Okay, I'm a little confused about this whole wild hunt business. As I remember Geralt had the chance to kill the King of the Wild Hunt in TW1. So, does TW2 take that into consideration? Is the KotWH dead in the second game? Or is he/it alive?

Also, I don't understand how Geralt sacrificed himself for Yennifer, but still managed to die. So, he was not taken by the Wild Hunt when he sacrificed/traded himself for Yen? Instead he was randomly stabbed by some guy with a pitchfork?

Enlighten me please. :D

For your first question, in TW2 we learn that the wraiths of the hunt are like...avatars? I guess for actual flesh and blood elves from another world, and so I suppose in TW1 you merely killed the wraith form of the King of the Hunt, which they use to conduct most of their business in Geralt's world.

The whole taken by the Wild Hunt business takes places AFTER the pogrom in Rivia and Geralt's and Yennefer's death. After their death in Rivia, Ciri (a Source, known from the books and 'foster child' of Geralt and Yen, able to travel through space, time and dimensions) brings them to that 'island' you know from the cutscene. Then the Wild Hunt shows up, takes Yen with them and Geralt pursues them. When he finally finds them, he trades his soul for Yen's.

About the King: I think, we do not know, since there's no direct encounter with the Wild Hunt in TW2 and the flashbacks take place BEFORE TW1. I might be mistaken on this one, though. I second this, although I think that we do not know what happens to them if their spirit form is killed.

So they both died during the riot in Rivia and are both ressurected, then at a later time they encounter the Wild Hunt? I feel like I should be getting this by now, but it's 5am, I just finished playing TW2 a few hours ago. Sorry if I'm a little slow. :P

EDIT: I just did some wiki searches and ran into some important info. Okay, I think I understand how the events unfolded.

So, there is a riot in Rivia and Geralt dies and then Yen dies. Ciri teleports them both and revives them. Sometime later the Hunt shows up and Geralt persues the Hunt in search of Yen. He meets up with Letho and other witchers. He ends up saving Letho life and (here is where I still have a question) is not successful in saving Yen? He obviously was spared by the Hunt? Or got away at least. That means he did not trade his soul for Yens. So Yen must be dead? It was hinted she may not be in TW2.

Anyway, I got that right so far? lol

This makes me want to buy the novels and read up. :D

Geralt mentions in one of the cutscenes that wraiths cannot be killed, only driven away. So even if you chose to fight the King of the Hunt you didn't actually "kill" anything, you just temporarily dissipated is spectral avatar. That's how I understood it anyways.

But on the subject of the resurrection, were Geralt and Yen literally resurrected? The way I understood it was that the island Ciri transported them to wasn't a literal island in Geralt's world, but a mythical place in some other plane of existence, perhaps even with different rules about what constitutes "alive" and "dead". It is the same place that Cedric speaks of going when he dies (Avallach, I think), meaning that it's some sort of intangible afterlife type place, not a physical place that one can just travel to and from. That was how I interpreted it, anyways, meaning that both Geralt and Yennefer's physical bodies died but their essence was somehow preserved intact and projected into this mythical realm by Ciri. Then Geralt somehow managed to transition back into the physical realm after The Hunt made off with Yennefer, perhaps projecting himself back in a manner similar to what Ciri had used when projecting him to the afterlife island (or perhaps through pursuing The Hunt and learning some of the secrets of how its riders travel between worlds). He pursues the physical embodiment of The Hunt in his world, and is able to strike a deal for Yennefer.

Though maybe I'm wrong, and Avallach is a real island in the real world. I haven't read the novels beyond the two that have been translated to English, so I don't really know. The game does spend a fair bit explaining the Conjunction of Spheres, so I do think it's a given that alternate planes of reality do exist in Geralt's universe, and that not all of them follow the same rules. Like they say in the game, necrophages have no ecological niche that makes sense in the physical world, yet they came in from somewhere so it follows that there must exist some Sphere where the rules are such that necrophages make sense.

In any case, in TW1 I got the impression that The Hunt was interested in collecting the souls of the dead. That's why it follows Geralt, because he leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake. I also assume that's why he was able to trade his soul for Yennefer's, because he can sow more chaos and death than she ever would (perhaps debatable since she is a powerful sorceress in her own right).

You're right to the part with Letho. I'm not sure if you mean the right thing, so just to clear it up: Geralt meets Letho in lethal danger and saves him, while he still pursuing the Wild Hunt (it travels the world north to south to a given time, so Geralt waited for them to show up and then follows them, hoping to find their final destination). Letho, being from a part of Nilfgaard far to the south (where witchers in fact, spend a lot of their time trying to figure out the Hunt), comes along and leads him to a resting place / their destination (not sure which, if it was even mentioned).

There they encounter the Hunt and Geralt strikes a deal: Let the witchers and Yennefer go and take him instead. The King of the Wild Hunt agrees. Yennefer has amnesia and seems to be somewhere in Nilfgaard. Geralt (having amnesia as well, a phenomenon caused by being very close to/part of the Hunt) disappears and is found in Kaer Morhen's surroundings later, a total of five years after his death. The rest is history.

