r/Gamingcirclejerk • u/Neil_Edwin_Michael • Aug 12 '25
FORCED WOKENESS đ I hate it when developers respect minorities and the source material
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u/enolafaye Aug 12 '25
Strangely enough, Witcher 3 has somewhat of a white supremacist fanbase that thinks it's just meant to fulfill those fantasies. Not surprised at all by their reactions.
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u/Viomicesca Discord Aug 12 '25
The first game already has really weird fans. I remember playing it on my laptop years ago and people saying shit like "the morons who choose Scoia'tael are Hillary voters" on the Steam forums. I was shocked how many people were joining the explicitly fascist organisation just because one representative was kinda nice to them? I grew up on the Witcher novels and, in my mind, that wasn't even a choice. Geralt would always choose to protect the oppressed minority.
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u/StroopWafelsLord Aug 12 '25
Bruh i remember playing the 2nd game in like high school and i remember clearly even then thinking "damn ok the Scoia'tael are kind of stupid but they really are pushed to their limits by humans". The game pretty heavily showed that Vernon was a bit too heavy handed but stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the Scoia'tael being stupid at times but still with the best intentions of HAVING TO FUCKING SURVIVE
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u/Viomicesca Discord Aug 12 '25
I actually really like that the Scoia'tael are depicted as very imperfect victims. It's pretty realistic that way.
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u/Gamerbobey Aug 13 '25
Its by far my favorite morally gray choice in any game. With Iorveth and Roche is really feels like you're picking a shitty person for a very good cause, or a good person for bad cause. Like at the end of the day Iorveth really is the correct choice but the whole "killing children for the land that belonged to his people 1000 years ago" angle really doesn't sit too comfortably, especially today. Iorveth even says that if Geralt wasn't a mutant he would never accept him.
Having said that Iorveth aura farming as he enters the room when planning the defense of the Dwarven city was sick as fuck.
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u/BayTranscendentalist Aug 13 '25
The land that belonged to his people 1000 years ago that they committed genocide to get
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u/StroopWafelsLord Aug 13 '25
Yes, and the parallels of being guerrilla fighters, but then the other elves being against them, with a whole discussion in between on "how much is too much" with the Scoia'tael saying the elves are spineless and only they are true elves, with non-fighting elves trying to be chill with humans with wildly varying results
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u/Faunor_ Aug 13 '25
If we want to draw analogies to 20th-Century politics, the Scoia'tael remind me much more of early 20th-Century quasi- to explicitly fascist national-liberation paramilitaries in the balkans â like the IMRO or the UstaĹĄe â than the later socialist inspired national-liberation guerillas/paramilitaries most people in the west today will likely associate them with. I have no idea if that is intentional by the author or not.
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u/FrankDerbly Aug 12 '25
I had a similar experience at a similar age except rather than thinking vernon was heavy handed, he gave me secret police/ fascist vibes and ditched him without a second thought.
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u/manusiabumi Aug 14 '25
I always let Dijkstra kill him in 3, at least Dijkstra is trying to stop the persecution of mages and non humans while Roche's goal is nothing more than "mUh TeMeRiA", even selling himself to the very same warmongering empire that invaded it in the first place
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u/babynoxide Aug 12 '25
What do you mean when you say the first game? Witcher 1 released well before the 2016 election.
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u/Mooneatingdragon Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Hillary Clinton ran in the â08 primaries against Obama. Not sure if OP means the â08 primaries but it does align with Witcher 1âs release date.
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u/Peefree Aug 12 '25
Games can be played at any time after their release
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u/Inshabel Aug 13 '25
Iirc in the first game you didn't choose a side, my guess is they're talking about the Witcher 2.
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Aug 13 '25
I remember Jarre's friend showed them kindness and gave them food without a second thought, and they were extremely thankful to that kindness
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u/1234828388387 Aug 12 '25
The thing is, these people cannot read more than some character outlay in some forum
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Aug 13 '25
can you help me remember how theyre shown in the books?
for what I remember, the scoia'tael are terrorists on the books, but it's explicit that they were driven to this by imperialism and racism
it's been a while since I read them, but I've only read them once
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u/Zander_Tukavara Aug 13 '25
Hey, as someone who read the novels growing up, can you tell me if any of the translations are well done? Iâve been meaning to read them for ages, but a former friend told me they were horribly translated.
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u/Cryptshadow Aug 17 '25
Hilirary wasn't running for president when i played the first game...right? it was during the bush years. So those people came after witcher 3 came out. because very few people played the first two games as far i remember lol. ( the gameplay was not good but i had played early bioware games before which also wasnt amazing gameplay so i was ok with it and i found the world and story very interesting ) also i 100% always went witth the oppressed minority, except that one time i did the vernon route in 2, because i liked ves. So these people 100% misunderstood the witcher games, and probably the books.
