I2epresent: I just got the Wild Hunt GOTY edition and played a bit, up to the military garrison where the commander wants me to kill the griffin.

This is the first time I've played a Witcher game. I've been following the dialog and have a general sense that two countries are at war and picking over the remains of a third country, but I'd like to bring myself up to speed without spoiling the events of this game.

Is there a spoiler-free resource where I can do that?

Also, why exactly do so many people seem to despise Witchers? The land is crawling with monsters, these dudes kill the monsters. Seems like you'd want to have a few of them around just for basic safety. Even if you don't want to be friends with them, many of the NPCs seem to want them gone, which doesn't make too much sense if there's a griffin running around just killing random people.

That one dude said he was surprised Geralt didn't want a reward, and Geralt said something about the rumors about Witchers being inaccurate. Are they just feared?

Hilda: Have you played the first two games? That would really fill in the background. The politics is very complicated and took me ages to understand. The hatred of the "peasant" population just shows that they are ignorant and prejudiced - not evil, just like some ordinary people in the world. This is one of the things that makes the Witcher so immersive - there's no clear cut good guys and baddies. Later on, if you kill monsters in Witcher contract quests and clear villages of monsters, you can hear people change their minds about witchers, showing that they are not "bad" just ill-informed. They other thing to do is talk to as many NPCs as possible. You'll get an idea of the culture they live in and their belief systems.