Discussion

[Breakfast in Beauclair stinger by MojoFilter Media]

Alyssa

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode. My name is Alyssa from GoodMorhen and I'm so excited to have Cyprian here who's joining us from Berlin to discuss the next two short stories in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish: "The Lesser Evil" and "A Question of Price."

Hey, Cyprian! How's it going?

Cyprian

It's, uh, it's going great!

Alyssa

Yeah!?

Cyprian

It's going great. How are you?

Alyssa

I'm good. I'm really excited to get to these two short stories. Um, but I'd love to introduce you more to our community a bit. So, you're originally from Poland, right? And you've told me that you're currently studying in Berlin?

Cyprian

That's right, that's right. My family actually comes from Poland. Yeah, I'm right now living in Berlin and studying history and classical archaeology, for those interested.

Alyssa

What drew you to those two disciplines?

Cyprian

It's a funny story, because I actually was studying, um, economical and computer science before that. Then... I realized I'm not that... actually good at math. [Alyssa laughs] So, um, yeah, I had a little... change of mind, you could say. I chose to go after that what I'm really good at, you know, so, uh, history's always been a passion of mine. And I thought, like, why not just do it and turned out quite well.

Alyssa

Yeah. So, you and I actually met through Instagram. You've been following the GoodMorhen account, which is so cool. So, we've gotten to know each other through there. But could you tell us a little bit about your experience with and your interest in The Witcher Universe?

Cyprian

I think one thing to say is... I'm Polish, so. [Alyssa laughs] People don't realize how popular this is in Poland. This is actually, like, of course, a medieval fantasy story, but even my sixty-year-old father knows about it.

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

The other day, we were talking. I noticed you didn't know about the story where the Polish Prime Minister gave a–a copy of The Witcher II to Barack Obama on his visit to Poland.

Alyssa

Yeah.

Cyprian

Like, this is the level of obsession that Poland has with The Witcher, you know?

Alyssa

I love it. You actually told me that anecdote about Barack Obama when we first had a, um, initial screening and, I think, in my head, I'd love to imagine Barack Obama just reading The Witcher with Michelle and their dogs.

Cyprian

That would be pretty crazy.

Alyssa

I think that'd be so cool!

Cyprian

Yeah, I mean, yeah. He–he was quite impressed, actually, with the gift. Er, it's–it was, um, unconventional to say the least.

Alyssa

Yeah.

Cyprian

But... oh, well.

Alyssa

I love it though.

Cyprian

Another fact, like, um, when Witcher II was coming out, um. Actually on the Polish version of the Playboy magazine—

Alyssa

Uh-huh.

Cyprian

—the cover girl was Triss Merigold.

Alyssa

Oh, that's right! I did hear about that. That's so funny.

Cyprian

Right? Right?

Alyssa

I mean, it's incredible to see, like, how iconic it is.

Cyprian

It's–it's really crazy and I think a part of it is, like, really the lore, because it's based on Polish folklore that really gets people captured, because there isn't that much content regarding Slavic mythology and Slavic folklore out there. It's always, like, Celtic or, like, English medieval or something, which is cool, don't get me wrong, but if you have something, which you can culturally relate to, it's something else.

Alyssa

Yeah. So, today we're going to be discussing "The Lesser Evil," which is the third short story in The Last Wish. And when I first asked you to discuss "The Lesser Evil" with me, you mentioned that it was one of your favorite stories.

Cyprian

Yeesss.

Alyssa

So, without any spoilers, could you tell us why?

Cyprian

I think it's one of those stories where, um... how can I describe it? [Alyssa chuckles] I mean, without spoilers it's quite–quite challenging. Erm, broadly speaking, like, the situation Geralt finds himself in, there are no good options.

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

I mean, you can only imagine yourself in a similar situation. It's quite mind-boggling, like, the circumstances he finds himself in and what ultimately comes of it, er, we will find out in this episode, so. I'm gonna leave it at that for now.

Alyssa

Well, thanks so much. And I guess we can, you know, get straight into it. Yeah?

Cyprian

Sure! Let's do it.

Alyssa

Awesome.

Part I starts with Geralt entering Blaviken with a kikimora corpse from the nearby swamps and presents it to the local alderman, Caldemeyn, who he knows, hoping for reward. There is no reward, but a town guard suggests bringing it to Master Irion, the local sorcerer.