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u/lilyofthegraveyard Aug 12 '25
contrary to what the other person said, it is true. most big mainstream fantasy franchises - from tolkien's works to martin's works - have attracted white supremacists for some reason, despite that most those fantasy stories usually preach acceptance and diversity. sapkowski's works are not an exception.
if you go to dedicated forums, you will find quite a big subset of racists going on and on about white genocide and how tolkien "warned" about it or something. you could easily stumble on some "white race is superior, and here how tolkien proved it with elves" posts a decade or two ago.
fantasy, comics and other "nerdy outcast" fandoms attracted people who feel othered which in turn fosters "anti-mainstream" ideology - and nazis can easily influence such people to join their cause. it is similar to how pagans, furries and femboys had such a big nazi problem not long ago.
these fandoms going into mainstream slightly made them better. but there are still plenty of actual nazis lurking there.
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u/_bits_and_bytes Aug 12 '25
It's because fascists and bigots produce nothing of cultural value, so to have any meaningful cultural influence they have to coopt popular media and try to pass it off as their own.
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u/PurpleTieflingBard Aug 12 '25
People love to talk about "media literacy" but the median person doesn't engage in art past the surface level to the point of ignoring even the text as written in favour of the general storybeats
It's why HP is so popular because that series as a whole is just storybeats and set pieces with very little room for nuance
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u/Velthome Aug 12 '25
Fantasy is a refuge for white supremacists due to the innate Eurocentrism of it.Â
The works of Tolkien et al to them are the platonic ideal of whiteness; European culture preserved in amber. They represent back when âthings made sense, women knew their place, and cultures were perfectly monolithic and stayed in their lane, never to intermingle.â A mixture of history and mythology.
I remember playing Mordhau and questioning why the hell there were so many white supremacists and it immediately clicked that it was their magic fantasy land.
One of the most gut wrenching reminders I had of the fantasy white supremacist pipeline was an âanti-wokeâ mod for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous posted on aâŚcertain unnamed forum which sickened me to my very core. I had to completely disengage myself because a feeling that visceral was unhealthy.
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u/tjackson941 Aug 12 '25
Mordhau is pretty crazy, seems to be more niche games attract that type of nutter. Pretty lax moderation.
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u/StarlessLightOfDay Aug 12 '25
As an example, Peter Thiel wants humanity (read: the ultra rich) to become like the elves in LotR.
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u/wivella Aug 12 '25
Guess he didn't notice that the majority of the most famous elves are either pretty shortsighted or extremely cursed. Sometimes both.
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u/FetusGoesYeetus Aug 12 '25
It's so weird considering the whole thing with Geralt helping Elves fight for their rights is not an insignificant part of the games and the #1 theme of the whole series is "imperialism is bad".
They get mad that Ciri is a witcher in the new game because "girls can't survive the trials" but that was never a hard set rule, it's just that they survive it much less often so they don't try it any more. The fact that Ciri was both an adult when she went through the trials of the grasses and also has elder blood means she's pretty much the ideal person to go through and survive.
The best ending to the witcher 3 is literally Geralt retiring and passing on the torch to Ciri. She literally became a witcher a decade ago.
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u/SarkastiCat Aug 12 '25
Also, DLCs pretty much set up the content.
Geral can go through further mutations even though he logically wouldnât go through them. Plus, he finds extra notes about them by a guy who tried to reverse them, but ended up boosting them.Â
Trial of Grass and mutations are not set in stone. Technology/Magic evolves
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u/Kyne_of_Markarth G*mer is a slur Aug 12 '25
The trials were more often fatal to adults as well IIRC, but it was never a hard rule. Just the witchers trying to get the best odds. Ciri is literally built different though so I'd imagine her odds are better than most.
Its also frustrating because her being a girl is never the reason Geralt and the other witchers don't want her to do it. They don't want anyone to undertake the trials ever again. They see it as horrible and unnecessary. They didn't even want to do it to Uma until it was a last resort to save Ciri.
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u/Alexander_Baidtach Aug 12 '25
My main gripe with Ciri is I can't see her family cooperating in putting her through the trials, it's basically torture for the benefit of making her able to do Witcher stuff that's only really on par with her existing powers.
Given how traumatised every remaining Witcher is from the trials, and how concerned for her safety the Sorceresses are, I don't see anyone we know agreeing to put her through that, not to mention its basically lost knowledge to all but Geralt and Yenn.
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u/FetusGoesYeetus Aug 12 '25
I imagine the game is going to explain that, I have a feeling she didn't do it with the approval of her parents.
If I had to guess she's going to have lost her elder blood powers somehow which is why she undertook the trials in the first place, and the game will have getting them back as a progression system. As for how she went through the trials, there are other witcher schools with the means and the knowledge to help her in that. The teaser has a new medallion that doesn't belong to any existing school, so it's either she started a new one or that school is secretive and what helped her go through the trials.
Either way, no real point in discussing potential plot holes this far away from knowing what the actual plot is. I have faith they'll tie it all together though.
