[Spoilers] What is Yennefer's Deal? Book Readers Pls Enlighten Me.

[Darth Hernia]

I've only played all three Witcher games, and glanced through some of the books that were officially translated into English. So I'm hoping someone with better understanding of the Witcher world can enlighten me on Yennefer. Why is she such a b!tch all the time? And how are we supposed to sympathize, even fall in love with, with someone who is basically your fairytale evil stepmother?

1) No explanation to her vilness or motivation - In the books I have read they never really get into why she's so filled with contempt or disrespect for everyone (except for the Emperor - more on that later). We know she was an ugly woman with a hunchback. And people hated her because she's a sorceress. But neither reason seemed severe or unique enough to justify her colossal b!tchiness. In the world of the Witcher, everybody is suffering. She's not special.

She is portrayed as an "emcipated, strongwilled" woman, as Vesemir puts it. But her behavior says the exact opposite. Strong people don't put other people down to make themselves look good, like Geralt. Yennefer bahaves like a insecure, overcompensating woman with an ugly duckling complex, which could have made her an interesting character. But it just wasn't framed that way and hence a lot (most?) of us failed to sympathize with her.

Contrast her to Lambert, another colossal prick. We found out why he's such a jerk - because he deeply resents becoming a witcher. He's vulnerable. And you feel sorry for him. The game practically lured you into a trap and dumped that revelation on you. With Yennefer you're just expected to accept that's how she is w/o objection.

2) Hyprocrisy and incompetence - She's mean to everyone. She's mean to the people of Skellige, who had shown her nothing but hospitality. She's mean to Geralt's friends and orders them around like servants. She's downright abusive to Geralt in so many ways/occassions.

But the thing that irks me the most is not her supposed "b!tchiness" or "independence". But her hyporcrisy. She's completely docile and loyal to the emperor. It's particularly infuriating considering Emhyr is sworm enemy to both Geralt and Crach, and is at war with her home of Vergenberg. If she's gonna be a b!tch, at least have the decency to be b!tch at all times to all people.

And for all her talk of being independence, all she does is rely on other people, not as a leader like Cerys or even Triss, but either abuses their love for her (Geralt & his friends, Crach) or straight up creates mess and leave others to clean up her mess (Mousecrack). She defiled her hosts' sacred garden and almost brough tsunami upon its people, without permission and with no remorse.

There's being an strong woman, and there's being a bully. She places firmly in the latter.

3) Lack of nuiance and development - storytelling is about arcs and payoffs, meaning at the end of a good story Yennefer needs to either redeem herself, or get her comeuppance. Neither happens in Witcher 3. She began as a b!tch, and ended as a b!tch. We didn't even have the option to tell her off as Geralt. If you're not already a fan of hers, then playing W3 is deeply dissatisfying when it comes to her.

Geralt and Yennefer's relationship is a deeply unhealthy one. In the books it's specified that nothing good shall ever come of it. And it ended badly for all involved. Somehow the games failed to convey that.

Is there supposed to be some redeeming qualities that I've missed or the books and games didn't show? Cuz as of now I find her game-ruiningly insufferable.

[Socks n' Sandals]

When you have power and intellegence, people who don't meet your level start to become ants, multipy that by a longer than normal life span and you have the recipe for Yen.

I think shes great, loving, dedicated and just a little bit her own enemy, strong willed and head strong, I can relate.

[♠.brT]

And you feel sorry for him

Speak for yourself buddy.

about your first point, i don't remember her origin story too much, but i don't see how you need an explanation, that's her character, it never changed in the books, and I don't see why it would need to change in the game.

you are not supposed to fall in love with her, i mean seriously who the hell falls in love with a fictitiousness character, you are supposed to play the game and do what you want, I for one i always play the witcher series trying to mimic what geralt would do in the situations that he is in the game, and i feel like that's her purpose in the game, for those who just want the story of the books to continue they have her there as an option.

