Woodland spirit choice (spoilers)

[zioste81]

The "In the heart of the woods" quest is interesting because I stll can't decide which is the better (less terrible) choice... I even saved it for the post-epilogue to think it over. ;)

My instinctive decision would be to kill the leshen, who is supposed to be a "mean, self-serving monster". Don't really like the repercussions on the village later though (you can't even punish the murderers in any way), and the quest log gives a somewhat contemptuous comment about your decision.

So, what did you do and why?

[Rukk]

Killing the Leshen is the only way to avoid the bugged music after this quest, so that's what I go for (don't even talk to Harald). Unless you want to hear that depressing music nonstop until you progress further with the main quest, I recommend you to do the same.

[Brendissimo]

This quest exemplifies several frustrations I've had with the Witcher 3, in spite of it being a generally fantastic game.

1) Judgmental journal entries. Morality in the Witcher games has always been about shades of grey, and so it's fitting that there are several bad outcomes here. And on their facts alone Its debatable which is really worse - that's how it should be. However the journal entries for the quest say that performing the ritual and defending Harald is the "lesser" of two evils, despite the higher body count. I really don't think the game should express an opinion at all - only the characters should (yes I'm aware that technically the journal is Dandelion's voice, but I don't think that's what's going on here).
I had the same problem with the Whispering Hillock quest, which was debatable on its facts, but the journal strongly implied that one outcome was preferable to another.

2) Inclusion of a "true neutral" or "good" outcome. After the Witcher 1's semi-secret "true witcher" ending, I thought we'd gotten rid of these, seeing as a key principle behind this series is moral ambiguity. But alas, this quest also has such an outcome - perform the ritual and then walk away. And it's not the only one in this game. Much more frequently than in Witcher 2, I'm noticing that quests in Witcher 3 have "correct" and "incorrect" outcomes. This is frustrating, for obvious reasons.

3) Inability to do anything to the characters after the quest is over. As good as the Witcher games are, this is one area where Bethesda (especially in their older titles) has them beat. In Morrowind, for example, if I completed a quest but felt that the outcome was unjust and that someone needed to pay, I could just go kill that person and deal with the consequences. Or steal from them. Or insult them. Whatever.
Here, no matter how awful you might find Sven's massacre of the elders, there is NOTHING that you can do about it after the fact. This limitation highlights how the Witcher games aren't really big on actual role-playing. They are more lore-rich fantasy action games with light role-playing elements within the journey of an established player character.
(Related to this are the infrequent but frustrating mandatory fistfights as part of other missions. For example, in the quest to improve Dandelion's brothel, when you confront two thugs who are in the process of burgling Dandelion's artist's house, you are forced into a fistfight against the two of them in a tiny space - a fight which can be so irritating that it breaks immersion. Why wouldn't Geralt just pull out his swords and kill these fools? He kills people every day for far less. Hell, he can't even get from point A to point B within Novigrad without slicing 2-3 bandits to ribbons. So why would he be "gentlemanly" with these two? This quest frustrates me in a very similar way...)

[Norbajusz]

Originally posted by Brendissimo:

This quest exemplifies several frustrations I've had with the Witcher 3, in spite of it being a generally fantastic game.

1) Judgmental journal entries. Morality in the Witcher games has always been about shades of grey, and so it's fitting that there are several bad outcomes here. And on their facts alone Its debatable which is really worse - that's how it should be. However the journal entries for the quest say that performing the ritual and defending Harald is the "lesser" of two evils, despite the higher body count. I really don't think the game should express an opinion at all - only the characters should (yes I'm aware that technically the journal is Dandelion's voice, but I don't think that's what's going on here).
I had the same problem with the Whispering Hillock quest, which was debatable on its facts, but the journal strongly implied that one outcome was preferable to another.

2) Inclusion of a "true neutral" or "good" outcome. After the Witcher 1's semi-secret "true witcher" ending, I thought we'd gotten rid of these, seeing as a key principle behind this series is moral ambiguity. But alas, this quest also has such an outcome - perform the ritual and then walk away. And it's not the only one in this game. Much more frequently than in Witcher 2, I'm noticing that quests in Witcher 3 have "correct" and "incorrect" outcomes. This is frustrating, for obvious reasons.