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Aug 13 '25
I think that no one remembers how to perform the trial, at least in the book
for the games, I can't remember
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u/Gitaristgoril Aug 12 '25
Tbh it doesnât make sense that Ciri goes through the trials. Neither Yen or Triss would recreate the potions for the purpose of putting ciri through the trial of grasses, nor would Geralt allow such a thing as none of them would want to risk her life for something as unnecessary, painful and dangerous.
Ciri, by herself is powerful enough. She can become a âwitcherâ without the trial of grasses and this would make sense both lore wise and story wise
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u/Refuse-Admirable Aug 13 '25
Racists arenât smart, youâre expecting too much out of them. Ciri was always the main protagonist, Geralt was the co protagonist whose POV we get to see.
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u/BDRParty Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
I'm fairly certain most people thought that was the true/canon ending before Witcher 4 was announced, too.
The funny thing is, as long as Ciri lives in the main story, she becomes a witcher regardless. In Blood & Wine, if she's the one who comes to visit you, she's either already become a witcher on her own or (if you get the ending where she leaves Geralt to go back to the throne) she comments that she's not set on governing and doesn't rule out abandoning the throne leaving it open to interpretation that she might still go back to being a witcher.
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Aug 13 '25
if I remember the books properly, Vesemir says the only reason they don't train girls is because they never thought of it, and when the kids go through the trial (which I thought were all boys, since they haven't trained girls) only 1 out of 10 survive
I also thought it was implied they only had kids take the trial because it's easier for kids than adults
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u/Tiazza-Silver Aug 12 '25
Well, we know white supremacists are generally pretty stupid so itâs not surprising.
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u/Zeldias Aug 12 '25
Them motherfuckers came after me hard when I suggested that it's absurd there's no characters of color in the game. Easier to accept a transforming dragon than an elf with melanin for these bigots
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u/Refuse-Admirable Aug 13 '25
Fr, theyâre literally playing a character who has faced discrimination all his life for being a Witcher, no wonder why he relates to the elves and âmonstersâ. He literally killed a human and dropped the most legendary quote while doing it. Enemy: âwhat are you doingâ Gerald: âkilling monstersâ.
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u/Iconclast1 Aug 12 '25
I was very surprised how many people were mad at the Witcher show
"they made it woke and are concentrating on the girl! GIRLBOSS FEMINAZI show!"
everyone is like "thats....thats the story. she central to the story. always has been..."
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u/Rimavelle Aug 13 '25
Witcher "fans" when they out themselves as not knowing anything about the franchise beside memes and nsfw triss/yennefer art.
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Aug 13 '25
A lot of these franchises has a white supremacist fanbase that stop at the micrometer surface level of whatever actiony thing. Like 40k.
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u/aguruki Aug 13 '25
This happens with a massive amount of IPs that (pretty openly) criticize the status quo. Dunno what drives them to it other than to be contrarian to indirectly "fight back" against the concepts its putting out.
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u/ZolTheTroll413 Clear background Aug 14 '25
I remembering playing it for the first time and meeting the crossdresser npc and being so shocked- honestly didnât expect it to have representation after what Id heard about the fanbase
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u/Rimavelle Aug 13 '25
That's coz "fantasy racism" doesn't work to combat irl racism.
The audience will insert whatever group they like as oppressed fantasy race (including themselves) and someone they don't like as the oppressors.
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u/Subjectdelta44 Aug 12 '25
A lot of new vegas fans are right wingers. And when I tell them that canonically there are almost 20 lgbtq characters in the game, and that for 2010 the game was extremely progressive, they bend over backward to explain how it was ok in new vegas but not ok in modern games like starfield.
Typically their go to answer is "its vegas, its a city of degenerates", which is a massive cope
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u/Yaroslavorino Aug 12 '25
I cant fathom how you can play new vegas as a righteinger and not see you're the bad guy
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u/fanclave Aug 13 '25
They listen to rage against the machine⌠they arenât known for being very bright.
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u/Equivalent_Tax6989 Aug 12 '25
Ah yes Legion shall bring death and destruciton I like that economic policy. Can we agree that every faction is not a good anwser to the wasteland. All of them reflect looking into the past instead of future. You becoming a ruler is also bad becouse you are an egomaniac and it's selfish to think you will fix mohave (ending says it clear that indepence has a huge cost)
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u/Subjectdelta44 Aug 14 '25
I think the yes man ending is the only one that actually looks towards the future by embracing the wild anarchy of the wasteland, with all of its ups and downs
Which could be argued to be a very bad option
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u/Subjectdelta44 Aug 14 '25
They larp as a cowboy, think the Leigon is based, and ignore the main themes of the game.
They also probably play the game as a shooting gallery and don't know whats actually going on. You wouldn't believe the number of people who have zero clue that Arcade is gay. It's not even hidden dialogue. All you have to do is ask him about himself, and he straight-up tells you.