However as i explained in another thread a while back, if you want you can interprete his relationship with her in a different way, afterall Geralt was under Yen's influence when he made the wish that binded her to him, so you can say that the reason why he decided to make that wish was because of that, and you can also interprete that the reason why geralt still stuck with her for all this years, and has for some reason a inexplicable love for her where nobody with self respect would, it is because of the wish he made (while being under yen's influence). And that's why the last wish mission is in the game, if you have that interpretation, and wish to see geralt break the spell and go free from her influence, you can do that and geralt will leave her.


about your second point.
Yen loves Ciri, she really loves her like the child that she will never have (and she is also pretty angry about that too), so the fact that Ciri is in danger is a huge point to remember when talking about her actions in the search for ciri, and she will go through a brick wall to find ciri before the wild hunt does, and that includes anyone that stands in her way, and geralt's friend were standing in her way, they were not going along with her, even though they knew her reasons, they wanted to know what she intended to do, and as we saw from the moment that she actually told what she intended to do with Uma, they would not have gone along with her, they would have resisted until geralt got there.
Same thing for the people in skellige, they were not being helpful to her, Ermion especially was somewhat surprising to me considering that he knew ciri, yet he wasn't willing to help Yen, now probably the reason for that is because they didn't trust her, and her actions don't usually help in that regard, but still even when geralt was there, he still protested? like serious Ermion? comeon buddy, the wild hunt is after ciri we are out of time to be debating options.

When you put that in context, her actions make more sense, sure you can disagree with her character, but you can't disagree with her motives, because that's is why she is doing what she does, it's not personal, it's Ciri.


I don't agree with your third point. Not sure why she needs to redeem herself, when i didn't saw anything that was objectively wrong in what she did.

Not sure how the games fail to convey the fact that Geralt relationship with Yen is unhealthy when the vast majority of threads i see about her are all super negative, obviously people got the picture of what that relationship looks like and they didn't like it (for the most part), but that's how it was in the books, and indeed nothing good came out of that relationship in the books, because they both died, together.

[♠.brT]

As a sidenote, let me just comment on the other aspect of your question, "Cuz as of now I find her game-ruiningly insufferable."

This is why i like characters in witcher 3 so much , THEY ARE POLARIZING.

I really like that about the characters in witcher 3, some of them have NO redeeming qualities if you look at them from a moral point of view, and i think that's good, it gives the game flavor, something that i always felt like it was missing from other rpgs for example Mass effect, those characters are super boring, especially the character that the player can romance, because the relationship would make them very soft and just boring, give me some flavor and not just this vanilla teenager fantasy and give me some real examples of what a relationship can really be. I loved that, now you can disagree with my opinions on that, but then again that's just that, an opinion.

[Spacey]

Dunno. I find her quite nice. I realy do not know why so many hate Yen. And let's be real, Geralt ain't a definition of a boyfriend or whatever, nor any witcher is. Anyway, the topic is about Yen. I realy think she is nice in overall. She is smart, intelligent, she is also caring and loving. She has some bad moments, and she acts like a ♥♥♥♥, but no one is perfect. Let's talk about Triss fro example. She is cute, nice, romantic, loving blah blah But hey, she ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boyfriend of her best friend. Great job nice, friendly, loving lady. She basically cheated on Yen and Geralt to be clear. If you ask me, Yen has some bad moments, I agree, but she is more honest imo. I tihnk that she basically realy loves Geralt, Ciri etc. And in my opinion, she is showing that throughout whole Witcher 3 game.

Let's take one minor thing for example. The bed she throws in Kaer Morhen. Damn, she is pissed of for a reason. All in all, she has many reason to slap the ♥♥♥♥ out of Geralt and Triss, but she still doesn't do it. I think that she is realy showing her love through some minor and major occasions in Witcher 3.

All in all, I do not know much about books since I didn't read them. Know a thing or two about them since I was curious. This is all just my impression from all the things I know.

P.S. And let's be real, Shani is like the nicest girl from all those Geralt romanced. When you consider her character in Witcher 3, you simply wish that you can say "♥♥♥♥ you" to all the sorcerecess and stay with Shani. Also, one thing to consider is, she is getting older, so basically she has changed a lot. And her change is rather nice. She has realy sweet personality in Witcher 3. So if I personally had a choice, Yen, Shani or Triss, Triss wouldn't even be in consideration. Yen and Shani, that is another story. But I think I would still choose Yen. I'll never know that is for sure.

[genericwhitemale]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

And you feel sorry for him

who the hell falls in love with a fictitiousness character

if you only knew...

