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.
From what I remember it's never stated where she met the crones, they aren't limited to the swamp and while its the seat of their power, the games claim they have influence over the whole region including the fort where the baron is located. The fort itself has a shrine dedicated to the crones that Anna built in secret, and the crones are perfectly capable of communicating and casting magic remotely as seen in the swamp where they communicate through a painting. I don't think it's stated anywhere that you actually have to go to the swamp to make deals with the crones, with the severed ears they can hear the pleas of anyone in the area and are capable of infiltrating through shape shifting. I find it more likely that Anna made the deal with the crones either in or nearby the fort and not anywhere near the swamp.
As for her not being able to leave, the game shows us very clearly exactly what lengths the baron goes to when he does think she has run away. He floods the region with wanted posters, offers a bounty, and regularly sends his own men out to find her. He has no idea about the crones and while he tries to hide it as a kidnapping, he admits to Geralt that he knows she ran away under her own power, so there's no reason to suspect that his response would have been any different if she had actually run away at any other point. He even hires Geralt to look for her and at the beginning only wants their location as he fully intends to send his men out to force her to come back, that seems to be part of why his daughter seeks out the church as their soldiers can protect her from being forced back.
It seems to me that while she wasn't locked up, she knew full well that the baron would hunt her down if she left, he proved it once before the first time she ran away with the other man, there's no reason to think he wouldn't just hunt her down and force her back if she tried it again.
As someone who read all of Witcher books, I can only say that... I'm absolutely, positively, 100% not surprised by your descriptions. Also, this was (and still is) my #1 reason why I'm not interested in playing Witcher games (saw beginning of Witcher 2 - in which he wakes up next to bum-naked Triss).
In books Geralt is constantly portrayed as grumpy alpha-male, that gets his bones jumped by any woman he comes in contact with. After a point it gets ridiculous really. Especially since he is not all that interesting. Oh yeah - he is a badass that gets shit done, but not much else. Kind of like old Solid Snake, only without rivalries... and more grumpy.
As someone who read all of Witcher books, I can only say that... I'm absolutely, positively, 100% not surprised by your descriptions. Also, this was (and still is) my #1 reason why I'm not interested in playing Witcher games (saw beginning of Witcher 2 - in which he wakes up next to bum-naked Triss).
In books Geralt is constantly portrayed as grumpy alpha-male, that gets his bones jumped by any woman he comes in contact with. After a point it gets ridiculous really. Especially since he is not all that interesting. Oh yeah - he is a badass that gets shit done, but not much else. Kind of like old Solid Snake, only without rivalries... and more grumpy.
From what I remember it's never stated where she met the crones, they aren't limited to the swamp and while its the seat of their power, the games claim they have influence over the whole region including the fort where the baron is located. The fort itself has a shrine dedicated to the crones that Anna built in secret, and the crones are perfectly capable of communicating and casting magic remotely as seen in the swamp where they communicate through a painting. I don't think it's stated anywhere that you actually have to go to the swamp to make deals with the crones, with the severed ears they can hear the pleas of anyone in the area and are capable of infiltrating through shape shifting. I find it more likely that Anna made the deal with the crones either in or nearby the fort and not anywhere near the swamp.
As for her not being able to leave, the game shows us very clearly exactly what lengths the baron goes to when he does think she has run away. He floods the region with wanted posters, offers a bounty, and regularly sends his own men out to find her. He has no idea about the crones and while he tries to hide it as a kidnapping, he admits to Geralt that he knows she ran away under her own power, so there's no reason to suspect that his response would have been any different if she had actually run away at any other point. He even hires Geralt to look for her and at the beginning only wants their location as he fully intends to send his men out to force her to come back, that seems to be part of why his daughter seeks out the church as their soldiers can protect her from being forced back.
It seems to me that while she wasn't locked up, she knew full well that the baron would hunt her down if she left, he proved it once before the first time she ran away with the other man, there's no reason to think he wouldn't just hunt her down and force her back if she tried it again.
Hmm, maybe.
