So I decided to finally try out the Witcher 3 after hearing pretty much everyone and their mother speak about how amazing the game is--barring the combat, of course. I borrowed a copy off a friend as I don't personally feel comfortable giving CDPR money with the Cyberpunk/transphobia situation, but ya know, I was on my way.
So before I get into this let me say a few things (so I don't have people telling me about how I didn't get the whole experience or whatever):
- I watched the TV show first and thought Yenn's writing (specifically her obsession with babies) was deeply misogynistic. Friend swore the game was not nearly as bad. (GO READ THE THREADMARK BEFORE YOU TELL ME ABOUT HOW IT'S NOT MISOGYNISTIC. YOU DON'T HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME, THAT'S TOTALLY FINE, I'M JUST DONE EXPLAINING THIS POINT :) )
- I've completed the main story line, and did a fair amount of sidequests. Got the griffin armor updated, enacted the assassination, chose a ruler of Skelliege, did all the witcher contracts, etc--I didn't do everything, but I feel like I've done more than enough to have gotten a pretty good look at the game.
Anyway, back to my point: Holy shit was I not warned how misogynistic this game is.
It's everything; the way female characters are written, the blatant sexualization of every female character, and, most of all, how often violence against them is highly sexualized. I'm gonna try to contains my thoughts on each of these below, but wow, do I have a lot to say. (Also, preface: this is not every instance I had an issue with--I just figured 1600 words was sufficient to get my point across).
Poorly Written Female Characters
So the thing I hear the most about the Witcher is how the writing is so incredibly excellent--but the whole time all I could think about was how...uninspired every woman you interact with is.
So you have two major love interests, right? Triss and Yenn--Triss is (I guess?) supposed to be sweeter compared to Yenn, who is described multiple times as "bitchy" (even by Geralt himself, even on her romance route....okay....). I suppose the two may have more personality otherwise, but I was absolutely annoyed with how the entirety of their character seemed to revolve around Geralt, and how both were written to fulfill some dude's fantasy.
Triss, like I said, is supposed to be sweeter, but is written to be head over heels into Geralt. Who left her 6 months before because he loved Yenn or something--but she's still in love with him, even up until to the end of the game (multiple characters comment on it). The only facet of Triss explored in this game other than her relationship/love of Geralt is that she's helping mages escape Novigrad! Cool! Actual character motivation outside of Geralt! Except she literally cannot do it on her own (requires the assistance of Geralt and another male character--which, I get, you want Geralt to be the hero, but like...can she have a single thing maybe?). And after it's done I don't think it's ever even really mentioned again outside of maybe one comment that everyone is safe. The rest of the game is just her looking wide eyed at Geralt and feeling sad that Yenn has his heart (if you do the Yenn path). Great.
Yenn, on the other hand, is "bitchy". She's secretive, arrogant, and sometimes cruel. Okay, I can get on board with a mean woman--but Yenn, imo, fits way too nicely into the "bitchy woman everyone hates" trope. She's willing to sacrifice literally anything else to find Ciri, including defiling Skellige's cultural artifacts and locations. And every time she does, she's met with multiple people telling her just how awful and horrible she is. You don't even really have a chance to defend her in a lot of situations. She feels like a women who was created simply for the original author to deal with his mixed feelings towards a beautiful woman who scorned him.
Then there's her dedication to Ciri and Geralt. Don't get me wrong, I get the appeal of the 'parent figure willing to do anything for their kid' or lover willing to go through hell. But making Yennefer, an incredibly powerful sorceress, have her entire plot revolve around her 'adopted daughter' and love interest sucks. At the end of the game, she gives everything up to go retire with Geralt (at least in my ending). You even have the option to say "doesn't really sound like you"--because it doesn't! It's effectively a rendition of 'babies ever after'--Yenn knows her daughter is okay and now wants to settle with her man. Her man who she uses potentially infinite power (ie: the genie sidequest) to make sure he really loves her. All of which would be sweet in a vacuum, but feels misogynistic given how else she's presented.
I think a lot of the female characters are poorly written--but that'd take a lifetime to write so I'd like to focus on one other character that almost seemed well written but still bothered me: Cerys.
Cerys is smart, reasonable, levelheaded, etc. I enjoyed putting her on the thrown of Skellige. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt Cerys falls into sexist notions of gender. Her brother, Hjalmer, gets to be impulsive and reckless and ready for combat. Cerys does not--I think this tv tropes article does a decent job of explaining why this concept often times plays into sexist frameworks. But, in essence, it's this--women aren't allowed to be flawed like men and taken seriously. They have to go above and beyond to be seen as equals.
Sexualization of Every Female Character
I feel like this one is pretty apparent, but for the sake of thoroughness, let's go through how most of the women in the cast are subjected to sexualization.
