Kindo said:
It definitely fits the bill if she has become aware of her own wickedness, through the worship of the Water Lords. Then it's a common theme that the person in question completely separates themselves from who they were before; referring to themselves in third person like that, confusing those around them. There are a lot of things in this world that can drive a person crazy.
I mostly agree with what you're saying here, and here's an example that Dragon's Dream might recognize: Lots of times people here on the forum will say, "I just did something really stupid, help me fix it," and one gets the sense that saying that what they did was really stupid is a way to prove that although they were stupid enough to do [whatever it was] once upon a time, they've wised up, and they're now smart enough to know that that thing they did was stupid.
I get the same sense from Vaska, that an older Vaska now realizes that she was wicked and that her asking the mage for things that were too hard for him to do was taking advantage of his might. And by saying those things, she's trying to prove (to herself, if to no one else) that she has changed and no longer is wicked and no longer takes advantage of people. BUT she still does take advantage of people, because she gets Geralt to work for her by promising him payment, then confesses that she can't pay him. Same old Vaska.
I saw the Water Lords less as the agents of her wising up and more as a symptom of her disgust with her younger self. After she'd realized just what she'd done, she needed some sort of relief from the horror and self-loathing that produced, and losing herself in worshiping something greater than herself provides that. Of course, Kindo's take on the Water Lords may be the correct one -- the game doesn't provide enough evidence to decide -- but one of the things I love about
The Witcher is that it provides enough latitude for us to think about stuff like this.
I don't know what she sounds like in other languages, but I love her English voice actress, and the tone of voice when she says "Unimportant" when Geralt asks her who the woman was convinces me that yeah, it was Vaska, all right.
I've always done the stuff Vaska wanted right away, so I've never gotten the conversational branch where Vaska says she doubts that the card ever left the swamp and Geralt says he'll ask around. Has anybody else ever gotten that?
