Does this world has a name?

[TemerianGirl]

Does this world has a name?

Maybe this was discussed previously (I'm sorry), but still, maybe somebody knows the name of The Witcher world? Because I didn't found any information about that in the books. (Probably I search not very well )
Vesteros in Song of Ice & Fire, Tamriel/Nirn in TES, Arda/Middle-Earth in Silmarillion, Azeroth in Warcraft, Myrtana in Gothic, Gaia in Final Fantasy...
...and Wiedźminland in The Witcher?

If this world has no name, let's name it ourselves?

 

[vivaxardas2015]

It is an interesting question. In ASoIaF Westeros is a name of the continent (Essos is another one, with free cities and dragons ). In The Witcher saga, as far as I remember, we are not given even the name of a continent, or how many there are, or any other definite geography outside the North and Nilfgaardian empire. May be there is something in a new book?

 

[TemerianGirl]

It is an interesting question. In ASoIaF Westeros is a name of the continent (Essos is another one, with free cities and dragons ). In The Witcher saga, as far as I remember, we are not given even the name of a continent, or how many there are, or any other definite geography outside the North and Nilfgaardian empire. May be there is something in a new book?

Thanks for information, didn't know about Essos. Just start read George R. R. Martin recently.
And yes, it would be nice to hear those people, who get hands on new pan Andrzej Sapkowski book.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

Very good question, I wonder the same thing. Calling the Sapkowkis world "the world of Geralt" or "The continent of Witchers" is just grating. Doesn't really have a nice ring to it.

So yeah, a name that we could use to specifically use for the whole fictional world of the Witcher saga would be awesome.

 

[darcler]

Sapkowski never bothered to name the world, so any names are generally fan-made (Witcherland, or Wiedźminland, for that instance). And the part of the world where the story takes place is referred to simply as the continent.

 

[Kallelinski]

Oh god damn it. I wrote such a long text about why it is normal to have no name for a whole world just to realize that the humans (and the other people) know that they came from another world, so the lack of a name is even more bothering than it actually should be.

Imagine you travel from Europe to America, forget about the names and just call your new home, home. It doesn't make any sense not to distinguish between those, especially if you know that there are other worlds.

There are even people who can travel between worlds, so how do they distinguish them? Ciri even mentioned that this world has another stellar constellation.

 

[TemerianGirl]

Calling the Sapkowkis world "the world of Geralt" or "The continent of Witchers" is just grating. Doesn't really have a nice ring to it.

I saw a name "Wiedźminland" on some fan sites. Of course it doesn't sounds good. Those lands not belong to witchers, that's for sure.

 

[TemerianGirl]

Oh god damn it. I wrote such a long text about why it is normal to have no name for a whole world just to realize that the humans (and the other people) know that they came from another world, so the lack of a name is even more bothering than it actually should be.

Imagine you travel from Europe to America, forget about the names and just call your new home, home. It doesn't make any sense not to distinguish between those, especially if you know that there are other worlds.

There are even people who can travel between worlds, so how do they distinguish them? Ciri even mentioned that this world has another stellar constellation.

Even elfs don't call their world somehow? They lived there long before humans.

 

[Nerevar.220]

Even elfs don't call their world somehow? They lived there long before humans.

The original inhabitants weren´t elves either, ask a dwarf or a gnome. Their interdimensional cousins didn´t seem to have a name for their world itself, although they had moved there not so long before.

The only geographic info I remember was that most landmass is in the northern hemisphere, so the Ice Age is going to turn things really bad because there´s nowhere to move to.

 

[TemerianGirl]

The original inhabitants weren´t elves either, ask a dwarf or a gnome. Their interdimensional cousins didn´t seem to have a name for their world itself, although they had moved there not so long before.

The only geographic info I remember was that most landmass is in the northern hemisphere, so the Ice Age is going to turn things really bad because there´s nowhere to move to.

Dwarfs you say? I think these lads can give names to world, but very obscene. Probably I should better catch a gnome. Thank you for advice.

 

[vivaxardas2015]

It is not like it is a part of saga that the world or worlds do not have any names. Sapkowski wrote his novels not in a manner of a historical treatise with great number of details like ASoIaF. It is more of a legend told by somebody at a camp-fire. So a lot of details are simply missing. May be we have some geographical facts in his latest book, but if Sapkowski does not find it important enough, these names will be forever undetermined.

 

[TemerianGirl]

It is not like it is a part of saga that the world or worlds do not have any names. Sapkowski wrote his novels not in a manner of a historical treatise with great number of details like ASoIaF. It is more of a legend told by somebody at a camp-fire. So a lot of details are simply missing. May be we have some geographical facts in his latest book, but if Sapkowski does not find it important enough, these names will be forever undetermined.

