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Why is the Bloody Baron storyline in The Witcher 3 so praised? [Spoilers]
- Thread starter cabelhigh
- Start date
It's not trying to justify the Baron's actions at all. Firstly, he's supposed to be a real person who has done horrible things. Secondly, it's the Baron telling you the story of his own actions, obviously he is going to be biased in his retelling. Also you can condemn him.
The first few quests in Velen show to us how we can have "bad endings" even when we try to help someone. I lost count of how many simple tasks like "give or not this potion to cure a woman" ends with a terrible consequences. Funny tho that in some cases you only get to know this if you read the journal.
The Blood Baron quest show to you, from start to finish, how fucked up the world can be and that you can't solve all problems and your choices have terrible consequences, no matter what you choose.
If I'm to choose between one evil and another, I'd rather not choose at all
And it shows how good writing is in this game and how far "role play" can go when you decide the fate of others.
I think it is also possible to ask the Baron's daughter about her side of the story.
The Blood Baron quest show to you, from start to finish, how fucked up the world can be and that you can't solve all problems and your choices have terrible consequences, no matter what you choose.
If I'm to choose between one evil and another, I'd rather not choose at all
And it shows how good writing is in this game and how far "role play" can go when you decide the fate of others.
I think it is also possible to ask the Baron's daughter about her side of the story.
The fact that so much of the time the conclusions are complicated or unavoidably unhappy makes the world more believable.
I knew I had screenshots from this quest. Unfortunatly its in Brazilian Portuguese but I will try to translate more or less:
Here Geralt blames the Baron for making his family escape from him
And here he says, "Do not play dumb, You didn't give them a choice"
This is right after the Baron explains why he beat Anna for the first time and the "cheating". Geralt says the Baron can only blame himself for leaving Anna alone, the Baron says he had no choice and Geralt says there is always a choice.
Here Geralt blames the Baron for making his family escape from him
And here he says, "Do not play dumb, You didn't give them a choice"
This is right after the Baron explains why he beat Anna for the first time and the "cheating". Geralt says the Baron can only blame himself for leaving Anna alone, the Baron says he had no choice and Geralt says there is always a choice.
Because gamers are used to shitty stories, so when a slightly less shit one is put in front of them they herald it as "good". Also your point about how you have minimum input into Geralt doing more to condemn the character is exactly why The Witcher is a shitty RPG, despite all the undeserved praise it gets. Anyone who disagrees with this is wrong and needs to spend more time being acquainted with good stories/writing, and good role-playing experiences.
No one's saying the Baron is just as bad as his wife and the game doesn't make you let it be justified. The Baron's a piece of shit in a piece of shit town in a piece of shit world and it's up to you through your decisions in the game to determine if a character like the Baron CAN be redeemed. IF you don't think he can be redeemed you can end the quest with him hanging himself. If you do it still ends badly for him.
As others have said you can DEFINITELY call him a piece of shit and he'll try to justify it (like a real abuser would). That's why the writing is so good, to me. A real abuser would constantly say someone else made them do it and try to get someone to see their side of things but you (as Geralt) get to call that shit out and/or decide his fate based on your opinion of his actions. It's why it's one of the best quests in gaming.
You have a truly dysfunctional relationship portrayed in a non cartoonishly evil way with nuance and grey area as to people's justifications for doing shitty things and you as the player get to decide if his shame and guilt is really enough to warrant giving him a second chance. You get to decide his outcome and that's fucking cool as hell.
It's really only the Botchling quest and stuff that I think makes people see him as "redeemable" because the physical evidence of his failure and rage is right there for him to see. Making a shitty person directly confront what makes them shitty is excellent storytelling.
As others have said you can DEFINITELY call him a piece of shit and he'll try to justify it (like a real abuser would). That's why the writing is so good, to me. A real abuser would constantly say someone else made them do it and try to get someone to see their side of things but you (as Geralt) get to call that shit out and/or decide his fate based on your opinion of his actions. It's why it's one of the best quests in gaming.
You have a truly dysfunctional relationship portrayed in a non cartoonishly evil way with nuance and grey area as to people's justifications for doing shitty things and you as the player get to decide if his shame and guilt is really enough to warrant giving him a second chance. You get to decide his outcome and that's fucking cool as hell.
It's really only the Botchling quest and stuff that I think makes people see him as "redeemable" because the physical evidence of his failure and rage is right there for him to see. Making a shitty person directly confront what makes them shitty is excellent storytelling.