3) Inability to do anything to the characters after the quest is over. As good as the Witcher games are, this is one area where Bethesda (especially in their older titles) has them beat. In Morrowind, for example, if I completed a quest but felt that the outcome was unjust and that someone needed to pay, I could just go kill that person and deal with the consequences. Or steal from them. Or insult them. Whatever.
Here, no matter how awful you might find Sven's massacre of the elders, there is NOTHING that you can do about it after the fact. This limitation highlights how the Witcher games aren't really big on actual role-playing. They are more lore-rich fantasy action games with light role-playing elements within the journey of an established player character.
(Related to this are the infrequent but frustrating mandatory fistfights as part of other missions. For example, in the quest to improve Dandelion's brothel, when you confront two thugs who are in the process of burgling Dandelion's artist's house, you are forced into a fistfight against the two of them in a tiny space - a fight which can be so irritating that it breaks immersion. Why wouldn't Geralt just pull out his swords and kill these fools? He kills people every day for far less. Hell, he can't even get from point A to point B within Novigrad without slicing 2-3 bandits to ribbons. So why would he be "gentlemanly" with these two? This quest frustrates me in a very similar way...)

^
Pretty much you summed up what I want to do with those guys in the end. I mean, I started playing right after Divinity: Original Sin 2, where you can kill ANYONE, even quest givers, and it's pretty disappointing to see the "Best RPG ever created" hasn't have that option.

[bgray9054]

This was a quest where I actually didn't like the outcome options. I did not like the religious leaders in that village so I pretty much told them to piss off. I took the contract from Sven as it seemed reasonable since the monster had marked a girl in the village and was killing people anyway, but after killing the monster Sven had killed the religious folks - even though I thought they were idiots, I didn't feel like they deserved to die, but it wouldn't let me slaughter Sven at that point. Apparently you had to work with the religious folks in order to be able to kill Sven.

There were a few quests throughout the game like this where I didn't have the overall freedom I would have liked to have to make certain choices, so just had to select the best choices of the ones available depending on how you view the situation.

[Michael]

I know this is old but am playing my 2nd time around doing more the the main story. I killed the leshen but Failed To kill the monster.

[Xevion]

Time to revive this thread again! I killed the Leshen, and here's why: Either way, people die, the elder who supports the continuation of the ritual dies. Meaning, even if you decide to keep the Leshen, the rituals won't continue to be honored, and more people will probably die. Otherwise, if you kill the Leshen, only the Elder dies, and people won't continually be killed for the Leshen's values. Who knows if people really did get "support" from the Leshen by ritual, but I mean, less deaths is best, right? Also, you get the achievement. Only downside is the Ritual scene is pretty cool. I made a save and played both, ended with the "Kill the Leshen" option.

[Insert Name]

Originally posted by Aeternum:

Read the beastiary entry for the Leshen. That should help you decide. People don't always know what is best for them and let themselves be enslaved by more powerful entities.

Holy cow! Talk about one of this centuries greatest observations! No sarcasm BTW.

Nice job! I just might quote that again in the future.

Edit: well, OK, replace Leshen with human and it's dead on!

[thiag0pc]

I made the ritual, and when Sven come to kill Harald, I defend him, but he just sneak behind them and killed everyone.

[Valden21]

My take on this is that the ritual's time has come and gone, and it needs to end. The elders think that renewing their bond with the leshen is what keeps their village strong, but they're mistaken. In fact, what we have here is a case similar to that in the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery; the village has been following the tradition of doing the ritual for so long that it's lost sight of the reason the ritual existed in the first place, and they continue with it because the elders refuse to consider any other method. Religion and blind superstition are two completely different things, and this falls into the latter. The leshen's using the ritual and the awe the elders have of it to get away with its killing, and as long as the ritual keeps occurring, so will the killing. Therefore, the leshen's got to go, witcher style.

