I think the reason Geralt was so strong is that his mother was a sorceress. They meet in the second book and she saves his life and is said to look even younger than him. The whole "sorceresses should not have children" thing was something Tissaya de Vrie created (Yennefer's mentor). But in reality there are many magic users and sorcerers who can have children. So Geralt being extremely resiliant and strong could be genetic. Also his father was a mercenary and adventurer, so he also wasn't a regular man.
Geralts strength comes from his unique witcher mutation that gave him white hair. It’s possible he has an affinity for magic though with his mother being a sorceress.
@@kjh4496 he received that mutagen because other witchers saw that geralt could resist better the herb trials, that resistance could be recieved from his mother
@@kjh4496 pretty sure it was stated somewhere that geralt would've been a powerful sorcerer if he chose that path, it's just that he's already chosen the path of a witcher indicating that geralt does indeed have a lot of potential with magic, he just doesn't want to witcher mutation just made him more into a superhuman
@@kjh4496 _"Geralts strength comes from his unique witcher mutation that gave him white hair."_ But we don't see any other witchers with white hair. I agree his hair color possibly (likely?) comes from his mother's sorceressness...? sorceressity? When I first played W3 (my intro to that universe), and first met Vesemir and saw Ciri, I assumed they all had white hair. But I've since learned Vesemir's hair color is simply due to him having been alive for multiple centuries. Plus Ciri is not a witcher. Ciri's hair isn't purely white, but more a color between gray and white -- at least, that's the definition of "ashen". It's theorized (or perhaps it's canon... I've not read all the books yet) that Sapkowski chose that color as a symbolic combo of her adoptive parent figures; Yen's black hair and Geralt's white. Not to mention that Ciri's real mom had naturally ashen hair. And then there's the fact of her Elven Blood. Many possible reasons for Cir's hair color, even though she's not a true witcher. Perhaps she has some Targaryen blood too =-D
He went through a second round of The Grasses. That's the canon reason. EDIT: Eskel is canonically better and stronger at signs, and I'm paraphrasing "his Igni was like a dragon's breath".
There is a single cat in Witcher 3 that does not hiss or react negatively to Geralt. You can find it (if I remember correctly) in the scene where you locate the Baron's daughter Tamara. If not there, then it is in a different indoor scene with her.
Yeah its when you find the baron's daughter Tamara in Oxenfurt. The CDPR team said they need a distraction for the player while she walked down the stairs so they had Nibbles sitting there and for some reason totally fine with Geralt. After this the cat can be seen throughout the rest of the game. For instance in The Plays The Thing the cat will be watching from the rooftops during the play. Nibbles is also mentioned by one of the dwarves in the isle of mists. Nibbles appears in both DLCs also.
"It has been widely theorized by many many fans that CDPR actually based this speech on medieval Georgian languages" As a Georgian I can tell you it's not medieval, but simply current everyday Georgian lmao. When I was playing the game I got freaked out because somehow this devil person talked to me in my own language. You can imagine just how much of a 4th wall break that was and therefore that much scarier.
one thing that I thought was interesting that i havent seen anyone talk about was during the beginning of the game when Geralt and vesemir reach the bar, the cutscene involves a table of men and one of them tells the waitress that the temirian flag should be taken down which angers another man who thinks that flag has a right the be hung. as the man gets mad the camera shifts to behind gunther o dim and then the man who was enraged grabs his head in pain almost like Guther o dim was the one causeing his headace to ease the atmosphere for Geralt to enter the bar. if you rewatch the scene you can see what i am talking about.
I can't remember if he always did that or not bc the only one time I've played through the game without Hearts of Stone installed was my first playthrough and I wasn't paying any attention to Mr G.O.D
You know what else i noticed about that scene? There is one point where it looks like someone is sitting at the table with Gaunter. It looks like a blonde woman, in a straw hat, like Hanna’s sister in the werewolf quest.
The idea that Coral is pretending to be Triss falls apart after you add Yen to equation - jealous, vindictive and pretty powerful sorceress who would surely see through the charade of Coral trying to behave and look like her best friend to seduce her man
@@ingloriuspumpkinpie9367 More like it means something close to insignificant person. In original mare's name is written with "Ł" letter: "Płotka". But then again, "plotka" word indeed refers to gossip, it's just that "płotka" and "plotka" are two different words, and "ł" letter is not present in english alphabet.
I remember playing throughout Blood and Wine and meeting that one elder vampire. When I accidentally asked two questions, the moment he killed Geralt with one hit, I just had to ask myself just how many more creatures are out there that are just as scary and powerful as this elder vampire and just how big the world can be, that Geralt may be one of the most powerful warriors of the continent, but he ain't the most powerful. Not even close.
Gaunter O'Dimm is based on Walter O'Dim a figure out of the Stephen King universe. He is a trickster and mighty magician, once a ordinary human, now a powerful, nearly godlike wizard, connected with the crimson king - who is one of the most powerful, oldest and most evil beings of the universe(s). Walter is one of my favorite characters out of this universe, just as Gaunter is one of my favorite character in Witcher 3 haha
@@derglobsterhe was also based off of Leland Gaunt, the villain from Needful Things. He provides items to people in exchange for small promises or small tokens of future exchanges. They all inevitably ruin themselves.
@@smittywerbenjaggermanjensen69 Not really. Hearts of Stones is rather heavily based on Polish legend about Sir Twardowski. It's very similar to the better known German story of Faust. CDPR used also other Polish inspirations. Wedding theme is based on... "The Wedding", play from 1901.
The arch-villain of the Stephen King multiverse, Randall Flagg, is referred to as Walter O'Dimm in the Gunslinger. He has a very similar demeanor to Gaunter O'Dimm and I believe Gaunter is an homage to the man in black.
One of the senior writers did say he was inspired by both Walter O'Dimm and Leland Gaunt, a spirit that grants wishes with a twist. "Karolina Stachyra, senior writer at CD PROJEKT RED, said he was indeed inspired in part by these two."
I used to name all female chinchillas Ingrid. That's just what female chinchillas are called. There was a Zoe in there somewhere but she was never right in the head...
As to the theory that Geralt wished for him to have a child with Yennifer. First, I love it. But second, since it's a djinn, the wish got twisted and they ended up with Ciri
Ciri isn't a reault of Geralt's wish to the Djinn. The wish to the Djinn is how geralt and Yennifer are linked to one another. Ciri was promised to Geralt when he saved Duny in Queen Calanthe's castle as a debt under the law of surprise. 'Younwill give me that which you have but so not know. I'll return in six years to see if destiny has been kind to me' Reavealing that Pavetta is pregnant with Ciri, the surprise Geralt is referring to.
The black sun is a self fulfilling prophecy, by being so caught up in stripping these women of their wills, huting them, torturing them and locking them away out of the prophecies fear, they created the monsters that they were trying to contain, it was dabbled with in "The Lesser Evil" with Renfri, where she was debating if she was really a monster or not
So here's the weird thing about the curse of the Black Sun. While yes, it is possible that these women act this way because of the self-fulfilling prophecy concept. There are some things that make it ambiguous. It is true that these so-called afflicted girls did actually have mutations in them when they were autopsied. They also in the book are immune to a lot of forms of magic which most humans are not able to do. That's why even in the books and the TV series geralt tries to use axi and it doesn't work on her. That's what makes the curse of the Black Sun thing so crazy because there is proof of both
No, Roaches name doesn't come from the word "fish", because the Polish name is Płotka. Roach is the literal translation of the word płotka, which is a kind of fish. Płotka is also feminine, almost every word ending with an 'a' is feminine in Polish. And the theory about Roach is pretty weird. Roach is just a normal horse and he's talking in that quest, because Geralt is hallucinating.
It's pretty clear in the books that Geralt just likes the name, and so he names all of his horses Roach. It's kind of sad that Geralt has to go through so many horses, though. Horses are very long lived creatures. My friend had a horse who lived to be 50. She was around for the first 20 years of my life. That said, Geralt is over a century old, so he should have at the very least had 3 horses. Unfortunately it's more, because I'm certain some have been killed.
On the idea of The Witcher world being on the verge of a renaissance, you're not far off. There are some tales of the Witcher that take place after a second Conjunction, where a new school of Witchers were established, called the School of the Crane. These Witchers are specialized not only in swordplay, but also guns as well, likely flintlocks. Whether these are canon or not, only the author knows. But it is entirely possibly we can get a more modernized setting of a new Witcher game later on down the line.
What stories are these? I'm fairly certain I've read all of the books, and I've never heard of this, or anything close. Is this like a graphic novel type thing?
@@kaiares5109 why? guns and swords were used together in war for some 400, 500 years. early matchlocks dominated Eastern cultures and their battlefields in places like Korea, China and Japan. Wheellock guns are fantastic bits of fantasy-meets-reality and matchlocks are very restrictive as to when you can fire them, and just like flintlocks take ages to reload. Things like Witchers making use of igni to light their powder charges and their reflexes to reload really quickly, it would make for that renaissance feel (that times have moved forward) whilst still being entrenched in the fantasy idea of a Witcher school full of damaged people with superhuman abilities, carrying a pouch of cast-silver ball shot with a shorter silver sword that would allow the use of a pistol.
@@AdamOwenBrowningthey don't even like to use crossbows let alone guns. Also you're not really making any arguments as for why it wouldn't suck, just arguing that it makes sense. And I'd argue it doesn't make sense, sounds like what it is, fan fiction. Would armies eventually use guns? Yup. Would witchers? Nope. By the time guns are a thing witchers would be lucky to exist. Guns make hiring a witcher pointless unless dealing with a curse, even then witch hunters are probably cheaper, especially cheaper than someone like the famous white wolf who charges more than what most people can afford. Pay 200 for a witcher to save your village, pay 200 to merchant or gunsmith for a weapon(s) that'll protect the village now and in the future. Easy choice.
Final comment: regarding the book 'She Who Knows' in the game about the Crones, a number of other UA-camrs have speculated that the story in it is heavily-embellished propaganda. After the Battle of Kaer Morhen when Geralt goes with Ciri to Bald Mountain in Velen to confront Imlerith during the Crones' "Sabbath," when they approach the hill she remarks that the site used to be a hallowed ground for druids, "then the Crones came and twisted the tree." The Ghost/Lady in the Tree mentions Geralt when he goes to kill her, that she "abandoned her circle, where she'd kept the balance." The three Crones are also said to be of various ages, with the Whispess being the "oldest," the Brewess being the middle, and the Weavess being the "youngest." There is also a location in Toussaint where if you hover over the marker on the map, it mentions the Whispess used to live there before. Finally if Geralt chooses to help the Lady/Ghost in the Tree and gets her bones, he remarks that they don't look human. This all points to a likely possibility that she was either a super powerful being from another world or more likely, that she and the Crones were all once regular humans who used magic and alchemy to keep themselves alive and/or more powerful which resulted in them mutating. The fact that the Crones look like young maidens in their tapestry and can make themselves look like that by feeding on the blood of children to maintain that form, may mean that this used to be their original appearance but the magic they worked to become powerful and stay alive came at the cost of their humanity and youth, similar to but also very distinct from how it is with Witchers when they go through the trials. The Crones may have just been her apprentices, all four of them dabbled too far in the dark arts and overthrew the original druid circle with power getting to their heads, then they likely overthrew her and seized power for themselves. Given also that the Crones work for the Wild Hunt as informants and that the Wild Hunt has advancements far enough beyond anything in the Witcher's world, it's also possible the Crones and their "mother" betrayed the other druids in exchange for power and resources offered by the Aen Elle and Wild Hunt.
