Agreeing on Canon in TW1 / TW2

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Agreeing on Canon in TW1 / TW2

Not sure if this has been done before but, I want to try and establish what the most likely canon versions of the game stories are. I don't think this has been fully addressed by CDPR. I am currently re-playing through TW1 and plan to make my choices based on what I think are canon.

The two that stand out for me are, Thaler and Princess Ada.

With regards to Thaler, it is possible to have him killed in TW1. However, he crops up in TW3 when I played it without carrying over any previous game save data. So logically, it seems that the canon story for Thaler, is that he survives in TW1.

As for Ada, I read somewhere that if no saves are carried over to TW2, you find a letter of some kind which states Ada is dead. So based on this, the canon for Ada, would be that she dies in TW1. The cause of her death is not explained but, this does give a good excuse to kill her :)

Do you guys agree on these? Do you have any input on the above or, any other characters?

Cheers
 

sv3672

Forum veteran
There is not really a "canon" story in the games, or at least I do not know of one that has been officially declared as such. Nor do I think it would be a good thing, there is not much point having choices in a game if only one path is valid and the others are basically treated as if they were fan fiction or mods. In that case, I would rather not have the choice and save the resources spent on implementing it. Anyway, continuity between the games is not a particular strength of the Witcher series, choices are sometimes ignored or handled in an inconsistent way, like in your examples. Nevertheless, the situation with Thaler is not typical, most of the major decisions are not outright contradicted by the sequels if save import is used.

By the way, I do have the list of all imported choices and what they default to from the game data, but a non-default world state is not necessarily also a non-canon one, there just has to be something for the case when no save is imported (short of generating it randomly).
 

Guest 3847602

Guest
ummagoomba;n8797690 said:
As for Ada, I read somewhere that if no saves are carried over to TW2, you find a letter of some kind which states Ada is dead. So based on this, the canon for Ada, would be that she dies in TW1. The cause of her death is not explained but, this does give a good excuse to kill her
Do you guys agree on these? Do you have any input on the above or, any other characters? Cheers
IIRC Foltest mentions to Fitz-Oesterlen that Geralt killed her (if you play non-imported game), don't know about any letter.
Adda surviving TW1 (and marrying Radovid) makes his aspirations towards Temeria in TW2 and 3 a bit more realistic. So, even though she's not mentioned in TW3, the whole political situation makes more sense with her alive, imo.
 
sv3672;n8798130 said:
There is not really a "canon" story in the games, or at least I do not know of one that has been officially declared as such. Nor do I think it would be a good thing, there is not much point having choices in a game if only one path is valid and the others are basically treated as if they were fan fiction or mods.

I agree but, since CDPR have included certain details about the things I raised, in games with no imported save. Is it not then implied that this is their version of how the story has played out?
 

sv3672

Forum veteran
ooodrin;n8798510 said:
Adda surviving TW1 (and marrying Radovid) makes his aspirations towards Temeria in TW2 and 3 a bit more realistic. So, even though she's not mentioned in TW3, the whole political situation makes more sense with her alive, imo.

Not sure about the Dijkstra ending, though, how does he become the ruler of Redania with Adda alive?

ummagoomba;n8799260 said:
I agree but, since CDPR have included certain details about the things I raised, in games with no imported save. Is it not then implied that this is their version of how the story has played out?

Again, having a default state for when no save is imported does not imply that the non-default options are also non-canon. It is more of a technical issue that there has to be a default. If started separately, Blood and Wine also defaults to the TW3 ending where Ciri dies or disappears and Geralt is alone, but we do not know if those are "the" canon, if there is any. Of course, in case there is one, it does make sense to also make it the default. On the other hand, when a choice is clearly contradicted even with save import, in a way that creates a continuity error in the story (for example, Thaler being alive after dying in TW1), and the save import does not react to it at all, one might say that particular path has indeed been rendered non-canon. But this only happened to some choices, others are either handled by the save import in some way, or just do not matter in the story of the sequel(s).

By the way, as far as I know, Adda is dead and Thaler is alive by default in the TW1->TW2 import (according to game/player/player.ws), and Alvin is given to Triss. Not sure about the Order/elves/neutral path, I think it is neutral, but I do not see where "sigfried is dead" is set without import, so he would be alive? This needs to be checked in gameplay.
The complete list of story related import facts is:

w1_save_imported
import_chosen_shani
import_ending_elves
import_ending_neutral
import_ending_order

import_talar_killed
import_yaevin_killed

sigfried is dead
witcher1_adda_dead
witcher1_adda_lives

They are all unset (false) without save import, but maybe there are defaults set elsewhere I did not find. "Grey" facts are those I found no references to in scenes, quest logic, or journal.
A list of all Witcher 2 choices imported into Witcher 3 can be found here (and whatever consequences found to them have been collected here), all facts are false/unset by default.

Although it would be technically possible to import TW1 facts that have been imported to a TW2 save to TW3, this is not actually implemented, none of the choices from the first game have an effect in the third one. However, the Shani path in TW1 can be "simulated" with a dialogue choice in Hearts of Stone and that affects a few scenes later, so that one choice is still recognized to some extent in the final game.
 
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Guest 3847602

Guest
sv3672;n8809650 said:
Not sure about the Dijkstra ending, though, how does he become the ruler of Redania with Adda alive?

She'd be deposed I guess. In that situation (to Redanians) Adda is just a foreigner and a wife of assassinated ruler.
There is no Foltest and no Temeria anymore, she's useless from diplomatic standpoint. She's been a queen relatively shortly and for all we know Radovid didn't have any children with her which makes her even less influental in Redania.
Dijkstra ending is hard to reconcile with logic, but I don't think Adda not being able to retain her position have anything to do with it.
 
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