Part of what makes the TW so interesting and powerful to you. There will likely be millions of players with no connection whatsoever to Geralt from the previous games, nor Geralt/Triss/Yennefer from the books. Holding onto an image is fine. Claiming that your image must persist into everyone else's image is arrogance.
Well, yeah. That's why I specifically wrote "to me" in my post.
Arrogance is an exciting word. It certainly applies to me in many cases. I'm not sure this is one of them. Millions of players with no connection to the characters from the books have no image of them in mind. Until I am convinced that my image of these characters is flawed (which could be the case), I don't see how I am arrogant in thinking that character X is likely to do this and is unlikely to do that based on the books, or arrogant by saying this to a new player. Maybe wrong. Not arrogant. And I'm waiting to be proven wrong.
Again, based on what you know of them. Also, Ad absurdum.
Yes. And I am still waiting to be educated otherwise. I'm not saying my judgment of the characters is infallible. But I've yet to see a strong opposing judgment. So far it's been "things can happen". For ease of reference, this was my quote, minus the ad absurdum:
EliHarel said:
There's a range of convincing development, and the area beyond it is ludicrous. I don't know what that line is, but to me a threesome between these characters is in that ludicrous field, based on what I know of them.
We have a character (Geralt) who had a strong love with a woman (Yen), who then was forced to forget her and then carried on living and forged a new, strong love for a different woman (Triss).
We have a woman (Yen) who was forced to forget her strong love for a man (Geralt), who continued on living (though we don't know in what ways yet) and now remembers him.
Regardless of any previous relationship between the two woman, it remains well within the realm of possibility that if they both actually love him, and he actually loves them both, then they would try to work something out. The return of memory isn't going suddenly invalidate the experiences, emotions, and attachments Geralt has built. That's not how love works.
And maybe either Yennifer or Triss wouldn't be able to handle that. That's a very real possibility, but it's also just as real of a possibility that so long as neither woman was trying to /own/ him, that they'd work to try to figure out a way to maintain all of those loving relationships.
I get what you're saying. I think. But to me it remains in a very general, theoretical level, without at all touching the actual characters in question and what we know of them. Correct me if I'm wrong, this post of yours comes down to "things can happen and people change". But I don't see how this specific thing, a threesome, can happen to these specific characters, Geralt, Yen and Triss, based on what we know about them, and how these specific characters might change in this direction. If these were an RPG about characters with a relatively sparse history, if at all, then I will agree that the general idea of a threesome isn't weird. When we're talking about specific characters, I still fail to see how this course of development is in line of what we know about them from thousands of pages.
I accept the fact that people change. But I still maintain that there are changes you can somehow see happening, and changes that are out of the blue. I've yet to see traits of Yen, Triss and Geralt brought up to argue that it's not unreasonable for them to consider this relationship. Since they're established characters, the points need to be made about
them, specifically, and not people in general.
Does that require a threesome? Nope. Not in the least.
Does that seem like a way that a video game would try to portray that to a wide audience in a limited amount of time? Yes, it really does.
Does that make even more sense in a love/lust-filled setting like the Witcher, and in a Witcher game especially? Yes.
Sorry, I didn't understand 2 and 3.
Remember for that people who haven't read the books, who have only played the games, this is the 'canon' at the start of TW3. To have you romance someone for two games, develop a strong relationship with her, and then bring back a book character in the third game and say 'Sorry, that wasn't actually your true love, this is'. is really rough.
No problem there. I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be an option to choose Triss.
To then tell the player that they need to either choose between the person they built this relationship up with, or someone who is central to their character's 'book canon' history without the option to try to solve the problem more organically is the position that I would consider 'ludicrous', and a huge (nopunintended) dick move.
I don't understand why. This game is riddled with choices. Some of them very hard. This, maybe, one of the hardest - so why should there be an "everyone's happy" solution here,
especially when it has yet to be established (in this discussion) how Triss and Yen, existing characters, would agree to this? Decisions have consequences. Some of these consequences aren't easy to digest. Usually these consequences lock out other paths. I don't see why the romance aspect should receive a free pass in contrast to all the others, especially when it's yet to be explained how it makes sense to these specific characters.
Telling someone in TW to choose between two things isn't a dick move. It's... TW. Telling someone to choose between two things which he has an emotional attachment to isn't a dick move, it's what makes the choice actually weighty, unlike so many other games (well, maybe that is a dick move, but I think most fans won't want to give up on that dick. Move.). If you don't lose anything, then the game isn't about choices and consequences anymore. Telling someone that they can have it all is clearly
not characteristic of this franchise, in any way, in any aspect. Love included. Books as well as games. This part of your post really baffles me Vixraine. To me it reads like "it's not fair to force the player to make difficult decisions about things and characters he cares about". But this is a major part of the series.
To me. There, it's even in bold this time around. But I'll make a guess that this is something the franchise is famous for even outside Eli's world.
If a player feels the decision is difficult... then that's fucking fantastic! The game did well! This conflict is terrific. It's what makes choices matter. You add that not giving the option to solve it organically is a dick move. Well, "organically" is a word that's a bit beyond me. I don't understand what it means here. I'm guessing it has to do with what you wrote earlier about how people can change and develop, but, again, I still don't see a post explaining how
these specific people can change and develop
in this specific direction when there's much to suggest in the books that it's unlikely.
I'll add that I feel a threesome, from a story perspective, is just kinda boring because it's an "everyone's happy" solution. The characters have it all. I find it a bit out of place in this franchise (and even more with, again, the specific characters involved).