Part II, Geralt and the alderman, Caldemeyn, bring the kikimora to Master Irion's tower, where the sorcerer declines the monster's corpse, but ushers Geralt into the tower alone. Inside the tower, Geralt is surprised to find Stregobor, a sorcerer acquaintance from Kovir, who has adopted the pseudonym "Master Irion" while living in Blaviken. Stregobor reveals he's on the run from Renfri, an exiled princess of Creyden, who's allegedly a cursed and violent mutant and pleads with Geralt to kill her. Geralt refuses, saying it's neither his job nor his business to kill humans.

Cyprian

Well, first of all, we know he's not from the School of the Cat, right? [Alyssa laughs] Otherwise, he would just jump right into this contract.

Alyssa

No, that's actually a really excellent point, um, if he had been from a different witcher school, this might not have been a moral dilemma that would have come up.

Cyprian

That–that story would have been quickly over in, like, five more pages and we're done.

Alyssa

That's it!

Cyprian

That's it.

Alyssa

I don't know why Sapkowski wasted his time giving us a very in-depth moral dilemma. [Laughs]

Cyprian

I know, right? Bad guy's killed. Job well done. Let's go home.

Alyssa

So, I obviously ran through that really fast in the summary, but this is an incredible, incredible section. When Geralt goes into this tower and talks to the sorcerer there—as the summary said—is living under the name Master Irion, but is really the sorcerer Stregobor. When Sapkowski starts describing the setting that Geralt finds himself in, everything is an illusion. Everything from the ground he's standing on, to the environment that–that he's in, to, like, specifically a naked woman that's in the illusion.

Cyprian

AKA, a sex slave.

Alyssa

Apparently, yeah! [Laughs]

Cyprian

I guess so, but she's just an illusion, so—

Alyssa

Yeah.

Cyprian

I guess it's alright? I don't know.

Alyssa

[Makes a noise like creaky solid wood furniture. Because ethics around non-sentient beings!] That's a–that's another moral dilemma that we could talk about. [Laughs]

Cyprian

Up for discussion. Let's leave it at that.

Alyssa

So, the crux of the story is really Geralt talking to Stregobor, the sorcerer, about the thing that he's running from. Stregobor is really private about what this thing is.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

And it takes awhile for Geralt to really get it out of him.

Cyprian

Kinda doesn't want to admit he kind of created this monster himself.

Alyssa

Yeah, we could definitely, you know, take a moment to introduce what the actual, um, details of Stregobor's story are here.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

So, Stregobor... he actually starts telling Geralt about what's going on. Um, he asks Geralt if he's heard of the Curse of the Black Sun. So, tl;dr [internet slang for “too long; didn’t read”] what that means is: there was some sort of eclipse and there was a sorcerer that said, "There's a bunch of girls that were born right around the time of the eclipse that are just batshit crazy and violent and they're going to predict the coming of… the end of man."

Cyprian

Just the usual!

Alyssa

Yeah, the usual. Like, as all women do. [Laughs] As all women are born to do, they bring about the end of man. [They laugh]

Cyprian

So, what's the Curse of the Black Sun? The explanation is quite poor, right? I mean, basically, it boils down to: this dude said, "There's [an] eclipse and all these girls who were born at–during that eclipse are bad 'cause I said so."

Alyssa

Geralt… he accuses Stregobor and the other sorcerers of, essentially, taking advantage of the situation and the rumor of this curse in order to break up political alliances, to ruin marriages, in order to, like, mess up dynasties within The Continent. Stregobor was like, "No. There's, like, biological proof that these girls were not only messed up mentally and violent…” They did autopsies on the girls that they killed. He said that they, like, vivisectioned one? And there was, like, all sorts of messed up things with their hearts, their organs and things like that. Stregobor and Geralt argue about this, back and forth, with neither of them really being able to convince the other of whatever truth that they're trying to convey.

Cyprian

Yeah, I mean, it's a poor argument to make against Geralt, in particular, to say, like, "Because you're a mutant, you're bad."

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

I mean, maybe it wasn't the best game plan to tell that to a mutant, so. [They laugh] I mean, that hit quite heavy after you read it, because, sure, the Witcher World is a quite grim one—

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

—and there's people dying left and right, uh, let's be real here. But, um, quite frankly, Geralt puts on the pressure and gets that information out of him. What they have done with these kids, right? They held them in towers, killed them. I don't know. Maybe… you could–you could argue really well that he's, erm, he's at fault. [Chuckles]

If you go ahead and—let's just believe what Stregobor says here, right? Like, these kids are, like, somehow doomed. They are hyper-aggressive. They are, like, whatever, they're just cursed, right? They just bring about evil for whatever reason, right? If you take that for granted, if you believe him, you kinda can get along with–with the decisions they made, right? To just eradicate these mutants, because, like, [they’re] no longer humans in their eyes, right? So, they just eradicate them and just finish it before it even started, right? Not to mention that they didn't get all of them, right? Quite a few of them escaped and everything.