I still interpreted it differently. There's no way to really know for sure what happened since the bloody baron isn't exactly and impartial witness and there isn't actually any chance in the game to have a nice long conversation with the wife about all of this.
As someone who read all of Witcher books, I can only say that... I'm absolutely, positively, 100% not surprised by your descriptions. Also, this was (and still is) my #1 reason why I'm not interested in playing Witcher games (saw beginning of Witcher 2 - in which he wakes up next to bum-naked Triss).
In books Geralt is constantly portrayed as grumpy alpha-male, that gets his bones jumped by any woman he comes in contact with. After a point it gets ridiculous really. Especially since he is not all that interesting. Oh yeah - he is a badass that gets shit done, but not much else. Kind of like old Solid Snake, only without rivalries... and more grumpy.
It should be pretty obvious that the Witcher's target audience is heterosexual males, giving them a platform to play out their fantasies as a badass sword-wielding monster slayer who gets to bang hot chicks left and right as they fawn over him. Hell, he's even coincidentally sterile and and can't contract diseases, so he can whore around like Austin Powers without having to worry about unwanted pregnancies or passengers.
So yeah, it's going to be a little sexist. Duh. It's intentional. If people are not in the target audience and don't like it, I wish they would just do like ^^^this poster and play other games that ARE targeted at them instead of expecting every game to conform to their delicate sensibilities.
That said, Witcher 3 does make an effort to avoid criticism from the SJW's. There is...
... a cross dresser, a female master armorer, and a potential female king of their viking society.
And the sorceresses are all very "alpha" personalities, so even though they may be promiscuous and look like super models, they're no bimbos.
The Witcher is not alone in this (Game of Thrones, anyone?) but it makes for some tedious "Fantasy", when no author can ever imagine a world where women could be equal to men, apparently.
As something mostly unrelated, if you enjoy fantasy novels and can get into a fairly complex world that gives essentially zero exposition and just expects you to figure things out on your own, I highly recommend checking out the Malazan Book of the Fallen. The series follows a huge variety of characters, many of whom are strong women. This fantasy world, more than any other I can think of, treats men and women quite equally. The Malazan empire that you mainly follow is quite progressive in this. It's ruled by an Empress and many of her top commanders are women too. There are plenty of female marines (basically an extremely flexible group of medium infantry) who kick just as much ass as their male comrades. Not only that, many of the most powerful beings in the series are female. There's an Elder Goddess who takes great joy in smashing the skulls of dragons with her bare fists (she's rather gigantic). There are women you'll admire, women who will make you laugh, and women who you'll come to despise. In short, a woman can do all the things a man can in this world, and it's not even addressed because it's a societal norm. There are some various tribes and minor peoples that are more in line with fantasy tropes, but these are the exceptions, not the norm.
The series can be quite tough to get into though, and the first book was written 10 years before the next, so the author improves quite a bit in his writing in the next books. Plus, there are a couple minor inconsistencies with characters and the timeline (but I think people only really notice this on subsequent read-throughs). Best of all, the main series is finished. 10 books longs, all of which are around the 1000 page mark, and all of which (so far) have been quite good. I've found it to be a breath of fresh air when compared to most other things in the fantasy genre.
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
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
There is a chance that it could partially redeem them, but irreparable damage has been done. Anna has lost her mind, the Baron is giving up his life to try and bring it back, and regardless of what happens they've lost their daughter to the church, and provided her with an upbringing that will be hard to unshackle herself from. And even if Anna is healed, I doubt things will be all rosey. They have a lot of history, and a lot of pain, that will be very difficult to overcome.
At most it shows at least the Baron making the right decision for once, but I get the feeling they are more doomed to a life of false hope and no salvation as a result of their actions, its too little, too late. Whilst I'm not religious, I'll liken it to the afterlife from Christianity; they're in purgatory. Not hell, at least the Baron, the wife made a ton of poor choices that really bit her in the ass and she is not in a good way, but they're in no way fit for heaven. They have their penance to make, and their sins to work off. Maybe by the end of their real life they'll accomplish it, but nobody is redeemed yet.
