A towerful of mice. Some things I really don't understand (SPOILERS)

[Lamb Sauce]

The way the story is told is really weird to the point where I don't even know what actually happened at the tower when the peasants raided it.

First off: the motives. This one isn't that hard to piece together though. Either they believed the nobles to be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s who laugh at their misery while living the good life and wanted to kill them because of that or they were more interested in getting food because they had none (which I think is unlikely given the way the peasants talk in every memory one can find across the island).

Second one, and this is where things get a little bit confusing already because of different information from different sources.
Anabelle was not allowed to go to the mage. In Alexander's logs you can find proof for that where he wrote something about her mental state. Yet for some reason when the peasants entered the tower she was up in his room with him.
Of course, we can assume that as soon as he knew what's going on he tried to save her and let her in (or led her up to his room, either way is plausible). The motivation for that is not known though. Alexander wasn't the most sociable mage and Keira (even though we can't believe everything she says since she is very manipulative like most sorceresses are) even mentioned this at the beginning of the quest. He even experimented on humans and was willing to sacrifice them (according to himself/his logs), so I'm not sure if he felt any sympathy for her or had something else planned for her.

Which brings me to my next issue: the potion he gave to her. I assume here that the mage and Anabelle herself were well aware of what the peasants would do to her if they got their hands on her. So why exactly did Alexander give her a potion that would render her defenseless in every possible way? Was it really a sleeping potion or was it something else that might have led to her becoming a Pesta? Was it a potion to kill and transform her and the thing she remembered about the rats eating her body was when she was already a ghost/Pesta or a "fever dream"?

It's implied that the peasants ♥♥♥♥♥ Anabelle, but I'm not exactly sure if it actually happened, or what exactly happened then, really.
And this brings me to my biggest "What's going on here!?": Anabelle said that when she heard Graham call for her she opened the door and others jumped on her and began tearing off her dress while at the same time grabbing her by her arms (they probably pinned her to the ground, or at least that's what it sounds like to me). But somehow she managed to drink the potion. I assume (and that's a big assumption because it hasn't been implied in any way) when Graham tried to pull them off of her she got free for a moment and drank it (I'm not sure where she could have had the potion that she was able to drink it in that heated and persumably short moment so quickly).
And then the story gets confusing, like, really confusing. Graham said he ran away from the tower shouting and cursing them "for what they did" to Anabelle. "Did" as in they got what they wanted from her and he couldn't stop them, which could mean two things here: the peasants noticed that she got limp and left her, thinking that there was no reason to ♥♥♥♥ a corpse (which I find very unlikely) or they continued to ♥♥♥♥ her unconscious body at which point Graham just gave up and ran. BUT. A few sentences later, Graham said her body felt like a corpse, cold to the touch and all that. When exactly did he check that? Did he return to the island or what happened? Did he stay until the peasants were done with her to check on her? But that would contradict with his previous statement of fleeing and cursing them. What happened in that last part? It confused me so much that after playing through the game several times now I had to know what really happened here and how it actually transpired. It's a grim story, and because of that it's something that keeps me wondering if it's just an error on the author's part or something else I could have missed story-wise.


Any thoughts regarding this are appreciated.

[♠.brT]

mate, the chain of the events isn't hard to follow from the ghosts, anabelle was with her father when the peasants broke in, you can see this in one of the ghosts, when anabelle and her father was sitting around the dinner table, she ran to the top of the tower where the mage allowed her in.

Why whould he do it? why not? there is absolutely nothing in this quest that implies that he had any kind of resentment towards her, the fact that she wasn't allowed in his laboratory is not because he didn't liked her, its because of the nature of the experiments he was conducting in that laboratory, not exactly the kinda place you want to show to people. (look i'm murdering people looking for a cure, am i not awesome?).

The mage gave Anabelle a potion that would make her look DEAD, her body was cold to the touch according to what her boyfriend told Geralt, the reason is pretty easy to understand, he hoped that the Peasants wouldn't do what they were planning to do with her if she looked dead, which btw, its exactly what happened.
There is no implication that the peasants did anything to her once she drank the potion. The dialogue with her boyfriend in fact implies heavily on the idea that they didn't had their chance to do what they wanted to do because she took the potion and "died".

