The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Gaunter O'Dimm

Many interesting things about Gaunter O'Dimm.

Gaunter O'Dimm

Spoilers from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Hearts of Stone game!


I thought I would make this "guide" about many gamer's favourite villain. Who else could it be if not the "mangy vagrant", Gaunter O'Dimm? The writers of CDPR did an excellent job when they created him. I can only say great things about him, the only shortfall, in my opinion, is that they have taken a little bit too much from different sources. However, there is no perfection, and one of the big bosses wanted to use the story of Mr. Twardowski for the main core, so I didn't care too much about it, because the rest of his character was extraordinary. I dare to say he is one of the best, if not the best villain in gaming history. He is cold, ruthless, tricky, charming and I can continue this till the end of time. I really liked his minor self-respect during a conversation with him when you believed he is a magician and he said: "Please no, I cannot stand spells. Childish hocus pocus; it's just not interesting." If you finished the game, I'm pretty sure you know him well. So I decided I would collect many curiosities about his so called existence:

- Let's start with the beginning, if you remember him, he was one of the very first character you met in the main game. I already noticed his secretive personality. He told us just the minimum information what we needed to know about Yennefer, but that was obvious, he is much more. And how did he say godspeed to us? "We men of the road must stick together. Perhaps one day I'll be in trouble and you'll be nearby to help." So it happened.
- What do we know for sure about him in HoS? Not too much, the Prof's reference about him was he is the "Evil" or "Evil Incarnate". When Geralt asked him if he was a Djinn or Mage, he didn't answer directly. I think that is a clean-cut he is the Devil in the Witcher's world. And I agreed with CDPR when they said they think sometimes the best is if you don't know too much about a characters. There is no need to explain everything, everytime.
- Did you notice if you put his name's initials in a row you get an interesting symbol, which is a reflection as well, just as his personality: GOD?
- At the ending of the main story of the main game, you can meet with the Dwarf company again, and even they mention him when they reveal us they stole a chailce from Lord Dagborg (Duck Tales easter egg): "Uh, we don't have it. Found a buyer. Mr. Mirrory, was it? Funny name, paid good coin, though."
- The main story of Hearts of Stone based by an old Polish legend, Pan Twardowski has dealt with the Devil in a familiar way as Geralt did. Here are some interesting fragments if you played HoS: "According to an old legend, Twardowski was a nobleman (szlachcic) who lived in Kraków in the 16th century. He sold his soul to the devil in exchange for great knowledge and magical powers. However, Twardowski wanted to outwit the devil by including a special clause in the contract, stating that the devil could only take Twardowski's soul to Hell during his visit to Rome – a place the sorcerer never intended to go." "After years of evading his fate, Twardowski was eventually tricked by the devil and caught not in the city, but at an inn called Rzym (Rome in Polish). While being spirited away, Twardowski started to pray to the Virgin Mary, who made the devil drop his victim midway to Hell. Twardowski fell on the Moon where he lives to this day."
- Randall Flagg, a character from novels written by Stephen King - has a lot of names and one of them is "Walter o'Dim", who is a seemingly supernatural being of uncertain origin in the series The Dark Tower. Gaunter also shares similarities with Leland Gaunt from "Needful Things" - an evil entity who grants human wishes in exchange for evil deeds. It was later confirmed by Karolina Stachyra, senior writer in CDPR, that he was indeed inspired in part by these two.
- However, at the creation of his character, the writers drew inspiration from different folklores: "Gaunter's character seems to represent certain aspects of the characters "Holländermichel" and "Glasmännlein", from the German fairy tale Das kalte Herz by Wilhelm Hauff. In this story the benevolent forest spirit "Glasmännlein" grants the protagonist 3 wishes. Later in the story, the protagonist makes a deal with the evil sorcerer "Holländermichel" who takes his heart and gives him in a heart of stone in return and an infinite supply of money."
"Similarly, Olgierd's pact is only fulfilled when they stand on the moon together, which they do when O'Dimm tricks him into meeting Geralt at a temple with a large mosaic of the moon on the floor.
In the Twardowski legend after his deal with the devil, Twardowski uses a magic mirror to bring back the ghost of the wife of Polish king, Sigismund II Augustus."
- And there was another great villain character, I'm pretty sure if you know the Breaking Bad series, then you'll know why Gustavo Fring had such a great impact for the creators, it's enough if you look back how he eliminated one of his henchmen. They have many mututal aspects, both of them are cold, evil, observer, tactican.
- Gaunter's musical main theme has a poem version too, you can find and hear it near Yantra's crossboard, performed by a group of children:
"His Smile fair as spring, as towards him he draws you
His tongue sharp and silvery as he implores you
Your wishes he grants, as he swears to adore you
Gold, silver, jewles he lay riches before you
Dues need be repaid and he will come for you
All to reclaim, no smile to console you
He'll snare you in bonds, eyes glowing afire
To gore and torment you untill the stars expire."
Also, at the end of the main story, if you decided to help Olgierd, Master Mirror will take you to his own place, which may be representing Hell. There, you can hear that ominous choir again. I didn't find any source about it, so it's just a small theory, but the children could be representing the haunted souls of Gaunter's earlier victims - or the composer possibly chose them for the better mood.
- If you looked closely, you could see that Gaunter looked many times in your eyes during your gameplay, so the legendary fourth wall was broken with this scary method.
- And if you looked the game more closely, you could find out that Gaunter represented six other NPCs while you played the main storyline. If you want, you can start to search him, but if you need some help, I can give you some hints: His first appearence was in the very first quest, while you talked to one of Olgierd's henchmen. Next, you can find him two times at the wedding. The fourth one was in the auction house, the fifth is when you tried to rope in the Dwarf pyro guy, and the last one was during the heist quest. From the very beginning, he was there everywhere, he watched and observed you.