[Darth Hernia]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

Yen loves Ciri, she really loves her like the child that she will never have (and she is also pretty angry about that too), so the fact that Ciri is in danger is a huge point to remember when talking about her actions in the search for ciri, and she will go through a brick wall to find ciri before the wild hunt does, and that includes anyone that stands in her way, and geralt's friend were standing in her way, they were not going along with her, even though they knew her reasons, they wanted to know what she intended to do, and as we saw from the moment that she actually told what she intended to do with Uma, they would not have gone along with her, they would have resisted until geralt got there.

Same thing for the people in skellige, they were not being helpful to her, Ermion especially was somewhat surprising to me considering that he knew ciri, yet he wasn't willing to help Yen, now probably the reason for that is because they didn't trust her, and her actions don't usually help in that regard, but still even when geralt was there, he still protested? like serious Ermion? comeon buddy, the wild hunt is after ciri we are out of time to be debating options.

The people of Kaer Morhen loves Ciri too. Even Lambert considers her family. Yennefer is not special in that regard. All witchers are sterile, just like sorceresses. She's not even closer to Ciri than say, Vesemir.

Not to mention they refused to go along with Yennefer precisely because they cared about Uma's safety. When her intentions were revealed it only seemed that they were right to resist her after all.

As for Mousecrack, there's a throwaway line in Crach's dialogue where he asked if Yennefer had told Mousecrack she was trying to find Ciri, and she dodged the question. It is implied that Mousecrack refused help because Yennefer straight up refused to explain anything to him, even the Ciri part. Indeed when Geralt summoned Ciri's echo with that

I'd say the blame lies solely and squarely with Yennefer on both accounts. Her MO seems to be goating people into treating her with distrust, then complain about peopole not trusting her.

[Darth Hernia]

Originally posted by Kris Valentine:

When you have power and intellegence, people who don't meet your level start to become ants, multipy that by a longer than normal life span and you have the recipe for Yen.

I think shes great, loving, dedicated and just a little bit her own enemy, strong willed and head strong, I can relate.

Except there are people who are on the same level with her who are much better adjusted; people who are on her level that she treats as below her.

The only thing setting her origin apart from the other sorceresses seems to be that: 1) she wants to be a mother and 2) she was ugly. This is a universe where women are r!ped and treated like property. It's hard to see her as some victim of extraordinarily miserable circumstances where so many people had it so much worse.

I agree she's her own worst enemy. My problem isn't with that fact, but that the books/games seem to not frame her in such a light. They want to paint her as a empowered heroine when she's clearly damaged and struggling.

[EthanT]

Yen is very complicated and personally, I find her an annoying ♥♥♥♥♥. That being said, I enjoy her character. You missed something big though. Geralt and Yen's love is the result of The Last Wish (a Djinn spell, wished for by Geralt to save Yen's life) so they're magically bound in addition to any physical/emotional ties they've developed.

[Darth Hernia]

Originally posted by Knife Party / Ezio ADF:

Dunno. I find her quite nice. I realy do not know why so many hate Yen. And let's be real, Geralt ain't a definition of a boyfriend or whatever, nor any witcher is. Anyway, the topic is about Yen. I realy think she is nice in overall. She is smart, intelligent, she is also caring and loving. She has some bad moments, and she acts like a ♥♥♥♥, but no one is perfect. Let's talk about Triss fro example. She is cute, nice, romantic, loving blah blah But hey, she ♥♥♥♥♥♥ boyfriend of her best friend. Great job nice, friendly, loving lady. She basically cheated on Yen and Geralt to be clear. If you ask me, Yen has some bad moments, I agree, but she is more honest imo. I tihnk that she basically realy loves Geralt, Ciri etc. And in my opinion, she is showing that throughout whole Witcher 3 game.

I don't think Triss is right for Geralt either. She's an empowered woman in tune with her emotions. Geralt isn't the happily everafter kind. In the books she seemed to mostly serve as a foil to both Yennefer and Geralt, highlighting how emotionally crippled both of them are. the fact that Geralt didn't love her back is basically the book's way of saying, "this is what could have been. alas nobody gets a happy ending in the Witcher universe. Deal with it."

