Well,these are spanish covers,and if i remember correctly in the spanish edition this guy was on Lady of the Lake cover.I agree he doesn't really resemble Cahir,but you can say the same thing about Dandelion and Milva.
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Well,these are spanish covers,and if i remember correctly in the spanish edition this guy was on Lady of the Lake cover.I agree he doesn't really resemble Cahir,but you can say the same thing about Dandelion and Milva.
So I'm curious. Which TW3 ending do the Yennefer fans prefer?
It seems most people prefer the "Ciri becomes witcher" -ending, especially in the Triss thread. I personally prefer the "Ciri becomes empress" -ending. The empress ending is much more emotional (it almost made me cry) but in the end it's also happier because I believe Ciri will be a great empress and ultimately her sitting on that throne will be the best outcome for pretty much everyone.
To sum it up, I think the "witcher Ciri" ending is more fun, but the "empress Ciri" ending is better, if that makes any sense.
---------- Updated at 05:59 PM ----------
They're not specifically Spanish covers through. These books I have are the UK translations with the UK covers. I don't know which translations had these covers first though.
But you're right. The Spanish version has that knight cover on Lady of the Lake. The Yennefer cover is on Sword of Destiny and Ciri is on Time of Contempt.
I personally think Dandelion and Milva look exactly as described in the books. I actually really like that look for Dandelion on the cover, perhaps more so than his in-game look.
It seems most people prefer the "Ciri becomes witcher" -ending, especially in the Triss thread. I personally prefer the "Ciri becomes empress" -ending. The empress ending is much more emotional (it almost made me cry) but in the end it's also happier because I believe Ciri will be a great empress and ultimately her sitting on that throne will be the best outcome for pretty much everyone.
To sum it up, I think the "witcher Ciri" ending is more fun, but the "empress Ciri" ending is better, if that makes any sense.
---------- Updated at 05:59 PM ----------
They're not specifically Spanish covers through. These books I have are the UK translations with the UK covers. I don't know which translations had these covers first though.
But you're right. The Spanish version has that knight cover on Lady of the Lake. The Yennefer cover is on Sword of Destiny and Ciri is on Time of Contempt.
I personally think Dandelion and Milva look exactly as described in the books. I actually really like that look for Dandelion on the cover, perhaps more so than his in-game look.
I prefer Witcher ending. The fact that Geralt taught everything he knows to Ciri, can be considered as Ciri have 'completed her training' and she is truly Geralt's apprentice.
That's why in the ending, they parted ways after Ciri build a name for herself as an 'ashen hair witcheress'. Geralt retires with Yen, it's a perfect ending for me. Ciri can always visit them if she ever has time
If Geralt settle down with Triss.. well, he's not really retired. Takes witcher contract on habbit. But I don't know, this is my point of view. But the question is - does Ciri approves their relationship? surely she doesn't have much choice but she's concerned.
Like I said, there's so many unanswered questions. There's also a gap between each epilogue (i.e. how long did it took Ciri to build her own name - months/years?, where was Yennefer/Triss during that period where Geralt went on an adventure with Ciri/Trained her?).
Also... I understand Geralt & Ciri are very close. I bet they can make one expansion just based on these two going on an adventure haha. It'd be even better if Yen or Triss can tag along too!
So many possible DLC's. No DLC? we have to rely on our imagination I guess.
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Oh yeah about empress ending.. I don't even consider it a good ending. Geralt was so heart broken when he saw that nilfgaardian escort. The fact that Geralt is sterile, and Ciri is her daughter by destiny... the scene is just unbearable to watch.
I'm sure Geralt was hoping that they both can go out for an adventure together. Witcher ending delivers that, while the empress ending kills any hope of it.
Another question: How would Yen react to Ciri's decision?
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USA. It's tougher to find foreign authors here, especially ones with translations from small(er) presses. The mass market/kindle versions are easy to get, but I didn't want those as I'm not really a fan of e-books as a medium. I like books as an object and the nicer the edition the better. I miss how they used to make books at the turn of the twentieth century. Good quality bindings, gilt decoration, more intricate cover design, occasional illustrations...anyway. I'm pretty satisfied with the trade paper versions..at least for the moment .
I cannot imagine that Ciri from books would take the empress way....so for me the best ending is Witcher Ciri
But I agree with you luc that the Empress ending is very emotional...
But I agree with you luc that the Empress ending is very emotional...