@@tahaali5713 No, I wasn't thinking of her the character. It was just a way to find the signpost as it's rather likely it will pop up when you head to the marker to start the quest "A Knights Tale". The Vintners quest you think of you pretty much can't get without popping the signpost and wouldn't be much help. However I think "Big Game Hunter" would be a better quest to track as it gets you pretty much spot on and can be picked up at more places I believe then "A Knights Tale", which means it's more likely you get that sooner.
@@gahlster Oh my bad, I actually fired up the game just to check your claim myself. You were absolutely right. Then it's highly possible that the same whispess was once a resident of Toussaint. I finally understood that you were clearly implying that the Chuchote Cave signpost will popup while doing A Knight's Tale or even better, as you said, by doing the big game hunter with count Beladal.
@@notjimpickens7928yen was spite incarnate. Shes not. Her and geralt cheated multiple times and grew past it. And yen has some of the most development of any witcher Character
@@justinhigginbottom8668 dont care, triss grew up far more then her in comparison, does yen ever learn humility like triss? did you forget yen was mad at geralt for losing his memory....and purposefully avoided him until she knew she couldnt find ciri alone? if yen got her way, she wouldve found ciri and most likely never tell geralt about it, because shes convinced geralt is lying about his memory loss and is using it as an excuse to sleep around....instead of, oh i dont know...being semi-reasonable? yen is just your abusive, sore loser ex gf who shows up in your life only to spite you, and get """revenge""". yenn is the most petulent, uncaring bastard in all the books, the comics, and especially in witcher 3, nothing anyone says will ever justify her abusive behavior towards my boy geralt,the man literally saving the world, just for his adopted daughter.
The Coral as Triss theory is pretty interesting. If I had to venture a guess, maybe they wanted to have a hat-tip to the character in-game but she was dead so they gave Triss some of her characteristics? I do know they changed certain things from the books regarding various characters.
I'd love this, because it gives triss more of a personality than being a spineless coward who had to wait until geralt lost his memories to have sex with him
@zacharypickering-rust1889 @meteormedia7021 ok since i'm getting notifications from your replies for some reason... the theory doesn't entirely stack up. the thing is, triss is triss. even game triss, as much as cdpr wants you to forget what she's done, is at the core herself. sweet and a bit naive exterior, manipulative traitor interior. despite her constantly quoting other characters in witcher 1, she does what triss would do; immediately take advantage of his amnesia to sway geralt to her side. yes, coral and geralt slept together in season of storms, but the difference here is that geralt consented to that. which cannot be said about the incident with triss described in blood of elves. throughout that entire book, geralt makes it very clear he has no interest in triss. why would coral need to assume triss' appearance to get closer to him? it'd work more if she were still herself. i don't like this theory because it unnecessarily convolutes an already shitty situation. it's more than enough that triss becomes a mainline romantic interest in the third game despite her being geralt's literal rapist who sold him and ciri out to the lodge and then had the audacity to withold information from geralt when he lost his memory. and ultimately, you can't not see the metatext. which really is just that cdpr has a very obvious bias in favor of triss and pushed quite hard to give her spotlight and things to do. it's not deeper than that.
I'm an hour and 8 minutes in, and I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the fact that volcanic ash makes great fertilizer, hence why Toussaint is so green and why the Vinyard grapes make the best wine.
The Lizard men trope comes from the Robert E. Howard's _The Shadow Kingdom_ which is the first Kull of Atlantis story (the character that would go on to become Conan). In the story, one of the prominent characters talks of a race of Serpent men who are older than humans. Since that story, first published in 1929 it's spread to almost every fantasy and sci fi IP out there.
40:29 In ancient times, we had MASSIVE volcanoes. One of them was the Siberian Traps that ended up covering 7million km. But it erupted for about 2 million years and probably caused (or greatly contributed to) one of the largest extinction events we've had (Permian-Triassic extinction event). Anyway, my point is it's possible to have that big of an area affected by a volcano
my theory on the school of the lynx is that the next witcher game, we would create our own witcher, from either a long lost school or an offshot one. thus the a new journey begins.
I believe it is said that Geralt being the sun of a sorceress was what made him take to the mutations better than the other witcher candidates, as most sorceresses tend to become sterile through their use of magic or are preemptively sterilized, as those that are not tend to produce abominations (meaning both physically and having uncontrollable powers, in-game book The Poisoned Source I believe)
Let's note that it is not clear what Visenna is. She seems to be a druid and/or a sorceress, although Sapkowski never gave more details about that and what it entails.
@@marz6770wdym in books there was even a conversation with Geralt with vilgefortz about becoming a sorceress given he had inherited abilities after his mother. She was a mage They constantly mention it
@@Magdalena-vr6we What I said stands. I said "or/*and*" a sorceress. She's a sorceress, but she seems to operate in the way of a druid. She seems totally absent of all the mage's politics, wandering around and healing with plants. That doesn't make her a druid, but it's really not a jump to say she may be affiliated with them.
The Vran (Lizard people) lore was adopted after the Witcher was written and comes from a short story from the author from way before he wrote the Witcher. In this story, a witch named Visenna plays a role- and later he named the witch who is Geralt‘s mother Visenna as well, mainly because he thought the name was too good to only be used in that one short story. Sapkowski left it open whether or not that was the same Visenna, but Fans and other people at the Fantastyka magazine (where his short stories were published and the Witcher first gained notoriety) decided that it was the same Visenna and Korin (also from that same short story) became his father. Addendum: Cats are not monsters in Witcher lore. In the same book that published the short story about Visenna and Korin there is a short story about cats and Sapkowski wrote a foreword about how much he loves cats. He‘d not write them as monsters. Supernatural in the sense that they always sense the Witcher and beware of him and sleep on Ley lines? Yes. Monsters? No. A lot of the theories can be disproven by book lore btw. As great as the games are, they are essentially fan fiction and not canon
A Road with No Return, the Visenna&Korin short story, is being included in some editions of the books, at least the better translations - interestingly, ones made by people who personally know Sapkowski. I think it's safe to say it has been canonized into the rest of the witcher universe.
@@elisthebirb2357 i only read it in German, in the aforementioned short story book, where he had a foreword where he said that it was mostly the editors of the magazine who canonized it and he intentionally left it vague. Now one could argue whether something editors made was then making it canon or if it’s just canon if the author himself confirms it 100%. The Vran never even get mentioned again, even though we look back on a lot of history throughout the series and that seems a bit off about it. I still like to count it as canon, because I‘d like a glimpse into Geralt‘s family tree. I personally think it one of the Witcher‘s strengths that a lot is left vague- there is no map, a lot of our narrators are not reliable, the curse of the black sun COULD be real, or it could be just a witch hunt, Geralt and Yen could be actually dead in the end of the series- or living in another world, saved by Ciri. This ambiguity keeps the magic and wonder alive. The short story could be canon- or it could just be a separate story with a character having the same name.
The games are definitely not fan fiction whatsoever, every adaptation has a few discrepancies but the games are definitely canon, if anything the show is fan fiction-esque
@@TickleMyNonoshow can the games be cannon when Sapkowski said they are not? And they are not an adaptiation (despite being in a big part a retelling of the story from the books) but an unofficial sequel
Wow, Triss being Coral would blow my mind... I mean she isnt, the game clearly doesnt intend that, but its a damn good theory that would certainly make things very interesting if there were future games with Geralt.
Roach is a mare (a female horse). I knew Roach is named after a fish in the Carp family. I've always assumed that the reasons Geralt names all his mares Roach is nothing more than, he chose that name for his first mare, and since he's had many mares since then, he has more important things to do than to chose a different name for each mare. And the name Roach is familiar to him, kind of like a security blanket of sorts. Our first cat when we were teens, we named Tuna. After she died, my sister's kids found a cat who had kittens, guess what they named one of the cats. Tuna. Our Tuna is like Geralt's Roach.
Awesome video! There was a lot I didn't actually know about. 1:29:15 - to add onto this, there's a quest in monster hunter: world, where you, as your hunter, follow the trail of an unfamiliar creature, which leads you to a Nekker and, eventually, Geralt himself. he informs them he fell through a botched portal, and The research division decide to hire Geralt as ANOTHER unknown animal has been terrorizing the local wildlife in one of the zones. You actually play as Geralt (in the dual blade weapon class) and begin hunting it down. Near the end, you find out it was a leshen of all things, fighting the local Wyverns for their territory. A very awesome crossover, and I'd consider it canon.
The games and crossovers aren't really canon lol it's considered fanfiction in Poland (where Witcher comes from) since the games are heavily based on books.
in the game files the school of the cat armor is labeled as lynx armor, so I wouldnt personally read too far into it, especially when you consider that each game so far has had a slightly different wolf amulet design
haven’t watched up to where he’s discussing whatever you’re going on about but if you’re referring to the recent announcement of the next witcher game, CDPR confirmed themselves they were making a fan made witcher school canon. Hence the school of the lynx medallion we see in the promo. The wolf medallion has only differed slightly, never to a point where you could regard it as something completely different.
2:06 confirmation from Pole about Roach: In Polish version it's called "Płotka" which is a species of fish often present in polish lakes. The noun's gender (we have that in polish, just like for example in german grammar der die das *noun*) in polish is female.
I suspect that the lizard races comes from the Conan the Barbarian stories and also that author's own inspirations. Lizards/snakes and their symbolism are ancient and evil symbols in that series.
1:22:42 this theory might explain why at the training session with Ciri (at the beginning of the game), Geralt sees some blue eyes in the dummy before the wild hunts come. Maybe that was real Triss.
I was never a cat person until I got my cat. He was the best, I miss him every day. The average dog is better than most cats, but the best cats are leagues better than any dog.
@@DominusNox106 except him doing gives proof to how unlikely or unpopular his videos are. If you're finding yourself commenting to your self on your own videos, maybe most likely its bad content. Other wise that kind of activity would happen on its own. Or the guy is mentally ill and needs to be put on meds like a year ago. This isn't cute or funny its a mental dis order or someone not able to accept that maybe his content isn't as good as he thinks it is. I think his content is good but that isn't an excuse to pretend this is something else.
55:20 Stephen King has a character in his Dark Tower series called Walter o'Dim. It's another name for "the Man in Black" aka Randall Flagg. He's the main antagonist, a magical being of evil nature. He's just a level below the big bad, so like a very powerful demon or something. I gotta look up when Witcher was written, I'm seeing a lot of similarities to other book series Seltik! I thought that was a basketball team or something. Keltic? Right?!
So after the battle of sodden there is a creation of a group of sorceresses and sorceresses, only. That's called the lodge. In order for this to be true, this would mean that not only would she have to be able to successfully trick geralt who doesn't see her a lot but also trick multiple members of the lodge who know who coral and who triss are and yennifer and tris we're extremely good friends and there's no f****** way that Yen would not have been able to tell the difference between the two of them
1:46 Hi, horse girl here. A "steed" is not a male horse. A steed is just a horse that is used for riding, used the same as "mount." A male horse would be a stallion or a gelding. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
The Hym (rhymes with rhyme) isn’t killed when tricked into trying to latch onto a new host, it’s banished. And Aki was the Jarl’s brother, died at sea in an accident and the Jarl blames himself.
