The Witcher The Witcher IV - The Ciri Saga Begins

[DannyRope]

I'm sure they'd like to maul him to death with a golf club at some point also but probably they won't dare... tho he might get pitchforked for the second time and Ciri could go on a revenge mission

If a future trailer features Geralt talking to Ciri in several scenes then I might suspect those scenes being half fake and Geralt getting Neil Druckmann'd.

 

[Skinwalker]

It's not like they'll have female witchers NPCs, Ciri is a special case and it's fine.

No it isn't.

 

[markec]

But why change something that works, I just keep thinking about the next 3 Witcher games as Ciri as the main character and it bothers me on certain levels and Im not incel or sexist

In a more superficial way it bothers people because the Witcher story is a mans story. A story of a man who does what needs to be done, risking his life in a hard, dirty work that will get him little gratitude but he still does it without hesitation. While he finds some comfort in drinking with buddies and embrace of a women. This is not a tale made for a woman, which makes it feel forced and out of place.

On a deeper level its bothering because its a betrayal of both Ciri and Geralt as a characters.

Witcher 3 is a story of father who is helping his daughter to grow up and accept her responsibilities not to others but to herself, to accept her destiny. True ending of Witcher 3 is Ciri becoming the Empress, because it is her destiny. Becoming a monster hunter means squandering her potential and abandoning her destiny for a safe choice. Its safe to do what you know and what you are good at while surrounded by people who care about you and support you. While it is hard to abandon forever all that and walk into unknown.

Geralt loves Ciri as a daughter, he wants to help her and protect her. He knows that if she takes a path of becoming a Empress its a different path then his and he probably will never see her again. To protect her from the difficult path it would be easy for him to tell her to stay by his side and become a monster hunter but he knows that there is not where her path lies. He knows that she needs to embrace her destiny and to accomplish that she needs to leave him and walk her own path. Because no matter how much she loves being a monster hunter, or him, or other people around her, if she abandons her destiny no matter how much support she gets from those people or how rewarding that job is, there will always be feeling of regret deep inside her. Every time she lies down on a stormy night, in a mud below a tree to sleep, whole body bruised, she will wonder what could have been.

At the same time Geralt would feel as he failed Ciri to properly guide her, although he would not show it and would be supporting of her choice after she made her mind. But I doubt that he would have many peaceful nights in his retirement farm, sitting on the edge of a bed thinking where is she now and where did he go wrong.

Ive seen so many comments on twitter of people praising the idea of Ciri becoming a Witcher, calling that ending of Witcher 3 a perfect ending. To me its a bitter sweet ending at best, a tragedy at worst.

To go from a Empress that could shape a history of the world, create your own dynasty, to be a legend that in thousands years people will talk about you. To abandon that potential to be a lone wanderer hunting down monsters in some backward village is a tragedy in my book.

 

[MasPingon]

Coming back to Ciri more broadly, there was a sense with The Witcher 3, and I think a lot of Witcher fiction as a whole - the TV series as well as the books - that this is a man's world, and that the experience of a woman is actively quite a significant theme in The Witcher in a lot of different forms. The women of this world are subjected to a lot of violence, they're heavily sexualized in different ways. There's the kind of 'deal with the devil' that sorceresses have to have to make where they lose their fertility and so on. Watching the trailer, it seemed to maybe channel this: there's Ciri, a woman trying and failing to save another woman from more of this universe's violence, right? Is that an intentional theme that you were channeling with the trailer? And also, is it something you're intentionally looking to explore in the game, the experience of a woman in particular through Ciri's eyes in this world?

I really can't understand how can they answer this kind of question with a streight face. Geralt is a man stripped of his humanity by a "system", he is cast out of society, deprived of his ability to concieve a child and have a family. His destiny was decided by someone else, he is struggling to have a will to live the life of a Witcher, trying to make sense out of it. He is a leftover, abondened by his mother, subjected to enormous experiments which made him a monster in eyes of common folks. He's doing his shit job with dignity, even though he is despised by many. We observe the world through his eyes in the Saga.

Imgine you've read the books and all you got out of it is that it's a man's world where woman have a hard time. I hate this kind of tribal thinking with passion.

 

[ga♥]

It sounds as awkward to read as some of the stuff George R.R Martin and Stephen King put out there. Kind of sad, really - I used to be an avid reader but even as a kid a lot of stuff in fantasy novels made me raise an eyebrow and I turned to video games instead. Now they're also being less than subtle in regards to the weird kinks of the writers.

As discussed in various other threads, I think there's a very arguable theory that nerds in general stopped reading as they age, because the publishing houses and various apparatuses of adult lit have been throughly colonized by shit, like all media.

When you look at older stuff, there's so much quality available. Then you look at new fantasy/sci-fi and it's all reminiscent of modern Hugo Award winners.