In the books this is explained a little better. Both Yennefer and Geralt are deeply damaged people. They are bound by the Djinn's wish. But Djinn's are mischeivous so they're stuckily forever unhappily everafter. They are both perfect for each other and destined to be each other's doom. And that's how the book eneded.

PS. Regarding Shani, I believe in the game's timeline it's only been about 18-24 months so Shani couldn't have been that much older, at least not physically. More likely she just served in the war and matured rapidly.

[Darth Hernia]

Originally posted by EthanT:

Yen is very complicated and personally, I find her an annoying ♥♥♥♥♥. That being said, I enjoy her character. You missed something big though. Geralt and Yen's love is the result of The Last Wish (a Djinn spell, wished for by Geralt to save Yen's life) so they're magically bound in addition to any physical/emotional ties they've developed.

Yes. That's why I think the relationship worked well in the books. It's ambiguous, ambivalent and open to interpretation. Is there something real, or is it just a cruel trick?

Then they undid the whole thing in the game...

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by Darth Hernia:

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

Yen loves Ciri, she really loves her like the child that she will never have (and she is also pretty angry about that too), so the fact that Ciri is in danger is a huge point to remember when talking about her actions in the search for ciri, and she will go through a brick wall to find ciri before the wild hunt does, and that includes anyone that stands in her way, and geralt's friend were standing in her way, they were not going along with her, even though they knew her reasons, they wanted to know what she intended to do, and as we saw from the moment that she actually told what she intended to do with Uma, they would not have gone along with her, they would have resisted until geralt got there.

Same thing for the people in skellige, they were not being helpful to her, Ermion especially was somewhat surprising to me considering that he knew ciri, yet he wasn't willing to help Yen, now probably the reason for that is because they didn't trust her, and her actions don't usually help in that regard, but still even when geralt was there, he still protested? like serious Ermion? comeon buddy, the wild hunt is after ciri we are out of time to be debating options.

The people of Kaer Morhen loves Ciri too. Even Lambert considers her family. Yennefer is not special in that regard. All witchers are sterile, just like sorceresses. She's not even closer to Ciri than say, Vesemir.

Not to mention they refused to go along with Yennefer precisely because they cared about Uma's safety. When her intentions were revealed it only seemed that they were right to resist her after all.

As for Mousecrack, there's a throwaway line in Crach's dialogue where he asked if Yennefer had told Mousecrack she was trying to find Ciri, and she dodged the question. It is implied that Mousecrack refused help because Yennefer straight up refused to explain anything to him, even the Ciri part. Indeed when Geralt summoned Ciri's echo with that

I'd say the blame lies solely and squarely with Yennefer on both accounts. Her MO seems to be goating people into treating her with distrust, then complain about peopole not trusting her.

Not sure what you are trying to say "other people cared for ciri too so she should have just been more respectful" did you missed the part where i said that she would go through a straight brick wall to get ciri, yeah that's goes for anyone that doesn't help her, because she thinks her way is the only way to get to ciri before the wild hunt.
Again my comment was just to give you a bit of perspective on what her motives are, because i often see people complaining about her actions without giving a single freaking thought about why she is doing, in fact some people outright refuse to acknowledge her reasons, thinking that she's does what she does because she's just straight up evil or some crap. Her character is pretty clear through out the game, she is a" the end justify the means" kinda of character, and for her the goal is to get to ciri before the wild hunt does, and that is worth stepping over some people if it gets the job done.


Also your point about that Yen didn't told Mousesack what she was doing is completely irrelevant when even when geralt explained why she was doing that he still protested. So yeah maybe she didn't told him beforehand why she was doing that, but what about when the dialogue with geralt happens? he actually had the guts to ask geralt about how far was he willing to go to save ciri, like ♥♥♥♥, pretty sure geralt is willing to face death itself for her. So my point about his lack of will to cooperate to save ciri still stands, he was not willing to go along with that plan.

[Advocatus Peregrini]

Yennifer is a manipulative, nasty, treacherous, untrustworthy unkind [EXPLETIVE]. Were it me, I'd have naught to do with her, except when duty called for it. But I've already been through my incindiary first marriage, and women like that ceased to appeal to me years ago. And yes, it lessens my enjoyment of the game to be more or less forced to puppy after her.

