Glorsann a'Yaevinn

it’s a more obvious and crucial element in the hussite trilogy, but i think that it’s also significant in the witcher, too.

languages are not as simple as belonging to one people group. for instance, one can know one dialect of elder speech and be fluent in it, but struggle to communicate in another dialect.

there’s various dialects of elder speech, the first being the classical, the one spoken by elves. another one is nilfgaardian. another one is skellige jargon. another one is brokilonian… and there is an entire variant of elder speech used by mer-people and sea creatures, but it is sung, with one’s musicality, melody, and intonation affecting their accent.

and elder speech is needed for specific activities. if you cast spells? if you’re a human, you need to know classical elder speech, because the human way of casting spells requires incantations and hand gestures.

if that wasn’t enough, the concept of languages dying out and intermingling and evolving is also touched on.

for instance, the dwarvish language exists, but is quickly being forgotten as assimilation into human settlements becomes more and more common, and youngsters are reluctant to speak their own language

another example of time and the mixing of groups affecting the evolution of language is in the north case, a mountainous region in which nilfgaardian and northern tongues have been mixing for the past couple of decades due to imperialism and nilfgaardian expansion northward. and owing to this is an eruption of new slang using words from nilfgaardian has entered the local tongue.

(this part is just a headcanon:) there’s probably a lot of local languages and dialects, from regions the nilfgaardian empire consumed, that are various stages of dying because some places were conquered hundreds of years ago and some were conquered only a few decades ago

there’s even more obscure languages like the vampire language which is only known to us in a nauseatingly menacing, terror-inducing song and… an untranslatable pun.

what’s more is the curious use of latin words and phrases used as one mught use them today; for which, of course, the out-of-universe explanation is that sapkowski is addicted to using latin, but, in-universe is an ancient language with a similar role latin has in modern society being “translated” to our latin, just like the common tongue is being “translated” to polish.

and what i love the most about this is that this isn’t knowledge that lives in the background, not touching the lives of our characters. the characters’ abilities (or inabilities) to speak languages affects them in many ways throughout the story.

geralt speaks elder, but his brokilonian dialect is poor (at least during sword of destiny, in time of contempt he seems to have improved somewhat during his month-long stay)… and dandelion had to learn elder speech for his expedition to brokilon, to sing elaine ettariel and speak with the dryads, and you can see that he’s a beginner in the language.

milva gains multiple nicknames in elder from the elves owing to her service to them, not solely out of respect, but because her given name is hard to pronounce for them. and her present nickname, the one she should be proud of, is not of any of her attributes, but a familial title—sor’ca, sister.

another thing about milva is that she is illiterate, but at the same time, bilingual. one does not preclude the other!

cahir’s mother language is nilfgaardian, but speaks the northern common language because of his northern ancestry on his mother’s side. and in times of stress, his mind blanked on northern, as well as when he swore in nilfgaardian.

cahir can understand angoulême’s north case slang, as well as “translate” for the rest of the company, but they have probably run into confusion or frustration—“how did you get that from that?!”

@humble-althemist Thank you for the delightful tags on the post about Yaevinn and Iorveth, I hope you don't mind me addressing them, but it's really just so interesting and engaging to me!! I was equally taken with Yaevinn and Geralt, but Yaevinn and Iorveth are also an interesting pair, I find, despite the fact that they never actually interact on screen. The subtext, though brief, is there, and it’s so very compelling to me. There was a relationship of some kind there, that much can be said for sure. No matter whether or not one takes it as romantic and/or sexual, I think it has to be accepted that there is at least respect and likely some degree of fondness there. Iorveth isn’t the type to mince words when he’s not fond of someone, as can be evidenced in some of his dialogues, but he’s actually quite careful with his word choice about Yaevinn, it would seem. He uses the descriptor “unrealistic”, yes, but it’s not for Yaevinn himself, and he never attacks Yaevinn directly with his criticism. He says that Yaevinn had beautiful dreams and just reasons, and that those reasons were as unrealistic as they were just. It is the world who has no place for this beautiful dreamer, not Iorveth who cannot accept him. Iorveth is in agreement with him, even, he just thinks that Yaevinn could not have rightly expected to fulfil these dreams of his.

