So far, the Witcher 3 seems kind of sexist

[Clockwerkman]

I've already said multiple times in the OP that I like this game. That being said, just because I like the game doesn't mean that I have to be okay with absolutely every part of it. For instance, what I've discussed here is a problem that I have with the game. Particularly when I like a game, I care more about the parts that I don't like.

I created this thread to discuss an issue I had with the game, not to stir up drama. If you want to assume that my intentions are otherwise, you are free to do so.

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Since people seem to be fixated on this point, I want to try again to make things clear about my stance.

I don't have an issue with this game taking place in a mysoginistic society. That in of itself doesn't make something sexist. The First Law Trilogy takes place in a sexist society, as does A Song of Ice and Fire, and I have no issue with any of those three. I've ran my own D&D games that took place in sexist societies. This doesn't bother me.

What bothers me about the quest is how the developers handled it. I like the Bloody Baron quest, and I liked how they decided to humanize what would normally be a one dimensional villain. I'd love to see more quests like it, but it was toeing a dangerous line of giving him too much sympathy. My issue with that particular part of the quest was how Geralt's options were to say "You both deserve each other", or to grasp at straws in a attempt to say that the Baron's still chiefly blame because he's responsible for her cheating, which gets immediately shot down by the Baron (Rightfully so). This conveys that the "correct" option is to say that they both deserve each other.

Why don't I accept the argument that Geralt is just supposed to be a sexist character and a byproduct of the environment? Why do I think that this speaks about what the game itself is trying to say about the situation?

Firstly, from what I've seen of Geralt, when you take the good dialogue options, he's chauvanistic and worst. They don't portray him as the kind of person who'd think that a women cheating on her husband deserves to be beaten and raped over a period of years (She was almost definitely raped, given that they had a child, and that she was so intent on getting rid of it). Maybe if you chose the evil dialogue choices, but this hardly seems in character of the good dialogue choices. I may well be wrong, I haven't seen everything there is about this character.

Secondly, and more importantly, they actually let you make the good choice. It's not like they just subject you to the response of "They deserve each other". They are very evidently saying you have a choice between thinking that her actions make her a terrible person deserving of him, and that he's still the one at fault here, and that she's not at all responsible for his actions. As I mentioned before, they turn the second response into a flimsy justification, intended to get shot down. Because of this, you can't just say that Geralt's character is sexist, because they very clearly give you the option to not make him so. They just don't appear to think much of that option.

So, to put things succinctly, I don't think that the game is sexist. For starters, I think the way the game approaches gender is actually the opposite, for the most part. I'll agree that more of the women than the men in the game are attractive, but the discrepancy doesn't seem very large, or like it's the focus, to me.

As far as the baron quest line, I think that it actually handles the issue with a fair amount of tact. I think that it's great to talk about hard issues like this in games, and I think we would be worse off to not have games that take a hard look at problematic elements of both history, and our current culture. With regards to your specifics, I don't see the "you both suck" option as sexist at all. I think in fact, that you are excusing the wife as an abuser, just because she was abused. By that logic, the baron himself would be blameless because his wife abused him.

As far as Geralt's "good" dialogue being chauvinistic, I couldn't disagree more. I can't remember a single statement from him saying something disparaging to any specific group, much less women as a gender. I'd be interested to see where you got that impression from though.

Below is a bit of a longer reply. Kind of meanders a bit. Read it or don't

Spoiler

I think I'll take a different view on this whole discussion than most. To be honest, I think most of the people in this thread have had bad points, on both sides of the issue.

To start off, let's look at Geralt's morality. One of the other people in this thread brought it up, but I don't think he was quite accurate. Geralt is a character who exists in a grey/grey, or grey/black world, with a desire to have a black/white morality. This is apparent with both previous games, and with the trailer "killing monsters" for the third.

Given this moral framework, we are also indirectly told that Geralt is a somewhat untrustworthy narrator, at least as far as morality is concerned, as he not only has a somewhat altered perspective, but as he is also forced to work outside the scope of politics, even on the local level. All this to say, I wouldn't read heavily into what Geralt says, so much as examine the broader context.

Even so, I'll address your point about the baron. While I agree that the "correct" option is to say that they both share blame, as others have pointed out, you can say in a different section of dialogue that you think he's completely at fault and bypass the whole thing. So, to conclude that the game is sexist because you chose an answer that you thought was sexist doesn't seem very fair to the game.

On that note, I think that the dialogue in question is in fact not at all sexist. I think this is an example of confirmation bias, where there isn't really anything to confirm. For starters, Geralt never says that the wife deserved to be beaten, he says they both are at fault. The text does say "you deserve each other", but I believe the intent is to say "you both suck" which is reinforced by what the character actually does say when you choose that option.

On that note, I think that your conclusion that she was raped is unfounded. The whole point is that they are both terrible people who are terrible for each other. She not only cheated on him, she stole from him, and then kidnapped his child, and then when he got his child back (in a way that even the game admits is unethical) she mentally and physically abused him. It is entirely possible she still slept with him consensually in between bouts of codependant spousal abuse. It is also possible that this was a case of marital rape, but the game does not say that, so to use that as proof of the games sexism is pretty circular.

To me, the game isn't trying to defend the baron, or the wife. It's trying to show an example of how fucked up the world can be, and show a hard situation with no easy solution. Was the baron wrong to murder the dude who his wife cheated on? Yes, and the game says as much. It also makes no qualms about calling him out on his abuse. In addition to that, we are presented all this in a world very different from our own. Now, it's not explicit on details like this, but given the setting, I would expect many parallels to medieval history. Namely, that marriage meant far more back then, and was much harder to get out of. In the modern day, this situation would be far more easily resolved with a divorce and therapy for the baron. In the setting in which we are given, the husband kind of ran out of any semblance of good options when he murdered the lover.

He could probably divorce her given her infidelity, but not only would she likely kill herself, if she didn't she would be guaranteed to live a short life as a beggar, as no one would marry a woman divorced for infidelity. Given the nature of that society, if you are an unmarried woman, you are either a sorceress, or a beggar. So not only does he not want to do that to her because he actually does love her, but he also wants what's best for his daughter. So, he's trapped by his PTSD, his alcoholism, his love for his wife, and what sounds like a shit ton of spousal abuse from her as well.

Here's where I definitely have a difference of opinion. While he's not excused for beating his wife, his wife is not innocent. Her being physically abused does not give her the right to abuse her husband, just as being abused by his wife doesn't give him the right to abuse her. The reason why "you both suck" is the right option, is because they do both suck. Both had options to prevent things from getting so fucked up, and they both had options to change things once they did get fucked up.

Below is a spoiler from the end of the quest line.

Spoiler

This isn't even including the fact that the reason the miscarriage occurred wasn't even the barons fault. The wife got a trio of blood magic using witches to suck the life out of the baby. Which is a bit fucked up IMO, since the miscarried baby seems pretty late term. Then again, abortion is a whoooooole nother can of worms I don't want to get into. That being said, I hope you'd at least agree that the issue isn't clear cut.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

That's a pretty solid argueement really. I've never particularly understood why the main character of any given story has to be perfect to satisfying some kind of role model quota. Flaws are interesting.

