A continuation of my socratic exercise that asks the question "what if I had been handled the script of the game before production started, with the benefit of hindsight."
First part is here:
Novigrad, or Triss’ city. She should have been present in all (or most) the main quest lines. She had been after all, your go to ally in the previous games, not to mention the only LI that carried over from all three games.
The chain starts with her, you have the usual walk along the city and she directs you to the oneiromancer. Nothing changes so far. Now instead of going straight for Dandelion, you meet her to share the results of the lead she gave you.
Once that’s done, the two head for the inn, where they find Zoltan. Exchange between the three, some jokes about Dandelion, some recollection about previous games and then once it becomes clear that you have to chase some of Dandelion’s women, Triss jokes about it and leaves the task to the witcher and the dwarf. She implies she needs to take care of something. In between finding the women, maybe on 2 or 3 found, you get a message from her that she needs your help. This triggers her first quest. This one kind of has to happen before meeting Priscilla.
Anyhow, you have her quest, the two get carried away, “reconnect”, fireworks, all the good stuff. Slightly altered dialogue here, she doesn’t say anything about leaving forever just yet, just gives you a general overview of her mission. Once her quest is done you are off to find the rest of Dandelion’s women, while she goes to do her thing. Once that main quest is done, you find Triss and Zoltan at the empty inn and decide to go find the blonde woman.
Now we come to the second GREAT MISSED OPPORTUNITY. I’m referring to Priscilla’s song. Everyone pretty much agrees it is a great moment.
Because not only is it a beautiful song on itself, but it also symbolizes Geralt and Yen's history. Their turbulent yet loving past. And for Geralt it's a big deal.
So the three of them go to the inn and sit to watch the performance. Zoltan and the witcher become enthralled with it. Triss too, except her reaction is predictably a lot different. Come to think about it, she's about the only person in the entire world who wouldn't enjoy that song and what it embodies in the slightest. And so we have her listen to it.
As the song plays and we get to see the reactions from the different people watching, we get to also watch hers. She goes from neutral at the start, to sad, to extremely sad as she focuses on Geralt's face, to in the verge of tears, until she can't take it anymore and leaves the inn. Geralt of course, doesn't notice. And then we get the commotion with the other woman from White Orchard so he momentarily forgets that she was there. We have the interactions with Priscilla and she comments on seeing Triss leaving, she apologizes for "making an oopsie"with her choice of song. Geralt realizes Triss is missing, connects the dots and wants to facepalm himself.
We might want to go find her right away but Priscilla imparts on us the urgency of what she has to say so we go to the bard’s room first and get the info about Sigi.
Once we head outside, we find Triss, completely devastated. I would get depressed just trying to write the dialogues here. In short, they discuss what happened, Triss makes some comment about how it is the same as six months ago when they broke up, always Yen, so Triss feels that even if they had a moment earlier, in the end, she won’t ever be able to compete and states that after helping him find Ciri (or at least Dandelion) she'll do the three of them a favor and sail away for good because her heart can't take the ups and downs anymore.
We can try to reassure her, but she says not now, she needs a distraction so she asks about what we learned. As we tell her, her tough facade returns and she says half jokingly that if she had to go to a bathhouse, she’d rather have the two of them be alone in it, wistfully recalling their adventure in the elven bathouse. She leaves and once alone, if we have the rose then Geralt produces it and sees how is has withered. He sighs sadly and heads to the bathhouse to meet the gangsters.
So the spark has definitely expired. On the plus side, once you hit rock bottom, the only way is to go is up.
First part is here:
Here's the second part, Triss in Novigrad 1/2:
Novigrad, or Triss’ city. She should have been present in all (or most) the main quest lines. She had been after all, your go to ally in the previous games, not to mention the only LI that carried over from all three games.
The chain starts with her, you have the usual walk along the city and she directs you to the oneiromancer. Nothing changes so far. Now instead of going straight for Dandelion, you meet her to share the results of the lead she gave you.
Once that’s done, the two head for the inn, where they find Zoltan. Exchange between the three, some jokes about Dandelion, some recollection about previous games and then once it becomes clear that you have to chase some of Dandelion’s women, Triss jokes about it and leaves the task to the witcher and the dwarf. She implies she needs to take care of something. In between finding the women, maybe on 2 or 3 found, you get a message from her that she needs your help. This triggers her first quest. This one kind of has to happen before meeting Priscilla.
Anyhow, you have her quest, the two get carried away, “reconnect”, fireworks, all the good stuff. Slightly altered dialogue here, she doesn’t say anything about leaving forever just yet, just gives you a general overview of her mission. Once her quest is done you are off to find the rest of Dandelion’s women, while she goes to do her thing. Once that main quest is done, you find Triss and Zoltan at the empty inn and decide to go find the blonde woman.
Now we come to the second GREAT MISSED OPPORTUNITY. I’m referring to Priscilla’s song. Everyone pretty much agrees it is a great moment.
Because not only is it a beautiful song on itself, but it also symbolizes Geralt and Yen's history. Their turbulent yet loving past. And for Geralt it's a big deal.
So the three of them go to the inn and sit to watch the performance. Zoltan and the witcher become enthralled with it. Triss too, except her reaction is predictably a lot different. Come to think about it, she's about the only person in the entire world who wouldn't enjoy that song and what it embodies in the slightest. And so we have her listen to it.
As the song plays and we get to see the reactions from the different people watching, we get to also watch hers. She goes from neutral at the start, to sad, to extremely sad as she focuses on Geralt's face, to in the verge of tears, until she can't take it anymore and leaves the inn. Geralt of course, doesn't notice. And then we get the commotion with the other woman from White Orchard so he momentarily forgets that she was there. We have the interactions with Priscilla and she comments on seeing Triss leaving, she apologizes for "making an oopsie"with her choice of song. Geralt realizes Triss is missing, connects the dots and wants to facepalm himself.
We might want to go find her right away but Priscilla imparts on us the urgency of what she has to say so we go to the bard’s room first and get the info about Sigi.
Once we head outside, we find Triss, completely devastated. I would get depressed just trying to write the dialogues here. In short, they discuss what happened, Triss makes some comment about how it is the same as six months ago when they broke up, always Yen, so Triss feels that even if they had a moment earlier, in the end, she won’t ever be able to compete and states that after helping him find Ciri (or at least Dandelion) she'll do the three of them a favor and sail away for good because her heart can't take the ups and downs anymore.
We can try to reassure her, but she says not now, she needs a distraction so she asks about what we learned. As we tell her, her tough facade returns and she says half jokingly that if she had to go to a bathhouse, she’d rather have the two of them be alone in it, wistfully recalling their adventure in the elven bathouse. She leaves and once alone, if we have the rose then Geralt produces it and sees how is has withered. He sighs sadly and heads to the bathhouse to meet the gangsters.
So the spark has definitely expired. On the plus side, once you hit rock bottom, the only way is to go is up.