There isn’t ever really any more contextualisation of the nature of the relationship that occurred between Yaevinn and Iorveth in the text of the games, just more subtext with which to play. Yaevinn is well-known enough a commander among the Scoia’tael to be deemed “legendary” in his citation in TW3, but he wasn’t a Vrihedd commander, Iorveth was. Additionally, while there are no canon ages given for either of them, it seems likely to me that Yaevinn is the elder of the two; I don’t remember if he confirms that he took part in Aelirenn’s rebellion, but I seem to have a memory of at least the implication of it when he tells Geralt of Aelirenn in the bank robbery sequence, which would put him at least over two hundred years old, with the specifics beyond that getting a little hazy, while Iorveth has been fighting humans for, I believe depending on the dialogue in TW2, either a century or over a century, so he is over a hundred for certain, and beyond that, the specific detail is unsure. Older and potentially more experienced in command, and yet he would have been Iorveth’s subordinate in the Vrihedd Brigade. Did they work closely at all? Did they know each other prior to this? How did they see each other? Yaevinn before his desperate attack at Vizima, Iorveth before he lost his eye, they’d be in quite different positions in the era of the Vrihedd Brigade, which is the last point that can be said for sure that they were both present.

 It’s hard to say with so little evidence to work with, how things were for them. I’m very partial to queer readings of both Yaevinn and Iorveth, and the potential for a relationship there is interesting, but it’s also very interesting to consider it as impartial or platonic, a political relationship, perhaps commander and advisor. There’s so little to be known for sure that one can just run wild with extrapolation.

And, well, with this bit of dialogue that is being examined, there’s some interesting material to work with for both of their characters. I really really like this point, it’s very compelling to me, because it’s absolutely right, it may be dialogue about Yaevinn but it is also very strong characterisation for Iorveth

And one of my favourite things about Iorveth is that he's a bit of a hypocrite? I say this with the utmost fondness, but there are a few different instances I could look at.

Yaevinn is unrealistic for considering combat and killing to be poetry, and Iorveth considers himself wholly logical and correct to take the very poetic stance that war is prose with no place for beauty.

Or like how he says to Geralt that the reason he's pursuing Roche so fervently is because he's going after the first commanders of the anti-elven special forces units across the north – in his own words, "Of the commanders first appointed to such units, he's the only one still alive”, but also in his own words, “"The Temerian Special Forces, created by Foltest to combat the Scoia'tael after the first war with Nilfgaard”, and "Vernon Roche! Special Forces Commander for the last four years". No matter whether one takes the book timeline or the modified timeline established in TW1 (the Battle of Brenna therefore being placed in 1265), Roche having been Special Forces Commander for the "last four years" would place him as making command rank in 1268 if Iorveth includes the current year in his count, and at the earliest 1267 if Iorveth does not include the current year, which is in both cases places him after or at least during the second war with Nilfgaard, which makes his point of referral very odd unless Roche is not the first commander after all.

Or how “our women are prepared to die” when he doesn’t want to risk turning back during the escape on the prison barge and risk the lives of the collective for a few, but what leads him to challenge his alliance with Letho and ultimately to capture the prison barge is Geralt referring to his right-hand man; in that moment of challenge, he risks it all for Ciaran’s sake, on Ciaran’s say-so.

Or how he insists Saskia is “different”, that she’s special, but she is not only the same as the others, her broad strokes are pretty well exactly the same as the one who came before her – a personally powerful but politically disadvantaged queen who had the Scoia’tael fight and die for her victory, and when she claimed the valley, she cast them aside. While there is certainly more nuance to each situation, it pretty neatly parallels with what Iorveth describes as having happened with Francesca Findabair and the Vrihedd Brigade when Saskia disparages Iorveth and his Scoia’tael as murderers and terrorists after they’re the ones who won the valley for her, fought and died in her name.

That’s his idealism speaking, the whole entanglement with Saskia is idealism – the fact that he is responsible for the tales of Saskia the Dragonslayer? He told the whole world of the woman that he loved, whether it was a romantic love or a platonic sort of adoration, and that love raised an army, it’s idealism in action, and it’s a powerful idealism. While it can certainly be said that allying oneself to a dragon is a good idea, that's not the source of Iorveth's attachment, it's evident in the way he speaks of her that it's more than that. It sort of begs the question that if Iorveth can do so much on his own, what could he have done if he had shared in Yaevinn’s dreams? If they’d been united, rather than apart?

