Some additional thoughts. Although I see no inherent issue with expanding on the witcher's lore in future games to allow for this, I adamantly oppose retconning previous lore. Further, although I agree there is no inherent issue with this addition it would largely depend on the motivations and implementation of doing so. For example, does it serve the story? Does it detract from established lore? Is it keeping in theme with the established setting and basic principles of the world? There are already so many incredible female characters in the witcher (Ciri, Yennefer, Triss, Philippa, Saskia, Cerys), is it necessary to make this change? As I said it would massively depend on the story going forward. I think a group of female monster hunters could be an interesting concept, but do they have to be witchers? Or would it be better to be monster hunters (assuming it's in the past or after another conjunction) trained in the ways of magic and combat? There is no clear 'wrong' answer, but depending on the way the games develop, the 'wrong' or 'right' answer may reveal itself. CDPROJEKTRED should just be focusing on writing a good story with compelling characters in an established universe, if the story takes them this way organically it could be interesting, but it's all about motivation and implementation.
With all the mages having fled to Kovir, and Keira pairing off with a witcher, I can imagine scholarly research into witcher mutagens could start up again. Keira and some other mages could potentially make the mutations safer, more endurable, especially since the Lynx medallion that was teased implies a new witcher school.
As an addition to this, if we get a newer more humane Witcher school, maybe it could be achieved by introducing the mutations over time, rather than all at once. This would allow for a really interesting progression system in a future witcher game.
I honestly thought that the reason why only males could become witchers was because our DNA is technically mutated to become male when in the womb, therefore we already have a susceptibility to mutations and could handle more.
In The Witcher RPG journal of Erving of Larvik, He does mention they tried to mutate girls along with boys, but for some reason, they all died. The Cat school witcheress Dragonfly, from that old rpg, makes sense to me, with how much the Cat's tinkered with the mutagens. Couple that with the fact they are the only school confirmed to let nonhumans become witchers, it wouldn't be a shock that they figured out how to mutate women successfully and therefore let them train. The other schools probably just never bothered that hard, especially since it's not as if male and female witchers could breed and have children to pass the trade onto, with the sterility side effect. They probably just went with the original method and since that didn't work on girls, they just never bothered trying again, unlike the cats.
@@elfang0r Makes sense. I know some witchers can be ruthless, but if you bring in a batch of girls to undergo mutation and all of them die, probably painfully, with no exception, I'm pretty sure most would have just straight up decided not to subject more girls to that sort of thing.
In Kaer Morhen they started Ciri on some herbs and elixirs, never intending for her to go through the full trial and even those herbs and elixirs were enough to have negative effects on her, according to Triss. Their herbs and elixirs were created to work with male biology
Couldn't they just find or make some that would be compatible with female biology? Or maybe even study a mutation that turns females into hermaphrodites?
In the books it actually says that the Trial massively alters their hormones and Triss is really bothered that the Witchers gave Ciri even the precursor mushrooms because she was worried that it would mess up her development.
I think in large part that was also because the Witchers didn't know wtf they were doing, and Triss was dumbfounded they didn't think of the differences in her being a girl. Whether that means it cannot be done without harming development is ambiguous though, so far as I know.
It would have messed up a guys development too. Those grasses were basically magic steroids and were fucking up Ciri’s menstruation cycle, of course Triss would be angry
Witchers were definitely unsure what to do with a girl. But I think the main reason why witchers didn't made her go through the Trial of the grasses was the fact that she was the princess of Cintra (and the Elder Blood) - they couldn't risk killing her. Same reason why Triss was upset - messing with Ciri's development and (potentially) ability to reproduce could have massive political implications (and magical implications). If she was just some random girl, it's quite likely that none of them would care that much.
If the next Witcher game has character creation, this is an interesting dilemma. Here’s one way it could be approached. If you play as a man, you are a Witcher. If you’re a woman, you are a sorceress. A Witcher can still use magic, while a sorceress can still use swords. For example, while Ciri has magical powers, she has trained with the ability to use swords.
Yeah there’s no reason you can’t be a woman who is not an offical “Witcher”. Sorcerers and Sorceresses in the Witcher world might not be witchers but they still have the capability of magically enhancing themselves. And Ciri can go toe to toe with men and monsters without “officially” being a Witcher.
Well that or the plot ppint is that the player character is a natural born witcher. One of the giys wasnt as sterile as they thought- now he has a daughter/son
@@CorvoThan I rather like this idea, actually. It's happened before (I believe) and bound to happen again. Like the Spartan 1.1s from Halo lore. Children of the original Orion Project candidates.
@@CorvoThan that's a really cool idea! i never thought of that, but would be interesting to explore and angle like this. having the mutations literally in their bloodline - would that make them more or less of a witcher. and would be an interesting angle of why the pc is unique in the overall plot, while still giving players the chance to create their own character
@@WitcherGeorge It's gonna be just like Star Wars, CDPR hired a woke alphabet cult activist where their only goal is to push an agenda. Guaranteed the next Witcher game will be very very woman centric, they will kill Geralt horribly and disrespectfully and make all women ugly. It's gonna be Last of Us 2 all over again.
@@WitcherGeorge but like, cdpr has literally changed so much of the lore already. all the witcher school were not in the books except wolf and griffin. like the lore has been changed numerous times and fans have been fine with it. but in this case its too far, i wonder why
Eh 40k gets retcons every other edition. The Primaris, the complete overhaul of the Necrons. Taking 40k as some unchangeable block of lore is just going to anger you. So long as the retcon doesn't ruin a story or plotline I think its ok to retcon a detail. Like let's be honest the female custodians added nothing.
I like the idea that women can't become witchers. I mean actual mutants. It makes Ciri feel special as she is not fully witcher, but is trained like one. Maybe she does become the founder of a witcher-like school of sword weilding sorceresses, I think that would be really cool
I would love this! If they did do a character creator, they could do something like Dragon Age: Origins where by selecting your gender would have you start out either at a traditional Witcher school(most likely the wolf), or Ciri’s new school.
if cdpr do wanna incorporate female witchers, a cool narrative way would be for our Witcher to investigate the disspaperonces of young girls only to find out they've been taken as part of a new trail the antagonist is trying to create (not sure what the motive would be though).
i'm willing to accept women witchers, only if they make them hot AF and show lots of skin and body physics and never censor the game. i don't want none of this ESG-DEI agenda nonsense infecting the game, just straight up good game good gameplay good story and sexy females and your choice in which outfits she wears. if they can do this, they have my full blessing.
Holy shit that could also work if you want to do a custom protagonist. In the prologue if you chose male you’re investigating these disappearances with your master and slowly uncover this mad scientist’s plan. If you’re female you live through a day in your village/city/whatever only to then be abducted and we see the whole process of being turned into a Witcher, in this case your objective would be to escape the dungeon and maybe if they want the figure of the master to show up you would be eventually saved by him.
Cool. But that would make female witchers a bad thing (or at least the motive behind making them a bad thing) unless they are all gonna be victims that need to be saved.
It’s explicitly stated in the lore that women can’t become witcher’s. The reason for this is unclear (could be because they are physically weaker, or hormonal…) but when Alzur created witcher’s they did experiment with young girls but they all died and it became clear that they did not adept wel to the trial of the grasses. And even the boys only 3 out of 10 of the strongest boys survived. So to become a Witcher you have to be a very unique individual to begin with. Not anyone can become one. This is the same for sorceresses/sorcerers, only difference is that they are born with the gift of magic and don’t need to undergo the trial of the grasses. So if all of a sudden they decide in the new games to put in a female witcher then that is like taking a huge stinky dung on the source material. Why even? There are enough super op and badass women in the continent that could wipe the flour with any witcher. They better come up with a very good explanation if they choose to do so but i’m against it.
Yeah, but Ciri is basically a female Witcher as her whole thing. I don't mean because of Witcher 3 but because she's raised in their ways, just without the mutation.
@@CT_Phipps yeah Ciri beats a Witcher strength character in the books one on one and is able to match Geralt’s pace when they are fighting off Nilfguardian soldiers side by side. She might not be a proper mutant Witcher but it’s fair to say she’s on or even above the level of an average Witcher in melee combat. No reason a PC in a game couldn’t be similar. If there’s fleets of female witchers that would be very lore breaking but like a pc and one other character that are “Ciri-like” wouldn’t be.
To build on those points, its also detailed that when the Wolf witches fed young Ciri the first steps of the mutagens, it jump started her puberty with implied other side effects to the female anatomy. Triss was furious with them.
Yeah that was also probably because of probability. If girls die more on average than boys, why bother with getting them, let’s get more boys. And it’s also probably as said in the video because we have different biologies.
While I appreciate the thoughtful analysis in the video, I have strong reservations about introducing female Witchers in future games or adaptations. The Witcher series is deeply rooted in its own rich, complex world, where the male-oriented nature of the Witcher profession plays a crucial role in shaping the narrative and themes. The term "witcher" itself, or "wiedźmin" in the original Polish, is inherently masculine, created by Sapkowski as a deliberate reflection of the male-dominated profession. This linguistic choice isn't just a matter of grammar, it's a core aspect of the world-building that reinforces the unique atmosphere of the series. Introducing female Witchers would require not just narrative changes, but also a fundamental shift in the language and culture of the Witcher universe, potentially disrupting the series' authenticity and internal consistency. Moreover, the brutal nature of the Trial of the Grasses is already ethically questionable when applied to boys. Expanding this to include girls could feel like an unnecessary escalation of this tragedy, overshadowing other important themes in the series. The male-oriented experience of being a Witcher is integral to the series' exploration of masculinity, isolation, and the burdens of duty. The Witcher series already excels at presenting strong, complex female characters like Yennefer, Ciri, and Triss, who challenge traditional roles without needing to be Witchers. These characters add depth to the narrative by interacting with the male-dominated world in ways that enhance the story's complexity and thematic richness. Instead of altering the fundamental aspects of the Witcher world, I believe future adaptations should focus on expanding and exploring compelling female roles within the established framework. This approach would allow for continued exploration of gender dynamics while preserving the unique identity and internal logic of the Witcher universe that fans have come to love.
I can see your point completely. Ideally there shouldn't be any major changes to these fundamental parts of the world, but I suppose if they are going to do it anyway, let's at least hope it's not a retcon. I saw an interesting idea about a group of female monster hunters trained in magic and fighting, so not mutants but still incredible monster hunters. That could be an interesting idea to explore if implemented well.
@@WitcherGeorge What aspects of there being no female witchers makes it "foundational" as opposed to say, the monsters being endangered? Cause CDPR has tons of monsters in their games and I haven't seen anyone complain about that. It sounds like a pretty huge part of the universe; that monsters are going extinct and so witchers are losing their purpose. Also helps to explain why normal peasants are so suicidal, mouthing off to the super strong, super fast murder machine- the witchers are not considered needed for society to function. But if there's a house sized carnivorous flying deer in every second valley, mouthing off to a witcher is doubly stupid- they may say "I'm out of here, you morons deal with the flying hell beast yourselves." One is seen as a betrayal of the lore the other is allowable. Why?
@@adams13245Why do people like you need for there to be female witchers? Why did all the gaming outlets crap on the witcher games for "problematic" depictions of women (aka attractive/sexy)? Why did they crap on it for not being ethnically "diverse" enough when it takes place in a Slavic medieval fantasy setting?
@@thatnobodyguy1535 And here I am thinking the Witcher games got good reviews. Apparently I was wrong. Then again considering the knee jerk hatred of minorities in major character positions " cause it impacts white male honor" I have to wonder how secure white males are with sharing major character status. After all a key sign of psychological health is not thinking the universe revolves around you.
@@thatnobodyguy1535 Cause the middle ages were well known for the health and beauty of their female population. The overwhelming majority of whom were peasants- near subsistence farmers, who spent most of their time working the fields alongside the men. Also malnutrition and disease were not a problem. Nevermind the enormous hellbeasts that steal cattle contributing to the malnutrition. And, you know attacking people and mauling their faces off. But there's something more important than historical accuracy- easing the player's sexual frustration. Hence why the fish people are depicted as big boobed pale skinned humanoids, with brass(?) bras. After all swimming through water is easy if you have two large half orbs on you chest, and so is forging metal underwater. But it's totes realistic, cause most people are ass holes.
If my memory still serves me, the mages tried girls as well, there's even a love story involving the future head of the "Cat" or "Bear" school (can't remember, sorry) and one of the girls who died in his arms.. None of the girls survived, so I guess that's when the decision was made to keep it to the boys.
yes, it would be interesting to see that one of them still uses female Witchers, but instead of them fully passing the herb test, she partially passes just like it was with Ciri, they would be weaker than a normal Wicher, but they would be easier to disguise themselves in the crowd and perform attacks without drawing unwanted attention, they could fight with humans and creatures too if necessary
@@Gr1azn000I love this, but you gotta be careful these days, mate. "Weaker than a normal Witcher." And a normal Witcher is a man. Yeah, recipe for cancelling by those freaks on twitter
@argumentativelysound2001 In my opinion the only acceptable way to incorporate female Witchers would be to introduce another Witcher school with a wildly different Trial of Grasses. It is (and always has been) established canon that each Witcher school's formulae for creating Witchers is unique, so it could be argued that a school exists on the other side of the world that did actually succeed in creating formulae that girls also can survive.
@@zecharius Yeah, as someone who is in the LGBT community, ignore the freaks on twitter. ITs nothing but nazis and people who spend more time crying about safe spaces than focusing on the real problems because they get caught in their feelings.
I mean biologically speaking female witchers just make sense to me, especially of the Cat school which is known for "tinkering with the formula". Women are more suited to short-term radical biological transformation (hello pregnancy) and mutagens are often a toss-up whether they affect women or men more strongly. The idea that the current mix favored men and another could be made that favored women is sound. I also feel like it would highlight The Witcher's themes of reproductive rights and choice if it's girls that are undergoing it, because society often has a double standard where male and female fertility are concerned. When it's girls being picked up off the street and sterilized as children, it forces people to think about why they waved this off when it was happening to boys.
I'd like to throw some extra thoughts in this as well. From established lore, Zerrikania is a highly matriarchal society with established warrior women and they even established the Manticore school as well so it is very likely that female witchers do exist just not on the continent as we know it. As well as we really only get a Geralt perspective of the world and he's really only familiar with wolf school happenings. While the wolf school is dying out we are practically unaware of the goings on of the other schools. The Griffin school is closer to Kovir than anything else and the Viper school is deep in a mountain range in Nilfgaard. We officially don't really know what some schools are capable of doing or if they've made their trials easier for others to boost their numbers.
In game and book lore there is no mention of "female witchers" but indeed in the Polish paper RPG with Dragonfly. It is in that RPG where is mentioned that the Cat School was one of the few school to train women, so if they "canonize" that for the games. It would be cool, and no issue because the School of the Cat was known for their corrupted formula of the trials and experimentation. There is also a mention of possible female Manticore Witchers in the R.Talsorian RPG which is part of the game canon by the way. And also, why a woman would be a witcher? Simple, a lot of orphan girls wouldn't become mages due to the lack of talent. So a possibility for them, could be to be witchers.
Nah, that's just diluting the lore for me. I would respect them more if they actually kept the trials part for men and women had to find their way through other means, like magic and blade skill.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere, in one of the games probably (maybe it was even Gwent: The Witcher Card Game)... - That the mages in the old time (I think Alzur was among them then) DID TRY to make witchers out of girls, but in that batch of children, all girls died during the Trial of the Grasses, and so they decided to not try any more and just go with boys. It's theoretically possible that if they kept the experiments going, EVENTUALLY one of the girls would survive, but the mages concluded that killing so many girls just to maybe have one witcher wasn't worth the price and effort. And this explanation works... I mean the mages were quite inquisitive, I would be surprised if they hadn't at least tried to make witchers out of girls. This explanation also leaves room for there to be an exception, like it's not impossible that if some mage was more ruthless/determined and didn't mind killing dozens and dozens of girls just to make one female witcher he/she would have eventually succeeded! And which Witcher school is most known for not caring much about morals? - Precisely the School of the Cat! Maybe a Cat School mage was a female hardcore feminist who really wanted to prove to all that girls are just as good at everything and eventually did just that. Maybe he/she develops a modified formula and process that specifically increases the chances of girls surviving?
Yeah let’s also remember that mages are also scientists in some way and a mad scientist could also want to experiment on girls just because they wanted to see if it was possible and what would change between the two genders
It's in one of the books, a flashback. I can't remember which one, though. It's one of the first generation witchers, and he's looking back on the initial "class". They're all given the drugs, annd all the girls (who had been doing well up to that point) basically waste away and die.
Or, if we want to go more cynically, considering it's the witcher, ye. They got to many girl orphans and instead of idk, traficking them, they used them to experiment and make female witchers. Or even worse, the tales of Ciri from between the books and games spread to other schools, so someone tried to recreate that success, with an appropriate amount of bodies left in their wake.
I don't know about your first point. I don't think it's "strength" that's a real determining factor. It seems in large part to be luck, and genetics. The strongest man (I mean boy really, the trial is done while they're still quite young, I think) isn't going to have more success, but the healthiest might. More likely, it's whoever was already going to succeed due to genetic predisposition, and managed to survive the tests before that. Even Geralt isn't what I would consider the strongest of specimens in the story, outside of his mutations. And if it's just suffering, well women have been doing that alongside men since the dawn of time. So I think it's more like a genetic lottery and the toughness to survive the training before the Trial.
If you're not healthy you won't survive the pre-trial life. And if you're a healthy young candidate you will be strong etc. This would have been widely understood a few years prior but alas...
@@Mere-Lachaiselongue But none of the candidates are in the prime of health, they're all orphans and foundlings, so it still feels like throwing kids at the wall and seeing which break through and which just fall broken. I'm not sure the Witchers process was very selective or designed to promote success, it more seemed a trial and error sort of thing. And who knows, you might pass all the pre-trial and just immediately die during the Trail itself, even they didn't know. Which makes it all the more horrifying. No wonder the Witchers are the way they are.
