Choice as Purpose in The Witcher 2

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a bold game in many respects, and this essay could easily become a list of those respects and still hit the requisite word count set forth by my tyrannical and very real editor. Let us start with the last bold step it offers, then: the final boss fight is entirely optional.

Or is it? Geralt’s choice to fight the titular assassin or let him go is one made by the player, in the moment. It stands on its own, but it is not a choice between “renegade” or “paragon”, “easy mode” or “hard mode.” In fact, it is an opportunity for Geralt - and his player to make a statement. CD Projekt is not asking the player to opt into or out of a combat scenario, but to answer the primary question posed by the Witcher 2′s themes: how do we conflate the responsibilities and motives of the individual with the state - and should we? 

Consider again the choice, too. Geralt can fight, and kill, Letho, but he will only be destroying a pawn. The true villain lurks elsewhere, and arguably, some of the villains of the Witcher 2 died at Letho’s hands. On the other hand, letting Letho go also lets an assassin run free, a man who had no compunction killing in cold blood - or offering up Geralt to his masters in order to save his own skin. And so the player answers another question with this choice: what is the value and purpose of free will when there is no good choice to make? 

During the final act of The Witcher 2, if Geralt has played his cards right, he can question the motives of Cynthia, who turns out to be an agent of Nilfgaard, the Witcher’s version of the evil empire standard fantasy trope. After helping her with a quest below Loche Muinne, he can confront her motives and her decision to side with Nilfgaard.

“Mock me if you must,” she says. “But I truly believe one huge empire is humanity’s only hope. Many nations under one crown. With shared laws, advanced science, burgeoning industry and trade.” And when Geralt cocks an eyebrow at this propaganda, the agent drops her final reason. “And no wars, of course.”

It is the standard lawful evil argument, of course, though one gets the sense that this character truly believes what she is saying. And on the topic of peace, she can’t make her case in better circumstances, for at this point in the Witcher series, regardless of the choices Geralt (and the player) has made, Geralt has been witness to no less than three bloody conflicts in the the “free” North, all between kings of lords of those nations, in less than as many years - and two over the course of the Witcher 2 itself.

So Geralt doesn’t argue, only musing, “Let me know when that works out.” And the player is left to decide for themselves if Nilfgaard has a point.

One of the most significant choices the player makes in the Witcher 2 is to side with the Temerian special forces commander, Vernon Roche, or the Scoia’tael elven terrorist Iorveth. Looked another way, the player may instead be choosing between the Scoia’tael freedom fighter, Iorveth, and the Temerian oppressor, Vernon Roche. The choice is first of all significant because it defines which half of the already-epic game the player gets to experience, a split quest that offers very little common ground over the course of 10-20 hours of gameplay. It is even more significant, however, because it asks the player to choose between two horrible choices. 

Iorveth is a terrorist by almost any definition. While fighting for elven freedom and rights against a government that systematically oppresses his race, he has no qualms about taking the lives of human non-combatants. From one point of view, he is just as bad as the villains he claims to fight - perfectly willing to murder humans simply for being human. Yet Iorveth would demur at these accusations. From his own perspective, he is not trying to be the hero. It is not about doing the right or even just thing. It is simply war, and he aims to win it, no matter the cost.

Vernon Roche, meanwhile, sees the elven Scoia’tael for what they are: terrorists, murderers, and thieves. And so he hunts them down without mercy, saving countless lives. But he ends as many as he takes; an unassociated elf caught in the forest is just as likely to meet her end on his blade as an actual Scoia’tael agent. He is blind to his role in perpetuating the violence he so vehemently speaks against. 

Iorveth could not exist without Roche; Roche could not exist without Iorveth.

Initially, when the Witcher 2 asks the player to choose between these two paths, it seems to be asking the player to choose which side is more justified. The player certainly has the option to believe that is just the case. Yet CD Projekt bends over backwards to make each choice seem crude in its own way, and this is furthered by the dialogue options Geralt has after he makes the choice. Both Roche and Iorveth ask Geralt why he sided with them, and while he can back up their ideologies and justify his decision by saying it was the “right” choice, he can also remain coy, withholding his own reasoning from his ally - or “ally”. 

This choice invites the player to construct their own reasoning, however complicated, that not even CD Projekt could have anticipated. And regardless of the side chosen or the justification given, the game simply moves on. It passes no judgment; it awards no points; the massacre of Loch Muinne happens regardless. The empire still invades the North.

Not only is choice not rewarded in the Witcher 2, then, it is seemingly irrelevant. Geralt has an impact on the world on smaller scales - indeed, his choice between Iorveth or Roche ultimately decides which of two burgeoning nations survives the game - but he has no impact on the whole. The Northern kings and their sorcerers remain irredeemable villains, and Nilfgaard still manipulates those villains in order to throw the North into chaos, a juicy morsel for its own invasion plans. The player is not invited to see this is a defeat, however, but a reality. Men will rape and pillage and play with the lives of others for power. One man or woman cannot change this reality. Geralt, for all his influence, cannot prevent it. 

And yet as he combs through the ruins of Loch Muinne, he can still intervene to prevent a sexual assault and homicide, a tiny ripple that will do nothing to prevent the greater horrors from continuing. 

But that intervention continues time and again through the Witcher series, not with any hope of saving the world, but simply because it is the right thing to do. More accurately, it is Geralt’s value to act, regardless of outcome - and when the player chooses that intervention, they act too. Or maybe they don’t, passing on to skip to more pressing matters, and thereby making another statement: intervention isn’t worth it, the world is too big, and maybe if we hurry, we can actually save it this time.

So siding with Iorveth or Vernon does not save the world, but it does make a statement about the values and beliefs of the player. Murdering the Nilfgaardian agent (and it is possible at several points) does not prevent the invasion, nor does letting her go reduce the horrors to come by any measure, but either choice makes a statement. Who is Geralt? What does he stand for? Short of quitting the game, you cannot choose for Geralt to give up. Regardless of the outcome, he makes a choice.

There is a peace in that. 

Up to the point where I finally confronted Letho at the conclusion of The Witcher 2, I wanted desperately to choose a side - Iorveth or Roche and, later, Nilfgaard or the North - and I was continually dissuaded from feeling comfortable with any of those choices. But I was left with the opportunity for some satisfaction: revenge. Fighting and defeating Letho would not undo the slaughter and chaos already sown by his actions and those of his employer, Nilfgaard. It would, however, say that murder and treachery gets its just reward. And Letho appears to agree when he chooses to wait for Geralt. He does not shirk from his fate. He made his choices, and now he will live or die by them. He does not run.

Letho made his own choices out of his own values. He had no true loyalty to Nilfgaard; he only served them on a promise to reopen his Witcher school. In that, Letho had already evolved beyond me. He recognized the futility of siding with either warring nation and, instead, chose himself. 

By seeding chaos and destruction in its world, regardless of my choice, the Witcher 2 had invited me to measure my decisions not by their level of success but by what they said about me. I couldn’t save the world; I couldn’t end wars. But I could make a choice.

So I did.