(As an aside, it’s kind of funny to hold them in juxtaposition like this because, like, Iorveth is the one who gets called a terrorist for ultimately having a regimented and orderly combat with another military force, and Yaevinn is commemorated as a “legendary Scoia’tael commander” rather than a terrorist when he’s the one who basically burnt a city to the ground.)

But nevertheless, Iorveth’s perceived hypocrisy over the notion of idealism is also very interesting as far as his characterisation goes, because the point of the matter is determining what, exactly, is truthful and intentional. He expresses a pretty clear stance on most matters in which he opines, but he must be therefore scrutinised for these stances. As I can see it, the likely possibilities are that he is actually being hypocritical and contradicting himself, that he is lying to others to make a certain impression, or that he is lying to himself.

To apply this to the quandary of Yaevinn and these beautiful dreams, Iorveth might perhaps contradict himself because he wants to decry the perceived lack of realism behind Yaevinn’s reasoning despite being equally fanciful in his endeavours for Saskia. He might also perhaps lie about his stance to make himself seem more eminently practical and capable in front of an ally like Geralt; he isn’t chasing a dream, he has plans and strategies and resources, he has the tools for success. He might also state this aloud as though to affirm it to himself – Yaevinn was a dreamer, and had grandiose visions of a better future and all the right reasons behind him, but Yaevinn failed, and Iorveth is too practical and grounded to fall prey to the same fate.He wants to believe this, he needs to believe this, he cannot fail, and so he affirms it to someone else, as though that might make it real. 

It’s interesting to take this interpretation and juxtapose it with Yaevinn’s apparent disillusionment in TW1, the ways in which they react when the pressure is on. Yaevinn, who is just so tired of the fighting but pushing on anyway and ensuring that every necessary step is taken, to the point of being curt with his friends and companions, like his rather terse letter to Golan Vivaldi, cuts out the idealism of a free nation of elves or a future in which humans are driven into the sea and settles for simply clawing out some modicum of progress for the remaining generations, some small respect or accommodation or freedom hard-won from the humans. Iorveth, on the contrary, leans in more heavily to this idealism, to the idea that Saskia is their best and greatest hope for freedom in the north, that she will win, that she will make things better, she must, she simply has to, because otherwise Iorveth has staked his hopes on her for nothing. And it's also very interesting to have Geralt kind of mired in the centre of all this, an ally and object of affection for both of them, faced with their bravado and cynicism and idealism, as muted or misguided as it may end up being. Geralt is there, Geralt takes part in the battles, Geralt is asked to share in the beautiful dreams.

God, I so want to dig into their history together now in a way that’s only been vaguely in the back of my mind for ages. Cause you’re right there’s so much wide open territory for speculation around the few facts we do have. I agree that Yaevinn feels older to me, whether he was being coy about being there for Aelirenn’s rebellion because he was there, or because he’s just a little shit who likes egging Geralt on and making him think he’s more mysterious than he actually is (both being readings I just about equally love). But yeah, that then makes his small role in the Vrihedd Brigade very curious. Agh I need to get on my book reread now, although I know it will illuminate little haha

And yess, absolutely. Iorveth is suchh a hypocrite (affectionate). I think that’s part of why the “sharing dreams” line strikes me so much as a double entendre. Because Iorveth is clearly very capable of having lofty dreams, so the fact that he wasn’t able to join in Yaevinn’s feels more like a “I wasn’t into him quite like he was into me/like he wanted” or a “we weren’t good for each other” kind of thing to me. Which can also be interpreted in a more non-romantic way, too.

But yeah Iorveth being such a clear hypocrite is part of the reason I think he gels so well with Geralt as a character haha

As the center of a story that is constantly and repeatedly about wanting to be neutral and saying he’s neutral and doesn’t give a shit, and then whoopsie giving soo much of a shit and winding up taking sides whether he means to or not, Iorveth is not so much a foil as just like… Elf Geralt. They are both very passionate yet very stoic, both not at all comfortable with the political scheming side of things, but pretty capable of it when pressed.

