Though I had trouble getting into the first two Witcher games, I tried the third one at the behest of my brother and a friend.
I was looking for something new. Dragon Age Inquisition, (despite my inability to stop playing it) had thoroughly disappointed me for a number of reasons I will catalogue later in this journal.
I went into the Witcher 3 skeptical. I’d been fooled by the hype machine before. Hell, I’d let it happen despite my misgivings. Despite the staggering popularity of Grand Theft Auto, Destiny, the first two Witcher games and the Dark Souls/ Bloodborne games, I couldn’t get into them or enjoy them the way I was told I was meant to be. I couldn’t identify with the gruff voiced (or relatively silent) protagonists. I wasn’t invested in their stories. I was bummed and I felt like I was missing out on this experience and community that the rest of the gaming world was able to undertake.
I began the Witcher 3 with only a vague knowledge of the characters and the world and lore. Geralt is a Witcher. Triss is a sorceress (and a nicer one than Yennefer as evidenced by her more colorful clothing) and… the silver sword kills monsters. Let’s begin.
I could go into more detail about why this experience of the Witcher was different for me and everything I’ve experienced as it slowly steals my soul and atrophies my limbs but let’s leave that for another time.
One of the biggest gripes I had about Dragon Age Inquisition was the pointless sidequests. A map filled with sidequests. “Put these flowers on my dead wife’s grave.” Do so and return and maybe get five gold. Great. I don’t know anything about this man who sent me on the errand, I don’t know anything about his wife and the life they shared. I did, however, get to lament about the broken party banter as I trudged for too long to get to each destination.
When I heard that the scope of Witcher 3 was daunting, the maps seemingly insurmountable, and people having poured hundreds of hours into the game and not be anywhere near to completion, I was weary. Did I really want to undertake another game as large and as unrewarding as Dragon Age Inquisition? I wasn’t sure but I did know I was tired of Dragon Age so off I went.
I’m aware that The Bloody Baron’s quest: Family Matters, is not a sidequest.
It initially felt that way. Even though you’re the esteemed Geralt of Rivera, a lot of times you feel a lot like an errand boy. ‘I heard that girl you’re looking for was at …a mysterious location. Retrieve my bag of grain and I shall tell you everything!’ (Blackwall likely told you). At which point you do and they inform you they don’t really know, but there’s someone who might. And there’s your next quest. I wasn’t resentful though. These sidequests are fun and it’s fun running from question mark to question mark.
Finally we arrive at Crow’s Perch and to the Bloody Baron: Phillip Strenger.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the Bloody Baron. I’d killed some of his men in a tavern hours earlier. You can’t control all your men but clearly some pieces of shit run in his crew. He’s either incompetent that he isn’t aware of what his men are up to, or he’s a drunk who doesn’t care. My wager is on the latter.
The Bloody Baron (TBB) is a strapping mountain of a man. He’s large and gruff, he doesn’t (it would seem) bullshit. Despite that, he’s easy to smile and easy to laugh. When you initially ask about Ciri he tells you what she told him, he tells you how Ciri rescued the little urchin Gretka from the trail of treats (and her shitty parents) and that despite his men bringing Ciri in and confusing her for Tamara (HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN), TBB takes Ciri in, feeds her and lets her rest.
As Geralt and as a player, you are relieved and grateful that a guy with a name like the Bloody Baron (despite the explanations of spilled ink) and an intimidating exterior could actually be a cool fucking guy.
Of course, he won’t tell you just where Ciri is. He plays the usual game most of the other quest givers operate. Do something for me and I’ll do something for you; in this case, you get information on where Ciri has gone; all he asks is that you track down his wife Anna and his daughter Tamara. Naturally, Geralt agrees. What other choice does he have?
Though you question TBB over what might have happened, if any men might have had their eyes on the two women, he denies it, questions the catastrophe of the room, the spilled wine—admits he might have been too drunk to know what happened. Otherwise, why didn’t he hear anything?
After more digging you discover that TBB is not only a drunk, he’s a violent drunk, has been for some time and has been beating Anna over the last twenty some years. His wife and daughter weren’t kidnapped; they ran away to get away from his violent outbursts. Geralt isn’t happy to learn about this. He’s just wasted his time getting this information and who knows how far behind Ciri he is now.