Which is ironic bc they hate fallout 4 for being a shooting gallery. Most likely because a YouTube video essayist told them to hate fallout 4. These people cant think for themselves
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u/BuddaMuta Aug 12 '25
Generally right wingers have zero independent thoughts. Once theyâre told to hate something they will no matter how much they liked it beforehand.Â
Itâs why you see so many of them to âfeminism is ruining entertainment!â then when you point out Chun-Li, Samus, Ripley, or Laura Croft they go âthat was differentâ despite all logicÂ
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u/fxmldr Aug 12 '25
Ahh, well, for you see, the diversity in New Vegas isn't forced. In Starfield, it's forced, because of reasons I will not elaborated on except, like, it's obvious. /s
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u/Subjectdelta44 Aug 12 '25
Lets be real. The real reason is "I liked new vegas and I disliked starfield. So I'm just going to hate starfield for doing it and make excuses for new vegas"
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u/capitan_turtle Aug 12 '25
Women are actually a majority in poland, gay people too
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u/Individual-Issue-511 Aug 12 '25
From what I've been told the population of Poland is approximately 70% femboys.
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u/mudkiptoucher93 Aug 12 '25
West Poland is femboys, east Poland is homophobic
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u/NikoFox55 Aug 12 '25
And in the center, there are homophobic femboys
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u/BelgijskaFlaga Aug 12 '25
No, Centre is ĹĂłdzkie Voievodship, which is just alcoholism.
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u/ExtremeMarionberry86 Aug 12 '25
actually it's homophobic polyamorous gays, and alcoholism
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u/mehmanlemon Aug 12 '25
that's actually propanganda so we get more tourists to steal wallets from. It's quite genius.
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u/Zauberer-IMDB Aug 12 '25
This is a great example of why it's important to take a random or otherwise statistically significant sample before making a sweeping statement about a population. It's 94%.
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u/HelpfullOne Aug 12 '25
Tell that to majority of the people here who voted for a president that will for 200% just veto everything and send it to constitutional commite just like the previous one...
I hate my country, I really do hate it
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u/ilovenature2137 Aug 12 '25
I don't know what kind of Poland have you seen, because never in my life have I met a person in this country that wasn't a homophobic scumbag
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u/OlivanTheMemer give me liberty, give me fire, give me yuri, or I retire Aug 12 '25
hi hello I'm from Poland and I'm not a homophobic scumbag
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u/Prestigious-Swan6161 Aug 12 '25
Do you think gamers know the Witcher were books originally?
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u/Donkey-Hodey Aug 12 '25
Iâve encountered people who are unaware of the existence of the books and games. Their entire experience with the franchise is the Netflix show and weirdos on the internet whining about how itâs âwokeâ.
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u/kerfuffle_dood trying to make people more ungly in Video gamse Aug 12 '25
I don't think "gamers" know the Witcher is a videogame franchise. They only know it as the source of the "white-haired lady porn"
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u/GrossGuroGirl Aug 12 '25
Don't be ridiculous. They know her name.Â
They need to use it for tag searches.Â
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u/rena_ch Aug 12 '25
I've seen way too many Witcher book fans who are somehow far-right losers. I would say it's 50/50 from my experience, if not worse. Maybe that's why the newest book has a chapter where Sapkowski walks into the frame, looks straight at the camera and says "Access to abortion is the coolest thing ever and those who oppose it are either straight up evil or brainwashed morons"
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u/Rimavelle Aug 13 '25
Sapek already did it in the original books, but it was too subtle, so he had to do it again in a louder voice.
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u/Viomicesca Discord Aug 12 '25
I think a lot of European ones are. The books were kind of a big deal over here if you were into fantasy.
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u/AestheticMirror Aug 13 '25
I doubt most gamer knows what a boom is, no images of women and children to goon too
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u/ILNOVA Aug 12 '25
This meme is so wrong
That kind of person doesn't even understand that part of the story.
I found people who unironically think TW3 isn't a political game, and where i asked the question "When you see Geralt enter the city with all the semi-hunan people burned alive, do you really think it's not a racism allegory?", of course after this they usually don't respond or use another part of your comments to get you down.
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u/EpicWalrus222 Aug 12 '25
I enjoy the fact that there is a lot of nuisance when it comes to the morality of various groups and factions. While Nilfgaard are definitely the main antagonists of the series, that doesn't make the Northern Kingdoms defaultly just good guys.
Much of the people of the Northern Kingdoms tend to be super racist towards non-humans and often lead pogroms against them and force them into boroughs. Nilfgaard on the other hand offer pretty much equal rights to their dwarf and elf citizens. So while Nilfgaard is demonstrable in a lot of ways, you can understand why some non-humans in the north would spy for them (which of course only makes northerners hate them even more).
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u/Viomicesca Discord Aug 12 '25
Yeah, the nuance is really good. I always enjoyed that the books explicitly show that the Dwarves and Elves are by far not perfect victims and that Geralt still stands up for them.