The mage didn't gave Anabelle a potion to make her defenseless, she was already defensesless to begin with it, what the hell was she going to do against a mob of peasants? she never had a chance, so the potion makes sense, give her a potion that will make her look absolutely dead to the touch and hope that this will dissuade her attackers, which for all we know, it worked.

The problem however was that the potion didn't wear off quickly enough for anabelle to save herself from the rats.

And again you seem to be way over thinking this, the story doesn't go into full details exactly how did Anabelle drank the potion because it is irrelevant, just assume she had the potion with her the entire time and managed to drink it in the moment the peasants took her down which is not unreasonable to believe in it.

As for her boyfriend, he ran away from the tower AFTER he touched Anabelle, you can tell this by the fact that when told by Geralt that she took a sleeping potion he says "but i shook her, she was cold like a corpse..." this heavily implies that her attackers stopped after she took the potion which allowed him to get a hold of her. This convinced him that she was dead, she looked dead, she felt dead to him, so he ran, cursing everyone who caused her death.

[Lamb Sauce]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

mate, the chain of the events isn't hard to follow from the ghosts, anabelle was with her father when the peasants broke in, you can see this in one of the ghosts, when anabelle and her father was sitting around the dinner table, she ran to the top of the tower where the mage allowed her in.

I must have overlooked this. I saw this memory where they sat there at the table and another person runs to them, warning them about the peasants. Didn't hear or see Anabelle say anything though, only her father talking to her about the fisherman. I probably missed her in that case.

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

Why whould he do it? why not? there is absolutely nothing in this quest that implies that he had any kind of resentment towards her, the fact that she wasn't allowed in his laboratory is not because he didn't liked her, its because of the nature of the experiments he was conducting in that laboratory, not exactly the kinda place you want to show to people. (look i'm murdering people looking for a cure, am i not awesome?).

No resentment, true. But he's (like Keira put it) an anxious experimenter who's forever short on sleep, the kind of person who doesn't want to get too much involved with others. Then again, it's also his tower from what I could get and he let the noble's family reside in it for the duration of the war.

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

The mage gave Anabelle a potion that would make her look DEAD, her body was cold to the touch according to what her boyfriend told Geralt, the reason is pretty easy to understand, he hoped that the Peasants wouldn't do what they were planning to do with her if she looked dead, which btw, its exactly what happened.
There is no implication that the peasants did anything to her once she drank the potion. The dialogue with her boyfriend in fact implies heavily on the idea that they didn't had their chance to do what they wanted to do because she took the potion and "died".

You're right on that, there is no implication on what happened. That's literally the reason why I made this thread and why I'm looking for any information I might've missed. Only thing we know for sure is that she drank the potion.
You are implying here that once they noticed she "died", they left her. And that's what I'm not so sure about. If they came to make them suffer, then why would they stop there? Throughout human history it has happened several times that, especially during armed conflicts and war, soldiers, scavengers and such raped dead bodies for various reasons (defiling the dead, not getting anything that is still alive, necrophilia, etc). That's why I think that it's not as simple as "dead = not gonna happen"; they came to the island to make them suffer after all and since in the Witcher universe ghosts and spirits are real, it wouldn't surprise me if these people would've opted for defilement.

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

And again you seem to be way over thinking this, the story doesn't go into full details exactly how did Anabelle drank the potion because it is irrelevant, just assume she had the potion with her the entire time and managed to drink it in the moment the peasants took her down which is not unreasonable to believe in it.

It might be irrelevant to you, but it isn't to me. I pay attention to details like that. And I didn't claim that it was unlikely for her to drink the potion, just that it wasn't described in detail and I had to make a big assumption there.

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

As for her boyfriend, he ran away from the tower AFTER he touched Anabelle, you can tell this by the fact that when told by Geralt that she took a sleeping potion he says "but i shook her, she was cold like a corpse..." this heavily implies that her attackers stopped after she took the potion which allowed him to get a hold of her. This convinced him that she was dead, she looked dead, she felt dead to him, so he ran, cursing everyone who caused her death.