[RobotParty]

I'm waaaay late to this but I am confused on the Leshen as a creature : They claim it helps them when they give it sacrifices and whatnot, but the Leshen is one of the objectively bad creatures, right? Unlike the relict creatures like the Satyr( or whatever it's called ), where there's a quest of one that stops giving boons to villagers and starts to curse them for not giving it enough food. Evil, but it's a remarkably more conversational and morally ambiguous creature than the Leshen. Maybe it's not explained in the game but I don't understand how *not* killing the Leshen can even be seen a good option at all, as it would probably go on to kill more people.

[tahunua]

super late to the party but here's the deal. the world of the witcher is what happens when to feed lord of the rings into a "don't do meth" commercial. everything is perverted and everyone is boiled down to their basest behaviors. the whole point, of many witcher quests is that try as you might, it is unrealistic to expect a happy ending. this quest is one of many like it. the witcher 1, though it always comes to the same end did a masterful job of weaving negative consequences into virtually every action you take, and the witcher 2... kindof left you with few options and all the endings were pretty bad, but that's the world of the witcher. I don't like it from the player choice, renegade/paragon worshiping point of view that I take with most of my games but it's very true to the source material... way more so than a certain netflix series.

[Insert Name]

Originally posted by Valden21:

My take on this is that the ritual's time has come and gone, and it needs to end. The elders think that renewing their bond with the leshen is what keeps their village strong, but they're mistaken. In fact, what we have here is a case similar to that in the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery; the village has been following the tradition of doing the ritual for so long that it's lost sight of the reason the ritual existed in the first place, and they continue with it because the elders refuse to consider any other method. Religion and blind superstition are two completely different things, and this falls into the latter. The leshen's using the ritual and the awe the elders have of it to get away with its killing, and as long as the ritual keeps occurring, so will the killing. Therefore, the leshen's got to go, witcher style.

Are you sure that religion and blind superstition are two different things? Really, really sure? like you have met God? What real proof do we have?
As far as the ritual goes, if humans die out, why is that such a tragic thing? Why do we throw away our morals that makes us "higher beings" in the name of survival? Pick and chose our "high" ground. Which in the end makes us just as evil. Throwing other life under the bus for our own continuation.
I say it is high time humans just died off and make room for other beings or creatures.

[Insert Name]

And then there are Witchers. Well Witchers do what Witchers do...

Whatever the hell they want.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Insert Name:

Originally posted by Valden21:

My take on this is that the ritual's time has come and gone, and it needs to end. The elders think that renewing their bond with the leshen is what keeps their village strong, but they're mistaken. In fact, what we have here is a case similar to that in the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery; the village has been following the tradition of doing the ritual for so long that it's lost sight of the reason the ritual existed in the first place, and they continue with it because the elders refuse to consider any other method. Religion and blind superstition are two completely different things, and this falls into the latter. The leshen's using the ritual and the awe the elders have of it to get away with its killing, and as long as the ritual keeps occurring, so will the killing. Therefore, the leshen's got to go, witcher style.

Are you sure that religion and blind superstition are two different things? Really, really sure? like you have met God? What real proof do we have?
As far as the ritual goes, if humans die out, why is that such a tragic thing? Why do we throw away our morals that makes us "higher beings" in the name of survival? Pick and chose our "high" ground. Which in the end makes us just as evil. Throwing other life under the bus for our own continuation.
I say it is high time humans just died off and make room for other beings or creatures.

You're making a lot of blind assumptions here. I'm not trying to argue anything; all I'm doing is giving my take on the situation.

[Insert Name]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Originally posted by Insert Name:

Are you sure that religion and blind superstition are two different things? Really, really sure? like you have met God? What real proof do we have?
As far as the ritual goes, if humans die out, why is that such a tragic thing? Why do we throw away our morals that makes us "higher beings" in the name of survival? Pick and chose our "high" ground. Which in the end makes us just as evil. Throwing other life under the bus for our own continuation.
I say it is high time humans just died off and make room for other beings or creatures.

You're making a lot of blind assumptions here. I'm not trying to argue anything; all I'm doing is giving my take on the situation.

Uh huh. Very skewed, prejudiced take. But OK, everyone is entitled.