Yenn: Wearing form fitting clothing--even when she swaps to her 'flowy' skirt, it still conforms to her ass. Yikes. Plenty of camera shots to make sure you can see her ass and boobs. Yuck.
Triss: Skin tight clothing with a huge cleavage window...even though she's trying not to attract unwanted attention? They just give her a little hood when she's supposed to be 'undercover' or whatever, because it's important that you can see how hot she is at any given time.
Ciri: For some godforsaken reason, lacks a button on her shirt so you can see her bra at any given time. Also even though she's running around, doing combat maneuvers, beating up bad guys, is wearing 3 inch heeled boots. I love me a cute pair of boots but I'm pretty sure anyone would agree they're not particularly suited for combat.
Every other sorceress: Boobs are just out there (also, a lot of these outfits are just...straight up not cute and seem to be designed entirely around appealing to the male gaze, which doesn't even make sense for the characters imo).
Ves: GIRL WHY IS YOUR SHIRT OPEN? AREN'T YOU FIGHTING A GODDAMN WAR? literally having the only female soldier just have her boobs out...why?? why????
Cerys is just about the only woman I recall not being highly sexualized.
Also, on a related note, literally the only humanoid characters I saw with a darker than pasty skin tone were succubus--who were obviously sexualized. Hate to see that racist fetishization of woc. Hate to see it. And every single woman seems to have the same body type--also hate to see it.
Sexualization and Commodification of Violence against Women
Okay so this section I'm gonna throw a few trigger warnings on because honestly I wish someone had done so for me before I played the game.
CW/TW: Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Hanging, Cutting, Crucifixion, Disfigurement
This game heavily relies upon brutalizing women to make a point (usually when it really doesn't need to)--and almost always that brutalization is sexualized.
So. I could deal with the game until I got to the Whoreson Jr. I actually had to get up because I felt sick to my stomach when I got to this point. In case you need a refresher, Geralt's looking for Ciri at this point, and knows at some point she ran into Whoreson Jr, a local crime boss. So he manages to get into Whoreson's house to pay him a visit, get some info about Ciri.
Except when you arrive, you find a woman, either naked or basically wearing no clothes (don't remember and frankly don't want to rewatch the scene), effectively crucified outside the room. Geralt makes some comment about "he better not have done that to Ciri" and I guess the point is to illustrate Geralt is done with Whoreson's shit--really feels completely unnecessary to literally have A NAKED CRUCIFIED CORPSE on display--but whatever. Okay. I'm just gonna go into the room and move past it.
Inside, there are multiple more naked women, all lying about the room, either dead or unconscious. All have at least cuts on them, on their arms and legs, and obviously are posed as sexual objects for Whoreson's enjoyment. But the worst is that there is literally a hanged naked woman, strung from the ceiling. And she is in almost every goddamn shot in this scene, regardless of the camera angle--some element of her is always there, reminding you of her existence. At this point I actually had to go take a break; there was NO REASON to subject the player to that level of sexual violence or just..violence misogyny. The point was made 100x over--Whoreson is a bad dude. She was simply there for shock value--which, honestly, most women feel to be.
A side quest that opens up soon after that is in which you have to track down a serial killer that has forced Priscilla, Dandelion's love interest, to drink formaldehyde, brutalizing her and sending her close to death. Already, I'm annoyed--can't have this somewhat interesting woman actually get out of this unscathed, right? But it gets worse--as you progress through the quest, you chase down various leads. At some point, you come across one of your suspects actively burning a naked sex worker--with at least one or two prods actively being shown to the viewer. Once again, for no real reason other than shock value and, I guess, to show a 'hot lady' in pain. You can choose to just let him continue on his way as well, which actively disgusted me to the point where I had to take a break from playing.
Edit of additional quest: The bloody baron quest!! Sorry what--was there an attempt to make me feel bad for a guy who routinely abused his wife because she cheated on him like 20 years ago???? Like what???? How is this supposed to be 'nuanced'--even if she's not a great person, I'm still not on board with you ROUTINELY BEATING HER?
Then there's one of moments--like finding Phillipia with her eyes ripped out because Radovid has a grudge against her. Sure, maybe it makes sense in the wider context of the story--but I honestly can't recall a single male character who's forced to endure that level of lasting torture that actively leaves him scarred. Dudu is probably the closest, and he ends up with a scar over his eye.
In summation: there's just an obvious difference between the treatment of male and female characters. Women are sexualized, abused, and just poorly written. I was really disappointed with my experience with the Witcher--because as much as I liked actually running around doing monster contracts, I soon enough would be reminded that in this game world, women don't get to be anything beyond sacks of meat to be sexualized or brutalized. Maybe there are some non sexualized, well written women somewhere, but I sure didn't find them in my 75 hour playthrough.
