*collapses through the ceiling into your bedroom* anyway, another thing I really like about #TheWitcher is how it was totally fearless about not tying up conflicts. They frequently ended messily or ambiguously resolved and in doing so made the consequences much heavier.
*chases you as you run screaming out of the room* The show always recognizes that the characters are what's important, not the lore. The events, the history, all of it is more important as a spark to set things in motion, framework to squeeze the characters.
*pounds on the closet door you're hiding behind* But in this confidence there is also trust. A trust for the audience to be able to deal with a layer of reality we don't see often, even in Game of Thrones: sometimes, things just...end messily. Not good, not bad, just complicated.
*crawls through a vent and rattles around in the ductwork* Friendships end, misunderstandings happen, good intentions can't save you; the fact that a lot of these DIDN'T end in violence almost made them more tragic, there was no solution that Geralt could hack his way toward.
*leaps out of the darkness at you* This, too, was its own kind of trust and one worth considering. Frequently, violence can be used as a shortcut, a means of grabbing you and saying "THIS IS SERIOUS, STUPID." #TheWitcher chose to let you come to your own conclusion about it.
*screeches and flees at the light of your flashlight* More interestingly, it's proof of concept that killing off characters isn't necessary for high stakes. Sometimes, a tragedy can just be two people saying goodbye.
*gnaws on a power cable, plunging the house into darkness*
SPOILER AHEAD
Consider how Ciri and Dara parted ways. Had he just died, it would have accomplished nothing--Ciri was already motivated. But in choosing to leave, he made her (and us) question things about herself.
SPOILER AHEAD
Consider how Ciri and Dara parted ways. Had he just died, it would have accomplished nothing--Ciri was already motivated. But in choosing to leave, he made her (and us) question things about herself.
*stalks you through the darkness as your batteries slowly die* That trust is what ultimately allows us to invest so much in what happens to Geralt. We're never spared his hardships because they don't end neatly. He can't kill his way out of his problems and that's compelling.
*drags you screaming into the gloom* Anyway, it's worth considering: closing a conflict, either by death or just rigid plotting, means that it can grow no more. A character that lives with their failures, though, can grow many times from the same conflict. Pretty cool, right?