I absolutely don't think they need to be, and I respond to this objection earlier. To avoid repeating myself:

Spoiler

Why don't I accept the argument that Geralt is just supposed to be a sexist character and a byproduct of the environment? Why do I think that this speaks about what the game itself is trying to say about the situation?

Firstly, from what I've seen of Geralt, when you take the good dialogue options, he's chauvanistic EDIT:and at the worst. They don't portray him as the kind of person who'd think that a women cheating on her husband deserves to be beaten and raped over a period of years (She was almost definitely raped, given that they had a child, and that she was so intent on getting rid of it). Maybe if you chose the evil dialogue choices, but this hardly seems in character of the good dialogue choices. I may well be wrong, I haven't seen everything there is about this character.

Secondly, and more importantly, they actually let you make the good choice. It's not like they just subject you to the response of "They deserve each other". They are very evidently saying you have a choice between thinking that her actions make her a terrible person deserving of him, and that he's still the one at fault here, and that she's not at all responsible for his actions. As I mentioned before, they turn the second response into a flimsy justification, intended to get shot down. Because of this, you can't just say that Geralt's character is sexist, because they very clearly give you the option to not make him so. They just don't appear to think much of that option.

So, to put things succinctly, I don't think that the game is sexist. For starters, I think the way the game approaches gender is actually the opposite, for the most part. I'll agree that more of the women than the men in the game are attractive, but the discrepancy doesn't seem very large, or like it's the focus, to me.

As far as the baron quest line, I think that it actually handles the issue with a fair amount of tact. I think that it's great to talk about hard issues like this in games, and I think we would be worse off to not have games that take a hard look at problematic elements of both history, and our current culture. With regards to your specifics, I don't see the "you both suck" option as sexist at all. I think in fact, that you are excusing the wife as an abuser, just because she was abused. By that logic, the baron himself would be blameless because his wife abused him.

As far as Geralt's "good" dialogue being chauvinistic, I couldn't disagree more. I can't remember a single statement from him saying something disparaging to any specific group, much less women as a gender. I'd be interested to see where you got that impression from though.

That bit about chauvinism was a typo, I meant to say "Chauvinistic at the worst". And I only said that because there's an instance where he asks Kiera to stand back so he can do the fight on his own. That being said, I don't believe him to be chauvinistic, but I could see how an argument could be made that he is. My point being that nowhere do they seem to portray him as needing to be a sexist and uncaring asshole. It's a stretch to say that's a part of his character when in my play through I've had the opportunity to save and help a number people out of the goodness of my heart, as well as considering the Baron vile for abusing his wife (For sure to start with).

Anyways, we agree on that part, so onto the rest of your post:

I think I'll take a different view on this whole discussion than most. To be honest, I think most of the people in this thread have had bad points, on both sides of the issue.

To start off, let's look at Geralt's morality. One of the other people in this thread brought it up, but I don't think he was quite accurate. Geralt is a character who exists in a grey/grey, or grey/black world, with a desire to have a black/white morality. This is apparent with both previous games, and with the trailer "killing monsters" for the third.

Given this moral framework, we are also indirectly told that Geralt is a somewhat untrustworthy narrator, at least as far as morality is concerned, as he not only has a somewhat altered perspective, but as he is also forced to work outside the scope of politics, even on the local level. All this to say, I wouldn't read heavily into what Geralt says, so much as examine the broader context.

As far as I've seen into the game, they don't seem to be pulling much of an unreliable narrator thing here. If there's a major theme in this game where we're supposed to be seeing everything that happens through Geralt's skewed interpretation and doubting if that's how events really unfolded, I don't really see it. The Baron's an unreliable narrator, for sure, but I'm really not seeing it for Geralt in the regular events of the game. Even if it was, this seems like a really weird place for them to pull that unreliable narrator business to imply that something different actually happened.

Even so, I'll address your point about the baron. While I agree that the "correct" option is to say that they both share blame, as others have pointed out, you can say in a different section of dialogue that you think he's completely at fault and bypass the whole thing. So, to conclude that the game is sexist because you chose an answer that you thought was sexist doesn't seem very fair to the game.

On that note, I think that the dialogue in question is in fact not at all sexist. I think this is an example of confirmation bias, where there isn't really anything to confirm. For starters, Geralt never says that the wife deserved to be beaten, he says they both are at fault. The text does say "you deserve each other", but I believe the intent is to say "you both suck" which is reinforced by what the character actually does say when you choose that option.

I didn't choose the answer that I thought was sexist, I chose the answer that I thought wasn't, and came to realize that it was the "wrong" choice. You can bypass that section and just not listen to the Baron's side, and sure, you'll condemn him as the sole guilty party, but I find it telling that if Geralt knows the full details, that side becomes invalid. Given that, it seems like the only reason he condoned the actions before was because he didn't know the whole story.

I looked over the video a couple posts ago, and what the "You both deserve each other" dialogue choice expands out to (I didn't know because I didn't choose it in game) is "You're right, you're both in the wrong here." Which basically validates the Baron's interpretation of the situation. Which includes that he hit her because she was goading him into it. Which doesn't absolve him entirely of guilt, but also makes her out to be a responsible party in her own beating.

On that note, I think that your conclusion that she was raped is unfounded. The whole point is that they are both terrible people who are terrible for each other. She not only cheated on him, she stole from him, and then kidnapped his child, and then when he got his child back (in a way that even the game admits is unethical) she mentally and physically abused him. It is entirely possible she still slept with him consensually in between bouts of codependant spousal abuse. It is also possible that this was a case of marital rape, but the game does not say that, so to use that as proof of the games sexism is pretty circular.

That might be your view, but it seems hard for me to believe that she could switch so quickly from trying to kill him or herself for a period of 2 years to "I want you to plant a baby in me" to "I cannot bear that vile monster's child". The last of which was must have been a conscious choice made over a long period of time, since there was a lot of setup towards it. As a general rule, when you hate someone to the extent you try to kill them, you generally don't love them all that much.

I also can't condemn her emotional abuse when she's being forced into marriage with a man who murdered someone she loved. She's using literally every means she can to get away from him, I think it's disingenuous to treat this like it's a marriage in which she's a consensual party. By his admission, they were at their best after this incident when she gave up all hope. After two years or rage, attempts at suicide, murder and escape. A bit of a "rough patch" in their relationship.

To me, the game isn't trying to defend the baron, or the wife. It's trying to show an example of how fucked up the world can be, and show a hard situation with no easy solution. Was the baron wrong to murder the dude who his wife cheated on? Yes, and the game says as much. It also makes no qualms about calling him out on his abuse. In addition to that, we are presented all this in a world very different from our own. Now, it's not explicit on details like this, but given the setting, I would expect many parallels to medieval history. Namely, that marriage meant far more back then, and was much harder to get out of. In the modern day, this situation would be far more easily resolved with a divorce and therapy for the baron. In the setting in which we are given, the husband kind of ran out of any semblance of good options when he murdered the lover.

