher shook his head, long, tangled locks spilling over his shoulders as he scratched tiredly at his beard. “Wasn’t expecting anyone. Thought if it was you though that you’d let yourself in.” 

Regis held his tongue, wanting nothing more than to sit Geralt down and trim his beard. He knew from their time with the hansa that the witcher preferred to be clean-shaven, but hated trimming it himself. The vampire pushed the thought aside. “While I could have simply misted through your window, I didn’t wish to give you a fright.”

“How considerate,” Geralt said, voice rough but teasing. “You chose to wake me instead of letting yourself in.” 

“I assumed you’d be awake. I didn’t realize that respectable vineyard owners slept in until noon.” 

Geralt rolled his eyes at the well-natured jab before walking to his room, leaving the door open behind him. Regis remained in the foyer, focusing his attention on the rather impressive collection of witcher armor that Geralt had acquired. Yet, his supernatural hearing made it impossible not to eavesdrop to some extent; he heard the rustling of fabric and the soft thud of an article of clothing hitting the wooden floor. 

“Hey, Regis,” Geralt drawled. 

“Yes?” he replied a beat too quickly, turning towards the open door. 

“...Gonna get in here? Or do I need to invite you into every room?” 

Scrambling somewhat, the vampire entered just as Geralt tugged a clean white linen shirt over himself. At meeting the witcher’s gaze, the man gave a wide grin. “You came at a good time. I’ve actually got something for you. But close your eyes first.” 

“Geralt, what are you--” 

“Shh. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.” 

A brief flash of fond irritation flickered in Regis’ expression as he gave a long sigh, but obeyed, shutting his eyes. He listened to the tempo of Geralt’s heart-rate, the usual slow and steady rhythm having quickened by a few beats. Ah, so he’s excited, Regis mused. Even witcher mutations couldn’t rob him of the biochemistry of his sympathetic nervous system. Then, a sour thought: I hope this isn’t the last time I get to witness such a jovial mood. 

The sound of his heartbeat grew stronger as the man approached, some sort of fabric draped in his arms, if the rustling earlier was any indication. Gently, Geralt placed the mystery item in Regis’ arms and backed away, the old floorboards creaking under his weight. 

“Happy birthday, Regis.” 

The vampire opened his eyes to see Geralt smiling warmly at him. Peering down, he couldn’t stop the look of absolute surprise upon his features, mouth agape.

“This is...” Regis trailed, fingers running delicately over the soft fabric, briefly pausing to rub his thumb against the black fur which lined the inside. 

“It’s not the exact cloak, given what happened at Stygga Castle,” Geralt paused, briefly wincing at the horrid memory, “But I thought you’d appreciate a new one.” 

Regis opened his mouth and then immediately closed it, unable to find the words to express how much the gift meant to him. You remembered... years passed and you still remembered. 

“I know you can’t feel heat or cold like humans do, but...” he shrugged, a hint of sheepishness in his posture, a hand rising up to rub at the back of his neck. “It’s been weird not seeing you with one. You never took that damn thing off so I thought it must have meant something to you.” 

“Geralt,” Regis finally replied once he found his voice again. It was the only warning he gave before the vampire laid the cloak on the bed and moved to seize the witcher in a tight embrace. 

Geralt looped his arms around Regis’ back in return, chuckling. He made no attempt at ending the embrace even as the time spent pressed together stretched on. “So... guessing you liked the gift, huh?” he finally asked, leaning into the gentle swaying of their bodies. 

When Regis spoke, it was barely past a whisper, but Geralt heard him all the same. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to me--for knowing me. Thank you, above all else, for being my friend.” 

“I think I should be thanking you. All I got you was a cloak--but you helped bring Ciri home. Almost gave up your life. Can’t imagine that... risking your immortality for someone like me.”  

“Geralt,” Regis started, pulling away to stare the witcher in the eyes, expression serious, “You are exactly the kind of person that inspires sacrifice. You have a noble heart and, despite your best attempts at proving otherwise, it is a heart full of compassion for others. I know you would have done the same if our roles had been reversed.” 