I remember a scene in the Books where Triss forbids The witchers to give Ciri the "green" that wichers get , beccause it would ruin ther body , just some "green" not the trail of the grases because that was out of the question in the firat place ( probably because they lost the secrets necessary for it )
@@6MyUsername9 What they do with Uma is CDPRs' version of the Trial of the Grasses (because Sapkowski never actually went into detail as to the specifics of the ingredients, etc.) and what Triss is agast at is a cocktail of pre-Trial things that inductees are given during their training - before the Trial.
But triss was thinking about Ciri’s ability to reproduce or that is what I thought she was getting at. Which is not a problem for people who don’t care about that.
For all the flack that pen and paper game gets, I think having Witcheresses originate in the School of the Cat makes a lot of sense. Besides being the first school we knew of to have non human members (See the notes in Kiyan's quest) it has been mentioned the school constantly tinkered with the formulas used to create the grasses. If anyone was going to figure out how to mutate women, it would likely be the cat school.
There's no female Witchers in the books because Ciri is the closest thing to one and the only girl they ever trained in Witcher ways (without the mutations but she has magic so there's no problem with them). Then they can add them for the School of the Lynx if they want, though. Because there's no school but the School of the Wolf in the books except for some medallions. A shit ton of lore in the games is games only, which is why the show struggled (because the writers can't read)
" *no female Witchers in the books* " There are female witchers. They are witches. That's how Polish works. Witcher (wiedźmin) is a male version of a witch (wiedźma). It's a neologism invented by Sapkowski.
Hilarious watching all these men say “There are nor will there ever be female witchers!” Uh…apparently most of you didn’t take anatomy and physiology. I want you to lift your shirt….look down at them nipps. Guess what? You were female first in your mother’s womb…why do you think males have nipples/milk glands? Not so macho now huh? 😏
Honestly, with how often trainees die during the trials, how they're hated and feared by the world at large, and how one dying a peaceful death is a fantasy, why would a woman *want* to be a Witcher? Edit: had an idea of Ciri setting up a monster slaying guild where she passes her Witcher training down to recruits. People might not want to be a Witcher because of the genetic mutations but being a professional (and potentially famous) monster slayer? Maybe.
😂 Nobody wants to be a witcher. But fans don't understand this, because it's "cool". Same as army stuff, it's fun till uncle tells you what it was to be there burning villages and bombing farms... shooting people who you were friends with just a year ago.
I think a woman would be perfect for a Witcher, especially with how much the world hates witchers. There's some good storyline and social commentary there.
I actually think they could just add female Witcher's without really contradicting much. I was scanning through Blood of Elves recently, trying to find the first reference to the Conjunction of the Spheres and ended up reading up some bits about the Trial. Calanthe didn't want Geralt to take Ciri because she didn't want them to subject her to the Trials and Triss, when meeting Ciri, actually checked her to see if she had undergone the Trial and she does believe for a little bit that they were going to try and have her undergo the Trial of Grases. This, to me, implies that female Witchers aren't completely out there. To be honest, I think the books were just so focused on Geralt that we never really got a look at Witchering on a wider scale. The original books never even names the schools from what I remember. Just said one had a Wolf medallion, the other a Cat, and another has a Eagle or Griffin medallion. I'd say with how much the games expanded Witchers they kinda enforced the idea female witchers kinda like how most people don't know there's complete and unconditional gender equality in Nilfgaard and those lands are devoid of the sexism of the North. Honestly, I don't really mind how they go about introducing female Witchers. They can be rarer, but I don't think they really need to try and explain that a new type of mutation process was created, or I wouldn't be bothered if they just added it and didn't really explain why unless it makes sense to explain it.
i mean it makes sense that they would try and improve the trial of grases so it would be less lethal eventually. it would also mean more survival rates for men.
While the scenes you mention from "Blood of Elves" do show concern for Ciri potentially undergoing Witcher trials, it's important not to overinterpret these moments as implying the possibility of female Witchers. Calanthe's concern and Triss's actions were rooted in fear for Ciri's safety, given the notorious danger of the Trials of the Grasses, even for boys. This concern doesn't suggest that female Witchers were ever a viable option within the established lore. The male-only nature of Witchers is a consistent theme throughout the books. The focus on Geralt and other male Witchers doesn't imply that female Witchers exist off-screen; instead, it reinforces the tradition of Witchers being a male profession. The term "witcher" itself, or "wiedźmin" in the original Polish, is inherently masculine, reflecting the male-oriented design of the profession. The experience of being a Witcher is deeply tied to themes of masculinity, stoicism, and isolation. These elements are not just incidental but are central to the identity of Witchers and how they interact with the world around them. The Witcher schools, being exclusively male, have created a subculture that explores the costs and contradictions of traditional masculinity in a harsh and unforgiving world. Comparing the absence of female Witchers to Nilfgaardian gender equality isn't quite accurate. The lack of female Witchers isn't just a societal issue, it's tied to the biological and magical process of mutation, which is described as being specifically designed for male physiology. Introducing female Witchers would require a significant and potentially disruptive change to this established lore. Adding female Witchers without explanation would not only break the internal consistency of the world but also raise questions about why they were never mentioned before. The Witcher series already excels in presenting strong, complex female characters who challenge traditional roles without needing to undergo the Witcher mutations. My overall perspective is that introducing female Witchers would undermine the established themes and world-building that make the series so unique. The Witcher universe is rich with opportunities to develop female characters in meaningful ways that don't compromise the male-oriented experience that is central to the identity of the Witchers.
@@chrisvega4633 I personally never really felt like the Witchers themselves were representations of masculinity, at least outside of the Wolves, as Coen is noticeably more sociable from what I remember. Really I feel like those elements of masculinity are more of a Geralt thing as I never felt like we saw enough of the others to get a full image of Witcher culture. Vizimir was kinda a grandad (maybe a little problematic but good hearted), Lambert was the annoying younger brother and Eskel was Geralt's best friend/brother. Gender themes have deminished in CDPRs take of the series. Sestemic sexism has come up a lot less and Geralt's internal struggle, I feel, also have become less explored as those internal thoughts would now need to be vocalised so occurs less often. To me it seems like the exploration of gender roles are just less common in CDPRs games making gender themes around Witchers also just weaker in their take. I don't think I was super clear but I don't think there are any female Witchers in the original books, just that I think there's enough there you can justify there existence. Sapkowski likes his strong women enough that I think he'd have included one at some point if he really wanted them definitely cannon. But I don't believe anything ,at least in the books, games or the official TTRPG, has ever definitely stated a reason for them not existing. I've heard the fact girls being biologically weaker is the reason but I've never found the source of this. In the end, it's all just opinions in the end and execution is everything. I'm sure they will give a reason if they do come into existence but I was fine with Dragonfly just existing as just a girl that survived the Trials so I myself don't personally need an explanation. (Don't really have anything to say about the word Witcher being a male Witch. I knew it just not got anything to really say about it besides a fun trivia thing. Male witches were sometimes called Warlocks, I think, and Geralt is also referred to rarely as a Warlock instead of a Witcher)
@@tomjones8859 I see where you're coming from, but I think the representation of masculinity within the Witcher culture goes beyond just Geralt. While characters like Vesemir, Lambert, and Eskel each have their own unique personalities, they all share common experiences shaped by their time at Kaer Morhen and the Trials of the Grasses. These experiences, including the physical and emotional burdens they carry, are tied to traditionally masculine traits like stoicism, resilience, and the struggle to find meaning in a world that often views them as outcasts. Even Coën, who is more sociable, still fits within this framework, shaped by the harsh realities of being a Witcher. It's true that CDPR's games might have shifted focus away from gender themes as they translated the books into a different medium, but that doesn't mean those themes are absent or unimportant in the original material. The male-oriented nature of the Witcher profession, and the fact that no female Witchers are explicitly present in the books, suggests that the trials and the life that follows are tied to these masculine experiences. While Sapkowski could have included a female Witcher if he wanted to, the fact that he didn't speaks to the specific way he envisioned the Witcher world. The absence of female Witchers isn't just a gap to be filled but part of the lore that defines what being a Witcher means. This is reflected in the very language, with "Witcher" being a term that carries masculine connotations, derived from "wiedźmin" in Polish. I agree that execution is key, but introducing female Witchers could risk altering the unique dynamics and themes that have been carefully built over the years. The Witcher universe thrives on its consistency and depth, and introducing such a fundamental change could dilute what makes it so compelling. There’s room to create strong female characters within the existing framework, without needing to alter the core identity of what it means to be a Witcher.
It’d be easy to retroactively add in female Witchers. Just treat it like they treat the experimentation of males in the Claymore manga. They tried to use both men and women but one of them had to be abandoned. In Claymore it’s due to the nature of the claymores’ powers making men less viable subjects. But you could do it with witchers where the women’s bodies had more difficulty with the trials or that it required more powerful alchemical agents or whatever so it was abandoned. Then, adding them in the new game could be as simple as someone finding the old research and bringing it back.
But that would change the lore!TM We can't have that. After all this is a world that has been built with a complete dedication to realism and internal consistency- which is why the common people constantly mouth off to the super strong super fast monster hunters. After all people with super powers are easy to oppress. And the video games totally didn't up the number of monsters to give the player something to do./s
@@jasperzanovich2504 well yeah I just mean that the male subjects were less viable specifically because they turned into monsters a lot easier than the women did. In the hypothetical for Witchers it could be any reason for not using women
Basically, every witcher school added to the lore is meant to signal the fact that witchers are a dying race. You're not exactly shown individual witchers from each school. Rather, you're told of their demise through letters and arrest warrants. Besides, little was really known about witcher schools, however, the fact that women are not compatible with the mutegeon process was outright stated. And it's not like adding witcher schools, aside from the school of the snake had significant impact on the lore. If they add female witchers for reason of inclusive though, 9 times out of 10, they are guaranteed to shove it in our face repeatedly
I personally don't mind them adding female witchers to the world but they would have to be part of like school of the Lynx or cat since we barley know anything about them.
One of the things that was made VERY clear by Vesemir is that every School has it's own Trial of the Grasses. Each potion traditionally used creates specific Witcher advantages FOR that House. Yen was taught this so she could assist him. It wouldn't be out of the lore for a different Witcher school to have found/tested/trialed a new potion that actually works on Female Bodies, especially if they had the help of powerful sorceresses helping. And we all know Yen's morals would allow her to do this. Or even if it was later on down the road, someone without a strict moral compass can try to pull this off.
@@JustAFatherlyNerdbloody hell, lad. Who hurt you? It's no skin off my neck because I usually just bang myself in most games because I look how I want to look but who's arsed really? I don't like all this wokeness but I think the other side is just as pathetic if I'm being perfectly honest. CD has retconned other schools in already and each school has different mutations to create specific kinds, so bear produces physically stronger Witchers for example. It's not massively lore breaking that a woman cropped up somewhere and even so, who really cares? So long as they don't go around filling Witcher schools with women and maybe the created character is literally the only one or something then who cares? Women aren't that scary. They're not. I've got a wife and two daughters (one is a teenager FFS). Honestly lad, you do not need this phobia of women. I get if you've tried dating via the internet or apps that they can come across scary and shallow to you. I wouldn't want to date in that way either. I'm lucky my old boss took a liking to me really because I'd never have had the bollocks to ask her out so I'm not judging but honestly if you get to know them in person they're actually alright although they never shut up
Iirc it was more or less obvious in the Books where Triss came to Kaer Morhen that they trained Ciri like an Witcher candidate and feed her special Mushrooms that Triss explained in inner thoughts for the reader are intended to enhance Ciris abilitys and prepare her body for changes like in the Trial of grasses and later got pissed that they seemed not concerned what that stuff would do to her body etc because she is female. I see that as an Indicator for 2 things. They intended to make her a witcher at least as far they can go since most of the stuff to make one got destroyed after the purge and second it may bea possibility that the changes on a female body are drastically enough to make them look more malelike. I mean there are only a few dozen witchers left and it seems they rarely do new ones. So in a ratio of 1 to 50 it may ve possible for female witchers to exist but in the current setting they are probably all dead. A other possibility like in the books is that the School of Aretusa just snatches all candidates before they can become witchers because of their magical Powers. The mages of the witcher world are petty enough to do that and dislike witchers except for all the ones that got Geralts D.
They did NOT intend to make her a Witcher. What they gave her were basically magic steroids that were fucking up with her muscle structure and organism just like any steroid would do, it was more evident with ciri however because it was fucking up with her period.
In witcher 1 there is a sort of female, witcher-based character. The salamandra mutated rayla (i guess that was her name) and turned her into a female specimen of their mutant army, i think i remember azar javed talking about that tje mutation saved her from an injury and as we know those mutants are based off of the secret formula from kaer morhen. So yea just a thought that popped up in my mind watching this video So maybe the formula could be altered and evolved to create a sort of "new witcher era" with maybe not so many difficulties and deaths and also female witchers
As a comment below had a similar thought, the only interesting way to have a female witcher would be if the plot of witcher 4 would be centered around a child that is naturally born a witcher , an anomaly of some kind for whatever reason but nonetheless that would be unique. Then you have the option to either make the character male or female. That way the plot centre isnt just that a witcher is female, but that it is the first actual natural born child with witcher genes. Then a decent idea would be that because of the new conjunction of the spheres that happens in the end of the main storyline, new species of monsters come to the world and the character can either have a mage build or witcher build (or a combination). That would justify mostly the secondary quests and contracts. Idk an the idea for a good main storyline, could be cool if someone created his personal witcher army - group and used them to start and conquering the continents. So you have to fight an "army" of manipulated witchers to get to the main villain that uses them for his own purposes. Also a good chance to finally give Geralt a legendary death, make him have a last stand against all those witchers to save the main character or something idk. That way he would ironically not die from men nor monsters, but his own kind.
The Lore is what it is, and I agree that if they make female witchers they'd need to come up with an interesting way to present it and explain it. I'd love to see a female witcher some day. For what I remember the point of surviving the trial is for child's body to resist the mutation until it has taken its course which doesn't make a lot of sense irl cause female bodies are way more enduring than male bodies so, if it was only that, then women would be better suited to be witchers or at least would have a higher survival rate. I wonder if maybe there's something to the mutagens that is particularly less harmful to a male body. That would be interesting to explore.
I think the way the books described it was both a physical and hormonal change. And I'd just like to add that it more physically induced in the sense that male bodys are more suited for surviving it same way that the female mind and body is more like it be magical in the witcher world.
there are some diseases though that are more deadly to women like coronary heart disease so maybe the Witcher mutagens effect something like that and for that reason kill women and not men (3 out of 10 times at least).
Honestly, I don't even trust Sapkowski to do this right at this point. But if he does that, writers of Polish TV series can say that they were the first.
Well we will probably have to. Current cultural forces are going to push inclusion wherever possible in every sort of media they can. I'm expecting the next Witcher to look exactly like the netflix show.
I think Ciri was the best implementation of a “female Witcher” for both the books and games. She may not be an actual Witcher because she didn’t go through the trial of grasses and get the mutations, however she was raised and trained by Witchers in the Witcher ways and she has her elder blood to give her abilities that go beyond what normal Witchers are capable of (especially in the gameplay). It respects the fact that only males can be actual Witchers but finds a way around that problem. I think if they want actual female Witchers it might be more difficult. If i recall correctly Witchers themselves are running out of work due to monsters becoming more rare. Basically even current Witchers were slowly becoming less needed so why would they need more. Not to mention that the way to make more Witchers isn’t possible due to the one who knew how is dead. So there would not only need to be a way to make Witchers again, but a reason to begin trying making females into Witchers too. I think if it was set further in the future and the monster population increased some much so that not only is there a need for new Witchers, but a need to alter the formula to have a chance to work on females as well due to desperation. Honestly I think it’s fine to have gender specific factions. Nobody has any issues with The Lodge being comprised of solely women. I don’t think a female Witcher NEEDS to be a thing.
I don't necessarily need female witchers. Because I loved playing as Gerald. But I think if the character is written well, it could be badass, like Ciri. I also think we could trust the female gender a little more in terms of resilience and pain. I mean the trials don't necessarily have anything to do with muscle strength, right? I also think young boys and young girls aren't as unequal in stength as grown men and women. Ciri also seems to handle the training well, which comes after the trials.
Yeah, a lot of this comes off as "I don't want girls in my fantasy treehouse". Boys and girls aren't much different at the time the trial of the grasses is administered, and the only reason people are so hardlined about this is because it's established lore. But lore evolves, and change is something that turbo-nerds really don't like.
@@Seoul_Soldier Bone density are higher in dudes than chicks tho, which does heavily contribute to muscle strength. this is prevalent even as children. regardless there are in lore reasons to why only boys survive the trial, and even then only 1/10 boys make the cut. Ciri is an exception because she's literally a child of prophecy, stronger than an average Witcher even. Lore reasons aside, theres no reason to change the lore outta nowhere bro. in anime, theres literally a whole genre called Magical girls, a whole genre of media that has plots where only girls, for whatever lore reasons have magic or powers and everyone's cool with it.
Actually, basicly every study shows that men are proven to have s much higher resistance to pain. I think the stereotype of women being more pain resilient comes from the fact that they menstruate... it's still false tho
Someone in the comments mentioned that a way to have a female witcher character is by making the MC be a naturally-born one (being a woman is just icing on the cake) My take is this: "Word has spread of a witcher whom, after searching for centuries for a way to cure his infertility, finally cracked the code, and sired his own blood child. Your character is said child - the Firstborn. Now, witcher schools from all corners of the land are rushing to find this Firstborn, hoping to be the first ones to take you in as their asset." As a personal note, perhaps the school could be like the Lifepaths in Cyberpunk 2077, with each school changing what characters you know from the start, your mentor, your skills and way of interacting with the world around you.