He could probably divorce her given her infidelity, but not only would she likely kill herself, if she didn't she would be guaranteed to live a short life as a beggar, as no one would marry a woman divorced for infidelity. Given the nature of that society, if you are an unmarried woman, you are either a sorceress, or a beggar. So not only does he not want to do that to her because he actually does love her, but he also wants what's best for his daughter. So, he's trapped by his PTSD, his alcoholism, his love for his wife, and what sounds like a shit ton of spousal abuse from her as well.

Even if this was his thought process, this whole scenario ignores the fact that Anna is an also an independent agent who was robbed of all ability to make her own decisions, and all her power. She had no ability to leave, and was stuck in a marriage with a man she loathes. And the husband wasn't just choosing the best choice for her, she had means to survive, as did Tamara. Tamara was pretty well off in Oxenfort, and Anna could have lived with her (Family?) in the fishing village). Beyond all that, when you're in a situation you'd want to kill yourself to get out of, that seems like a risk worth taking.

Here's where I definitely have a difference of opinion. While he's not excused for beating his wife, his wife is not innocent. Her being physically abused does not give her the right to abuse her husband, just as being abused by his wife doesn't give him the right to abuse her. The reason why "you both suck" is the right option, is because they do both suck. Both had options to prevent things from getting so fucked up, and they both had options to change things once they did get fucked up.

Yeah, I just can't get behind this. You say that the Baron had no options, but Anna was utterly powerless in all of this. She had to dabble in pacts with witches to get any semblance of power over her life. The marriage was in an utter state of disrepair, Anna desperately wanted out, but the Baron would not let her. What would you do in her situation? You absolutely despise the man you're married to, they murdered your lover and fed them to dogs, and they won't let you leave by any means. I'm honestly curious, would you be the loving and doting wife that the Baron wants?

Note that when the Baron gives examples of his wife saying exactly the right things to goad him into beating her, he cites examples such as screaming that he robbed her life of love, and that she destroyed the idea of love to her so that she might as well kill her. This is the sort of thing that he would beat her over. This sounds... completely accurate, and more like someone who's in a terrible state of grieving and depression, than someone trying to emotionally abuse someone else. Why is she supposed to slip all this under the rug?

By the way, thanks for the reply, when I made this topic it's discussions just like these that I was hoping to have. Success has been... mixed.

 

[The Madman]

So since I'm noticing some people in this topic haven't actually played the game or have an incorrect understanding of the events portrayed, here's the story of the Bloody Baron. No guesswork, everything as the game tells it:

-He was a soldier fighting for a nation called Temeria.
-He is injured in battle but survives after being treated by a medic.
-The medic and him fall in love and eventually marry. This is his wife Anna.
-They have a child together, this is their first daughter Tamara.
-The Baron continues as a soldier, but eventually begins to shows signs of PTSD with heavy drinking and wild mood swings.
-His wife becomes unhappy both with his regular absences in war and his issues while at home.
-The wife begins to cheat on the Baron with an old friend while he is away at war.
-She falls in love with the man she's cheating with and announces in a letter she's leaving the Baron and taking their daughter with her.
-The Baron returns from war and discovering his wife's infidelity and absence goes into a rage.
-The Baron finds and kills the wife's lover, violently.
-The wife flies into a rage and begins hitting the Baron, he hits her back for the first time.
-Thus begins the abusive relationship as the Baron is unwilling to let her go and she no longer has anywhere to go.
-The wife, miserable and unhappy, verbally abuses the Baron when he's home and provokes him into a rage where he often hits her.
-A violent cycle is created with their daughter stuck in the middle.
-Eventually Temeria is conquered and the Baron ends up leading a rag-tag group of survivors alongside his wife and child to Velen.
-In Velen the Baron establishes himself as, well, The Bloody Baron and takes control of an abandoned fort.
-No longer a soldier, the Baron begins to dote over his wife and daughter, seemingly eager to re-establish himself in their lives.
-At some point his wife became pregnant for a second time, the Baron is ecstatic thinking this is an opportunity to rebuild.
-His wife is generally unhappy, sometimes resorting to self-harming or attacking the Baron.
-His daughter turns to hardcore religion.
-His drinking problems continue to spiral out of control, fueled by his families unhappiness.
-The wife decides to abort the child, and turns to black magic to do it, making a deal in secret with the Witches of Velen.
-At some point she either regrets or fears the deal she made, as she turns to the Pellar to try and protect herself from the Witches.
-The Pellar gives the wife a magic charm to protect her from the Witches influence.
-Later during a fight between the Baron and his wife the charm is lost.
-The Witches magic takes hold and the wife gives birth to a stillborn child.
-The wife and daughter flee while the Baron is still out of commission from their last fight.
-During their escape the Witches decide to collect payment for their services and send a monster to capture the wife.
-The Baron awakens, finds them gone and the dead child, believes he was the killer and continues his miserable downward spiral.
-The Baron begins to search for his family, putting up posters and sending his men abroad.
-The daughter makes her way to a friend and turns to the Church for help.
-The wife becomes an indebted servant to the Witches and begins to go mad from their cruelty.
-Ciri, Geralts adopted daughter, enters the picture around here and is treated nicely by the Baron before departing.
-Enter Geralt, who is on the trail of Ciri and thus gets involved in this affair when the Baron offers an exchange of information.
-Geralt finds the Barons missing family, leading the Baron to where his wife is being held by the Witches and where they also encounter the daughter who has similar plans, thanks to the aid of her nutty church friends.

Eventually it can end one of two main ways depending on how you played things.

-The wife is driven completely and utterly insane by the actions of the Witches. The Baron, distraught at the realization he helped cause of all this alongside the events leading to this moment, vows to never drink again as he leads his addled wife into the proverbial sunset in the hopes of finding her help.

-The wife dies, albeit not before wishing both her daughter and the Baron farewell. The Baron, overcome with grief from his role in all this and the realization he will never get the happy family he idealized, pays Geralt for his services before returning home and committing suicide.

In both scenario the daughter is led away to join the Church fully and Geralt is given the info he needs to find Ciri. It's also worth noting that with the Baron gone his second in command takes over and becomes a bit of a tyrant, moreso than the Baron was anyway. Raping and looting aplenty with the Baron no longer keeping his ragtag band in check.

No happy endings here.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

*snip*

Good summary. The only thing I would recommend adding is that the wife tries to kill the baron and herself on several occasions. I feel like it's important for the context of lots of this discussion.

Would you mind if I linked to your post in the OP? I feel like it'd be a useful reference for people coming into this thread.

 

[The Madman]

Good summary. The only thing I would recommend adding is that the wife tries to kill the baron and herself on several occasions. I feel like it's important for the context of lots of this discussion.

Would you mind if I linked to your post in the OP? I feel like it'd be a useful reference for people coming into this thread.

Go for it. I edited my post to make your notes a bit more clear.