The witcher was silent then. When he finally managed a response, he did so while clasping Regis’ shoulder. It was something the vampire had noticed ever since meeting Geralt again--the man was more tactile than he’d been before his regeneration. As if he was making sure that Regis was real. Alive. Of flesh and bone. Not something that would crumble at his touch or slip through his fingers like a ghostly apparition. 

“I don’t know if I deserve your kind words, Regis. i haven’t always been... noble. There are things I haven’t told you about. Things that pertain to you.” At this, Geralt’s grip on his shoulder faltered and he pulled away suddenly, as if he were expecting to be hurt. “Truth is, I’ve been keeping a secret.” 

Regis blinked in surprise, a retort resting on the tip of his tongue, but he paused. He noticed, for the first time, that Geralt did look genuinely nervous. Geralt had never looked nervous in his presence--at least not because of Regis. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth all the same.

The vampire took a step forward. If Geralt was also planning to tell him a long-kept secret, then he wanted to tell his own confession first. While he still had the courage to do so. “I too have kept something from you, Geralt. I hope we can still remain as close as we were after this... revelation, if you will. But I understand if you’d prefer some time away from me afterwards.” 

“I doubt there’s anything you could say that would make me want you to keep your distance, Regis. Not after Stygga.” 

Regis gave an attempt at a half-hearted chuckle. “Hearing you say that really warms my heart--especially the certainty in your voice--but I’m afraid that what I need to say will change the course of our relationship, for better or worse. You see, Geralt, I’m... quite fond of you.” 

“I’m fond of you as well...” Geralt replied, confusion twisting his features. “Is that really your big secret?”

“Oh, for the love of--” Regis cut himself off, reaching instead with one hand to encircle Geralt’s wrist while the other cupped Geralt’s cheek. “I love you, you stubborn witcher. I’ve loved you for awhile now, really. Even before Stygga. You’re incredibly easy to fall in love with, though I see now that you’re completely oblivious to this trait.” 

Regis’ hold was gentle, light--something Geralt could easily pull away from if he wished to. But he didn’t. Staring into his own reflection within the coal black of the vampire’s eyes, Geralt closed the gap between them, answering Regis’ confession with his own: a kiss. 

Between kisses, Geralt paused, huffing out a short breath. “...You know, I’m feeling like a fool for not telling you that I loved you sooner, Regis.” 

“Likewise. Which is not something I feel all that often.” 

At this, they both laughed before resting their foreheads against each other. It had been a long road to this--to love--but it was well-earned. Later, Regis’ cloak found a home within a closet in Corvo Bianco. Though the weather in Toussaint was rarely cold enough to warrant a fur-lined cloak, Regis wore it as often as he could, but Geralt left an empty hanger in the closet all the same--just in case. 

Seasons hadn’t meant much to Regis... but now, watching the morning sunlight from the bedroom window pool against the witcher’s back, he felt a tug of warmth at the first touch of Fall, at the chance of donning his cloak and the memory of the day it was gifted to him. He didn’t want to replace the painful memories, the memories of those he loved but lost, but he also knew that somewhere, surely, Milva, Cahir, and Angouleme were smiling down at them. And that was a sense of peace with his past that he wouldn’t trade for the world. 

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Time for The Witcher episode 4!!

So the last episode was Intense(TM) and also I finally realized that the show isn’t happening all at the same time but it’s following multiple timelines, which, better late than never. Now things make more sense...

Alright, bando alle ciance and let’s do this.

“Ciri! Ciri” Cirilla: yes? “Not you, I was talking to Siri. What’s the weather going to be tomorrow”

That’s such a stupid joke. Unfollow me right now, it’s okay.

Glowy Forest Intensifies... oh, there’s people now. Forest Dora Milaje aren’t happy to see her, which is understandable, I guess. But the boss arrives.