Hilarious watching all these men say "There are nor will there ever be female witchers!" Uh... apparently most of you didn't take anatomy and physiology. I want you to lift your shirt....look down at them nipps. Guess what? You were female first in your mother's womb...why do you think males have nipples/ milk glands? Not so macho now huh?
I appreciate the creativity in this concept, but I think it strays too far from what makes The Witcher unique. The series is grounded in more mundane, morally gray scenarios rather than grand mythological narratives. A "chosen one" or "miraculous birth" story feels more at home in series like The Elder Scrolls. We've already seen a destiny-driven narrative play out with Ciri's story, focusing on her Elder Blood lineage and her pivotal role in the world's fate. Introducing another character with a similar "special birth" or exceptional destiny risks rehashing these ideas and diminishing the uniqueness of Ciri's arc. The Witcher has always balanced even its grander plot elements with very human struggles and choices. The Witcher's strength lies in its exploration of the harsh realities of a pseudo-medieval world, where even magic and monsters are treated with a degree of pragmatism. The infertility of Witchers is a crucial aspect of their identity and role in society - it's not just a physical trait, but a thematic one that underscores their otherness and the price of their power. Introducing a "Firstborn" Witcher would fundamentally alter the established lore and the careful balance of power in the Witcher world. It could potentially shift the focus away from the gritty, personal stories that define the series towards a more epic, fate-driven narrative that doesn't align with The Witcher's usual tone. The idea of different Witcher schools affecting gameplay is interesting, but it could be explored without introducing such a drastic change to the lore. Perhaps a game could follow a new Witcher from one of the less-explored schools, maintaining the established world-building while offering fresh perspectives. I believe The Witcher 4 should focus on telling compelling, morally complex stories within the established framework, rather than introducing elements that could fundamentally change the nature of what it means to be a Witcher in this universe. The series' strength is in its nuanced exploration of human nature in a harsh world, not in mythological chosen ones or miraculous births. It could explore new angles within the established world - perhaps delving deeper into the politics of lesser-known regions, or examining the lives of common people in a world where monsters and magic are fading. This would allow for fresh narratives while maintaining the series' distinctive tone and themes.
If they added something like "in the early days of the Witcher creed(?) we tried to make female witchers but only one ever survived the trials so we stopped trying" could be an acceptable way of adding this to the lore without changing too much. But if they side step the lore and say "oh there have always been female witchers" then I'll have a problem.
What was said in the video combined with a comment I saw here made me think of something. George was talking about how it's already insanely difficult for boys to become Witchers to begin with, as well as the biological differences between males and females may mean that the process of making a Witcher being designed with male biology in mind (since it's even more difficult for girls to survive the initial trials, so like why bother making one with female biology in mind if it's harder for them to even survive to that point to begin with?). A potential antagonist could be trying to create more Witchers, and experimenting with another process geared with female biology in mind, but instead of like 1 out of 10 being able to do it like with boys, only like 1 out of 100 girls (or more...) will survive. So they're just burning through god knows how many young girls just to create one female Witcher. Obviously that amount of death would be bad and would need to be stopped. This could be a way of adding female Witchers without butchering the lore or just pulling that lazy @ss "hrr drr there's always been female Witchers, you're just an !ncel that hates women hrr drr" retcon/argument out of their posteriors like they're doing with Warhammer...
@@ducky36F Ciri has her own powers to make up for not being able to use all the drugs and signs a witcher normally uses, run of the mill humans would not so they would get squashed like a bug by a tough boss.
@@jackfromthejungle7538 well if you wanna do a Netflix style rewrite of the entire lore then ok but otherwise only a mage would be powerful enough to stand up to boss type enemies if we are talking non mutated run of the mill humans. Its not a slight against women...its a simple fact monsters are far more powerful than normal humans 1v1
honestly it would make sense that there are no female witcher (mutants). traditionally always men were send into battles so its possible they never even started to recruit girls, not to speak about what you said about women surviving the process, That beeing said, since we seem to get a new witcher game where you create your own witcher... i would like if they made up some reason why there is a woman at all. Dont know... a natural mutation perhaps or a daughter of the black sun. Atleast i hope they dont put countless female witchers into the world so that we start to wonder why we never heard of them before or why the very medieval world of the witcher suddenly advanced to a state where it discovered gender equality
Exactly. If CDPR does introduce female witchers or an equivalent, it should be treated as a special case and written accordingly. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be a regular thing when the lore consistently only has male witchers across multiple books and games. I’d love to see female characters as sorceresses instead-I’d definitely play that. However, I don't know how effective they would be at monster-hunting and they might spread themselves thin developing a sorceress side of the game and all the various reactions and dialogue that would come with it.
@@prettyflacko2607 i actually would love a story about a daughter of the black sun. They even have a adaptive ability apperently (renfri became immune to most magic) so there would be a direct idea for a level-up system
it’s the witcher. they’re not going to suddenly make female witchers be a majority like males r. use ur brain a little. ofc they’re gonna execute it well as they always so
@@CorvoThan Traditionally, yes. But you gotta remember that Witcher isn't set in OUR world. It's a fantasy world, they're not gonna follow how societies work here beat-for-beat.
@@TheFLAMEXD theoretical you are right of couse and in terms of the sorcerers is the answer of couse yes (magic is an equalizing force in my eyes), but the rest of the world seems to fit more or less medieval stereotype (boys inherite before girls, women leading an army are viewed as something peculiar, etc.). of couse this doesnt mean that a group of rebellious sorcerers didnt decided to upgrade the mutation process or cure the infertility in witchers (in fact two alchemists may already have done so on geralt which means there could be children of him male or female who are born witchers). i just say that it makes sense that they didnt even thought about recruiting girls in the beginning which fits our experience in the books and the games. hopefully they explain why they suddenly create witchers of both genders(even though all witchers we know have neither intention nor ability of ever creating new witcher) or even better they just say that there are now natural born ones(the last point was actually prepared over two games so i actually would like that one)
Personally I think it is possible that there could be female witchers in the future if Geralt's discovery in Blood and Wine get to the right hands, but then again monsters are almost extinct and even witchers themselves such as those from School of Wolves don't even want to recruit more children so I don't see the point of making more witchers, letting alone female witchers.
I guess it's because the Witchers are in part the special forces of the world the Witcher is set in. In real life, incredibly fit women try out for the SAS and Navy SEALS every year but none have qualified due to the physical demand. If CDPR ignores this for the sake of DEI, it'll diminish the product. The idiosyncrasies of The Witcher are what make it unique and interesting. There are central lore reasons the sorceresses have power, just as there are lore reasons the Witchers do as well. If CDPR deconstructs this, the product is no longer the Witcher and instead becomes a generic 21st-century fantasy product.
CDPR has already fallen just like all other big game companies. They weren't anything special it. Be glad we got unfucked products in The Witcher 2 and 3.
Sadly I believe Witcher 3 will be the last real Witcher game. They may release a new one but CDPR has become wokeified to an unhealthy point. Just wait to hear that Sweet Baby is a partner for the next game CDPR does. 🤣😂🤣
I have no doubts that Witcher 4 will be a game filled with DEI and all the modern far-left politics stuff. CDPR already signed a contract with the devil when they accepted ESG. It's over. Witcher 3 is the last good Witcher game.
As far as I am aware they tried but females never survived the ordeal. They died in the early stages of the process of becoming a Witcher. I have read it in the books (I forgot which one. I think it was the first or second one since in one of them talk about it but I might remember wrong), I have read it in Witcher 3. Simply put, the female body cannot survive the pain for which their body has not evolved to survive. P.S: I am just sick of adding a female counterpart for everything. I am so sick of it.
Blarg!!!!!! I'm angry woman yelling you men are weak and women are stronger, my hair is short like a man and I am overweight , but I'm clearly stronger and more capable of being a witcher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol 😅
Its not unattended just extremely unlikely, the process of making a human a mutant means pushing the body to the absolute limits its crucial in fact if it was adapted in anyway of being lighter or less life threatening its probably simply wouldn't work as well if at all, i dont imagine that vesemir and his brother's would subject children to such life threatening torture if wasn't completely necessary even with how morally gray they were back then if it could be easier it would be or thats what i think at least
Exactly, thing is that they wouldnt dare have a female Witcher with potential to have the body count that Gerault had either so its really not realistic considering the circumstances.
I agree, I mean it's already bad enough we have "female" Custodes thanks to these woke SJW amoebas, it'd be much worse if they decide to pull a "there has always been female Witchers"
@@perjulianlundbergtande8956 The difference is that there have always been female spartans in Halo, whereas it has been known for a long time that there were no female witchers.
Could work with the right explanation, let’s remember what Vilgefortz wanted to do with ciri. It wouldn’t be impossible for a insane person to want to experiment if girls actually can become witchers
On average, 1 out of 10 boys makes it through all the trials and becomes a full-fledged Witcher. For girls, it be 1 out of 100 girls. Don't know about you, but killing 99 little girls for one Witcheress vs 9 boys for one Witcher... its not just about the numbers.
It's painful to watch this with him stuttering so he doesn't say something that is not "politically correct" for 2024. It's actually pretty simple thing Witcher (male) is from the word Witch (female) 🥶
Real. The word "Witcher" comes from the Polish term "wiedźmin," which Sapkowski deliberately created as a masculine derivative of "wiedźma" (witch, female). Sapkowski's intention was to emphasize the male-oriented nature of the profession, with "wiedźmin" being distinct and inherently masculine, reflecting the unique role Witchers play in the world he built.
@@ducky36FIt's said mockingly by her sadistic captor. I'd be cool with a Ciri led game, & with her operating as a witcher. But adding female witchers would just be the same agenda driven progressive DEI crap that's being shoved into everything. And I'm so freakin' sick of it.
I real like the idea of a new Witcher school started by Ciri that includes male and female witchers . Since Yen has already with the trial of the grasses it’s not too crazy of a leap to think that Ciri and Yen could have developed mutagens and elixirs that would suit both genders. A lot of the information on how Witchers were created was lost when Vesemir was a young man and Gerault was a child. I definitely think that if anyone could devise a well thought out lore reason to include female Witchers CDPR could do it. Perhaps female “Witchers” can be just a specialized kind of sorceress with a larger focus on signs, alchemy, and stealth.
Let's also emphase on the difference between , witcher as a job, and Witcher as mutants Geralt is both Ciri is only as a job Let's say "anyone" can be a witcher as a Job, like Leo the apprentice at the beggining of the first game, he had the swords and signs but no mutations. But probably that only mens can be Witchers as mutants, but since the process of making Witchers is lost.
It’s not as serious as some are making it. I understand why it was written like that at first but surely a few female Witchers isn’t gonna collapse the whole universe. I like your idea I think it could allow for different types of witchers to exist and maybe a female Witcher has different skills. Maybe relying more on magic and spells than the male Witcher. I see it as a way to expand 🤷🏽♀️ like you said they don’t necessarily have to created by the same process.
I'm glad this video popped up on my recommended page. I've never played the witcher games (nor read the books or bothered with the tv series) and the biggest reason for that is that you're forced to play as a set male character. (I might be weird, but I just find it hard to enjoy playing games as a set character, especially a male) So I've been hoping for Witcher 4 to have a character creator and the option to create a female. I didn't know about the lore making that nigh impossible, but I would think that with the state the gaming industry is in, a female witcher will still be an option in Witcher 4 as it's more important today to be "inclusive" than being lore accurate. For new players like me and others not familiar with the lore, it wouldn't matter, but for old fans of the series it can only be hoped they make a good reason for it to be possible.
As the witcher potions have triggered hormonal problems in Ciri, it can be assumed that an unnaturally high testosterone level is produced when one mutates into a witcher. This would have extremely negative health effects for women, particularly on their heart and circulatory system. So even if the mutation were successful in a woman, it would severely weaken her instead of making her stronger.
@@aleeeeeeexoxo The very fact that you use the word “scientifically” instead of “biologically” or “medically” in this context shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.
@@alexdornenherzciri would just become a man (im talking about hormones and stuff) i think in the blood of the elves its stated that ciri stoped having periods becouse of the potions and a lot of exercises
Including Geralt in the new Witcher is worrying me. I hope they do a completely new original Witcher as the protagonist, no female Witcher BS, no Ciri (she is not a real Witcher and her story was concluded with Geralt in Witcher 3) and definitely not some random character creation, none of these is a good idea. Cdpr have proven many times that they can create a completely new well written characters like the bloody baron, Gaunter, Olgierd and the rest of the Witcher DLCs characters/cyberpunk characters.
thats basically been my headconaon forever now. 1 female witcher isn't worth possibly 100s of dead children, vs the 1 or 2 in 10 boys. i did have an idea during the video that some people wont like but I think its very interesting. please correct me if I'm wrong about how anything works. essentially what if before the trial of the grasses, they started introducing male hormones to young girls before they start the mutation prosses, to basically start a transition in a female witcher trainee to possibly help her chances in becoming a withcer. if they wanted to introduce female witchers, I think this is totally a way it could be explained in the lore.
Exactly the explanation can exist 100%, however we just need to hope that it isn’t written by someone with the experience of the Netflix series writers. Seeing how the cyberpunk dlc turned out however, I think we’re in good hands.
Considering males in real life are not better at surviving diseases, chemotherapy or venoms, *and* that they try the trails on boys as young as ten, I highly doubt the actual reason is testosterone. Women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases, so it could be that the immune system is what kills the girls. The again, at an average age of 13... sex differences are really not that pronounced yet. It might be something with a far more simpler genetic base. Seeing as the trail of grasses varies between Witcher schools, it's always possible one got "lucky" so to speak, but there may also be nothing you could do to girls to make them pass the wolf trail.
If CDPR really wants to include a female MC , i would go with two main playable characters one a witcher man and a sorceress woman. And player could choose to play as either of them. It could bring up different missions , scenarios, add some drama between them. And second run would be a little bit different experience.
Judging on how women are treated in the Witcher universe, I think it would be even crueler to make female Witchers. They would never be taken seriously in the Witcher universe, at least by most people. People would constantly be trying to take advantage of them. If the occasional idiot thinks it's smart to try and deny a male witcher their reward, I'd imagine they'd be even bolder with a female witcher.
@@sebastianpijov8708you make it seem as if it would be so easy. These are beings with faster reflexes and inherent boost. You think a female witcher wouldn’t behead a person trying to rape them? Seriously
witchers are big on "start shit, get hit" so I don't imagine that would be a problem that lasts very long If you can handle yourself against a monster, you can handle yourself against a human
@@serrasedai Have you never played the games? That's never stopped dumb peasants from trying to kill a witcher over a contract reward, they do it all the time. Just look at the quest "Where the Cat and Wolf Play". Tried to kill the witcher for no reason other than they didn't want to pay.
Maybe a breakthrough was made, a new herb or mushroom was found that mitigated whatever was killing them before. Maybe a particularly brilliant botonist cross pollinated species of grasses that improved the formula. As an old cannabis grower from back in the day I can say that that is highly feasible (pun intended 🤭). Crossing grasses is what we did.
Like in history with warriors, it's not that no woman could ever be a warrior, but if serious things depended on having the most phisically strong and phisically and mentally tough person, who would you choose? Same with withchers. They would never choose the worse and the more risky option for diversity's sake, like in today's society...
I have The Witcher PnP game, and while running it for a group of friends, I did a side story where the characters came across a new school of Witchers, that were both male and female. A group of Mages and a Witcher from the school of the Cat were planning on making a Witcher "strike force" that specialized not only in monster hunting, but human assassination as well. It turned out really well and we had a lot of fun with it. Since then it has become obscure "cannon lore" at our table. I also approached it with the idea that the normal Trial of the Grasses was not designed for women, and so the Mages and their Witcher ally modified the mutagens and the process to create a Trial of the Lily, along side the Trial of the Grasses for this school, the School of the Spider.
For me the issue with a female Witcher is that it's lore breaking and beyond that, simply that the gameplay would be so different from what I want in a Witcher game. Taking contracts and using potions, signs and a sword is a key aspect of the gameplay loop, and it's something I want to see expanded on. I would love a game set in the Witcher universe that revolves other people besides Witchers, like sorceresses for example. But Those should be spin off games, not mainline titles imo.
So women can't read, or drink, or use magic (except sorceresses) and they cannot fight with a sword- except Ciri's already got one. What about the monster population rebound in the games, does that count as "lore breaking?" Or is it only when minorities are involved?
whole problem is game publishers incompetent to decide on making entirely new fresh games, instead they rather recycle and abuse existing lores for their profit
This is a preemptive strike at what we known they’re going to do. At this point, I just hope the writing is good. Wokeness kills everything it touches.
Or they could just respect Sapkowskis work and keep witchers men. Women don't need to be a part of every single masculine space that exists. Mages are already predominantly women in the witcher universe and are significantly higher on the power scale to the point they laugh at a witchers signs. Let men just be witchers lol
If the female Witchers were in the School of the Cat, that School being heavily Elven centric, it would stand to reason that most if not ALL female Witchers were Elven Witchers. The Elves are a dying breed. And the School of the Cat has been pretty much wiped out. Odds are that all of the female Witchers and the few wizards/sorceresses in the School of the Cat who knew how to perform the mutations died when their School was attacked. Therefore, the knowledge of how to create a female Witcher has been lost, so no new female Witchers.
The Trial of the Grasses is an infamously painful, body-altering ordeal that can last days. I think it stands to reason women should be pretty well-suited to that.
The issue is the fact that, according to the series’s lore, the Trial of the Grasses was actually tested on women and it always killed them, and only a handful of men can go through it and survive. This is further reinforced by the fact that Ciri is already significantly harmed by the few herbs and elixirs she takes without undertaking the full trial, something Triss makes a point of. The Witcher seems to have made a well established point that the Trial of Grass all Witchers take is always fatal to women, likely for a biological reason. I agree with the point made at the end of the video though, there’s nothing stopping PCDR from coming up with a different process similar to the Trial of Grass for a new group of female Witchers, and I think they could come up with an interesting origin story and game by doing that. They don’t need to break the preexisting lore, they can just add to it.