I'm biased but I'll try to post my thoughts on the endings, such as they are:
Witcher Ciri:
- Feels most natural given her character as we see it in the books.
- Lets us imagine that Geralt-Yen-Ciri will finally become a proper family and slots in well with the "us vs the world" vibe from the books. Yen did invite Geralt to go out adventuring so I'd guess Ciri would tag along for a while. For me this is a really nice reward to these characters and obviously a "happy ending" to their story.
- While there's tons of monsters in the game universe, Ciri doesn't have to restrict herself to Witchering. She has plenty of interests that she can pursue in this life.
- Seems like it makes the most sense given that we're empowering her to stand up for herself during the game.
Empress Ciri:
- I have a lot of doubts about this one that are preventing me from believing that Ciri will be successful on the long term.
- Ciri will trade in personal happiness to essentially lead the known world. She will be a great leader and will steer the empire towards a fair and just future. Will she be able to find motivation other than her responsibility to make the world a better place? Maybe once she gets children? Everything else about the royal life seems very contrary to her nature from what we know.
- We have seen with Emhyr that even an incredibly strong-willed political savant will run the risk of being overthrown if he is out of favour. Ciri will likely want to abolish slavery and other injustices and will encounter resistance. Going against the grain in such a huge empire will be no small task and we don't know enough about their politics to say how this will play out.
- Ciri will be living in a pit of vipers. Who knows what sort of political agendas she will have to deal with. Witcher books showed me that a lot of such plots will succeed in some way no matter how powerful the ruler.
- Arranged marriage for Ciri. Likely with Moorvan Voorhis. Good luck with that match, haha.
I want to buy into the "Ciri will make the world a better place" line, but I have too many doubts because I don't believe it'll be that easy. Since I want to see her find some sort of happy place in the world, I just don't feel like the risk is worth the reward (that may never happen). But that's just me.
If you restrict yourself fully to what the games showed us, then yeah, maybe it'll work out but even so, the game never really gave us a good explanation of why Ciri suddenly feels like she needs to do this. The line "I can do more good here than as a Witcher." came a bit out of no where. All she ever wanted to do was live free and now she wants to save the world (again)?
I'm not against the idea, I just don't think the game made any effort in showing us that she has this ambition. Maybe after she fought the White Frost she could've had a change of heart, but without explanation it's a pretty big shift.
Witcher Ciri:
- Feels most natural given her character as we see it in the books.
- Lets us imagine that Geralt-Yen-Ciri will finally become a proper family and slots in well with the "us vs the world" vibe from the books. Yen did invite Geralt to go out adventuring so I'd guess Ciri would tag along for a while. For me this is a really nice reward to these characters and obviously a "happy ending" to their story.
- While there's tons of monsters in the game universe, Ciri doesn't have to restrict herself to Witchering. She has plenty of interests that she can pursue in this life.
- Seems like it makes the most sense given that we're empowering her to stand up for herself during the game.
Empress Ciri:
- I have a lot of doubts about this one that are preventing me from believing that Ciri will be successful on the long term.
- Ciri will trade in personal happiness to essentially lead the known world. She will be a great leader and will steer the empire towards a fair and just future. Will she be able to find motivation other than her responsibility to make the world a better place? Maybe once she gets children? Everything else about the royal life seems very contrary to her nature from what we know.
- We have seen with Emhyr that even an incredibly strong-willed political savant will run the risk of being overthrown if he is out of favour. Ciri will likely want to abolish slavery and other injustices and will encounter resistance. Going against the grain in such a huge empire will be no small task and we don't know enough about their politics to say how this will play out.
- Ciri will be living in a pit of vipers. Who knows what sort of political agendas she will have to deal with. Witcher books showed me that a lot of such plots will succeed in some way no matter how powerful the ruler.
- Arranged marriage for Ciri. Likely with Moorvan Voorhis. Good luck with that match, haha.
I want to buy into the "Ciri will make the world a better place" line, but I have too many doubts because I don't believe it'll be that easy. Since I want to see her find some sort of happy place in the world, I just don't feel like the risk is worth the reward (that may never happen). But that's just me.
If you restrict yourself fully to what the games showed us, then yeah, maybe it'll work out but even so, the game never really gave us a good explanation of why Ciri suddenly feels like she needs to do this. The line "I can do more good here than as a Witcher." came a bit out of no where. All she ever wanted to do was live free and now she wants to save the world (again)?
I'm not against the idea, I just don't think the game made any effort in showing us that she has this ambition. Maybe after she fought the White Frost she could've had a change of heart, but without explanation it's a pretty big shift.