 

[Joccaren]

I looked over the video a couple posts ago, and what the "You both deserve each other" dialogue choice expands out to (I didn't know because I didn't choose it in game) is "You're right, you're both in the wrong here." Which basically validates the Baron's interpretation of the situation. Which includes that he hit her because she was goading him into it. Which doesn't absolve him entirely of guilt, but also makes her out to be a responsible party in her own beating.

And this is where I find we disagree on the interpretation a bit. It isn't making her a responsible party in her own beating, its saying that they both royally fucked up. It isn't saying that justifies the Baron's beating of her, its saying that she has made her own mistakes. She isn't only a victim, she's also a perpetrator. The Baron is still in the wrong, and its quite telling that no matter what option you pick you still say this, its just in one option you acknowledge that he knows he's in the wrong too, and that his wife isn't an innocent little sunflower either.

I also can't condemn her emotional abuse when she's being forced into marriage with a man who murdered someone she loved. She's using literally every means she can to get away from him, I think it's disingenuous to treat this like it's a marriage in which she's a consensual party. By his admission, they were at their best after this incident when she gave up all hope. After two years or rage, attempts at suicide, murder and escape. A bit of a "rough patch" in their relationship.

Its also the best of her options. Her 'escape' is madness with the witches of the marsh, or starvation and death out in the wilds. Maybe if she's lucky she could be a whore and sell herself to make a living. This ain't the modern world, she stands no chance on her own as a normal woman. Were she a sorceress... Maybe. But she's not. She isn't even at the very least childless. She has a child, and few men in that day and age would want to take on the burden of both.

As for absolving her of her faults because of trauma, the same can be said of the Baron. He had PTSD, and she knew it. Her response? Oh, best dig the knife in as deep I can. She literally picked the worst set of actions she could have out of spite, before and after the flip out. She is a horrible person as much as the Baron is. The Baron beats her, and she beats the Baron, and psychologically abuses him. He at least tries to make things better. Seriously, neither are remotely redeemable or the victim here. Both contributed to their own situation, and both were horrible people to the others in their life.

And sadly, neither of them can really be blamed. Both suffered trauma, and were mostly reacting to that trauma. They just both picked the worst ways to do it.

Even if this was his thought process, this whole scenario ignores the fact that Anna is an also an independent agent who was robbed of all ability to make her own decisions, and all her power. She had no ability to leave, and was stuck in a marriage with a man she loathes. And the husband wasn't just choosing the best choice for her, she had means to survive, as did Tamara. Tamara was pretty well off in Oxenfort, and Anna could have lived with her (Family?) in the fishing village). Beyond all that, when you're in a situation you'd want to kill yourself to get out of, that seems like a risk worth taking.

The game shows you how at times she regretted her decision of basically trading her life for escape and a stillborn. At times, she has hope. At other times, she doesn't. Honestly, both Anna and the Baron are pretty mentally unstable in this story.
Tamara was pretty well off... After becoming devoutly religious and selling her body and soul to the church to be its enforcer. The Baron also didn't necessarily know that they would be accepted by the church, so from his point of view that idea doesn't count.
Family in the fishing village also isn't the most viable solution. Famine and starvation are a real thing, especially during war. Let alone the risks of bandits and raids, if her fishing village family could even support both her and her daughter [Unlikely], she would still be in more danger, and at high risk of suicide, outside.
And outside the Baron's point of view, I get the feeling she probably would have abused her family as well were she to be living with them. Both her and the Baron were mentally unstable, her trauma was causing her to lash out at those around her, I believe outside of Tamara. It would have made life very difficult for her family at the very least.
And again, this is assuming she can, on her own, get through all the drowners and nekkers and forest beasts to get to that village. Pretty unlikely.

Yeah, I just can't get behind this. You say that the Baron had no options, but Anna was utterly powerless in all of this. She had to dabble in pacts with witches to get any semblance of power over her life. The marriage was in an utter state of disrepair, Anna desperately wanted out, but the Baron would not let her. What would you do in her situation? You absolutely despise the man you're married to, they murdered your lover and fed them to dogs, and they won't let you leave by any means. I'm honestly curious, would you be the loving and doting wife that the Baron wants?

Ok, let me try this. You're being held hostage by ISIS, and you can't escape. Would you yell and scream abuse at them until they shoot you?
No. She made a bad situation worse. Eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. You don't need to be the loving doting wife, you just need to not hurl abuse and shit at your partner.
And yeah, she tried to kill herself. The Baron is at his wits end to, on the verge of doing so. Note when he loses Anna, he kills himself. Both are trying to escape killing themselves. Both have suffered serious trauma, the Baron at war and Anna at home. If anything, the Baron is more sympathetic here for wanting to make amends for what he knows were bad actions. Anna simply wants to dig the dagger deeper and cause as much pain as she can when going out... Except when she decides she actually doesn't. Her moods are up and down - as shown by the fact she tried to avoid the stillbirth and Witch contract by going to the Pellar. I think at times she realised that she could have a much better life than she was leading, but at other times the trauma and stress got to her - same as it did the Baron.

I mean, not that you'd expect someone to do this, but Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years and had no control over his life. Did he plot the downfall of the white man, and come to power to persecute and punish them? No, he sat peacefully, and campaigned for equality and peace. He made the most of his situation. Even those who didn't manage the success that he did, even when wrongly imprisoned, many make the most of the lives they can. Anna didn't. Yeah, trauma, but she made the worst possible choices in her life afterwards. Kind of reminiscent of the Baron himself, who made really bad choices after suffering trauma.

Note that when the Baron gives examples of his wife saying exactly the right things to goad him into beating her, he cites examples such as screaming that he robbed her life of love, and that she destroyed the idea of love to her so that she might as well kill her. This is the sort of thing that he would beat her over. This sounds... completely accurate, and more like someone who's in a terrible state of grieving and depression, than someone trying to emotionally abuse someone else. Why is she supposed to slip all this under the rug?

Honestly, we need a lot more information that just this. His family and his love for them is very important to the Baron. It IS his life. Note, that when he loses his family, he kills himself. That's how important it is to him.
I don't know whether early on the Baron tried to help Anna through the grief and pain, but from the regret he's shown, I'd say he probably did. Anna threw it back in his face and, knowing how much he cared about her and her happiness, made a deliberate point of pointing out to him how much he hurt her there. As you note, this is 2 years later. Yeah, some trauma lasts for ages, but continuing those exact same lines for 2-3 years is... unlikely. Especially if he has tried to help her through it. It makes it seem she didn't want help, just to keep hurting as a means of catharsis. Hell, even if it was just grieving, surely after 2-3 years your common sense would tell you "This sends him into a fit, don't do it". In doing it, she was intentionally sending him into that fit - she had 2 years experience to go off.

Note that paraphrasing is also a thing. You can word things like the Baron did, or she could have worded it a lot more viscously. And regardless of the merit in words, when they're mired in hate they hurt.

Basically, its a case of two mentally ill people living together and abusing the shit out of each other. Its just not pretty, and you're not given the option to vindicate anyone but his wife, even if it is before you find out all the information.