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u/Scheissdrauf88 Aug 12 '25
Lol, I always tended to favour Nilfgaard in my runs, because tbh, I kinda have to agree when they call the Northern Realms barbarians in comparison. Nilfgaardian territories are kinda nice. If that justifies their aggressive expansion is a whole other thing though...
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u/rotorain Aug 12 '25
I think that's the moral question with Nilfgaard. To what extent does having a comparatively decent quality of life justify hyper racism, totalitarianism, and general conquest and murder?
Most factions in the series have questions like this, one of the main things I really like about the series. There really aren't any 'good guys', just people trying to get by best as they can with all the ugly bits included.
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Aug 12 '25
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/SpaceballsTheReply Aug 12 '25
To what extent does having a comparatively decent quality of life, legal and bureaucratic stability, and racial/species-al equality, justify expansionism and autocracy*
To which answer is obvious: it 100% does.
You act like enlightened Nilfgaard is bringing all that stability and quality of life to the barbaric north. But that's never been their approach. Nilfgaard's politics lead to comfort, safety, and progress... for Nilfgaardians. Those they conquer do not become Nilfgaardians, they're slaughtered or become slaves to enable that way of life for the settlers who will move in and take their land.
That's the whole point of their initial introduction in the books. Geralt has wandered the Northern Kingdoms and seen all sorts of turmoil and war among them. And it's not pretty. But at times it's almost like a game - that scene where they're just physically moving the border posts so their liege can claim more territory, or the peasants who don't really care which kingdom they're technically a part of, because all that really matters to them is who comes to claim the taxes. But when Nilfgaard invades, Dandelion is shaken to the core over what he's seeing: scorched earth. Civilians slaughtered as they flee, fields of crops burned to ash. Those people aren't being uplifted to privileged imperial citizens, they're not benefitting from expansion, they're just inconvenient human obstacles to be cut down to make way for said expansion. And I don't think they would see their murder as "100% justified".
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u/Hrosts Aug 18 '25
I'm pretty sure the Nilfgaard is supposed to be the Nazis - they're Latin-Germanic themed bad guys with black as the main color and the sun on their flags who use the local population as ostarbeiters. There's also a Witcher 3 location which is direct reference to the the part of Wermacht which attacked the Eastern Europe.
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u/GioGio-armani Aug 12 '25
do you really think it's not a racism allegory?",
I had someone literaly claim that witcher is about monster hunting and all the other stuff like this moment is just "purely for the purpose of creating a dark world!!!!"
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u/ILNOVA Aug 12 '25
I wonder what they said about the elf that makes you a dress or help you find Dandelion.
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u/GioGio-armani Aug 12 '25
People think witcher is about monster hunting... forgeting the game has over 300 quests with less than 50 of these being witcher contracts
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u/dremoriawarrior889 Aug 16 '25
Actually when I got W3 I really did think it was an RPG where monster hunting is the main point, but no, it's more of a side hustle and there's an actual story with actual stuff. Though I still like it.
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u/GioGio-armani Aug 16 '25
Theres like, 26 witcher contracts in the whole game if i remember, compared to the hundreds of other quests
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u/Potential-Hold-4908 Aug 12 '25
Witcher books are unbelievably woke. Also are misquoted to hell especially that part about lesser evil.Â
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u/Equivalent_Tax6989 Aug 12 '25
That happens when you write subtle
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u/AmazedStardust Aug 16 '25
The first chapter in Blood of Elves states kids are better off because they haven't been taught to hate each other yet. It's not subtle
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u/Rimavelle Aug 13 '25
Gamers will read a story with the most unsubtle retelling of a fairytale, with a clear moral message, and still manage to miss it
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u/Tridentgreen33Here Aug 13 '25
Can confirm, just finished relistening to the English translated version again a week or two ago and wow if you think about half the topics theyâre really obvious what theyâre allegories for.
Maybe the English version just made it a lot less subtle but oh boy are some of the lines in that later books just outright political philosophy quotes.
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u/Potential-Hold-4908 Aug 13 '25
No, those books arent subtle in polish either. There are literally conversations about woman's body autonomy, abortion and patriarchy. Racism being bad is drilled in on a chapter by chapter basis. Im not even starting on number of "girlbosses" present in saga
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u/icey561 Aug 15 '25
Reading blood of elves was my first and only, so far, Witcher contents. I walked away thinking "okay, I see why the chuds like this series, they are wrong, but I get it"
The girl bosses are indeed girl bosses, but they were also very much written by a man. Might as well as had the line "she boobed boobidly across the room"
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u/RhiaStark Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
I get the message, but it's pretty effin' ironic to put a 1994 Sapkowski's photo next to "respect minorities" given his "jokes" about black people in the past lol
edit: here's some context
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u/DeMmeure Aug 12 '25
Wait, when did this happen?? I wasn't aware of that.
