I do not know about the rest of sorcerers and sorceresses but I would not trust Dethmold, Sile and Philippa.

Having just finished the Iorveth side, since I did the Roche side first, I have to say I find some things I like and some things I wish there was resolution to, on both sides, but then, that just makes me want to see if I missed an opportunity somewhere.

well, time to run from the dragon another 27 times :D

agreed. if shilard survives, he's present to deal the death blow to the last fragments of northern unity, and sow the seeds of even more conflict. it plays right into the emperor's hands to let him instigate a witch hunt.

If you make the choices that feel right to you (I don't regret any of the choices I made in the game), you end up with a completely bleak ending...
Ves is raped, the Northern kingdoms are ravaged, Henselt is dead, Temeria is going to be split up, Roche is a wanted man on the run with Foltest's daughter, the Lodge has lost their Dragon and has no power against Nilfgaard. The Nilfgaardians are going to invade.the Northern Kingdoms and everything is just in chaos and such a bleak position. And bloody Dethmold is still alive.

Roche's personal story is one of a tragic fall from grace, he's lost all his friends and men, in my game Geralt abandoned him to save Triss, and his country is in ruins and he is fugitive. So sad, because he is a good man at heart.

That's why I loved Roche's path, true dark fantasy, unlike anything I've seen before (TW1 had a really rosy ending in all honesty)

Just a question...who left Letho alive? I felt it would be right to let him go, he was just a Witcher like Geralt, and he also has fought the Wild Hunt. I feel the Wild Hunt are going to have a big part in the games of the future, and he could be an ally, therefore I left him alive.

So I'm probably going to be off the topic but I've been thinking about this quite a lot and the discussion here kind of made me even more curious...
What I have to say first is that I haven't read any of the books so my knowledge of The Witcher's universe ends with the witcher wikia and the stuff in the two computer games.

But... why does everyone hate the Nilfgaardians like shit? Correct, they are trying to invade and conquer as much as possible, but surely that's no reason for such disdain. Any of the northern kings could challenge them in cruelty, but still even the ambassador says things like "it's over for the north" yet I don't see what they could possibly do which would make the situation any crappier than it is now.

By this reasoning, kings who are "dicks only because they need to" and the frequently used "leaders gotta be tough" kind of loses its meaning, at least for me; the emperor and the kings are equally selfish, not to mention the sorceresses, who probably even care less about the people they kill (like the chick who conjured up that firestorm during the battle). And... the united north they imagined would be practically just another "Empire"

And I guess it was (and possibly is even today) like this in the medieval states - leaders made tough choices not because of the people but because of themselves. I think that for the common folk the difference between paying tax to one king or another is minimal; were they given a choice they might very well support the emperor because he could at least guarantee peace (more or less)

I may be wrong since I haven't read the novels and maybe the Nilfgaardians are really mean sons of bitches, and of course I have my subjective point of view. I'm curious about other's opinions.

@justaguy

Ever read or watched the tv show "Game of Thrones"?. TW2 is pretty similar with every lord and dog wants to be king or just have more power/land. Everyone is scheming left and right.

I love shit (pardon) like that. Never know who to trust and you just go with your guts and be in for a suprise later!. =D

maybe because they're a bit like WW2 Germany? I could be wrong though.

on a sidenote, the title "The White Flame Dancing on the Grave of his Enemies" is so made of WIN :D

I was about to make that Metaphor, too,

Funny you say that because I doubt that Germany was that much worse than her opponents during the war... but that's irrelevant... So what did the empire do?

And what's WIN? :)

Yes it's very subjective , but for me Nilfgaardians are like a mix of the worst aspects of the Teutonic armies who slaughtered so many innocent people in the Middle Age in their drang nach osten (despite being defeated by A. Nevsky and the people of Lithuania ) , killing civilians for free or just because they were pagans , and the nazis in WWII with their intolerance , racism and slaughters of million of innocents

Niiflgaard persecuted mages (ok for some it's acceptable , but they persecute them by principle , out of idelogical belief , not because mages are deemed evil or did something wrong or something , they re simply anti-magic , anti elves , anti everything that is not Nilfgaardian or sanctionned by the Emperor and useful to him , similar to a fuhrer basically because he has no counter-power like Temerian king needs to negociate with its council and nobles , the Emperor of nilfgaard seems like an absolute ruler )

Also they persecuted and betrayed Elves (Iorveth tells us ) , gave them a small place to live but where they aren' free and are excluded elsewhere ( abit like WWII jews ) and treated even worse than in the northern kingdom where they can at least live alongside humans even if there are stil racists in Temeria , Redania etc ... well just my understanding


Also in game at some point , we are told " if that happened in Nillfgaard
, you would be hanged already " , so it is suggested Nilfgaard is a very intolerant country with very harsh laws and rules , with a ruthless ruler obcessed about expansion (like Henselt , but Henselt use Fair means and really seems like a frank and direct person , real archetype of the Celtic warrior who wants a worthy adversary and would never backstab dishonourably , for instance he burned Sabrina when she acted unfairly (she basically used the "nuclear " option if we make an analogy with our times ) , whereas Nilfgaardian (just like the Lodge ) seem to stop at nothing machiavellious or simply treacherous to achieve their goals as we see in the plot with Shilard and Letho , a bit like Hitler revoking treaties and making up excuses to invade Poland and arguing being the victim when he was the aggressor (Letho makes me think of Otto Skorzeny , who tried some interesting things in WWII behind enemy lines )