So before I get into this let me say a few things (so I don't have people telling me about how I didn't get the whole experience or whatever):
- I watched the TV show first and thought Yenn's writing (specifically her obsession with babies) was deeply misogynistic. Friend swore the game was not nearly as bad. (GO READ THE THREADMARK BEFORE YOU TELL ME ABOUT HOW IT'S NOT MISOGYNISTIC. YOU DON'T HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME, THAT'S TOTALLY FINE, I'M JUST DONE EXPLAINING THIS POINT :) )
- I've completed the main story line, and did a fair amount of sidequests. Got the griffin armor updated, enacted the assassination, chose a ruler of Skelliege, did all the witcher contracts, etc--I didn't do everything, but I feel like I've done more than enough to have gotten a pretty good look at the game.
Anyway, back to my point: Holy shit was I not warned how misogynistic this game is.
It's everything; the way female characters are written, the blatant sexualization of every female character, and, most of all, how often violence against them is highly sexualized. I'm gonna try to contains my thoughts on each of these below, but wow, do I have a lot to say. (Also, preface: this is not every instance I had an issue with--I just figured 1600 words was sufficient to get my point across).
Poorly Written Female Characters
So the thing I hear the most about the Witcher is how the writing is so incredibly excellent--but the whole time all I could think about was how...uninspired every woman you interact with is.
So you have two major love interests, right? Triss and Yenn--Triss is (I guess?) supposed to be sweeter compared to Yenn, who is described multiple times as "bitchy" (even by Geralt himself, even on her romance route....okay....). I suppose the two may have more personality otherwise, but I was absolutely annoyed with how the entirety of their character seemed to revolve around Geralt, and how both were written to fulfill some dude's fantasy.
Triss, like I said, is supposed to be sweeter, but is written to be head over heels into Geralt. Who left her 6 months before because he loved Yenn or something--but she's still in love with him, even up until to the end of the game (multiple characters comment on it). The only facet of Triss explored in this game other than her relationship/love of Geralt is that she's helping mages escape Novigrad! Cool! Actual character motivation outside of Geralt! Except she literally cannot do it on her own (requires the assistance of Geralt and another male character--which, I get, you want Geralt to be the hero, but like...can she have a single thing maybe?). And after it's done I don't think it's ever even really mentioned again outside of maybe one comment that everyone is safe. The rest of the game is just her looking wide eyed at Geralt and feeling sad that Yenn has his heart (if you do the Yenn path). Great.
Yenn, on the other hand, is "bitchy". She's secretive, arrogant, and sometimes cruel. Okay, I can get on board with a mean woman--but Yenn, imo, fits way too nicely into the "bitchy woman everyone hates" trope. She's willing to sacrifice literally anything else to find Ciri, including defiling Skellige's cultural artifacts and locations. And every time she does, she's met with multiple people telling her just how awful and horrible she is. You don't even really have a chance to defend her in a lot of situations. She feels like a women who was created simply for the original author to deal with his mixed feelings towards a beautiful woman who scorned him.
Then there's her dedication to Ciri and Geralt. Don't get me wrong, I get the appeal of the 'parent figure willing to do anything for their kid' or lover willing to go through hell. But making Yennefer, an incredibly powerful sorceress, have her entire plot revolve around her 'adopted daughter' and love interest sucks. At the end of the game, she gives everything up to go retire with Geralt (at least in my ending). You even have the option to say "doesn't really sound like you"--because it doesn't! It's effectively a rendition of 'babies ever after'--Yenn knows her daughter is okay and now wants to settle with her man. Her man who she uses potentially infinite power (ie: the genie sidequest) to make sure he really loves her. All of which would be sweet in a vacuum, but feels misogynistic given how else she's presented.
I think a lot of the female characters are poorly written--but that'd take a lifetime to write so I'd like to focus on one other character that almost seemed well written but still bothered me: Cerys.
Cerys is smart, reasonable, levelheaded, etc. I enjoyed putting her on the thrown of Skellige. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt Cerys falls into sexist notions of gender. Her brother, Hjalmer, gets to be impulsive and reckless and ready for combat. Cerys does not--I think this tv tropes article does a decent job of explaining why this concept often times plays into sexist frameworks. But, in essence, it's this--women aren't allowed to be flawed like men and taken seriously. They have to go above and beyond to be seen as equals.
Sexualization of Every Female Character
I feel like this one is pretty apparent, but for the sake of thoroughness, let's go through how most of the women in the cast are subjected to sexualization.