DementedSheep said:
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.
I don't expect one to be over it. I personally know how hard that is. I expect one not to make the stupidest decisions it is possible to make. There are a lot of people IRL who have been through worse than Anna. How do you think the Jewish in WWII camps felt? [I'm going to regret bringing up such a touchy subject, but...]. Probably not great. Severe trauma, watching loved ones and friends get killed by the Nazis. Did they hurl abuse at the Nazis, try to pick fights, constantly try to kill either the Nazis or themselves?
No. No they did not. Some did kill themselves. Some tried to escape. As with all PoW camps though, the majority tried to make the best of the situation they were in, because its the only thing you can do. You could make the situation worse, or try your best to get through it, and find an opportunity to make things better. She chose to make it worse. Repeatedly. For 3 years. Were she to make this mistake for the first few months? Yeah, ok, learning experience. 3 years? She's learned. She knows what's going on. As said, shown by her visit to the Pellar, she has moments of clarity where she can think straight, and realise that maybe she's making really bad decisions. Yet she keeps making them.
She has her reasons, but so does the Baron. Neither is forgiveable here, or innocent. Both of them are slaves to reactions to the actions of each other,
As for "Best friend and was in love with" - the Baron was in love with her; she and his daughter are worth more to him than his own life. Can you, since we absolve Anna because "She loved the guy", blame him for flipping out when literally his whole world is walking out the door after cheating on him, betraying his love, yet he still loves them too much to accept that betrayal, whilst fighting his own PTSD?
Lets be honest, the Baron got pretty damn fucked by this whole ordeal too. Yes, he picked the worst possible responses to getting fucked like that. The thing is so did Anna. She isn't an innocent bystander, one who has been only the victim. If you excuse her sins because of her trauma, you have to excuse the Baron of his for the trauma he has suffered, his PTSD and the effect that had on his already unstable psych when the only things he cared about in the world were being taken from him by, I believe, an old friend. If anything his rage was probably more at the friend than at Anna, if I'm remembering that correctly, for betraying him like that. Doesn't absolve him of guilt or make his actions acceptable, but let us not pretend that the Baron just had a couple of harsh words thrown at him and flew into some fit over it. He was mentally unstable. He had suffered trauma. A trigger set it off. Ironically the wife he fell in love with for being there healing him, decided that rather than help and heal him she should leave him. If we remove the blame from Anna for her actions because she had suffered trauma, then we also have to remove blame from the Baron. And I'm all for that - both suffered trauma, ended up mentally unstable, and this greatly affected their lives. I don't think its entirely their fault, especially given the time period, that all this happened. However, that doesn't mean they both made good decisions, or even tried to make things better. They both made terrible decisions, and did unforgivable things. No amount of trauma overrides that.
Neither of them are guiltless or blameless, and both have made really stupid decisions. Both have reasons for those decisions, eventually running down to trauma both had suffered. You can't excuse one and not the other, say the Baron should have gotten over the trauma because he's the man and he should just accept the lovelessness, but Anna is A-OK to use trauma as an excuse because she's the girl, and is a victim of lovelessness and thus justified. If anything, that's sexist. Neither is of sound mind half the time, and neither is just a victim. They've had the same circumstances as each other, and they've both dealt with them terribly.
This also ignores the different cultural perspectives of the time. Today we view adultery as "Eh", and becoming more and more 'acceptable' each generation.
Back in those days? Adultery was one of those capital sins that would get you sent straight to hell. Hell, I'm pretty sure it was an actual crime. It was just utterly unacceptable, and killing the adulterer wasn't that immoral. Wrong by today's standards? Yeah, by that time? No. Witcher is slightly closer to today than our own medieval period, but it doesn't fully match how we see things, because it was a different time then, with different priorities and different needs for everyone.
Overall, both have reasons based in trauma for their actions. Both were very in the wrong, and neither can be excused. The Baron acknowledges his part in it, and is able to try and make things better. Anna seems to sometimes acknowledge that she's making poor decisions, but is too mired in her mental instability to consistently take action around it. Both are affected by their trauma though, and not of sound mind.