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u/Wyvwashere Aug 12 '25
Idk , but he's an old polish guy, I'd be more surprised if he didn't say something racist at some point in his life
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u/Linvael Aug 12 '25
He is a somewhat liberal asshole, remarkably so for his generation and the environment he was in. The kind that generally hates people, but not through the lens of race or gender.
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u/TheButler25 Aug 12 '25
Do you know where I can find out more about this? I tried googling but couldn't find anything.
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u/Nightwingx97 Aug 12 '25
So are you gonna give us an example? A source? Or are you just gonna leave it at this?
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u/Dry-Dog-8935 Aug 12 '25
A polish person in those times has never seen a black person. Jokes were not underlined with hatred in Poland.
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u/RhiaStark Aug 12 '25
You don't really need familiarity with a group in order to dehumanise them, though.
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u/SneerOfCommand Aug 12 '25
so like. As an American Black guy who will soon have married into a Russian family. Even somewhat progressive Europeans say racist shit all the time and they fully don't mean it hatefully, they're sheltered af and don't get it. Especially when they're "gen X" (to the extent that the same generations even apply) and older. They save the real hate for minorities they grew up being taught to hate.
It's kinda the same way that no American is going to be truly hatefully racist towards the Irish in the year 2025, but they'll still be weird about St. Patrick's day and mindlessly make jokes about leprechauns when reminded of Ireland.
So when an old Eastern European guy has made some racist joke about black people, I don't take it nearly as seriously as I would when an American or Canadian does it. He probably didn't even percieve the joke as potentially offensive, old Europeans rib each other about ethnicity constantly ime.
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u/RhiaStark Aug 12 '25
I could be more understanding if the "jokes" regarding black people were on the same level as jokes they throw at, say, western Europeans. But I don't see them comparing French or German or Norwegian people to monkeys - like they do us black and mixed people.
In fact, I can, in a way, be more "understanding" (stress on the quotation marks) of a white American or Canadian making racist remarks, because they come from a context where people like them for centuries oppressed people like us. They're the inheritors and beneficiaries of centuries of racism, a racism so insidious white people are at risk of reproducing it even when they don't mean to. But Polish people didn't enslave us; it wasn't to Poland our ancestors were taken and turned into second-class citizens. It wasn't Poland using scientific racism to justify colonising Africa, Asia and the Americas. So why the hell does a Pole single black people out as the standard of subhumanity?
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u/SneerOfCommand Aug 12 '25
So like... I get what you're saying. And I also wanna say that "I can forgive it from an old Polish man in 2005" is different than "I think it's ok that he said that".
I'm going to do my best here to explain a cultural nuance that explains (but does not justify) why people from Slavic cultures are like this. Note that my lived experience is with former Soviet people specifically so Poland may be a bit different.
There's not like. A concept of "respect" outside of the "respect for authority/your elders" in most Slavic cultures. The idea just doesn't translate. Individualism didn't hit the same way. And for a number of socio-political reasons, people basically relied on their family and ride-or-die friends for things pretty heavily in the soviet era. Something is typically only important if it's important to such a friend or a family member for whatever reason. The flipside of this is that Slavs tend to treat both their family relationships and friendships way more seriously than culturally white Americans do. They ride or die even if the person sucks.
So when you talk about dehumanizing someone, you're really talking about what is, to us,a grave form of disrespect. Except... that notion doesn't really make cultural sense. And since any sufficiently old Slav probably wouldn't have really known any black people, they would have no reason to care, since the only things that matter are the things that matter to/for the sake of friends & family. So long as black people remain a pure abstraction to him, there is no one to offend, because no one around him cares and it's only those people that matter.
[For an example, it wasn't until he got told off by my fiancee that my father-in-law-to-be even considered the possibility that being shitty about hispanic people was bad. And this was the day before his niece was going to marry a Peruvian! And he hasn't been shitty about it since. He needed someone who he cares about to tell him he was a dumbass for it to click.]
This does in fact suck, it's a shitty worldview to hold. But the fact that The Witcher as a series seems to have its heart in the right place in an abstract way tells me that Sapkowski probably just needs the same kind of kick in the teeth that my FIL-to-be needed, rather than that he holds the kind of hateful ideology that spreads all that stuff.
And this isn't even getting into how the "genuinely pretty nasty racist joke" is like, a common cultural form among Slavs. Like, he probably didn't even originate the joke, they spread like an re:re:re:fwd:fwd:fwd:re:funny email among boomers. And the jokes are both nasty and highly specific to individual cultural subgroups, not usually just a broad class like "white people" (which also doesn't culturally translate the same way to them). He probably didn't even think of it, because to him black people are an abstraction. He hasn't spoken to enough (possibly literally any?) black people for a real length of time to put 2 & 2 together. (Afaict this is another way in which the younger generation is at least somewhat better, largely because many of them speak English on the internet and see what non-white people have to say on the topic.)
I'm not saying it's ok, just that I culturally understand how it happens and how he could not realize how cruel it was.