Love your Iceberg videos! And I agree, there is so much lore behind the Witcher universe, it's mind boggling! I'm wondering if the Lizard men idea comes from the real life conspiracy theory that most of the people who rule great nations are shapeshifting Lizard People 😂😂😂
Roach theory is pretty absurd. 1. It is well stated in the books that Geralt gives this name to every one of his horses. There is even one dialogue in "Witcher 3" confirming that. There is no other way, especially taking long lifespan of a witcher into account. 2. "Płotka" is not polish word for fish (that would be "ryba"). "Płotka" is a polish word for particular species of fish, which translates into English as... Well... "Roach". :) Also in Polish this word has a second common meaning - it can be used to describe something small or insignificant, like low level member of an organization. There are elements of "Witcher" lore that are extremely hard to translate or require some knowledge of Polish socio-cultural context to understand. 3. Geralt would have noticed that his current horse has some strange teleportation powers. What we witness here is just another example of ludonarrative disonance. This is common in video games. Sometimes we need to simplify narration to make game more enjoyable, but it leads to paradoxes. My favorite example: protagonist of "Watchdogs" lamenting over one guy who have died because of his actions, after during the game play he killed hundreds of opponents. Yes - developers could have implemented mechanism requiring you to retrieve Płotka from the stable you left her. But that would kill fun. So it is assumed your horse just travels with you and is always around. The same can be said about chest, where Geralt stores his equipment. This is extremely weird that in every chest, everywhere we have exactly the same set of items. But it would be frustrating if you had to remember where you left some sword you currently need. And about Shrek theory: "Witcher" books predate first "Shrek" movie by over a decade. Friendship between Jaskier (in games translated as Dandelion) and Geralt had been introduced pretty early in the books - in the original short stories. Both works simply use the same trope - friendship between men who are polar opposites: a grumpy warrior/loner and slightly silly artist who talks much.
Found your channel recently through the Dragon Age Iceberg video and I love these videos of yours. Somehoy you've managed to do one on every single one of my favourite series lol. I know it's probably too much to ask but I'd love to see your take on the Assassins Creed franchise iceberg, I remember back in the day before all the new entries (I'm talking 1, 2, B, R, and 3) there were some awesome theories. Also maybe GTA? You know the whole thing with the weird drawings in the mountain?
30:20 a stronger evidence that cats absorb magic can actually be experienced by every TW3 player. In the quest "Disturbance", Yennefer gives Geralt a Potestaquisitor which can be equipped to find magic disturbance. Near such, the device will hum. Trying out the device outside of Kaer Morhen, for eample at the seven cats inn, it will hum when Geralt is near a cat.
Old 360. If I could still run I’d chase you down youngin. Jokes on you though, I get all the close parking spots with my infantry blue parking pass. Old 360. I just recently retired.
When I was in Germany, before the first game, there were fans on the book I met who described it as a collection of like all European folk lore. I was dumb American who didn’t learn multiple languages so it was a few years before I read it.
This is a great video but I have to disagree with one point near the end. If you have any interest in gwent in the witcher 3 do not bother with the standalone game or thronebreaker. It started out fairly faithful but every update strayed further and further from the game you know to the point where there are only two rows and most cards can be played on either of them now...
The story from "The last wish" isn't true either. Jaskier (Dandelion) and Geralt find the djinn in the river. The djinn chokes Jaskier and curses him. Geralt tries to find someone who can heal Jaskier and finds Yennefer. Yennefer wants to capture the djinn to harness his power (it's not said that she wants to be fertile again and it seems that it wasn't her goal at that time). Geralt is the master of the djinn, because he opened the flask (by mistake) that's why only he can wish for something.
Was looking for a Witcher video that wasn't necessarily all about the game and boy did I find one! Fantastic stuff, we need more channels like this one. 👌👌
I remember someone in game or book said something like Geralt is the best in term of witcher because his body can survive mutation better than any witcher ever exist and to witcher that mean more potion, more mutation to be come even stronger as witcher. but there are witchers that better than Geralt at other aspect like Eskel that have stronger magic than most witchers
Triss being Coral is quite interesting… Mainly because was one of the youngest sorceress and Coral Wouk be more experienced and more probably survived the battle. And the killing one was the lighthouse. Triss is from Maribor. Why a Lighthouse? Very well, sir. Well done.
But we actually do know of a surviving Cat school witcher and meet him - Gaetan, of that DLC quest. Also, internal item ids for cat school gear use the word lynx instead, and given how much content we know was cut/recycled, I believe CDPR have had Lynx school plans for a long time.
1:13:18 Isn’t this also the symbol that appears when Regis opens the door in Tesham Mutna? It’s also the same symbol on his gloves. Could the symbol be vampire related?
Of course, i think is something related to vampires original world, i think the thing in the flame may be somenthing like a tower in their world(?). The fact it is also in cyberpunk can be, because vampires were a thing in cyberpunk before be coming cut content.
As a Witcher world “beginner” I fucking loved this video. The Coral theory was mind blowing and the “last wish” the Geralt made had me piece together that Ciri, Yen, and Geralt may be connected from that same wish as well, and not from the Law of Surprise.
Ciri was connected to Geralt by the Law of Surprise *twice* though. First before her birth, second when he possibly looked for her slash thought she's dead after Cintra invasion. She was adopted by a wife of a guy who saved Geralt after Geralt saved him. He said the wife is barren, so no new kids, but his sons are strong and why not be witchers? But instead, he found out his wife adopted a little girl from druids who saved kids after the war.
Roach isn't a elder demonic being of any sort. She's a unicorn, which in the books also have sphere/ world teleportation abilities. Roach is just masking her horn. ;-)
31:00 Books outright state that among all creatures in the lore world, only two can naturally sense magic - dragons and cats. Most cats hiss, some don't care, and those not caring are interesting to Geralt as "anomally". You also don't understand cats. They are not "worse version of dogs". Cats are cats. It's like dishwashers are not "worse version of washing machines". Measuring cats with dogs is bs. Cats are lesson of individual consent, not pack obedience. What you attribute to cats behavior as "dopplers in disguise" is what we know as being regular cat. Cats are imitators already and attempt mimicking communications of other animals and people.
as someone who has been living in witcher lore and theory hell for years now, - this is actually the first time i see that map of whole-whole continent in cyrillic. it is definitely entirely speculative, though. Sapkowski never bothered to estabilish a concrete map of anything, even the areas the books actually take place in, and just went "yeah sure" at the ones included as book illustrations. this map is not without merit though! i kinda like the corner where dragon and blue mountains meet. Kaer Morhen does translate to "fortress by the sea"... - it's also the first time i hear about werewhales and werepigs. wiki doesn't find anything, if these are some obscure mentions in in-game texts, i've never even heard them talked about. in pure theory, a person could be cursed into were-anything, but going off what we do know, these have never happened. - i'm not too sure about elven civil wars, what we know is that the original elven world was facing destruction. prior to the conjunction, fights between elves and dwarves did happen, and aen seidhe being responsible for vrans mostly disappearing due to a sickness of some kind is game canon. the split of aen undod into aen elle and aen seidhe when the former consciously decided to leave and the latter went on to settle on the continent (=age of migration) also took place way before the conjunction. the conjunction caused 'the gates between worlds' to close. - also according to game canon, some vran architecture remains - most notably Loc Muinne. elven cities were mostly built on top of by humans, though there are more ruins and underground complexes, and of course Beauclair. - how war broke out between humans and elves is very well documented. for a while, they had an estabilished peace, and a mage (one of the first humans to become mages actually) by the name Geoffrey Monck took a group of kids to Loc Muinne to be taught magic by elves. it was after then when a redanian military officer Milan Raupenneck marched into Loc Muinne and massacred everyone, the elves as well as the kids, and started the first elven-human war. - there is no mention of northern humans enslaving aen seidhe. the only instances of slavery in canon are nilfgaard and the aen elle/wild hunt, actually. - this is less of a correction, but i wouldn't necessarily call the world of the witcher vast or the lore deep, especially if the games are left out of it. think about lore long enough and every new idea becomes pure speculation because there is no way of proving or disproving it. Sapkowski is the anti-Tolkien in a way. it's good to keep in mind that when he wrote the books he didn't aim to create a whole new universe as much as he simply wanted to tell a story. And as such, he barely developed the world outside of what was somehow relevant to that story. - back on track. the only groups to really call a separate race that did arrive with the conjunction were of course humans and vampires as stated. like i said, elves arrived before the conjunction. intelligent 'monsters' like sylvans and succubi are, at least in game canon, relicts, meaning they've been on the continent before the conjunction too. - the wiki (witcher.fandom.com) can't be trusted completely, is sometimes too vague and it's important to check reference links to see whether a statement is based in books or games, but the timeline there is quite coherent. i'd recommend it to check the dates of events like the conjunction and first landing. - i'm so tired of magic being referred to as just chaos, it's just one of the things Yennefer compares it to in Blood of Elves and it doesn't paint an accurate picture. there are multiple explanations to what magic is, hell, there are multiple explanations to what chaos is too. - i cannot think of any instance of a mage (gaunter isn't one and isn't a book character either) messing with time. elder blood carriers can jump into different points in time than where they came from, Ciri does it in the last book and Alvin/Jacques does it in the first game, but that's about it. - yes, the conjunction may occur again (even in book canon). from all accounts it seems like a natural cosmic event, at least as far as the books go (as wack as thor: the dark world was, i always imagined the conjunction to be something very similar to what happens in that movie). elves did posess some skill to traverse the multiverse, as said earlier the 'gates' only 'closed' because of the conjunction, but again, they didn't exactly control time. this also makes me question whether witcher 3 was accurate when stating magic only leaked onto the continent with the conjunction. from the books we know next to nothing about how exactly are avallac'h, the wild hunt, or really anyone who doesn't have elder blood capable of hopping between worlds, navigators are a game invention. and beside all that, by the time humans started interacting with them, it's kinda implied elven mages were much better at it, which seems odd if they had the same amount of time to learn how to harness magic as humans did. unless elves utilize it in a completely different way to humans, which, maybe? or maybe humans just collectively had the same skill issue.
