One of the only ones who had the courage to do this was him, not even I, who finished the game 12 times + the DLCs and got 100% in the achievements, I never had the courage to do this.
Whispess (polish Szeptucha) also means a woman who, heal people by traditional methods like herbs, and also by spiritual healing. As far as I know, you can still meet them in many slavic countries. So this theory may be possible 50/50.
True. And all Crone names looks like a nicknames after a very common things people are doing in everyday life. So i.e. I wouldn't make any connections with every single chiefmaster in the game just because he/she is brewing something in big pot ;) Yes, it really seems to have some connections here with Whispess, but at the same time it doesn't. So to me it is 50/50 until devs give us some more details to find :P
@@shivanSpS Honestly, if we want to get closer to the answer whether the name used was intentional or not. We should check the description of this cave in the Polish language version of the game. The Witcher 3 was written in Polish and then translated to other languages. So if the Polish version uses the name "Szepciucha" we know that it is about the Crone, but if "Szeptucha" or some other name is used we can be sure that it is about a different character. Unfortunatelly I don't have Witcher 3 installed and I can't find polish description online :/ Edit: I managed to get hold of someone who checked this description for me and in the Polish version of the game the word "Szeptucha" was used. So it's a folk name for a village witch and healer, not the crone.
@@thrustvectoring8120 I think that just no one paid special attention when translating the description to some waypoint, a piece of text that most of players will ignore. The difference between the two words is so small that someone could not even notice and simply translate it the same way.
As Daphne's fate is clearly based on that of the water nymph Daphne in Greek mythology, I think we should consider the ways in which CDPR has adapted and changed the original tale. In all the versions that I am aware of, Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree by her father, the river god Ladon. This is not a curse, but a blessing or 'gift' of sorts: before she is transformed, Daphne is pursued by the god Apollo. Since she cannot outrun him, she asks her father for help. He then changes his daughter into a tree in order to prevent Apollo from forcing himself on her. Daphne's story in Blood and Wine is essentially an inversion of the original tale, at least in terms of its motivation: Daphne here does not wish to run away but - as you point out - to wait as, unlike the Daphne of the Greek myth, she loves the person who has professed his love for her. Being a tree allows her to do so for an exceptionally long time. Not really a 'blessing' as it also causes her to suffer for a very long time, but not a true curse, either.
So, the new version of my editing software has this automatic subtitle generation tool, which is what produced the embedded subtitles in this video, and I was wondering how you guys feel about it? Is this something you would like to see in the future or is it needless/annoying to you? It takes a bit of work to fix all the small errors and the occasional weird formatting, but if you like it, I could use it more often. And do let me know how you feel about the main topic of the video too :)
As a French-speaking Belgian (French is a national language here, and my mother tongue) i will do my best to answer your questions 😄 1 - I can safely confirm that if you need to put the stress somewhere it's on the second part of Toussaint, but ideally, you don't stress any part of the Name. The most appropriate pronunciation wouldn't end with a half-silent "N". The way you pronounced it when you wrote "Toosah" is near perfect, honestly. 2 - The last "A" sounds neither like an individual "A" or "O" because of the other letters following it, changing the way it's pronounced into a more "nasal" sound. The way you say it at 18:56 is the way it's supposed to be said, the rest of the pronunciations are essentially approximations of a French accent, but incorrect. 3 - Despite finishing with an "N" and a "T", those two letters are essentially silent and both contribute to the sound "aint" (or "hein") that is rather specific to the French language and doesn't really exist in the English language. 4 - French is obnoxiously complicated, has a lot of exceptions and rules that change the pronunciations of other letters. In short, why is it stupid and complicated ? Because it's French. Hope it helps ! 😂 PS : Personally i'm not overly fond of CDPR putting Gaunter O'Dimm behind the Usurper. Ultimately it doesn't change a thing to the whole story of his coup and assassination of Emperor Fergus. I thought it was more interesting when it happened organically, as coups tend to happen in powerful Nations when some ambitious man thinks he can do better than the current Ruler. What did O'Dimm seek to achieve ? Because ultimately Emhyr comes back and reclaims the Throne that is rightfully his, restoring the normal order of things. I'd hate the whole idea behind it to be Gaunter O'Dimm nudging events around and being indirectly responsible for Ciri's birth and thus basically the whole Witcher story, books and games.