But, then again, it's as you mentioned, quite dubious with all these political things in between, I mean, it was quite convenient for them that this curse just happens right then and there, right? And also predominantly to girls of higher standing, like, nobility, right?

So, it's kind of hard to believe, right? I mean, they have–they have a motive to have made all of this up.

Alyssa

Mmhm. Yeah, I think it's one of those things where you have no idea what the right side of history would be when you start making these claims that can't really be proven or answered.

Cyprian

Yeah.

ALyssa

Or that—especially in, like, a medieval era—there's no way of really recording this in a way that's replicable or proven.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

It's all like word-of-mouth. It's all oral history, really.

Cyprian

Yeah. Without, like, spoiling anything. Uh, I think we're going to come back to this point at the end of the story when Stregobor makes a proposal to Geralt, which is going to be quite interesting. But, em, yeah, I guess what it comes down to is, like, two sides of the story, right? There's no debating what happened. They did some messed of things, they killed some girls. They tortured some. And, em, now one of them is, uh, up for revenge, right?

Alyssa

Yep, and that actually is a perfect segue into the details of Stregobor's story. Stregobor starts spinning Geralt this story. He had been summoned to Creyden by the Prince of Creyden's wife, Aridea, and... she apparently used a magic mirror. This is gonna sound a little familiar to everyone that's familiar with any basic fairy tale.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

Aridea used a magic mirror; saw that she would one day be killed by her husband's daughter from previous marriage. So, she sends the little girl out with a trapper for the trapper kill her. The little girl kills the trapper and runs away. They don't find the girl until she turns up a couple years later, having lived with seven gnomes in Mahakam, where they were robbing merchants on the road. And then there are all these assassination attempts back and forth between Aridea and the princess, Renfri. Eventually Aridea dies. So, Stregobor after Aridea's death ends up in Creyden and he runs into this princess, Renfri, and she recognizes him. Since then, he's been on the run from her and she has now found him again in Blaviken.

Cyprian

Yeah, now the stage is set.

Alyssa

And now the stage is set. But it's really interesting to see classic fairy tales, like Snow White, as well as all of the other ones will see throughout the short stories.

Cyprian

Yeah, yeah. I quite like these comparisons, because, I mean, fairy tales—they are nice stories, right? But then you have these twisted versions of these stories, which might be interpreted as "this is what actually happened," right? The world is messed up and this is what happened. This one princess was living with the seven gnomes and word-of-mouth gets around and everyone changes the story. But, yeah, now we have a whole story.

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

And that's actually happened quite a lot also in our world, just, like, the small little bit, but everyone who's familiar with these tales will notice them.

Alyssa

Yeah, it definitely gets a little more explicit. This comes up much later on the story, but, Renfri, mentions that they tried to poison her with an apple.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

And, so, that's like another funny, little detail, but there's a lot of parallels between "The Lesser Evil" and Snow White.

Cyprian

Yeah.

Alyssa

We get one of the most iconic quotes in the whole series. This is a quote that a lot of people reference and love and I definitely think it's worth reading out! [Laughs]

Cyprian

Do the honors.

Alyssa

"Geralt," said Stregobor, "when we were listening to Eltibald, many of us have doubts. But we decided to accept the lesser evil. Now I ask you to make a similar choice."

"Evil is evil, Stregobor," said the Witcher seriously as he got up. "Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all."

[Whispered admiringly into the abyss] I-con-ic.

Cyprian

So much so that it actually ended up in one of the trailers for the third game, right?

Alyssa

Yeah. This is definitely a quote to remember and this sets up the entire story from here on out. I think this is a perfect example of the value that Geralt has that is attacked repeatedly throughout the story. He makes it very clear here to Stregobor—and he will throughout—that, one, he doesn't believe in a lesser evil and he refuses to be broken into choosing one.

So… remember this. [Laughs]

Cyprian

We are gonna have to, yes.

Alyssa

Listeners, remember this for a hot second and we will definitely get back to it. [Laughs]

Cyprian

Take notes, people. This is important, right.

Alyssa

This is some important shit so you better listen up. [Laughs]

Cyprian

Ah, right, I forgot this podcast is, ah, it's R-rated. [Alyssa laughs] You can swear in here.