Looks like it. Especially something weird going on with time and chronological part of Sapkowski's world. If you know what I mean

 

[Kallelinski]

I think the problem is the awareness of a whole world like we do or more precisely Sapkowski didn't want to give them that awareness or give it any attention, because it isn't relevant in a low fantasy. Geralt isn't saving the world, so the world doesn't have a name

They know there are or can be other worlds, but they don't know those worlds and it's hundreds of years ago, so how do they should call them? Can you say with certainty where your grandgrandgrandgrandgrandparents are from? You probably can't for sure and so can't they, but this isn't even important for them, since their known world is their world or better their home, e.g. Northern Kingsdoms, Nilfgaard Empire or Zerrikania. Unlike than us, who are aware of a whole planet and other planets(!), they are probably not really aware of something like that, because it doesn't concern them (at least most of them).

Of course they know there is or could something in the east after the desert Korath or even a whole new continent in the far west, but even though they know a country called Zerrikania, they don't even know much about it. We don't even know the real extent of the Nilfgaard Empire and if there is something south of it!

And that is the next problem, how do call a world or just that one continent, if you don't even know it completely? And who has the right to do so? An empire? A religion?

When did we began to call our world in term of a planet and not in "our land" Earth? Our world changed due discoveries like "the new world" = America, yet the name always stayed, Earth or Terra. Why? Because that's how we call(ed) our land, our ground. If you think about it, Water or Aqua is a much better name for own planet, because it is covered two-thirds in water (even though there are planets who are covered completely with water), but we didn't know it back then and it also didn't matter, because that wasn't "our world".

If someone asks me "how do you call this world?", i would say "come again? Our world? You mean our planet or my home?", because i distinguish between "my world" = "my home" and "my world" = "our planet", but that's probably the problem in the Witcher universe, because why would someone give this world a specific name, if there is only this known world for him? This is home, his world for him, there is nothing else to compare it to except for other countries.

Someone living in Winterfell won't say, "I'm from Westeros.", he will say, "I'm from Winterfell" or "the North", but if he went to Essos and someone will ask him there. He will probably say first "I'm from Westeros", given the circumstances. The term of world changed for him. But how do you call those continents together? Well, you can't, because there is no need for it.

When did people start saying Europe? When they discovered there is much more land in the south and east? So they can distinguish "our world" from "theirs"?

But to come back to the Witcher....i don't think they have the awareness of the world as we have and therefore they don't have a name for it. In the simpliest case they just call it Earth or Old/New Home. Boring, i know, but what do you expect, if you ask someone in what world he is living in

 

[harryagamez]

BTW, Myrtana is not the name of the world in Gothic series. It's just the name of one continent, along with Nordmar and Varant (not counting the Southern Islands and the Unknown Lands).

 

[vivaxardas2015]

No, they are bound to have. Yes, they may not know particulars, like ancient Greeks did not know about existence of what we now call China, Japan, or Mexico, but they have a very advanced religion. All religions have some sort of a creation story, and a name of the world being created. Creations stories are pretty much basic for practically any worship.

Also the witcher world is full of anachronisms, and a lot of really educated people. They have pretty advanced tools as a spy-glass, and it is pretty close to telescopes to look into the sky. They got to know a difference between stars and planets, and should have figured out they lived on one, as Ancient Greeks did, and name it.

They know about the conjunction, and other worlds coming into contact. People write treatises on this subject, and they are bound to name them. With a wide-spread literacy and involvement into research among sorcerers these names have to be unified at least across the North and the Empire. The Witcher world is at least as advanced as Europe during Renaissance. Also they have world travelers and explorers, like a boy, a sort of local Columbus, Ciri met before Thanedd whose fate she saw.

They may have difficulties in traversing the mountains and such, if their world has a lot of natural obstacles, but people there are as curious as us, and they may have even more incentive for traveling and relocation (for example, the elves). So this world, as I see it, got to have a pretty advanced geography and astronomy, but because Sapkowski never wrote about it, we will never know.

 

[DonSwingKing]

It is not like it is a part of saga that the world or worlds do not have any names. Sapkowski wrote his novels not in a manner of a historical treatise with great number of details like ASoIaF. It is more of a legend told by somebody at a camp-fire. So a lot of details are simply missing. May be we have some geographical facts in his latest book, but if Sapkowski does not find it important enough, these names will be forever undetermined.

Don't believe so. I remember in the Making of Videos of TW1 a dev saying that Sapkowski was very enthusiastic about the map. He didn't like the sketches and corrected a lot of things. So if he is so motivated in cartograph the world why not name it?