I also fail to see how, even if you're right, this is sexist. It would be sexist if it said this is only this way because she's a girl, but say we flipped it around: The Baron's wife went off to war, Baron cheated on her, she killed his wife and abused him for years, and the most we can say is she shouldn't have given him the option to cheat. Would that be sexist against guys? Hell, honestly it sounds sexist against girls because they should just be good wives and not go away and let their husbands cheat. Ignoring that, no, it doesn't sound sexist.
Its potentially victim blaming, but I don't see it as sexist. Its not making any statement about gender, its simply examining a situation with two people who abused each other, and Geralt is giving his opinion on that.

 

[Clockwerkman]

As far as I've seen into the game, they don't seem to be pulling much of an unreliable narrator thing here. If there's a major theme in this game where we're supposed to be seeing everything that happens through Geralt's skewed interpretation and doubting if that's how events really unfolded, I don't really see it. The Baron's an unreliable narrator, for sure, but I'm really not seeing it for Geralt in the regular events of the game. Even if it was, this seems like a really weird place for them to pull that unreliable narrator business to imply that something different actually happened.

Unreliable narrator was perhaps the wrong choice of words. By that I mean, I think Geralt's view of morality and his moral decision making are not necessarily the same as the viewers. I disagree with the guy from before, as I do think Geralt does what he thinks is right more often than not, but I do think he is intended to be a member of the society in which he exists, with all that entails, albeit a progressive one.

I didn't choose the answer that I thought was sexist, I chose the answer that I thought wasn't, and came to realize that it was the "wrong" choice. You can bypass that section and just not listen to the Baron's side, and sure, you'll condemn him as the sole guilty party, but I find it telling that if Geralt knows the full details, that side becomes invalid. Given that, it seems like the only reason he condoned the actions before was because he didn't know the whole story.

I looked over the video a couple posts ago, and what the "You both deserve each other" dialogue choice expands out to (I didn't know because I didn't choose it in game) is "You're right, you're both in the wrong here." Which basically validates the Baron's interpretation of the situation. Which includes that he hit her because she was goading him into it. Which doesn't absolve him entirely of guilt, but also makes her out to be a responsible party in her own beating.

There's an important distinction between "you are in the wrong" and "you are responsible for". That I think, is the hangup here. If the baron is to be believed, Anna went out of her way to torment a mentally ill individual. My take on the situation is that Anna hated the baron more than she cared about being "free". Partially for the reasons I talked about before, but also because she could have escaped at any point in the past after her lover was killed. We know this, because the baron was described as constantly drunk, and she did escape when she needed to (won't say why she did,because spoilers). From this, I draw the conclusion that she did purposefully goad him into beating her. She did it because after her lover died, all she had left was her hate for her husband, and she knew that goading him into it while he was drunk was one of the best ways to torment him.

On the other hand, the baron is DEFINITELY an unreliable narrator, so it's possible that he was projecting. That being said, the bits with Ciri, as well as information you get later makes me think that he's at least not outright lying.

I also can't condemn her emotional abuse when she's being forced into marriage with a man who murdered someone she loved. She's using literally every means she can to get away from him, I think it's disingenuous to treat this like it's a marriage in which she's a consensual party. By his admission, they were at their best after this incident when she gave up all hope. After two years or rage, attempts at suicide, murder and escape. A bit of a "rough patch" in their relationship.

I definitely still can. A moral imperative shouldn't change based on circumstance. I could and do see it as a mitigating factor, but we wouldn't say she would be justified in murdering him, so why would it be okay to torture him?

On that note though, my thoughts on the whole concept of abuse are not settled. For example, if a man uses "fighting words" on another, the other guy (depending on jurisdiction of course) could be totally legally justified in throwing a punch. If we are all on the topic of sexism, why would that change if it was a woman? Or in the context of marriage?

I definitely see and get the difference in power dynamic, but I still don't think that justifies abuse, or disqualifies the anger of the baron. I'm not saying I think he's absolved of any guilt by the way. I think that responding with violence is worst of all possible options in every circumstance, hence my stance that they both suck.

Even if this was his thought process, this whole scenario ignores the fact that Anna is an also an independent agent who was robbed of all ability to make her own decisions, and all her power. She had no ability to leave, and was stuck in a marriage with a man she loathes. And the husband wasn't just choosing the best choice for her, she had means to survive, as did Tamara. Tamara was pretty well off in Oxenfort, and Anna could have lived with her (Family?) in the fishing village). Beyond all that, when you're in a situation you'd want to kill yourself to get out of, that seems like a risk worth taking.

Here's where I definitely have a difference of opinion. While he's not excused for beating his wife, his wife is not innocent. Her being physically abused does not give her the right to abuse her husband, just as being abused by his wife doesn't give him the right to abuse her. The reason why "you both suck" is the right option, is because they do both suck. Both had options to prevent things from getting so fucked up, and they both had options to change things once they did get fucked up.

Yeah, I just can't get behind this. You say that the Baron had no options, but Anna was utterly powerless in all of this. She had to dabble in pacts with witches to get any semblance of power over her life. The marriage was in an utter state of disrepair, Anna desperately wanted out, but the Baron would not let her. What would you do in her situation? You absolutely despise the man you're married to, they murdered your lover and fed them to dogs, and they won't let you leave by any means. I'm honestly curious, would you be the loving and doting wife that the Baron wants?

See, I don't agree that she was robbed of all her agency, for the reasons stated above. In addition you are correct, she could have moved back in with her family, or had her family help her get away. She had options the entire time, and didn't use them. I suppose you could argue that fear prevented her, or that the baron was lying about everything,but given that his testimony, the part with Ciri, and things with the quest resolution are all the game gives us on the situation, I would tend towards believing that Anna was not so powerless.

As far as what I would do in her situation? Well for starters, I wouldn't cheat on him for three years, then steal from him and kidnap his daughter. Assuming I already had, and the lover already got dead? I would attempt to get a divorce, if that universe has them. If not, I'd run away and leave the daughter with him. It was pretty well established that he never touched a hair on his daughters head, so I know she'd be safe, and better off with him than with me.

Note that when the Baron gives examples of his wife saying exactly the right things to goad him into beating her, he cites examples such as screaming that he robbed her life of love, and that she destroyed the idea of love to her so that she might as well kill her. This is the sort of thing that he would beat her over. This sounds... completely accurate, and more like someone who's in a terrible state of grieving and depression, than someone trying to emotionally abuse someone else. Why is she supposed to slip all this under the rug?

By the way, thanks for the reply, when I made this topic it's discussions just like these that I was hoping to have. Success has been... mixed.

I got more the impression that she said things far more hurtful than that. I'd point to his experience with Ciri that he doesn't have a hair trigger that bad. I guess it's kind of up for interpretation. That being said, that it's so up to interpretation makes me bring it full circle to point out that the game itself doesn't strike me as sexist.