Meanwhile, except not meanwhile, a man has had a very bad day. Apparently the nickname White Wolf has stuck. Remember when we thought the MCU was going to make Bucky into a Black Panther character as the White Wolf, official media outlet even used the White Wolf as a title for Bucky, and then it ended up in nothing? Sorry for the digression but I really hoped we’d get Bucky written by Ryan Coogler and I was really disappointed when that didn’t happen but *waves around* all of that happened instead. I mean, technically it’s not too late to make it happen but Bucky is a Disney+ creature now, so, bye.

Hello Jaskier! My boy! I missed you.

Ah, the new media image campaign is working. 

“You never get involved, except you actually do, all of the time” I love this XD “I don’t do emotions or attachments” character who does emotions intensely all the time and gets attached to everyone they meet paired with “sure Jan” character who calls them out is a very good dynamic.

Ah, yes, this is perfect. I’m sorry but dark brooding protagonist and bubbly comic relief sidekick is my secret weakness.

No offense, Geralt, but those clothes did need a good washing after your latest job, so don’t make that face.

Blah blah royal affairs I should probably pay attention to.

“I am not going to protect you” [*Spongebob font* five minutes later...]

But yeah, the princess is Cirilla’s mother, I suppose, and I’m sure the marriage that produces Scream Princess is super important. She is very pretty and has lovely hair. Sometimes I wish I had long hair I could braid artistically.

The princess doesn’t want to get married to some strange dude, but the queen is A Very Strong Woman(TM) and has no time for silly things like her daughter’s feelings over the most life-changing decision in her life. She’s an interesting character for sure, and the narrative doesn’t try to frame her as either definitely good or bad, which is interesting.

Oh! Rat Boy isn’t dead! That’s great. That makes sense narratively, native forest women who suffered genocide from colonizers wouldn’t kill an elf boy who went through the same thing.

Promised husband is a shitty dude. Queen Calanthe likes Geralt, which, relatable. But she and her entourage are racist assholes, and the next scene with Cirilla and Dara tell us that their anti-elf talk isn’t just talk.

By the way, now we know for sure how much time there is between Geralt’s timeline and Cirilla’s.

The queen doesn’t like feminine dresses. Lady is trying to overcompensate a lot. But her banter with Geralt is entertaining.

The first suitor is from Nilfgaard, and in hindsight it would have been a wise choice to unify the two kingdoms... C’mon, poor guy is just awkward, he doesn’t deserve the humiliation. Or is he the guy who’ll make war later? The pilot threw too much new information at me the other day.

Yennefer is bored... and apparently 30 years has passed since the last we saw of her. (I refuse to try to understand when in relation to the other plots that puts this scene. Things will click together at some point or I’ll just accept whatever happens and nod along.) And coincidentally she is paired with a woman who laments being only considered important as a baby-producing womb. Oops. Awkward.

Not relevant to the show but my parents never get inside my room as often as while I am watching something on Netflix.

Yennefer thinks life as a court mage sucks, queen Kalis thinks life as a baby-maker sucks. They envy each other for what the other has, but they’re probably both right.

Well, boredom is no longer a problem.

Oh, poor queen, her husband paid to have her killed because she’s only given him daughters. Two episodes in a row about female heirs to kings, plus queen Calanthe being female and having a daughter who’ll have a daughter. Theeemes!

You can’t be rude to the only person who is your only hope not to die horribly, girl.

Queen Calanthe is frustrated she isn’t a man, which we could guess. She also likes the simplicity of killing, which we could also guess.

Oh! It’s almost pre-decided husband’s time to claim the girl’s hand in marriage, but New Guy appears! He’s been cursed and Mr I Don’t Pick Sides Ever No Matter What, guess what, picks a side. The audience is shocked. No one could foresee this unexpected turn of events.

Noooo the baby!!! Yennefer loses a rare chance to acquire a baby. This is sad. Damn this show doesn’t shy away from killing children, such a different feel from most stories we’re used to.

These people are weird with destiny. Calanthe says fuck destiny, Geralt says lol mood but just because you’re a queen doesn’t mean you’re above sacred rules.