Also at some point we learn that nilfgaardian technology is more advanced in some ways , better arbalists (in prologue he says it's best arbalest in the world ) and superior swords that we discover in chapter 3 , and they don't want to share their tech , reminds me the nazis of wwii with some advanced tech they had since their remarkable scientist potential was geared for war and came up with very modern designs before everybody

Well that's very very subjective , perhaps i'm wrong (in fact i'm surely mistaken ) ,but it's just the way i see it since i didn't read the books , so ihave little informations on Nilfgaard apart from what is suggested in game

regarding nilfgaard:

when the northern kingdoms fight each other, they're fighting over border disputes, chunks of land, etc. whoever wins, the loser still has the rest of their country to retreat to and plot revenge.

when nilfgaard invades, it wants to annihilate national identities. everything gets subsumed into greater nilfgaard. therefore, nilfgaard represents an existential threat to the north on a fundamental level.

Well, I guess now I can understand why a common guy could hate them, althrough they might be just demonized a little bit. However, I do remember Geralt saying during the execution in chapter 1 that we aren't in Nilfgaard so Dandellion shouldn't hang for debauchery, which might implicate that their laws are somewhat stricter than in the North.(In my opinion, they might be a reference to the islamic expansion but who knows? : )

Returning to the topic, I think that all of the kings met in the game are assholes. I could repeat all the reasons already said in this topic, but that would be boring... Anyways, the character of Radovid was really brilliant and I doubt it has been stressed here. On Roche's path he was all about being sympathetic with the Temerian cause (and he really acted like a nice guy, presumably because he expected help in return); but when Geralt was tied up in a cell he was just a jerk (and blinded Philippa for apparently no reason but jealousy). It's similar with a few main characters, so I think that the Roche and Iorveth lines have been made to complete each other not only in terms of the plot, but also in understanding the motives of the NPCs. Because of this I think that none of them is superior to the other, but I have a feeling that the Roche ending will be canon if a third game ever comes out... but that's just subjective.

You haven't read the books have you? Sapkowski's world is not so black and white as you make it look like. Hell, half of the saga takes place in Nilfgaard and Geralt and Ciri are not there to kill Nilfgaardians.
Sigh... I'm gonna have to spoiler the books to prove you wrong.

Anyways, the hatred of mages is not ideological, it is a personal vendetta of the emperor. A mage turned him into wereboar when he was little. It was decades later that Geralt lifted the curse.
The emperor believes in Ithlinne's prophecy of White Frost that's coming to consume the world, so he is pursuing the Elder Blood for the power of traveling the worlds. He intends to save the human race from what was depicted in the end of Witcher 1. How altruistic that really is... well your guess is as good as mine.
And during the peace treaty of Cintra he agreed to give up a lot of conquered land on the advice of Merchants Guild who suggested that the best course of action would be to overtake the Northern Kingdoms economically. It could be that this is out of the window now with troops crossing Yaruga again.
This is completely wrong. Nilfgaard is the only country in the world that is even willing to make any kind of treaty with the elves. Or to treat them as equals. The fact that they gave Dol Blathanna to the elves is utterly unprecedented. And it was completely free until the peace treaty of Cintra where a lot of compromises were made. Elves got fucked over there, yes. The territory was turned back to Demawend as a vassal state. And one of the conditions was that the Scoiatel units were declared as outlaws. So yes, Iorveth can't go there.
There are still many elves in Nilfgaard. A part of their army consists of elves. I don't think there are any nonhumans in the armies of Northern Kingdoms.
Henselt is rather different in the books. He conquered Aedirn from the north while Aedirn army was battling Nilfgaard in the south so honor is not that important for the dude.

Though later when Nilfgaard turned on everybody in the North then he did send his troops to battle Nilfgaard. Zyvik was at the battle of Brenna for example. ;)

Wow thanks a lot Ren for answer and insight from the books , sincerely , now i understand better Nilfgaard and their role !


Now i realize how i was completely mistaken with my subjective vision deduced from the game only , really sorry for telling BS then , it makes me want to read the books badly :)

Hmm , true , even in the game they tell us that Henselt tried to conqueer part of Aedirn when Aedirn was already busy warring anoher kingdom , in the journal entries , i just read it yesterday , so yes i was surely wrong to say he wouldn't backstab , in fact like you sid he alrdeay did it , sorry ! :)

No problem. Actually I apologize, I kinda attacked you before...

Definitely read the books if you can, they're pretty good. You'll meet lots of familiar characters from the games. ;)

But you might also start hating the elves a bit... In the games they are pretty much portrayed as the suffering underdog. In the books you'll find that some of these guys are major assholes...