No problem! I love having discussions like this. I've studied philosophy for quite some time, so I find conversations like this to be very entertaining. It can take me a lot of typing before I figure out what I want to say, but I like to think I make a cogent point or two in all the pages of text Thanks for being so level headed in return! I know how easy it can be to lose your cool in a discussion, much less one on the internet.

 

[Amaror]

This isn't just about one line being poorly written, this is what that line says about how this scenario was intended to be viewed. And it's well beyond just that one line, it's just that one line I think gives the best impression of the take they had on the situation. After the whole truth came out, they didn't see it any way besides "They're both at fault". If they had, they'd have found a justification that they themselves didn't think was bull for the second dialogue option.

They certainly weren't trying to portray domestic abuse as totally justified and noble, but the way things come across they were trying to portray the situation in the way that Politrukk interpreted it. That through cheating on him, and verbally abusing him, she brought it upon herself. Maybe slightly less harsh

Which again, is purely your interpretation based on a single line of dialogue. I always love it when people are psychic enough to know exactly what the developers were thinking during development based on a single line of dialogue or some similar bs.
You are saying that geralts "You are still at fault" line is indefensible. I don't think so. In the context of the conversation the bloody baron had just brought up the following arguments to his defense:
. She had cheated on me and was trying to leave me
. That lead to a situation were I killed her lover
. That lead to many more situations were she tried to kill me, forcing me to beat her in self-defense.
That's a line of reasoning which puts the cheating part on the top of the chain of events. The argumentation is that if the wife hadn't cheated on him, none of the other horrible stuff would have happened. The majourity of horrible events was still performed by the bloody baron, but this line of reasoning puts the wife as the source of all the horrible things that happened after.
Now geralts argument is that the bloody baron is also at fault for his cheating wife, since he was not a good husband from his alcohol abuse and was always away on long campaigns. While not a really good reason to damn someone in and of itself, this puts the bloody baron as the cause for his cheating wife. Meaning that, in the end, the bloody baron is the source for the chain of horrible events happening. This absolves his wife for causing the chain of horrible events and puts the vast majourity of the blame back on him.

I just want to express how much I hate discussions like this. This is the reason why we get so many cooky-cutter, black-and white, good vs. evil stories from AAA titles nowadays. Because as soon as you make something morally ambiguous you have discussions like this popping up, calling the developers sexist, racist or whatever other -ist is in at the moment. You say that you generally like how three-dimensional the bloody baron character is, but at the same time you make massive stretches into convincing youself what the developers MUST have thought during development and what the CLEARLY only right dialogue choice in this situation must be in order to cry sexism.

 

[Clockwerkman]

Seriously, neither are remotely redeemable or the victim here. Both contributed to their own situation, and both were horrible people to the others in their life.

I agree with everything in your post, except the above. I think

Spoiler

The ending where you let him seek the wise man in the mountains shows hope for redemption for both of them. Whether or not they get that redemption is one thing, but I don't think they're irredeemable.

I think the above is a great point or supporting TW3 as immensely more humanist than sexist.

Seriously though, your post was really on point. You said everything I meant to in a really clear and concise way

 

[DementedSheep]

I looked over the video a couple posts ago, and what the "You both deserve each other" dialogue choice expands out to (I didn't know because I didn't choose it in game) is "You're right, you're both in the wrong here." Which basically validates the Baron's interpretation of the situation. Which includes that he hit her because she was goading him into it. Which doesn't absolve him entirely of guilt, but also makes her out to be a responsible party in her own beating.

And this is where I find we disagree on the interpretation a bit. It isn't making her a responsible party in her own beating, its saying that they both royally fucked up. It isn't saying that justifies the Baron's beating of her, its saying that she has made her own mistakes. She isn't only a victim, she's also a perpetrator. The Baron is still in the wrong, and its quite telling that no matter what option you pick you still say this, its just in one option you acknowledge that he knows he's in the wrong too, and that his wife isn't an innocent little sunflower either.

I also can't condemn her emotional abuse when she's being forced into marriage with a man who murdered someone she loved. She's using literally every means she can to get away from him, I think it's disingenuous to treat this like it's a marriage in which she's a consensual party. By his admission, they were at their best after this incident when she gave up all hope. After two years or rage, attempts at suicide, murder and escape. A bit of a "rough patch" in their relationship.

Its also the best of her options. Her 'escape' is madness with the witches of the marsh, or starvation and death out in the wilds. Maybe if she's lucky she could be a whore and sell herself to make a living. This ain't the modern world, she stands no chance on her own as a normal woman. Were she a sorceress... Maybe. But she's not. She isn't even at the very least childless. She has a child, and few men in that day and age would want to take on the burden of both.

As for absolving her of her faults because of trauma, the same can be said of the Baron. He had PTSD, and she knew it. Her response? Oh, best dig the knife in as deep I can. She literally picked the worst set of actions she could have out of spite, before and after the flip out. She is a horrible person as much as the Baron is. The Baron beats her, and she beats the Baron, and psychologically abuses him. He at least tries to make things better. Seriously, neither are remotely redeemable or the victim here. Both contributed to their own situation, and both were horrible people to the others in their life.

And sadly, neither of them can really be blamed. Both suffered trauma, and were mostly reacting to that trauma. They just both picked the worst ways to do it.

Even if this was his thought process, this whole scenario ignores the fact that Anna is an also an independent agent who was robbed of all ability to make her own decisions, and all her power. She had no ability to leave, and was stuck in a marriage with a man she loathes. And the husband wasn't just choosing the best choice for her, she had means to survive, as did Tamara. Tamara was pretty well off in Oxenfort, and Anna could have lived with her (Family?) in the fishing village). Beyond all that, when you're in a situation you'd want to kill yourself to get out of, that seems like a risk worth taking.

The game shows you how at times she regretted her decision of basically trading her life for escape and a stillborn. At times, she has hope. At other times, she doesn't. Honestly, both Anna and the Baron are pretty mentally unstable in this story.
Tamara was pretty well off... After becoming devoutly religious and selling her body and soul to the church to be its enforcer. The Baron also didn't necessarily know that they would be accepted by the church, so from his point of view that idea doesn't count.
Family in the fishing village also isn't the most viable solution. Famine and starvation are a real thing, especially during war. Let alone the risks of bandits and raids, if her fishing village family could even support both her and her daughter [Unlikely], she would still be in more danger, and at high risk of suicide, outside.
And outside the Baron's point of view, I get the feeling she probably would have abused her family as well were she to be living with them. Both her and the Baron were mentally unstable, her trauma was causing her to lash out at those around her, I believe outside of Tamara. It would have made life very difficult for her family at the very least.
And again, this is assuming she can, on her own, get through all the drowners and nekkers and forest beasts to get to that village. Pretty unlikely.

Yeah, I just can't get behind this. You say that the Baron had no options, but Anna was utterly powerless in all of this. She had to dabble in pacts with witches to get any semblance of power over her life. The marriage was in an utter state of disrepair, Anna desperately wanted out, but the Baron would not let her. What would you do in her situation? You absolutely despise the man you're married to, they murdered your lover and fed them to dogs, and they won't let you leave by any means. I'm honestly curious, would you be the loving and doting wife that the Baron wants?