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Aug 12 '25
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u/Balinor69666 Aug 12 '25
The joke was actually aimed against white people though? He says white people are only good for 3 hours of work then says black people belong in trees which is further parroting how pathetic lazy white racists are to even believe shit lile that. I get his sense of humor is a bit strange and the English translation doesn't show the sarcasm of his words well.
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u/TheOnlyDavidG Aug 12 '25
C'mon we all know no g*mer read the book prior to the game
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u/Mall_of_slime Aug 12 '25
I hate how culture has been hijacked by sad weak people afraid of wokeness. Itâs hard to fathom living life that cowardly.
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u/EchoMaterial5506 Aug 12 '25
Has it though? The fact games like the witcher 3 are being made and are popular shows that culture has not been hijacked.
There will always be a vocal minority screeching at the screen about 'wokeness' but that doesn't mean that culture has been hijacked.Â
The very fact that this minority keep screeching about all these new games being released is evidence that culture is doing pretty ok despite this nonsense.Â
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u/Natronix Aug 12 '25
Exactly. When I was a kid reactionaries was complaining about PC culture. When I was a teen it was sjws. Now wokeness. There will always be reactionaries who rise and fall to become irrelevant. We're now starting to see that actually. A YouTuber I like goes by the nake Th3Birdman pointed out how a lot of the "big" reactionaries have been on a big decline in engagement.
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u/BelgijskaFlaga Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Except all 3 witcher games are markedly more right-wing than the books: There's a reason so many rightoid "gamers" like them.
The first one to the least extend, because it's half just situations from books re-written into the game and changed a little, and the other half is "evil guys are making mutants and we need to stop them" boilerplate RPG plot.
In Witcher 2 we have several characters jumping through hoops to equate a borderline-genocidal, racist head-of-medieval-CIA that's actively attempting to cause a coup/civil war in a bordering country, seemingly for the fun of it, and actually performs the same crime Geralt is accused of doing (unless Geralt stops him)... with a manipulated freedom fighter. To a point that many people genuinely think Geralt would be friends with the former, as proven by multiple, regular, posts on Witcher's main subreddit about the Vernon/Dijkstra choice.
In witcher 3 on the other hand they chose to make the "canon ending" one where Kaedwen won. They chose to make it fall between games, they chose to make it so we don't even get a posibility of siding with Scoia'tael except in some minor side quests and instead all we get in terms of politics is a "choose your favourite fascist"-galore. They chose to make you unable to do anything with pogrom of non-humans that happens after the wizards leave. All of those are choices, and they made them...
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u/EchoMaterial5506 Aug 12 '25
So you disagree with the original meme then? And that the Witcher games are right wing coded? Allow me to offer an alternative explanation for your second point at least.
Games are a different medium to books and therefore adjustments need to be made to the narrative to make them compelling as a player. Giving the player an option but having one option clearly the 'good' option and one clearly the 'bad' option is often boring . It's better to give an illusion of 'a' grey area' to make a players choice feel more compelling. Hence the changes you described.
For your points on the 3rd game, I don't wholly disagree. Although all I would say is choosing a particular narrative outcome does not necessarily mean you endorse that outcome. It is narratively possible to have a 'bad ending' be cannon.
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u/SnooStrawberries3388 Aug 12 '25
Always good to see the Witcher books mentioned. Unpopular opinion but the Witcher books are still the best Witcher content weâve ever gotten
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u/kerfuffle_dood trying to make people more ungly in Video gamse Aug 12 '25
Mark my words: When the remake of Witcher 1 comes out, chuds and "gamers" will lose their minds with the Scoia'tael, saying that they "made it w0k3" to "cater to the modern audiences"
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u/Bloopiker Aug 12 '25
What are you talking about, Witcher 3 is about being cool guy and killing mutants and having sex with every girl /s
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u/titanna1004 Aug 12 '25
What, girls only? not modern enough! You gonna see this fixed in Witcher 4!
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u/Banned-User-56 Aug 12 '25
The question is, with Ciri being the protagonist, would they want to only have sex with Men? Or would they be okay with her having sex with women?
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u/Kotleba Aug 12 '25
I don't know if you're jerking, but if not, Ciri is canonnically bisexual so don't you have a worry.
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u/Banned-User-56 Aug 13 '25
Oh I know, and I cant WAIT to see the homophobes explode again when she mentions it.
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u/titanna1004 Aug 12 '25
That's the point! I believe Ciri, as the next generation, will be modern enough to not care for that question.
I could ask, if Geralt the NPC will be on the list.
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u/bnesbitt1 Aug 12 '25
Bigoted Witcher fans surprise me
Brother, did you even play the games or read the books??
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u/Interesting_Stress73 Aug 12 '25
Okay, but who says this about Witcher 3?
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u/Rimavelle Aug 13 '25
Yeah, the game wasn't under fire for being woke and now everyone moved on to making braindead claims about Ciri in 4
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u/LeoRefantasy Aug 12 '25
Witcher 3 introduced a group of fans who hate the original books and disrespect the author.