@@zachmercer1065 okay, i went and checked the infamous parts about triss and ciri in kaer mohren - there's nothing suggesting that it would have killed ciri, triss is pissed of at the training but bcos how bruised ciri is and that they completely missed the fact that she's getting periods. triss mentions several times that the mushrooms and greens they're giving her are not causing mutations or hormonal changes, that they are accelerants, and the issue she has with them is that they make the fat tissue distribute differently - so if continued ciri would end up with more masculine figure, which could be an issue if she wanted to have a normal life as a woman later on. but the stuff that they were giving her (so not the trial of grasses, but some preparation to it) doesn't seem to be, like lethal, she wasn't harmed by it.
@@zachmercer1065 I'm no lore expert, though I have seen people debate the meaning of the text you're referencing to an extent that, I'm prepared to say, leaves it ambiguous. That said, on principle I'm with you and George with regard to retconning lore. If your fantasy world keeps fundamentally changing in unpredictable ways, immersion becomes impossible. I mostly bristle at the suggestion that the reason women can't be witchers is because they can't handle the prolonged pain. Even if Sapkowski were to explicitly say that's his reason, I would tell him his reason sucks.
I don't think that it's needed. Is there some sort of "male crisis", that women are needed to become witchers? I see it reasonable to make the process easier so more men can survive it, but i fail to see why would they try to make it female specific.
If its actually trying to become a witcher. Aside from physical characteristics, doesn't it vaguely say that female pheromones or something can prevent a transformation from the mutagens? They could try to become witchers without them, but it would he harder.
For me, first "addition" of "female Witchers" to any Witcher media was the Polish TV show from 2002. I am personally against it, especially if CDPR decides to go with character creator in the Witcher 4, and you are able to be female Witcher from the start. This would be not acceptable for me. But who knows how ESG points would benefit CDPR by doing that.
When it comes to canon, I look at the canon of The Witcher the same way that I look at Tolkien or George Lucas and their respective works - if it wasn't written by them, or under their express direction and agreed upon by them, then it's not canon. I LOVE the Witcher games...but I know they're not canon, and that's ok. For me it's as simple as - Sapkowski wrote it such that witchers are always men, so his intention is clear. Personally I think most of the resistance to the idea of female witchers isn't due to the idea of a female witcher in and of itself, but entirely because people know the ONLY reason it'd be done is by the type of ideologues that are in charge of modern media and insist on shoving diversity into LITERALLY EVERYTHING even if it doesn't fit long established canon or even make sense based on the context of the world the story is set in. They've been beating this drum for over a decade now and most people are just over the nonsense and want to go back to just having good stories and no more of ideologues injecting their personal politics into everyone elses escapism.
Exactly what the games did right was to adapt the books while keeping creative freedom and making sense story-wise. A good explanation for like a female Witcher can exist, I already thought of one which would be great in my opinion if they go for the character creation, from both a gameplay side of things and a roleplay side.
"Injecting personal politics into everyone else's escapism". Dude, the Witcher has politics in it and it's one of the most left-wing fantasy stories, especially in Poland.
As opposed to your ideology that, in a world of ravenous giant beasts and magical sorcerors women cannot be allowed into a formerly male order. Cause there totally couldn't be some magic or substance that boosts people's strength to survive the trials, no siree. That would go against your preconceived ideology that women cannot be introduced into a formerly male order... cause sexism.
I mean they could make a female Witcher similar to Ciri. A girl that was trained by witchers but never underwent the trials. Someone raised and trained by witchers would still be a ridiculously good swordswoman
"There always was a female witcher, she was just hidden in a secret base under the prismatic ocean wich only appear once every hunderd years you just did not know and there like 100 of them"
Because of the survival rate of male recruits is very low, and that's because they're stronger than the rest, and that female recruits have never survived the first few trials in the first attempts is why there's no female witchers (and why there's been no attempts since those first attempts). That said, it doesn't mean it's a true zero percent chance a female recruit could survive all the way to being a full on witcher, it's just so small that the risk of attempting doesn't make it worth it. Like, out of ten boys, only three survive, while out of ten girls, none survive... So, we know it's a 3 out of every 10 boys survive, it could mean it's 1 out of every 100 or 1000 girl would survive. This is why no attempts were made beyond those first few attempts. While CDPR could absolutely say "yeah, this female witcher was an extremely lucky recruit", there's still going to be a few that'll be mad about it. It'll largely be how they write her that'd ease people about such a character. Not writing her as a Mary Sue would be the first step.
For the love of all that's decent, cdpr better not go woke and force females into the role. You did a great job explaining why MEN are more likely to survive the trials.
I only know lore from the games as I am in the process of reading the books. But my running theory at the moment is that we will see the start of another world shattering crisis like the conjunction of spheres happens again and there is now an increased need for Witchers. The process of creating new Witchers is constantly harped on as an almost lost art form. No school in current lore seems to be making new Witchers, we get the sense that Witchers are a dying breed. So now we need more Witchers to fight the increased number/ new monsters, and while we have bits and pieces of how to make Witchers with the progress in magic maybe we can make men and women Witchers now. If we still want the original Witchers to be special then we can say that there are draw backs to these new Witchers that make them not as strong. Mirroring Halo in a way in how they have generations of Spartans that are all a little different based on how they were made. But that's just my theory on how they could take the new games.
What a sad state the world is in when one must spend nearly two minutes explaining how the sexes are different. What was once obvious now requires explanation as to not offend people. Great video overall ❤
So you can accept a fantasy world, where there are Dragons, Werewolves, magic, Giant frogs, Elves that can teleport. But female Witchers are beyond your comprehension... Its fantasy ya genius
Actually, the strongest women in the world, are stronger than very few men. Just look at the story of Venus and Serena Williams vs Karsten Braasch. Two of the most powerful female athletes of all time got absolutely crushed by a mediocre, middle aged, male athlete who spent his morning warmup smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Kaarsten probably wouldn't survive the Witcher mutation process.
I really don't care or couldn't care less. They could just say that the new Lynx School decided to recruit girls into the school and only a few survive the Mutations. Or they could put 2 Classes. Witcher, Male, uses Signs and Gadgets. And Sorceress, Female, uses a variety of different types of Spells. Or just have it be Ciri as the Main Character.
I'd be fine if they introduce female witchers. The way I see it, they can be trained like Ciri and be called witchers in name alone. No need to use the mutagens on them. They call Ciri witcher girl in the books, so I think that would be a nice medium.
We know that someone was experimenting on witchers in the blood and wine dlc. They were trying to remove the mutagens from his son, but he strengthened them instead so they could have it where a mage somewhere was experimenting on people and using the witcher trials to gain something. But in the process they made a new version of the trial that works difficult from the older version that is just as or more painful than the old one but has a 100% success rate. This way they can change the power system and make it make sense. We know from the base game mages do experiment on people not all but some so that mage did on both genders.
Just gonna say what many of us are thinking. There are NO female Witchers. If the creator of the Witcher universe never authorized it then it doesn’t exist. If the gaming universe tries to pull the cheap trick that the idiots in Gamers Workshop did with the whole “there have always been female custodes” then I’m fucking done cause that’s bullshit. There are no female Witchers There are no female custodes There are no female astartes SIMPLE
So I guess we can throw out the games since they changed the monster population, and that's against the sacred lore! Come to think of it I hope Ciri made a cameo in the first book, otherwise she is a change to the lore and must be excised. After all consistency is the height of quality!/s Also where did GW say there were no female custodes, since they're made with a different process to space marines? Or are you too stupid to note that the nobles of Tera sending their sons to become custodes doesn't preclude them also sending their daughters?
My friend; on a universe where Vampires exist, Elves, Dwarf, portals, and a very long etc I imagine there must be more than one logical solution to the herbs problem.
It’s a Witcher game, but she’s not a Witcher. She’s going to be a sorcerer like she’s always been. I don’t see how that’s going to work. They’re pushing feminism so bad they’re deciding to do this.
Meanwhile ciri literally being the protagonist of half the books. Stop taking shitty writers as an example for stories and think about good writers that can actually write.
I like the idea that some time in the near future, after rediscovering the trial of the grasses cause it was lost for some time, new witchers wanted to make the process more survivable while not compromising on results and ended up figuring out a way to make the process also viable for girls instead and now witchers in general are faster and more nimble than they were, and maybe heal faster, on average while still being just as strong overall (so long as they survive) so in the end it not only broadens the selection pool and diversify the witcher schools but it's upgrades all around too
There was a blind witcher by the name of Warrit the all seeing, a school of the viper who used a enchanted version of Supirre (witcher sign that boosts hearing that only appeared in the books) to basically become daredevil.
Only boys can go through the transitions, i am a 60 year old granny and my husband and I (he is 65) both play and love Witcher, Pubg and many other games. It keeps our minds sharp and gives us a laugh especially at all those who cheat in Pubg and we still manage to kick their arse 🤣🤣🤣
in the books i think it happens in blood of elves when they were giving ciri the serum to become a witcher she started her period and that plus the serum was killing her slowly and the triss merigold stepped in and made them stop
The "Female Witcher problem" is more complex than it might initially appear. It's not about whether women could hypothetically undergo the mutations, but about the broader implications for the established lore and themes of The Witcher universe. 1. Linguistic foundations: The term "wiedźmin" (Witcher) was specifically created in Polish as a masculine counterpart to "wiedźma" (witch). This linguistic choice reflects the intentional world-building of the series. 2. Thematic elements: The all-male nature of Witchers allows for exploration of specific themes related to masculinity, isolation, and societal roles within the context of a pseudo-medieval Slavic-inspired world. 3. Established lore: Introducing female Witchers would require significant changes to the core identity of the Witcher profession and the world's cultural dynamics, potentially altering fundamental aspects of the story universe. 4. Existing strong female characters: The series already features powerful women who face unique challenges and contribute meaningfully to the story without being Witchers. 5. Cultural context: The Witcher is deeply rooted in Slavic mythology and culture, where certain roles and professions were traditionally gender-specific. The issue isn't about limiting female characters, but about maintaining the integrity and internal consistency of a carefully crafted fantasy world. There are many ways to explore and expand female roles in The Witcher universe without changing the core concept of what a Witcher is in this world.
@@chrisvega4633 Well thought out argument Mr. Vega; but the fact is that Ciri is a Witcher by right, if not "The Witcher" of the story and the game. Ciri is the Lady of Time and Space. You maintain a Creative hard line, I do not; and that is fine. There is a very good chance that The Witcher 4 is going to be about Ciri.
@@MrMonoyo I appreciate the respectful discussion, but I need to correct a misconception here. Ciri is not a Witcher "by right" - she underwent some Witcher training at Kaer Morhen, but never went through the mutations that define what it means to be a Witcher. Even in the Witcher ending of The Witcher 3, she's a Witcher in name only, taking up the profession without the fundamental biological and magical changes that truly make someone a Witcher. This isn't about maintaining a "creative hard line," it's about understanding the fundamental aspects of what makes a Witcher in this universe. Ciri is her own unique character - the Lady of Time and Space, as you mentioned, and someone who forged her own path distinct from both Witchers and sorceresses. This is what makes her special. She doesn't need to be a Witcher to be significant to the story; in fact, her unique position as someone between multiple worlds (both literally and figuratively) is part of what makes her character compelling. Regarding The Witcher 4, while Ciri could certainly appear in the game, making her the protagonist would present several challenges: 1. Her immense powers would be difficult to balance in gameplay without feeling contrived 2. CDPR would need to canonize one of The Witcher 3's endings 3. Her story arc has largely been concluded in a satisfying way 4. The game is reportedly centered around the School of the Lynx, suggesting a new Witcher protagonist Aditionally, for many of us who've followed the books, we've experienced much of Ciri's story through Geralt's paternal perspective. This creates an emotional connection that makes it uncomfortable to play her in a role-playing game that might include romance options or similar adult content. Even in The Witcher 3, the Ciri segments were already uncomfortable for many book readers, particularly the implications surrounding her relationship with Skjall. It's similar to how many viewers felt uncomfortable with certain scenes involving Arya Stark in Game of Thrones' final season - when you've watched a character grow up through a father figure's eyes, it can be difficult to shake that perspective, and potentially problematic content becomes even more unsettling. It's not about being creatively inflexible, but about maintaining the internal consistency and narrative integrity that makes The Witcher series compelling. The series can evolve and grow while still respecting its established foundations. A new protagonist could allow for fresh storytelling opportunities without the baggage of existing character relationships and concluded story arcs.
I'm reminded of Dragon Age: Origins' trial, where its very similar to what goes on for creating a Witcher, but in a form that's more potion-like (speaking to avoid spoilers for a 2008/9 game). I think, if Ciri or another were to create a new school with a new method, it might look something like Dragon Age: Origins with a potion of some kind. From what I've seen and heard, the sorceress process has a lot in common, and both the Witcher process and Sorceress process seem to leave the subject sterile, and unable to reproduce. I have no idea what that would do to someone with Ciri's particular powers, but we'll have to see.
Logically speaking, shouldn't girls be just as strong when they go through these trials? Those happen in early puperty, if I am remembering correctly, when girls are often actually even stronger than boys because they start into puperty earlier and grow faster because of that.
Actually girls starting puberty early is a modern "problem". Of course there are going to be exceptions and other factors to consider but bottom line kids back then should've on average hit puberty later and be weaker than kids today. Not that there's anything wrong with a girl witcher but I do think they back themselves into a corner.
Some additional thoughts. Although I see no inherent issue with expanding on the witcher's lore in future games to allow for this, I adamantly oppose retconning previous lore. Further, although I agree there is no inherent issue with this addition it would largely depend on the motivations and implementation of doing so. For example, does it serve the story? Does it detract from established lore? Is it keeping in theme with the established setting and basic principles of the world? There are already so many incredible female characters in the witcher (Ciri, Yennefer, Triss, Philippa, Saskia, Cerys), is it necessary to make this change?
As I said it would massively depend on the story going forward. I think a group of female monster hunters could be an interesting concept, but do they have to be witchers? Or would it be better to be monster hunters (assuming it's in the past or after another conjunction) trained in the ways of magic and combat? There is no clear 'wrong' answer, but depending on the way the games develop, the 'wrong' or 'right' answer may reveal itself. CDPROJEKTRED should just be focusing on writing a good story with compelling characters in an established universe, if the story takes them this way organically it could be interesting, but it's all about motivation and implementation.
With all the mages having fled to Kovir, and Keira pairing off with a witcher, I can imagine scholarly research into witcher mutagens could start up again. Keira and some other mages could potentially make the mutations safer, more endurable, especially since the Lynx medallion that was teased implies a new witcher school.
As an addition to this, if we get a newer more humane Witcher school, maybe it could be achieved by introducing the mutations over time, rather than all at once. This would allow for a really interesting progression system in a future witcher game.
I honestly thought that the reason why only males could become witchers was because our DNA is technically mutated to become male when in the womb, therefore we already have a susceptibility to mutations and could handle more.
In The Witcher RPG journal of Erving of Larvik, He does mention they tried to mutate girls along with boys, but for some reason, they all died. The Cat school witcheress Dragonfly, from that old rpg, makes sense to me, with how much the Cat's tinkered with the mutagens. Couple that with the fact they are the only school confirmed to let nonhumans become witchers, it wouldn't be a shock that they figured out how to mutate women successfully and therefore let them train.
The other schools probably just never bothered that hard, especially since it's not as if male and female witchers could breed and have children to pass the trade onto, with the sterility side effect. They probably just went with the original method and since that didn't work on girls, they just never bothered trying again, unlike the cats.
@@elfang0r Makes sense. I know some witchers can be ruthless, but if you bring in a batch of girls to undergo mutation and all of them die, probably painfully, with no exception, I'm pretty sure most would have just straight up decided not to subject more girls to that sort of thing.
In Kaer Morhen they started Ciri on some herbs and elixirs, never intending for her to go through the full trial and even those herbs and elixirs were enough to have negative effects on her, according to Triss. Their herbs and elixirs were created to work with male biology
Couldn't they just find or make some that would be compatible with female biology? Or maybe even study a mutation that turns females into hermaphrodites?
It's never specified in the books that the herbs were created "to work with male biology". Don't invent things where there aren't.
They were stunting her puberty, now that she’s adult it’s not an issue. This actually happens in real life if you have too much of certain vitamins
If memory serves, those 'negative effects' were purely cosmetic, and Triss' concern was that Ciri would look less feminine as a result.
Oh yeah I remember the page where triss gave the witchers an earful
In the books it actually says that the Trial massively alters their hormones and Triss is really bothered that the Witchers gave Ciri even the precursor mushrooms because she was worried that it would mess up her development.
I think in large part that was also because the Witchers didn't know wtf they were doing, and Triss was dumbfounded they didn't think of the differences in her being a girl. Whether that means it cannot be done without harming development is ambiguous though, so far as I know.
It would have messed up a guys development too. Those grasses were basically magic steroids and were fucking up Ciri’s menstruation cycle, of course Triss would be angry
@@giuseppesagona7522 they weren’t giving her the actual grasses, just precursor mushrooms that help strengthen the body.
@@zmasterrahlg yeah i didnt really remember what they actually were described as
Witchers were definitely unsure what to do with a girl. But I think the main reason why witchers didn't made her go through the Trial of the grasses was the fact that she was the princess of Cintra (and the Elder Blood) - they couldn't risk killing her. Same reason why Triss was upset - messing with Ciri's development and (potentially) ability to reproduce could have massive political implications (and magical implications). If she was just some random girl, it's quite likely that none of them would care that much.
If the next Witcher game has character creation, this is an interesting dilemma. Here’s one way it could be approached. If you play as a man, you are a Witcher. If you’re a woman, you are a sorceress. A Witcher can still use magic, while a sorceress can still use swords. For example, while Ciri has magical powers, she has trained with the ability to use swords.
