Radovid is Crazy... why?

[Odysseus]

This will only apply to you if you've played TW1 & TW2, but after completing TW3 I was pretty confused on the character of Radovid. In The Witcher 1 & 2 he came off as a pretty snotty yet even handed ruler, and maybe just a little bit eccentric. That's what I took away from his personality any way. However in TW3 he became a near insane dictator-like figure, with his only redeeming quality being that he was an excellent strategist. Was I the only one who felt this was a bit strange, or are others miffed by his character development as well? Maybe I'm over analyzing since he was a pretty minor character in 1 & 2, but I'd like to hear what others think.

[Koromac]

It was called Radovid the Stern for a good reason in the Witcher 1, especially if you kill a Striga.
He drank too much, so alcohol must had addled his senses.
In the Witcher 2, he had disgust or disdain towards the Lodge of Sorceresses, so that probably contributed to the events of Witcher 3, when he lost his sense of reality.
He abused Order of the Flaming Rose and prosecuted anyone, who was potentially helpful to the community. It's a game. However, story may be somewhat vague here, but since W3 is the final chapter of this trilogy, they needed some villain.

[[deleted]]

Like Triss this guy had seemed to get a personality change. Radovid just toke her shadyness

[Ivar]

Originally posted by Frosty_Deity:

Like Triss this guy had seemed to get a personality change. Radovid just toke her shadyness

This.

[Living Broscillograph]

Radovid is a consistent mage-hater and racist. From this perspective, his behaviour is logical and reasonable. He can use whoever he thinks is useful for his goals (even a witcher - a potential spec-ops agent of an enemy) but he's hardly crazy.

There is no place for Geralt and his like in Radovid's world though.

[protohipster]

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

Er, no. He's bat-sh!t crazy, all the way.

Yeah even in tw1.
As for triss being different, afaik yen was supposed to be in her place in tw1

[Mandrake42]

He was already unstable, his slip into madness came after gouging out the eyes of Phillipa. She was pretty much the major dominant figure in his life, essentially raising him. Make no mistake his involvement in the events of The Witcher 1 were not motivated by altruism, it was pure self interest. He was already unbalanced before the eye gouging, after that is when he truly went paranoid. By the time you meet him again in The Witcher 3 is in full on lunacy, seeing daggers in the shadows everywhere (With good reason, everyone wants him dead). Let's just say he didn't deal with it well.

[[KO19] Davide]

Actually you could already see what an unforgiving ruler he was after he tortured Philippa & ordered all mages to be killed at the end of Witcher 2. Although I do agree that there is a stark contrast between the Radovid of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. The jump from witcher 2 to 3 is not that much.

[Odysseus]

Originally posted by God Emperor Donald J. Trump Ⅰ:

Actually you could already see what an unforgiving ruler he was after he tortured Philippa & ordered all mages to be killed at the end of Witcher 2. Although I do agree that there is a stark contrast between the Radovid of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. The jump from witcher 2 to 3 is not that much.

I think the missing connection here is that I have yet to play through TW2 on Iorveth's path, which is where I meet all of the mages Radovid kills. I never had that so in TW3 when he went insane I was a bit taken aback.

[Mandrake42]

Originally posted by DurDur:

Originally posted by God Emperor Donald J. Trump Ⅰ:

Actually you could already see what an unforgiving ruler he was after he tortured Philippa & ordered all mages to be killed at the end of Witcher 2. Although I do agree that there is a stark contrast between the Radovid of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. The jump from witcher 2 to 3 is not that much.

I think the missing connection here is that I have yet to play through TW2 on Iorveth's path, which is where I meet all of the mages Radovid kills. I never had that so in TW3 when he went insane I was a bit taken aback.

There probably is a bigger jump from 1 to 2 than 2 to 3, but I still don't think it's that big a stretch. As I mentioned above his involvement in the events of the first game were hardly selfless and even then he mentions how everyone is out to get him. Also as mentioned above, I think it was the killing of Phillpa that tipped the scales. The woman was essentially his mother figure. She was absolutely self serving and manipulative and Radovid was right to distrust her. But his actions were just crazilly brutal, it's no wonder it pushed him over the edge.