Part 2

- I was always thrilled when something connected with something else, well, I got a tons of it here: Gaunter O'Dimm, aka Master Mirror or Man of Glass - what was the solution of his riddle? Reflection. Besides, the mirror was always one of the symbols of evil. His other nicknames are a good reflection of his personality - he is relentlessly searching the human's dark side, because nobody could be purely a good man. You can often see a wooden spoon in his pocket or hands, in later of the game at a certain moment of the story he is not fear to use it for his own pleasure. During the wedding, he gave the most important advice about cooking to few older ladies - for the good cooking, you'll need time. After in the game, in the same inn scene he froze the time, just before when he used his spoon. In the main story of HoS, he froze the time twice, and dissappeared suddenly - after directly both of the events, an NPC used the word of "devil" in his dialogue. And there was his favourite spoon in his hands. Here are two proverbs which fit him well: "When dining with the devil be sure to use a wooden spoon." and "He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon." If I know correctly, they are using these when somebody needs to be extra careful in something. And as we all know, "Devil's in the details".
- If you are trying to cross the borders of HoS area, the game will give you this message: "You Have Reached The World's End, None But Devils Play Past Here", while it uses different lines at the other borders.
- The lower mark on Geralt's face from Gaunter is a real symbol, name is "Devil's Cross".
- If you didn't help Olgierd and haven't finished the main story line of Wild Hunt, you can ask him to help finding Ciri. Even he can't do this directly, but he will give you some handy hints about her. I think he could help you if he wanted to, but the writers had to "decrease" his skill because of the story.
- In Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, you can hear O'Dimm's music and get the "Through the Fourth Wall" achievement, which is about finding an easter egg in the game. For this one, you should go to Southwest Rivia, and at the estate south of the Brossard's cemetery, a whistling noise will begin when you enter the west wall.
- In this game, you can find a written contract as well, which is a clear reference to O'Dimm: "I, Amadeus Ritterhof, in exchange for thorough knowledge of the arcane magical arts, hereby pledge my soul. I shall repay my debt only at such a time when the sun risesover Rivia in the dark of night. I sign this contract with my blood in full understanding that it cannot, under any circumstance, be breached."
- In Blood and Wine, the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's second expansion, while you are doing the quest of the spoon (!) collector wight, you can find out from the documents (you can even hear his music a bit later) that it is clearly the Man of Glass's work. The devs didn't want to give you any direct indication, so they impulsed his presence rather.
- You can find lots of easter eggs about him in Gwent Master Mirror expansion, usually he is hiding in the background somewhere. Check the following cards: Kerack Marine, Smuggling, Dias Irae, Usurper, Jacques: Miraculous Child and Angry Mob. Also, you can buy the Twisted World background which is the same place where Geralt and Gaunter has been fight. Minor spoiler: you can summon a few portals, as well.
- And finally, but absolutely not last, I must mention his voice actor whose name is Alex Norton. I humbly yield before his performance, he was amazing in this role. By the way, he wasn't a new guy in the production, for example he was the voice of the Witcher 2's legendary drinking troll too.


Thank you very much for reading this "guide", I hope you spent your time well.


For few things, I used the source of Wikipedia, Witcher Wiki and a Gwent guide.

[drlecter]

Cheers, hoo!

[jesko]

good

[drlecter]

Glad you enjoyed it, SmokingVoice!

[SmokingVoice]

nice buddy

[drlecter]

Thanks, elveness! :)

[elveness]

Great!

[drlecter]

Cheers, Sphax, I'm so glad you had a great time!

[Sphax ツ]

Thanks a lot Dr' for all the hint and history behing the good ol' Gaunter.
He is a mystery all right and as you said pretty well "There is no need to explain everything, everytime" but it's good to have at least a part of an explanation.

Also, I learn quite a lot of things!

Thanks again!!

[AquaAurora]

e

[drlecter]

Cheers!