Ok, let me try this. You're being held hostage by ISIS, and you can't escape. Would you yell and scream abuse at them until they shoot you?
No. She made a bad situation worse. Eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. You don't need to be the loving doting wife, you just need to not hurl abuse and shit at your partner.
And yeah, she tried to kill herself. The Baron is at his wits end to, on the verge of doing so. Note when he loses Anna, he kills himself. Both are trying to escape killing themselves. Both have suffered serious trauma, the Baron at war and Anna at home. If anything, the Baron is more sympathetic here for wanting to make amends for what he knows were bad actions. Anna simply wants to dig the dagger deeper and cause as much pain as she can when going out... Except when she decides she actually doesn't. Her moods are up and down - as shown by the fact she tried to avoid the stillbirth and Witch contract by going to the Pellar. I think at times she realised that she could have a much better life than she was leading, but at other times the trauma and stress got to her - same as it did the Baron.

I mean, not that you'd expect someone to do this, but Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years and had no control over his life. Did he plot the downfall of the white man, and come to power to persecute and punish them? No, he sat peacefully, and campaigned for equality and peace. He made the most of his situation. Even those who didn't manage the success that he did, even when wrongly imprisoned, many make the most of the lives they can. Anna didn't. Yeah, trauma, but she made the worst possible choices in her life afterwards. Kind of reminiscent of the Baron himself, who made really bad choices after suffering trauma.

Note that when the Baron gives examples of his wife saying exactly the right things to goad him into beating her, he cites examples such as screaming that he robbed her life of love, and that she destroyed the idea of love to her so that she might as well kill her. This is the sort of thing that he would beat her over. This sounds... completely accurate, and more like someone who's in a terrible state of grieving and depression, than someone trying to emotionally abuse someone else. Why is she supposed to slip all this under the rug?

Honestly, we need a lot more information that just this. His family and his love for them is very important to the Baron. It IS his life. Note, that when he loses his family, he kills himself. That's how important it is to him.
I don't know whether early on the Baron tried to help Anna through the grief and pain, but from the regret he's shown, I'd say he probably did. Anna threw it back in his face and, knowing how much he cared about her and her happiness, made a deliberate point of pointing out to him how much he hurt her there. As you note, this is 2 years later. Yeah, some trauma lasts for ages, but continuing those exact same lines for 2-3 years is... unlikely. Especially if he has tried to help her through it. It makes it seem she didn't want help, just to keep hurting as a means of catharsis. Hell, even if it was just grieving, surely after 2-3 years your common sense would tell you "This sends him into a fit, don't do it". In doing it, she was intentionally sending him into that fit - she had 2 years experience to go off.

Note that paraphrasing is also a thing. You can word things like the Baron did, or she could have worded it a lot more viscously. And regardless of the merit in words, when they're mired in hate they hurt.

Basically, its a case of two mentally ill people living together and abusing the shit out of each other. Its just not pretty, and you're not given the option to vindicate anyone but his wife, even if it is before you find out all the information.


I also fail to see how, even if you're right, this is sexist. It would be sexist if it said this is only this way because she's a girl, but say we flipped it around: The Baron's wife went off to war, Baron cheated on her, she killed his wife and abused him for years, and the most we can say is she shouldn't have given him the option to cheat. Would that be sexist against guys? Hell, honestly it sounds sexist against girls because they should just be good wives and not go away and let their husbands cheat. Ignoring that, no, it doesn't sound sexist.
Its potentially victim blaming, but I don't see it as sexist. Its not making any statement about gender, its simply examining a situation with two people who abused each other, and Geralt is giving his opinion on that.

FFS, he killed someone who was her friend and who she was in love with at the time and yet you seem think she should be over that because it's been a few years. Of course she's not going to be over it, especially not after being forced to live with the murderer. Tried to help her through the grief and she threw back in his face? No shit, if someone murders you're partner or a close relative are you going to graciously accept their help? I doubt it unless you're the most submissive and non confrontational person in existence. Considering he's calls her behaviour "hysteria" (with with the way it is said and the time setting he probably means the historical version of hysteria ie: it's her womb that's the issue) I doubt his "help" would have been positive even if wasn't the source of the problem.

 

[chadachada123]

Given the summation a few posts above, I'm really quite confused as to how killing the adultee is some huge horrible thing, if he knew that she was already married. Everything before that showed the Baron being a bad, PTSD-ridden husband, and the cheating itself showed the wife to be a bad wife. Both of them are shitbags. "You belong together" is the absolute right response.

Infidelity is right up there with physical abuse (which, according to The Madman, both parties committed in large quantities AFTER the cheating/killing) for worst possible things you could do to your spouse, so I'm really not seeing any room for sympathizing with either party. Rather, both are slightly sympathetic but far more disgusting and immoral.

 

[Amaror]

Given the summation a few posts above, I'm really quite confused as to how killing the adultee is some huge horrible thing, if he knew that she was already married.

Well people tend to frown more upon murder than adultery. Crazy, I know.
That being said seducing the wife of a known war veteran with PTST and an alcohol problem is a monumentarily stupid thing to do.

 

[EternallyBored]

Given the summation a few posts above, I'm really quite confused as to how killing the adultee is some huge horrible thing, if he knew that she was already married. Everything before that showed the Baron being a bad, PTSD-ridden husband, and the cheating itself showed the wife to be a bad wife. Both of them are shitbags. "You belong together" is the absolute right response.

Infidelity is right up there with physical abuse (which, according to The Madman, both parties committed in large quantities AFTER the cheating/killing) for worst possible things you could do to your spouse, so I'm really not seeing any room for sympathizing with either party. Rather, both are slightly sympathetic but far more disgusting and immoral.

By pretty much every modern standard infidelity is nowhere near physical abuse, its still bad, but its generally much more frowned upon to physically abuse your partner than it is to cheat on them. Infidelity will get you unfavorable court rulings in a divorce, physical abuse gets you jail time, the level of physical abuse the Baron used would get you 20+ years in any current day court.

Also, according to The Madman, and from what I remember of the game, the Baron was becoming abusive before she cheated on him, I'm not sure how her getting fed up with his abuse makes her in any way equivalent to his own issues. Even by the standards of the time, her choices were basically to either put up with the abuse or run away, she chose the later in a fairly typical method for the time.

In the context of the time the game is based on, there was no real method of divorce, it wasn't like today where you can legally leave someone that you don't love anymore, running away with someone else you fell in love with is about the closest thing to a divorce any non-noble was going to get. What she did was stupid and dangerous in the context of the game, running away from a military officer with their child would be seen as disgraceful at best, and in the midst of war it would be pretty standard for someone like the Baron to get away with whatever he wanted, including murdering the man she cheated with.

She never had a choice, or the recourse to legally leave him and pursue any other relationship, so she was left in an abusive loveless marriage, and that's before she ever cheated on him. She was pushed to terrible actions on her own end, but I fail to see them as equivalent, by the end he was pretty much her jailer.