Shani's the only one of the lot worth a toss, frankly.

[Darth Hernia]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

Also your point about that Yen didn't told Mousesack what she was doing is completely irrelevant when even when geralt explained why she was doing that he still protested. So yeah maybe she didn't told him beforehand why she was doing that, but what about when the dialogue with geralt happens? he actually had the guts to ask geralt about how far was he willing to go to save ciri, like ♥♥♥♥, pretty sure geralt is willing to face death itself for her. So my point about his lack of will to cooperate to save ciri still stands, he was not willing to go along with that plan.

So you think because Yennefer wants to help Ciri it makes it okay for her to ignore other people's feelings and motivation too? By failing to even acknowledge that other people may care for Ciri just as much as her, she's coming across as selfish if not narcissistic.

Which, anyone who knows anything about Yennefer would expect her to be selfish. But her actions are insanely destructive.

Mousecrack immediately softens before Geralt joined them. I believe Crach was the one who explained to him it was about Ciri. Yennefer straight up didn't care if she destroyed all of Skellige bringing Ciri back. How is that justified? Mousecrack has been extraordinarily lenient and graceful towards her if you ask me.

Mousecrack cares about Ciri too. Wouldn't you be angry if someone tries to find someone you care about then completely leaves you out of the loop like that?

[v0]

this'd all be nice but CDPR'd gone double the extra mile to defuse that sense of urgency so player can explore at leisure and help everyone with their tiniest problems including herding livestock (wtf seriously). imo this's biggest problem with story in TW3. yen's urgency feels totally out of place. CDPR should've had guts to make player fail at least on DM or whatever other story-difficulty option they couldve invented if Ciri's not saved in some fixed time. but that doesnt sell copies in blind crowd aroused by 'massive open worlds' with 'freedom' and 'hundred of hours of content' so we know how this goes way of typical director vs producer debate :/

[♠.brT]

Originally posted by Darth Hernia:

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

Also your point about that Yen didn't told Mousesack what she was doing is completely irrelevant when even when geralt explained why she was doing that he still protested. So yeah maybe she didn't told him beforehand why she was doing that, but what about when the dialogue with geralt happens? he actually had the guts to ask geralt about how far was he willing to go to save ciri, like ♥♥♥♥, pretty sure geralt is willing to face death itself for her. So my point about his lack of will to cooperate to save ciri still stands, he was not willing to go along with that plan.

So you think because Yennefer wants to help Ciri it makes it okay for her to ignore other people's feelings and motivation too? By failing to even acknowledge that other people may care for Ciri just as much as her, she's coming across as selfish if not narcissistic.

Which, anyone who knows anything about Yennefer would expect her to be selfish. But her actions are insanely destructive.

Mousecrack immediately softens before Geralt joined them. I believe Crach was the one who explained to him it was about Ciri. Yennefer straight up didn't care if she destroyed all of Skellige bringing Ciri back. How is that justified? Mousecrack has been extraordinarily lenient and graceful towards her if you ask me.

Mousecrack cares about Ciri too. Wouldn't you be angry if someone tries to find someone you care about then completely leaves you out of the loop like that?

No, she has a goal, you know saving ciri, stopping the wild hunt from getting to her, and i'm not sure how much you know about Eredin's intentions, but what Eredin plans to do with her, is not even appropriate to mention in a freaking adult rated video game, seriously ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up stuff.

So for Yen, which again is a "the ends justify the means" type of character, stepping over people to prevent ciri from that horrible fate is fine by her, that's why she doesn't care about what other people think, if they are slowing her down, she will associate that with putting ciri in danger.

And remember, the story in the game is, geralt and yennefer are against a clock that has the ability to teleport to anywhere within freaking minutes , I honestly don't see how you can completely ignore the moving clock that is the wild hunt, geralt is competing with people that can feel Ciri moving because of her blood, geralt can't do that, and they can teleport to a very close distance of her within freaking minutes (which BS btw, it wasn't like that in the books but cdpr didn't give a damn about the books anyway)...

So again, put that into perspective when judging someone's action, when you are against a clock and your decisions can mean that your "adopted" daughter can end up being a sex slave for her life, you don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the consequences of your actions as long as it saves her..

Right?


edit: format, edited a word.