I'm Obsessed With The Witcher Books

Major spoilers ahead.

Everyone has heard of The Witcher.

An immensely successful multimedia franchise, The Witcher flourishes on every platform it is featured on. Andrzej Sapkowski brought The Witcher into this world through a short story written for a Polish fiction magazine in the 80s, after which he continued producing short stories, then novels into the 90s and 00s when CD Projekt recreated The Witcher in the digital space by producing the Witcher games. The games were massive hits. The Witcher III, released in 2015, is considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Netflix released The Witcher as a TV series in 2019, and although this wasn’t the first version adapted for the screen, it was by far the most consumed, the most well-known, and the best received (until recently, but we’re not here to talk about that). So yeah, Geralt’s done well. With a new Witcher book only recently released (in Polish, not English yet) there’s no better time to exalt the series. If it wasn’t clear already, it’s about the best-written series I’ve ever read.

I’m an avid Witcher fan, I have been since I decided to watch the first episode of the Netflix series in April this year. While definitely my least favourite of the three forms in retrospect, I absolutely loved every minute of the series and it continues to play an important role in growing the fandom through Netflix’s vast reach.

Precisely one week after starting the series I was ready for the books. It’s no secret that books always, ALWAYS outshine their film counterparts and I had read so many reviews on Reddit I couldn’t go 10 minutes in the day without thinking about all the characters whose stories had been forgone in the series, the scenes that had been cut, dialogue erased, arcs abridged.

And So It Began

From April to October, I read the books. There were eight, including short story collections, the pentology (main storyline) and standalone novels. I was super addicted, spending 16 hours a day on weekends smashing out entire books in a single sitting, unable to focus at work- but it still took me months to get through. That’s because sometimes, a portion of the text would read very slowly and I would find myself not quite processing what was being said or the relevance of a certain paragraph and having to backtrack pages, leading me to stretch a first chapter over an entire 6+ weeks, artificially warping the in-universe timeline as I made some parts of the pentology last far longer than others. Sure, the slow parts of the text were less memorable. But my commitment to reading every line and giving every word equal attention acted as a natural balancing agent as I had to read the slow parts more times to fully absorb the story.

And Then It Was Over

All of a sudden I was aware of the thinness of the unread portion of the book. I was reaching the end, and by the last chapter or two it looked like things were quietening down. The pentology was action packed, and so I was ready to forgive a slow, dialogue-rich conclusion (which normally I detest)- but the ending was anything but slow. Our hero Geralt perishes in a race riot that springs up from nothing over the span of two paragraphs. Yennefer and Ciri are mere minutes away when it happens. Geralt dies in Yennefer’s arms and in her sorrow (and with all her injuries) she dies too.

Ciri departs this world (literally) with Yennefer and Geralt on a boat, and the book returns to the first chapter which was paused as Ciri retold her story, spanning the book we just read. In the remaining few words, we see Ciri finish the tale, then mount a horse behind Sir Galahad and ride into the sunset.

And the book bloody ends!

I Can’t Describe What This Made Me Feel

A combination of misery and overpowering devastation, this heartfelt regret that our heroes received the end they did, heartbreak for Triss and Ciri and Vesemir, the ones who survived and a somewhat shallow (it was selfish of me to put my own wants before our heroes themselves) disappointment that it was over. Sapkowski is a magician and he deserves all the applause and acclaim he has received, because I would have accepted no other ending to the many-month saga over which I got to know these men, women, elves and dwarves. It was fitting, in a strange way. It doesn’t seem right that Geralt should have a happy ending, despite being unambiguously deserving of one. How can he? The monster hunter, no other end to his story would be more suitable than a death on the battlefield as his comrades received. And at the hands of a human no less. And protecting a defenceless non-human! And merely minutes after swearing to put down his sword!! The conditions in which Geralt dies are the very height of tragic, it’s as ironic as it gets, and Sapkowski exhibits a rare power as he lines these conditions up without prompting the thought that the Witcher’s death was even remotely contrived. Of course Geralt swore off his swords, how could it be any other way after what he has been through? Of course he jumped into the race riot, where has he shown any indication that he is the type to mind his own business, despite what he claims? Of course his death is at the hands of a simple man with a pitchfork, after slaying countless men, soldiers, trained warriors, Scoia’tael and monsters! I have so much to say about Sapkowski’s work, I have to start somewhere, and I can’t miss any of it. Here are the reasons I consider the Witcher series (centering on the pentology, but including the peripheral stories) an extraordinary text.