Yeah there’s no reason you can’t be a woman who is not an offical “Witcher”. Sorcerers and Sorceresses in the Witcher world might not be witchers but they still have the capability of magically enhancing themselves. And Ciri can go toe to toe with men and monsters without “officially” being a Witcher.
Well that or the plot ppint is that the player character is a natural born witcher. One of the giys wasnt as sterile as they thought- now he has a daughter/son
@@CorvoThan I rather like this idea, actually. It's happened before (I believe) and bound to happen again. Like the Spartan 1.1s from Halo lore. Children of the original Orion Project candidates.
@@CorvoThanthat is a cool idea actually
@@CorvoThan that's a really cool idea! i never thought of that, but would be interesting to explore and angle like this. having the mutations literally in their bloodline - would that make them more or less of a witcher. and would be an interesting angle of why the pc is unique in the overall plot, while still giving players the chance to create their own character
I swear to GOD if they do a "there's always been female custodians"
This is a big concern. Going back and changing the lore in this way is frustrating for fans invested in the established world.
@@WitcherGeorge It's gonna be just like Star Wars, CDPR hired a woke alphabet cult activist where their only goal is to push an agenda. Guaranteed the next Witcher game will be very very woman centric, they will kill Geralt horribly and disrespectfully and make all women ugly. It's gonna be Last of Us 2 all over again.
Such a slap in the face to the customer would guarantee Witcher 4 would flop hard.
@@WitcherGeorge but like, cdpr has literally changed so much of the lore already. all the witcher school were not in the books except wolf and griffin. like the lore has been changed numerous times and fans have been fine with it. but in this case its too far, i wonder why
Eh 40k gets retcons every other edition. The Primaris, the complete overhaul of the Necrons. Taking 40k as some unchangeable block of lore is just going to anger you. So long as the retcon doesn't ruin a story or plotline I think its ok to retcon a detail. Like let's be honest the female custodians added nothing.
I like the idea that women can't become witchers. I mean actual mutants. It makes Ciri feel special as she is not fully witcher, but is trained like one. Maybe she does become the founder of a witcher-like school of sword weilding sorceresses, I think that would be really cool
Sorceresses trained with swords would be so cool 😭
I would love this! If they did do a character creator, they could do something like Dragon Age: Origins where by selecting your gender would have you start out either at a traditional Witcher school(most likely the wolf), or Ciri’s new school.
Yeah I'd be down if she started her own school of spellswords
if cdpr do wanna incorporate female witchers, a cool narrative way would be for our Witcher to investigate the disspaperonces of young girls only to find out they've been taken as part of a new trail the antagonist is trying to create (not sure what the motive would be though).
i'm willing to accept women witchers, only if they make them hot AF and show lots of skin and body physics and never censor the game.
i don't want none of this ESG-DEI agenda nonsense infecting the game, just straight up good game good gameplay good story and sexy females and your choice in which outfits she wears.
if they can do this, they have my full blessing.
Holy shit that could also work if you want to do a custom protagonist. In the prologue if you chose male you’re investigating these disappearances with your master and slowly uncover this mad scientist’s plan. If you’re female you live through a day in your village/city/whatever only to then be abducted and we see the whole process of being turned into a Witcher, in this case your objective would be to escape the dungeon and maybe if they want the figure of the master to show up you would be eventually saved by him.
Cool. But that would make female witchers a bad thing (or at least the motive behind making them a bad thing) unless they are all gonna be victims that need to be saved.
@@giuseppesagona7522 Or don't even choose and have noth characters. In that scenario it only makes sense that both characters would be playable
@@sphong0610well all women claim perpetual victim hood so I guess that would make sense. Too bad no other aspect of it would.
It’s explicitly stated in the lore that women can’t become witcher’s. The reason for this is unclear (could be because they are physically weaker, or hormonal…) but when Alzur created witcher’s they did experiment with young girls but they all died and it became clear that they did not adept wel to the trial of the grasses.
And even the boys only 3 out of 10 of the strongest boys survived. So to become a Witcher you have to be a very unique individual to begin with. Not anyone can become one.
This is the same for sorceresses/sorcerers, only difference is that they are born with the gift of magic and don’t need to undergo the trial of the grasses.
So if all of a sudden they decide in the new games to put in a female witcher then that is like taking a huge stinky dung on the source material. Why even? There are enough super op and badass women in the continent that could wipe the flour with any witcher.
They better come up with a very good explanation if they choose to do so but i’m against it.
Yeah, but Ciri is basically a female Witcher as her whole thing. I don't mean because of Witcher 3 but because she's raised in their ways, just without the mutation.
Correction: 3 out of 10.
@@CT_Phipps yeah Ciri beats a Witcher strength character in the books one on one and is able to match Geralt’s pace when they are fighting off Nilfguardian soldiers side by side. She might not be a proper mutant Witcher but it’s fair to say she’s on or even above the level of an average Witcher in melee combat. No reason a PC in a game couldn’t be similar. If there’s fleets of female witchers that would be very lore breaking but like a pc and one other character that are “Ciri-like” wouldn’t be.
To build on those points, its also detailed that when the Wolf witches fed young Ciri the first steps of the mutagens, it jump started her puberty with implied other side effects to the female anatomy. Triss was furious with them.
Yeah that was also probably because of probability. If girls die more on average than boys, why bother with getting them, let’s get more boys. And it’s also probably as said in the video because we have different biologies.
In the original Hexer show their was a group of female Witchers, but that show was loose with Witcher lore.
While I appreciate the thoughtful analysis in the video, I have strong reservations about introducing female Witchers in future games or adaptations. The Witcher series is deeply rooted in its own rich, complex world, where the male-oriented nature of the Witcher profession plays a crucial role in shaping the narrative and themes.
The term "witcher" itself, or "wiedźmin" in the original Polish, is inherently masculine, created by Sapkowski as a deliberate reflection of the male-dominated profession. This linguistic choice isn't just a matter of grammar, it's a core aspect of the world-building that reinforces the unique atmosphere of the series. Introducing female Witchers would require not just narrative changes, but also a fundamental shift in the language and culture of the Witcher universe, potentially disrupting the series' authenticity and internal consistency.
Moreover, the brutal nature of the Trial of the Grasses is already ethically questionable when applied to boys. Expanding this to include girls could feel like an unnecessary escalation of this tragedy, overshadowing other important themes in the series. The male-oriented experience of being a Witcher is integral to the series' exploration of masculinity, isolation, and the burdens of duty.
The Witcher series already excels at presenting strong, complex female characters like Yennefer, Ciri, and Triss, who challenge traditional roles without needing to be Witchers. These characters add depth to the narrative by interacting with the male-dominated world in ways that enhance the story's complexity and thematic richness.
Instead of altering the fundamental aspects of the Witcher world, I believe future adaptations should focus on expanding and exploring compelling female roles within the established framework. This approach would allow for continued exploration of gender dynamics while preserving the unique identity and internal logic of the Witcher universe that fans have come to love.
I can see your point completely. Ideally there shouldn't be any major changes to these fundamental parts of the world, but I suppose if they are going to do it anyway, let's at least hope it's not a retcon. I saw an interesting idea about a group of female monster hunters trained in magic and fighting, so not mutants but still incredible monster hunters. That could be an interesting idea to explore if implemented well.
@@WitcherGeorge What aspects of there being no female witchers makes it "foundational" as opposed to say, the monsters being endangered? Cause CDPR has tons of monsters in their games and I haven't seen anyone complain about that. It sounds like a pretty huge part of the universe; that monsters are going extinct and so witchers are losing their purpose. Also helps to explain why normal peasants are so suicidal, mouthing off to the super strong, super fast murder machine- the witchers are not considered needed for society to function. But if there's a house sized carnivorous flying deer in every second valley, mouthing off to a witcher is doubly stupid- they may say "I'm out of here, you morons deal with the flying hell beast yourselves." One is seen as a betrayal of the lore the other is allowable. Why?
@@adams13245Why do people like you need for there to be female witchers? Why did all the gaming outlets crap on the witcher games for "problematic" depictions of women (aka attractive/sexy)? Why did they crap on it for not being ethnically "diverse" enough when it takes place in a Slavic medieval fantasy setting?
@@thatnobodyguy1535 And here I am thinking the Witcher games got good reviews. Apparently I was wrong. Then again considering the knee jerk hatred of minorities in major character positions " cause it impacts white male honor" I have to wonder how secure white males are with sharing major character status. After all a key sign of psychological health is not thinking the universe revolves around you.
@@thatnobodyguy1535 Cause the middle ages were well known for the health and beauty of their female population. The overwhelming majority of whom were peasants- near subsistence farmers, who spent most of their time working the fields alongside the men. Also malnutrition and disease were not a problem. Nevermind the enormous hellbeasts that steal cattle contributing to the malnutrition. And, you know attacking people and mauling their faces off. But there's something more important than historical accuracy- easing the player's sexual frustration. Hence why the fish people are depicted as big boobed pale skinned humanoids, with brass(?) bras. After all swimming through water is easy if you have two large half orbs on you chest, and so is forging metal underwater. But it's totes realistic, cause most people are ass holes.
If my memory still serves me, the mages tried girls as well, there's even a love story involving the future head of the "Cat" or "Bear" school (can't remember, sorry) and one of the girls who died in his arms.. None of the girls survived, so I guess that's when the decision was made to keep it to the boys.
yes, it would be interesting to see that one of them still uses female Witchers, but instead of them fully passing the herb test, she partially passes just like it was with Ciri, they would be weaker than a normal Wicher, but they would be easier to disguise themselves in the crowd and perform attacks without drawing unwanted attention, they could fight with humans and creatures too if necessary
@@Gr1azn000I love this, but you gotta be careful these days, mate. "Weaker than a normal Witcher." And a normal Witcher is a man. Yeah, recipe for cancelling by those freaks on twitter
@argumentativelysound2001 In my opinion the only acceptable way to incorporate female Witchers would be to introduce another Witcher school with a wildly different Trial of Grasses.
It is (and always has been) established canon that each Witcher school's formulae for creating Witchers is unique, so it could be argued that a school exists on the other side of the world that did actually succeed in creating formulae that girls also can survive.
@@zecharius Yeah, as someone who is in the LGBT community, ignore the freaks on twitter. ITs nothing but nazis and people who spend more time crying about safe spaces than focusing on the real problems because they get caught in their feelings.
@@zecharius A normal Witcher *is* a man that's not cancelable it's how it works
I mean biologically speaking female witchers just make sense to me, especially of the Cat school which is known for "tinkering with the formula". Women are more suited to short-term radical biological transformation (hello pregnancy) and mutagens are often a toss-up whether they affect women or men more strongly. The idea that the current mix favored men and another could be made that favored women is sound.
I also feel like it would highlight The Witcher's themes of reproductive rights and choice if it's girls that are undergoing it, because society often has a double standard where male and female fertility are concerned. When it's girls being picked up off the street and sterilized as children, it forces people to think about why they waved this off when it was happening to boys.
I'd like to throw some extra thoughts in this as well.
From established lore, Zerrikania is a highly matriarchal society with established warrior women and they even established the Manticore school as well so it is very likely that female witchers do exist just not on the continent as we know it. As well as we really only get a Geralt perspective of the world and he's really only familiar with wolf school happenings. While the wolf school is dying out we are practically unaware of the goings on of the other schools. The Griffin school is closer to Kovir than anything else and the Viper school is deep in a mountain range in Nilfgaard. We officially don't really know what some schools are capable of doing or if they've made their trials easier for others to boost their numbers.
I mean if they are matriarchal. Doesn't that give them more reason to not risk women to the trial of grass?
It doesn't make sense to boost numbers with women, you will be just culling your population, sacrificing women is idiotic
@@JikuriNot necessarily, as even patricarchal socieities would risk men becoming witchers anyway.
@TheFLAMEXD What are you on? They already DID! TO THIS DAY!
In game and book lore there is no mention of "female witchers" but indeed in the Polish paper RPG with Dragonfly. It is in that RPG where is mentioned that the Cat School was one of the few school to train women, so if they "canonize" that for the games. It would be cool, and no issue because the School of the Cat was known for their corrupted formula of the trials and experimentation.
There is also a mention of possible female Manticore Witchers in the R.Talsorian RPG which is part of the game canon by the way.
And also, why a woman would be a witcher? Simple, a lot of orphan girls wouldn't become mages due to the lack of talent. So a possibility for them, could be to be witchers.
Nah, that's just diluting the lore for me. I would respect them more if they actually kept the trials part for men and women had to find their way through other means, like magic and blade skill.
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere, in one of the games probably (maybe it was even Gwent: The Witcher Card Game)...
- That the mages in the old time (I think Alzur was among them then) DID TRY to make witchers out of girls, but in that batch of children, all girls died during the Trial of the Grasses, and so they decided to not try any more and just go with boys.
It's theoretically possible that if they kept the experiments going, EVENTUALLY one of the girls would survive, but the mages concluded that killing so many girls just to maybe have one witcher wasn't worth the price and effort.
And this explanation works... I mean the mages were quite inquisitive, I would be surprised if they hadn't at least tried to make witchers out of girls.
This explanation also leaves room for there to be an exception, like it's not impossible that if some mage was more ruthless/determined and didn't mind killing dozens and dozens of girls just to make one female witcher he/she would have eventually succeeded! And which Witcher school is most known for not caring much about morals? - Precisely the School of the Cat!
Maybe a Cat School mage was a female hardcore feminist who really wanted to prove to all that girls are just as good at everything and eventually did just that.
Maybe he/she develops a modified formula and process that specifically increases the chances of girls surviving?
Yeah let’s also remember that mages are also scientists in some way and a mad scientist could also want to experiment on girls just because they wanted to see if it was possible and what would change between the two genders
headcannon
@@giuseppesagona7522headcanon is not real.Speak real things
It's in one of the books, a flashback. I can't remember which one, though. It's one of the first generation witchers, and he's looking back on the initial "class". They're all given the drugs, annd all the girls (who had been doing well up to that point) basically waste away and die.
Or, if we want to go more cynically, considering it's the witcher, ye. They got to many girl orphans and instead of idk, traficking them, they used them to experiment and make female witchers.
Or even worse, the tales of Ciri from between the books and games spread to other schools, so someone tried to recreate that success, with an appropriate amount of bodies left in their wake.
I don't know about your first point. I don't think it's "strength" that's a real determining factor. It seems in large part to be luck, and genetics. The strongest man (I mean boy really, the trial is done while they're still quite young, I think) isn't going to have more success, but the healthiest might. More likely, it's whoever was already going to succeed due to genetic predisposition, and managed to survive the tests before that. Even Geralt isn't what I would consider the strongest of specimens in the story, outside of his mutations. And if it's just suffering, well women have been doing that alongside men since the dawn of time. So I think it's more like a genetic lottery and the toughness to survive the training before the Trial.
Yes! I was thinking this the entire time he was talking about strength.
The younger they do the trials, the less the disparity in physicality will be pronounced due to less hormonal development.
@@Tracker947 That's fair, though I suppose they have to ride the line between survivability and potential.
If you're not healthy you won't survive the pre-trial life. And if you're a healthy young candidate you will be strong etc. This would have been widely understood a few years prior but alas...
@@Mere-Lachaiselongue But none of the candidates are in the prime of health, they're all orphans and foundlings, so it still feels like throwing kids at the wall and seeing which break through and which just fall broken. I'm not sure the Witchers process was very selective or designed to promote success, it more seemed a trial and error sort of thing. And who knows, you might pass all the pre-trial and just immediately die during the Trail itself, even they didn't know.
Which makes it all the more horrifying. No wonder the Witchers are the way they are.
I remember a scene in the Books where Triss forbids The witchers to give Ciri the "green" that wichers get , beccause it would ruin ther body , just some "green" not the trail of the grases because that was out of the question in the firat place ( probably because they lost the secrets necessary for it )
Yes. You are correct.
So what were they doing to Uma? I thought that was the trial of the grasses. Admittedly it's been awhile since I've played
@@6MyUsername9 What they do with Uma is CDPRs' version of the Trial of the Grasses (because Sapkowski never actually went into detail as to the specifics of the ingredients, etc.) and what Triss is agast at is a cocktail of pre-Trial things that inductees are given during their training - before the Trial.
But triss was thinking about Ciri’s ability to reproduce or that is what I thought she was getting at. Which is not a problem for people who don’t care about that.
yeah, i think the context is that they want to ciri have a normal life after that, not that it would actually kill her.
For all the flack that pen and paper game gets, I think having Witcheresses originate in the School of the Cat makes a lot of sense.
Besides being the first school we knew of to have non human members (See the notes in Kiyan's quest) it has been mentioned the school constantly tinkered with the formulas used to create the grasses.
If anyone was going to figure out how to mutate women, it would likely be the cat school.
this would rip so hard lets be real 😭 the more i think about it the more dope it is LOL
There's no female Witchers in the books because Ciri is the closest thing to one and the only girl they ever trained in Witcher ways (without the mutations but she has magic so there's no problem with them). Then they can add them for the School of the Lynx if they want, though. Because there's no school but the School of the Wolf in the books except for some medallions. A shit ton of lore in the games is games only, which is why the show struggled (because the writers can't read)
also because the tv show writers held legit contempt for anyone who could read and chose to unironically.
" *no female Witchers in the books* "
There are female witchers. They are witches. That's how Polish works. Witcher (wiedźmin) is a male version of a witch (wiedźma). It's a neologism invented by Sapkowski.
Hilarious watching all these men say “There are nor will there ever be female witchers!” Uh…apparently most of you didn’t take anatomy and physiology. I want you to lift your shirt….look down at them nipps. Guess what? You were female first in your mother’s womb…why do you think males have nipples/milk glands? Not so macho now huh? 😏
@@bakters Which is why they're called Sorceresses as their official name.