Also french here, and yeah, we don't put stress on most words with a few exception, to me the one that sounded the most accurate was at 19:05 just without the stress. And if youare ever interested in subtilities : "ain", "aint", "in", "im" and "un" are basically the same sound but with different uses depending on what letters follow the syllable : for exemple, "ain" and "aint" are usually at the end of a word, "im" is either used before a "p" or a "b" while most other cases will use "in". "un" is an outsider as it see very few uses aside from the number (one=un in french). hope those few explanation for the french syntaxe rules might help you if you are ever interested.
หลายเดือนก่อน
I'm German I learned to pronounce french words similar as you, I would put the stress somewhere in the middle. I never really learned french thou, just got a feeling for the pronounciation.
Very cool, thanks from a French learner (from years back) - wouldnt Toussaint, as long as we assume it's closely releated to the actual French-based word, mean something like All Saints? An all-saint town, city of all saints etc?
In french, you generally (always) put the stress on the last syllable (except if it's silent, obviously). so tousSAINT. Also, Toussaint (in french) literally means "All Saints" and there's a national holiday attached to the rememberance day of All The Saints, and it's called "jour de la Toussaint". No audible N or T. "Why" is the most common question asked while learning french, and as a french person, i cannot say (historically it's because of contractions and there used to be letters in between and yadda yadda yadda) So "toussaint" (like google translate would say it) is "french-approved" version, but as it is a fictional place, it should be pronounced however the author intended it to, and i don't know how the Polish would say it. P.S. Chuchote Cave is literally "whisper cave" in french (whisper as the imperative verb form)
@jakub_paints6775 xLetalis pronounced it correctly when he wrote "Toossah". Even if "aint" / ain / ein / un / in / im is almost impossible to pronounce for non native speaker (and I know it, my name is Quentin and I lived abroad for a long time), and it's same sound as Toussaint. Just different writing.
Since Toussaint is a French word, religious event, and also a town in France I suggest that there is way a pronouncing it ... otherwise they would've just change the name of it...
@@jakub_paints6775 We in Polish have two weird vowels: "ą" and "ę". Those are represented in French as well, for example in "on" = "ą", "en" = "ę". French have a third weirdo vowel sound which is kind of like if you tried to say "ą", but starting with "a" instead of "o" (like when saying "ą"). This vowel is used in "Toussaint", so it's not just TuSa, but TuSaą. You can try hearing it in google translate, if you know it's there, maybe you can hear the difference.
The fact that I love is there is a game designer / narrative designer somewhere that know all the plots / complete story line of all the characters and he.she is probably watching all your videos
You convinced me that there were two whispesses. Also, I find it worth a video to talk about how summoning doesn't require being a mage and even peasants can accidentally curse someone. It's such a huge concept within the lore.
I have to say that when you announced no more details missed I thought it will be the end of Witcher 3 videos from you , but seeing you making more Witcher content has made me so happy 😊
i dont know if that is by mistake, but in polish, Whispess as a crone is called "Szepciucha", whereas in that description of a cave, it says "Szeptucha" - similar but not the same
I've checked in game and yes, thery are really written differently, as You said. One may say they are two different ways to say the same nickname. But since "szeptucha" was a common name for healer woman who "wispers the illnesses out of the body" it seems it can be just a coincidence with similar name but different characters.
@@xLetalis The dialogues and descriptions in Witcher 3 were written in Polish and then translated into other languages. So since the cave description states that "Szeptucha" (a folk witch and healer) lived there, and not "Szepciucha" (the crone). We can be sure that the coincidence of names in the English version is a translation error, not a intentional action.
I once contacted you on Twitter regarding the Crones/Vivienne theory and you told me the time line doesn't really match up so I knew you bring this up here. This really convinced me but its also a weird concidence with the puppet and the feather. Though I like for some mysteries to stay hidden. Maybe they also wrote it like that for people to spin their theories about it.
For quite a while now, every time I see one of these vids, I keep thinking "not only is xLetalis awesome for finding all this stuff", but also "damn this game is DEEP, how many hours did the game devs spend putting in this many intricacies?"...