Slightly more OT, something I forgot to mention last time: I feel the reason the "Its your fault" dialogue focuses on him going off to war constantly is because its the one avenue Geralt hasn't explored. He's heard the Baron's reasoning for what he's done, and honestly people are going to have different points as to where they draw the line, so they could have created 30 dialogue choices for "Its your fault; as is now", "Its your fault; you killed her lover", "Its your fault; you beat her", "Its your fault; everything is wrong" - ect., or it could have one that tells the player the Baron's response to the one matter he hasn't addressed. I'm also finding it difficult to find a video of someone picking that option to see the exact dialogue that Geralt says, for exactly what I think its implying, but I don't think its a matter of them thinking that's the only way it could be his fault; I think more they needed a reason to explore that last option for players who wanted to, and as noted the main option is that both have their faults in the relationship.
First off, this game is blatantly one sided in its sex appeal, and it's shown off quite frequently. Out of the three main female characters I've seen so far, two of them were introduced totally naked, and one of them is your daughter figure.
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.
And it's good that they always saw the Baron as in the wrong. It'd have been a lot worse if they didn't and they determined that the Baron. She's not innocent in the way that someone who steals a candy bar and gets their hand chopped off isn't innocent, but if someone told me that they chopped off their hand for stealing a candy bar I'd say "How is that the slightest bit of a justification"
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.
He tries to make things better sure, because he wants her in this relationship. She doesn't want to be in this relationship. Why is she supposed to try to make a relationship work that she's not willingly engaged in? If it was a relationship with a coworker sure, if it was a relationship with an alcoholic, violent, murderous baron who won't let you leave, that's a different story.
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.
Famine and starvation are realities. But would you in that case condone someone kidnapping someone else who might eventually be a victim of famine and starvation, bringing them into a rich life of luxury on the contingency that they love them? All against their will? This scenario sounds pretty horrible even without adding in the context of "They also killed your lover before deciding to protect you from the world"
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.
You are arguing what would be the smartest option for a completely objective person, not what is morally acceptable of a prisoner. The fact that we're comparing her position in this marriage to being a prisoner of ISIS doesn't really give a glowing impression of her situation. Sure, the objectively smart thing for her to do would be the perfectly loving wife and try to make things work because escaping isn't much of an option. There's just two problems with this.
People aren't objective. She can't just turn off loathing and suicidal thoughts and do the objective smart thing. She loved the man the baron killed, and she's forced to be kind, gentle and loving to the man who murdered him. I couldn't do that, I honestly don't think many people could. Someone murdering someone I love would make it impossible for me to in a loving relationship with them. In fact it'd sicken me to have to pretend to be.
Secondly, this isn't about what the smartest thing to do, this is about what she's culpable for. In the situation where someone was kidnapped by ISIS, screamed at them and shot, would you respond to the situation like "Well, ISIS did some wrong, the prisoner did some wrong, they both made mistakes."
It's also worth noting that she wasn't trying to avoid the stillbirth, the spell that the crones used was draining her life as well. She got the protection to save herself from the negative effects, not to save the child.
I can't emphasize enough that he murdered someone she loved, and then expects her to be happily married for her. To me, that's not something anyone should be expected to just get over, particularly not to the extent that they could be married to the murderer. She made mistakes, no question. His mistakes were just on a whole different level. Cheating on someone, versus murder, holding prisoner and beatings.
Honestly, his "Sympathize with me" story just put every thing he did in a worse light, rather than a more positive one.
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.
My interpretation of the situation is certainly victim blaming. It's arguably sexist, because this sort of domestic abuse is a largely a gendered problem. My posts have gotten long enough without also argue why this is sexist, and frankly I don't care so much whether it's sexist or sexist and victim blaming as whether it's a problem.
And I've kept saying that dialogue choice was poor reasoning. I think it's poor reasoning, the developers think it's poor reasoning, the Baron's can't be blamed for his wife's cheating by being away at war.