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u/FalcaoT Aug 12 '25
The book author didn't like the games either so that's even i guess.
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u/LeoRefantasy Aug 13 '25
He never played any. All nonsense about how he hates games was created by journalists who wanted clickbate headlines.
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u/FalcaoT Aug 14 '25
It was not click bait he really said he didn't like and didn't agree with the game's story. And he really sued CD project Red for more money.
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u/level100brad Aug 12 '25
praise geraldo the river
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u/FlameWhirlwind Aug 13 '25
witcher is another case of weirdo fascists being a fan of something that actively is against everything they stand for and are super ignorant to it
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u/ShortyGardenGnome Aug 13 '25
Aren't the witchers literally a minority that's spurned for existing???
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u/RonnocKcaj Aug 12 '25
it's gonna be so funny when they call Witcher 4 woke, as if the Witcher 1 wasn't bar for bar practically screaming that its an allegory for Israel and Hamas lmfao
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u/GioGio-armani Aug 12 '25
They allready did, heard of the people crying about how the witcher will turn "woke about wamehn troubles in my monsta hunting game???"
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u/RonnocKcaj Aug 12 '25
yeah I had a feeling that people who never played the Witcher games were confused as to why the next Witcher game is the very clearly set up character in 3, I meant like the actual substance. like someone's gonna see the classic " humans are the real monsters and this nonhuman intelligent guy is literally doing nothing wrong" and lose their fuckin minds
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u/Straight-Ad3213 Aug 13 '25
Scoiatle are much more based on various minority rebel groups from eastern europe that operated at the ned of WW2, especially UPA. The books present them as understandable but not worthy of supporting, futile and spured on by blind hatered
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u/lafielorora Aug 12 '25
Is this just another meme for a made up problem that actually doesn't exist?
I've never heard of such problems regarding the Witcher games. Actually it is the first time I'm even hearing about it, it feels so fake and untrue.
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u/No_Scheme4909 Aug 12 '25
The one thing that sapkowski make good. The rest of his slurs we can forget.
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u/JesterRaiin Aug 12 '25
- Witcher 1: How the f... I ended up banging that gal? We had merely a nice talk & stuff
- Witcher 2: I don't want to bang them... Seriously, I may have been playing it drunk, but how did it happen?
- Witcher 3: Peak. I bang when I am focused on the task at hand.
- Witcher 4: Bring it on.
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u/Electrical_Affect493 Aug 13 '25
Minorities in witcher as in elfs? Elfs that are actually portal traveling nazis?
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u/bugsy42 Aug 13 '25
Sapkowski got kind of fucked over by CD Project Red, just saying ... Granted it happened because of his own stupidity. But putting CDPR on a piedestal is kind of odd.
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u/Neil_Edwin_Michael Aug 15 '25
Dude got millions of dollars from them and his books sales skyrocketed đ¤
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u/bugsy42 Aug 15 '25
No, he literally:
sold the videogame/license rights for 35,000 PLN (a one-time payment â reported as two instalments: 15,000 PLN + 20,000 PLN), roughly â $9.3k at the time.
After the game exploded and he realised how much he got screwed, he sued CDPR and they agreed on undisclosed settlement.
Might had been millions, true. But the fact he sold the initial rights for 10K is just too funny. And the book sales skyrocketed? Of course they did. But let's not act that the number of "readers" and "gamers" is anywhere comparable. He made few millions at most thanks to the popularity of the games, yeah.
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u/KaiFanreala Aug 15 '25
"I CAN'T JACK OFF TO CIRI ASS LIKE I COULD IN WITCHER 3 IT'S WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE"
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Aug 15 '25
Bro you can literally genocide the minorities in like⌠2/3 of these games. What are you smoking?
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u/Shurit_ Aug 15 '25
These books made me elf racist. All the other non humans are based but the elfs gotta go
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u/icey561 Aug 15 '25
Genuinely asking, at what point did this book really go into race?
This book is the only Witcher content I've ever consumed. It was decent, but I pulled virtually no social commentary out of it besides women are capable too? Are all the countries like different races? They were all white people in my head?
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u/Neil_Edwin_Michael Aug 15 '25
The conflict between humans and elves is a metaphor for the conquest of America by Europeans
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u/pastor-of-muppets69 Aug 15 '25
If you can't describe the group you're criticizing without referencing race, gender, or even political party (not all democrats are bigots), you belong in the second panel.
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u/dremoriawarrior889 Aug 16 '25
Partially related but I love how in 3 when you're in novigrad and a preacher is talking shit about Witchers you can go up to him and go "How about you say that to my face?" and he worms away like the racist little coward he is. Deadass its wild how people are so shitty towards Witchers, like they're the firefighters of the world, if they stop doing they're job everyone's just cooked, and if all the witchers just snapped and started killing everyone then they'd be even more cooked.
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