12th Feb: A new policy is being put in place for TRS threads: If there is no evidence provided in the Opening Post that the page is broken, the thread will be nuked immediately. See Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names for what constitutes evidence.
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
The Witcher started off as a collection of loosely connectedDark/Low/Heroic Fantasy short stories that deconstructed classic Fairy Tales, before evolving into a five novel-long "Blood of the Elves Saga" with a strong Myth Arc. Written by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski during The Nineties, the books were translated into multiple languages (including Russian and German) and adapted into comics and a Live-Action TV series. However, the franchise first gained widespread attention in the English-speaking world with the release of The Witcher, a video game adaptation-slash-sequel by a then-unknown Polish developer studio, CD Project RED. Since then, English translations of the original books began to appear.The original books were:
In addition to these, there were two loosely related short stories: Droga, z której się nie wraca (Road of no return, a prequel telling the tale of Geralt's parents) and Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna (Something ends, something begins, a non-canonical story of Geralt's and Yennefer's wedding). A new standalone novel set in the Witcherworld has also been confirmed.
Take an example: Dani was a pleasant young knight who suffered a misfortune. It is later revealed that he is Emhyr var Emreis and you do not dare calling him pleasant.
The Code: Geralt often quotes The Witcher Code as a reason why he can't accept a certain contract or why he can't get involved with whatever problems someone else wants him to resolve. He made the whole thing up in order to be able to avoid accepting contracts he doesn't want to do and to protect himself from the potential backlash of refusing to help someone. It also helps with his personal rep, since people believe he is bound by the Witcher Code and therefore not going to do his own thing and muck things up because he feels he should.
Crapsack World: Where do we begin... the world is mired in conflict, people eke out a living amongst the ruins of ancient civilizations, monsters and elven guerillas prowl the forests, Fantastic Racism rules the streets, nobles oppress commoners (that is, when they're not busy backstabbing each other), kings lead armies to war in the name of hollow-sounding ideals which do little to mask the monarchs' greed and hubris, the ominous shadow of The Empire hangs over all, and (if that wasn't enough) the world is prophesized to soon be engulfed by an ice age which will obliterate everything.
Dark and Troubled Past: Practically everyone. It's easier to list the characters who were not terribly traumatised at some point in their past.
Dying Like Animals: Just about everyone, also invoked every single time when any battle is mentioned.
Dying Race: Elves, though it's partly their own goddamn fault.
Elves VS Dwarves: Subverted. The Elves and Dwarves had been at war a long time ago, but are now allies against the humans who treat both as second-class-citizens at best.
Though Elves have more at stake in this conflict, while representatives of other races will sometimes say "oh, look, now it turns out 'we are all older races'. Until humans kicked them out, Elves weren't so nice."
Encyclopedia Exposita: Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi by Effenberg and Talbot, which is wrong on almost every detail, either as future Nilfgaardian propaganda or simply due to Future Imperfect.
Everybody Lives/Everybody Dies: Played with and zigzagged severely; on the Everybody Lives end, a lot of characters a Wrong Genre Savvy reader might have pegged as Redshirts walk away alive, and they're relatively safe as long as they only encounter the main cast episodically. But travelling with one of them if they weren't introduced back in the short stories? Put on your Mauve Shirt already. Geralt himself dies in the end.
It's also been said that Everybody Dies — but later. It's used in the books to establish a feeling that Geralt is no just add boiling water instant superhero, is a part of a living world, has really been doing his thing for a damn long time, and knows people everywhere. This is also Played for Laughs somewhat, such as when a Chekhov's Gun drops the anvil 2000 pages later on some poor sod.
A random messenger that stumbles upon Ciri and Yennefer? Dead by the end of the chapter. That female merchant who stopped to listen to Dandelion's song? Dead two books later. One of the witchers? Died near the end of the saga.
Exotic Eye Designs: Witchers have cat-like eyes with slit pupils, as a side effect of their mutation that allows them to see in the dark.
Expy: Geralt, an Anti-Hero sometimes known as the White Wolf, is more than a little similar to a certain otherAnti-Hero sometimes known as the White Wolf... And Geraldo Rivera.
Fangs Are Evil: One of the things elves use to justify their Fantastic Racism. Elves have no canine teeth, so clearly they must be better than humans, who are fanged like beasts! Right?
Fantastic Racism: Takes the trope and runs with it. Everybody just hates everybody, with humans being both most hating and most hated, though the other races are no slouches either.
The protagonist himself is a victim to this because Witchers are considered mutants and often meet prejudice. Hell, he's even been killed in a pogrom.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Skellige Islanders are shameless Viking expies. Nilfgaard seems to be some cross of Ancient Rome and bad side of Germany. The Elves seem to be inspired by something, but the fandom is not sure whether it's the Celts conquered by Rome, Rome conquered by barbarians, or Native Americans conquered by White Man.
Functional Magic + Magic A is Magic A: It seems to operate on scientifically explorable principles, and there are several mentions of mundane magical utilities.
Gambit Pileup: The final book, where it is revealed that all that crap around Geralt and his group was just a fallout from severalgambits chewing at each other, with an additional prophecy actively trying to fulfill itself.
