I very much agree with what @
msanx said concerning the choice between Olgierd and O'Dimm. I also saved Olgierd, believing it highly unlikely that he would continue as before. In my head canon, there's three versions of what happened afterwards:
- he learned from his mistakes and sought atonement (I believe there were indications that this was not all too unlikely),
- he committed suicide as he realized what he had done in full force, i.e. with the emotions connected to that, after his heart was no longer of stone,
- he committed "suicide" by entering the painting, similar to how Geralt did, and either Olgierd and Iris remained there, or both left it for the afterlife in some way.
Now point 3 leads me to the Iris decision. This was probably the hardest in the whole game, not just the expansion. Once it became clear in the dialogue what the choice would be about, and especially once the options were there, I contemplated for a good amount of time (around a minute, maybe? Something like that). I picked the leave the rose with Iris option, got another dialogue choice...and contemplated thoroughly on the issue once more. Ultimately, I left the rose with Iris.
One thing I was thinking about while making the choice is whether leaving her in the painting (i.e. not taking the rose) would allow for Iris and Olgierd to be reunited. But at that point in the quest, I had no idea whether it was possible to do that anyway, i.e. whether Olgierd would get out alive of the whole thing in one way or another. There was also, of course, the issue of the black cat and dog, but since I did not really know much about them, I did not really factor them into the equation. If anything, they tipped the scale towards not taking the rose - who knows what havoc they might have caused once freed? And what is more, I thought that if they wanted to leave, they could commit proper suicide - after all, the caretaker was similarly summoned, and apparently he was gone from the painted world after Geralt had dealt with him.
Therefore, I didn't give those two particular points (potential reunion, cat and dog) too much weight in my decision, so it came down to two things:
- Speaking in favour of taking the rose: Iris apparently was not overjoyed during her time in the painting. We do not know what would happen in a potential afterlife, and indeed, Geralt's agnostic remark to Iris's questions of what there may be "after" the painting was clearly not something which only holds in the video game, but is a very real issue indeed. One of the many things which make this game so amazing is how fundamental philosophical issues are woven in so seamlessly.
- But this brings me to my argument for the other side, i.e. leaving the rose with Iris: Apparently, she is conscious and she can reflect on her situation. She is, for all intents and purposes, very much able to decide for herself whether to keep or give away the rose. She did not do that. She said she wouldn't know and was afraid. Now who am I (or, who is "my" Geralt) to decide for her, a conscious, intelligent woman, what is best for her? If she had said "take the rose, I think it's better for me", I would have taken it. But especially considering that if anything, after Geralt's visit in the painted world, that place had become a more enjoyable one, it felt very much wrong for me to make the choice for her, one which she apparently found incredibly hard to make. But a choice of such gravity, she has to do for herself – or, at the very least, if she wants me to do it for her, she has to indicate that much more explicitly and convincingly.
Ultimately, and after a good amount of contemplation, therefore, the decisive point for me was that I did not want to take her choice away, because she was not certain about letting somebody else choose for her. If Geralt was a fond believer in Eternal Bonfire© afterlife in heaven, he could have made that choice for her (or at least nudged her considerably). But not the Geralt who expressed his own doubts.
It may be that this choice (of leaving her with her own choice) allows her to reunite with Olgierd. It may be that it puts her through more suffering, during which she may regret her indecisiveness. But at the very least, the choice is still hers, and if she comes to regret not asking Geralt to take the rose, then she may very well offer it more directly to the next "visitor" of the painted world. It was a very, very hard choice though, and it'd be absolutely wrong if I were to claim that I had no doubts about my decision. And that, once more, is one of the reasons why this game is so great.