French guy here, about Toussaint you can pronounce it like this : 'too ss un'. The 'un' sound at the end sounds like number one (1) in french (check google translate). I do not recall any similar sound in english. In french, Toussaint is the translation of All Saints' Day. Then about the stress, in french it supposed to be on the last syllable of any word, though, in French french we don't really do it. I believe Swiss French put more emphasis on the stress, perhaps Belgian or Quebec french also ? Not sure about these two.
I'm always interested in hearing theories. Even if they don't have a lot of evidence and/or the evidence doesn't definitively point to one specific answer, it doesn't matter, because I just enjoy hearing the different thoughts floating around out there. It sort of takes me back to literature classes when we used to pick apart stories, which I always loved. I have to admit it never occurred to me that Daphne could have cursed herself. (I'm a bit embarrassed to say that honestly, because the book in Ciri's room at Crow's Perch about how it's possible to create a curse without ever meaning to is something I frequently reference in discussions of Witcher content.) It's now my favorite theory. Also, thank you for asking about Toussaint's pronunciation. I'm curious to know what folks say, as someone who's terrible with French pronunciation and therefore just tries my best to mimic however I've most recently heard it pronounced.
Ok, so about vivienne story. One Polish youtuber, sway play, was talking about this one. She searched through the files connected to this quest and found a model character, pointing to this nymph, that changed vivienne into monster. The surprising thing is, it had same model as the lady of the lake. Maybe you should dig through that? Idk if they wanted to put this nymph in the game and the lady of the lake was just a placeholder, or maybe it was her's fault?
Lady of the Lake doesn't really fit here, as she owns a different lake. Sure, may have been a different creature of the same kind, but I suspect as it was never used it's more likely just a copy and paste and was supposed to be replaced by a more individualized version later on. That's common practice, and would leave such an artefact
Hmm curious indeed! The Lady is quite helpful and sort of embodies virtue and what not, the way she is presented currently, so I wouldn't normally associate her with such a curse, but who knows. It may indeed be a placeholder similar to how Whispess simply has a low res version of Weavess' face
@@xLetalis She is helpful... but turned Goliath to monster :) Yet here I see it only as coincidence, it's look like creature who cursed viviene is on the same "race" as Lady of the Lake and.. that's all. Geralt also tell that this small lake on Viviene's glade have very strong magical power and is probably above some magical intersection... so who know? Maybe they planned "Lady of the other lake"? :)
Great video as always! Also, I'm Québécois so I can try to help with your questions. First, you don't say the "n" because it's part of a sound that can be written as wither "in, "ein" or "ain" (ignore the "t" at the end haha). It's more of a nasal sound, although we pronounce it slightly differently in Québec. You can Google the pronunciation of the word "Saint" in French and you'll be able to hear how it sounds. Second, we don't usually put stress in our words if there is no visible accent (é, è, etc.). Hope that helps! French is so complicated with exceptions to the exceptions and the non-pronunciation of so many letters, especially last consonants within words haha
I think you should start making videos that deal in the book series too, not just TW3. Never stop TW3 videos obviously, but some kind of videos regarding the books would be welcome too
yes please. so many people will never read the books but still watch these videos, it leads to lots of fans saying or thinking things that just aren't correct. and then book fans barely get a bone from xLetalis' videos, outside of references.