- as for the school of thought that elves are the original inhabitants of the continent, consider tools like unreliable narrator and in-world propaganda. - cats are just uniquely sensitive to magic, that's all. i honestly think this was just Sapkowski playing with the "witch and her pet cat" trope. It wouldn't be unlike him. - i'm pretty sure the enhanced nighttime vision came from the physical change to a witcher's eyes, rather than a magic acid trip, and same goes for the sterility. the grasses make the most drastic changes to a trainee's body. from the books, we only know of the mushrooms and grasses, the rest is what the games added. particularly the last part, because in the books Geralt actually recounts his first ever kill - a vagabond on the road. - cat and griffin schools are book canon, bear, viper and manticore are game additions. - it's skimmed over by witcher 3, but Geralt lost most of his pigment, making him unusually pale. it can be assumed all his body hair would be white. - there is a cavern with an elven cemetery under mt. gorgon. no magma, sorry. vulcanic regions don't have to rely on just one volcano, or an active one, to be bountiful, example being the central bohemian highlands. - fisstech can be ingested via any mucous membrane. - False Ciri was kidnapped specifically by Vilgefortz's agents and specifically to be presented to Emhyr. he was supposed to believe she's the real princess of cintra, which he didn't, but ended up playing along. it was not to protect the real one (using her as a decoy was an idea rejected by Geralt), it was to deceive the emperor because Vilgefortz had his own plans for real Ciri. it's implied Emhyr planned to get rid of the imposter once he captured real Ciri, but seeing as he let her go at the end, False Ciri should be still alive and married to him. - Emhyr might know Ciri has elder blood, Vilgefortz definitely knew, but no one else involved in False Ciri's kidnapping did. - the western continent and everything about it comes from Tales from the world of The Witcher, a collection by various writers unaffiliated with CDPR or Sapkowski. It hasn't even been brought into wider game canon through Gwent (unlike content from the pen-and-paper rpg by R. Talsorian Games), so looking at it strictly, it isn't canon, at least for the time being. - 48:23 zerrikanians are human too, this wording doesn't come across well, especially considering they're usually depicted as having darker skin tones :o) - Geralt sought Yennefer out mainly, or also, to help Dandelion, because the djinn messed up his throat. but you got it right, Geralt bound their deaths together, saving Yennefer's life (she heard it though! she comments on it. "You've condemned yourself to me"). and that's the only explanation that really makes sense. they...do have a kid? Ciri, anyone? :D found family is one of the main points in the books. - Yennefer is the only sorceress he by canon runs into repeatedly. the fact Triss keeps chasing him is a whole different situation entirely :D - Gaunter is fun. If everything CDPR made is taken literally, he runs Gwent tournaments for shits and giggles. - technological revolution is likely. the books don't go deep there, the parts that take place in the future don't mention any particular inventions, but content outside of the books has more. Thronebreaker in particular, where we see book printing and a water filtering device made by the gnome Barnabas Beckenbauer. his dialogue also mentions trying to build an airplane, and a note can be found with more of his ideas. once again, the western continent isn't exactly canon, but if it's integrated into future games, then there will also be early guns and gunpowder. - Geralt speculates that the oddities in the 'cursed' girls' anatomy were more likely due to mages messing with royal bloodlines. which, as we learn later in the saga, is a thing that did happen. - Barmin was invented for the games and it's never said if he was the one to found the wolf school. personally i don't think so. - this depiction of the ouroboros is more or less what appears on Regis's outfit in Blood&Wine, so it's some kind of vampire interpretation. ouroboros is talked about in the books, especially towards the end, as a visual link to the phrase 'something ends, something begins'. Auberon, the king of the aen elle, has a whole speech about it and how he and his people see it. no illuminati though. - glagolitic is used for all in-game writings. it's on posters, graffiti, book covers, the white ribbons on mage outfits, and heavily used in Gwent flavor imagery too. it's even on the calendar-compass wheel thing on thewitcher.com. sometimes these writings make sense, sometimes they don't. Geralt's bestiary in witcher 3 says "kama sutra" (lol), Sheala's tattoo on the other hand is just random letters. - the Lytta Neyd/Triss theory is funny, but also quite convoluted. at the end of the day i don't think Sapkowski intended this, and that he had plans to make Coral a short-term love interest years down the road in Season of Storms all the way back when writing Blood of Elves. very sorry for how long this comment is. i appreciate Thronebreaker praise though!
This is some really great updates and insights thanks so much! I love the Witcher lore so cool to hear some more about it, and I have a reference to wear pigs etc in my notes I’ll paste it if I can find it you will probably like it
She Who Knows, the mother of the crowns, is an actual creature, her history is told in the Gwent standalone game Also nice video, the way you talked about thronebraker was pure reality, that game deserve mooooooore love!!!
I made someone buy Prey at the store the other day. I have it on good authority they'll enjoy it ;) Now, I've never seen or played the witcher, but I'm gonna sit and watch this. Thanks for all your hard work! Be well - Hannah
C’mon, Shrek as an inspiration for Witcher?? Are you nuts? First short story about Witcher was written in 1986. That’s 15 years BEFORE the first Shrek film. Whole saga with Dandelion aka Jaskier as a prominent character was written by 1999.
Ciri couldn't have been talking about Night City. She said everyone had a flying ship and we still can't get UAVs in Cyberpunk 2077....unless...... CIRI KNOWS ABOUT THE MODDERS!? 🤯
There is also the fact you can get black unicorn if you link your acct and some witcher jackets and now for phantom libertary you can get another witcher sword and another witcher jacket. Plus on the corpo lifepath opening you can find a magazine with ciri on it it's pretty cool
FYI - Celtic is pronounced K-eltic, not Sell-tic when you're referring to the people/mythology. The only Celtic you pronounce with a soft C is the basketball team.
I’ve really enjoyed this video, you’ve managed to cover so many topics about the witcher lore and the universe itself. Cheers, hope to se more witcher content in the next ones! 🍻
Regarding the levers that led to 'the end of the owrld where the devil plays' it brings up a few thoughts 1) Have you gone to this area while you have Gaunter's quest as active? 2) Since the only viper gear found are the two sword blueprints in White Orchard, have you tried using them on the doors? 3) Have the letters of the alphabet for the sigil been seen anywhere else in game, like maybe around those ruins where the levers can be pulled, and what is their positioning on the map?
Voice actor fail when Roach says "for you-ou-ou"... obviously it was intended to mimic whinnying but the voice actor just says it like it's written. Total fail.
its crazy how much we explore the world of the witcher form 1 to 3 only to realize that we just only scratch the surface of the lore and the story of the world itself. it makes geralt like an insignificant character if you look it that way
He kinda is, in a way. When he marches to Nilfgaard with Hanza, they are walking through forests and hear echoes of battles happening around them while they're trying to avoid all the armies. At some point Geralt gets knighthood from Meve (funnily, Geralt of Rivia, because the knights he fought alongside were from Rivia) just because he and his friends wanted to go across the same bridge that the armies fought for. And many characters told him explicitly how insignificant they consider him to be.
Minor detail: At the very end of the DLC, O'Dimm doesn't speak a form of elder speech. He speaks three different real world languages: 'You're a rooster and the rooster is king only atop his pile of manure.' (Creole French), 'You think you've won. No, you are wrong.' (Georgian), and 'I can't die. I'm going now, but I'll be back.' (Ossetian)
26:43 It's also my favorite part. I love the visual style of these different alien worlds you get to visit. My favorite is probably the one where you have to avoid the toxic ground (the one at 1:23:26). It looks so stunning and the sound ambience is breathtaking.
Here’s a wild theory: what if the elves that appeared from a warring world are Dwemer from the elder scrolls series who have vanished from the world during a great battle against the other elves?
@@UltimaSigmarAlonsoI'll just copy this from the fandom. "The Dwemer (also referred to as the Dwarves, Deep-Elves, Deep Folk, Deep Ones, People of the Deep, Deep-Counseled or Secretive People or the under-Elves) were an ancient "Lost Race" of Mer who were remnants of the early Aldmer, and lived primarily in the region of Dwemereth. Mer used the term "Dwemer," roughly translated as "People of the Deep.""
Roach is an English word used in England for a specific type of fish. We possibly have no words of polish origin, it's probably from Norman English "roche" which becomes a bit jarring later on lol
roach isn't a demon or a child of elder blood. if we aren't taking the video game mechanics at face value, then the best explanation of what roach is would be unicorn. unicorns were hunted by the wild hunt for their ability to travel between worlds and universes with their inherent magic. the wild hunt killed so many unicorns they fled the shared world they had with the wild hunt. roaches ability to travel around the way he does would account for him being a unicorn. as for motive you could easily say the unicorn is helping the Witcher as an act of revenge against the wild hunt for killing and enslaving so many of its kin. keep in mind ciris powers to travel time and space are almost the same as what unicorns have. when the elven blood line lost the elder blood they literally went after the unicorns until the supply dried up. my source for this is book and in game lore.
This guy fucks
Damn right he does me
Huh?
Best James Tour impersonation!
Rhis must be the royal me/we
😂😂
This guy fucks
Learning that Geralt is the most powerful witcher alive while watching him scrub a floor was amazing
I think the reason Geralt was so strong is that his mother was a sorceress. They meet in the second book and she saves his life and is said to look even younger than him. The whole "sorceresses should not have children" thing was something Tissaya de Vrie created (Yennefer's mentor). But in reality there are many magic users and sorcerers who can have children. So Geralt being extremely resiliant and strong could be genetic. Also his father was a mercenary and adventurer, so he also wasn't a regular man.
Geralts strength comes from his unique witcher mutation that gave him white hair.
It’s possible he has an affinity for magic though with his mother being a sorceress.
@@kjh4496 he received that mutagen because other witchers saw that geralt could resist better the herb trials, that resistance could be recieved from his mother
@@kjh4496 pretty sure it was stated somewhere that geralt would've been a powerful sorcerer if he chose that path, it's just that he's already chosen the path of a witcher
indicating that geralt does indeed have a lot of potential with magic, he just doesn't want to
witcher mutation just made him more into a superhuman
@@kjh4496 _"Geralts strength comes from his unique witcher mutation that gave him white hair."_
But we don't see any other witchers with white hair. I agree his hair color possibly (likely?) comes from his mother's sorceressness...? sorceressity?
When I first played W3 (my intro to that universe), and first met Vesemir and saw Ciri, I assumed they all had white hair. But I've since learned Vesemir's hair color is simply due to him having been alive for multiple centuries. Plus Ciri is not a witcher.
Ciri's hair isn't purely white, but more a color between gray and white -- at least, that's the definition of "ashen".
It's theorized (or perhaps it's canon... I've not read all the books yet) that Sapkowski chose that color as a symbolic combo of her adoptive parent figures; Yen's black hair and Geralt's white.
Not to mention that Ciri's real mom had naturally ashen hair.
And then there's the fact of her Elven Blood. Many possible reasons for Cir's hair color, even though she's not a true witcher.
Perhaps she has some Targaryen blood too =-D
He went through a second round of The Grasses. That's the canon reason.
EDIT: Eskel is canonically better and stronger at signs, and I'm paraphrasing "his Igni was like a dragon's breath".
There is a single cat in Witcher 3 that does not hiss or react negatively to Geralt. You can find it (if I remember correctly) in the scene where you locate the Baron's daughter Tamara. If not there, then it is in a different indoor scene with her.
Thanks for the clarification! Some cats are nice haha
The doohickey Yen gives you will react to the presince of cats
Yeah its when you find the baron's daughter Tamara in Oxenfurt. The CDPR team said they need a distraction for the player while she walked down the stairs so they had Nibbles sitting there and for some reason totally fine with Geralt. After this the cat can be seen throughout the rest of the game. For instance in The Plays The Thing the cat will be watching from the rooftops during the play. Nibbles is also mentioned by one of the dwarves in the isle of mists. Nibbles appears in both DLCs also.
@@Trumplican Wow holy crap thanks! I've always wondered about that.
@@Trumplican nibbles is also the name of the pet cat V can have in cyberpunk as well
"It has been widely theorized by many many fans that CDPR actually based this speech on medieval Georgian languages" As a Georgian I can tell you it's not medieval, but simply current everyday Georgian lmao. When I was playing the game I got freaked out because somehow this devil person talked to me in my own language. You can imagine just how much of a 4th wall break that was and therefore that much scarier.
Elven speech is literally just Welsh
one thing that I thought was interesting that i havent seen anyone talk about was during the beginning of the game when Geralt and vesemir reach the bar, the cutscene involves a table of men and one of them tells the waitress that the temirian flag should be taken down which angers another man who thinks that flag has a right the be hung. as the man gets mad the camera shifts to behind gunther o dim and then the man who was enraged grabs his head in pain almost like Guther o dim was the one causeing his headace to ease the atmosphere for Geralt to enter the bar. if you rewatch the scene you can see what i am talking about.
It’s so cool how they had the character planned ahead for sure, maybe cut content that then was added back for the dlc, thanks for watching!
I can't remember if he always did that or not bc the only one time I've played through the game without Hearts of Stone installed was my first playthrough and I wasn't paying any attention to Mr G.O.D
You know what else i noticed about that scene? There is one point where it looks like someone is sitting at the table with Gaunter. It looks like a blonde woman, in a straw hat, like Hanna’s sister in the werewolf quest.