I don't expect one to be over it. I personally know how hard that is. I expect one not to make the stupidest decisions it is possible to make. There are a lot of people IRL who have been through worse than Anna. How do you think the Jewish in WWII camps felt? [I'm going to regret bringing up such a touchy subject, but...]. Probably not great. Severe trauma, watching loved ones and friends get killed by the Nazis. Did they hurl abuse at the Nazis, try to pick fights, constantly try to kill either the Nazis or themselves?
No. No they did not. Some did kill themselves. Some tried to escape. As with all PoW camps though, the majority tried to make the best of the situation they were in, because its the only thing you can do. You could make the situation worse, or try your best to get through it, and find an opportunity to make things better. She chose to make it worse. Repeatedly. For 3 years. Were she to make this mistake for the first few months? Yeah, ok, learning experience. 3 years? She's learned. She knows what's going on. As said, shown by her visit to the Pellar, she has moments of clarity where she can think straight, and realise that maybe she's making really bad decisions. Yet she keeps making them.
She has her reasons, but so does the Baron. Neither is forgiveable here, or innocent. Both of them are slaves to reactions to the actions of each other,
Even ignoring the emotionally charged context, your comparison to the holocaust seems to do more harm than help to your point.
The Jewish people that fought against the Nazis and escaped or fought back are generally seen as heroes, their actions are usually viewed as not only justifiably moral, but generally laudable in the context of their situation.
The only thing your example points out is that many people accepted their fate in the camps, which is understandable, and there would be little point in looking down on them for something that most people do in such similar hopeless situations, but those that resisted are generally viewed in a more positive light, even by survivors that accepted the situation. A lot of survivors write or talk highly of those brave enough to resist the Nazis in some fashion.
Especially now, after the fact, the comparison is even worse, those that kept their heads down were only saved by outside circumstances, if the Allies didn't win, those people that accepted their fate would all be dead, most of them killed in an absolutely brutal fashion. Other genocides in history did not have the advantage of one side coming in and freeing those rounded up to be killed, those that accepted the situation may have had an understandable reaction, but it doesn't change the fact that those that acquiesced died and those that resisted at least stood a chance of escaping and surviving.
What a terrible comparison, by the logic of the holocaust, pretty much everything Anna did to try and hurt or escape the Baron would be considered morally justifiable, as accepting the situation would be understandable, but in a comparison to the holocaust would mean Anna basically leaving it up to fate that either the Baron is killed in action or she is inevitably beaten to death in one of the Baron's drunken episodes.
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 think EternallyBored did a good job of outlining just how far the Baron would go if she tried to escape. Soldiers would scour the countryside, and she'd be brought back against her will. The Baron on multiple occasions expects Geralt to do exactly that. Bring them back, no matter whether they want to.
Let's also look at her options here. The Baron did something horrible, he murdered the man she loved in front of her. There will never be any justice for this, the Baron is the man who'd dispense that. She's forced into a marriage with a man who "Took love away from her life", and has no ability to escape. I advocate for the rule of law, but only when there is someone to actually dispense the justice. No one will rescue her, she can't escape, and her and her daughter are held captive by a murderer who could never be held to any responsibility for what he did, beyond her not loving him. In this situation, I think that killing him was an acceptable recourse. She tried escaping, she tried killing herself, what other options does she have for a free life that is not full of misery?
You are even agreeing that she only had hate left for her husband, she wasn't here consensually, she was in all senses a hostage, and worse, because she was expected to love him and care for his feelings, and keep all of her hate bottled up inside.
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.
The moral imperative does change based on the circumstance. As I mentioned in my other post, we are not objective morality machines. It's immoral to be unkind to someone, but if someone just murdered your sibling, you would be held far less accountable if you shouted profanities at them. An objective moral machine might be required to be kind to them, while still contacting the authorities, without making the murderer feel any unecessary pain, but we can't be expected to meet that standard. We have our own emotions, desires, and objectives that we grapple with. We can't blindly follow them, but we can't blindly cast them away either, they impose hard limits on what we can do. Someone whose family just died might not be able to go a full day without crying. The moral imperative might be for her to be kind and loving to him (Though I really think it doesn't), but she might not be able to go day after day, year after year, keeping up this facade and bottling up her hate. Moreover, she has little reason to want to in the first place.