Alyssa

Oh, yeah. Yeah, by all means. I'm from New York; I'm going to swear.

Cyprian

I see, all right then. But, er, in all seriousness, I mean, yeah, as you said, sets, like, the–the moral standard of Geralt, right?

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

This is the standard he wants to live up to. [We're]... gonna see how that one... works out for him. But, um, it's crazy! I mean, not a lot of people [are] gonna think that's a hard choice to make, right? Sacrifice one life save ten others. But Geralt says, "No." It doesn't matter to him. He doesn't really care if he's gonna have to kill ten people or one, like, he's killing and that's the point, right?

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

It's evil one way or another and he doesn't want to do any of it. So, it's really interesting how a person with this mindset, which this quote captures perfectly, what happens to Geralt when he gets to a situation where he's going to have to choose.

I'm sorry, I'm spoiling right now. [They laugh]

Alyssa

Part III takes us to the Golden Court Inn where Caldemeyn and Geralt question the innkeeper asking after Renfri and her gang. He says the gang is there for tomorrow's market and they are staying in the inn. Geralt confronts them alone asking for Renfri and they taunt and insult the witcher. Right before a fight breaks out among the men, Renfri arrives. She speaks to Geralt and Caldemeyn, presenting them with a letter of safe conduct from a local king, effectively allowing her to operate above the law within Blaviken. After the alderman leaves, Renfri tells Geralt that Stregobor will die tomorrow and that "it would be the lesser evil if he died alone."

Cyprian

It's quite a chunk to dissect.

Alyssa

Yeah, it's a really big chunk of the story, for sure. In this scene where Geralt actually confronts the gang, except for one very specific moment, he is incredibly calm throughout this whole interaction, which is wild.

Cyprian

Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa

What I love about this, also, is how detailed Sapkowski gets with these minor characters that we're never really going to see after the short story, but they're so vivid and I love that about the way that he writes.

Cyprian

You know what? I love and I hate it at the same time.

Alyssa

[Chuckles] Why's that?

Cyprian

‘Cause he paints, like, such an interesting picture, like, I want to know more about these people. Like, what were their lives before, like, this interaction in the inn, you know? What–what were they doing? I think their life story is one hell of a story, every single one of them. But you never get to see them again.

You–you just pass people by and everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is fighting a battle you don't know about. It's quite interesting and I like to, er, compare it with Star Wars, actually, the original ones. This iconic one, right? With Luke and Obi-wan. When they come to this canteen of all these different aliens and every one of these characters in this canteen has, like, a ten-page-long Wiki page with all this backstory. And I would love something like that in The Witcher; not only for characters, but also for, like, kingdoms and everything. It's very detailed in the story, right, in the context of the story, but, again, I want to know more. [Laughs]

Yeah, it speaks volumes about his, eh, quality as writer, but, er, sometime it just drives me crazy. [They laugh]

Alyssa

I feel like it's one of those things that it's definitely a good thing to be upset by. [Laughs]

Cyprian

I guess so, yeah.

Alyssa

Renfri's gang consists of six men: Vyr and Nimir, who are twins; Nohorn, who's only described disfigured by a scar; Tavik, who wears a plait; Civril, who's a half-elf who does a lot of the dirty talk—er, not dirty talk. Insulting talk. "Dirty talk" is very different.

Cyprian

Yeah. [Laughs]

Alyssa

And Fifteen, who is just half-naked the whole scene.

Cyprian

Yeah, and drunk, I think, right?

Alyssa

Probably all of them are. Cannot relate. They all probably are drunk. [Laughs]

Cyprian

You know, but–but you gotta have to be, I mean, like, to talk some serious shit to a witcher like that. They are quite confident.

Alyssa

Oh yeah.

There's this excerpt that I like here, also. The half-elf, Civril, is going back and forth with Geralt. This is the one moment where Geralt breaks slightly. Geralt says something about Civril's mother. Civril says back, "At least I knew my mother."

Cyprian

Ooo.

Alyssa

[Laughs] Oh snap! This isn't quite World Star yet, but we're going to get there. [They laugh. Whoo hoo! Youth Pop Culture Internet References.]

This is another little detail that we get about the history of witchers, where we hear a little bit in "The Witcher" about the origin of witchers, a little more in "A Grain of Truth" through his conversation with Nivellen, and then again, like, another little nugget.

