Radovid the Caricature?

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Radovid the Caricature?

  • It's handled poorly

    Votes: 62 55.4%
  • I'm not enthusiastic, but don't really mind it

    Votes: 33 29.5%
  • I like the character's new direction

    Votes: 16 14.3%
  • I don't consider this relevant at all

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Total voters
    112
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!
 

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Radovid is the one true king, he saves the people of the North from the tyrany of mages, elves and black ones, all of whom have shown themselves to be unholy abominations hell bent on destroying Nordling way of life. He is without a doubt the best general the North has ever seen, managing as he manages to halt Nilfgaard's advance and ultimately defeat them (if he isn't murdered in cold blood by filthy mage heathens, Nilfgaardian collaborators and a seriously out of character witcher,) without the aid of mages, Dwarves, Temeria, Cidaris, Verden, Aedirn, Kovir Lyria & Riva, - all of whom needed to band together to defeat Nilfgaard previously.

His kill count isn't even half of what Ciri's is, as she is responsible for the Catriona plague which has caused the death of millions.

Radovid would never have been stupid enough to fall for that terrible plan Phillipa and co had plotted, and he wouldn't have decided to just kill Geralt for shits and giggles.
:radovidsmug:


Seriously though, they did a poor job on his character, I think it was done because CDPR wanted Nilfgaard winning and Queen Sue becoming Empress Sue to be the 'good' ending.
 
I think his descent into madness, or at least very bad case of stress and childhood traumas (my preferred view of him), was a possible development of his character after the events of TW2 (LM massacre). But I do not like that it was turned into a caricature, without any reasons given. "He is just crazy!" is not a reason for such a sudden change of personality. This change should be a result of character development, and not one more deus ex machina simply for a sake of a plot progression into the desired direction.

So, in short, I agree with him being as he is in TW3, but it should have been presented better. Thus I vote option 2 as the closest.
 
Radovid would never have been stupid enough to fall for that terrible plan Phillipa and co had plotted, and he wouldn't have decided to just kill Geralt for shits and giggles.

Yeah, I remember during my first playthrough I found it hard to believe that Radovid let himself be blindly led into an obvious set-up and get cornered. That was ultimately his most contradicting action as a supposedly skillful tactician (although arguably still not as suicidal as trying to execute Geralt on a whim). Guess Radovid's burning hatred for Philippa should have been his notable weakness, but unfortunately the character didn't show more wit even before walking into the ambush.

I think his descent into madness, or at least very bad case of stress and childhood traumas (my preferred view of him), was a possible development of his character after the events of TW2 (LM massacre). But I do not like that it was turned into a caricature, without any reasons given.

Those themes have actually been used pretty well in TW2, as far as I remember, leading to him gouging out Phillipa's eyes and coming down hard on mages during the deliberations. I think you make a good point that Radovid becoming a maniac is not a bad concept per se, but they failed to present it appropriately. After all, his (potential) massacre at Loc Muine was already a hint at the pogroms we see in TW3...but the presentation is just terribly shallow.
 
At least Philippa kept some of her complexity, although the game does have a tendency to show her as a victim despite the things she pulled during and prior to TW2. Not that I would take Radovid over her, but the bloodshed she's responsible for seems to be a non-issue in TW3.
Not just her, what everyone else did is unimportant, Blame Radovid for everything he is mad, and nobody cares he is dead
 
Not just her, what everyone else did is unimportant, Blame Radovid for everything he is mad, and nobody cares he is dead
Ladovid will never die.


---------- Updated at 01:00 PM ----------

Radovid is a good fellow who cannot afford the pain Philippa cause in his childhood and how made him lose selfcontrol with LM pogrom. So, he drove crazy.

Philippa is an Evil soul whoo are happy making people suffering so, she stood up like a Godess
Exactly!
 
Sorry if i am mistaken but he don`t even has a gwent card in W3 as last living nothern monarch, he is just cartoon vilain for W3 and everyone saying you should kill him Geralt he is mad, treat to mages Yennefer and Triss included, like Geralt is stupid
 
Sorry if i am mistaken but he don`t even has a gwent card in W3 as last living nothern monarch, he is just cartoon vilain for W3 and everyone saying you should kill him Geralt he is mad, treat to mages Yennefer and Triss included, like Geralt is stupid

Well, if he ever gets one, I hope his quote on the card will be the aforementioned "Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub... A heart pumping with life. " No sense in trying to pretend that he is a good match for any Machiavellian or Hobbesian thoughts.

 

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Agreed that Radovid was just made a total lunatic with no redeeming qualities in this game. I saw absolutely not reason not to kill him aside from seeing a different epilogue, but that can easily be seen on youtube. And yeah, I had a chuckle when Dijkstra acted like he could kill me and everyone else in the theatre. Seriously? It was funny when I got the decapitation finisher on him without getting even a scratch on me. Nice try dude.
 
Selected second option in the poll, because he's fitting quite good into his role in TW3 story as it is. Although I'm not a fan of how that role changed since TW2, it would be more interesting to work with sane and strong king. But since the madness is really serving story, I can tolerate it
 
It`s strange to me why we can`t ask Radovid for help for defence of Kaer Morhen, i mean we helped him in W1 to destroy salamandra and kill Grand master and he get Order of the flaming Rose for that, and we could help him marry adda, and in W2 we could helped him to get Anais, and in W3 we search Philippa for him.

Kaer Morhen is now in teritory under redania control why Geralt never consider option to ask Radovid for help, did he think Radovid is crazy and won`t help him, but why would he refuse when he didn`t reach Philippa yet.

Instead Geralt think it`s smarter option to ask nilfgardians to send their soldiers in area controlled by Radovid
 
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