Power dynamic is a factor, and it should be blind to gender. This is a whole other discussion though, so I'm not going to dig into it.
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.
She also loves her daughter, and her daughter feels hatred for the Baron. Anna would be leaving the daughter she loves with a parent that they hate. I'll bring you back to EternallyBored's point. She tried to leave once, the Baron found her, killed her lover, and dragged her back. If I remember correctly, the Baron mentioned her trying to escape again along with the suicide and murder attempts. She tried to escape at least once, maybe more, and it's worth emphasizing that when she ran away the Baron sent soldiers scouring the countryside to bring her back, whether she wanted to or not. In addition, she wanted to leave the Baron before he murdered her lover, I don't imagine she'd feel any warmer towards him after the fact.
Judging by everything that happened, I have gotten the impression that divorce was not an option. She left the Baron before, he dragged her back. If she could have just up and left again then, she would have.
EDIT:
BloatedGuppy said:
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?
1/2. I never claimed that the game ever absolves the Baron of responsibility. At the very worst, they portray him and his wife as equally culpable (Which I think is awful), though I don't think they're quite there. . There is an option where you say "You're right, you're both in the wrong here", and there's a ridiculous option where you say that the wife cheating on him was the Baron's fault because he was away so long. They writers obviously don't buy that option as valid, I don't buy it as valid, and it completely skips over everything that is wrong.
You can't comment on how he gives her some of the blame for him beating her by saying "She knew exactly what to say". You can't comment on how he dragged her back into a marriage she didn't want after murdering her lover. You can't comment on how this relationship is more like a hostage situation than a marriage. You can only agree with him, or give some lame-ass rebuttal that completely misses the whole point and literally nobody takes seriously.
They were trying to paint this situation as a situation of mutual abuse, which I think falls apart when you're married to someone who's going as far as trying to kill themselves to escape you. Why should someone who was dragged kicking and screaming back into a marriage after you killed the person they really loved be expected to show you anything but contempt?
I've said this on a couple occasions here, I think that the Baron's justification put him worse light, not better. His actions were so much worse when you saw the details.
3. Would could you do to fix it in my mind? Honestly, if there was just a dialogue option that still condemned him without shunting part of the blame off onto Anna, I'd not be having this conversation. Anna was culpable for cheating on the Baron, and that's it. Everything the Baron did after that was his own fault, and his fault alone. She's not responsible for goading the Baron into hitting her with lines such as "You've robbed my life of love", of "You destroyed the very idea of love to me, you should just kill me". That's not abuse, that's honesty, coming from a clearly depressed and suicidal women. Remember how he describes that for 2 years she was filled with rage, tried to kill him, herself, escape and all that. And after all that she gave up and resigned herself to her fate. I'd argue that all of this turns her into more of a victim. Her only successful acts of agency were getting her daughter out and aborting the child that she most likely bore as a result of rape.
People keep saying that the only alternative to this is to remove all depth from the character and turn him into a cartoon villain. I'm very vocal about not wanting that, and about enjoying the depth. It worked for 90% of this arc, and I had no issue with it. All I'm arguing is at the end, they fumbled it, and their final attempts at garnering sympathy for the Baron did anything but that, and they put blame on Anna for things that she has no right to be blamed for.
By the way, I'm not positive if editing someone in actually gives them a notification, but I've done this for a while to avoid double postings. Does this actually work?
The moral imperative does change based on the circumstance. As I mentioned in my other post, we are not objective morality machines. It's immoral to be unkind to someone, but if someone just murdered your sibling, you would be held far less accountable if you shouted profanities at them. An objective moral machine might be required to be kind to them, while still contacting the authorities, without making the murderer feel any unecessary pain, but we can't be expected to meet that standard. We have our own emotions, desires, and objectives that we grapple with. We can't blindly follow them, but we can't blindly cast them away either, they impose hard limits on what we can do. Someone whose family just died might not be able to go a full day without crying. The moral imperative might be for her to be kind and loving to him (Though I really think it doesn't), but she might not be able to go day after day, year after year, keeping up this facade and bottling up her hate. Moreover, she has little reason to want to in the first place.