And then, there's, like, a stupid little line here. I love the dialogue that Sapkowski writes. Nohorn, who's one of the idiots in Renfri's gang says:

"What did he say about Civril's mother? Something extremely nasty, as I understood it. That she was an easy lay or something. Hey, Fifteen, is it right to listen to some straggler insulting a companion's mother? A mother, you son-of-a-bitch, is sacred!"

[Laughs] And I love that line. I think it's so funny.

Cyprian

That's actually funny. And if I remember correctly, it's actually different in Polish.

Alyssa

Is it?

Cyprian

I think so. I don't remember him calling him a "son-of-a-bitch," actually.

Alyssa

Ooo, what is it?

Cyprian

Okay, I'm gonna have to search for awhile, but you just keep going. I'm going to come back to it.

Alyssa

Okay, sounds good.

Right when they're about to fight, Renfri arrives. As she's trying to figure out what's going on, Civril steps in and some of the boys start stepping in. She tells Civril to shut up. The line in the text says:

Civril stopped laughing. Immediately. Geralt wasn't surprised. There was something very strange in Renfri's voice—something associated with the red reflection of fire on blade, the wailing of people being murdered, the whinnying of horses, and the smell of blood.

Which is... fucking terrifying. [Laughs] I wonder what a voice like that would sound like. Something that, I guess, reaches into the pit of your soul and just, like, pulls it out cold.

Cyprian

Right.

Alyssa

And I'm really interested to see how they adapt this story onscreen and where the actress who was recently recast to play Renfri is going to take the character.

Cyprian

Yeah, I mean, it's gonna have to be like a death stare, but in voice form, I guess. It's, er, quite hard to imagine. I mean, you have such a description of a voice, like, I'm not a big actor myself, but trying to imitate something like this, something so much so described.

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

Well, maybe she's going to surprise us.

Alyssa

Yeah. I'm really excited to see a character like this on screen and I think that we see very few of them. Characters like this that are female and brutal and, I think, complex in their brutality. I'm really, really excited to see how this plays out in the Netflix series, for sure.

Cyprian

Yeah, definitely. That's what I, er, love about The Witcher as a whole, you know, like, erm, Nivellen, for example, right? He has a backstory too, right? If you just look at him, he's a bear or whatever, right? But he has a whole story behind himself and so does Renfri.

No one is evil just for the sake of it or, at least, not a lot of people. I mean, sure there are some psychos out there. But, erm, you know, that's funny. I read a quote the other day, right? It was, "Everyone is a hero in their own story."

Alyssa

Yeah, absolutely.

Cyprian

This is pretty much spot on for this story. Everyone in this story, every major character thinks they're the hero in their story.

Alyssa

Mmhm.

Cyprian

They think that it's justified what they are doing.

Alyssa

Yeah, that's a really incredible point to make. And I think that's actually a perfect segue into Part IV. So, we've heard Stregobor's side of the story. We get a small taste of Renfri and her gang.

Part IV takes us to Geralt's room in Caldemeyn's house. Geralt returns to his room after dinner and finds Renfri waiting for him. She pours them both a drink and says that there are only two people who can prevent the upcoming slaughter: Stregobor, if he surrenders himself to her voluntarily, and Geralt, if he kills Stregobor himself. Geralt notes that Stregobor would never surrender. Renfri here cites the Tridam Ultimatum and says that she plans present it to the sorcerer to force his hand, but she doesn't tell Geralt what the Tridam Ultimatum is. Geralt refuses to kill Stregobor on her behalf but tells Renfri that he also refused Stregobor’s pleas to kill her. The witcher vows he won't allow anyone to be slaughtered in Blaviken and recommends Renfri leave the town in peace. After a brief trance, Renfri tells Geralt that she'll leave Blaviken in the morning for good and then the two of them spend the night together.

'Ey.

Cyprian

As you do.

Alyssa

As—

[Inhales sharply. It's just registered that “As you do” in this case implies getting jiggy with your frenemy/candidate for contractual murder is something that’s v. common.]

I don't know if "as you do" would be an appropriate thing to say here. Let's be real. [Laughs]

Cyprian

I mean, alright, we're talking about Geralt here, right? You know, witchers have a higher libido. [Alyssa laughs] That's–that's a fact, I'm not making that up. But, um, Renfri is, uh, quite handsome herself. [They laugh]

Alyssa

Geralt does bring that up to someone and he asks, like, "She must not be that bad than, 'ey?"

Cyprian

Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa

—and that person's like, "ngg."

Cyprian

To each their own, right? Eskel likes horned women. So, that's fine, too, you know? Whatever someone does in their bedroom, er, that's–that's none of my business. [Alyssa laughs]

It's the classic "rivals before the showdown," right? They are talking about it and everything. Since, she's a girl and he's a–a male, they sleep together.

