Essay
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CDPR faced a significant narrative challenge: transforming Avallac'h from the antagonist of the books into a mentor figure for Ciri. The cut content surrounding the Curse of Inversion reveals some of how the developers approached this challenge.
Headcanons
Between every reality in The Witcher lies a mirror-like barrier. As Ciri travels through time and space, we discover how the Gate of Worlds functions. Ard Gaeth, for example, seems but one special manifestation of interdimensional travel. And what about the elven towers? Let's see.
Commentary
Three meditations on Ciri in The Witcher 4: from trauma's narrative potential to bodily autonomy, exploring how CDPR's vision aligns with Sapkowski's complex character.
Essay
In The Witcher, elven women get the chance to have children only a handful of times. But when human colonizers arrive, biology becomes destiny. In Tolkien, elves control their fertility through divine will. In Sapkowski, fertility controls the elves through inconvenient timing.
Character Study
The Witcher often presents us with shadow doubles – like Auberon Muircetach & Emhyr var Emreis. Both pursue the greater good at the expense of decency & their own (un)humanity. A greater good to be achieved by begetting a prophesised child through incest with Cirilla, their descendant.
Essay
The Witcher’s plot is based on a universally known fairy tale, where a monster (or a wizard) saves someone’s life and asks for something in return. In its frustration and desperation, Ciri’s offer to Avallac’h comes off as a perversion of the way Ciri first chooses Geralt.
Essay
'The vast majority of people who claim that rape and violence are disgusting and morally unacceptable to them are simply unable to use violence.' But what of witchers: created as tools of violence by the powerful, yet cast out by society? Slaves and masters at once, as per Nietzsche.