 

[vivaxardas2015]

Don't believe so. I remember in the Making of Videos of TW1 a dev saying that Sapkowski was very enthusiastic about the map. He didn't like the sketches and corrected a lot of things. So if he is so motivated in cartograph the world why not name it?

Well, I am judging by the books. They are written in a totally different style than any geography-heavy cycles, be that ASoIaF or LOTR. Did we even have a map before the games? I don't think so. The games were created some years after the last book, after his work on the saga was done, at least at that time. If Sapkowski found an interest in geography of the Witcher world, I expect to see it in his new book. That would be really great, I am all for fleshing out this world with as many detail as possible.

 

[Kallelinski]

No, they are bound to have. Yes, they may not know particulars, like ancient Greeks did not know about existence of what we now call China, Japan, or Mexico, but they have a very advanced religion. All religions have some sort of a creation story, and a name of the world being created. Creations stories are pretty much basic for practically any worship.

Also the witcher world is full of anachronisms, and a lot of really educated people. They have pretty advanced tools as a spy-glass, and it is pretty close to telescopes to look into the sky. They got to know a difference between stars and planets, and should have figured out they lived on one, as Ancient Greeks did, and name it.

They know about the conjunction, and other worlds coming into contact. People write treatises on this subject, and they are bound to name them. With a wide-spread literacy and involvement into research among sorcerers these names have to be unified at least across the North and the Empire. The Witcher world is at least as advanced as Europe during Renaissance. Also they have world travelers and explorers, like a boy, a sort of local Columbus, Ciri met before Thanedd whose fate she saw.

They may have difficulties in traversing the mountains and such, if their world has a lot of natural obstacles, but people there are as curious as us, and they may have even more incentive for traveling and relocation (for example, the elves). So this world, as I see it, got to have a pretty advanced geography and astronomy, but because Sapkowski never wrote about it, we will never know.

But those are few among millions and even then these are just theories and stories, they have a hard time to prove it and even if they can, most people don't care, because it doesn't concern them. Those stories about the conjunction survived thanks to the elves, so how historically verified is that?

Avallac'h painted humans and animals on a wall in a cave to confuse those researcher, whether humans came from another world or whether they were always here.

‘Your scientists wander for years through caves looking for traces of prehistoric man. And whenever they find them, they are fascinated beyond measure. Since it provides evidence that you are not strangers in this land and in this world. Proof that your ancestors lived here for centuries, so that the world belongs to your heirs. Well, every race is entitled to some roots.’

But what i meant is that the common folk won't care, that peasant in the middle of nowhere won't care about another world nor will he have a word for it. He also doesn't need to understand what a whole world means, the known world is enough for him. He isn't aware of such things.

As for the religion, i don't know. I always had the feeling that religions weren't that important anymore and if they came from another world, the creation of this new world can't just be the same one anymore. Did their religion change because of that? Maybe that's the reason why so few follow those religions anymore.


Didn't that boy die at the attempt to cross the great sea?


In the end they can't give the whole continent a name, if they only know a part of it. Their world is limited to what they know for sure and that's the Northern Kingsdoms, the Nilfgaard Empire, the desert Korath and Zerrikania.

I think Sapkowski just did it on purpose, like if the people of this world don't care, why should we? It is just not relevant. The Wild Hunt came from another world, which one? Doesn't matter, it's just another one.

Isn't that a characteristic of low fantasy? The focus on characters not on the world?

 

[vivaxardas2015]

Yes, Sapkowski's focus not on geography and history, but on characters. So he did not waste his time on things he considered irrelevant. I agree with this.

But I would disagree that he on purpose did not give us a name of this world because this world is such that its inhabitants did not have a name for it, for some reason. I would find it incredible and very implausible. Given that people tend to name everything, even non-existent entities such as Pegasus, for example, to leave unnamed the world they live in, and know it is not the only one, but one among many, would be very implausible. Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, constantly cited in saga, is a multi-volume work detailing many notable people and occurrences throughout the history of the continent and the world in general, as they say on TW wikipedia. So they should have a name for the world, and for the continent, even if not every peasant knows them.

But in any case, unless Sapkowsi explicitly tells us about it in his work how it works, we will never know for sure.

 

[Villentretanmerth]

Don't believe so. I remember in the Making of Videos of TW1 a dev saying that Sapkowski was very enthusiastic about the map. He didn't like the sketches and corrected a lot of things. So if he is so motivated in cartograph the world why not name it?

Really? I was under the impression that Sapkowski hated video games and was not involved with CDPR in making any of them.

What else did he do? Did he help with the story at all?