OOOOH Calanthe says fuck sacred rules and it does not go well. Is this happening because she tried to mess up with the order of the world and chaos said hi? Was the princess always magical or did this happen because destiny will have its way no matter what?

Ah, her grandmother had it, she never manifested it before until now, when circumstances awoke it.

Queen Calanthe acknowledges destiny, and of course they’re all dressed in green like the mages of Feminist Hogwarts aka Chaos School. I should have paid more attention to colors but green seems to be the color of magic slash chaos slash destiny.

Then bam, red. Men. Violence.

Everyone in the forest is also dressed in green... Colors aren’t really my thing, you might have noticed that I rarely analyze colors in Supernatural and I’m not particularly into what which color means and I only notice things when they’re very obvious like the purple of transformation-slash-death, so, yeah, I am not the kind of person who notices colors until they slap me in the face. I guess this is my slap in the face by this show’s color palette XD

Also consider that I watch everything with f-lux on, so I don’t even see colors the way they actually look, I guess that’s why it’s harder for me to notice colors when everything looks orange.

Alriiiiight *disables f.lux for current app*

Oh. Oh. So this is how this show looks like.

Awkward. This is so embarrassing.

I should rewatch the whole thing with real colors now... well, another time.

Anyway, Dara has drunk antidepressant juice, but it doesn’t work on Ciri, because she is Relevant(TM) to destiny so she can’t forget her past otherwise the plot destiny can’t happen.

Sleep well baby.

Aaah husband’s curse is broken! Yay.

Geralt accidentally acquires a bond with a baby. One baby dead and Yennefer’s potential bond with her lost, one baby on her way and Geralt’s future bond with her created. So this is all about parallels based on babies and births. Cool.

In the future, destiny has arrived and indeed wrought calamity on the court and the city. Someone makes something gross with Calanthe’s dead body--a spell to learn the location of Cirilla. Trouble is coming.

Oh! It’s him, he’s not dead? And taking something from Calanthe (that will be relevant later)?

Ciri drinks stronger juice and goes to the ancestral plane, er, I mean has a vision of a Very Important Tree, sorry I had Black Panther stuck in my head from before.

Well this is very interesting and things are starting to click together and yeah it’s a weird ride but I’m enjoying it! I suppose only at the end of the season you get the full picture of why and when everything has happened so I’m just sitting here metaphorically eating popcorn waiting for things to make sense on their own rhythm. There’s a theme of motherhood and babies and it seems that Geralt’s destiny is to become a metaphorical mother for Cirilla? Or am I mixing him up with a similar kind of character with a tendency to become everyone’s mom? Anyway, I’m looking forward to see what happens.

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

I reblogged this earlier but there is so much that happens regarding Renfri here (the woman fighting), only a little bit of which the above person discussed, that I had to reblog it again.

I just watched this episode again with my girlfriend, and it was fascinating to me for a lot of reasons, but especially this fight choreography. I mentioned that Henry Cavill obviously knew his swordwork and was technically going easy on the other actor (I'm not sure if Emma Appleton did her own stunts, but I know Cavill for the most part does, because he's a fucking nerd all grown up who decided that instead of cosplaying like a normal person, that he'd just become all of his favorite video game and comic book characters), but that the fight choreographer had taken intense pains to put the two on equal footing.

I think the huge difference between how we see Renfri fighting and how we see, say, Natasha Romanoff fighting, is that we had a lady showrunner (Lauren Schmidt Hissrich), a story that already featured a lot of interesting women written by feminist Andrzej Sapkowski, and Renfri herself.

Renfri isn't sexualized AT ALL, even in the (brief) sex scene she's in. She instigates it, but the scene has narrative reasons that have little to do with the actual sex (keep in mind, too, that the titular character is seen as Less Than Human, to the point that he actually believes he can't feel emotions, so he usually seeks out sex workers for any sexual desires he is feeling - he almost never instigates sex that isn't negotiated and paid for beforehand). Before that, she's not seen as sexy at all; in fact, her character is treated like a male character. People listen to her. She figures people out and bears grudges. She's neither a harlot nor a saint. She's human, almost disgustingly so, which is hilarious considering she's seen as an unlucky, cursed person.

