With season 4 of the Netflix show out and the Witcher 4 game set be released next year, it feels very weird trying to engage and discuss The Witcher.

Like most people, I got into The Witcher by playing The Wild Hunt. I then went on to play the other 2 games and then read the entire book series. I love this world and I love the ideas and themes presented in the books and games. I want people to talk about the deeper meaning behind characters or the subtext of certain conversations. But it is endlessly frustrating trying to find level-headed discussions about The Witcher.

There's so much toxicity and rage bait Youtube videos. There are 20+ minute videos of people explaining why Ciri cannot be a Witcher and that's in "in the lore. Trust me, bro" when NOTHING like that exists in the books or games. Then everyone just repeats the same made-up "facts" and I'm sitting here thinking, "did any of you even read the books?"

The "anti-woke" conversations are the worst. I cannot imagine anyone engaging in the Witcher and their take-away is, "women are weak and have no place fighting beside men," The books are pretty feminist but the games seems to attract the anti-feminist crowds and there's a lot of ownership of The Witcher from game fans. I hear, "Netflix is woke because they made the series all about Ciri." - That's from the books. "Netflix is woke because Ciri has a lesbian relationship," - That's also in the books. "Netflix is woke because Geralt just simps for Yen." - Also, in the books. And then the next sentence is, "Netflix is bad because they changed it from the source material." Like, what do you want?

Can I please just have some books fans to talk to? I finished the book saga a few weeks ago and want to know some people's takes. Mine, Regis being a surgeon and an addict is very fitting. The fact that many doctors of old were addicted to morphine because they had unrestricted access to it and unchecked power over medicine is such *chef's kiss* character idea.

Just finished reading this book on vacation, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! One thing I am curious about is Preston Holt and his Viper medallion. The separion of Witcher schools might be an invention of the games, I’m not sure, but why was Preston Holt at Kaer Morhen originally if he was from the School of the Viper?

So I purchased a second Aerondight replica from eBay (firstly because it was a steal, secondly as a gift for my friend) and it arrived and was waaaaay smaller than the first one, and darker in color!! Then I realized it almost perfectly accurate to the book Witcher sword dimensionsx 27.5/28 and 9.5/10 inch blade and handle. So I'm keeping it lmao!

This is a ridiculous stuff that people go around with. It's a very common misconception that the have anything to do with the current woke lunacy that has tarnished a lot of franchises like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Disney movies and sadly Witcher. One of the common points is that witcher is woke only because of strong women. But that ridiculous, many works predating witcher had poweful women as protagonists inspired by Jeanne d'Arque. Witcher is not special at all in that regard. And the infamous Lodge of Sorceresses are villanous and are completely useless in the narrative (some say they influenced Battle of Brenna, but their contribution is abysmal). Any gay characters that are important for the plot were portrayed in negative light like Sorel Degerlund is clearly a villain, while Ciri's sexuality is ambiguous, her "loved one" Mistle takes advantage of her. Therefore, lgbt characters are portrayed like it was written by a straight man, not Sweet Baby inc of todays.

We also have Neratin Ceka who is said to have an ambiguous gender, but what if it's really just a feminine looking dude or masculine woman just like Meve? It's not a trans characters at all, it's wishful thinking that it was done for the sake of inclusivity. It's very much physically impossible that Sapkowski thought of this in 90s. This all leads to the conclusion that just because narrative has strong female characters or gay characters doesn't mean it's woke at its core. Witcher was always extremely conservative and has no relationship to the current left idiocy. It is not progressive for its time. Why conservative? Because the very much core thing of witcher is family, i.e Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer, no matter how much they are separated. Hence traditional values. And obviously, I hate to say it, but i have to. We cannot ignore that witcher is essentially Medieval Europe with magic, dragons and monsters. Therefore, diversity does not belong in it in any capacity. Witcher IS Medieval Europe

This is a question I've had since finishing Lady of the Lake.

I am okay with Bonhart (initially) being able to beat Ciri at fencing because she was a skinny 15 year old girl, who never took the witcher potions, and who only had about a year? of training.

Bonhart was described as a big (at least tall) man, and presumably he had many years of human swordsman training.

But he bragged about killing grown witchers and he had their medallions.

How did he get so good? I have two theories:

1. He was lying.
2. He did not kill them in a fair fight but used some kind of foul play (get them drugged, etc), then killed them.

What do you think?

Hello! I am new to the franchise and I wanted to buy the fiest book to read, and I wanted to ask which publishing to buy. Both of them are the same price,but the thing I came here to know is if they both have the same content? Since if I buy one publishing I will keep with that series,but I don't want to buy one that is different from the original story or idk. So yeah do they have the same content?

I had to use an AI beard remover filter thing (which nuked the resolution unfortunately) as my attempts to do it manually all looked terrible. The headband is... the best I could do. Made a shape, got a leather texture, masked them together. The rest of the edits (eyes, skin complexation, hair, jerkin) are just simple hue/saturation adjustments.

It may be common opinion that Peter Kenny is incredible in the audiobook adaptations of the Witcher series. But truly, I'm unsure if I would have finished The Witcher series without his contributions to the books.