Gaunter O'Dimm
@@Tomewardenguther
The idea that Coral is pretending to be Triss falls apart after you add Yen to equation - jealous, vindictive and pretty powerful sorceress who would surely see through the charade of Coral trying to behave and look like her best friend to seduce her man
Originally, in Polish, the name of the horse doesn't stand for the "fish" but type of common fish in our country. Płotka is rutilius roach :)
Ah this is a great clarification thank you lol, and appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment!
Doesnt plotka mean something like little gossip ?
@@ingloriuspumpkinpie9367 More like it means something close to insignificant person. In original mare's name is written with "Ł" letter: "Płotka". But then again, "plotka" word indeed refers to gossip, it's just that "płotka" and "plotka" are two different words, and "ł" letter is not present in english alphabet.
@@gustawek I understand polish poorly. In Slovak version roach is called klebietka meaning little gossip and I absolutely love it.
It is also a wordplay - polish word "płot" stands for "fence" - she mostly gets stuck on fences
I remember playing throughout Blood and Wine and meeting that one elder vampire. When I accidentally asked two questions, the moment he killed Geralt with one hit, I just had to ask myself just how many more creatures are out there that are just as scary and powerful as this elder vampire and just how big the world can be, that Geralt may be one of the most powerful warriors of the continent, but he ain't the most powerful. Not even close.
I just need some black blood...
Thats why he retired to corvo bianco lol
“There’s always a bigger fish.” -Powerful dude from a different franchise
@@eljay2224qq
@@TheStygianif i remember correctly, the unseen elder isn't affected by black blood so...
O'Dimm was one of the only characters that I was genuinely scared of
Gaunter O'Dimm is based on Walter O'Dim a figure out of the Stephen King universe. He is a trickster and mighty magician, once a ordinary human, now a powerful, nearly godlike wizard, connected with the crimson king - who is one of the most powerful, oldest and most evil beings of the universe(s). Walter is one of my favorite characters out of this universe, just as Gaunter is one of my favorite character in Witcher 3 haha
@@derglobster Didn't know this thanks for informing me friend.
@@derglobsterThat and Goethe's Mephisto
@@derglobsterhe was also based off of Leland Gaunt, the villain from Needful Things. He provides items to people in exchange for small promises or small tokens of future exchanges. They all inevitably ruin themselves.
@@smittywerbenjaggermanjensen69 Not really. Hearts of Stones is rather heavily based on Polish legend about Sir Twardowski. It's very similar to the better known German story of Faust.
CDPR used also other Polish inspirations. Wedding theme is based on... "The Wedding", play from 1901.
The arch-villain of the Stephen King multiverse, Randall Flagg, is referred to as Walter O'Dimm in the Gunslinger. He has a very similar demeanor to Gaunter O'Dimm and I believe Gaunter is an homage to the man in black.
One of the senior writers did say he was inspired by both Walter O'Dimm and Leland Gaunt, a spirit that grants wishes with a twist. "Karolina Stachyra, senior writer at CD PROJEKT RED, said he was indeed inspired in part by these two."
@@bahaanaldothats Awesome
I used to name all female chinchillas Ingrid. That's just what female chinchillas are called. There was a Zoe in there somewhere but she was never right in the head...
@@bahaanaldo
Gaunt-er O'Dimm lol
As to the theory that Geralt wished for him to have a child with Yennifer. First, I love it. But second, since it's a djinn, the wish got twisted and they ended up with Ciri
I was thinking “we’re talking about Ciri, right?”
Pretty sure that Geralt was already promised Ciri by the time he meets the Djinn and Yennefer
@@nilan3294he was promised, but Yennefer wasn’t
Ciri isn't a reault of Geralt's wish to the Djinn. The wish to the Djinn is how geralt and Yennifer are linked to one another.
Ciri was promised to Geralt when he saved Duny in Queen Calanthe's castle as a debt under the law of surprise.
'Younwill give me that which you have but so not know. I'll return in six years to see if destiny has been kind to me'
Reavealing that Pavetta is pregnant with Ciri, the surprise Geralt is referring to.
The black sun is a self fulfilling prophecy, by being so caught up in stripping these women of their wills, huting them, torturing them and locking them away out of the prophecies fear, they created the monsters that they were trying to contain, it was dabbled with in "The Lesser Evil" with Renfri, where she was debating if she was really a monster or not
So here's the weird thing about the curse of the Black Sun. While yes, it is possible that these women act this way because of the self-fulfilling prophecy concept. There are some things that make it ambiguous. It is true that these so-called afflicted girls did actually have mutations in them when they were autopsied. They also in the book are immune to a lot of forms of magic which most humans are not able to do. That's why even in the books and the TV series geralt tries to use axi and it doesn't work on her. That's what makes the curse of the Black Sun thing so crazy because there is proof of both
Pretty much. Geralt even states a similar train of thought in Witcher 3 when talking to/about Syanna in the Blood&Wine expansion.
just like a wise turtle once said
No, Roaches name doesn't come from the word "fish", because the Polish name is Płotka. Roach is the literal translation of the word płotka, which is a kind of fish. Płotka is also feminine, almost every word ending with an 'a' is feminine in Polish. And the theory about Roach is pretty weird. Roach is just a normal horse and he's talking in that quest, because Geralt is hallucinating.
are you serious?
@@itsgonnabeokay9341well, he's right.
@@itsgonnabeokay9341 Yes, it is same in Russian too ("plotva"). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_roach
Roach is also always implied as a mare. Even if you get the nilfguardian stallion later on in the game.
It's pretty clear in the books that Geralt just likes the name, and so he names all of his horses Roach.
It's kind of sad that Geralt has to go through so many horses, though. Horses are very long lived creatures. My friend had a horse who lived to be 50. She was around for the first 20 years of my life. That said, Geralt is over a century old, so he should have at the very least had 3 horses. Unfortunately it's more, because I'm certain some have been killed.
On the idea of The Witcher world being on the verge of a renaissance, you're not far off.
There are some tales of the Witcher that take place after a second Conjunction, where a new school of Witchers were established, called the School of the Crane. These Witchers are specialized not only in swordplay, but also guns as well, likely flintlocks. Whether these are canon or not, only the author knows.
But it is entirely possibly we can get a more modernized setting of a new Witcher game later on down the line.
What stories are these? I'm fairly certain I've read all of the books, and I've never heard of this, or anything close. Is this like a graphic novel type thing?
I think it’s in Tales from the world of The Witcher
Oh guns would suck
@@kaiares5109 why? guns and swords were used together in war for some 400, 500 years. early matchlocks dominated Eastern cultures and their battlefields in places like Korea, China and Japan.
Wheellock guns are fantastic bits of fantasy-meets-reality and matchlocks are very restrictive as to when you can fire them, and just like flintlocks take ages to reload.
Things like Witchers making use of igni to light their powder charges and their reflexes to reload really quickly, it would make for that renaissance feel (that times have moved forward) whilst still being entrenched in the fantasy idea of a Witcher school full of damaged people with superhuman abilities, carrying a pouch of cast-silver ball shot with a shorter silver sword that would allow the use of a pistol.
@@AdamOwenBrowningthey don't even like to use crossbows let alone guns. Also you're not really making any arguments as for why it wouldn't suck, just arguing that it makes sense.
And I'd argue it doesn't make sense, sounds like what it is, fan fiction. Would armies eventually use guns? Yup. Would witchers? Nope. By the time guns are a thing witchers would be lucky to exist. Guns make hiring a witcher pointless unless dealing with a curse, even then witch hunters are probably cheaper, especially cheaper than someone like the famous white wolf who charges more than what most people can afford.
Pay 200 for a witcher to save your village, pay 200 to merchant or gunsmith for a weapon(s) that'll protect the village now and in the future. Easy choice.
Final comment: regarding the book 'She Who Knows' in the game about the Crones, a number of other UA-camrs have speculated that the story in it is heavily-embellished propaganda. After the Battle of Kaer Morhen when Geralt goes with Ciri to Bald Mountain in Velen to confront Imlerith during the Crones' "Sabbath," when they approach the hill she remarks that the site used to be a hallowed ground for druids, "then the Crones came and twisted the tree." The Ghost/Lady in the Tree mentions Geralt when he goes to kill her, that she "abandoned her circle, where she'd kept the balance." The three Crones are also said to be of various ages, with the Whispess being the "oldest," the Brewess being the middle, and the Weavess being the "youngest." There is also a location in Toussaint where if you hover over the marker on the map, it mentions the Whispess used to live there before. Finally if Geralt chooses to help the Lady/Ghost in the Tree and gets her bones, he remarks that they don't look human. This all points to a likely possibility that she was either a super powerful being from another world or more likely, that she and the Crones were all once regular humans who used magic and alchemy to keep themselves alive and/or more powerful which resulted in them mutating. The fact that the Crones look like young maidens in their tapestry and can make themselves look like that by feeding on the blood of children to maintain that form, may mean that this used to be their original appearance but the magic they worked to become powerful and stay alive came at the cost of their humanity and youth, similar to but also very distinct from how it is with Witchers when they go through the trials. The Crones may have just been her apprentices, all four of them dabbled too far in the dark arts and overthrew the original druid circle with power getting to their heads, then they likely overthrew her and seized power for themselves. Given also that the Crones work for the Wild Hunt as informants and that the Wild Hunt has advancements far enough beyond anything in the Witcher's world, it's also possible the Crones and their "mother" betrayed the other druids in exchange for power and resources offered by the Aen Elle and Wild Hunt.
Where in toussaint is that place? Would love to check it out
@@xlgapelsin6173 Do the quest with the logger who is a fan of romantic fairy tales and believe a tree is crying, and I think you will find it.
That quest is related to the witch of lynx crag, a totally different character.@@gahlster
@@tahaali5713 No, I wasn't thinking of her the character. It was just a way to find the signpost as it's rather likely it will pop up when you head to the marker to start the quest "A Knights Tale". The Vintners quest you think of you pretty much can't get without popping the signpost and wouldn't be much help. However I think "Big Game Hunter" would be a better quest to track as it gets you pretty much spot on and can be picked up at more places I believe then "A Knights Tale", which means it's more likely you get that sooner.
@@gahlster Oh my bad, I actually fired up the game just to check your claim myself. You were absolutely right. Then it's highly possible that the same whispess was once a resident of Toussaint. I finally understood that you were clearly implying that the Chuchote Cave signpost will popup while doing A Knight's Tale or even better, as you said, by doing the big game hunter with count Beladal.
Yennifer's and Geralt's fates are intertwined, the book series' ending confirms it and it's beautiful.
It is very poetic for sure lol, and thanks for watching!
Id rather choose triss still, i read the books...yen literally tries to cuckold geralt, triss is many things, but yen is spite incarnate.
@notjimpickens7928 triss rufies geralt 💀 and manipulates him when hes vulnerable and mentally lost. Literally an hour after he wakes up with amnesia
@@notjimpickens7928yen was spite incarnate. Shes not. Her and geralt cheated multiple times and grew past it. And yen has some of the most development of any witcher Character
@@justinhigginbottom8668 dont care, triss grew up far more then her in comparison, does yen ever learn humility like triss?
did you forget yen was mad at geralt for losing his memory....and purposefully avoided him until she knew she couldnt find ciri alone?
if yen got her way, she wouldve found ciri and most likely never tell geralt about it, because shes convinced geralt is lying about his memory loss and is using it as an excuse to sleep around....instead of, oh i dont know...being semi-reasonable?
yen is just your abusive, sore loser ex gf who shows up in your life only to spite you, and get """revenge""".
yenn is the most petulent, uncaring bastard in all the books, the comics, and especially in witcher 3, nothing anyone says will ever justify her abusive behavior towards my boy geralt,the man literally saving the world, just for his adopted daughter.
