The Hiveminds final verdict on The Witcher.

[RK47]

that aint right at all. but ok, that's a new selling point I guess, can't please everyone.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

How would you know? I know from reading about history and historical works (eg Shakespeare), folk tales and songs that though people would joke about sex it wouldn't be in such a blatantly crude retarded way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

Late medieval/Renaissance drama is no stranger to vulgarity so it's safe to assume that its intended audience wasn't either.

 

[dagorkan]

The whole idea of medieval peasants talking to each other only politely out of fear to offend somebody is so fucking retarded that i don't even konw how to respond...

My grandparents were Italian peasants living in a small agrarian community, and from all accounts (both direct and indirect) such level of gratuitous vulgarity and puerility would have been unthinkable in their days, let alone medieval Europe.

My parents and grandparents from the Hungarian side were peasants and workers toiling on the fields and in the workshops of communist Hungary. I can not remember hearing any of them swear. Ever. It is, in fact, my matriarchal side of family that is prone to swearing and rudeness - as a rule, the more years they spent jobless or with other jobless persons, the ruder they became. My grandfather, who worked all his life until he could no more, may he rest in peace, was a pinnacle of virtue and if you had the gall to swear in the same room as he was he would send you such a withering stare that your heart would shrivel.

Looking at my grandfather's extended family, the children of farm laborers in a large village in central England they are pretty traditional / conservative, and though it is a massively dysfunctional family where nobody talks to anybody else I never heard any of them swear. My great-grandfather apparently who hated all his siblings would simply disappear to the garden or his workshop when family came to visit leaving his wife to do the socializing. The important thing was to keep up appearances and not create a scene. I went to that village and in the pub where everybody goes on Sunday and didn't get the impression that there were a lot of arguments.

My grandfather, who left school early and became a self-taught air-force mechanic was pretty bad-tempered and could be fairly rude ("bloody idiots") but I doubt he ever told anyone their mother sucked cock or used retarded similes like "does a prick go into a cunt?"... I think most people of that generation would have felt degraded to speak like that.

Maybe Eastern Europe / Russia was different.

 

[Ausir]

Looking at my grandfather's extended family, the children of farm laborers in a large village in central England they are pretty traditional / conservative, and though it is a massively dysfunctional family where nobody talks to anybody else I never heard any of them swear.

Maybe it's a difference between Western and Eastern Europe? Sapkowski is Polish, and the culture of the characters in the books is partly based on Polish culture (both past and present).

 

[RandomLurker]

People are still talking about this? Seriously, what's so wrong with a random drunken peasant idiot trying to provoke you into a fist fight saying "Your mom sucks dwarf cock" (the original had something more like "Your mother slept with a dwarf!" but what the heck, the message "plz hit me" is still there) that you would spend so much time typing angry words of condemnation about it? What was he supposed to say? "Kind sir, would you please consider stepping in here for a moment so that we may hit each other in the face repeatedly"?

As for this "pricks into cunts" thing, well, this is a translation issue. "Cunt" and "prick" are modern swear words in common use, whereas in the original polish version the exact words used were sort of purporsefully anachronistic, going a long way to reduce the perceived vulgarity of the sentence. It didn't look like a forced attempt to be edgy - the intention of the dwarf speaking this was to mock the player for asking questions he considered stupidly obvious. He was obviously extremely fed up with all the racist crap he was getting before meeting the player, so such reaction can be seen as pretty natural. Also, didn't this particular line get cut from the english version anyway?

 

[dagorkan]

I don't want to argue about the Witcher any more, like I said maybe I'll try it but there isn't any point in me bashing it. Somebody brought up that historically people were as retarded as today which I disagree with that's why I'm posting here. The thread has now been officially derailed, you have about 17 other threads to praise the Witcher in so STFU with your victim complex drama.

 

[Ausir]

Yeah, I also disagree. In the past, people were even more retarded than now.

 

[dagorkan]

Maybe in Poland - better not over-generalize.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Maybe in Poland - better not over-generalize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyr_play

 

[dragonfk]

I don't want to argue about the Witcher any more, like I said maybe I'll try it but there isn't any point in me bashing it. Somebody brought up that historically people were as retarded as today which I disagree with that's why I'm posting here. The thread has now been officially derailed, you have about 17 other threads to praise the Witcher in so STFU with your victim complex drama.

Summarized translation: You proved me I was wrong and now STFU cause I want to forget about my failure.

 

[Oarfish]

Also, didn't this particular line get cut from the english version anyway?

Nope, not from mine. It's the first use of the word 'Cunt' in a game that I remember.

 

[Ausir]

Slavers in Fallout use it:

{341}{}{Listen here, ya li'l cunt. Don't you dare threaten me or any one else in our guild, or your dead. Get that? Dead.}