You return to Crow’s Perch. TBB is in a shitty mood and has set fire to the horse stables. Consider that. He’s in a bad mood and sets fire to the horse stables. Bye, beautiful horses! Bye men trapped within! Bye property! Potentially, bye Crow’s Perch.
Geralt calls TBB on his shit and TBB wants to duke it out. After kicking his ass, TBB tells you his tale of woe. He was a soldier. While he was at war, due to the atrocities he’d seen, he began drinking. He’d come home and he couldn’t keep away from the drink. He and Anna began to fight. He tried to stay away from the alcohol and mend things but he couldn’t.
One day he discovers that while he’s been off at war, Anna has been taking refuge (boning) a childhood friend. For three years. Oof. That is rough. He’s busting his ass, after all. He’s at war risking his life, building a life for his family and she does this. In a fury, he kills her lover and chops him into pieces. Anna, mad with grief, goes after him with a knife. He beats her back.
Pause!
Confession time: I have a weird job. My job is to work with criminal offenders who are out in the community awaiting trial pre-conviction or work with them for additional supervision post-conviction while they’re on probation. This means screening, supervising, ensuring that they’re getting clinical needs (mental and substance) met, ensuring that they’re following conditions of probation and so on.
I also work with a lot of men (yes, there are women as well, but it is overwhelmingly men) convicted of or in the midst of awaiting trial for domestic violence charges. All of the men I have screened for these charges always claim it was a misunderstanding, without fail. The men will typically go on and on about ‘what a bitch’ this particular woman was. She was a slut, she was lazy, she was using drugs, she was fucking around, she was lying, she’s always lying, ‘I didn’t hit her but nobody would blame me if I had’. Many of these men have pages of similar charges with different victims. They get so many convictions of these charges that they’re upgraded to felonies. You need three for a class C. Many of these individuals have class B and A domestic violence felonies.
There’s another thing to be said about the domestic violence men that we supervise. At my work, we supervise all individuals, from rapists, to murderers, to drug traffickers, etc etc. The domestic violence guys are hands down the most likable. They’re more attractive than the average man and a large part of that, I’m sure comes down to that they’re more charismatic. They smile easy and tell jokes. You fucking like them and you can see how they pull people under their spell.
Sometimes, sometimes, as the Bloody Baron does, they appear to show insight. ‘Spending time in here’ (jail) or there (prison) ‘made me realize I don’t want to do this anymore. It was wrong.’ But then they don’t go to their domestic batterers classes. Or then, tragically, they fall into old patterns again, they’re back in jail and their bail contract or probation has to be revoked. The cycle continues.
Often times, when people hear about these situations, they’ll ask themselves or they’ll ask their friends ‘why didn’t they (the victim) just leave them? If it was so bad, why didn’t they just go?’. It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Walk out the door. Be gone!
It’s a difficult thing in this day and age and people have written fucking books on why it isn’t that simple but here’s a super cliff’s notes version that doesn’t begin to cover all of it. Women in violent relationships are often isolated from family or friends. They might even be isolated from any civilization given where they live. They might not be allowed to work or have a phone. They’re kept track of 24-7. That doesn’t apply to the Witcher! You say. TBB was gone at war! He was noble! The women were at Crow’s Perch. There are other people there! Yes.
Keep in mind that Geralt also expressed reservations. Here are these women (Anna and Tamara) isolated in a swampy shit hole where there are very few women to begin with. This is a time (if people so want to insist) where women had fewer options than now. Here they are in a place where TBB’s men beat, pillage and rape and the land is at war. They don’t a guard. They have nothing but what TBB has given them (and can take away at any time).
In spite of this, they ran. They abandoned everything, the ‘security’ of home to get away from The Bloody Baron.
But! Some will argue—wasn’t she at fault, too? She had an affair! She wasn’t so isolated after all, was she? Wink wink, nudge, nudge.
You could say that—but you’d be wrong. Who knows why people do the things they do. Was she at fault for the affair? Yes, she was. Wrong is wrong. But consider, being in a strange land, removed from everything, your husband is constantly gone, and when he’s home he’s drunk and inattentive. Your only company is a childhood friend. Again, is it right? No. Is it understandable? I think so.