Alyssa

So, we see in this scene, Renfri, on her own, presenting us with her humanity and with her vulnerability, which, you know, we wouldn't necessarily see in any other story. Again, like, digs back to the complexity of these characters and the way that they're written. We get a very complete picture of not only who they are, but who they think they are, and who others like they are, which I find incredibly fascinating.

Cyprian

Yes, yes.

Alyssa

So, there's a really wonderful excerpt here where Geralt asks Renfri if she knows why she was hunted in the past. She admits she knows she's supposed to be cursed or that she's supposed to be a monster because of this Black Sun thing. Geralt asks if she is a monster. And there's this moment of humanization and vulnerability from Renfri. She just tells him:

"I don't know. Because how am I to know?" Like, "When I cut my finger, I bleed. I bleed every month, and I get hangover when I get drunk."

That's her idea of normal. Her–her world has always been her world. And without, I think, the external point of view of others, she would have continued operating in the way that she knows how. And it's not until her values and her way of living starts clashing with societal values or individual values that it really starts making it known that she comes into conflict with people.

Cyprian

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, um, if one guy tells you you're crazy, maybe–maybe he's wrong, right? But if a thousand people tell you you're crazy, maybe–maybe you're wrong, right? I mean, but it's quite interesting, the point you hit on. That's all she knows. She even told Geralt, like, in her past when she was a child, she had everything, right? She had a nice life. She had a stable home. Everyone treated her like everything was fine, right? But then, after this whole curse, everything has gone to shit, right? And now, er, she's apparently a monster and everyone wants to kill her.

You can only imagine, like, how much emotional stress this puts on somebody, right? Like, everything you know is being taken away from you. People treat you as a–as a threat and paint you out as a monster and you don't even know what they're talking about.

Alyssa

Right.

Cyprian

No wonder she feels like an outcast. Eventually, she lashes out because of her vulnerability. She lashes out in anger and, erm, this goes up in magnitude and ends in… what is about to happen. Again, she's not evil, like, just for [the] sake of being evil.

Alyssa

Yeah.

Cyprian

She–she has her reasons, as does everyone, for everything they do.

Alyssa

Yeah.

Cyprian

No one does anything without the reason and it's—even–even the most evil people. I bet even in our world—like monsters, dictators—in their mind, at least, thought they were in the right! That they were doing the right thing! Of course, we don't know what was going on in their heads, but that's kind of the message here, right? To come back to it. "Everyone is the hero in their own story." It's quite an interesting take.

Alyssa

I also think it's one of those things where… she was a princess, who was then brought to be murdered and she escaped. She talks a lot about what she needed to do to survive. And I feel like it's one of those things where you don't notice the change in yourself day by day by day, but then when you look back a number of years later, suddenly you're so far from the person who you were. And I think it's, again, like, one of those things where you hear stories of the arcs that people have, like, what they're notorious for in the landscape and The Witcher Universe, but for her she only did what she needed to survive until it got her to this point.

When you look at it in retrospect, it's almost like a "Yeah, of course that's where I came from, because this is where I am now." But for an outsider, who has no context into her story and who she is, it's unsurprising that she's seen as violent, as something to be feared.

Cyprian

Yeah, yeah, of course. And it makes you wonder, like, we all—what can take away from this—is, like, to pay more attention to our surroundings, right?

Maybe this asshole who just cut you off in traffic, maybe he just had a really bad day. You don't know what's going on in people's heads, like, why they're doing what they're doing. You see the effects of it and you just pass by each other. Sure, he just cut you for traffic and that was an asshole move, 'course, but you don't know his reasoning for it. Most of the time, it's going to be because he's late to work or something, right? Something avoidable, easy, but you never know. Maybe he's rushing his pregnant wife to the hospital, because she's going to give birth and he's gonna have to hurry.

Alyssa

Mmhm. Yeah.

Cyprian

We just all, I think, can take a step back and just look at everything from a broader perspective. Sometimes we all just get so focused on our own perspective and start judging people, right? For their actions when we don't even know what drives them to do such things, right?

Alyssa

Yeah, absolutely.

So, we're now at the point in the story where Geralt had to come to the town, heard Stregobor's side of the story, heard Renfri's side of the story, and he's sitting on a decision. So, we're going to take a quick break on this cliffhanger. When we return, Cyprian and I will continue our discussion of "The Lesser Evil."