You are almost completely true; Geralt appears in Kaer Morhen's surroundings five years later from his death, not five years later from him being a part of the cavalcade which means he probably stayed just a few days(few days in the parallel world) as a part of the hunt because a year in the parallel world is several decades in ours(see the note about the patient claiming being a part of the hunt).

Where and what the island is, isn't sure. But it certainly is a place only a powerful Source of the Elder Blood can reach by travelling through space, time and dimensions. So it might even be that it's part of Geralt's world, only somewhere else many years later. Or earlier.


What follows contains spoilers concerning the books, so if you still hope they'll be translated to English sometime soon and don't want to be spoilt, take care:

The Hunt is a group of elves from another dimension (might be another world or only another time and still Geralt's world), who hope to 'free' their brethren struggling for survival in Geralt's world. From what I gathered, their access to that world is very limited though and thus they (sort of) kidnap people from this world to be their minions - it's not the deads' souls though. The key to actual transitions between different dimensions is the Elder Blood. Therefore they want to get their hands on Ciri - Geralt's and Yen's foster child and of Elder Blood - and they hope to get to her through Geralt and/or Yen.

Also, be aware, that those transitions mean not only travelling to a different place, but can take you to a whole different world or into another time (for example, sometimes people taken by the Hunt show up many years later and find their family and friends long dead, but do not have aged a year themselves). So, we do not know how long Geralt has been with the Hunt and what he experienced in their company (could be 5 minutes, or many, many years) - all we know is that he showed up 5 years later.


I'd ask others to correct me / give their point of view. It's sometimes rather confusing and reading the books has been a while, so I might mess some stuff up or simply interpret it differently. You're absolutely right and that's what I meant - but now that I read it again, it comes across plainly wrong. Thanks. :)

Thanks for all the information everyone. Everything makes much more sense at this point. :)

I think in order to answer any lingering intricacies, such as: where is the island? is it in this world or another? How does time pass when in the "world" of the Wild Hunt in comparison to regular time, and so forth, we will probably have to wait for TW3 or search the novels for answers.

Either way, I'm much more satisifed with my knowledge now. Thanks again!

I was just playing The Witcher 3 and stumbled upon some dialogue i simply could not make sense of, thx for clearing things up guys!

I'd like to give my view on the island, based more on books than on games, and I'll try to be as clear as I can, although the subject is confusing and my views are known to be radical sometimes. This is also a take on the Witcher world as a literary - or artistic in general - creation, so not only inside it, but also a "meta-view". Of course, once more - SPOILERS.

First thing - yes, you all should definitely read the books, if you haven't done that yet.

The island, as I read it, is of course not a real place that anyone can travel to. Ciri learned to use her Elder Blood to traverse time and space, so she could do it. She took Geralt and Yen there after they died.

But - I don't believe the Wild Hunt could go there any more than Geralt could. This is - in my opinion, I repeat - an incongruity between the books and the games.

In the last book of the series, Geralt dies. He is not then resurrected by Ciri, he is taken off into the mist (!) by a boat (!) on a lake (!).

Remember that Ciri can just "hop" into a different reality, a different time etc. She concentrates - and fweep, she's there. Why does she use a boat for this passage? Well, because she does not take them to another world - she takes them to another book.

Yes, that's right. Another book. That book could be Mists of Avalon by MZ Bradley or any of the Arthurian legends - they influenced Sapkowski immensely. Ciri already met Galahad and this is no coincidence that the last book is called Lady of the Lake (and as my friend put it, it is very "postmodern").

But wait, what do you even mean by "take to another book"? I mean that Sapkowski plays with the reader's expectations and knowledge by giving him the ending that he probably wants (they live happily ever after) - and at the same time stating "This is not real, not even in a book, they died in a stupid, senseless way and there's nothing you can do about it". Just like King Arthur, they died, but they are "somewhere".

That's one of the reasons, I think, why Sapkowski was unhappy to call anything "canon". He wrote a story about Geralt's and Yen's wedding that is not set on the island and he didn't bother explaining why they are alive, why all of the other characters appear etc. - he said "This is a story and all you have is this story; you also have the books; all you can do is read them, and they are not real anyway" (well, he said nothing like that, that's how I read his refusal to sort it out).

That's also the problem with the games for me. You see, there are two kinds of fantasy. One kind is Tolkien-mode: the author builds the whole world and this is his primary work; the books are just the by-product made to present the world. The other kind is Sapkowski-mode (for me, you can name it, I don't know, LeGuin-mode?): the author writes a book and this is what matters; the only real thing are letters printed on a page; the setting is a necessity, but it exists only as far as it appears in the novel.

Now, you can write many many books, stories and games in Tolkien's world, because it is so full and you just have to conform to its rules. With the Witcher's world it is a little bit different and such stuff appears as that: how was Geralt resurrected? How did the Hunt find the island? (Where is Galahad? Will we meet him in W3?)

That's the outline of what I think about Sapkowski's work and why I love it more than any other book (almost). I'm off now, I've said too much already.