@@bakters😂😂😂 Witcher and witch not same stupid
Honestly, with how often trainees die during the trials, how they're hated and feared by the world at large, and how one dying a peaceful death is a fantasy, why would a woman *want* to be a Witcher?
Edit: had an idea of Ciri setting up a monster slaying guild where she passes her Witcher training down to recruits. People might not want to be a Witcher because of the genetic mutations but being a professional (and potentially famous) monster slayer? Maybe.
😂 Nobody wants to be a witcher. But fans don't understand this, because it's "cool". Same as army stuff, it's fun till uncle tells you what it was to be there burning villages and bombing farms... shooting people who you were friends with just a year ago.
Why would a man want to be a Witcher? are the two genders not capable of having the same wants?
Ciri was fine with it for a year or whatever.
Because she is a strong independent woman
I think a woman would be perfect for a Witcher, especially with how much the world hates witchers. There's some good storyline and social commentary there.
I actually think they could just add female Witcher's without really contradicting much. I was scanning through Blood of Elves recently, trying to find the first reference to the Conjunction of the Spheres and ended up reading up some bits about the Trial. Calanthe didn't want Geralt to take Ciri because she didn't want them to subject her to the Trials and Triss, when meeting Ciri, actually checked her to see if she had undergone the Trial and she does believe for a little bit that they were going to try and have her undergo the Trial of Grases.
This, to me, implies that female Witchers aren't completely out there. To be honest, I think the books were just so focused on Geralt that we never really got a look at Witchering on a wider scale. The original books never even names the schools from what I remember. Just said one had a Wolf medallion, the other a Cat, and another has a Eagle or Griffin medallion. I'd say with how much the games expanded Witchers they kinda enforced the idea female witchers kinda like how most people don't know there's complete and unconditional gender equality in Nilfgaard and those lands are devoid of the sexism of the North.
Honestly, I don't really mind how they go about introducing female Witchers. They can be rarer, but I don't think they really need to try and explain that a new type of mutation process was created, or I wouldn't be bothered if they just added it and didn't really explain why unless it makes sense to explain it.
i mean it makes sense that they would try and improve the trial of grases so it would be less lethal eventually. it would also mean more survival rates for men.
@@aleeeeeeexoxo To be fair, that is true
While the scenes you mention from "Blood of Elves" do show concern for Ciri potentially undergoing Witcher trials, it's important not to overinterpret these moments as implying the possibility of female Witchers.
Calanthe's concern and Triss's actions were rooted in fear for Ciri's safety, given the notorious danger of the Trials of the Grasses, even for boys. This concern doesn't suggest that female Witchers were ever a viable option within the established lore.
The male-only nature of Witchers is a consistent theme throughout the books. The focus on Geralt and other male Witchers doesn't imply that female Witchers exist off-screen; instead, it reinforces the tradition of Witchers being a male profession. The term "witcher" itself, or "wiedźmin" in the original Polish, is inherently masculine, reflecting the male-oriented design of the profession.
The experience of being a Witcher is deeply tied to themes of masculinity, stoicism, and isolation. These elements are not just incidental but are central to the identity of Witchers and how they interact with the world around them. The Witcher schools, being exclusively male, have created a subculture that explores the costs and contradictions of traditional masculinity in a harsh and unforgiving world.
Comparing the absence of female Witchers to Nilfgaardian gender equality isn't quite accurate. The lack of female Witchers isn't just a societal issue, it's tied to the biological and magical process of mutation, which is described as being specifically designed for male physiology. Introducing female Witchers would require a significant and potentially disruptive change to this established lore.
Adding female Witchers without explanation would not only break the internal consistency of the world but also raise questions about why they were never mentioned before. The Witcher series already excels in presenting strong, complex female characters who challenge traditional roles without needing to undergo the Witcher mutations.
My overall perspective is that introducing female Witchers would undermine the established themes and world-building that make the series so unique. The Witcher universe is rich with opportunities to develop female characters in meaningful ways that don't compromise the male-oriented experience that is central to the identity of the Witchers.
@@chrisvega4633 I personally never really felt like the Witchers themselves were representations of masculinity, at least outside of the Wolves, as Coen is noticeably more sociable from what I remember. Really I feel like those elements of masculinity are more of a Geralt thing as I never felt like we saw enough of the others to get a full image of Witcher culture. Vizimir was kinda a grandad (maybe a little problematic but good hearted), Lambert was the annoying younger brother and Eskel was Geralt's best friend/brother.
Gender themes have deminished in CDPRs take of the series. Sestemic sexism has come up a lot less and Geralt's internal struggle, I feel, also have become less explored as those internal thoughts would now need to be vocalised so occurs less often. To me it seems like the exploration of gender roles are just less common in CDPRs games making gender themes around Witchers also just weaker in their take.
I don't think I was super clear but I don't think there are any female Witchers in the original books, just that I think there's enough there you can justify there existence. Sapkowski likes his strong women enough that I think he'd have included one at some point if he really wanted them definitely cannon. But I don't believe anything ,at least in the books, games or the official TTRPG, has ever definitely stated a reason for them not existing. I've heard the fact girls being biologically weaker is the reason but I've never found the source of this.
In the end, it's all just opinions in the end and execution is everything. I'm sure they will give a reason if they do come into existence but I was fine with Dragonfly just existing as just a girl that survived the Trials so I myself don't personally need an explanation.
(Don't really have anything to say about the word Witcher being a male Witch. I knew it just not got anything to really say about it besides a fun trivia thing. Male witches were sometimes called Warlocks, I think, and Geralt is also referred to rarely as a Warlock instead of a Witcher)
@@tomjones8859
I see where you're coming from, but I think the representation of masculinity within the Witcher culture goes beyond just Geralt. While characters like Vesemir, Lambert, and Eskel each have their own unique personalities, they all share common experiences shaped by their time at Kaer Morhen and the Trials of the Grasses. These experiences, including the physical and emotional burdens they carry, are tied to traditionally masculine traits like stoicism, resilience, and the struggle to find meaning in a world that often views them as outcasts. Even Coën, who is more sociable, still fits within this framework, shaped by the harsh realities of being a Witcher.
It's true that CDPR's games might have shifted focus away from gender themes as they translated the books into a different medium, but that doesn't mean those themes are absent or unimportant in the original material. The male-oriented nature of the Witcher profession, and the fact that no female Witchers are explicitly present in the books, suggests that the trials and the life that follows are tied to these masculine experiences.
While Sapkowski could have included a female Witcher if he wanted to, the fact that he didn't speaks to the specific way he envisioned the Witcher world. The absence of female Witchers isn't just a gap to be filled but part of the lore that defines what being a Witcher means. This is reflected in the very language, with "Witcher" being a term that carries masculine connotations, derived from "wiedźmin" in Polish.
I agree that execution is key, but introducing female Witchers could risk altering the unique dynamics and themes that have been carefully built over the years. The Witcher universe thrives on its consistency and depth, and introducing such a fundamental change could dilute what makes it so compelling. There’s room to create strong female characters within the existing framework, without needing to alter the core identity of what it means to be a Witcher.
If you want female witchers, add Ciri's elder blood to the Trial of the Grasses formula and have a Sorceress cast some crazy spells during. Trust me.
👍 bro! 😂
It’d be easy to retroactively add in female Witchers. Just treat it like they treat the experimentation of males in the Claymore manga. They tried to use both men and women but one of them had to be abandoned.
In Claymore it’s due to the nature of the claymores’ powers making men less viable subjects. But you could do it with witchers where the women’s bodies had more difficulty with the trials or that it required more powerful alchemical agents or whatever so it was abandoned. Then, adding them in the new game could be as simple as someone finding the old research and bringing it back.
But that would change the lore!TM We can't have that. After all this is a world that has been built with a complete dedication to realism and internal consistency- which is why the common people constantly mouth off to the super strong super fast monster hunters. After all people with super powers are easy to oppress. And the video games totally didn't up the number of monsters to give the player something to do./s
"Less viable" in this context means that the process turns them into actual monsters instead of superhumans.
@@jasperzanovich2504 Is this claymore or the witcher? Cause several commentors here have said even the pre grassy stuff masculinized Ciri.
@@jasperzanovich2504 well yeah I just mean that the male subjects were less viable specifically because they turned into monsters a lot easier than the women did. In the hypothetical for Witchers it could be any reason for not using women
Basically, every witcher school added to the lore is meant to signal the fact that witchers are a dying race. You're not exactly shown individual witchers from each school. Rather, you're told of their demise through letters and arrest warrants. Besides, little was really known about witcher schools, however, the fact that women are not compatible with the mutegeon process was outright stated. And it's not like adding witcher schools, aside from the school of the snake had significant impact on the lore. If they add female witchers for reason of inclusive though, 9 times out of 10, they are guaranteed to shove it in our face repeatedly
I personally don't mind them adding female witchers to the world but they would have to be part of like school of the Lynx or cat since we barley know anything about them.
One of the things that was made VERY clear by Vesemir is that every School has it's own Trial of the Grasses. Each potion traditionally used creates specific Witcher advantages FOR that House. Yen was taught this so she could assist him. It wouldn't be out of the lore for a different Witcher school to have found/tested/trialed a new potion that actually works on Female Bodies, especially if they had the help of powerful sorceresses helping. And we all know Yen's morals would allow her to do this. Or even if it was later on down the road, someone without a strict moral compass can try to pull this off.
There aren't any female Witchers, the end.
@@JustAFatherlyNerdOh jeez, calm down.
@@JustAFatherlyNerdbloody hell, lad. Who hurt you? It's no skin off my neck because I usually just bang myself in most games because I look how I want to look but who's arsed really? I don't like all this wokeness but I think the other side is just as pathetic if I'm being perfectly honest. CD has retconned other schools in already and each school has different mutations to create specific kinds, so bear produces physically stronger Witchers for example. It's not massively lore breaking that a woman cropped up somewhere and even so, who really cares? So long as they don't go around filling Witcher schools with women and maybe the created character is literally the only one or something then who cares? Women aren't that scary. They're not. I've got a wife and two daughters (one is a teenager FFS). Honestly lad, you do not need this phobia of women. I get if you've tried dating via the internet or apps that they can come across scary and shallow to you. I wouldn't want to date in that way either. I'm lucky my old boss took a liking to me really because I'd never have had the bollocks to ask her out so I'm not judging but honestly if you get to know them in person they're actually alright although they never shut up
@@me5969 Probably a woman hurt them and now they're taking it out on the Witcher, lol
@@JustAFatherlyNerdlmao who hurt you man 🤣
Iirc it was more or less obvious in the Books where Triss came to Kaer Morhen that they trained Ciri like an Witcher candidate and feed her special Mushrooms that Triss explained in inner thoughts for the reader are intended to enhance Ciris abilitys and prepare her body for changes like in the Trial of grasses and later got pissed that they seemed not concerned what that stuff would do to her body etc because she is female. I see that as an Indicator for 2 things. They intended to make her a witcher at least as far they can go since most of the stuff to make one got destroyed after the purge and second it may bea possibility that the changes on a female body are drastically enough to make them look more malelike. I mean there are only a few dozen witchers left and it seems they rarely do new ones. So in a ratio of 1 to 50 it may ve possible for female witchers to exist but in the current setting they are probably all dead.
A other possibility like in the books is that the School of Aretusa just snatches all candidates before they can become witchers because of their magical Powers. The mages of the witcher world are petty enough to do that and dislike witchers except for all the ones that got Geralts D.
They did NOT intend to make her a Witcher. What they gave her were basically magic steroids that were fucking up with her muscle structure and organism just like any steroid would do, it was more evident with ciri however because it was fucking up with her period.
In witcher 1 there is a sort of female, witcher-based character.
The salamandra mutated rayla (i guess that was her name) and turned her into a female specimen of their mutant army, i think i remember azar javed talking about that tje mutation saved her from an injury and as we know those mutants are based off of the secret formula from kaer morhen.
So yea just a thought that popped up in my mind watching this video
So maybe the formula could be altered and evolved to create a sort of "new witcher era" with maybe not so many difficulties and deaths and also female witchers
Rayla? Like the soldier from Kaedwen who died during Nilfgaards invasion?
As a comment below had a similar thought, the only interesting way to have a female witcher would be if the plot of witcher 4 would be centered around a child that is naturally born a witcher , an anomaly of some kind for whatever reason but nonetheless that would be unique. Then you have the option to either make the character male or female. That way the plot centre isnt just that a witcher is female, but that it is the first actual natural born child with witcher genes. Then a decent idea would be that because of the new conjunction of the spheres that happens in the end of the main storyline, new species of monsters come to the world and the character can either have a mage build or witcher build (or a combination). That would justify mostly the secondary quests and contracts. Idk an the idea for a good main storyline, could be cool if someone created his personal witcher army - group and used them to start and conquering the continents. So you have to fight an "army" of manipulated witchers to get to the main villain that uses them for his own purposes. Also a good chance to finally give Geralt a legendary death, make him have a last stand against all those witchers to save the main character or something idk. That way he would ironically not die from men nor monsters, but his own kind.
The Lore is what it is, and I agree that if they make female witchers they'd need to come up with an interesting way to present it and explain it. I'd love to see a female witcher some day. For what I remember the point of surviving the trial is for child's body to resist the mutation until it has taken its course which doesn't make a lot of sense irl cause female bodies are way more enduring than male bodies so, if it was only that, then women would be better suited to be witchers or at least would have a higher survival rate. I wonder if maybe there's something to the mutagens that is particularly less harmful to a male body. That would be interesting to explore.
I think the way the books described it was both a physical and hormonal change. And I'd just like to add that it more physically induced in the sense that male bodys are more suited for surviving it same way that the female mind and body is more like it be magical in the witcher world.
there are some diseases though that are more deadly to women like coronary heart disease so maybe the Witcher mutagens effect something like that and for that reason kill women and not men (3 out of 10 times at least).
Unless the creator of TW verse states that Women can be made into Witcher's, then I refuse to accept that they can.
Honestly, I don't even trust Sapkowski to do this right at this point. But if he does that, writers of Polish TV series can say that they were the first.
Well we will probably have to. Current cultural forces are going to push inclusion wherever possible in every sort of media they can. I'm expecting the next Witcher to look exactly like the netflix show.
That’s like saying “Unless George Lucas states that StormTroopers can be good, Finn shouldn’t exist”. We should allow creatives to make good changes
@@fareflight2029 The more this "inclusivity" is push, the more I resent it and push back.
@@Eesh_ Changing the lore is not making creative changes. It's blatantly rewriting what is already established as fact within that World.
I think Ciri was the best implementation of a “female Witcher” for both the books and games.
She may not be an actual Witcher because she didn’t go through the trial of grasses and get the mutations, however she was raised and trained by Witchers in the Witcher ways and she has her elder blood to give her abilities that go beyond what normal Witchers are capable of (especially in the gameplay). It respects the fact that only males can be actual Witchers but finds a way around that problem.
I think if they want actual female Witchers it might be more difficult. If i recall correctly Witchers themselves are running out of work due to monsters becoming more rare. Basically even current Witchers were slowly becoming less needed so why would they need more. Not to mention that the way to make more Witchers isn’t possible due to the one who knew how is dead. So there would not only need to be a way to make Witchers again, but a reason to begin trying making females into Witchers too.
I think if it was set further in the future and the monster population increased some much so that not only is there a need for new Witchers, but a need to alter the formula to have a chance to work on females as well due to desperation.
Honestly I think it’s fine to have gender specific factions. Nobody has any issues with The Lodge being comprised of solely women. I don’t think a female Witcher NEEDS to be a thing.
I don't necessarily need female witchers. Because I loved playing as Gerald. But I think if the character is written well, it could be badass, like Ciri.
I also think we could trust the female gender a little more in terms of resilience and pain. I mean the trials don't necessarily have anything to do with muscle strength, right? I also think young boys and young girls aren't as unequal in stength as grown men and women. Ciri also seems to handle the training well, which comes after the trials.
Correct. The big physical changes happen during puberty. Before that boys and girls are very equal in physical ability
Yeah, a lot of this comes off as "I don't want girls in my fantasy treehouse". Boys and girls aren't much different at the time the trial of the grasses is administered, and the only reason people are so hardlined about this is because it's established lore. But lore evolves, and change is something that turbo-nerds really don't like.
@@Seoul_Soldier1000000%
@@Seoul_Soldier Bone density are higher in dudes than chicks tho, which does heavily contribute to muscle strength. this is prevalent even as children. regardless there are in lore reasons to why only boys survive the trial, and even then only 1/10 boys make the cut. Ciri is an exception because she's literally a child of prophecy, stronger than an average Witcher even.
Lore reasons aside, theres no reason to change the lore outta nowhere bro. in anime, theres literally a whole genre called Magical girls, a whole genre of media that has plots where only girls, for whatever lore reasons have magic or powers and everyone's cool with it.
Actually, basicly every study shows that men are proven to have s much higher resistance to pain. I think the stereotype of women being more pain resilient comes from the fact that they menstruate... it's still false tho
I agree with you for the most part but if the Witcher 4 has a character creator and you can make a female Witcher i'm completely fine with that.
Someone in the comments mentioned that a way to have a female witcher character is by making the MC be a naturally-born one (being a woman is just icing on the cake)
My take is this:
"Word has spread of a witcher whom, after searching for centuries for a way to cure his infertility, finally cracked the code, and sired his own blood child. Your character is said child - the Firstborn. Now, witcher schools from all corners of the land are rushing to find this Firstborn, hoping to be the first ones to take you in as their asset."
As a personal note, perhaps the school could be like the Lifepaths in Cyberpunk 2077, with each school changing what characters you know from the start, your mentor, your skills and way of interacting with the world around you.
Hilarious watching all these men say "There are nor will there ever be female witchers!" Uh... apparently most of you didn't take anatomy and physiology. I want you to lift your shirt....look down at them nipps. Guess what? You were female first in your mother's womb...why do you think males have nipples/ milk glands? Not so macho now huh?