Was the Baron right to be furious about the affair? Yes. Was he right to kill the lover? Fuck no. It was a moment of passion. He lost his shit. Can one see how that might happen? Yes. But did he have cause? Was he in the right? No. Whether Anna chooses to forgive him (and in the end, we don’t know that she ever did or does) that is her decision to make. It is a choice TBB made and one that he must now live with.
Naturally, things go to shit after that fateful night. Now they’re stuck together, maybe even out of spite. Anna (in the absolute wrong) makes a few attempts on his life and TBB, angry and resentful, continues to get hammered and beat her. Meanwhile, little Tamara has to live for 19 years seeing this shit. Seeing the parents who claim to love one another, torment one another. Is that what a child ought to see between her parents? Should she be subjected to that abuse because her parents can’t get their shit together? Fuck no.
But the Bloody Baron is awful sorry about all of that. He’s so sorry, and he loves them so much that for twenty some years he’s been pulling this shit.
It’s his fault, he thinks, that Anna miscarried. Now, we all know in the end that that wasn’t what happened at all. Anna is either 40 or near to, which in Witcher time with their awesome sterilization of medical equipment probably made her the modern day equivalent of a female crypt keeper trying to give a healthy birth in terms of likelihood.
When you hear TBB lament the loss of his unnamed child, you feel for him. Who wouldn’t? What parent does not grieve the loss of a wanted child? Especially if they think that it’s their fault it happened. Even if someone is a shitty person and a shitty parent, one can acknowledge that the loss of a child is difficult.
He is anguished over the loss of the unnamed child that he buried in some random spot in the backyard and if you choose to turn the child into a Lubberkin, the Baron says some fine words, delivered quite powerfully by the talented James Clyde and it is a tribute to this voice actor that he can make us grieve with this at times reprehensible man.
At this point I want to pause again. According to the game, it wasn’t TBB who killed the child, it was Anna’s deal with the Crones. A deal made because Anna was so repulsed by the life growing inside her, put there by a man who abused and raped her over the years that the idea of it was killing her. Some will argue. Hey! They never said TBB raped her! Too far! You’re right. Nowhere in the game does it explicitly state that TBB raped his wife Anna. Let’s put our thinking caps on.
In this time, a wife was essentially property. Hell, there are laws now that essentially state that a husband is incapable of raping his wife because she is in fact his wife. I am assuming (I could be wrong but I don’t think I am) that TBB would be of this manner of thinking. Who can imagine Anna having consensual sex with this man? The man who butchered her lover in front of her, who has beaten her for decades? Does this happen in real life? It does. But how consensual is it when you’ve been beaten? Not physically, but spiritually? Further, let’s say that Anna didn’t want it. Do we all imagine TBB would sheepishly duck his head and walk out of the room? Doubtful. How can she fight the man who knocked Geralt (a highly skilled witcher) on his ass with one punch?
So he ‘wasn’t responsible’. But he was. How? With the psychological and physical stress he constantly put her under. With the beatings he constantly gave her. Who is to say that had Anna not gone to the crones, that her body, given her environment, would have been able to carry a baby to full term? She made a deal with these devious crones to ensure that it didn’t happen. Think of the fear she must have been living in, think of the hatred she must have for our charismatic Bloody Baron.
We continue the search for the two women.
You report to him that Tamara is unwilling to come home, he is devastated but he doesn’t push it despite how clearly he wants her to come home. TBB never touched Tamara. That’s the good news. Despite his many flaws, he does appear to be truly remorseful of what’s happened. Upon exploring the estate, you discover that he has Anna and Tamara’s rooms prepared, fresh flowers, a new start. We don’t know if he’s ever done this before, but no doubt he’s tried to win them over in such a fashion previously after one of his furies.
Eventually we find Anna/ Gran in Crookback Bog. The Crones, spoiler alert, tricked her and now she’s got burning witchery on her hands. So from a slavery of one sort at Crow’s Perch to another at the hand of the Crones who are far douchier than the Baron himself. I’m not going to compare them because they’re actual, literal monsters as opposed to a representation of what that can appear like.
But despite hearing everything that has transpired with Anna, he still wants to get to her and bring her home, even though judging by everything that has unraveled, that is the last fucking thing Anna/ Gran wants.
TBB, upon learning that Anna is in the bog, at the mercy of the Crones insists on getting her right away. It’s heroic, because as we all know, the Crones are powerful, that Crookback Bog is a shithole and it’s quite some ways away.