The Dialogue Will Go Over Your Head

Perhaps a lot of this praise should be attributed to David French and Danusia Stok, the translators of the text. I have read some rogue translations, and you can tell that the quality of the book depends hugely on the translators (that itself is insane, a discussion for another time). But until I can confirm that either of the translators were directly responsible for changing the wording to have the effect it does, I can only credit Sap. Either way, the translators have done an awesome job.

I am biased in favour of things that are exclusive, inaccessible, or difficult. The Witcher’s dialogue is precisely those things to the point where many readers (myself included) struggle to follow what’s going on. I believe this doesn’t retract from the text, and in fact adds value to it. It is a bit weird though, that even reading the book is not enough to really read the book. A text is equal parts how it is interpreted and what it objectively is, and even if not a single reader is able to follow 100% of the character discourse I consider it structurally necessary, an essential characteristic of The Witcher. The characters, all of them, are so distinctly witty. Unless a character is deliberately written as stupid you can take for granted that they’re more than capable of formulating complex and original ideas and philosophies and expressing them through sophisticated, formal langauge. The Medieval setting and its influence on the style of speech does not make it any easier. Sometimes, even literal peasants use double, triple, or (I swear I saw it once) quadruple negatives in casual speech without so much as blinking.

And this is canonically part of the book! Sorcerers are central in every story and are known for their wordplay. Typically they disguise insults as compliments, sugarcoat recountings and often are overly verbose and unnecessarily loquacious in an attempt to draw attention away from a sensitive subject and advance their agenda. This of course is seen through completely by the other sorcerers but they deceive readers all too frequently! It’s ubiquitous, present in every sorcerer-sorcerer interaction. It reaches its height during the banquet at Thanedd prior to the coup. I won’t give examples since I don’t have the text on hand, but literally every interaction between ANYONE present has an aggressor and verbal combat commences, blanketed so that you need to be attentively tuned in to pick it up. Sometimes it is more explicit than others, like with Yennefer and Sabrina, but often it is hidden and only visible on a second reading. And Geralt (I love this about him) is more than capable of matching this very sorcerer-like trait, often surprising the sorcerers with his quips as he never lets himself be patronized or spoken to condescendingly. Sap has essentially written him as a sorcerer, but called him a Witcher! And then given him a healthy disdain for mages (who deride him in return) and for verbal swordplay to try to hide that, to make him special and different. That’s a hot take for sure. I would go so far as to say Geralt is wittier than the sorcerers, and he always has the element of surprise since he is constantly underestimated and thought of as stupid prior to his direct face-to-face interactions with other major players. I mean, it’s part of his character since it is very much The Witcher’s role to suffer prejudice. And even otherwise distinguished, educated and proper people such as kings, knights, sorcerers and courtiers hold discriminatory views towards Geralt based only on rumours. We see this with Dijkstra, Philippa, Yennefer (the first time they meet), Coral, even minor characters like Sabrina, Calanthe and countless others. This dislike due to disrespect is often replaced with scorn due to fear of his power and abilities. It doesn’t change how Geralt is treated but is much more tolerable for me since I can’t stand people (real or characters) being ignorant of Geralt’s Gary Stu-ness.

The other thing is despite hearing writing advice to “show” and not “tell”, Sapkowski does neither. I would describe his writing style as a sort of “implying” where odd phrasing (again, could be the translators) is usually a deliberate, extremely subtle indication to the reader to catch on to what is really happening. I’m telling you, there were times I needed to go back 2, 3, 4 times and reread because I thought something was implied, and then I did a google (first time I’ve used the internet to help read a book) when I wasn’t sure only to have Reddit confirm some crazy theory about incest between monarchs or a past relationship based purely off the otherwise inexplicable formality in an interaction. You have to pay attention to everything, from where the characters are looking to how long they take to say something when they could have said it in fewer words. Everything is intentional and Sapkowski wasted nothing.