Yenn: Wearing form fitting clothing--even when she swaps to her 'flowy' skirt, it still conforms to her ass. Yikes. Plenty of camera shots to make sure you can see her ass and boobs. Yuck.
Triss: Skin tight clothing with a huge cleavage window...even though she's trying not to attract unwanted attention? They just give her a little hood when she's supposed to be 'undercover' or whatever, because it's important that you can see how hot she is at any given time.
Ciri: For some godforsaken reason, lacks a button on her shirt so you can see her bra at any given time. Also even though she's running around, doing combat maneuvers, beating up bad guys, is wearing 3 inch heeled boots. I love me a cute pair of boots but I'm pretty sure anyone would agree they're not particularly suited for combat.
Every other sorceress: Boobs are just out there (also, a lot of these outfits are just...straight up not cute and seem to be designed entirely around appealing to the male gaze, which doesn't even make sense for the characters imo).
Ves: GIRL WHY IS YOUR SHIRT OPEN? AREN'T YOU FIGHTING A GODDAMN WAR? literally having the only female soldier just have her boobs out...why?? why????
Cerys is just about the only woman I recall not being highly sexualized.
Also, on a related note, literally the only humanoid characters I saw with a darker than pasty skin tone were succubus--who were obviously sexualized. Hate to see that racist fetishization of woc. Hate to see it. And every single woman seems to have the same body type--also hate to see it.
Sexualization and Commodification of Violence against Women
Okay so this section I'm gonna throw a few trigger warnings on because honestly I wish someone had done so for me before I played the game.
CW/TW: Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Hanging, Cutting, Crucifixion, Disfigurement
This game heavily relies upon brutalizing women to make a point (usually when it really doesn't need to)--and almost always that brutalization is sexualized.
So. I could deal with the game until I got to the Whoreson Jr. I actually had to get up because I felt sick to my stomach when I got to this point. In case you need a refresher, Geralt's looking for Ciri at this point, and knows at some point she ran into Whoreson Jr, a local crime boss. So he manages to get into Whoreson's house to pay him a visit, get some info about Ciri.
Except when you arrive, you find a woman, either naked or basically wearing no clothes (don't remember and frankly don't want to rewatch the scene), effectively crucified outside the room. Geralt makes some comment about "he better not have done that to Ciri" and I guess the point is to illustrate Geralt is done with Whoreson's shit--really feels completely unnecessary to literally have A NAKED CRUCIFIED CORPSE on display--but whatever. Okay. I'm just gonna go into the room and move past it.
Inside, there are multiple more naked women, all lying about the room, either dead or unconscious. All have at least cuts on them, on their arms and legs, and obviously are posed as sexual objects for Whoreson's enjoyment. But the worst is that there is literally a hanged naked woman, strung from the ceiling. And she is in almost every goddamn shot in this scene, regardless of the camera angle--some element of her is always there, reminding you of her existence. At this point I actually had to go take a break; there was NO REASON to subject the player to that level of sexual violence or just..violence misogyny. The point was made 100x over--Whoreson is a bad dude. She was simply there for shock value--which, honestly, most women feel to be.
A side quest that opens up soon after that is in which you have to track down a serial killer that has forced Priscilla, Dandelion's love interest, to drink formaldehyde, brutalizing her and sending her close to death. Already, I'm annoyed--can't have this somewhat interesting woman actually get out of this unscathed, right? But it gets worse--as you progress through the quest, you chase down various leads. At some point, you come across one of your suspects actively burning a naked sex worker--with at least one or two prods actively being shown to the viewer. Once again, for no real reason other than shock value and, I guess, to show a 'hot lady' in pain. You can choose to just let him continue on his way as well, which actively disgusted me to the point where I had to take a break from playing.
Edit of additional quest: The bloody baron quest!! Sorry what--was there an attempt to make me feel bad for a guy who routinely abused his wife because she cheated on him like 20 years ago???? Like what???? How is this supposed to be 'nuanced'--even if she's not a great person, I'm still not on board with you ROUTINELY BEATING HER?
Then there's one of moments--like finding Phillipia with her eyes ripped out because Radovid has a grudge against her. Sure, maybe it makes sense in the wider context of the story--but I honestly can't recall a single male character who's forced to endure that level of lasting torture that actively leaves him scarred. Dudu is probably the closest, and he ends up with a scar over his eye.
In summation: there's just an obvious difference between the treatment of male and female characters. Women are sexualized, abused, and just poorly written. I was really disappointed with my experience with the Witcher--because as much as I liked actually running around doing monster contracts, I soon enough would be reminded that in this game world, women don't get to be anything beyond sacks of meat to be sexualized or brutalized. Maybe there are some non sexualized, well written women somewhere, but I sure didn't find them in my 75 hour playthrough.
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