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So after few days the result of PUBLIC poll "Triss or Yennefer?" is:
http://ampoll.com/poll/yytwpqreoo 32840 votes -
16945 people voted for Yennefer
15895 people voted for Triss
Yen approves!
http://ampoll.com/poll/yytwpqreoo 32840 votes -
16945 people voted for Yennefer
15895 people voted for Triss
Yen approves!
I can sort of see why Ciri might feel the need to do it after seeing the emperor trying to slaughter her friends the Skelligers. Thinking that if she doesn't take up the mantle the rest of the free realms will be conquered. I agree very much with you that her going into a nest of vipers is very dark personally and the ability for her to largescale success is rather dubious which will likely lead to a very frustrated and unhappy time. She sure could do with a witcher bodyguard and a sorceress as an adviser.
Ciri acted like a "pouty teenager" in that scene for me. She also didn't have a response to Yen's line saying "The Emperor wants to give you the islands.", which I believe was the first time Emhyr's plans for Ciri were mentioned in that playthrough as I never took Ciri to see him. Kind of funny slinging that around as if it was common knowledge and without any discussion.
So after few days the result of PUBLIC poll "Triss or Yennefer?" is:
http://ampoll.com/poll/yytwpqreoo 32840 votes -
16945 people voted for Yennefer
15895 people voted for Triss
Yen approves!
Nice.
I wonder why we see such different results on the forums. On the forums Triss seems to be hands-down the favorite, but everywhere else it's more evenly divided. Any theories on why that might be?
---------- Updated at 07:17 PM ----------
I've discussed this before with someone (maybe you?) and basiclaly Ciri says two contradicting things during the games. Yes, she says she wants to be free, but she also keeps saying that she wants to make a difference, that she wants to make the world a better place.
Ciri can't have her cake and eat it too. She's gonna have to make a choice: personal freedom or a chance to truly make the world a better place?
Because becoming an empress is a choice Ciri makes for herself with no influence from Geralt, I feel content, regardless of whether Ciri wil succeed or not. She's an adult now, she makes her own choices and in my game she chose to become empress, so I fully support her in that decision and I'm curious how she'll pull it off.
Do you remember where she said she wanted to make a difference? The only time she said that that I recall (and I could be wrong), is when she informs you about becoming Empress during the Epilogue. Like I said before, there wasn't any build-up towards her making such a choice so it felt like she got manipulated or guilt-tripped into accepting that role.
Again, I have no problems with her making that call, but I just didn't buy it. Nothing I've read on the forums has changed my mind on that point yet.
I couldn't help but think Ciri had sacrificed everything for the World and saved it from the White Frost.
Only now I'm going to trap her AGAIN in a loveless marriage to someone like Voorhis to be surrounded by snobs, racists, and murderers (i.e. nobles) until the day she died.
It's time to let the Swallow free to enjoy her happy ending.
I've noticed when the Witcher 3 official facebook posted TeamTriss or TeamYenn message - it was pretty much 50/50 too.
I've said already that it is not any competion...but anyway it is nice to see that Yen has so many fans too. It is great to see also that on deviantart or tumbrl page are so many new artworks of her every day.
But you weren't selling anything. Ciri made the decision to become empress for herself. There is nothing monstrous about the empress Ciri ending.
To say her becoming empress is a "trap" is also a bit of a hyperbole. You don't know if she's gonna be forced into a loveless marriage. For all we know she can pick her own husband. It doesn't matter much if she's surrounded by snobs, racists and murderers because she will be the leader of them and she'll have the power to fire any of them once she's empress.
I also think you're a bit biased against Nilfgaard and make it sound worse than it really is. Emhyr and his entourage didn't seem THAT bad to me. I actually really liked General Voorhis. He's probably the nicest guy in Nilfgaard and he'd make a good husband for Ciri if she indeed marries him.
I'd say Kaer Morhen for starters. Vesemir is dead, Lambert is on a neverending honeymoon with Keira and Eskel said, he won'T come back to Kaer Morhen, at least not for a while.
So G/Y (Geryen, Gerafer, Yenalt...what "Shipping name" would you call them?) have it for them alone. Sure it's partly a ruin, but that way Yennefer has something to do while Geralt is adventuring with Ciri, and I think for a determined Sorceress, it shouldn't be too hard to restore the Castle. This way they will have their solitude, but they are still in the north and able to visit civilization, if the need arises.