The great news is that he hasn’t had any drink since the whole ‘I’m in a bad mood, let’s set fire to the stables’ thing. The man is an alcoholic. It is incredibly hard to give up on drink and with the complete absence of social supports on his side, how is he really expected to give it up? Who will he turn to? His asshole men? And appear vulnerable to them and risk everything he’s amassed? No way.
Alcoholism is an addiction. What will kill you if you stop cold turkey? Heroin? No! Benzos. And what else? Alcohol. (Actually, why’s he not dead?)
Moving on. He’s trying.
When everyone gathers at Crookback Bog there’s an epic battle. Anna/Gran has clearly lost her fucking mind as all her little orphans were eaten like string cheese by the Crones. Such a thing would drive any person teetering on the edge of sanity right off the cliff. Tamara and the Baron argue about what to do with her.
Tamara’s cut off at the knees because she’s pledged herself to that Flame of the Elder Fire cult but the Baron claims he knows a place that might be able to restore Anna’s sanity.
This is a tough spot to be in, though in the game it was a very easy decision for me to make. I never excused the Baron for his behavior. I listened to him because contrary to what some believe it is rare that things are as simple as black and white. I work with criminals guilty of rape, assault, robbery, domestic violence, drug trafficking, you name it. A lot of people make assumptions and often times, if one looks at their records, those assumptions are true. However, what is really important is to realize that everyone is more than one thing, more than a label. Outside of the orange, you get to see who they are. Some of them are brilliant! Some not so much. Others are humble and quiet, others boisterous and hysterical (both kinds). Everyone has a shitty side to them, (I’m a really poor loser) and it’s true that some people have worse sides than others but I can’t say that I’ve ever met a person who didn’t have some good to them. It’s easy to point at people and say ‘bad’, ‘monster’, ‘criminal’ without thinking things through. It’s easier that way, it requires less thinking and we spend less time feeling uncomfortable at the dubious people we might think are not so bad. At the end of the day, we’re all just people.
So this is a situation to consider. When all is said and done, the decision, the rightful decision about where Anna goes shouldn’t belong to TBB or Tamara or even Geralt. It should be Anna’s decision. Unfortunately, her mind is so far gone at this point that she is incapable of making that decision and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
Sometimes it happens in court that a domestic violence offender is allowed to return home to the person he assaulted. Other times, a no contact order is put into place while both parties work through intermediating agencies to reconcile amicably and safely.
I allowed the Bloody Baron to take Anna and go see about this cure because it was my belief that Anna would rather have her mind and the where withal to make that decision (in the future) for herself, whether she wants to attempt reconciliation or not.
So this brings us back to the question again: The Bloody Baron: Irredeemable Douchebag or Douchebag on a Path to Redemption?
I guess we’ll never know. I’ve seen men who appeared to be doing extraordinarily well fall again, usually when faced with the new unfamiliar sober living or a new ‘culture’. They turn back to drink and turn back to easy, former habits, no matter how unhealthy, no matter how they hate it. Change is hard. You have to really fight for it, really want it in order to be successful.
That said, I can say, that while I don’t forgive the Bloody Baron for his actions (and at the end of the day it’s up to Anna and Tamara whether they do wish to forgive him), I thought I saw that genuine remorse there. Not the usual remorse of ‘oh, shit, I got caught, better act like I’m really sorry before I get thrown back in the can’. That said—I’ve also see what I thought to be genuine remorse only to learn a perpetrator has continued his abusive behavior.
But I’ve also seen men succeed. And more often than not, it’s the pull of that family, that makes them recognize what’s at stake. They get their shit together and make that effort, make that change that is going to be hard as anything, but will be worth it to have that future and family that they desire and need.
I haven’t finished the game. I’m a measly level 15 but the Baron, Tamara and Anna have stuck with me. I don’t know what happens, what will happen. I want to believe in the Baron, not only for Tamara and Anna, but for himself. Everyone ought to have the chance for redemption, for change. Even if Anna never accepts him back, he can be a better man for himself and a better man, perhaps, for the next woman that enters his life; a better man, for his daughter. Isn’t that reason enough to let him try?
This work by Audrey Chase is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Gaming Valkyrie 