fandom snowflake challenge #5

[deerna]

challenge #05: talk about a canon you love

Nobody will be surprised to see that this post is about the Witcher, since apparently it’s all I think about these days. I don’t actually talk about it much on any of my online spaces - I’m not great at meta and I always feel like other people have more interesting things to say. Fiction is usually my way to say things about my canons, so that’s what I usually write — but this is a challenge so I felt like challenging myself.

Before the netflix show came the games, and before the games came the books, which I had the pleasure to discover during the entirety of 2020 — so I’m going to gush a bit about the opening scene of the short story that started it all.

A bit of history. Wiedźmin was originally a short story written in 1986 for a contest held by a Polish sci-fi magazine; then Sapkowski decided to write more short stories, which were ultimately collected in what are considered now the first two books of the saga, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, and he went on to write the other novels, and the coda, Season of Storms.

Wiedźmin is actually not the first piece of writing in the book anymore, and it’s a damn shame, because it’s got one of the best introductive sequences I’ve ever read in a fantasy. and it’s better than the awkward erotic scene that gets slapped in your face on page one.

We don’t learn Geralt’s name until the next ‘chapter’ and we don’t know anything about him at first — only that he avoids crowds but he sticks out like a sore thumb, because he wears a black coat when no coat is needed, he has white hair even if he’s not old, and he wears a sword but on his back like it were a quiver or a bow. He “speaks quietly, as if unsure” but his voice is unpleasant and metallic. He insists to pay for a room that isn’t available. He doesn’t hit anyone until the thugs get their hands on him, and then he doesn’t hesitate to bring a sword to a fistfight, doesn’t hesitate to cast a spell on the local enforcement. He gets arrested, but because he charmed the guards, he’s actually the one calling the shots. But anyway — two pages in and this is our protagonist, a genuinely scary character, full of contradictions, whose name we haven’t learned yet.

Let me say something about the Rivian accent thing. It feels accidental on a first reading, but Sapkowski does this thing where he draws parallelisms between things as a way to foreshadow important plot points, and the more I reread the more I’m sure Rivian is just a way to say Witcher, at this point, or at least, the reputation they have among the people; nobody likes them, because they’re mutants, and they’re all thieves, because they only care about coin. Maybe it’s not relevant, but the castellan assumes he’s a witcher because of the contract - like he assumes he’s Rivian because of the accent. And I don’t know if you know this, but it’s revealed later on in the novels that Geralt doesn’t actually have a Rivian accent. It’s something he learned, he taught himself. If all of this is true it means that his name is literally Geralt the Witcher - which is really funny until you remember that he also named himself - and that the fact that Geralt meets his bitter end in Rivia has another whole layer of symbolism.

Comments

[gillo]

That was an interesting introduction to a fandom I've vaguely heard of but knew virtually nothing about. It's interesting that it's existed in so many formats.

Thanks for taking part in the challenge.

[deerna]

Right? and there's more: a polish movie/series, a bunch of comics and a musical of all things.

[spikedluv]

I enjoyed reading this post. I enjoyed the show, but I was so confused over the books. I wanted to read at least the first book before the show aired, but I had no idea at the time that it was a bunch of short stories (and obviously didn't figure it out o_O), so I gave up on it. I was like, I have no idea what's going on here!!! *g*

[deerna]

Yeah honestly the first book is weird because it's actually a short story divided in chapters - and between a chapter and the following there's ANOTHER short story. Linearity? I don't know her.

also the first time around i basically skipped the first part and went to read "the witcher" directly because the sex scene between geralt and iole disturbed me a lot?

[why_me_why_not]

I watched the show this summer and then picked up the books. (I said somewhere else today, I'm glad it wasn't the other way around, because they are very different and I enjoy them both but as separate things. I don't think I would have liked the show if I had read the books first.) I'm on Tower of Swallows now, and I love these books and this world so much.

[deerna]

Ohhh enjoy! The books are really something special. They have their good and bad moments, but they just have something that draws you in.

And I agree, the show has its charm and while they did some things very well, there's also a lot of stuff missing and stuff that is just...??? how are they gonna justify that in upcoming seasons?? who knows!! I still love it dearly though.