The Coral as Triss theory is pretty interesting. If I had to venture a guess, maybe they wanted to have a hat-tip to the character in-game but she was dead so they gave Triss some of her characteristics? I do know they changed certain things from the books regarding various characters.
they had to give Triss some personality seeing as she is a spineless tool in the books. xd
I'd love this, because it gives triss more of a personality than being a spineless coward who had to wait until geralt lost his memories to have sex with him
The theory is utter nonsense. Only someone who didn't do their research could come to this conclusion.
@meteormedia7021 I mean is it???? Triss is almost too perfect so I belive it
@zacharypickering-rust1889 @meteormedia7021 ok since i'm getting notifications from your replies for some reason... the theory doesn't entirely stack up. the thing is, triss is triss. even game triss, as much as cdpr wants you to forget what she's done, is at the core herself. sweet and a bit naive exterior, manipulative traitor interior. despite her constantly quoting other characters in witcher 1, she does what triss would do; immediately take advantage of his amnesia to sway geralt to her side. yes, coral and geralt slept together in season of storms, but the difference here is that geralt consented to that. which cannot be said about the incident with triss described in blood of elves. throughout that entire book, geralt makes it very clear he has no interest in triss. why would coral need to assume triss' appearance to get closer to him? it'd work more if she were still herself.
i don't like this theory because it unnecessarily convolutes an already shitty situation. it's more than enough that triss becomes a mainline romantic interest in the third game despite her being geralt's literal rapist who sold him and ciri out to the lodge and then had the audacity to withold information from geralt when he lost his memory.
and ultimately, you can't not see the metatext. which really is just that cdpr has a very obvious bias in favor of triss and pushed quite hard to give her spotlight and things to do. it's not deeper than that.
I'm an hour and 8 minutes in, and I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the fact that volcanic ash makes great fertilizer, hence why Toussaint is so green and why the Vinyard grapes make the best wine.
Oh did I not mention that? I had it in the original script I don’t know if I took it out by accident lol
38:48
He did say that
The Lizard men trope comes from the Robert E. Howard's _The Shadow Kingdom_ which is the first Kull of Atlantis story (the character that would go on to become Conan). In the story, one of the prominent characters talks of a race of Serpent men who are older than humans. Since that story, first published in 1929 it's spread to almost every fantasy and sci fi IP out there.
40:29 In ancient times, we had MASSIVE volcanoes. One of them was the Siberian Traps that ended up covering 7million km. But it erupted for about 2 million years and probably caused (or greatly contributed to) one of the largest extinction events we've had (Permian-Triassic extinction event). Anyway, my point is it's possible to have that big of an area affected by a volcano
thanks mate, talking of MASSIVE siberian traps have you seen my muscles?
@@aaronconnolly3442 😆😆 love it 😄👍
Affectionately known by scientists as "The Great Dying", which is one of my favourite names ever
my theory on the school of the lynx is that the next witcher game, we would create our own witcher, from either a long lost school or an offshot one. thus the a new journey begins.
Oo I like this a lot would be interesting for sure let us make our own background, thanks for watching!
I believe it is said that Geralt being the sun of a sorceress was what made him take to the mutations better than the other witcher candidates, as most sorceresses tend to become sterile through their use of magic or are preemptively sterilized, as those that are not tend to produce abominations (meaning both physically and having uncontrollable powers, in-game book The Poisoned Source I believe)
Let's note that it is not clear what Visenna is. She seems to be a druid and/or a sorceress, although Sapkowski never gave more details about that and what it entails.
@@marz6770 I’d say she’s more of a druid.
@@vaclavsoukup7302 It's not really clear but she does sound like a druid.
@@marz6770wdym in books there was even a conversation with Geralt with vilgefortz about becoming a sorceress given he had inherited abilities after his mother. She was a mage They constantly mention it
@@Magdalena-vr6we What I said stands. I said "or/*and*" a sorceress.
She's a sorceress, but she seems to operate in the way of a druid.
She seems totally absent of all the mage's politics, wandering around and healing with plants.
That doesn't make her a druid, but it's really not a jump to say she may be affiliated with them.
The Vran (Lizard people) lore was adopted after the Witcher was written and comes from a short story from the author from way before he wrote the Witcher. In this story, a witch named Visenna plays a role- and later he named the witch who is Geralt‘s mother Visenna as well, mainly because he thought the name was too good to only be used in that one short story. Sapkowski left it open whether or not that was the same Visenna, but Fans and other people at the Fantastyka magazine (where his short stories were published and the Witcher first gained notoriety) decided that it was the same Visenna and Korin (also from that same short story) became his father.
Addendum:
Cats are not monsters in Witcher lore. In the same book that published the short story about Visenna and Korin there is a short story about cats and Sapkowski wrote a foreword about how much he loves cats. He‘d not write them as monsters. Supernatural in the sense that they always sense the Witcher and beware of him and sleep on Ley lines? Yes. Monsters? No.
A lot of the theories can be disproven by book lore btw. As great as the games are, they are essentially fan fiction and not canon
A Road with No Return, the Visenna&Korin short story, is being included in some editions of the books, at least the better translations - interestingly, ones made by people who personally know Sapkowski. I think it's safe to say it has been canonized into the rest of the witcher universe.
@@elisthebirb2357 i only read it in German, in the aforementioned short story book, where he had a foreword where he said that it was mostly the editors of the magazine who canonized it and he intentionally left it vague. Now one could argue whether something editors made was then making it canon or if it’s just canon if the author himself confirms it 100%. The Vran never even get mentioned again, even though we look back on a lot of history throughout the series and that seems a bit off about it. I still like to count it as canon, because I‘d like a glimpse into Geralt‘s family tree.
I personally think it one of the Witcher‘s strengths that a lot is left vague- there is no map, a lot of our narrators are not reliable, the curse of the black sun COULD be real, or it could be just a witch hunt, Geralt and Yen could be actually dead in the end of the series- or living in another world, saved by Ciri. This ambiguity keeps the magic and wonder alive. The short story could be canon- or it could just be a separate story with a character having the same name.
The games are definitely not fan fiction whatsoever, every adaptation has a few discrepancies but the games are definitely canon, if anything the show is fan fiction-esque
@@TickleMyNonoshow can the games be cannon when Sapkowski said they are not? And they are not an adaptiation (despite being in a big part a retelling of the story from the books) but an unofficial sequel
Wow, Triss being Coral would blow my mind... I mean she isnt, the game clearly doesnt intend that, but its a damn good theory that would certainly make things very interesting if there were future games with Geralt.
Roach is a mare (a female horse). I knew Roach is named after a fish in the Carp family. I've always assumed that the reasons Geralt names all his mares Roach is nothing more than, he chose that name for his first mare, and since he's had many mares since then, he has more important things to do than to chose a different name for each mare. And the name Roach is familiar to him, kind of like a security blanket of sorts.
Our first cat when we were teens, we named Tuna. After she died, my sister's kids found a cat who had kittens, guess what they named one of the cats. Tuna. Our Tuna is like Geralt's Roach.
Awesome video! There was a lot I didn't actually know about.
1:29:15 - to add onto this, there's a quest in monster hunter: world, where you, as your hunter, follow the trail of an unfamiliar creature, which leads you to a Nekker and, eventually, Geralt himself. he informs them he fell through a botched portal, and The research division decide to hire Geralt as ANOTHER unknown animal has been terrorizing the local wildlife in one of the zones. You actually play as Geralt (in the dual blade weapon class) and begin hunting it down. Near the end, you find out it was a leshen of all things, fighting the local Wyverns for their territory.
A very awesome crossover, and I'd consider it canon.
Oh damn this is some great insight thanks! And I appreciate the support a ton ❤️
The games and crossovers aren't really canon lol it's considered fanfiction in Poland (where Witcher comes from) since the games are heavily based on books.
in the game files the school of the cat armor is labeled as lynx armor, so I wouldnt personally read too far into it, especially when you consider that each game so far has had a slightly different wolf amulet design
haven’t watched up to where he’s discussing whatever you’re going on about but if you’re referring to the recent announcement of the next witcher game, CDPR confirmed themselves they were making a fan made witcher school canon. Hence the school of the lynx medallion we see in the promo. The wolf medallion has only differed slightly, never to a point where you could regard it as something completely different.
2:06 confirmation from Pole about Roach:
In Polish version it's called "Płotka" which is a species of fish often present in polish lakes. The noun's gender (we have that in polish, just like for example in german grammar der die das *noun*) in polish is female.
I suspect that the lizard races comes from the Conan the Barbarian stories and also that author's own inspirations. Lizards/snakes and their symbolism are ancient and evil symbols in that series.
Thronebreaker is such a blast! Please we all have to save the series with purchasing it!
Such an underrated rpg for sure, and thanks for watching!
So very underrated. I hope more people get Thronebreaker.
The Witcher was written before Shrek existed. So no, Dandelion isn't Donkey.
But Donkey could be Dandelion. It makes more sense in that way 😆
1:22:42 this theory might explain why at the training session with Ciri (at the beginning of the game), Geralt sees some blue eyes in the dummy before the wild hunts come. Maybe that was real Triss.
yeah if it was triss, thinking back makes me feel so creeped up.
I was never a cat person until I got my cat. He was the best, I miss him every day. The average dog is better than most cats, but the best cats are leagues better than any dog.
What happened to him?
great video me
Wait what
@@513v35kal basically frankly will comment on his own videos then reply to the comment with something like "good point me"
I get it man. Sometimes you have to give yourself a hand. Well done.
@@DominusNox106 except him doing gives proof to how unlikely or unpopular his videos are. If you're finding yourself commenting to your self on your own videos, maybe most likely its bad content. Other wise that kind of activity would happen on its own. Or the guy is mentally ill and needs to be put on meds like a year ago. This isn't cute or funny its a mental dis order or someone not able to accept that maybe his content isn't as good as he thinks it is. I think his content is good but that isn't an excuse to pretend this is something else.
@@possibearr u dumb bruv he commented that just because he shares the same name.
55:20 Stephen King has a character in his Dark Tower series called Walter o'Dim. It's another name for "the Man in Black" aka Randall Flagg. He's the main antagonist, a magical being of evil nature. He's just a level below the big bad, so like a very powerful demon or something. I gotta look up when Witcher was written, I'm seeing a lot of similarities to other book series
Seltik! I thought that was a basketball team or something. Keltic? Right?!
such a curiosity in Croatia there is a river called Jaruga, the town of Maribor and the port city of Novigrad which is the same as in the game
So after the battle of sodden there is a creation of a group of sorceresses and sorceresses, only. That's called the lodge. In order for this to be true, this would mean that not only would she have to be able to successfully trick geralt who doesn't see her a lot but also trick multiple members of the lodge who know who coral and who triss are and yennifer and tris we're extremely good friends and there's no f****** way that Yen would not have been able to tell the difference between the two of them
1:46 Hi, horse girl here.
A "steed" is not a male horse. A steed is just a horse that is used for riding, used the same as "mount." A male horse would be a stallion or a gelding. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I was searching for this comment 😅
The Hym (rhymes with rhyme) isn’t killed when tricked into trying to latch onto a new host, it’s banished. And Aki was the Jarl’s brother, died at sea in an accident and the Jarl blames himself.