This is the explanation I was looking for. Going with your narration of how it went down, it makes a lot more sense to me now.

Thanks for your response. Have a good day.

EDIT: accidentally broke a quote, fixed it.

[♠.brT]

Yeah the dinner table scene Anabelle doesn't say anything, she's sitting at the table though you can clearly see her.

you then see several times her ghosts running up the stairs, until eventually you meet her ghost.

i don't get it why his social awkwardness would in any way dissaude him from helping someone that was in clear danger.

As for Anabelle and her attackers, i mean sure, it could have happened regardless, but the game implies that it didn't, but even if it did, it really doesn't change the motives for the potion, the goal was to dissaude her attackers, and there is only one way to do that, make her look dead, maybe the mage had this potion but was intending to use it for himself to save himself, but when he saw that Anabelle was also in clear danger he gave it to her hoping that it could save her.

About the details of the potions, well my point is that those are not the kind of details worth discussing, especially in videogames (less so in books) a writer must determine what information is essential to be mentioned and what is unnecessary to be told because the player should be able to understand that missing piece of information based on the rest of the available information.

So in the case of the potion we have the fact that she was given a potion by the mage when she got to his room, and then later she drank that potion when the peasants attacked her. We can easily fill in those blanks, so either she had the potion with her the entire time, and when she was attacked her hands were free enough for her to drink the potion, or she didn't had the potion with her but was close to where she was attacked and in the struggle she managed to get it. Either way, it doens't change the conclusion of the story therefore it is rather irrelevant for a character to have to spell it out for geralt these details.

[Lamb Sauce]

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

i don't get it why his social awkwardness would in any way dissaude him from helping someone that was in clear danger.

It's not only his awkwardness as you describe it that makes me think that way, it's also his willingness to sacrifice people for his own research. His logs strongly imply that he doesn't care for an individual's well being as long as it benefits the masses. There were even prisoners left that he kept locked away in their cells until they starved to death (because no-one probably knew they were up there after the incident happened). I can't see how saving a single person would fit his character when he's fully capable of imprisoning and experimenting on people with no regrets. And to follow up on that:

Originally posted by ♠.brT:

As for Anabelle and her attackers, i mean sure, it could have happened regardless, but the game implies that it didn't, but even if it did, it really doesn't change the motives for the potion, the goal was to dissaude her attackers, and there is only one way to do that, make her look dead, maybe the mage had this potion but was intending to use it for himself to save himself, but when he saw that Anabelle was also in clear danger he gave it to her hoping that it could save her.

I can't see how he would put another individual's safety above his own, seeing as he believes in the importance of his work and doesn't want to share it with the rest of the mages at that point, making himself the only one who knows how to cure the disease (until Keira came along and snatched his notes). I assume that this would make him value his own safety more than another one's. That's at least my reasoning behind why I think he wouldn't do it without it benefiting himself in some way.


Also, while we are at it. Something I completely forgot to mention in the OP that also got me thinking. What's up with the black rat that Alexander mentions in his logs? The one that seemed to listen to him whenever he talked, study the other rats dying and suddenly died for no apparent reason. Was it a "spy"? A conjured or possessed animal which acts as some sort of bug to listen to what he's doing regarding his research?
I tried to look it up on the internet, but no-one seems to talk about this. It's strange to me to mention something so peculiar without any apparent reason.

[♠.brT]

unscrupulous scientific research does not remove a person feelings of sympathy, especially when he knew the person he was helping, its not like Anabelle was a complete stranger to him despite the lack of social interaction the two had prior to that event, it is not at all unreasonable to believe that felt sorrow for her likely fate and decided to help her by giving her a potion that may have saved her from that fate. Regardless, we don't know enough about him personally to understand his motives. I only saw him as an unscrupulous scientist (for the lack of a better word) and as such it doesn't necessarily mean that he was all evil, just driven to extreme measures in his pursuit.

I saw the rat thing as a sign of madness, but yeah, your idea there could be true as well.