French speaker here 😄 About the pronunciation of "Toussaint", you can get the exact perfect pronunciation for that word if you go to Google translate and choose "French - to - whatever language" and write "Toussaint" under French and hit the "Listen" icon. This is exactly how any french person would pronounce it (except if that person is from a local place that has a specific heavy accent - and there are a couple of them in France 😅). No real stress on any syllable, and litterally pronounced as "Tout" (everything, in French) and "Saint" (a saint, in french); final "T" are silent. "Toussaint" is literally "All Saints Day" (that is commemorated every first of November). And, regarding your question "why does this word have three silent letters in succession?" : well, it does not! In french, the combination of vowels, and vowels + consonants produce new different sounds. The final "T" is silent, when the word is in it's masculine form. in feminine form, it takes a final "E" and then you pronounce it. About the three letters before that, "A" by itself is kinda pronounced as the A in "Pat", the "I", by itself, is pronounced like the "E" in "Me". When these two (A+I) are together then you pronounce them like the E in "pest". But when you add an "N" to A+I, it then roughly produces the sound as the final [an't] in the word "can't". Very nasal and also how we pronounce the word "Un" which means "One", in french"… Easy, right? ☺RIGHT? The french language has enormously evolved in the more than 2000 years of it's existence. A lot of diphthongs occurred, and the language has been enriched by roman/italian words, but also celt, arabic, old english, etc. It is the European language that derives from roman (just like Spanish and Italian) that has mutated the most…
Am very glad to see you covered this topic in details. :D I remember commenting this exact thing on one of your previous videos (Idk which one or how long ago), saying that the Whispess from Toussant is most probably not the same one from Velen (and Polish commentators seem to confirm this). And I like this because it makes the world feel more interesting, like if I go to a different part of the continent I don't need to run into the same characters as I saw in Velen. =) And yeah if Whispess from Velen had some obvious burn marks I would then be inclined to believe she was in Toussant, but that's not the case...
The name of the cave, "chuchote", means "whisper" in french. As for Toussaint, I suppose it's pronounced in French as well, it's the name of the "all saints" religious feast, 1st of november (which is generally related to the dead, visiting cemetaries, or halloween). There's not much stressing in french, but if there is, it would be tousSAINT, the T is silent, and the "ain" sound is like the french word "pain" (for bread) or "vin" (wine).
About the timeline. The thing you seem to not have considered is that two Crones might have come to Velen first and Whispess joined them later. None of the conversations you showed here specify how many Crones there are. It neither proves nor disproves anything but I enjoy it so much when you consider even the slightest possibilities that the fact you didn't mention it kinda broke my heart a bit🥲 But damn man thank you soooooo for such profound content. After your previous video I appreciate it even more))
Could You please explore the theory that Toussaint is secretly governed by vampires? Some evidence falls into place: there is a katakan in Oxenfurt which likes to feed on the drunk people, the book that can be encountered in Toussaint about how to breed humans, but in a “gentle” way, many higher vampires settle there, there are signs connected to the highest vampire scattered around e.g. near the inn, which serves alcohol of course. So could there be that since they drink blood for fun, that they established a land, with wine yards to breed happy humans, who would not object to being taken advantage of?
Thanks for sharing this. I have to say I never really thought much beyond what Vivienne's parents said and dismissed it as something that you'll just never learn. I think as gamers we always like everything resolved and explained, but life isn't like that. Especially the life of a witcher. You are always on the move and very rarely stay in one location long enough to see the conclusion to an event. I think there are a few instances in the game where Geralt asks people what became of something after he left. That is just something we all have to learn to live with and it gives you a subtle taste as to what it must feel like always being on the outside and just passing through. Personally I agree with your theory of things just happening whenever strong emotion is involved
French Canadian living in France here. FYI, Toussaint is the French version of All Saints, like the religious holiday. In Quebec we put the same amount of emphasis on both halves of that word. As for pronunciation, "Tous" would be like "Too" and "Saint" would be like the word "Sane" without the NE sound at the end (the T in Toussaint is silent), so Too-sa(ne).
Your pronounciation of Toussaint is actually quite good just after you asked if the A is pronounced like an A/O. And I'll add there are no stressed syllables in French unlike in English for example. It is kind of a non-tone language. However, depending on where you go, French speaking people can have very different accents and could stress more the first or the last syllable or even add phonemes. But basic French does not stress syllables. Furthermore, Toussaint is the French name for the All Saints' Day at the end of October, it literally means "All Saints" ;) Hope this will help !
Too sant [Nasal N]. Perhaps it's the Crone's mother(?). I like the natural manifestation theory. I ignored the bird lady story because I decided the knight had fallen in love with a Bruxa and deserved his fate. Regarding the Nilfguardian Officer's club: I wonder if it was abandoned content to find the Lt (as part of the love affair in white orchard). It doesn't sit well with me for Geralt to hear about monsters attacking humans and decide not to investigate.
It doesn't really matter how you say Toussaint. Just like in America, for example, one state pronounces water "water" and others pronounce it like "warder". Me as someone who used to speak french(I stopped when I moved to America), I pronounce Toussaint like the knights, without the stress at the end.