I appreciate the creativity in this concept, but I think it strays too far from what makes The Witcher unique. The series is grounded in more mundane, morally gray scenarios rather than grand mythological narratives. A "chosen one" or "miraculous birth" story feels more at home in series like The Elder Scrolls.
We've already seen a destiny-driven narrative play out with Ciri's story, focusing on her Elder Blood lineage and her pivotal role in the world's fate. Introducing another character with a similar "special birth" or exceptional destiny risks rehashing these ideas and diminishing the uniqueness of Ciri's arc. The Witcher has always balanced even its grander plot elements with very human struggles and choices.
The Witcher's strength lies in its exploration of the harsh realities of a pseudo-medieval world, where even magic and monsters are treated with a degree of pragmatism. The infertility of Witchers is a crucial aspect of their identity and role in society - it's not just a physical trait, but a thematic one that underscores their otherness and the price of their power.
Introducing a "Firstborn" Witcher would fundamentally alter the established lore and the careful balance of power in the Witcher world. It could potentially shift the focus away from the gritty, personal stories that define the series towards a more epic, fate-driven narrative that doesn't align with The Witcher's usual tone.
The idea of different Witcher schools affecting gameplay is interesting, but it could be explored without introducing such a drastic change to the lore. Perhaps a game could follow a new Witcher from one of the less-explored schools, maintaining the established world-building while offering fresh perspectives.
I believe The Witcher 4 should focus on telling compelling, morally complex stories within the established framework, rather than introducing elements that could fundamentally change the nature of what it means to be a Witcher in this universe. The series' strength is in its nuanced exploration of human nature in a harsh world, not in mythological chosen ones or miraculous births. It could explore new angles within the established world - perhaps delving deeper into the politics of lesser-known regions, or examining the lives of common people in a world where monsters and magic are fading. This would allow for fresh narratives while maintaining the series' distinctive tone and themes.
If they added something like "in the early days of the Witcher creed(?) we tried to make female witchers but only one ever survived the trials so we stopped trying" could be an acceptable way of adding this to the lore without changing too much. But if they side step the lore and say "oh there have always been female witchers" then I'll have a problem.
Well thats pretty much true, in the lore they tried using girls and they ended up severely disfigured and died shortly after
What was said in the video combined with a comment I saw here made me think of something. George was talking about how it's already insanely difficult for boys to become Witchers to begin with, as well as the biological differences between males and females may mean that the process of making a Witcher being designed with male biology in mind (since it's even more difficult for girls to survive the initial trials, so like why bother making one with female biology in mind if it's harder for them to even survive to that point to begin with?). A potential antagonist could be trying to create more Witchers, and experimenting with another process geared with female biology in mind, but instead of like 1 out of 10 being able to do it like with boys, only like 1 out of 100 girls (or more...) will survive. So they're just burning through god knows how many young girls just to create one female Witcher. Obviously that amount of death would be bad and would need to be stopped. This could be a way of adding female Witchers without butchering the lore or just pulling that lazy @ss "hrr drr there's always been female Witchers, you're just an !ncel that hates women hrr drr" retcon/argument out of their posteriors like they're doing with Warhammer...
would make sense for a playable female character to be only a mage
I think having a game exploring life at aretuza (or ban ard etc if you choose male), court and further adventures would also be great
Why? Mages arent exclusively female? So why shoould females exclusively be mages?
Ciri is still practically a Witcher if not officially. No reason they couldn’t make a pc similar.
@@ducky36F Ciri has her own powers to make up for not being able to use all the drugs and signs a witcher normally uses, run of the mill humans would not so they would get squashed like a bug by a tough boss.
@@jackfromthejungle7538 well if you wanna do a Netflix style rewrite of the entire lore then ok but otherwise only a mage would be powerful enough to stand up to boss type enemies if we are talking non mutated run of the mill humans. Its not a slight against women...its a simple fact monsters are far more powerful than normal humans 1v1
honestly it would make sense that there are no female witcher (mutants). traditionally always men were send into battles so its possible they never even started to recruit girls, not to speak about what you said about women surviving the process,
That beeing said, since we seem to get a new witcher game where you create your own witcher... i would like if they made up some reason why there is a woman at all. Dont know... a natural mutation perhaps or a daughter of the black sun. Atleast i hope they dont put countless female witchers into the world so that we start to wonder why we never heard of them before or why the very medieval world of the witcher suddenly advanced to a state where it discovered gender equality
Exactly. If CDPR does introduce female witchers or an equivalent, it should be treated as a special case and written accordingly. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be a regular thing when the lore consistently only has male witchers across multiple books and games. I’d love to see female characters as sorceresses instead-I’d definitely play that. However, I don't know how effective they would be at monster-hunting and they might spread themselves thin developing a sorceress side of the game and all the various reactions and dialogue that would come with it.
@@prettyflacko2607 i actually would love a story about a daughter of the black sun. They even have a adaptive ability apperently (renfri became immune to most magic) so there would be a direct idea for a level-up system
it’s the witcher. they’re not going to suddenly make female witchers be a majority like males r. use ur brain a little. ofc they’re gonna execute it well as they always so
@@CorvoThan Traditionally, yes. But you gotta remember that Witcher isn't set in OUR world. It's a fantasy world, they're not gonna follow how societies work here beat-for-beat.
@@TheFLAMEXD theoretical you are right of couse and in terms of the sorcerers is the answer of couse yes (magic is an equalizing force in my eyes), but the rest of the world seems to fit more or less medieval stereotype (boys inherite before girls, women leading an army are viewed as something peculiar, etc.).
of couse this doesnt mean that a group of rebellious sorcerers didnt decided to upgrade the mutation process or cure the infertility in witchers (in fact two alchemists may already have done so on geralt which means there could be children of him male or female who are born witchers).
i just say that it makes sense that they didnt even thought about recruiting girls in the beginning which fits our experience in the books and the games. hopefully they explain why they suddenly create witchers of both genders(even though all witchers we know have neither intention nor ability of ever creating new witcher)
or even better they just say that there are now natural born ones(the last point was actually prepared over two games so i actually would like that one)
If they do character creation and don't include gender and race they are going to get massive criticism sadly
Race? Elven witcher? Dwarf?
Pretty sure the biology of elves and dwarves is much more different to humans than women to men.
@@jasperzanovich2504I mean skin color
Personally I think it is possible that there could be female witchers in the future if Geralt's discovery in Blood and Wine get to the right hands, but then again monsters are almost extinct and even witchers themselves such as those from School of Wolves don't even want to recruit more children so I don't see the point of making more witchers, letting alone female witchers.
I guess it's because the Witchers are in part the special forces of the world the Witcher is set in. In real life, incredibly fit women try out for the SAS and Navy SEALS every year but none have qualified due to the physical demand. If CDPR ignores this for the sake of DEI, it'll diminish the product. The idiosyncrasies of The Witcher are what make it unique and interesting. There are central lore reasons the sorceresses have power, just as there are lore reasons the Witchers do as well. If CDPR deconstructs this, the product is no longer the Witcher and instead becomes a generic 21st-century fantasy product.
CDPR has already fallen just like all other big game companies. They weren't anything special it.
Be glad we got unfucked products in The Witcher 2 and 3.
Sadly I believe Witcher 3 will be the last real Witcher game. They may release a new one but CDPR has become wokeified to an unhealthy point. Just wait to hear that Sweet Baby is a partner for the next game CDPR does. 🤣😂🤣
I have no doubts that Witcher 4 will be a game filled with DEI and all the modern far-left politics stuff. CDPR already signed a contract with the devil when they accepted ESG. It's over. Witcher 3 is the last good Witcher game.
I find it ironic how you 4 are calling CDPR "DEI" and "woke" when The Witcher is one of the most left-wing fantasy stories.
@@TheFLAMEXD You read that on Reddit? 🤣
As far as I am aware they tried but females never survived the ordeal. They died in the early stages of the process of becoming a Witcher. I have read it in the books (I forgot which one. I think it was the first or second one since in one of them talk about it but I might remember wrong), I have read it in Witcher 3.
Simply put, the female body cannot survive the pain for which their body has not evolved to survive.
P.S: I am just sick of adding a female counterpart for everything. I am so sick of it.
wonder how this comment section will turn out regarding this topic 😂
Pop corn is ready
Blarg!!!!!! I'm angry woman yelling you men are weak and women are stronger, my hair is short like a man and I am overweight , but I'm clearly stronger and more capable of being a witcher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol 😅
@GeraltOfArabia you're welcome lol 😅
@@matthewanderson9754yes it’ll be the women that are the problem in this conversation 😂
@@matthewanderson9754 ehhmm.... ok
Well im not sure this has to be said, but you are part of the problem
Its not unattended just extremely unlikely, the process of making a human a mutant means pushing the body to the absolute limits its crucial in fact if it was adapted in anyway of being lighter or less life threatening its probably simply wouldn't work as well if at all, i dont imagine that vesemir and his brother's would subject children to such life threatening torture if wasn't completely necessary even with how morally gray they were back then if it could be easier it would be or thats what i think at least
There shouldn't be female witchers, like there shouldn't be female space marines.
Exactly, thing is that they wouldnt dare have a female Witcher with potential to have the body count that Gerault had either so its really not realistic considering the circumstances.
I agree, I mean it's already bad enough we have "female" Custodes thanks to these woke SJW amoebas, it'd be much worse if they decide to pull a "there has always been female Witchers"
worked fine in Halo, just has to be done correctly
@@perjulianlundbergtande8956
The difference is that there have always been female spartans in Halo, whereas it has been known for a long time that there were no female witchers.
Could work with the right explanation, let’s remember what Vilgefortz wanted to do with ciri. It wouldn’t be impossible for a insane person to want to experiment if girls actually can become witchers
On average, 1 out of 10 boys makes it through all the trials and becomes a full-fledged Witcher.
For girls, it be 1 out of 100 girls. Don't know about you, but killing 99 little girls for one Witcheress vs 9 boys for one Witcher... its not just about the numbers.
It's painful to watch this with him stuttering so he doesn't say something that is not "politically correct" for 2024. It's actually pretty simple thing Witcher (male) is from the word Witch (female) 🥶
Real.
The word "Witcher" comes from the Polish term "wiedźmin," which Sapkowski deliberately created as a masculine derivative of "wiedźma" (witch, female). Sapkowski's intention was to emphasize the male-oriented nature of the profession, with "wiedźmin" being distinct and inherently masculine, reflecting the unique role Witchers play in the world he built.
@@chrisvega4633then proceeds to spend half the series calling Ciri “Witcher girl” 😆
@@ducky36FIt's said mockingly by her sadistic captor. I'd be cool with a Ciri led game, & with her operating as a witcher. But adding female witchers would just be the same agenda driven progressive DEI crap that's being shoved into everything. And I'm so freakin' sick of it.
I real like the idea of a new Witcher school started by Ciri that includes male and female witchers . Since Yen has already with the trial of the grasses it’s not too crazy of a leap to think that Ciri and Yen could have developed mutagens and elixirs that would suit both genders. A lot of the information on how Witchers were created was lost when Vesemir was a young man and Gerault was a child.
I definitely think that if anyone could devise a well thought out lore reason to include female Witchers CDPR could do it.
Perhaps female “Witchers” can be just a specialized kind of sorceress with a larger focus on signs, alchemy, and stealth.
Ciri is the first and last female Witcher. She also doesn't have any of the Witcher mutations
Let's also emphase on the difference between , witcher as a job, and Witcher as mutants
Geralt is both
Ciri is only as a job
Let's say "anyone" can be a witcher as a Job, like Leo the apprentice at the beggining of the first game, he had the swords and signs but no mutations.
But probably that only mens can be Witchers as mutants, but since the process of making Witchers is lost.
It’s not as serious as some are making it. I understand why it was written like that at first but surely a few female Witchers isn’t gonna collapse the whole universe. I like your idea I think it could allow for different types of witchers to exist and maybe a female Witcher has different skills. Maybe relying more on magic and spells than the male Witcher. I see it as a way to expand 🤷🏽♀️ like you said they don’t necessarily have to created by the same process.
Why is it that women want our's/someone else's shit rather than working their superior brains and coming up with their own original stuff?
For some people (no idea why) introducing female witcher is worse than world war 3
As an original idea it is faintly worse than a watery diarrhea, take it easy with the war-stuff, hun. Leave it to men ;)
@@justaquietpeacefuldance You got the award for the most stupid comment on youtube
@@justaquietpeacefuldance What the hell is wrong with you? You need serious help. You have a wild imagination. I'm just a guy.
I'm glad this video popped up on my recommended page. I've never played the witcher games (nor read the books or bothered with the tv series) and the biggest reason for that is that you're forced to play as a set male character. (I might be weird, but I just find it hard to enjoy playing games as a set character, especially a male) So I've been hoping for Witcher 4 to have a character creator and the option to create a female. I didn't know about the lore making that nigh impossible, but I would think that with the state the gaming industry is in, a female witcher will still be an option in Witcher 4 as it's more important today to be "inclusive" than being lore accurate.
For new players like me and others not familiar with the lore, it wouldn't matter, but for old fans of the series it can only be hoped they make a good reason for it to be possible.
"...a female witcher will still be an option in Witcher 4 as it's more important today to be "inclusive" than being lore accurate." Oh shut up. 🙄
As the witcher potions have triggered hormonal problems in Ciri, it can be assumed that an unnaturally high testosterone level is produced when one mutates into a witcher. This would have extremely negative health effects for women, particularly on their heart and circulatory system. So even if the mutation were successful in a woman, it would severely weaken her instead of making her stronger.
that’s like.. scientifically objectively not true help 😭😭😭
@@aleeeeeeexoxo The very fact that you use the word “scientifically” instead of “biologically” or “medically” in this context shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.
@@alexdornenherzciri would just become a man (im talking about hormones and stuff) i think in the blood of the elves its stated that ciri stoped having periods becouse of the potions and a lot of exercises
Including Geralt in the new Witcher is worrying me. I hope they do a completely new original Witcher as the protagonist, no female Witcher BS, no Ciri (she is not a real Witcher and her story was concluded with Geralt in Witcher 3) and definitely not some random character creation, none of these is a good idea. Cdpr have proven many times that they can create a completely new well written characters like the bloody baron, Gaunter, Olgierd and the rest of the Witcher DLCs characters/cyberpunk characters.
thats basically been my headconaon forever now. 1 female witcher isn't worth possibly 100s of dead children, vs the 1 or 2 in 10 boys.
i did have an idea during the video that some people wont like but I think its very interesting. please correct me if I'm wrong about how anything works.
essentially what if before the trial of the grasses, they started introducing male hormones to young girls before they start the mutation prosses, to basically start a transition in a female witcher trainee to possibly help her chances in becoming a withcer. if they wanted to introduce female witchers, I think this is totally a way it could be explained in the lore.
Exactly the explanation can exist 100%, however we just need to hope that it isn’t written by someone with the experience of the Netflix series writers. Seeing how the cyberpunk dlc turned out however, I think we’re in good hands.
Considering males in real life are not better at surviving diseases, chemotherapy or venoms, *and* that they try the trails on boys as young as ten, I highly doubt the actual reason is testosterone. Women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases, so it could be that the immune system is what kills the girls. The again, at an average age of 13... sex differences are really not that pronounced yet. It might be something with a far more simpler genetic base. Seeing as the trail of grasses varies between Witcher schools, it's always possible one got "lucky" so to speak, but there may also be nothing you could do to girls to make them pass the wolf trail.
If CDPR really wants to include a female MC , i would go with two main playable characters one a witcher man and a sorceress woman. And player could choose to play as either of them. It could bring up different missions , scenarios, add some drama between them. And second run would be a little bit different experience.
Judging on how women are treated in the Witcher universe, I think it would be even crueler to make female Witchers. They would never be taken seriously in the Witcher universe, at least by most people. People would constantly be trying to take advantage of them. If the occasional idiot thinks it's smart to try and deny a male witcher their reward, I'd imagine they'd be even bolder with a female witcher.
And they would do unspeakable things to a female witcher if given the opportunity.
@@sebastianpijov8708 Yep
@@sebastianpijov8708you make it seem as if it would be so easy. These are beings with faster reflexes and inherent boost. You think a female witcher wouldn’t behead a person trying to rape them? Seriously
witchers are big on "start shit, get hit" so I don't imagine that would be a problem that lasts very long
If you can handle yourself against a monster, you can handle yourself against a human
@@serrasedai Have you never played the games? That's never stopped dumb peasants from trying to kill a witcher over a contract reward, they do it all the time. Just look at the quest "Where the Cat and Wolf Play". Tried to kill the witcher for no reason other than they didn't want to pay.
Maybe a breakthrough was made, a new herb or mushroom was found that mitigated whatever was killing them before. Maybe a particularly brilliant botonist cross pollinated species of grasses that improved the formula. As an old cannabis grower from back in the day I can say that that is highly feasible (pun intended 🤭).
Crossing grasses is what we did.
Like in history with warriors, it's not that no woman could ever be a warrior, but if serious things depended on having the most phisically strong and phisically and mentally tough person, who would you choose? Same with withchers. They would never choose the worse and the more risky option for diversity's sake, like in today's society...
I have The Witcher PnP game, and while running it for a group of friends, I did a side story where the characters came across a new school of Witchers, that were both male and female. A group of Mages and a Witcher from the school of the Cat were planning on making a Witcher "strike force" that specialized not only in monster hunting, but human assassination as well. It turned out really well and we had a lot of fun with it. Since then it has become obscure "cannon lore" at our table. I also approached it with the idea that the normal Trial of the Grasses was not designed for women, and so the Mages and their Witcher ally modified the mutagens and the process to create a Trial of the Lily, along side the Trial of the Grasses for this school, the School of the Spider.
For me the issue with a female Witcher is that it's lore breaking and beyond that, simply that the gameplay would be so different from what I want in a Witcher game. Taking contracts and using potions, signs and a sword is a key aspect of the gameplay loop, and it's something I want to see expanded on.