The Timeskips Are Genius

Yes, if you didn’t know, The Witcher has timeskips. These are everywhere and they are brilliant, timeskipping is a central theme in the later books (and by extension, the nature of time and reality itself). Sometimes you never get to know when in time a scene happens, and you can only guess. Can you imagine the power such a literary device has? Worlds are built not from what is in the text but from readers’ brains filling in the gaps, and by wielding the power to forge little islands of plot at any point in the timeline of their choosing the author’s world building abilities explode in depth and complexity.

For instance, I did not understand until the very ending that Ciri’s conversations with Galahad at the start of Lady of the Lake occured after the entire main timeline, I thought it was one of her jumps between worlds since the series had already familiarized us with nonlinearity early on through world hopping. Then we finish the saga, our heroes are killed and all of a sudden it all makes sense, Ciri explaining that her story does not have a happy ending and the blood on her clothes make sense¹. The choice to include the epilogue in Season of Storms where a young Nimue interacts with a seemingly young Geralt is insane, on so many levels. It sets up a backstory for a character that we have already seen in multiple points in time to pursue the path in life she does, and hold the beliefs we see her exhibit in Lady of the Lake. Rereading LotL after SoS surely resulted in many cries of It makes sense now!.

I also believe Nimue’s scene was a safe backstory to introduce as her character didn’t demand a backstory, but it’s excellent nonetheless. And ambiguity! It’s a dangerous tool, but Sap clearly possesses the skill it demands. Is the man really Geralt? We know the storytelling is nonlinear, but what about time itself? How can Geralt look and act younger, and speak in a manner so unlike what we’re used to? If it isn’t Geralt, who is he and why is he even there??

Bridges Between the Islands

I mentioned islands of plot. Similar to this, to assist with the world building Sap likes to build bridges between the islands. Sure, sometimes a bridge might run through where you had imagined a piece of the world but you can always rework your imagination, that bridge is now canon and real. My favourite bridge might have been the one between Condwiramurs’ and Ciri’s respective arcs that were told side by side through the start of LotL. I LOVED how Sap skillfully wove Tilly (Condwiramurs) and Nimue’s arc into Ciri’s, when I finally realised the reason they got so much ‘screen time’ and how they tied into the main saga I audibly gasped. I won’t share it here, but instead let me awe you with just how wildly nonlinear Nimue’s story is, and how many times Sap bridged from an arc of hers into another arc of hers. Keep in mind SoS succeeds LotL. Nimue, after deciding to become a sorceress in the middle-later stages of LotL, runs into a younger Geralt (who is killing the monsters that are introduced in the middle of SoS, when he is older) at the end of SoS, on quest she explains in the middle of SoS. Then she sees Ciri travelling between worlds in the earlier portion of LotL, then reaches adulthood, meets Tilly at the start of LotL, and proceeds to school her throughout the start of LotL and again (independently), at the very end of LotL, and finally helps Ciri escape her flight between worlds in the middle of LotL. It is executed perfectly and paced well, over many hundreds of pages.

Another bridge I cannot not mention, which many readers surely forget, is the death of Essi Daven (another of Geralt’s romances) at the end of The Sword of Destiny. It isn’t super clear what she dies from, and I might be misremembering, but it is some sort of disease in some epidemic. This is at the very beginning of the series before the pentology has even started, keep in mind. Literally like 3000 pages later a single flea stows away on Ciri’s leaps between worlds, and only later in the text we see the consequence of that flea- a massive plague that kills off many of our characters, including Essi (assuming she died from this plague and not another since diseases are a dime a dozen in the Witcher’s world). The choice to work in a butterfly effect that spans worlds and times was a remarkable one, particularly since we saw the effect way before the action. And speaking of characters who die from plagues, when I read through Iola’s arc I almost cried…