The game even has the Baron start to acknowledge that the whole thing was pretty much his fault by the time he's riding off to the swamps to try and retrieve her, while the line Aardvark is complaining about is clunky, other dialogue trees make it pretty clear that the Baron still has the lion's share of the blame, the infidelity is a side note compared to the routine murder attempts, constant beatings, and Anna selling herself off to the Witches.

 

[Amaror]

Also, according to The Madman, and from what I remember of the game, the Baron was becoming abusive before she cheated on him, I'm not sure how her getting fed up with his abuse makes her in any way equivalent to his own issues. Even by the standards of the time, her choices were basically to either put up with the abuse or run away, she chose the later in a fairly typical method for the time.

Here I have to interject that that's false.
The bloody baron specifically says that the first time he hit her was when she tried to kill him after he killed her lover.
Additionally he says that the only times he ever hit her were when she tried to kill him or herself afterwards.
Though I do agree that physical abuse and murder is a lot worse than adultery.

 

[EternallyBored]

Also, according to The Madman, and from what I remember of the game, the Baron was becoming abusive before she cheated on him, I'm not sure how her getting fed up with his abuse makes her in any way equivalent to his own issues. Even by the standards of the time, her choices were basically to either put up with the abuse or run away, she chose the later in a fairly typical method for the time.

Here I have to interject that that's false.
The bloody baron specifically says that the first time he hit her was when she tried to kill him after he killed her lover.
Additionally he says that the only times he ever hit her were when she tried to kill him or herself afterwards.
Though I do agree that physical abuse and murder is a lot worse than adultery.

By abusive I mean verbally and/or emotionally, before the cheating anyway, perhaps I should have been clearer, per the game he was coming back from campaigns and starting to become aggressive and violent while drinking, while he says he never hit her he makes it obvious that it was more than just him being gone that killed their relationship. The details are vague, but the game does suggest that he was not pleasant to be around when he was home, even before she cheated on him.

You are right that the hitting and beating came later, and he tries to justify himself, although it largely rings hollow to me as the entire reason she keeps trying to kill him is because he won't let her leave.

 

[Amaror]

You are right that the hitting and beating came later, and he tries to justify himself, although it largely rings hollow to me as the entire reason she keeps trying to kill him is because he won't let her leave.

Are you really sure that she was really unable to leave? She seemed to have no problem meeting with the crones, which are quite far out btw., concerning her pregnancy to hatch her plan that led her ultimately escape with her daughter and the help of the crones monster.
The way I interpreted it was that the reason she didn't leave was that she didn't really had a reason to live after her lover was killed by the baron.
She had her daughter but it's pretty clear that, while her daughter hates the baron, he never mistreated or hurt her in any way. So getting her daughter out was no reason to live for her. And the real only goal she had left was to indulge in her hatred of the baron. It's why she emotionally abused him and, when he kept keeping her from killing herself, tried to get him to kill her. Because she knew that if he killed her, the memory would torment him.
Basically her only reason to keep living was to torment the baron, which is why she didn't leave sooner. But when she realized that she was pregnant again, she ran away in order to not bear him another child. She didn't bear the thought of making him happy by bearing him another child.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Snip

Just a few thoughts in relation to this...

1. You talk about the "correct" viewing of the situation, or how the game wants you to view the situation. The game has a single view of the Baron...condemnatory. He is the transgressor. Geralt beats the man savagely, and your resolution of his quest line results in either his exile/penance or suicide. There is no "Pro Baron" outcome.

2. Similarly, Anna is positioned as a victim. At utmost stretch, you can direct Geralt to suggest she had some culpability in the escalation of their marital discord. Like every character in The Witcher, Anna is a flawed person. She makes rash and sometimes foolish decisions, to great personal cost. Recognizing that she could have handled things better in no way suggests she is any LESS a victim of domestic abuse, and it does not absolve the Baron of his actions. Neither the player...through Geralt...or the narrative ever absolves the Baron. Anna comes to an unhappy end, but that is via her trafficking with dark powers, a consistent background theme in all the Witcher games. It is never suggested that Anna earned this outcome, and the mechanisms of the quest line has the player pulling out all the stops to save her.

3. Those two points being established, I'm curious what definition of "sexist" you're applying here. What options do we have?

* Remove complexity from the Baron's character so he's portrayed as cartoonishly evil, to make his monstrous actions more palatable and easy to digest?
* Remove complexity from Anna's character, so she's portrayed as a unilateral and helpless victim...more plot element than person...who had no agency or participation in the circumstances of her own peril?
* Have Geralt deliver a tone, setting or character inappropriate soliloquy about the moral decrepitude of domestic violence, rather than simply expressing it through barely contained disgust and physical violence?

What changes make this story line more palatable, and less "sexist"? Should games simply never touch on such emotionally charged issues, leaving them to the more "mature" artistic mediums and concerning themselves primarily with more light-hearted recreational fare?

Naturally I support your right to issue the charge if you think it's warranted, I just find it surprising (and, if honest, not terribly well substantiated). The Witcher series had has some stumbles in the past with representation of women, but Witcher 3 featured some of the most complex, interesting, well written, powerful and robust female characters in the history of the medium. It's unparalleled in terms of giving non-protagonist female characters agency and importance. It makes strong statements about a variety of social issues, and often manages to do so in a non-polemic fashion...instead weaving them organically into the narrative. It's not a perfect game, and it's far from being beyond criticism, I'm just often confused at the rate it comes under fire for "sexism". I understand part of the reason for that is there are tits in it, and we're still dealing with "tits = sexism" to some degree (and for some unknown reason). I'm not suggesting that's what's happening here. Just...really? That's your takeaway from this game? That it's sexist? This game?

 

[EvilRoy]

Given the summation a few posts above, I'm really quite confused as to how killing the adultee is some huge horrible thing, if he knew that she was already married.

Well people tend to frown more upon murder than adultery. Crazy, I know.
That being said seducing the wife of a known war veteran with PTST and an alcohol problem is a monumentarily stupid thing to do.

It used to actually be legal in a lot of places to murder an adulterer if you caught them in the act with your wife. Until the 70's in Texas I think. It was actually considered as part of 'defending your home' wherein the sanctity of your home was under attack by the adulterer.

As to the topic... having read the summary of events I have a hard time disagreeing that both aren't terrible people. It would be one thing if the Baron was always the bad guy and the wife was always the victim, but there was a pretty clear tit-for-tat escalation going on, which only came to a head at the height of the adultery. The baron could be reasoned to be more culpable I suppose, as the one who 'started it' by having ptsd, and who performed the ultimate escalation by murdering his wife's lover, but really it seems that there was nothing specific that was keeping the wife from running at any time. Indeed, I would have expected her to just bail with her lover at the first opportunity rather than wait around for her husband to find out.

 

[WeepingAngels]

If you have to kill overwhelmingly more of one gender than the other, I would call that sexist. I haven't played this game though.