One (creepy) dude claims that she's able to beguile men, but she's a fucking crime lord. People listen to her regardless of her sex appeal; she rules with an iron fist, but fairly - her men are obviously privy to conversations she's had with the witcher, private ones, meaning she's shared the info with them. She respects them and trusts them. When her men are killed, she's furious.

A lot of parallels are drawn between Renfri and Geralt (the guy) in this episode. I'd say that Geralt is probably sexualized MORE than Renfri - her clothes are form-fitting for easy movement, but I'd hesitate to call them sexy. They're upper-class practical. Geralt, on the other hand, prances around shirtless, in skintight leather pants. When he has a shirt on, he's either in full armor, or the thing is half-unbuttoned all... Slutty. Lol.

Renfri is only sexualized by one person. A person who is shown, repeatedly, by the narrative to be Not Good. A person who has an enclave for himself full of (illusory) naked women harvesting fruit for his viewing enjoyment.

Renfri makes a choice. She specifically states that she's made a choice. She fibs about what that choice is, but she makes a choice.

Renfri has agency and this fight shows it. Cavill may have been going easy on Emma Appleton, but Geralt was not going easy on Renfri. Her being resistant to Geralt's magic, and having a hard life having been born "cursed", and having had to invent herself from the ground up, put her on equal footing with him, something that's hard for even other witchers to claim.

The only person trying to take her agency away is a man who literally had to have evil explained to him:

"Evil is evil: greater, lesser, middling; it makes no difference." - Geralt, to Streagobor.

So yeah. I have a lot of Feelings about this fight, but please rest assured that this show is kind of amazing with how it handles women and women characters. Yennefer, Ciri, Renfri, Fringilla, Pavetta, Tissaia, Calanthe. All of these women are people, with backstories and motivations, loves and enemies, things that make them sympathetic and monsters simultaneously. They exist outside of coming into contact with Geralt, and that is part of the reason the story isn't told chronologically - one must see these women evolving outside of the view of the witcher to understand them. Otherwise they are simply Allies or Enemies to be seen from the POV of Geralt. You're not meant to see them through his eyes. You're mean to see them as characters in their own right.

It's not perfect, but something as simple as a fight scene shows that The Witcher is a helluva lot better at handling women and their arcs than most shows out there.

They created me just as they created you. We’re not so different.

THE WITCHER NETFLIX (2019– )

[kalinara]

One of my favorite episodes of the Witcher is "Betrayer Moon”.  Not only do we get the climax of Yen’s Aretuza arc, but we also get the Striga fight.  And I think it’s pretty fascinating what the show did with it.

Disclaimer: I still haven’t read the books, so I have only the vaguest idea what the story is like there.  I did however start playing the first game, where we see the Striga battle as an introduction, and I find the contrast rather fascinating.

The big thing that stands out to me is that, in the game, the Striga fight itself doesn’t seem like a really big deal.  At no point does Geralt seem out of sorts or desperate.  If anything, it looks like he’s toying with her.  There’s a pretty great bit where he saunters into her crypt and pulls out a tiny hourglass to measure the time.  It’s a lovely moment of asshole.  It goes well, until the bite at the end.

And it makes sense for a game.  This is our glimpse of Geralt before his amnesia, it’s the teaser as to what he could be.  And I’m guessing it’s fairly similar in the books, since, IIRC, it’s the first story.

The show, obviously, is very different.  The fight is brutal.  Geralt’s chains, early on, fail, and after that, he’s fighting rough.  He’s flung about and battered and his crawl into the crypt seems as much an act of desperation as it is anything else.  No smug little hourglass moment here, Geralt is too wounded for that.

I suspect some of the reason for the change is because female fans are far more sadistic than male fans and we like watching our favorite guys suffer.  But there’s also thematic relevance too.