Which, as an aside, I’m realizing now is also a characterization I like to sprinkle into Yaevinn too, when writing geralt/yaevinn stuff. Not quite to their level, but just in the sense that he’s a very old elf who’s taken very seriously by a lot of his peers, and has worked hard to make it so, so kindling such a bantery/antagonistic friendship with Geralt gives him a chance to get kind of called on things that he normally doesn’t? Lets him realize little inconsistencies in his worldview or whatever that no proud Scoia’tael would’ve ever called him on or even probably noticed, cause they’re right there with him. Part of the intellectual tet-à-tet that makes their dynamic work so well — Geralt getting a lil bit of a speedrun on some character building shit that happened over the course of the books that he no longer has since losing his memory of those events, having to rethink some shit, but keeping up well enough that he’s able to make Yaevinn see some things from new perspectives too.

But back to Iorveth and Yaevinn, I definitely get the impression that Iorveth is half reassuring himself that he’s being fully logical and practical about this whole thing, when he calls Yaevinn’s failed dreams idealistic. And with their histories, it almost makes me think that perhaps part of why they are the way they are by the time we meet them in the games is because of what happened with the Vrihedd Brigade and Dol Blathanna. Yaevinn believed it could work, and when it didn’t it shook his faith in the dream entirely. Made him, at least for now, for the next couple decades maybe (because I imagine with lives on timescales that long, character growth is much more of an ebbing and flowing or circular sort of thing than we usually think of it as, but that’s a whole other talk lol), into a much more practical and present-focused leader. Meanwhile Iorveth, who at least now looking back thinks Dol Blathanna was never going to work out the way it was promised (and I’m fairly comfortable believing that he had his doubts even while fighting for it. sometimes the vibe is just off but you stick with it cause fighting alongside your fellow elves is better than doing nothing), made him that much more susceptible to falling for exactly the kind of messaging that didn’t take him in before because it didn’t take him in before. Because Francesca’s brand of charisma didn’t really speak to him maybe, but Saskia’s does. Or maybe just because the timing is right, and he’s had enough successes lately, made enough human enemies, that he’s starting to think maybe he can do this damn thing.

It’s such a curious relationship, no matter how one looks at it, really, based on the facts we’re given. Yaevinn, likely the elder of the two, being presented as the idealist as opposed to the pragmatist, and being the subordinate rather than the superior. There’s a peculiar dynamic there, especially in regard to Iorveth’s specific verbiage, because if this is the state of their relationship, then Iorveth should hold the social power in this dynamic, as it were, being the one who is logical and capable, the eminent commander, and yet he speaks very carefully about Yaevinn, not ever speaking directly down about him, as though Yaevinn has some social power over him. This could be taken as a mark of respect or a mark of fondness. And there’s so, so many ways that this relationship could be spun, really – commander and advisor, brothers-at-arms, lovers, close friends, and all the nuance that can be packed into these kinds of relationships and other variants. I wish there was more that pertained to them in canon, either in the games or the novels, because it’s delightful to consider the possibilities, but having more guidance could be so enlightening and intriguing!

Iorveth delights me, truly, he’s a liar and a hypocrite and yet at the same time he is so bluntly truthful and forthright, he’s a really compelling character. And you’re right, he clearly has the capability for these kinds of dreams, so there ought to be some kind of deeper meaning in this dialogue. There’s some kind of untold history there that he’s not getting into. I really like the options you put forth, I think it’s very interesting to look at things this way, but I would also like to propose a third option, also, making it not a question of “would not” (not seeing him that way) or “should not” (not functioning well together), but of “could not” – because it’s not known for sure to what extent they knew each other outside of the context that they were part of the Vrihedd Brigade, but the canonical fact is that Yaevinn was quite badly wounded during the war, though he would recover from his wounds, and Iorveth was also injured, and was then taken away to be tried for his war crimes as a Vrihedd commander. They would have been swiftly separated by happenstance, whether they knew each other beforehand or not, and it’s possible or even probable that there was at least a period of time where they could not have known that the other was alive, with Yaevinn recovering from serious injury and Iorveth barely escaping his execution. So even if Iorveth agreed with him and wanted to buy into those beautiful dreams that Yaevinn “desperately wanted” him to share, they wouldn’t have had the chance, being separated in the fallout of the war ending. They could have had plans for after the valley had been won, when the war was over, but being so abruptly separated means that there’s not much potential for the sharing of anything. It might not have been a choice, it might have been out of their control. And having that as an option makes things all the more complex, whether or not this separation and denial of dreams was a conscious decision or not, what led to that, whether there is regret there or not.