It will also work as a sanctuary for Ciri.
And to the topic with Ciri being the empress, I think many ppl have a too romantic notion about ruling, especially ruling empires. There is the common folks and there are the nboles, both have completely different ideas about whats best. She can't rule without having the majority of the nobles behind her but she will then hardly be able to provide a better life for the common folk.
There is no perfect way and you will always make and have enemies.
I mean Emhyr had some powerful enemies, simply because he married a foreign "princess" instead of one of their own daughters. For Ciri it will be even worse, since many powerful men will propose to her and they will all be pissed when she declines them.
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He's just speculating. Because in between before she became the empress, it took her few months to think about it. Remember she said "after many letters: & yada yada then she decided to become the empress because she wants to change things.
we have no idea what happened behind the scene. In fact, we don't even see the letter. (more DLC opportunity!)
And yeah I agree with you. So far, I have mixed feeling about TW3 potrayal of Nilfgaard. They don't seem that bad either in the game. In fact, they even helped us in the final battle against Wild hunt.
The only 'real' bad guys to me are the Witch hunters and King Radovid. Those guys are scum, that's why I let Nilfgaard win the war.
Wild Hunt doesn't even feel like they're the bad guys...
Makes sense. Well, Geralt and Yen can always use the portal. Yenalt sounds nicer hahaha
Boy, I really hope CDPR does something about Yen and Triss.
Make a small cone in Kovir where we can visit Triss (to chat/fuck/whatever we want) and put Yen in a hut or Kaer Morhen (to chat/fuck/whatever we want). Also, It's the best chance to put a storage system/safe deposit at home so we'll have that storage chest everyone dream of
That's what I called 'home'
A bit off topic but.. I still remember what Triss said (if you romanced her) and she started talking about the house in Kovir at the fountain scene.
If we answered "Witcher's life" is our path, we enjoy waking up with morning dew on our face.. Triss said "at least you have a place called home to come back to". Sweet, mysterious and meaningful.
I wonder if this is actually a hint for future DLC where we can visit both Triss and Yen hehe
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I'm well aware that ruling an empire as big as Nilfgaard will not be all sunshine and rainbows, not for Ciri, not for the nobles and not for the common folk either. But I still believe Ciri will do a great job as an empress. She's a powerful woman and not easily discouraged. She's stubborn like her father and graceful like her mother. I'm sure Ciri will do just fine as an empress once her father has shown her ins- and outs of ruling an empire.
It would have been interesting (if a bit bizarre) if CDPR had added Galahad into the game to be a potential romance interest for Ciri. It felt there was just a tiny hint that option was available at the end of the books...
I'm still not 100% buying that Eredin was just wrong when he suggested Avallac'h was pulling something shady at the ending. Eredin could have been onto something. Avallac'h has quite a shady past, including what he does in 'Lady of the Lake'. It was just jarring that Ciri was completely trusting him in the games, and Ciri stopping the White Frost all by herself doesn't quite fit with the books.
And Avallac'h suddently isn't concerned about Ciri having a child anymore? The lab that Geralt, Ciri, and Yen find in the game suggests otherwise. And he no longer cares about traveling to other worlds to conquer them like he did with the Aen Elle world? If CDPR didn't already say that TW3 was the end of the storyline, I would be saying that Avallac'h just tricked Ciri into thinking she stopped the White Frost, and then ran off to pursue his own agenda...
I'm still not 100% buying that Eredin was just wrong when he suggested Avallac'h was pulling something shady at the ending. Eredin could have been onto something. Avallac'h has quite a shady past, including what he does in 'Lady of the Lake'. It was just jarring that Ciri was completely trusting him in the games, and Ciri stopping the White Frost all by herself doesn't quite fit with the books.
And Avallac'h suddently isn't concerned about Ciri having a child anymore? The lab that Geralt, Ciri, and Yen find in the game suggests otherwise. And he no longer cares about traveling to other worlds to conquer them like he did with the Aen Elle world? If CDPR didn't already say that TW3 was the end of the storyline, I would be saying that Avallac'h just tricked Ciri into thinking she stopped the White Frost, and then ran off to pursue his own agenda...
Yes, but it was that moment when Yennefer was almost begging him to do it... I don't know how to say. If you love someone and it ask you to do something specific in special manner you simply can't refuse. And it was such moment but he refused and that hurt both him and her.
BTW did you know that Yennefer use the same spell in the cinematic intro as in Golder Dragon story
great level to details from CD Red!
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