Saving Anna and the Orphans?

[NeovaiiX]

I killed the Tree Spirit before following Johnny which brings me to Anna who summons The Crones. Then having to speak to ealdorman at Downwarren to collect a reward. But when I do this The Crones end up killing/eating the oprhans and Anna is forgiven.

Any way to save both? The Children and Anna?

[Salvy]

It's actually possible, but it requires you find the tree spirit BEFORE you start the quest, and free it. In that way you can save both, but still is not a choice the game gives to you, is just a consequence of exploring a lot xD

[v0]

BuzzardBee posted detailed instruction in same topic thread not that long ago so check that.

[NeovaiiX]

Thanks!

When you say 'BEFORE' the Quest do you mean literally before you even speak to the Baron? or to what extent do you mean by before?

[v0]

Check BB's instructions they're very specific and you must do more than one thing at just right time for this to work.

[NeovaiiX]

Thanks, man! A different option, COOL!

[Asuryan]

Killing the Crones and freeing the spirit will save the children (and Anna). However, this comes with a price: the people of downwarren village will be slaughtered. There is no black or white outcome, you should decide between the lesser evil, following the phylosophy of the Witcher books.

[v0]

Originally posted by Bremen:

Killing the Crones and freeing the spirit will save the children (and Anna). However, this comes with a price: the people of downwarren village will be slaughtered. There is no black or white outcome, you should decide between the lesser evil, following the phylosophy of the Witcher books.

You obviously havent discussed this yet with BB :D :D

[NeovaiiX]

I agree with BuzzardBee!

[Asuryan]

Originally posted by v0:

You obviously havent discussed this yet with BB :D :D

Gonna do it now :)

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

They deserved to be slaughtered. They'd been offering war orphans as sacrifices to spare themselves from the plague. They were not innocents caught in the middle of all this. Their hands were quite dirty.

Good point. However, was the whole village in agreement with this? How can we know that there wasn't a single person in discordance with this, yet slaughtered as everyone else in the village?
And also, is the spirit going to stop now? Geralt released (with this option) an entity whose powers and bloodthirst could go beyond our desires and whose behavior is out of control. On the opposite, the Crones did not pose any threat to the villagers as long as they have some children in their stomaches.

It is not as easy to pick the best option as one can think.

[Tinman]

Originally posted by ๖ۣۜSαℓνy:

It's actually possible, but it requires you find the tree spirit BEFORE you start the quest, and free it. In that way you can save both, but still is not a choice the game gives to you, is just a consequence of exploring a lot xD

Not true actually. If you start the quest normally, the tree pleads you not to kill it and still tells you how to free it and save the kiddies.

[Asuryan]

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

There were an awful lot of ears on that Crone's neck, my friend. Quite a few of those villagers have been making offerings over the years. There were no innocents in that village.

I think that you know very well that the amount of ears around the Crone's neck does not imply in any way that all villagers, or even half of them, are servant of the Crones. In the massacre of Downwarren, it is absolutely possible that completely innocent people died.

Regarding the rest of your argument, I can agree on most parts. You admit yourself that freeing the spirit may put in danger the region, so this is a price for saving the childern. You find this price to be fair enough, and so the lesser evil is to let the spirit free. But still there is no black/white option, and this was my whole point.

The only part where I disagree is the threat level of the Crones being comparable to the one of the spirit, since they demand some sacrifices at the Sabbath. The spirit proved to be considerably more devastating, and much less predictable. But this of course does not mean that freeing it is objectively worse than letting the Crones eat the orphans. Those are points of views.

[Eru]

Originally posted by Bremen:

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

There were an awful lot of ears on that Crone's neck, my friend. Quite a few of those villagers have been making offerings over the years. There were no innocents in that village.

I think that you know very well that the amount of ears around the Crone's neck does not imply in any way that all villagers, or even half of them, are servant of the Crones. In the massacre of Downwarren, it is absolutely possible that completely innocent people died.

Regarding the rest of your argument, I can agree on most parts. You admit yourself that freeing the spirit may put in danger the region, so this is a price for saving the childern. You find this price to be fair enough, and so the lesser evil is to let the spirit free. But still there is no black/white option, and this was my whole point.

The only part where I disagree is the threat level of the Crones being comparable to the one of the spirit, since they demand some sacrifices at the Sabbath. The spirit proved to be considerably more devastating, and much less predictable. But this of course does not mean that freeing it is objectively worse than letting the Crones eat the orphans. Those are points of views.

I freed the spirit because the crones were serving imrileth which tells you alot about who they are and what not plus i feel the argukent that some villagers didnt know is something like what the germans said when being asked about the nazis

[Arlen]

Spirit killed, Childrens tasty yummy, Anna dead, Baron hung - bestest ending

[DrNewcenstein]

"All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing".
While there may have been 2 or 3 people in the village who reaped the benefits without paying the price, they knew what was happening, because the rest of the village knew about it, and participated in it. Hence, by doing nothing to stop it, they were just as guilty as those who did the act. There is no grey area here.

[Virtus]

You have to KILL the spirit in the tree before the quest with Crones. Do NOT free it. Anna will live, children will not. But that's a choice you have to make