While Triss has made mistakes, Yennefer is cut from the same cloth as Phillipa Eilhart. She's cold, manipulative and self serving. She treats Geralt like a dog.
She even tried to force Geralt to kill the Golden Dragon.
She even tried to force Geralt to kill the Golden Dragon.
Now now @SpotEnemyBoats , she only wanted to kill Villentretenmerth, and his mate Myrgtabrakke, both intelligent, feeling and thinking innocent beings just like you and I, to cure her infertility.
Nothing says motherly love like wanting to murder the expectant parents of a child...so you can have a child.
:mean:
PS: Villentretenmerth and Myrgtabrakke's daughter...is Saesenthessis.
Nothing says motherly love like wanting to murder the expectant parents of a child...so you can have a child.
:mean:
PS: Villentretenmerth and Myrgtabrakke's daughter...is Saesenthessis.
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This also makes me wonder who would impregnate Yen if she managed to cure it? I imagine it would be someone who's not the legendary white wolf.
The fuck? Yen was never part of the lodge, some members wanted to invite her, but she declined and escaped to help Geralt/Ciri. It was Triss who betrayed them in the end and sold to the Lodge. Yen sacrificed her life trying to revive Geralt, while Triss just run away in fear (she returned later, but it was already too late).
How can anyone say that Triss is better? She is more manipulative than Yen, doesn't care for him as much, also she used his amnesia to seduce him. Ending shows even better difference between them. Triss decides to become advisor of the king and the head of Conclave, while Yen just wants to leave with Geralt and stay as far away from politics as possible. She might seem like a nice person, but she's really envious, narcissistic, manipulative bitch.
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You people want to know the truth about Triss? Well, you can get it:
"Can we talk openly?"
"Of course."
"You're alone?"
"Yes."
"You're lying."
"Yennefer..."
"You don't fool me, snotnose. I know that face, have seen it long enough. You had the same face when you began to sleep with Geralt behind my back. Back then you have put on the same innocent-sheepy mask that I see on your face now. And now it means the same thing than back then."
Triss turned red. And besides her Philippa Eilhart appeared in the picture. [...]
[...]
"[...]Who isn't for the lodge, is against the lodge. Now you try to beat us in finding Ciri and your motives are opposed to our own. You act against us. You don't want to let us use Ciri for our political plans. You shall know that we will do anything within our powers to prevent you from using the girl for your sentimental intentions."
"So that means war?"
"Competition." Philippa smiled venomously. "Only competition, Yennefer."
"Decent and honorable?"
"You must be joking."
"Of course. But at least one thing I have to put forward in a clear and unmisleading manner. And I'm counting that it will gain me something."
"Talk."
"In the course of the next days, maybe tomorrow already, there will be events whose consequences I cannot predict. It may happen that our competition and rivalry won't have any significance anymore. There is a simple reason for that. The competitor won't be no more."
Philippa narrowed her blue shadowed eyes. "I understand."
"Please take care that my name and reputation get restored after my death. That I'm not seen as a traitor and accomplice of Vilgefortz anymore. I ask the lodge for that. I ask you personally.
Philippa kept silent for a moment.
"I deny your request,", she finally said. "I'm sorry but your rehabilitation is not in the lodge's interest. When you die you die as a traitor. You will be a traitor and criminal to Ciri because it's easier then to manipulate the girl."
"Before you do something that might end deadly", Triss suddenly uttered, "left behind..."
"A Testament?"
"Something that allows us...to go on...to follow your track. To find Ciri. Because it's her well-being this is all about. It's about her life! Yennefer, Dijkstra has found...certain evidences. If it's Vilgefortz who has captured Ciri then the girl is in danger of a horrible death."
"Be still, Triss", Philippa Eilhart hissed sharply. "We won't trade or bargain here."