The best way to describe the mix of Grey and Black Morality and Black And Black MoralityThe Witcher is probably coming from The Lesser Of Two Evils, where it's said that there is no lesser evil. There's only Evil and Greater Evil. And there is Greatest Evil, hiding in the shadows. And one day Greatest Evil will grab you from behind and say "I am what I am. Choose - me or that one, lesser."
Grimmification: The books, and especially some of the stories in "The Last Wish", are grimmer versions of classical fairy tales.
Also, the dryads are a One Gender Race of hot Action Girls. They can also transform human girls into one of them, which comes with a free +100 bonus to the Hotness stat.
Line-of-Sight Name: Sapkowski likes this trope. One character shares her name with a city in France. Another one with a mountain in Iran. Vilgefortz of Roggeveen is a more complicated case — Roggeveen was the surname of the captain who discovered Easter Island. There's a whole long list of such "creative" names.
Low Fantasy: Good and bad? Black and white? Screw that, there is no such thing in The Witcher.
Magic Knight: Witchers use simple spells ("signs") in combat, and magicians often have some level of combat ability.
Medieval European Fantasy: Subverted countless times; more specifically, the architecture, fashions, and technology in general suggests a Late Medieval-like setting, but characters talk about concepts like racism, drug addiction, and genetics.
Actually, it is more a planned aversion of this trope. Sapkowski on numerous occasions commented that he tried to include things like existence of monsters and magic into the mindset of the characters. In his vision, wizards (who actually know how the world operates on a very low level) are more scientists than sages or flamboyant combat specialists.
witchers age slower than normal humans. Geralt is more than eighty years old — Cair Muirehen was destroyed some sixty or seventy years before, and there weren't any new witchers since. Those who remained alive (including him) were out of the castle at the time of attack, which means that he already was a full-fledged witcher at the time.
Elves live hundreds of years, and mages are effectively immortal, with a resistance to most diseases.
Nobody's truly immortal; some are just "very" long-lived. The average Elven lifespan is stated as around 300 years in the first novel, and as for mages, one of the oldest of them is over 500 years old. Despite his power, he has the appearance and health of a 100 year old man, and looks like he could keel over any time. He eventually dies of a heart attack.
While we're going into individual examples, the oldest witcher, Vesemir, is said to be even older than the castle where the witchers were trained, yet despite his age, he's still in excellent physical condition and many a (human) youth would envy his health.
Our Monsters Are Different: The series as whole plays with traditional myths and conventions regarding monsters. Let's see:
Our Dragons Are Different: At least one of them, a golden dragon who actually likes humans, is a shapeshifter. Shapeshifting dragons are common in Asian mythology, but the difference is that these are Western-type dragons, not Asian ones.
Our Elves Are Better: They are long-lived, pretty, and skillful, and have developed a sophisticated culture, but they're not that much better in terms of morality. Basically, they suffered the fate of Rome, with humans playing the role of barbarians adapting their culture, or perhaps Celts ran over by the Romans (with Boudicca and all).
Our Gnomes Are Weirder: they're good craftsmen, possibly better than dwarves at certain precise and complicated tasks, or those requiring theoretical expertise. Dwarves make excellent swords, but best swords in the world were gnomish.
Our Trolls Are Different: They repair bridges, love drinking, and ask for tolls from travelers who cross their bridges. They are also one of the very few monsters that humans are willing to have around, since paying the toll is cheaper than maintenance of the bridge.
There is also a clear difference between the 'low' and 'high' vampires. The lowly ones are no different from monsters and basically look like giant humanoid bats, while the high ones are the more familiar vampires, who can happen to be quite nice and friendly folks like Regis. Also, most of the 'high' vampires easily tolerate sunlight, and holy water, crucifixes, and garlic pose no threat to them. They also do not need blood to survive, although drinking it increases their strength and gets them drunk. It appears that there is some sort of middle ground, as creatures like Bruxa are intelligent, but concentrate on sucking blood.
Well, what would you do if you were immune to all human diseases, incapable of getting someone pregnant, unlikely to ever come to this village again, and considered a big damn hero for a few hours after killing the monster before you go back to being generally despised and alone? Dandelion is just Dandelion, though.
Scars Are Forever: Happens despite regeneration and transformation magic. It's that not everyone can afford magic, and not everyone who can afford magic considers it worthwhile. In one case the scarring was so bad, healing was substituted with an extraordinarily strong illusion.
Thunderbolt Iron: Every witcher carries a blade of meteorite iron.
Vain Sorceress: Sorceresses in general. They use their magic to preserve their youth and beauty. And sometimes to make themselves look beautiful. It's a matter of both professional prestige and the result of many of them being born as commoners or even cripples.
In many cases, the girls who train to become sorceresses are the ones who have no hope of attracting suitors. Even after magic fixes their appearance, many of them still bear the emotional scars of their past as ugly people and resent the humiliation of having to wear a mask of fake beauty for the sake of their profession. The author describes them as "pseudo-pretty women with the cold, bitter eyes of ugly girls".
Virgin Power: Inverted; a virgin cannot summon magical power with any form of control.
Or averted, since when it is mentioned, it's played as a sort of not-necessarily-true urban legend.
The Wild Hunt: It's a kind of annual astronomical/celestial phenomenon happening on Midsummer. Some consider it a natural occurrence, but the others point out that people tend to disappear when it's around.
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