Geralt is also funny like that he is just a silly fellow and I am deeply fond of him. His repeated problem of getting in over his head, he never ever learns from his actions, he just can’t help himself. And there’s definitely some similarity there, you outline it very nicely, you can get some very neat parallels. I do really like the construction of the allies in TW2, each drawing on a part of Geralt and expanding on it to a point of extremism so that they foil each other. Iorveth is very much an embodiment of that kind of passion that draws Geralt out of the safety of neutrality. He is both temptor and tempted, and it puts him in an interesting position as far as the narrative goes. He has to draw Geralt out and into this political mess, but he, too, is being strung along. Geralt is an outside presence to influence him, a counterbalance, because he deals with the direct interior of the social circle embroiled in this political mess, at Saskia’s side, but by virtue of having Geralt as a companion, he’s also reaching outward, being exposed to what lies outside of his immediate situation.

You’re right, he also brings in that outside perspective for Yaevinn as someone who isn’t bound to the social dynamics practised within the Scoia’tael, not a superior or a subordinate, just a sympathiser. From the very first encounter, they challenge each other, verbal sparring that works to exercise their philosophy and politics. Geralt, afflicted by amnesia, is met by so many preconceived notions about the Scoia’tael, these “damned elves”, these “nonhuman little shits who were fed romantic tales”, and gets to experience through Yaevinn that the Scoia’tael are more than that, but also knows that they aren’t infallible, that they’re people just like anyone else. And Yaevinn, who has been fighting this prolonged rebellion for so long, who was cast off from humans even when he tried to assimilate, gets to be reminded that humanity is not a blackened mass of unredeemable evil, much like Iorveth is, so taken in by Geralt that his “hatred of the species abated for a moment”. And there’s emotional payoff, too, for both of them. Yaevinn who is carefully won over, who progresses from treating him like an outsider, an othered thing, to becoming a dear friend, and remains loyal to the very end, even when it means endangering himself by lingering at Geralt’s side when he ought to be fleeing Vizima. And Geralt who carefully wins him over, upon whom Yaevinn learns he can depend, someone who is there for him, even if they don’t see perfectly eye-to-eye on everything, it is not enough to disrupt him. The bank robbery sequence is quite the ultimatum, forcing Geralt to make his choice, and it must be quite something for Yaevinn to be chosen. Despite the stacked odds, despite his troubled history, Geralt chooses to stay by his side, and that wins him over wholly. They also serve as counterbalances to each other, functioning in tandem, each shaping the other.

This is also part of why I think Toruviel is so important when regarding Yaevinn, because, to an extent, she is also there to fulfil this role? She challenges him directly in the novels and argues morality with him, and in the games, she’s there to sort of foil his style of command – Yaevinn is approaching the Vizima Uprising as sort of a last-ditch effort of sorts, something at which to throw everything he has at all costs because it may be his last chance to make a difference for the future, as compared to Toruviel who is still trying to put her individual men first and look after her unit above the “greater good” and the uncertain fate of future generations. She is there to temper his extremism and make him reconsider his stances and he is there to inspire her to push her limits (though I do not like the angle they pushed in TW1 where Toruviel returns out of love for Geralt and/or Yaevinn, it feels reductive to Toruviel as a character, but that’s another story). That’s another inversion of dynamics, too, because Toruviel was his superior in the past, but she now acts as his subordinate colleague in TW1 – not much below him, but still acting in accordance with his plans and commands. She, too, acts as a counterbalance, and it’s with the combined presence of her and Geralt that Yaevinn is able to function to his best at Vizima.