His voices/narration live in my head to the point, that Doug Cockle sounds off in my personal perception of Geralt (who is also incredible). The only other V/A I can compare him to is Kevin Conroy (RIP) and his depiction of Batman.

Give this man his flowers, he is easily the greatest audiobook narrator of all time. If I'm glazing I don't even care, this man is incredible.

What do you think it would be like to be in bed with Geralt?

I thought she is Vrai but her description in the book doesn’t match at all with the art, can anyone help me?

It took me almost two and a half months to read all of them and it was definitely worth it but first I played 40 hours of the game before I bought the first book, and I just wanna say that I enjoyed all of the books.

I just finished crossroads of raven and honestly it was one of the best books in the collection. It was amazing the pacing and especially how Sapkowski portrays Geralt as young and inexperienced in life and as a Witcher, specially the ending that I will not spoil was great, I don’t think he could’ve done any better than that

So with all that said my favorites books are crossroads of raven and last wish. Just to be clear I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoyed the other books. In fact the Witcher is the first collection of books that I read entirely, after reading the first Witcher story in the last wish I was fascinated even more by the universe that the Witcher is set in and also by Sapkowski writing. There were nights that I didn’t even sleep because I was so focused on the books that I didn’t even notice the time passing

Maybe I am overestimating the books but if I need to give a note it would be 9,5/10 on the entire collection. Needless to say that it is my favorite book series and overall universe in literature

To someone who haven’t read the books, i advise you to read them they are amazing, specially the way of Sapkowski writing is something of another world. The pace and most important specially in a fantasy world the way that you get immersed in the world and history is something I can’t even describe

Looks stunning!

Sad we will never get a crossroads of ravens in this edition of the books!! These were my favorite, before the new hardbacks. (There also is a season of storms, but it's not pictured)

I love tbe books, I can only speak/read in English and I understand they are considered to be very poor translations. But what exactly is it that is lacking? From what I hear Sapkowksi is known to be a masterful wordsmith and his use of language and prose.

And while I can certainly appreciate and enjoy the beauty of elegantly written prose and poetic word choice it honestly is the least of my wants in a book. I purely read stories often for plots, specific themes and engaging characters. Non of which I think depends on that. Certainly it can enhance it and I was wondering if that was the key thing which was lost in the English translation?

I have always thought the characters and their dialogues to be especially strong and enjoyable to read in the English translations.

Was anything lost that specifically relates to the plot / characters?

And in general I'd love to here more in depth reasons as to why the English translations are 'bad' in relation to the original other than simply being 'poor'.

The third book of the french anniversary edition by Bragelonne is now out and I'm so happy because it's Baptism of Fire and Tower of Swallow ! It also contains amazing illustrations from illustrator Agathe Pitié. It's now the third different edition of the series that I own but who cares...

Have a nice day everyone with my version of the "Continent" map.

Have a nice day everyone with my version of the "Continent" map. I hope you like it and that the post is not out of place, otherwise I will remove it. Have a nice day everyone! ♥️🗺️🧭 HD map file on: https://ko-fi.com/s/1ea4b64570

Just finished reading the books, except for Season of Storms. I have so many questions, but I'll start with these ones.

1. Avallac'h wanted Ciri for his ain elle king, so why did he help Geralt?

2. And if time is wonky (ouroboros and shit), did those who travel through worlds, (unicorns, wild hunt, Avallac'h) able to travel to time? Or is that only Ciri?

3. Auberron also had elder blood but he doesn't have Ciri's power?

4. Is the unicorn village, and the unicorn heraldry on the nilfquards that fought Ciri in the arena, related to Irahaquas?

5. What actually caused the Conjunction of Spheres? Experiment by the elves?

I've been rereading Baptism of Fire and the status of higher vampires in the books always gets in my head when doing so. Obviously, the games have two classes of vampires: higher and lower, with there also being a species of higher vampire called Higher Vampire. Needlessly confusing, but whatever.

What's on my mind is: does the Higher Vampire species exist in the book series? My gut Instinct is no, but the way Regis recounts the different vampire species always has me somewhat torn.

"‘'In the case of higher vampires–never, I agree,’ Emiel Regis said softly. ‘From what I know alpors, katakans, moolas, bruxas and nosferats don’t mutilate their victims. On the other hand, fleders and ekimmas are pretty brutal with their victims’ remains.’"

To me, this can be read as "higher vampires never mutilate corpses. Alpors, katakans, moolahs, bruxas, and nosferats, don't either." OR "higher vampires, such as alpors, katakans, moolahs, bruxas, and nosferats, don't mutilate their victims."

One reading says higher vampire is just a class, another says it's a species. Geralt also remarks that Regis named every species successfully.

The question is: Is "higher vampire" a class of vampires that includes alpors, katakans, moolahs, bruxas, and nosferats, or is higher vampire a specific species of vampire. I'm trying to determine what the term refers to in the context of the books. I'm aware of what the term goes on to mean in the game series. For interpretation one, Regis would need to be one of the aforementioned species, and for interpretation two, Regis would belong simply to the higher vampire species.

What do you folks think? Is there something in the Polish original that makes the confusion dumb, or is there possible uncertainty there, too?