Power dynamic is a factor, and it should be blind to gender. This is a whole other discussion though, so I'm not going to dig into it.
It's too late!!! Ethical theory is a favorite of mine
Here's the thing. Without diving in to a broad discussion of broad ethical ramifications, in my mind, we can assume two things to be true. First, if no higher power exists, moral systems are not objective. Second, humans have a tendency towards viewing morality in objective terms.
Given this, I would say two more things. There is no apparent higher power, thus, no morality is objective. If no morality is objective, every morality is subjective.
In laymans terms, this leaves us with moral relativity. Philosophically it's a bit more complicated, but I'll leave it at that. Given this, the statement that "we are not objective morality machines" loses a lot of context to the reality of what we are. Which, in my mind, is machines that act as subjective morality machines, while viewing things along objective moral lines. This is why we can view moral repercussions as relevant to context, but still say the thing is "wrong" regardless of situation.
Given all that, I should clarify my view. As naive as it may sound, I truly love people. Even the stupid trolls on the internet that piss me off. Even terrorists in Iraq that make me weep at the state of the world. I think every one of them is of infinite value, albeit that some have squandered that value on pain and suffering. So when I see the baron, I don't see a victim and an abuser. I see two people who need help, with one unlikely to accept it.
It's a bit weird to me that nobody made the point that when Geralt is supposed to say one of those two things, he is in the man's manor surrounded by a hundred guards in heavy armor. OP seems to want a "You're a terrible monster!" option, but that would be a bit risky and out of character, wouldn't it?
Even more so if you consider that Geralt was never really big on judging people, neither in the books nor the games.
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On another note, OP's points actually made me sympathize with the wife a bit more than when I played the game, but... at the end of the day, she's still a sociopath and has done terrible things. I don't accept a murderer's sob story how he had a bad childhood and just the same I don't accept the whole "the poor soul had bad things happen to her" stuff. She deserves punishment just as he does.
I have not yet played Wild Hunt, it's the first game on my to buy list once I get a GPU that can actually run it. I have played the other 2 though.
The Witcher DOES have shades of sexism in it. The question though is it with or without reason? We are after all talking about a gritty low fantasy world based heavily on Medieval Europe (early to mid medieval at that) where one of the few ways women accessed power, politically or otherwise was through sex. As such, what I have seen thus far in the games was in no way out of line. this is a world afflicted with racism, plagues, tyrants, monsters and yes sexism.
Mind you the folks really calling the shots in this world are the sorceresses. They are playing most of the kings like puppets. I'm not sure on this point but I think it was implied that men cannot handle being mages without going batshit insane.
Geralt is a womanizer. I don't really think the games make any apologies or excuses for it outside the fact that he is a sterile disease immune monster hunter who could get killed at his job at any time who only barely avoided losing all hint of human feelings at the hand of some explicitly inhuman training. the result is the same obviously but the reasons are there and are important.
All in all this a very well developed fantasy world that tackles modern issues with a distinct lack of kid gloves. And that is why I like the games.
I'm very sorry my lord for not going through 4 pages of posts to see if what I had to say to the OP was covered. I really did not know i needed your permission to speak my mind here. I would argue that your response to me was rather unproductive as well
I'm very sorry my lord for not going through 4 pages of posts to see if what I had to say to the OP was covered. I really did not know i needed your permission to speak my mind here. I would argue that your response to me was rather unproductive as well
People liked the Barons story, it was a rare portrayal of abusive relationships that is more like real life than almost any you have seen before (minus the supernatural elements).
Not to say there's anything wrong with the abusive spouse getting there's but this was fresh and fit the story better over Geralt caring about the day to day life of a couple he doesn't know.
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