I would love a game set in the Witcher universe that revolves other people besides Witchers, like sorceresses for example. But Those should be spin off games, not mainline titles imo.
So women can't read, or drink, or use magic (except sorceresses) and they cannot fight with a sword- except Ciri's already got one. What about the monster population rebound in the games, does that count as "lore breaking?" Or is it only when minorities are involved?
whole problem is game publishers incompetent to decide on making entirely new fresh games, instead they rather recycle and abuse existing lores for their profit
A female Witcher would be the End of the Witcher series.
This is a preemptive strike at what we known they’re going to do. At this point, I just hope the writing is good. Wokeness kills everything it touches.
Or they could just respect Sapkowskis work and keep witchers men. Women don't need to be a part of every single masculine space that exists. Mages are already predominantly women in the witcher universe and are significantly higher on the power scale to the point they laugh at a witchers signs. Let men just be witchers lol
Having Witches doesn't necessarily mean Sapkowski is being disrespected.
If the female Witchers were in the School of the Cat, that School being heavily Elven centric, it would stand to reason that most if not ALL female Witchers were Elven Witchers. The Elves are a dying breed. And the School of the Cat has been pretty much wiped out. Odds are that all of the female Witchers and the few wizards/sorceresses in the School of the Cat who knew how to perform the mutations died when their School was attacked. Therefore, the knowledge of how to create a female Witcher has been lost, so no new female Witchers.
The Trial of the Grasses is an infamously painful, body-altering ordeal that can last days. I think it stands to reason women should be pretty well-suited to that.
Wow, an actually thoughtful comment. Im pleasantly surprised
yeah, was thinking about too. women on average are more resistant to prolonged pain, which would come in handy in this one.
The issue is the fact that, according to the series’s lore, the Trial of the Grasses was actually tested on women and it always killed them, and only a handful of men can go through it and survive.
This is further reinforced by the fact that Ciri is already significantly harmed by the few herbs and elixirs she takes without undertaking the full trial, something Triss makes a point of. The Witcher seems to have made a well established point that the Trial of Grass all Witchers take is always fatal to women, likely for a biological reason.
I agree with the point made at the end of the video though, there’s nothing stopping PCDR from coming up with a different process similar to the Trial of Grass for a new group of female Witchers, and I think they could come up with an interesting origin story and game by doing that. They don’t need to break the preexisting lore, they can just add to it.
@@zachmercer1065 okay, i went and checked the infamous parts about triss and ciri in kaer mohren - there's nothing suggesting that it would have killed ciri, triss is pissed of at the training but bcos how bruised ciri is and that they completely missed the fact that she's getting periods. triss mentions several times that the mushrooms and greens they're giving her are not causing mutations or hormonal changes, that they are accelerants, and the issue she has with them is that they make the fat tissue distribute differently - so if continued ciri would end up with more masculine figure, which could be an issue if she wanted to have a normal life as a woman later on. but the stuff that they were giving her (so not the trial of grasses, but some preparation to it) doesn't seem to be, like lethal, she wasn't harmed by it.
@@zachmercer1065 I'm no lore expert, though I have seen people debate the meaning of the text you're referencing to an extent that, I'm prepared to say, leaves it ambiguous. That said, on principle I'm with you and George with regard to retconning lore. If your fantasy world keeps fundamentally changing in unpredictable ways, immersion becomes impossible.
I mostly bristle at the suggestion that the reason women can't be witchers is because they can't handle the prolonged pain. Even if Sapkowski were to explicitly say that's his reason, I would tell him his reason sucks.
I don't think that it's needed. Is there some sort of "male crisis", that women are needed to become witchers? I see it reasonable to make the process easier so more men can survive it, but i fail to see why would they try to make it female specific.
If its actually trying to become a witcher. Aside from physical characteristics, doesn't it vaguely say that female pheromones or something can prevent a transformation from the mutagens? They could try to become witchers without them, but it would he harder.
only books are "canon", games are like unofficial continuation as they start after books events
For me, first "addition" of "female Witchers" to any Witcher media was the Polish TV show from 2002. I am personally against it, especially if CDPR decides to go with character creator in the Witcher 4, and you are able to be female Witcher from the start. This would be not acceptable for me. But who knows how ESG points would benefit CDPR by doing that.
I think rather than making a female witcher they should make us be able to play as a sorceress. That way they could have two storylines going on.
When it comes to canon, I look at the canon of The Witcher the same way that I look at Tolkien or George Lucas and their respective works - if it wasn't written by them, or under their express direction and agreed upon by them, then it's not canon. I LOVE the Witcher games...but I know they're not canon, and that's ok. For me it's as simple as - Sapkowski wrote it such that witchers are always men, so his intention is clear.
Personally I think most of the resistance to the idea of female witchers isn't due to the idea of a female witcher in and of itself, but entirely because people know the ONLY reason it'd be done is by the type of ideologues that are in charge of modern media and insist on shoving diversity into LITERALLY EVERYTHING even if it doesn't fit long established canon or even make sense based on the context of the world the story is set in. They've been beating this drum for over a decade now and most people are just over the nonsense and want to go back to just having good stories and no more of ideologues injecting their personal politics into everyone elses escapism.
Exactly what the games did right was to adapt the books while keeping creative freedom and making sense story-wise. A good explanation for like a female Witcher can exist, I already thought of one which would be great in my opinion if they go for the character creation, from both a gameplay side of things and a roleplay side.
Well written
"Injecting personal politics into everyone else's escapism". Dude, the Witcher has politics in it and it's one of the most left-wing fantasy stories, especially in Poland.
As opposed to your ideology that, in a world of ravenous giant beasts and magical sorcerors women cannot be allowed into a formerly male order. Cause there totally couldn't be some magic or substance that boosts people's strength to survive the trials, no siree. That would go against your preconceived ideology that women cannot be introduced into a formerly male order... cause sexism.
I mean they could make a female Witcher similar to Ciri. A girl that was trained by witchers but never underwent the trials. Someone raised and trained by witchers would still be a ridiculously good swordswoman
"There always was a female witcher, she was just hidden in a secret base under the prismatic ocean wich only appear once every hunderd years you just did not know and there like 100 of them"
If i recall rightly. Aren't witchers the male counterpart of witches?
Because of the survival rate of male recruits is very low, and that's because they're stronger than the rest, and that female recruits have never survived the first few trials in the first attempts is why there's no female witchers (and why there's been no attempts since those first attempts).
That said, it doesn't mean it's a true zero percent chance a female recruit could survive all the way to being a full on witcher, it's just so small that the risk of attempting doesn't make it worth it.
Like, out of ten boys, only three survive, while out of ten girls, none survive... So, we know it's a 3 out of every 10 boys survive, it could mean it's 1 out of every 100 or 1000 girl would survive. This is why no attempts were made beyond those first few attempts. While CDPR could absolutely say "yeah, this female witcher was an extremely lucky recruit", there's still going to be a few that'll be mad about it. It'll largely be how they write her that'd ease people about such a character. Not writing her as a Mary Sue would be the first step.
For the love of all that's decent, cdpr better not go woke and force females into the role. You did a great job explaining why MEN are more likely to survive the trials.
1:40 bro's gonna get cancelled
I only know lore from the games as I am in the process of reading the books. But my running theory at the moment is that we will see the start of another world shattering crisis like the conjunction of spheres happens again and there is now an increased need for Witchers. The process of creating new Witchers is constantly harped on as an almost lost art form. No school in current lore seems to be making new Witchers, we get the sense that Witchers are a dying breed. So now we need more Witchers to fight the increased number/ new monsters, and while we have bits and pieces of how to make Witchers with the progress in magic maybe we can make men and women Witchers now. If we still want the original Witchers to be special then we can say that there are draw backs to these new Witchers that make them not as strong. Mirroring Halo in a way in how they have generations of Spartans that are all a little different based on how they were made. But that's just my theory on how they could take the new games.
What a sad state the world is in when one must spend nearly two minutes explaining how the sexes are different. What was once obvious now requires explanation as to not offend people.
Great video overall ❤
So you can accept a fantasy world, where there are Dragons, Werewolves, magic, Giant frogs, Elves that can teleport. But female Witchers are beyond your comprehension... Its fantasy ya genius
@@fike2951fantasy still has rules ya dingus
@@WaddelingProductions What? that women can't survive a magic potion? touch grass ya doofus
@@WaddelingProductions Just say you think men are superior creatures
@@WaddelingProductions And pray tell, what rule is that?
Actually, the strongest women in the world, are stronger than very few men. Just look at the story of Venus and Serena Williams vs Karsten Braasch. Two of the most powerful female athletes of all time got absolutely crushed by a mediocre, middle aged, male athlete who spent his morning warmup smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Kaarsten probably wouldn't survive the Witcher mutation process.
I really don't care or couldn't care less. They could just say that the new Lynx School decided to recruit girls into the school and only a few survive the Mutations.
Or they could put 2 Classes.
Witcher, Male, uses Signs and Gadgets.
And
Sorceress, Female, uses a variety of different types of Spells.
Or just have it be Ciri as the Main Character.
YOU'RE BACK! 🙀😻
I'd be fine if they introduce female witchers. The way I see it, they can be trained like Ciri and be called witchers in name alone. No need to use the mutagens on them. They call Ciri witcher girl in the books, so I think that would be a nice medium.
The only reason why Ciri can do the work of a witcher is because she has crazy OP powers.
@jasperzanovich2504 The training helps, too.
We know that someone was experimenting on witchers in the blood and wine dlc. They were trying to remove the mutagens from his son, but he strengthened them instead so they could have it where a mage somewhere was experimenting on people and using the witcher trials to gain something. But in the process they made a new version of the trial that works difficult from the older version that is just as or more painful than the old one but has a 100% success rate. This way they can change the power system and make it make sense. We know from the base game mages do experiment on people not all but some so that mage did on both genders.
Just gonna say what many of us are thinking. There are NO female Witchers. If the creator of the Witcher universe never authorized it then it doesn’t exist. If the gaming universe tries to pull the cheap trick that the idiots in Gamers Workshop did with the whole “there have always been female custodes” then I’m fucking done cause that’s bullshit.
There are no female Witchers
There are no female custodes
There are no female astartes
SIMPLE
OK SIMPLE: Play Ciri as a non-witcher
@@Blubking1 exactly. I was having a field day with her in W3
So I guess we can throw out the games since they changed the monster population, and that's against the sacred lore! Come to think of it I hope Ciri made a cameo in the first book, otherwise she is a change to the lore and must be excised. After all consistency is the height of quality!/s Also where did GW say there were no female custodes, since they're made with a different process to space marines? Or are you too stupid to note that the nobles of Tera sending their sons to become custodes doesn't preclude them also sending their daughters?
You realize that the games retcon and ruin the lore of the books right...
@@datboicasinoRetcon maybe, but they hardly ruin it.
My friend; on a universe where Vampires exist, Elves, Dwarf, portals, and a very long etc I imagine there must be more than one logical solution to the herbs problem.
I guess the Andrew Sapkowski must have just forgotten about that. What does he know? He's only the creator of the IP.
It’s a Witcher game, but she’s not a Witcher. She’s going to be a sorcerer like she’s always been. I don’t see how that’s going to work. They’re pushing feminism so bad they’re deciding to do this.
Ciri is the main protagonist of a good half of the book series so I’m not quite sure what you’re getting it.
Meanwhile ciri literally being the protagonist of half the books. Stop taking shitty writers as an example for stories and think about good writers that can actually write.
@@giuseppesagona7522They won't. To them, any story with a female protagonist is bad.
I like the idea that some time in the near future, after rediscovering the trial of the grasses cause it was lost for some time, new witchers wanted to make the process more survivable while not compromising on results and ended up figuring out a way to make the process also viable for girls instead and now witchers in general are faster and more nimble than they were, and maybe heal faster, on average while still being just as strong overall (so long as they survive) so in the end it not only broadens the selection pool and diversify the witcher schools but it's upgrades all around too
I like the idea that CDPR will look at the industry right now and wake the f*CK up, but it was just a dream...
I wanna see a wheelchair witcher personally
Hands up for a blind and deaf one too.
@@EllanaWolfI mean, a blind mutant warrior is an interesting idea, " a school of the bat" per say, but my ears would not like the constant shrieks
love these mental gymnastics. somehow a female Witcher is on the same level as someone in a wheelchair... you might be a moron
@@CreativeUsernameHere-r1kinteresting idea that just simply wouldn’t work i fear
There was a blind witcher by the name of Warrit the all seeing, a school of the viper who used a enchanted version of Supirre (witcher sign that boosts hearing that only appeared in the books) to basically become daredevil.
Only boys can go through the transitions, i am a 60 year old granny and my husband and I (he is 65) both play and love Witcher, Pubg and many other games. It keeps our minds sharp and gives us a laugh especially at all those who cheat in Pubg and we still manage to kick their arse 🤣🤣🤣
CDPR should absolutely not try to insert female witchers into the setting. Though, given some of their hires, I suspect they're going to try.
@7:16 In other words, don't let Netflix anywhere near it.
I don't wanna play as Ciri as a main character because she isn't witcher.
Then don't play it. You will miss out on a great game just because of ethics (?)
The Witcher 4 is years away. We're talking about a game that doesn't exist yet. Technology can improve, and in a fantasy world, anything is possible
Yes she is. She went through all the training.
in the books i think it happens in blood of elves when they were giving ciri the serum to become a witcher she started her period and that plus the serum was killing her slowly and the triss merigold stepped in and made them stop
I fail to see the Female Witcher problem.
The "Female Witcher problem" is more complex than it might initially appear. It's not about whether women could hypothetically undergo the mutations, but about the broader implications for the established lore and themes of The Witcher universe.
1. Linguistic foundations: The term "wiedźmin" (Witcher) was specifically created in Polish as a masculine counterpart to "wiedźma" (witch). This linguistic choice reflects the intentional world-building of the series.
2. Thematic elements: The all-male nature of Witchers allows for exploration of specific themes related to masculinity, isolation, and societal roles within the context of a pseudo-medieval Slavic-inspired world.
3. Established lore: Introducing female Witchers would require significant changes to the core identity of the Witcher profession and the world's cultural dynamics, potentially altering fundamental aspects of the story universe.
4. Existing strong female characters: The series already features powerful women who face unique challenges and contribute meaningfully to the story without being Witchers.
5. Cultural context: The Witcher is deeply rooted in Slavic mythology and culture, where certain roles and professions were traditionally gender-specific.
The issue isn't about limiting female characters, but about maintaining the integrity and internal consistency of a carefully crafted fantasy world. There are many ways to explore and expand female roles in The Witcher universe without changing the core concept of what a Witcher is in this world.
@@chrisvega4633 Well thought out argument Mr. Vega; but the fact is that Ciri is a Witcher by right, if not "The Witcher" of the story and the game. Ciri is the Lady of Time and Space.
You maintain a Creative hard line, I do not; and that is fine. There is a very good chance that The Witcher 4 is going to be about Ciri.
@@MrMonoyo
I appreciate the respectful discussion, but I need to correct a misconception here. Ciri is not a Witcher "by right" - she underwent some Witcher training at Kaer Morhen, but never went through the mutations that define what it means to be a Witcher. Even in the Witcher ending of The Witcher 3, she's a Witcher in name only, taking up the profession without the fundamental biological and magical changes that truly make someone a Witcher. This isn't about maintaining a "creative hard line," it's about understanding the fundamental aspects of what makes a Witcher in this universe.
Ciri is her own unique character - the Lady of Time and Space, as you mentioned, and someone who forged her own path distinct from both Witchers and sorceresses. This is what makes her special. She doesn't need to be a Witcher to be significant to the story; in fact, her unique position as someone between multiple worlds (both literally and figuratively) is part of what makes her character compelling.
Regarding The Witcher 4, while Ciri could certainly appear in the game, making her the protagonist would present several challenges:
1. Her immense powers would be difficult to balance in gameplay without feeling contrived
2. CDPR would need to canonize one of The Witcher 3's endings
3. Her story arc has largely been concluded in a satisfying way
4. The game is reportedly centered around the School of the Lynx, suggesting a new Witcher protagonist
Aditionally, for many of us who've followed the books, we've experienced much of Ciri's story through Geralt's paternal perspective. This creates an emotional connection that makes it uncomfortable to play her in a role-playing game that might include romance options or similar adult content. Even in The Witcher 3, the Ciri segments were already uncomfortable for many book readers, particularly the implications surrounding her relationship with Skjall. It's similar to how many viewers felt uncomfortable with certain scenes involving Arya Stark in Game of Thrones' final season - when you've watched a character grow up through a father figure's eyes, it can be difficult to shake that perspective, and potentially problematic content becomes even more unsettling.
It's not about being creatively inflexible, but about maintaining the internal consistency and narrative integrity that makes The Witcher series compelling. The series can evolve and grow while still respecting its established foundations. A new protagonist could allow for fresh storytelling opportunities without the baggage of existing character relationships and concluded story arcs.
I'm reminded of Dragon Age: Origins' trial, where its very similar to what goes on for creating a Witcher, but in a form that's more potion-like (speaking to avoid spoilers for a 2008/9 game). I think, if Ciri or another were to create a new school with a new method, it might look something like Dragon Age: Origins with a potion of some kind. From what I've seen and heard, the sorceress process has a lot in common, and both the Witcher process and Sorceress process seem to leave the subject sterile, and unable to reproduce. I have no idea what that would do to someone with Ciri's particular powers, but we'll have to see.
Logically speaking, shouldn't girls be just as strong when they go through these trials? Those happen in early puperty, if I am remembering correctly, when girls are often actually even stronger than boys because they start into puperty earlier and grow faster because of that.
Actually girls starting puberty early is a modern "problem". Of course there are going to be exceptions and other factors to consider but bottom line kids back then should've on average hit puberty later and be weaker than kids today. Not that there's anything wrong with a girl witcher but I do think they back themselves into a corner.