^ Also This.
While I agree the game isn't as open ended as say Divinity or classic Fallout or something there's plenty of branching paths and decisions in the key plot lines of the game. But I don't know why I'm even replying to someone who blatantly says "anyone who likes this is wrong and they're used to shit writing" as their thesis.
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The Witcher as a whole is meant to be morally gray. The Baron storyline's most interesting thing is in how you deal with the Ladies in the Woods vs the Tree Spirit. If you read a book in the game it reveals to you that the Tree Spirit is lying to you and she is the Mother of the Ladies in the Woods, and is possibly even more evil than her daughters. It then has you make one of two choices that are a bad outcome. Save the orphans, or the save the village.
As for the Baron, he is only one character in a larger tale. You can dislike the Baron and still think its an interesting quest.
As for the Baron, he is only one character in a larger tale. You can dislike the Baron and still think its an interesting quest.
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I never felt like the game portrayed the bloody baron as anything but a monster. He tries to justify himself because that's what all assholes do.
i don't entirely disagree that for most of the people who's primary media consumption is videogames, they're used to a lower bar when it comes to writing and story telling. however this is a rotten take and sounds more like a cheap jab at a vidya game you don't like rather than an attempt to talk about the medium's issues with story telling so whatever. insert that austin walker twitter picture here.
Like, isn't that the point of this whole thing? People like him exist. They try to get sympathy and compassion from other even though they are horrible. I felt his trying to "get me" but there's no way someone actually LIKES him, really. But the feeling that his trying to get your sympathy? Yes, that's the point IMO. Besides, there's not even any good ending for him and Geralt is rather cold towards him all the time.
"My opinion is right. Everyone else's is wrong! Im not going to back my claim- that's how right I am."
I understand this PoV, but I believe the game did enough to overcome the problematic optics of it:
- Anna cheated on the Baron but the Baron was a brute, an asshole and a very cruel man. Her cheating is not framed as an evil act but one from a person escaping a toxic relationship.
- Anna's condition was caused by the Crones, which are the closest the game has to true, pure evil. They delight in suffering. They giving Anna a terrible fate due to their arrangement is not far from other "deal with the devil" tales.
This is right, or at least true to me. It's the turning point in the experience: when I realized the game is interested in more deeply interwoven narratives and quest lines.
I also do not remember Geralt letting him off easy at all. Perhaps I replaced my own perspective with Geralt's reaction, but I recall enjoying the fact that Geralt puts him to the fire. To the point where, iirc, the Baron asks Geralt to relent. But he doesn't really, and he shouldn't
Just to correct something, the Baron dies or lives believing Anna has a miscarriage because of his violence, if there was any attempt by the plot for absolution in this fact then there would at least be an option for Geralt to tell the Baron that this is the case but the option is never given. All the while with the Botchling, the Baron believes it is his doing, which it is regardless of whether the fetus was aborted or miscarried.
I think the pro life argument is a bit of a stretch, a reanimated monster of an aborted fetus is hardly going to look pleasant but you do have an interesting perspective on where the Crones come in and what they ultimately do but I can't say I agree that it's part of some wider narrative that abortion is evil from the games narrative.
I think also that any issue that 'Anna wasn't portrayed as an angel and the plot speaks about abortion and her cheating' is a bit of a non-argument given that the plot never condemns her for these things. The game is not shades of grey on the abuse she suffers regardless of anything she's done, maybe some people take it this way but it seems enough posters here still understand the Baron is a piece of shit and a terrible person regardless of anything Anna had done.
I think this debate highlights why it is so good. It makes you feel a lot of different ways, some of which are disconcerting. You either feel dirty for wanting things to work out for the Baron's family because he kind of is a monster, or you feel dirty for wishing him to suffer because he has a family.
The Baron is a very morally grey person, maybe you'd say he's just bad because his domestic violence is unredeemable, all things considered but you have to take into account both the conditions of Velen as a place, especially one that has just been completely destabilized through the military aggression of Nilfgaard. Velen is already fraught with chaos, as it's even called No Man's Land, and a place that allows the evil Crones to flourish. The region is poor and there are a lot of criminals that would be looking to take control in the event of any power vacuum and that's exactly what they do when the Baron leaves, things are pretty unquestionably worse when he leaves. Even in Blood and Wine they hint at the fact that killing a few thugs in Velen will do little to fix things in the region.