I’ve talked before about how the first season is structured to give Geralt a character arc: by setting Lesser Evil/The End’s Beginning first, Lauren Hissrich has given Geralt a clear emotional progression.  He starts off at a reasonably healthy place.  He’s ostracized, which he finds frustrating, but he’s also reasonably approachable.  He’s verbal, communicating pretty openly with Renfri and Marilka and Stregobor.  The events of the story break him, and the rest of the season shows us Geralt getting back.

One step in that direction is meeting Jaskier, but Jaskier himself isn’t enough to fix Geralt.  And there are also some issues within that relationship that are worth its own meta.  To put it briefly: I think that the claims that Jaskier is the one person to take Geralt’s emotional issues and wellbeing into account are nonsense, because he actually doesn’t.  That said, I think Jaskier’s steamrolling actually represents something Geralt needs at this time: he’s not letting Geralt hide in a corner and lick his wounds.  He’s forcing him out of the shadows and into human interaction again.

There’s an interesting cross-element of reputation in this episode.  Jaskier’s work is bearing fruit: the sex worker (who lives!  And gets paid!) has heard of Geralt, she recognizes his scars (...and really, I can’t imagine Geralt reacting very well to songs that talk about him that intimately, but again, meta for another day), and as we see in the Banquet episode and Bottled Appetities, the “White Wolf” is overtaking “the Butcher of Blaviken” in public opinion.

In Temeria though, Witcher is still a bad name, because of that poor fellow who “ran away with their coin”.  Because Triss and Foltest would rather trash some poor guy’s reputation than be honest with the people about the threat they face.  Their reasons are sympathetic, but it’s not surprising that Geralt is so pissy at the end of the episode.  The man who caused the curse is remembered as a hero, Geralt’s own role is buried, and the other Witcher, who gave his life for the miners, is a scorned deserter.

But back to the Striga.  Thanks to Renfri, the Striga suddenly takes on more emotional weight.  She’s not a monster.  She’s a girl, a princess, made into a monster because of the actions of the adults around her.  She’s fourteen years old: a child.  Like Renfri likely was when she was attacked and raped by Stregobor’s man.  Like Marilka, who befriended then rejected him.  Like Ciri will be.  And this time he can save her.  And he does SUFFER to save her.

Ostrit, like Stregobor, is a man who presents himself as the lesser evil.  His curse of Adda was Foltest’s fault, because HE made Adda love him.  Ostrit had to curse Adda, because he didn’t want to damage her reputation.  Because he’d rather see her dead than see her in disgrace.  Renfri was a puzzle to Stregobor, rather than a person.  Adda was a trophy to Ostrit, in the same way.

Saving the princess is not an emotional fix it for Geralt.  It can’t be.  He’s saved her by bringing her back, but he couldn’t save her from fourteen years as a monster.  Whatever she is now, whether or not she’ll recover, that’s out of his hands.  Renfri lived under the label of monster for years, until she became one in fact.  Was he too late to save this princess?  But it’s something.  He was able to do something that he couldn’t do for Renfri.

(There’s also a lovely parallel between the Striga and the victim in Geralt’s story of his first bit of heroism.  He saves the girl, but she’s terrified of him.  The girl in the story faints.  The ex-Striga attacks.  Because Geralt forgets sometimes that to a young, traumatized girl, he is scary.  I think because ultimately, deep down, he identifies far more with these girls than he does anyone else.)

As mentioned, the ending is interesting.  Ostrit, like Stregobor, gets remembered as the hero, when they’re bigger monsters than the girls they’ve made suffer.  The Witchers take another hit to their reputation.  Triss, often presented as the nicer alternative to Yennefer in the games (which is rather fascinating in its own right), seems very happy with this arrangement, though admittedly, she’s willing to give Geralt some credit while talking with Yennefer later.  Geralt is less happy, but what can he really do?  At least the princess has a chance to recover.

The Striga story is not a fix-it, but it is a step in the right direction, and I think it does play heavily in both Geralt’s initial rejection of the child surprise and then his acceptance of her.  

Also it’s fun watching Henry Cavill suffer. He’s very pretty at it.