Lore oddities

[SENTAR]

I don't know why this bothers me, but its about the franchise's timeline. Pretty much all fantasy/fictional universes end up having deep backgrounds and worlds to make the content more compelling and offer potential for seperate stories to take place in the same fictional canon. Starting with Lord of the Rings, and franchises from, A Song of Ice and Fire, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Halo, The Elder Scrolls, WarCraft, even Dragon Ball, and many many others. The witcher is no exception.

However what bothers me is that in the Witcher its recorded history is only about 1500 years long. Going off the wiki timeline gnomes are the only race to inhabit the continent (that the franchise takes place on) longer than 1500 years. 1500 years before the story, the conjuction of the spheres occured. This is when magic, monsters and other races began to appear on the continent. elves arriving several hundred years later, and humans arriving 760 years after this event. That means human civilization has only existed for 740 years roughly.

What bothers me is how in such a short amount of time human civilization could be established, and become so powerful. Clearly where ever humans came from they were likely already at a medieval level of technology, which means they probably would have plenty of knowledge of where they came from and their history. They have language and writing and there are tons of books but no references to history earlier than 1500 years. It just doesn't make sense to me. Especially when the continent already had elven, dwarven, gnomes, and halfling civilizations which were already established quite quickly. I don't understand how history earlier than 1500 years could be forgotten so easily. I have not finished Witcher 3 main quest yet, so I don't know what insights may be offered there, but I do think the Wild Hunt can offer some real information.

Anyone else ever thought about this?

[Egro]

From a writter point of view such detail is irrelevant, you only want to mention what relevant to the current story and Sometime a blank in timeline will add more mysteries for your world which is a good thing. All of the tiltes you mention above don't explain everything and everything especially games and book series because you want a blank so you can squeeze different story in whenever you want.

[Dead2Rights]

I think your timeline itself is somewhat off. My understanding is that elves already existed on the continent prior to the conjunction and that humans appeared either at the same time, or slightly afterwards (and likely from another world).

Honestly, even then it's not like the humans appeared as an organized mass migration. There's a good chance that unless their history was preserved by some sort of oral tradition, they just would have lost it as I doubt inter-dimensional refugees besieged by monsters and alien races would have had the time to write books about history.

[SENTAR]

Either way they established their dominion incredibly quickly. All info I can find says humans arrived in 760s and arrived by ship to the continent, like the elves who also arrived by ship, but centuries after the elves. Only info from books about the origins of the humans is that they arrived by ship, meaning they had some sort of civilization elsewhere on the planet. Although I did not read the books, and am going off the wiki.

It is true many of the other fictions also don't have completely detailed histories, but many do have histories much longer than 1500 years. 1500 years really isn't that long, especially when characters such as witchers live for centuries

[Dead2Rights]

Hmm. It appears that I am kinda right and kinda wrong at the same time.

There is no definitive answer to this, but the lore says that the Elves say that humans appeared during the Conjunction from another world. However, they didn't settle the continent until much later than that.

Humans of course, seem to deny this - but like I said, there is no definitive ruling.

Personally, considering we know that Ciri can travel between worlds, and even visits our world in the middle ages, I'd bet good money the Elves are probably correct. Humans are likely refugees from another world that just appeared one day.

[Hoshikudaki]

I remember reading abit about this in a booklet that you get with the game.

At the start there were the elder races(Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings). Then there was a an event that brought Humans, monsters and magic into this world.

While humans are a young race they were able to quickly conquer the elder races and become the dominant race of the world.

It doesn't really cover if humans had a history prior to when they came into this world but at least the elder races should have some sort of history dating back further than 1500 years back.(Unless they never record history and adapted quickly when the humans came about.)

[SENTAR]

Originally posted by Dead2Rights:

Hmm. It appears that I am kinda right and kinda wrong at the same time.

There is no definitive answer to this, but the lore says that the Elves say that humans appeared during the Conjunction from another world. However, they didn't settle the continent until much later than that.

Humans of course, seem to deny this - but like I said, there is no definitive ruling.

Personally, considering we know that Ciri can travel between worlds, and even visits our world in the middle ages, I'd bet good money the Elves are probably correct. Humans are likely refugees from another world that just appeared one day.

Yes there are also hints in dialog that would suggest they come from our very own world, becuase often in dialog real fairy tails have been referenced, Cinderella is one off the top of my head. With that said the books say they arrived on the continent by ship meaning that, they appeared on the planet elsewhere than where the game takes place (although I did not read the books). Still based on their technological level written records and oral tradtional logically would keep the memory of their past alive.

Also the elves definitely where there first, but they too are not native to the world I believe.

[SENTAR]

Originally posted by Hoshikudaki:

I remember reading abit about this in a booklet that you get with the game.

At the start there were the elder races(Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings). Then there was a an event that brought Humans, monsters and magic into this world.

While humans are a young race they were able to quickly conquer the elder races and become the dominant race of the world.

It doesn't really cover if humans had a history prior to when they came into this world but at least the elder races should have some sort of history dating back further than 1500 years back.(Unless they never record history and adapted quickly when the humans came about.)

All three of those races where there before humans but also are not native to the world. The gnomes are the only native race to the continent predating all the rest. All the races arrived at some point after the conjuction of spheres. This is evident because the people of the wild hunt are actually elves

Gnomes have not appeared in any of the games as far as I know however.
Got all info from the wiki.

[Dead2Rights]

Originally posted by SENTAR:

Originally posted by Hoshikudaki:

I remember reading abit about this in a booklet that you get with the game.

At the start there were the elder races(Elves, Dwarfs, Halflings). Then there was a an event that brought Humans, monsters and magic into this world.

While humans are a young race they were able to quickly conquer the elder races and become the dominant race of the world.

It doesn't really cover if humans had a history prior to when they came into this world but at least the elder races should have some sort of history dating back further than 1500 years back.(Unless they never record history and adapted quickly when the humans came about.)

All three of those races where there before humans but also are not native to the world. The gnomes are the only native race to the continent predating all the rest. All the races arrived at some point after the conjuction of spheres. This is evident because the people of the wild hunt are actually elves

Gnomes have not appeared in any of the games as far as I know however.
Got all info from the wiki.

I think you are missing a point about the Aen Elle (wild hunt). They used to have the ability to travel between worlds at will. We don't know for sure if the Aen Elle and the Aen Seidhe are really the same people or not (considering we know there are multiple worlds in this universe it's hard to say), but because the Aen Elle could travel at will between worlds, it's hard to say that even if they WERE the same people, where did they originate from. This is never actually stated in the lore at all. It's a mystery with no real definitive answer.

So, sorry, it's not really definitive proof of anything.

Also, I'm fairly certain that the "Elder Races" do have a history. The issue is - You're not playing the game from the perspective of one, so how would you know it?

[Big Boom Boom]

A Witcher isn't a Historian, and the author didn't really invest that much time to go into the lore. I meant he was tired of writing and put a pitchfork into Geralt's guts with the intention of ending the novels back in the 90s?