You are absolutely right.Yen really care about Geralt and she is not a bad character at all.
"I found it quite hard to really identify her personality"
There is the difference between you and me. This is the key.
If you really understand who she is (what she means with every word ,
what her realtionship with Geralt really is) there is no way
you can choose Yen over Triss (or at least i can't)
I think I should clarify what I meant when I said that specifically. I do like Triss as a character and I think she definitely has been interesting over the course of the games. Notwithstanding, I haven't read the books so my comparison here is in the context of the games, and in my opinion as an extended fanfic I think it's good sometimes to be conscious of that. So what I mean is: when I think over the interactions between Geralt and Yen and the compare them to the ones he has with Triss, especially regarding their personality, is not about the depth of the character in regards to the story or their meaning of words (because there are definitely things that Triss says in a short sentence but manages to say a lot, for instance when you ask her about the Rose of Rememberance I thought the reply was very well crafted) but rather their organic interaction.
Yen, like Geralt, actually says many things unrelated to the task, she jokes with Geralt and she does things that simply make her character pop out. You get a really good feel for what sort of humor she has, you can sense her temperament and the sort of mood she has. While for Triss, as this thread shows, does not have that sort of exposure in her dialogue or banter. Despite having all that potential to be just as good as Yen in these regards we don't hear Triss nearly as much in that relaxed/organic exchange. So when I said that I had a hard time identifying her personality I was essentially agreeing with you. Triss has a personality, obviously, but what I meant was that the dialogue and banter that we have in the game doesn't bring it out. What happened was that we got a lot of task related banter and dialogue with the next populous being the romancing dialogue. As I said in my op, there is a lot of dialogue that should be there but isn't. What's most disappointing is that it renders Triss quite monotone in the game and you don't see her pop out as much as Yen. You don't see much humor from her or non-relevant observational banter, etc,. And that's what I meant by hard to identify her personality, and not that she has no personality. Just by going back and examining Geralt's and Triss's relationship in the previous games one would think that in W3 she would've had a lot of character development and exposition but she doesn't.
I get that you understand Triss and what sort of character she is, but if you were to strictly go by the game on it's own (since CDPR said you can play W3 without having played previous games) I find it very difficult rationalizing the existence of a romance between Geralt and Triss over Yen. When I compare the moments of the Last Wish quest to the Pyres of Novigrad I just can't imagine myself saying no to Yen, even though this is the first time I have seen her character, and have in mind that I liked Triss a lot in the previous games. Yen's quest basically revolves about her insecurity about their relationship, she thought that there would be some immense physical sensation, etc., she has at that point completely exposed herself which makes the moment all the more emotional. With Now or Never the entire quest revolved around Triss's objective of getting the mages out and whatever romance achieved in it was a side dish ultimately climaxing in the, "Noooooo, don't go, I love you!", choice that the player is presented with. Clearly, as the player, if you have invested into the romance up to this point it's still going to be emotional, but that moment was more spontaneous, forced to due to her impending departure. You know that she is hoping, but there is also the knowledge carried by both characters that despite their re-connection and that it would hurt to say no to her, it would also not be the end of the world for her; whereas for Yen, as she exposes herself completely vulnerable, saying no to her at that moment seems like it would be much more than a heartbreak.
That is what I mean by that Yen, as far as how the game is currently, just has so much more weight. Every moment Geralt spends with her, regardless of what they are doing, you can see their interaction as something more than ordinary and even though I never knew Yen it still imparted a feeling of cherished history between the characters. Triss on the other hand, regardless of what the opinions are, we can objectively say that between W2 and W3 there is enough to reasonably think there should be tension and that the way you can instantly begin to romance her, if you choose, really doesn't make sense. Not only that but the lack of Triss's presence in the game makes it much harder to appreciate any progress in the relationship between the two, so much so that by the end of Now or Never the weight of the situation is not even near to that of Last Wish.
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