"I will left behind clues.", Yennefer said slowly. "I will left behind information about what I found out and about what I plan to do. I will left behind a track you can follow. But not for free. If you don't want to rehabilite me in the eyes of the world then to hell with you and the world. But rehabilitate me at least in the eyes of a witcher."
"No", Philippa almost immediately denied the request. "That's not in the lodge's interest neither. For your witcher you will stay a traitor and corrupt sorceress as well. It's not in the lodge's interest that he begins to deal out blows right in left in order to avenge you. But if he despises you he won't take revenge. And by the way, he's probably already dead. Or he will die any day."
"The information", Yennefer said with a muffled voice, "for his life. Save him, Philippa."
"No, Yennefer."
"Because it's not in the lodge's interest." A violet flame began to glow in the sorceress' eyes. "Did you hear that, Triss? That's your lodge. That's its true face, its true interest. And what do you say about that? You were a mentor to the girl, almost - you said it yourself - a big sister. And Geralt..."
"Don't perplex Triss with romance, Yennefer." Philippa retaliated with fire in her eyes. "We will find and save the girl without your help. But if you succeed we will be happy nevertheless, many thanks for it, you spare us the effort. You pry her out of Vilgefortz' hands and we will prey her out of yours. And Geralt? Who is Geralt?"
"Did you hear that, Triss?"
"Forgive me", Triss said with a muffled voice. "Forgive me, Yennefer."
"Oh no, Triss. Never".
Andrzej Sapkowski, The Tower of the Swallow
"Can we talk openly?"
"Of course."
"You're alone?"
"Yes."
"You're lying."
"Yennefer..."
"You don't fool me, snotnose. I know that face, have seen it long enough. You had the same face when you began to sleep with Geralt behind my back. Back then you have put on the same innocent-sheepy mask that I see on your face now. And now it means the same thing than back then."
Triss turned red. And besides her Philippa Eilhart appeared in the picture. [...]
[...]
"[...]Who isn't for the lodge, is against the lodge. Now you try to beat us in finding Ciri and your motives are opposed to our own. You act against us. You don't want to let us use Ciri for our political plans. You shall know that we will do anything within our powers to prevent you from using the girl for your sentimental intentions."
"So that means war?"
"Competition." Philippa smiled venomously. "Only competition, Yennefer."
"Decent and honorable?"
"You must be joking."
"Of course. But at least one thing I have to put forward in a clear and unmisleading manner. And I'm counting that it will gain me something."
"Talk."
"In the course of the next days, maybe tomorrow already, there will be events whose consequences I cannot predict. It may happen that our competition and rivalry won't have any significance anymore. There is a simple reason for that. The competitor won't be no more."
Philippa narrowed her blue shadowed eyes. "I understand."
"Please take care that my name and reputation get restored after my death. That I'm not seen as a traitor and accomplice of Vilgefortz anymore. I ask the lodge for that. I ask you personally.
Philippa kept silent for a moment.
"I deny your request,", she finally said. "I'm sorry but your rehabilitation is not in the lodge's interest. When you die you die as a traitor. You will be a traitor and criminal to Ciri because it's easier then to manipulate the girl."
"Before you do something that might end deadly", Triss suddenly uttered, "left behind..."
"A Testament?"
"Something that allows us...to go on...to follow your track. To find Ciri. Because it's her well-being this is all about. It's about her life! Yennefer, Dijkstra has found...certain evidences. If it's Vilgefortz who has captured Ciri then the girl is in danger of a horrible death."
"Be still, Triss", Philippa Eilhart hissed sharply. "We won't trade or bargain here."
"I will left behind clues.", Yennefer said slowly. "I will left behind information about what I found out and about what I plan to do. I will left behind a track you can follow. But not for free. If you don't want to rehabilite me in the eyes of the world then to hell with you and the world. But rehabilitate me at least in the eyes of a witcher."