Love your Iceberg videos! And I agree, there is so much lore behind the Witcher universe, it's mind boggling!
I'm wondering if the Lizard men idea comes from the real life conspiracy theory that most of the people who rule great nations are shapeshifting Lizard People 😂😂😂
Exactly what I was thinking lol 😂, and I appreciate all the support!
I thought of "LIZZID PEEPLE!" from The Why Files.
One of my fave gaming youtubers "iceberg-ing" one of my fave games, hell yeah. Great video bro
Appreciate the support ❤️
Roach theory is pretty absurd.
1. It is well stated in the books that Geralt gives this name to every one of his horses. There is even one dialogue in "Witcher 3" confirming that. There is no other way, especially taking long lifespan of a witcher into account.
2. "Płotka" is not polish word for fish (that would be "ryba"). "Płotka" is a polish word for particular species of fish, which translates into English as... Well... "Roach". :) Also in Polish this word has a second common meaning - it can be used to describe something small or insignificant, like low level member of an organization. There are elements of "Witcher" lore that are extremely hard to translate or require some knowledge of Polish socio-cultural context to understand.
3. Geralt would have noticed that his current horse has some strange teleportation powers. What we witness here is just another example of ludonarrative disonance. This is common in video games. Sometimes we need to simplify narration to make game more enjoyable, but it leads to paradoxes. My favorite example: protagonist of "Watchdogs" lamenting over one guy who have died because of his actions, after during the game play he killed hundreds of opponents.
Yes - developers could have implemented mechanism requiring you to retrieve Płotka from the stable you left her. But that would kill fun. So it is assumed your horse just travels with you and is always around. The same can be said about chest, where Geralt stores his equipment. This is extremely weird that in every chest, everywhere we have exactly the same set of items. But it would be frustrating if you had to remember where you left some sword you currently need.
And about Shrek theory: "Witcher" books predate first "Shrek" movie by over a decade. Friendship between Jaskier (in games translated as Dandelion) and Geralt had been introduced pretty early in the books - in the original short stories. Both works simply use the same trope - friendship between men who are polar opposites: a grumpy warrior/loner and slightly silly artist who talks much.
Found your channel recently through the Dragon Age Iceberg video and I love these videos of yours. Somehoy you've managed to do one on every single one of my favourite series lol. I know it's probably too much to ask but I'd love to see your take on the Assassins Creed franchise iceberg, I remember back in the day before all the new entries (I'm talking 1, 2, B, R, and 3) there were some awesome theories. Also maybe GTA? You know the whole thing with the weird drawings in the mountain?
Assassins creed or warframe is probably the next one I’ll do! That or Diablo after release if I love it. Thanks for watching!
I have been pretending you’re here talking nerd sht to me about the Witcher and I god damn love it. Thanks for keeping me company tonight
Got you 🔥
30:20 a stronger evidence that cats absorb magic can actually be experienced by every TW3 player.
In the quest "Disturbance", Yennefer gives Geralt a Potestaquisitor which can be equipped to find magic disturbance. Near such, the device will hum. Trying out the device outside of Kaer Morhen, for eample at the seven cats inn, it will hum when Geralt is near a cat.
You keep saying "he", Roach is a "she".
yoooooooo im hella hyped for this video! just added to my watch later, tysm!!
Hope you enjoy thanks for the support!
It’s a voice line in the game about roach, he’s talking to lethos about how his horses name is roach “because every horse is the same”
Not a fish lol
I love this franchise. Luckily I had the chance to start with the second game on the old xbox 360.
It really does have so much great content, and thanks for watching!
Old 360. If I could still run I’d chase you down youngin. Jokes on you though, I get all the close parking spots with my infantry blue parking pass. Old 360. I just recently retired.
Fun fact. The botchling ritual is a think in older Danish flk lore and was actually done.
When I was in Germany, before the first game, there were fans on the book I met who described it as a collection of like all European folk lore. I was dumb American who didn’t learn multiple languages so it was a few years before I read it.
This is a great video but I have to disagree with one point near the end. If you have any interest in gwent in the witcher 3 do not bother with the standalone game or thronebreaker. It started out fairly faithful but every update strayed further and further from the game you know to the point where there are only two rows and most cards can be played on either of them now...
This level of quality of content blows my mind. Back to gaming for now, but will definitely be back.
Many thanks!
Thank you very much!
The story from "The last wish" isn't true either. Jaskier (Dandelion) and Geralt find the djinn in the river. The djinn chokes Jaskier and curses him. Geralt tries to find someone who can heal Jaskier and finds Yennefer. Yennefer wants to capture the djinn to harness his power (it's not said that she wants to be fertile again and it seems that it wasn't her goal at that time). Geralt is the master of the djinn, because he opened the flask (by mistake) that's why only he can wish for something.
I need the painted picture of Roach on top of the house framed in my home and I didn't know it lol.
😂
Was looking for a Witcher video that wasn't necessarily all about the game and boy did I find one! Fantastic stuff, we need more channels like this one. 👌👌
I remember someone in game or book said something like Geralt is the best in term of witcher because his body can survive mutation better than any witcher ever exist and to witcher that mean more potion, more mutation to be come even stronger as witcher. but there are witchers that better than Geralt at other aspect like Eskel that have stronger magic than most witchers
Triss being Coral is quite interesting… Mainly because was one of the youngest sorceress and Coral Wouk be more experienced and more probably survived the battle. And the killing one was the lighthouse. Triss is from Maribor. Why a Lighthouse? Very well, sir. Well done.
But we actually do know of a surviving Cat school witcher and meet him - Gaetan, of that DLC quest. Also, internal item ids for cat school gear use the word lynx instead, and given how much content we know was cut/recycled, I believe CDPR have had Lynx school plans for a long time.
The witcher is a pretty great universe... sadly I only had the chance to play the third game like most people in the universe
The world is really great, and even the third game has so much to love
The other games are out there assassins of kings cost me 3 bucks
1:13:18
Isn’t this also the symbol that appears when Regis opens the door in Tesham Mutna? It’s also the same symbol on his gloves. Could the symbol be vampire related?
Of course, i think is something related to vampires original world, i think the thing in the flame may be somenthing like a tower in their world(?).
The fact it is also in cyberpunk can be, because vampires were a thing in cyberpunk before be coming cut content.
Damn. I haven’t played any Witcher game yet but this video and the work you put in it made me want to.
Awesome work.
Really appreciate that! Thanks for supporting my channel
As a Witcher world “beginner” I fucking loved this video. The Coral theory was mind blowing and the “last wish” the Geralt made had me piece together that Ciri, Yen, and Geralt may be connected from that same wish as well, and not from the Law of Surprise.
I’m so glad you enjoyed and thanks for the support!
Ciri was connected to Geralt by the Law of Surprise *twice* though. First before her birth, second when he possibly looked for her slash thought she's dead after Cintra invasion. She was adopted by a wife of a guy who saved Geralt after Geralt saved him. He said the wife is barren, so no new kids, but his sons are strong and why not be witchers? But instead, he found out his wife adopted a little girl from druids who saved kids after the war.
Another banger. Keep up the good work
Really appreciate it! Thanks for watching
Agree with you about Thronebreaker. I absolutely loved that game! It definitely deserves so much more love.
Roach isn't a elder demonic being of any sort. She's a unicorn, which in the books also have sphere/ world teleportation abilities. Roach is just masking her horn. ;-)
31:00 Books outright state that among all creatures in the lore world, only two can naturally sense magic - dragons and cats. Most cats hiss, some don't care, and those not caring are interesting to Geralt as "anomally".
You also don't understand cats. They are not "worse version of dogs". Cats are cats. It's like dishwashers are not "worse version of washing machines". Measuring cats with dogs is bs. Cats are lesson of individual consent, not pack obedience. What you attribute to cats behavior as "dopplers in disguise" is what we know as being regular cat. Cats are imitators already and attempt mimicking communications of other animals and people.
I love cats haha I was just messing around they are super cute 😂
Nice research man, I've read through all the books twice and played all three games but still didn't know all of this.
Really appreciate that! Thanks for watching
as someone who has been living in witcher lore and theory hell for years now,
- this is actually the first time i see that map of whole-whole continent in cyrillic. it is definitely entirely speculative, though. Sapkowski never bothered to estabilish a concrete map of anything, even the areas the books actually take place in, and just went "yeah sure" at the ones included as book illustrations. this map is not without merit though! i kinda like the corner where dragon and blue mountains meet. Kaer Morhen does translate to "fortress by the sea"...
- it's also the first time i hear about werewhales and werepigs. wiki doesn't find anything, if these are some obscure mentions in in-game texts, i've never even heard them talked about. in pure theory, a person could be cursed into were-anything, but going off what we do know, these have never happened.
- i'm not too sure about elven civil wars, what we know is that the original elven world was facing destruction. prior to the conjunction, fights between elves and dwarves did happen, and aen seidhe being responsible for vrans mostly disappearing due to a sickness of some kind is game canon. the split of aen undod into aen elle and aen seidhe when the former consciously decided to leave and the latter went on to settle on the continent (=age of migration) also took place way before the conjunction. the conjunction caused 'the gates between worlds' to close.
- also according to game canon, some vran architecture remains - most notably Loc Muinne. elven cities were mostly built on top of by humans, though there are more ruins and underground complexes, and of course Beauclair.
- how war broke out between humans and elves is very well documented. for a while, they had an estabilished peace, and a mage (one of the first humans to become mages actually) by the name Geoffrey Monck took a group of kids to Loc Muinne to be taught magic by elves. it was after then when a redanian military officer Milan Raupenneck marched into Loc Muinne and massacred everyone, the elves as well as the kids, and started the first elven-human war.
- there is no mention of northern humans enslaving aen seidhe. the only instances of slavery in canon are nilfgaard and the aen elle/wild hunt, actually.
- this is less of a correction, but i wouldn't necessarily call the world of the witcher vast or the lore deep, especially if the games are left out of it. think about lore long enough and every new idea becomes pure speculation because there is no way of proving or disproving it. Sapkowski is the anti-Tolkien in a way. it's good to keep in mind that when he wrote the books he didn't aim to create a whole new universe as much as he simply wanted to tell a story. And as such, he barely developed the world outside of what was somehow relevant to that story.
- back on track. the only groups to really call a separate race that did arrive with the conjunction were of course humans and vampires as stated. like i said, elves arrived before the conjunction. intelligent 'monsters' like sylvans and succubi are, at least in game canon, relicts, meaning they've been on the continent before the conjunction too.
- the wiki (witcher.fandom.com) can't be trusted completely, is sometimes too vague and it's important to check reference links to see whether a statement is based in books or games, but the timeline there is quite coherent. i'd recommend it to check the dates of events like the conjunction and first landing.
- i'm so tired of magic being referred to as just chaos, it's just one of the things Yennefer compares it to in Blood of Elves and it doesn't paint an accurate picture. there are multiple explanations to what magic is, hell, there are multiple explanations to what chaos is too.
- i cannot think of any instance of a mage (gaunter isn't one and isn't a book character either) messing with time. elder blood carriers can jump into different points in time than where they came from, Ciri does it in the last book and Alvin/Jacques does it in the first game, but that's about it.
