Radovid the Caricature?
Tactical genius, legendary king, the North's most cunning ruler?
During my first playthrough of The Witcher 3, the thing that bugged me most was the jarring neglect of the Wild Hunt and the lore behind them, which is receiving quite a lot of attention in other threads. However, I've recently decided to take another shot at the game, attempting to explore it more thoroughly, and I'm finding the manner in which Wild Hunt handles the story's political backdrop and its actors increasingly disappointing as well. I did read the Geralt-Ciri saga, but by no means am I an expert in the Witcher universe’s lore; nevertheless, even compared to the previous games, King Radovid's portrayal in Wild Hunt struck me as rather out-of-place.
He definitely wasn't a positive character in Assassins of Kings - we did witness him burn mages in one of the potential outcomes of the Loc Muine epilogue (if I remember correctly, they pointed out that it was "his handiwork") and he was a beast when it came to political negotiations, but in the third installment his character seems to have lost all subtlety, becoming a raving madman. As far as I can tell, there are some hints at Radovid's political motivations in the game, such as Triss explaining that by persecuting mages and later non-humans, he is systematically gaining hegemony over the North, but none of that is reflected in the character's writing itself.
During most of Radovid's interactions with Geralt, I felt like I was seeing an extended version of the last few minutes of Dijkstra's life; meaning that the game is downright begging the player to kill these characters. Despite allegedly being a tactical genius both on the battlefield and in politics, the narrative emphasizes solely Radovid's madness and for some reason, he has also turned into an utter jerk when dealing with Geralt compared to his scenes in Assassins of Kings. I gather this was an effort from the developers to antagonize the character, but just like Dijkstra's sudden suicidal impulse to bump off Thaler, Roche and Ves in front of their friend - who happens to be the most notorious warrior that the North has ever seen - it seemed like a complete storytelling cop-out. I mean, some of Radovid's lines are downright laughable: his over-the-top rambling over chess pieces, when in "Redania's Most Wanted" he actually believes his hunters that Geralt didn't help to acquire Philippa's crystal, or when Radovid orders the troublesome witcher killed because he irritates him and His Majesty has "executed people for less...."
Sheesh, what an enormous moral dilemma the assassination of Radovid is for Geralt when the lunatic spent every minute of The Witcher 3 demonstrating that he's rotten to the core. It's baffling that this was the best the team behind Assassins of Kings could come up with. Even condemning such “royal pricks” to death as Stennis and Henselt in The Witcher 2 was filled with more moral duplicity than slaying the last hope of the North against the totalitarian Nilfgaard – an empire, which seems to have suddenly turned into a good alternative in this game. I can understand that history often proves to be a “consummate trickster,” but in this case, it seems to be heavily disjointed from the lore.
Even Radovid's look was changed from his earlier portrayal to that of an inbred madman. It must be exhausting to wage a war, for sure, but they had to give him some weird eye-defect on top of that? All in all, this strikes me as a very lazy move. It is disappointing enough that the possibility of a relatively peaceful outcome of the Loc Muine summit is virtually ignored in Wild Hunt, but Radovid's portrayal is downright laughing in the face of Assassins of Kings.
In the books, I only remember hearing about the young Radovid in a passage where we see Vizimir's funeral from his POV, and Sapkowski alludes to the fact that one day he would become known as the Stern. Can someone more versed in the Witcher universe maybe enlighten me whether Radovid achieved his famous status by becoming this Joffrey Baratheon-esque caricature in Sapkowski's world as well?
Thanks for anyone reading and I hope I didn't duplicate an already existing thread!
Tactical genius, legendary king, the North's most cunning ruler?
During my first playthrough of The Witcher 3, the thing that bugged me most was the jarring neglect of the Wild Hunt and the lore behind them, which is receiving quite a lot of attention in other threads. However, I've recently decided to take another shot at the game, attempting to explore it more thoroughly, and I'm finding the manner in which Wild Hunt handles the story's political backdrop and its actors increasingly disappointing as well. I did read the Geralt-Ciri saga, but by no means am I an expert in the Witcher universe’s lore; nevertheless, even compared to the previous games, King Radovid's portrayal in Wild Hunt struck me as rather out-of-place.
He definitely wasn't a positive character in Assassins of Kings - we did witness him burn mages in one of the potential outcomes of the Loc Muine epilogue (if I remember correctly, they pointed out that it was "his handiwork") and he was a beast when it came to political negotiations, but in the third installment his character seems to have lost all subtlety, becoming a raving madman. As far as I can tell, there are some hints at Radovid's political motivations in the game, such as Triss explaining that by persecuting mages and later non-humans, he is systematically gaining hegemony over the North, but none of that is reflected in the character's writing itself.
During most of Radovid's interactions with Geralt, I felt like I was seeing an extended version of the last few minutes of Dijkstra's life; meaning that the game is downright begging the player to kill these characters. Despite allegedly being a tactical genius both on the battlefield and in politics, the narrative emphasizes solely Radovid's madness and for some reason, he has also turned into an utter jerk when dealing with Geralt compared to his scenes in Assassins of Kings. I gather this was an effort from the developers to antagonize the character, but just like Dijkstra's sudden suicidal impulse to bump off Thaler, Roche and Ves in front of their friend - who happens to be the most notorious warrior that the North has ever seen - it seemed like a complete storytelling cop-out. I mean, some of Radovid's lines are downright laughable: his over-the-top rambling over chess pieces, when in "Redania's Most Wanted" he actually believes his hunters that Geralt didn't help to acquire Philippa's crystal, or when Radovid orders the troublesome witcher killed because he irritates him and His Majesty has "executed people for less...."
Sheesh, what an enormous moral dilemma the assassination of Radovid is for Geralt when the lunatic spent every minute of The Witcher 3 demonstrating that he's rotten to the core. It's baffling that this was the best the team behind Assassins of Kings could come up with. Even condemning such “royal pricks” to death as Stennis and Henselt in The Witcher 2 was filled with more moral duplicity than slaying the last hope of the North against the totalitarian Nilfgaard – an empire, which seems to have suddenly turned into a good alternative in this game. I can understand that history often proves to be a “consummate trickster,” but in this case, it seems to be heavily disjointed from the lore.
Even Radovid's look was changed from his earlier portrayal to that of an inbred madman. It must be exhausting to wage a war, for sure, but they had to give him some weird eye-defect on top of that? All in all, this strikes me as a very lazy move. It is disappointing enough that the possibility of a relatively peaceful outcome of the Loc Muine summit is virtually ignored in Wild Hunt, but Radovid's portrayal is downright laughing in the face of Assassins of Kings.
In the books, I only remember hearing about the young Radovid in a passage where we see Vizimir's funeral from his POV, and Sapkowski alludes to the fact that one day he would become known as the Stern. Can someone more versed in the Witcher universe maybe enlighten me whether Radovid achieved his famous status by becoming this Joffrey Baratheon-esque caricature in Sapkowski's world as well?
Thanks for anyone reading and I hope I didn't duplicate an already existing thread!
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