But I digress, and I definitely agree with what you’re saying. There’s definitely a reason to be taking a measure of comfort in that, a sort of self-soothing mechanism in assuring himself that Yaevinn had dreams, but he has plans. He’s being logical and practical and thorough and he’s going to succeed where Yaevinn failed. That failure must be a bitter one, too, because it essentially should have been a success? He forced Foltest to parlay with him, and Temeria even enters a political alliance with Redania because the Scoia’tael are too severe a threat to be dealt with alone, the Vizima Uprising should have been a historic victory for the elves. I understand why it’s not, they can’t have that kind of massive canon-altering schism depending on which route the player takes and employ it with any degree of effectiveness in the sequel, but it makes things a little more painful to think that this, which should have been a rousing victory, an inspiration for the war-weary elves, something to make them think they have a chance, and instead it is just a city aflame and Yaevinn forced to flee. And Iorveth has to assure himself that the same won’t happen to him, his historic victory won’t be reduced to ashes in a razed city. 

I think the fallout of the banishment of the Scoia’tael from Dol Blathanna definitely did affect them in different ways. For both of them, this should have been a major movement. Yaevinn knows first-hand how an uprising can go if it does not have the strength of numbers, the resources, the funding, and during the war they had Nilfgaard at their backs, it was a new chance at victory. And Iorveth taking command rank means that he’s actively involved in the spearheading of this conquest, he’s part of the planning, of the orchestration, working on a grander scale than ever before. But when things go horribly wrong, it must be devastating.

The scene in the medical tent shows it perfectly well, Yaevinn is quite shaken by the events that transpire during the war, and for it to culminate ultimately in Francesca Findabair casting off the Scoia’tael who died for her, it’d be quite the crushing blow to his idealism. He knows how vital this cause is, and picks it back up even after this devastating setback, but he’s not as hopeful as he once was. Iorveth, too, suffered quite the blow to his idealism, considering how he considers Francesca a “treacherous witch who sold her soul to the emperor” – it’s almost a personal grudge, given how he was surrendered as a war criminal, and that makes it easier for him to pick up the reins of idealism once more, to foist all his anger on Francesca herself. And then he found a new queen in whom to place his trust and his hopes, someone to fill the void, so to speak. A new figurehead who can foster his idealism to make up for Francesca’s betrayal.

That’s another interesting difference between Yaevinn and Iorveth in their respective games – Yaevinn is spearheading his own rebellion, he’s doing it himself, while Iorveth is technically putting himself in a subordinate position, acting as Saskia’s lackey, so it’s her cause he’s fighting for, rather than his own – though their ideals may align at least in theory, he’s still placing her in control, using her as a figurehead of sorts, perhaps to draw other eyes away from the Scoia’tael, but it also takes the onus off of him at least a little. He’s fighting under her command, just as he once did for Francesca. It’s not him in charge of everything. Interestingly enough, the elven people still look to him rather than to her, despite his best efforts. But I think it’s a compelling little difference in their machinations – Yaevinn is trying to level the playing field so that he himself might be working on the scale of kings so that he can try to make things better, while Iorveth is not trying to rival the monarchy but rather instate someone else so that they might do this for him. And I think that’s also part of Iorveth’s confidence. He’s not doing this alone, he’s serving someone that he believes can do better than he ever could alone, and so he’s bound and determined to do his level best to make things happen.

Based on the post I made a while ago:

I feel like Regis is just silly fella. Also higher vampires love shiny things like their lesser cousins and you can fascinate a higher vampire with a piece of jewelry

another post examining the weight of geralt and dandelion’s friendship… because i don’t think people recognize how painful and debilitating loneliness can become.

the witcher as a deconstruction of the genre takes fantasy tropes to their most logical ends—it asks us to consider what The Lone Swordsman feels, looks into the humanity in a Cold-Blooded Killer. and it turns out he’s not cold-blooded at all.

that despite some superhuman abilities, he laments and worries and curses himself, just like any other worker of any other profession. just as the farmer is scorched by the sun, the washerwoman’s back aches, and the scholar goes half-blind studying, a witcher deals with all of the pains and annoyances and dangers of his job in a mundanely human way.

but the farmer, the washerwoman, and the scholar have something the witcher does not have—they’ll always be seen as human and part of their society. at the end of the day after enduring all of their labor, they have their wife to caress, festivities to attend, and taverns to frequent. but for a witcher? after the killing is over, what does he have? no one and nothing. not even a thank you. he is met with fear and hatred everywhere he goes, baseless bigotry and dislike.