"No", Philippa almost immediately denied the request. "That's not in the lodge's interest neither. For your witcher you will stay a traitor and corrupt sorceress as well. It's not in the lodge's interest that he begins to deal out blows right in left in order to avenge you. But if he despises you he won't take revenge. And by the way, he's probably already dead. Or he will die any day."
"The information", Yennefer said with a muffled voice, "for his life. Save him, Philippa."
"No, Yennefer."
"Because it's not in the lodge's interest." A violet flame began to glow in the sorceress' eyes. "Did you hear that, Triss? That's your lodge. That's its true face, its true interest. And what do you say about that? You were a mentor to the girl, almost - you said it yourself - a big sister. And Geralt..."
"Don't perplex Triss with romance, Yennefer." Philippa retaliated with fire in her eyes. "We will find and save the girl without your help. But if you succeed we will be happy nevertheless, many thanks for it, you spare us the effort. You pry her out of Vilgefortz' hands and we will prey her out of yours. And Geralt? Who is Geralt?"
"Did you hear that, Triss?"
"Forgive me", Triss said with a muffled voice. "Forgive me, Yennefer."
"Oh no, Triss. Never".
Andrzej Sapkowski, The Tower of the Swallow
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doesn't show anything that wasn't already known, that Triss was "submissive" to Lodge goals, even if it meant using someone she cared for (Ciri).
Triss's reasons for doing so however are for a greater good, the lodge itself, while misguided by what I consider a person who thinks herself much smarter than she really is (phillipa is actually a dumb schemer in my eyes, she thinks being cunning and ruthless = being smart and wise, well events proven otherwise), was still created with a worthy goal: to give mages and other "freaks" power or even a realm to live their lives in freedom.
Don't see this is a big deal tbh, after all Yennefer did much worse, like one of the shown examples: trying to kill others just to get her fertility back for example, but she also used people she cared for, Geralt especially for her own ends herself.
It's something weird about the games.
Yennefer is portrayed as a manipulative, dark, anti-heroine like Morrigan or Miranda Lawson.
Triss is portrayed as the sweet, noble, idealistic good girl.
But it's the EXACT OPPOSITE in the books. Yennefer is not manipulative or ruthless. She's, and I wish I had a non-gendered version of this word, BITCHY (jerkish?) but she's the single most moral sorceress there is.
It's why Phillipa hates her. She refuses to go with the group's skullduggery.
Yennefer is portrayed as a manipulative, dark, anti-heroine like Morrigan or Miranda Lawson.
Triss is portrayed as the sweet, noble, idealistic good girl.
But it's the EXACT OPPOSITE in the books. Yennefer is not manipulative or ruthless. She's, and I wish I had a non-gendered version of this word, BITCHY (jerkish?) but she's the single most moral sorceress there is.
It's why Phillipa hates her. She refuses to go with the group's skullduggery.
hum? yen in the books is worse than in the game, she does do the necromancy and mask theft thing in the game, but that really is "light" considering she really had no choice to find Ciri, so its "justified" even if morally questionable.
in the books she does "bad" things for much lesser reasons, like using Geralt to kill dragons to just to restore her fertility.
Triss changed for the "better" but so did Yen tbh.
You make a quite common mistake: you don't take into account the progress Yen goes through during the books.
The Yen in the short stories isn't the same Yen at the end of the pentalogy. Triss on the other hand, she hardly changed. She is still a puppet of the lodge at the end of the books, an institution that thinks of itself to be superior than everyone and everything else, an institution that think that the end justify the means. Triss is maybe an idealist, but also a dreamer who closes both eyes in order to not see that she is actually used by other forces. Not even speaking about that she betrays her friendship with Yen by sleeping with Geralt although she doesn't even really love him (it's more of an affair out of fascination) or Ciri in the way Yen does.
The late Yen cares about Ciri and Geralt. As persons. She love them which is a true and ultimately morally good and ethically unquestionable motivation. She's ready to sacrifice herself for both of them.