Surgeons on the Battlefield

In the middle of LotL, Sap takes a huge break from the several ongoing storylines to expose the MASSIVE Battle of Brenna arc, from many novel points of view such as the timid but kindhearted scholar Jarre, the merciless and powerful head mercenary Pretty Kitty, Nilfgaardian Field Marshal Menno Coehoorn and so many others. Many of these characters die. Cavalry are cut down, footsoldiers’ limbs are torn off, friends see friends die but there is noone whose story is sadder (imo) than young priestess Iola. Along with medical student Shani, healer sorceress Marti and experienced halfling surgeon (the head doctor) Rusty, her experience is as gruesome as the First World War accounts we read in history class. Working non-stop around the clock, just the few of them against an uncountable number of injured men, they stitch and clean and anesthetize soldier after solder. They hack through body parts as they amputate, have many men die on the operating table, and are almost killed themselves when an enemy elf legion captures their tent. The colonel steps in and begins to massacre the already injured and dying men, expressionlessly slashing them to pieces one by one. That scene was particularly powerful as, Iola, the girl whose destiny was a life of peace serving her Goddess, threw herself on top of the men she treated in a last ditch effort to save them. Rusty does the same. The elf colonel is about to run Rusty through but stops dead in his tracks when he sees his own colonel uniform on the man Rusty was shielding, meaning the healers were treating all men and elves without discrimination and that the elf was about to kill one of his own. He leaves without a word, ashamed and with tears in his eyes. I had goosebumps reading that scene, and I have them again recounting it. The arc was intense. Iola was a priestess raised in the Temple of Melitele in Ellander, protected from the real world, and to see her sent off to war and endure what she did was bad enough. But what happened afterwards crushed me…

Death Epilogues

Sapkowski has pioneered this technique afaik, I have not seen it anywhere else. He introduces a side character, and after they have served their initial purpose, Sap brutally kills them off in what I’m going to call a “death epilogue”. He calmly and emotionlessly describes from a third person point of view how they die, often years in the future and in barely two sentences. On one hand it’s really creative, because the timeskip allows the character to continue to appear in the story. The nonlinearity of the story is what enables that, really. The whole idea of ending a story but leaving ‘room’ for adventure is inventive, and the manner in which these epilogues are delivered is always new. We see death epilogues as stories told around a campfire, excerpts in an academic text translated from another language and even lessons in the classroom told in first person. But on the other hand death epilogiues are just really fucking brutal, and they are delivered without the slightest care. To love a character, to feel for their struggle and connect with them and then have them pulled from you in a way that puts Humbert Humbert’s first love to shame is a feeling like no other. I’ll simply quote Iola’s death epilogue from a rogue translation. This excerpt occupies a subchapter all on its own.

Marti Sodergren died two weeks after the battle. She had an affair with an officer of the condottieri Free Company. She tried this adventure as something temporary. Unlike the officer. When Marti, who liked changes, became involved with a cavalry officer, the condottiere, mad with jealousy, stabbed her. He hung for it, but they were unable to save the healer. Rusty and Iola died a year after the battle, in Maribor, the biggest explosion of the epidemic haemorrhagic fever, also known as the Scarlet Death, or - from the name of the ship which it was imported from - The Catriona Plague. All the doctors and most of the priests hurried to Maribor, along with Rusty and Iola. To heal because they were doctors. The fact that there was no cure for the Scarlet Death did not matter to them. Both were infected. He died in her arms, the strong, confident grip of her large, ugly, peasant hands. She died four days later. Alone. Shani died seventy-two years after the battle as a famous and respected retired professor of medicine at the University of Oxenfurt. Future generations of surgeons repeated her famous quote - “Sew red with red, yellow with yellow and white with white. And everything will be all right”. Hardly anyone noticed, after delivering this quote she always secretly wiped away tears. Hardly anyone.

All four of them died, the surgeons and healers whose bonds were forged in blood. Shani was the only one who lived to old age. Rusty was already well-recognized and successful. Marti had it particularly tough, as Mages hardly age- she was in her prime, and it’s not a healer’s place to be killed (more on that later). But Iola had it the worst. To see that she, the epitome of “beauty being on the inside”, selflessly hurried to do her duty only to die sick and alone in this world that had wronger her shattered me. She refused to leave her patients, and the altruism she showed that was never returned fills me with such a profound sadness. It truly is masterfully composed. Philippa is one of my least liked characters, I hated her. An extremely intelligent and cunning sorceress serving Redania and later founding The Lodge, she plays the game superbly, always avoiding conflict and engineering her victories. She had the worst death epilogue, described as occurring years after the story. She is tortured and killed in a witchhunt by an Archpriest who tried to force her to falsely confess. You can’t help but feel that someone as powerful as she, who was only ever acting in the interests of magic as an art, deserved better.