I did my job. I quickly learned how. I’d ride up to village enclosures or town pickets and wait. If they spat, cursed and threw stones, I rode away. If someone came out to give me a commission, I’d carry it out.

so he faces not just loneliness, but being deliberately ostracized and cast out from society. geralt can’t even find a polite word in most settlements, much less a friend.

‘(…) Tell me, where should I go? And for what? At least here some people have gathered with whom I have something to talk about. People who don’t break off their conversations when I approach. People who, though they may not like me, say it to my face, and don’t throw stones from behind a fence. (…)’

this kind of loneliness is not a mere inconvenience. it’s completely altering to your self-perception and ability to see the positive in the world.

each day is not lived, but endured.

day in, and day out—forced to the most difficult and lowest labor in order to survive, and knowing that were you to die, no one would search for your body, few would miss you, hell, they might even spit “good riddance”.

in this situation, to find a friend, is not only friendship, but a rescue.

without dandelion, geralt may have drowned—drowned in solitude, amidst a sea of strangeness.

‘(…) And I’m alone, completely alone, endlessly alone among the strange and hostile elements. Solitude amid a sea of strangeness. Don’t you dream of that?’

No, I don’t, he thought. I have it every day.

because dandelion is not only a bright soul, characteristic rippling laughter and the strum of a lute, but someone who will intently listen to geralt, someone who mutually enjoys his company.

‘(…) you almost jumped out of your pants with joy to have a companion. Until then, you only had your horse for company.’

someone who doesn’t see him as strange and at the fringes of society at all, but as an utterly normal man.

and doesn’t impose demeaning, sappy sympathy onto him, but sobering and realistic “quit your bullshit” which ridicules the very thought that he should internalize societal hatred.

Do you know what your problem is, Geralt? You think you’re different. (…) [You don’t understand that] for people who think clear-headedly you’re the most normal man under the sun, and they all wish that everybody was so normal. What of it that you have quicker reflexes than most and vertical pupils in sunlight? That you can see in the dark like a cat? That you know a few spells? Big deal.

dandelion isn’t “willing” to accept geralt for himself—he already has accepted him. and to him, it’s no difficulty, it’s nothing worth discussing, because he sees no abnormality and no strangeness in him.

while others “prefer the company of lepers to witchers,” dandelion has already offered geralt to share his room and board. not out of sympathetic pity, not out of fetishizing curiosity. because… they’re friends.

and what else does this friendship save him from?

not only from others, but from himself.

worse than enduring others’ apathy and hatred is one’s own thoughts—the darkness and negativity which builds from witnessing and experiencing such behavior.

dandelion’s ability to counter and dispel geralt’s pessimism and self-flagellating tendencies—again, not out of pity, but out of friendship—is undeniably invaluable. someone to rescue you from your darkest thoughts, when you begin to spiral.

and in this darkness, all you can do is cry. you cry, beg for someone to help you, please—

Help! Why doesn't anyone help me? Alone, weak, helpless – I can't move, can't force a sound from my constricted throat. Why does no one come to help me? I'm terrified!

to be alone, the saga reminds us, is worse than a death sentence. to be alone is to “perish; stabbed, beaten or kicked to death, defiled, like a toy passed from hand to hand.” to be alone is to suffer, and to be with someone is to save them from that suffering.

'(…) I wouldn't like anything bad to happen to you. I like you too much, owe you too much-'

'You've said that already. What do you owe me, Yennefer?'

The sorceress turned her head away, did not say anything for a while.

'You travelled with him,' she said finally. 'Thanks to you he was not alone. You were a friend to him. You were with him.'

it is true that geralt has saved dandelion countless times, helped him, gotten him out of some scrape… but to ask what did geralt get in return? are you kidding me?

did you ever consider that it is dandelion who saved geralt?

by being with him. by being by his side. by being his friend.

indeed, dandelion has rescued geralt, countless times, from the yawning jaws of endless loneliness. he’s helped him, chased away the danger of geralt’s own rumination. and he’s gotten him out of scrapes, his own insecurities and bitter helplessness.

so what does dandelion give geralt? what does geralt get from their friendship?