- yes, the conjunction may occur again (even in book canon). from all accounts it seems like a natural cosmic event, at least as far as the books go (as wack as thor: the dark world was, i always imagined the conjunction to be something very similar to what happens in that movie). elves did posess some skill to traverse the multiverse, as said earlier the 'gates' only 'closed' because of the conjunction, but again, they didn't exactly control time. this also makes me question whether witcher 3 was accurate when stating magic only leaked onto the continent with the conjunction. from the books we know next to nothing about how exactly are avallac'h, the wild hunt, or really anyone who doesn't have elder blood capable of hopping between worlds, navigators are a game invention. and beside all that, by the time humans started interacting with them, it's kinda implied elven mages were much better at it, which seems odd if they had the same amount of time to learn how to harness magic as humans did. unless elves utilize it in a completely different way to humans, which, maybe? or maybe humans just collectively had the same skill issue.
- as for the school of thought that elves are the original inhabitants of the continent, consider tools like unreliable narrator and in-world propaganda.
- cats are just uniquely sensitive to magic, that's all. i honestly think this was just Sapkowski playing with the "witch and her pet cat" trope. It wouldn't be unlike him.
- i'm pretty sure the enhanced nighttime vision came from the physical change to a witcher's eyes, rather than a magic acid trip, and same goes for the sterility. the grasses make the most drastic changes to a trainee's body. from the books, we only know of the mushrooms and grasses, the rest is what the games added. particularly the last part, because in the books Geralt actually recounts his first ever kill - a vagabond on the road.
- cat and griffin schools are book canon, bear, viper and manticore are game additions.
- it's skimmed over by witcher 3, but Geralt lost most of his pigment, making him unusually pale. it can be assumed all his body hair would be white.
- there is a cavern with an elven cemetery under mt. gorgon. no magma, sorry. vulcanic regions don't have to rely on just one volcano, or an active one, to be bountiful, example being the central bohemian highlands.
- fisstech can be ingested via any mucous membrane.
- False Ciri was kidnapped specifically by Vilgefortz's agents and specifically to be presented to Emhyr. he was supposed to believe she's the real princess of cintra, which he didn't, but ended up playing along. it was not to protect the real one (using her as a decoy was an idea rejected by Geralt), it was to deceive the emperor because Vilgefortz had his own plans for real Ciri. it's implied Emhyr planned to get rid of the imposter once he captured real Ciri, but seeing as he let her go at the end, False Ciri should be still alive and married to him.
- Emhyr might know Ciri has elder blood, Vilgefortz definitely knew, but no one else involved in False Ciri's kidnapping did.
- the western continent and everything about it comes from Tales from the world of The Witcher, a collection by various writers unaffiliated with CDPR or Sapkowski. It hasn't even been brought into wider game canon through Gwent (unlike content from the pen-and-paper rpg by R. Talsorian Games), so looking at it strictly, it isn't canon, at least for the time being.
- 48:23 zerrikanians are human too, this wording doesn't come across well, especially considering they're usually depicted as having darker skin tones :o)
- Geralt sought Yennefer out mainly, or also, to help Dandelion, because the djinn messed up his throat. but you got it right, Geralt bound their deaths together, saving Yennefer's life (she heard it though! she comments on it. "You've condemned yourself to me"). and that's the only explanation that really makes sense. they...do have a kid? Ciri, anyone? :D found family is one of the main points in the books.
- Yennefer is the only sorceress he by canon runs into repeatedly. the fact Triss keeps chasing him is a whole different situation entirely :D
- Gaunter is fun. If everything CDPR made is taken literally, he runs Gwent tournaments for shits and giggles.
- technological revolution is likely. the books don't go deep there, the parts that take place in the future don't mention any particular inventions, but content outside of the books has more. Thronebreaker in particular, where we see book printing and a water filtering device made by the gnome Barnabas Beckenbauer. his dialogue also mentions trying to build an airplane, and a note can be found with more of his ideas. once again, the western continent isn't exactly canon, but if it's integrated into future games, then there will also be early guns and gunpowder.
- Geralt speculates that the oddities in the 'cursed' girls' anatomy were more likely due to mages messing with royal bloodlines. which, as we learn later in the saga, is a thing that did happen.
- Barmin was invented for the games and it's never said if he was the one to found the wolf school. personally i don't think so.
- this depiction of the ouroboros is more or less what appears on Regis's outfit in Blood&Wine, so it's some kind of vampire interpretation. ouroboros is talked about in the books, especially towards the end, as a visual link to the phrase 'something ends, something begins'. Auberon, the king of the aen elle, has a whole speech about it and how he and his people see it. no illuminati though.
- glagolitic is used for all in-game writings. it's on posters, graffiti, book covers, the white ribbons on mage outfits, and heavily used in Gwent flavor imagery too. it's even on the calendar-compass wheel thing on thewitcher.com. sometimes these writings make sense, sometimes they don't. Geralt's bestiary in witcher 3 says "kama sutra" (lol), Sheala's tattoo on the other hand is just random letters.
- the Lytta Neyd/Triss theory is funny, but also quite convoluted. at the end of the day i don't think Sapkowski intended this, and that he had plans to make Coral a short-term love interest years down the road in Season of Storms all the way back when writing Blood of Elves.
very sorry for how long this comment is. i appreciate Thronebreaker praise though!
This is some really great updates and insights thanks so much! I love the Witcher lore so cool to hear some more about it, and I have a reference to wear pigs etc in my notes I’ll paste it if I can find it you will probably like it
@@elisthebirb2357 thanks so much for all the insight I do appreciate the long comments for sure
She Who Knows, the mother of the crowns, is an actual creature, her history is told in the Gwent standalone game
Also nice video, the way you talked about thronebraker was pure reality, that game deserve mooooooore love!!!
Thanks for watching!
I’m a cat person and I wholeheartedly agree. They sure can be little monsters.
Haha glad we can agree there and thanks for watching!
Jenneffer also heard Geralt's last wish! If youd read the books you would know that. She said: "I heard what you asked for and I am stunned..."
I made someone buy Prey at the store the other day. I have it on good authority they'll enjoy it ;) Now, I've never seen or played the witcher, but I'm gonna sit and watch this. Thanks for all your hard work! Be well - Hannah
Really appreciate that! And prey is so amazing lol
"Our own"
The humans were transported from an alterante universe as well, no race held the witcher universe planet before the conjunction.
C’mon, Shrek as an inspiration for Witcher?? Are you nuts?
First short story about Witcher was written in 1986. That’s 15 years BEFORE the first Shrek film. Whole saga with Dandelion aka Jaskier as a prominent character was written by 1999.
That one was just a joke one not sure if you saw the ending haha
This is definitely one of the best iceberg videos I've seen. It highlights everything I love about the Witcher universe
Steed is male? Stallion is male. Steed is a generic term for horse.
Ya I fucked that up thanks for the correction lol
The music also makes game world come to life and witcher 3 nails it
Ciri couldn't have been talking about Night City. She said everyone had a flying ship and we still can't get UAVs in Cyberpunk 2077....unless......
CIRI KNOWS ABOUT THE MODDERS!?
🤯
Now we are talking 😂
She does, she refers to them as “worldshapers”
Maybe she IS a modder.... Ciri has RedTools
I like how Netflix fucked up all the lore for the conjunction
There is also the fact you can get black unicorn if you link your acct and some witcher jackets and now for phantom libertary you can get another witcher sword and another witcher jacket. Plus on the corpo lifepath opening you can find a magazine with ciri on it it's pretty cool
FYI - Celtic is pronounced K-eltic, not Sell-tic when you're referring to the people/mythology.
The only Celtic you pronounce with a soft C is the basketball team.
Thanks for the heads up lol pronouncing things is my enemy
Also Celtic football club from Glasgow
I’ve really enjoyed this video, you’ve managed to cover so many topics about the witcher lore and the universe itself. Cheers, hope to se more witcher content in the next ones! 🍻
Thank you for watching!
With all this magic in the witcher universe it would have made sense for the continent to have some sort of contact to the rest of the planet.
My head canon is that, when I freed the Spirit of the Forest to save the children of Crooked Back Bog, he replaced the mare formerly known as Roach
Regarding the levers that led to 'the end of the owrld where the devil plays' it brings up a few thoughts
1) Have you gone to this area while you have Gaunter's quest as active?
2) Since the only viper gear found are the two sword blueprints in White Orchard, have you tried using them on the doors?
3) Have the letters of the alphabet for the sigil been seen anywhere else in game, like maybe around those ruins where the levers can be pulled, and what is their positioning on the map?
Voice actor fail when Roach says "for you-ou-ou"... obviously it was intended to mimic whinnying but the voice actor just says it like it's written. Total fail.
its crazy how much we explore the world of the witcher form 1 to 3 only to realize that we just only scratch the surface of the lore and the story of the world itself. it makes geralt like an insignificant character if you look it that way
He kinda is, in a way. When he marches to Nilfgaard with Hanza, they are walking through forests and hear echoes of battles happening around them while they're trying to avoid all the armies. At some point Geralt gets knighthood from Meve (funnily, Geralt of Rivia, because the knights he fought alongside were from Rivia) just because he and his friends wanted to go across the same bridge that the armies fought for. And many characters told him explicitly how insignificant they consider him to be.
He's not insignificant. He's just a part of a vast, living world.
Minor detail: At the very end of the DLC, O'Dimm doesn't speak a form of elder speech.
He speaks three different real world languages:
'You're a rooster and the rooster is king only atop his pile of manure.' (Creole French), 'You think you've won. No, you are wrong.' (Georgian), and 'I can't die. I'm going now, but I'll be back.' (Ossetian)
Great video Frank, been loving all of these iceberg videos. 😊
Appreciate the support!
26:43 It's also my favorite part. I love the visual style of these different alien worlds you get to visit. My favorite is probably the one where you have to avoid the toxic ground (the one at 1:23:26). It looks so stunning and the sound ambience is breathtaking.
Here’s a wild theory: what if the elves that appeared from a warring world are Dwemer from the elder scrolls series who have vanished from the world during a great battle against the other elves?
Tier 5 hahah
But Dwemer are dwarfs not big elves
Jub
@@UltimaSigmarAlonsoI'll just copy this from the fandom.
"The Dwemer (also referred to as the Dwarves, Deep-Elves, Deep Folk, Deep Ones, People of the Deep, Deep-Counseled or Secretive People or the under-Elves) were an ancient "Lost Race" of Mer who were remnants of the early Aldmer, and lived primarily in the region of Dwemereth.
Mer used the term "Dwemer," roughly translated as "People of the Deep.""
Roach is an English word used in England for a specific type of fish. We possibly have no words of polish origin, it's probably from Norman English "roche" which becomes a bit jarring later on lol
The music is so good in the Witcher 3
Some really good tracks for sure
Ciri is an imposter, Triss is an imposter, Roach is an imposter... Geralt's entire life is a lie...
Witcher 6 where the pesent have rocket launchers to deal with nonsters now
😂😂
You are wrong about the name of the horse. Płotka does not mean Fish in Polish. Plotka is a species of fish. Zero to do with cockroaches.
roach isn't a demon or a child of elder blood. if we aren't taking the video game mechanics at face value, then the best explanation of what roach is would be unicorn. unicorns were hunted by the wild hunt for their ability to travel between worlds and universes with their inherent magic. the wild hunt killed so many unicorns they fled the shared world they had with the wild hunt. roaches ability to travel around the way he does would account for him being a unicorn. as for motive you could easily say the unicorn is helping the Witcher as an act of revenge against the wild hunt for killing and enslaving so many of its kin. keep in mind ciris powers to travel time and space are almost the same as what unicorns have. when the elven blood line lost the elder blood they literally went after the unicorns until the supply dried up. my source for this is book and in game lore.
Another great iceberg with interesting topics. Can’t wait for the next one 🔥🔥
Really appreciate that!
Impressive research! This video is amazing. 👍🏼
Thanks for the support!