It is Not a Mage’s Duty to Fight

One of the central themes in the Hindu epic, The Ramayana is the notion of Dharma, loosely translated as duty. Geralt claims his duty is to fight monsters for coin, but really it is Geralt’s duty to defend those who cannot defend themselves. It was Iola’s duty to heal. It is the duty of a common soldier to fall on the battlefield. And as we hear it is not a Mage’s duty to fight. Mages are advisors, who suffer through trials and training and pledge their service to the crown and the people. They are granted longevity and comfort and a seat at the court (power, influence and money) in exchange. We hear about the deaths of the fourteen mages at Sodden Hill, instrumental in keeping Nilfgaard at bay and resisting an early end to the war. But aside from Triss’ gruesome description of the screams and blood very early in the series we think nothing of it, instead feeling for Triss herself. Geralt expresses his gratitude that Triss survived, they embrace, we move on. Then, in SoS we get to meet Coral, and although she’s far from friendly we are smitten by her. Sap makes sure we learn that she isn’t just another sorceress, that she comes with the qualities of a sorceress but has her own values and fights for what she believes in. As the latest book, SoS is much more modern and fanservice-y. Coral is one of those fanservice characters playing the role of the token feminist, arguably more of a strong independent woman than Yennefer (Ciri’s journey is a whole other thing). We see her acting on her values throughout the book as she argues against the King of Kerack in favour of abortion, operates on women who have childbirth complications and generously helps victims of the great storm. We hear her amusement as she implies in conversation with Geralt that she’s capable of throwing him in prison. We hear her anger when Geralt makes a fool out of her while making passes at Mozaik. We see her softer side when she romances Geralt. And to come out of that book which immaturely fails to acknolwedge how her story continues, and then recall that she died a horrific death many books earlier, with her limbs hacked off and torso burnt beyond recognition… It was not her fate to fall in battle, and as unbearable of a character I found her, she fought bravely and selflessly and paid a price that wasn’t hers to pay.

Another recurring theme that deserves a shoutout is the notion of characters perceiving time to be nonlinear, as several wise characters including both Nimue and Yennefer and eventually Ciri insist at different moments that the past present and future are hidden in every moment in time. I admire the gradual construction of this theme over time, and how Sap was able to sustain and expand on it over thousands of pages. It started off as a neat little idiomatic saying that you initially pass off as a part of the culture and developed to the point where it almost describes the nature of reality in the Witcher universe. Some might argue that Sap has “finished” exploring this theme, as Yennefer and Dandelion at different points in time in LotL exclaim that the Ouroboros has sunk its teeth into its tail, closing the loop (how this solves a problem instead of creating more is beyond me, but they both said it very definitively). But then we are granted the epilogue in SoS, so maybe this theme hasn’t been drawn out to its natural conclusion. Personally, I expect it to make an appearance in the next book, at least in an epilogue if nothing else.

Sapkowski is Brutal

This part is a bit of a rant about the story and less of a praise, because it made me really upset

There’s a running joke in the Polish fandom, or so I’m told, that by the end of Lady of the Lake Sap was sick and tired of his characters and eager to kill them off. The Hanza that we are most familiar with consists of Cahir, Milva, Angouleme and Regis who join Geralt and Dandelion at different points in time. They all have incredible and unique backstories, Cahir’s probably being the most impressive as his spans the entire pentology and prior to joining the Hanza he was regarded as an enemy of Geralt’s. They all died in the span of about 50 pages! And in real-time, no epilogue. You hear Milva collapse as she is shot through the gut, as though rammed. And as Bonhart cuts Cahir in half as, although Cahir is an expert swordsman, he is no match for Bonhart and simply parried too slow and his blood splashes against the statues like a Pagan sacrifice. I was distraught as I was hit with one death after another as the company stormed Vilgefortz’ fortress to rescue Ciri because they believed in Geralt and his cause. They followed him to the ends of the earth for a girl they didn’t even know, and met blood and death. Angouleme was a child, and Milva was hardly any older. Regis was immortal, an ultra powerful vampire, and as Geralt described, “the essence of humanity”. And Cahir… he had a future with Ciri, he dreamt of one. He came full circle from Ciri fearing him as he kidnapped her for Nilfgaard, to Ciri gazing into his pretty blue eyes for one last time before she left to find Yennefer while Cahir took on Bonhart. Their deaths were unjust and untimely. They were all dealt terrible hands in life, and while I understand it was important that things had to end it wasn’t easy to read. It also made me accept the ending, as I don’t want to live in a world that has Geralt and Ciri but no Cahir or Regis, you might as well kill all of them.