Triss on the other hand doesn't really care about persons. She cares about some highly philosophical goal, some lofty principles, far away from the life of actual people and even the life of whom she pretend to care. She doesn't see that sometimes in life you have to decide what's of bigger value for oneself: to save the people you really love or to save the world.
You can see the difference between late Yen and Triss in the quite famous question whether you would save one person you love or 2 people you don't know. How would you decide? And why do you decide how you decide? And if saving 10 people means that one person you like has to die? What do you do? How many people must be there to be saved to make it "justified"?
Geralts puts the issue quite well in The Lady of the Lake (Emhyr can be pretty much compared to the lodge in basic motivation):
"The end justifies the mans, "Emhyr said tonelessly. "What I do I do for the afterworld. To save the world."
"If the world has to be saved like that," the witcher suddenly raised the head, "the world should rather go down. Believe me, Duny, it would be better if it went down."
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Geralt, explicitly, says she had a choice as a dialogue option.
Just because something is justifiable doesn't mean it's JUSTIFIED.
Also, calling her out on this gets a better reaction from her, from my gameplay at least.
its completely untrue Triss doesn't care.
she does care, she just is the "needs of the many outweight the needs of the few" kind of woman, and I admire that, its easy to fight for someone you love, whats hard is doing the right thing for the greater good even if that means a sacrifice of those she cares for.
also she suffers from PTSD from the battle of sodden.
Triss != Lodge, there is a reason she asks for forgiveness, she knows what the lodge is doing is wrong but she ultimately believes the sacrifice worth it in service of a better world (for mages), this in the books only, in the games she grows out of that situation entirely.
you account for Yen's "progress" but not Triss's...
one sided reasoning right there.
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Exactly.Maybe I wouldn't use such harsh words but yeah, Triss was really whitewashed by CDPR. And I don't think that it's a good thing even for Triss fans because they basically reduced her to this two-dimensional character -cute, nice and friendly. Whereas it's almost impossible to describe Yennefer using a few sentences.
But there are some things that will be always true : she would die and kill for Geralt (and Ciri) without a blink of an eye.
Is it a white-washing or did she honestly CHANGE?
Because Triss was manipulative and power-hungry and ruthless in Witcher 1.
I took Geralt and the events of Witcher 2 as having CHANGED her for the better?
You know, treating her as a character who isn't a carbon copy of her one from the books.
Caring and loving are two different things. One who really loves care differently.
Well, it's of course a question of personal believings but I think fighting for the ones you love is always a more valuable goal than fighting for the greater good. The greater good is pointless without love.
If you can't save or even want to save your own daughter, the world isn't worth saving after all...
And? What's the consequence of that? Not even speaking about the fact that the same could be said about Yen...
Nope, I actually talked about both. I just think that there is little progress in Triss' case compared to Yen's case. Triss is at the end of the books very much the same person she was at the beginning. She hasn't changed her believings, she hasn't changed the way she see things. I would like to take any progress into account, but there is hardly one...
so you wish to engage in the fool's errant of quantifying love?
of fictional characters?
good luck with that...
think Triss loves Geralt less than Yen because she sacrificed their relationship for goals the believes are larger than herself?
Its easy to fight for who you love, whats hard is realizing sometimes you have to let it go for others's sake.
there's no point saving the one you love if the one you love has no world to live in...
its cirular logic, in the end it sums up to what you perceive to be the best outcome of a bad situation, neither choice deserves condemnation, but even a fool can see its much harder (and ungrateful) to sacrifice people you love for the greater good.
besides we arnt talking about human sacrifice here, we are talking about using someone you care for politically, something yennefer herself does time and time again, just not with Ciri.
you don't know what the consequence of PTSD is?...
seriously.. goggle it.
and no Yen doesnt suffer from it, in fact its Yen who sees traumatized Triss and tries to shake her off it, do note Triss is much younger than Yen, and had much less combat/horror experience than Yen.
ye you talked about both, but you highlighted Triss's faults and Yen's "progress" while ignoring the reverse... that was my point.
in fact you still claim there "is no progress" when Triss is the character that "grew" the most of all 3... Triss grew from a secondary character from the books that people would think "weak", to a main character and Geralt love interest who leads mages and saves and sacrifices herself for her loved ones in the games...
only one sided people don't see that...