The only modern fantasy novels I've read are from Andrzej Sapkowski, Witold Jabłoński, George R. R. Martin and Scott R. R. Bakker (why do so many authors steal Tolkien's R. R.?) and while none of them conceals his fetishes, they still deliver better writing that 90% of the fantasy writers of old, save for Tolkien, Zelazny, Howard and several others. I think I can live with a few kinks if it gets me good reading.

Try Malazan Book of the Fallen.

The Malazan series contains many themes around socio-economic inequality and social injustice throughout such as gender equality with Erikson stating "It occurred to us that it would create a culture without gender bias so there would be no gender-based hierarchies of power. It became a world without sexism and that was very interesting to explore.

 

[Elttharion]

CIRI CAN'T STOP WINNING

90% of the witcher 4 posts I see on twitter are from almost naked cosplay thots dressed as twitcher 3 Ciri

 

[codexian reject]

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

 

[codexian reject]

90% of the witcher 4 posts I see on twitter are from almost naked cosplay thots dressed as twitcher 3 Ciri

90% of social media content for mainstream gaming shit is from almost naked cosplay thots.

 

[Elttharion]

Some reddit autist compiled a bunch of tweets and posts from a lore-master, lore and franchise designer:



TLDW he is an ex-The gamer and other journo outlets writer who shilled for the Netflix show and makes that Obsidian dude sound sane. He is part of the supposedly based CDPR polish A team btw.

 

[Justicar]

First time?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Try Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Oh, that reminds me. I've read Erikson's Malazan novels. Managed to complete 5 books I think, got bored by the sixth. His writing for me is below the quality of Martin's and Bakker's and while I like his storytelling, especially descriptions of battles, I feel like the story got too big for a writer of his talent and it contains too many overpowered characters. Still have his novels in my home libray, until book 7 I think. Maybe one day I'll return to him, but now I want to reread Robert Howard and more of Karl Wagner.

 

[ga♥]

Try Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Oh, that reminds me. I've read Erikson's Malazan novels. Managed to complete 5 books I think, got bored by the sixth. His writing for me is below the quality of Martin's and Bakker's and while I like his storytelling, especially descriptions of battles, I feel like the story got too big for a writer of his talent and it contains too many overpowered characters. Still have his novels in my home libray, until book 7 I think. Maybe one day I'll return to him, but now I want to reread Robert Howard and more of Karl Wagner.

What "writer of old" is worse than GRR Martin? Even Terry Brooks is better than him

 

[Lord_Potato]

Oh, that reminds me. I've read Erikson's Malazan novels. Managed to complete 5 books I think, got bored by the sixth. His writing for me is below the quality of Martin's and Bakker's and while I like his storytelling, especially descriptions of battles, I feel like the story got too big for a writer of his talent and it contains too many overpowered characters. Still have his novels in my home libray, until book 7 I think. Maybe one day I'll return to him, but now I want to reread Robert Howard and more of Karl Wagner.

What "writer of old" is worse than GRR Martin? Even Terry Brooks is better than him

Terry Brooks is literally garbage tier writer and a shameless Tolkien copycat, fuck him.

IMO Martin's writing is simply superior to that of Tad Williams, Glen Cook, Michael Moorcook, Robin Hobb (althrough sje has her moments), David Gemmell, Robert Jordan, Marrion Zimmer Bradley, and even Guy Gavriel Kay.

I most likely cannot remember the other half of fantasy writers I read during high school and university and whom I also consider worse than GRRM.

 

[ga♥]

IMO Martin's writing is simply superior to [...]Michael Moorcook[...]

Two options here. You never read Moorcock and you are just throwing around names as buzzwords or you are a hopeless scat enjoyer.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

" Both Mitręga and Kalemba acknowledged a potential backlash from some corners of the internet at Ciri’s role as protagonist in The Witcher 4, but both insisted Ciri was always going to be the game’s main character."

Bullshit. Geralt was the series main character (he is THE literal Witcher). Ciri becoming a Witcher is simply what they try to fall back on to keep the series going, regardless of how unfaithful to the books it is.

I'd say if they weren't comfortable with a player-generated Witcher, Ciri does seem a natural choice.

Even though the main 5 novel series is called "Saga of the Witcher" Ciri becomes more and more significant from book to book.

Book 4, "Tower of the Swallow" basically belongs to her, she gets much more screentime and gets to do more significant shit than Geralt and his party of misfits. In book 5, "Lady of the Lake" they get a similar amount of space, but while Geralt mostly fucks around (literally) in Toussaint, until he receives a critical tip that allows him to move towards the 'endgame', Ciri travels between worlds, unveils many secrets of the multiverse (including the mystery of the Wild Hunt) and rapidly levels up for the final battle. During which they both get to kill an important baddie. Actually, Ciri kills her nemesis all by herself, while Geralt succeeds only with the help of Yennefer and Regis.