Incredible Interactions

Sometimes the “throwaway” worldbuilding interactions are gems. A twist I have to point out is the sardonic union of three fleeing war criminals by sheer chance at the end of LotL, as they meet around a campfire to rest and eat. The mood is tense, and the men are hungry. The Iron Wolf is an elf who was tasked with several critical missions for Nilfgaard (the provokers of the war, the “bad guys”) throughout the series, but we only ever regard him as a side character. He was partially responsible for the incitement of the entire Thanedd coup arc. He was responsible for capturing Cahir after Cahir fails to bring Ciri before the Emperor of Nilfgaard (this is before Cahir surrenders himself to Geralt and joins the Hanza). Wolf was also a Colonel in the Battle of Brenna. Then we have Boreas Mun, a tracker hired by Stefan Skellen (Emperor Emhyr’s Coroner who later defects to establish a democracy), who defected himself after rejecting his evil employers in favour of the life of a traveller. He is arguably the most honest of the three because we saw his conscience grow as the books progressed. And finally Dijkstra, possibly the greatest political mastermind in the book, who was smart enough to realize that the shifting tides at the end of the war with Nilfgaard were not in his favour and escaped. This interaction between the three criminals, none of whom are bloodthirsty or evil but were simply unluckily on the wrong side, has got to be a top ten moment in the book. All of them talk cryptically, scared of revealing that they’re smarter than they are (let alone who they are, or where they’re heading), for everything is uncertain following the war. One of them would remark, deliberately abstract and nonspecific, we might get a few pages of flashbacks to an event they witnessed after the war that led them here and prompted the remark, and then the other two would agree again without saying too much, making suspicious references to experiences that only keen readers with excellent memories will be able to connect. Dijkstra is the best in this scene as he adopts the moniker Reuven after his advisor and I completely didn’t realize it was Dijkstra speaking at all (I thought it was Reuven’s son, or even Reuven himself despite his death explicitly spelled out! That’s how good Sap’s “imply don’t tell” was in this scene!) until my friend explained it to me later. But once you know you can’t “unsee” it, all of a sudden his physical description, demeanor, speech pattern, choice of words and mannerisms all make sense. And he keeps referring to himself as a ‘common man’, and ‘simple pilgrim’ which is hilarious, as Dijkstra is anything but that.

Some Last Thoughts

I have so much to say about this brilliant series, every part of it was perfect and I loved every little touch. I remember telling a friend that I hoped Andrzej Sapkowski had it in him to continue the story, and I was blessed with another book. And it seems mostly separate to the pentology (which is a good thing I guess), though I have kept away from descriptions out of fear of spoilers. I dreamt about the original ending of the series for weeks, and for the most part I am glad that the new book won’t touch the carefully crafted ambigous conclusion to preserve its magic. I can’t wait to read The Crossroad Of Ravens and I’ll be sure to review it here when I do.

Thanks for reading!

1. I found this really clever since when you consider this interaction (between Ciri and Galahad) in hindsight, you realize that Ciri was obviously recovering from the events of the book, which you hadn’t actually read yet. At that point she knew more than you. She was more mature, older. And not a concrete age but instead a state of understanding and knowledge you simply didn’t have, but could have reasonably thought you did reading the scene not knowing when in time the scene was taking place. An age that you would catch up to when you finished the book. The fact that we know it is Ciri but we don’t know which Ciri it is is a fascinating byproduct of not being able to see her face visually and I like to think this was deliberate on Sap’s part. I loved being tricked like this, and it really feels strange when you reread the scene with this information. ↩︎