Saturday, June 26, 2021

The Crones Are Wasted as Villains

 It’s been a bit of a weird week, but I think it mostly turned out okay, and I got to watch Secondhand Lions again and let me tell you, that is a swell movie. Hopefully that will go up on Movie Munchies soon.


I decided, after going through the two books of short stories last year, to finally start reading The Witcher books and I’m on Blood of Elves right now. I’ll have more thoughts for you upon finishing it. And it’s part of why I decided on this Note today. The other is from finishing up my review of The Witcher 3.


This is only barely a full Note without much of a point other than to touch on something that I missed talking about in more detail on the review.


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The Crones Are Utterly Wasted as Villains


I feel as if I didn’t really talk that much on the Ladies of the Wood from The Witcher III: Wild Hunt when making my review, which is dumb because they’re easily one of the most memorable parts of the game (and they have an awesome and creepy theme on the soundtrack). If I were in complete control of the story, they’d be the main villains and the entire story would revolve around defeating them. They’re pointedly not the main antagonists of the story, and I get why--this is meant to be a wrap-up of the entire Witcher saga, and they’re invented just for this game. In light of that, the makers of the game wisely chose to make the main antagonists of the story the Wild Hunt who are, after all, the ones in the title and are unbeaten villains from the books the games take inspiration from.


But dang, the Crones feel like they should be the main villains.


The Crones of Crookback Bog, or the Ladies of the Woods, are three ancient women who appear as either beautiful women or as hideous beekeeper hags and rule over Velen, the war-torn section of the kingdom of Temeria that serves as a front in the war between the Northern Kingdoms and the invading Nilfgaardian Empire. Nobody knows for sure where they come from, how long they’ve been there, and the true extent of their powers. But many of the common folk in the region worship them, sacrificing children to them by letting them wander a candy-strewn path in the swamp in return for good harvest and fortune. And they collect ears as payment too, hanging them on the trees, and it’s implied they can hear through them. The domovoi that Geralt talks to implies that they can see through the eyes of all the ravens, and there are a lot of ravens in Velen. In one part of the storyline they talk to Geralt by possessing one of their followers being in contact with a tapestry depicting them… woven out of human hair.


When they do finally appear as hideous hags, they have pockets in their aprons and bags which are overflowing with messy human limbs. We see later in the story that they hold a yearly sabbath at Bald Mountain in which they make a stew out of the selected youths. 


Different in-game sources provide speculation as to their true origins and nature, but nothing is ever answered for certain. For all we know, they really are the local goddesses of Velen. It seems that they can’t be killed, no matter how much you may want to..


And what’s worst about all of this? Many of the villagers of Velen are completely in their thrall. When Geralt and Ciri go to confront them, they’re either amused by the idea of you trying to fight their gods, or they act like this is blasphemy. Well sure, they eat people, even children, all the time, but they keep our harvests strong! What else were we supposed to do?


[I have thoughts about connecting this to real life political situations but after the Expanse note I think I’ll stay off of the soapbox this time.]


Except… their role in the story is entirely subservient to the Wild Hunt. They answer to their king, Eredin, and do what he asks. When the confrontation with them comes to the story, Geralt faces the battle leader of the Wild Hunt, and Ciri faces the Crones. Geralt even decides that Crones are much less dangerous despite being apparently goddesses? And he’s right; the hardest parts of the fight against the Crones is that there are three of them and you’re playing as Ciri, because she doesn’t have all the special skills and gear you’ll have developed as Geralt. Ciri killing them is fairly tough for her, but manageable.


This is not how these villains should be handled. They’re basically deities and they’re just minibosses. I don’t like it. They’re well-developed enough to be main antagonists in their own right, and they’re far more interesting than Eredin. 


I’m not saying you’re not ever allowed to make side villains much more interesting than the main villains. But it helps if the side villains aren’t more interesting than the main villain. And if you do have interesting side villains you definitely shouldn’t waste them without using them to their full story potential.


I don’t know if any conclusion would have been as satisfying with the buildup that these characters had. But if you make interesting villains, you have to do something with them. Not necessarily take over the Plot, but they very easily could have been written out in a way similar to “They’ve been defeated but maybe they’ll be back and ticked off.” Orianna gets an ending like that in Blood and Wine.


The narrative needs to reflect the depth of the characters it involves. Especially its villains.


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