She's of course absent from CDPR Witcher 1 & 2 and only plays a supporting role in Witcher 3, but at the end of the second Expansion, it was evident that Geralt's only hoping for a retirement. I didn't want to play him in Witcher 4 and feel like the sentiment was shared by many fans. Forcing Geralt to go on another adventure once he managed to find solace in Corvo Bianco, preferably with his love interest, would be too cruel.

So it was either character creation, or Ciri. CDPR made their choice and I'm willing to let them cook and get a taste before passing judgement.

You're an absolute retard lol. Ciri makes no sense as a Witcher. You sound like a big fag too posting stuff about let CDPR cook

 

[Skinwalker]

90% of the witcher 4 posts I see on twitter are from almost naked cosplay thots dressed as twitcher 3 Ciri

This is false and you can't prove it with evidence.

 

[Harthwain]

I'd say if they weren't comfortable with a player-generated Witcher, Ciri does seem a natural choice. [...] So it was either character creation, or Ciri.

Not as a witcher. That's the whole reason we're even having this conversation to begin with. I did acknowledge why they picked her as the main character for the game, but it doesn't give developers any credit. Just my opinion though.

 

[BruceVC]

But why change something that works, I just keep thinking about the next 3 Witcher games as Ciri as the main character and it bothers me on certain levels and Im not incel or sexist

In a more superficial way it bothers people because the Witcher story is a mans story. A story of a man who does what needs to be done, risking his life in a hard, dirty work that will get him little gratitude but he still does it without hesitation. While he finds some comfort in drinking with buddies and embrace of a women. This is not a tale made for a woman, which makes it feel forced and out of place.

This is very good assessment about my feelings

I didnt really understand it but now I do. You have nailed it

Im not opposed to female characters but Witcher is story about a man and that includes how he interacts with people and his activities

As I said I will still play W4 but now I know what Im really uncomfortable with

 

[cvv]

Terry Brooks is literally garbage tier writer and a shameless Tolkien copycat, fuck him.

Yes.

IMO Martin's writing is simply superior to that of Tad Williams, Glen Cook, Michael Moorcook, Robin Hobb (althrough sje has her moments), David Gemmell, Robert Jordan, Marrion Zimmer Bradley, and even Guy Gavriel Kay.

They're okay but all of them are VASTLY inferior to the true king of fantasy today Joe Abercrombie. His First Law trilogy is the only bright flame of masculinity, grit and badassery in the rank darkness of gay, estrogen-laden YA garbage that is modern fantasy.

(He caught some flak from the usual suspects for not having enough stronk fehmule characters so in his next trilogy he rectified that "sin" but it's still better than everything else out there).

 

[Lord_Potato]

IMO Martin's writing is simply superior to [...]Michael Moorcook[...]

Two options here. You never read Moorcock and you are just throwing around names as buzzwords or you are a hopeless scat enjoyer.

Nah I just didn't particularly enjoy Moorcock's writing. I prefer other authors from his generation, like Roger Zelazny or Karl Wagner.

And I am always amused when people claim Sapkowski stole anything from Moorcock, while their characters couldn't be different, despite the hair color and the weapon of choice being a sword.

 

[Lord_Potato]

They're okay but all of them are VASTLY inferior to the true king of fantasy today Joe Abercrombie. His First Law trilogy is the only bright flame of masculinity, grit and badassery in the rank darkness of gay, estrogen-laden YA garbage that is modern fantasy.

I guess I have to add another name to my 2025 reading list. Also Pau Kearney, someone recommended me his works as kind of similar to Scott Bakker's.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

Name a top notch game with a fixed female main character... I'll wait

 

[Heroic Liberator]

You're an absolute retard lol. Ciri makes no sense as a Witcher. You sound like a big fag too posting stuff about let CDPR cook

Simping for CDPR is a patriotic duty for Polish 'dexers.

 

[BruceVC]

Name a top notch game with a fixed female main character... I'll wait

Tomb Raider, Control , Resident Evil 3, Mirrors Edge and Alien Isolation. Its subjective if you like these games but they all entertaining

Its silly to suggest " you cant have a good game with a female protagonist " but thats not the same thing as having legitimate criticism around Ciri as the main character in W4

 

[Tyranicon]

Name a top notch game with a fixed female main character... I'll wait

Tomb Raider, Control , Resident Evil 3, Mirrors Edge and Alien Isolation. Its subjective if you like these games but they all entertaining

Its silly to suggest " you cant have a good game with a female protagonist " but thats not the same thing as having legitimate criticism around Ciri as the main character in W4

Also, Homeworld 1

But having three fixed female characters ruined Homeworld 3.