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It's also hard to realize that the end doesn't justify the means, a quite basic ethical principle. If you have to kill one innocent person in order to save two others, would you do so? I wouldn't because it's clearly ethically and morally wrong.
And a truly loving human being doesn't sacrifice a person they love for the sake of some higher philosophical and far away goal. That's the doing of a cold and heartless person after all.
Well, it's a question of probability and priority. Once you saved your loved ones you can still try to safe the world. But once you sacrificied your loved one what's the point in saving the world?
That's not harder, it's just foolish. Only dogmatists, brain-washed or cold and heartless people would decide to do so. Sacrificing yourself is one thing. Sacrificing the people you love is a deeply inhuman, despisable action that is beyond redemption. A mother who sacrifcies her child for whatever reason is a monster in my books. There is no justification for such action. If some lofty principles want the mother to do so the world should really go down, like Geralt said. Such a world isn't worth saving.
Please read the passage from the books again, I quoted here. Philippa (and with her Triss as the member of the lodge) clearly denied Yennefer's request to save Geralt's life. It's against the lodge's interests and therefore against Triss' interests. So she quite literally is ready to sacrifice Geralt, the one she claims to love. So no, you're wrong. It's not just about "using someone", it's much more than that. That's the reason why Yennefer can't forgive Triss.
You're making up arguments here. I know quite well what PTSD is. But we don't know whether Triss suffers from it and in which form. Maybe she is traumatized but you know what? Yen is so since she was born. Her parents and especially her father hated her because she was ugly and had a hunchback. When she was young she hurt herself. So who's the really traumatized person here? Not even speaking about the fact that Yen was wounded on Sooden as well, blinded by Fringilla Vigo, which is even more traumitizing in her case because she has that childhood trauma connected with her physical appearance.
So what's the point in comparing traumas? However you see it, I don't see any trauma as a good justification for ammoral action. A sociopath might suffer from psychological disorder but he is still a bad person whom I see responsible for their actions (just as an example).
Dude, I speak about the books all the time, not the games. I've actually made that very clear in my posts. And in the books Triss has almost no progress at all, while Yennefer had a great deal of progress. Still YOU compare the game Triss with the stort stories Yen which is just pointless because you neglect the whole progress Yen went through during the events in the books. That's just a faulty basis for comparison.
Did she?
Let's see:
1. In Radovid quest if you bring crystal to Triss she'll ask to give it to her and if you'll express doubt then her answer implies that she wants lodge restored (Geralt even mentions it and after that Triss quickly corrects herself, but you can't take back what's already said). If you go to Yen she'll also ask to give her crystal, but for a different reason - she doesn't want her friends to be burned, even though these "friends" betrayed her.
2. In first 2 games she used his amnesia to lead him to thinking, that she was the sorceress he loved.
3. She always tries to manipulate Geralt by putting him in uncomfortable situations (Rose of Remembrance quest in W2, A Matter of Life and Death quest in W3 and so on), even if you do not show any intention to be with her
4. In the end of the game if you stay with her she still accepts offer to become Esterad advisor and a head of Conclave, even though she knows that Geralt wants to stay out of politics, there is no way in the game to talk her out of it
She didn't change much, in the books she was exactly the same - seeming nice, but a puppet of the Lodge and thinking that sacrificing few for a greater good is acceptable, even if it's her friends. Yen on other hand changed when she met Ciri.
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This is very true - it is hard to explain to those, which didn't read all the books
Yeah, I disagree strongly. The Triss of old would never suffer the way she did for others.