I personally never associated Daphne’s case with Whispess, rather thought the Lynx witch was lying to Geralt that she had nothing to do with this matter. But I was curious about the Vivienne theory, and all your arguments are firmly presented enough to leave the Whispess story in Velen only, particularly considering the fact that B&W was released ofc later. I would also say that the Crones are not human creatures and do not care about/understand human emotions and relationships, let alone feeling some kind of jealousy just because some human woman is in love. They treat Velen inhabitants as inferior to them, or servants even, and want to have power over this land. Crones punish for disobedience (Anna Stenger), not from sheer hatred, as you said. PS Yayy I knew it wasn’t the end! So happy to watch this video, thank You so much ❤ Very well made material.
Letalis: This is last Witcher 3 video. Letalis a few days later: New video. Keep up the good work man. Also, I still consider that The Witcher 1 and 2 details series are not a bad idea.
This ending! :O In polish version 'Toussaint' is being pronounced more or less in the same way: 'Tusą', with stress on 'są', where 'ą' is a nasal 'o' vowel. My guess is it's quite good approximation, at least for an untrained Slavic ear, but I won't bet it is correct. About all this theories. Or rather hypothesises one should say, since theory is a part of science knowlegde which has been already proven, and hypothesis is something that seems plausible but have not been proven yet. I personaly like to use scientific method in my life whenever I'm not sure what to do or what to think. In this case it means, I see any of those hypothesises as a possible as long as one find anything that proves it wrong without any doubt. This is called 'falsifiability' and this is the very base of scientific method in general. And this is in general very good way of dealing with any uncertains in life: to look for some contradiction rather for confirmation. It's because we, people, have tendency for "confirmation bias", which is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. So if one want to avoid this bias it's better to look for contradictions. And if there is no contradiction, I think it is save to leave the hypothesis as a possible yet not proven. That is until we find some strong evidence for confirmation.
I forgot to mention before. As I remember, some years ago, before any game was released, probably about the time when a polish TV series had being prepared (around year 2002 after Conjunction) or earlier, Sapkowski was asked for making some officiall guidelines of how to pronounce names of people and places, the evlish language and other strange words he used in his books, because those things are difficult for Poles as well. He didn't like the idea, but after some time and pressure he finally did it and even have published. Or let others to publish. Problem is, I've never seen this guide, and now I cannot even find it anywere online :( So now I'm not even sure, if it really happened, or it's just my brain makes fun of me :/
I think it’s likely that Whispess was benevolent at some point, being burned alive and then resurrected by the Lady of the Woods twisted her into her current malevolence. “She Who Knows” claims that the Lady made her daughters of dirt and mud, but how different is that if you add a charred corpse or human ashes?
I've seen many people explaining fairly properly how French is pronounced, and I'd like to add on the subject of silent letters in some of our words. When int comes to Toussaint, the only truly silent letter is the T since "AIN" are making a single sound together. But overall, most of our silent letters, be it at the end or in the middle of words, are traces of ethymology. The French language has very strong latin and greek roots, and you can often find remnants of these roots
2:42 That point is a bit strange, as far as i know, Dryads, the nymphs of the woods, are born in the same way as humans or elves: with a father and a mother. Personnally, i think Vivienne curse is too recent to be the doing of Whispess but i can be wrong on that.
it could be argued that converted dryads are "born without mother or father" but generally yes, I do mention it again, later in the video, wondering how exactly did the nymph's appearance make Vivivnne's mother think so
@@xLetalis i would argue that even in that case, there was a human mother and father. the appearance of nymphes is not very clear beyond little beautiful women. The fact that they are green skinned is a addition of the game. So i guess any beautiful humanoids could be mistaken as a nymph.
It could be that Whispess cursed Vivienne's parents from Velen. I have several reasons for this: 1. She has so many ears in Velen that there would be almost no inhabitants with ears left if they were to rot normally. I think they are somehow magically prepared and last forever. So she could still have a few ears in her old home and hear certain things. 2. We also see her speaking through Anna and she has control over ravens and the Fiend. Perhaps she still controls a being in Toussaint or simply makes herself appear in the reflection of the lake. That seems relatively easy, Triss does something similar in the fountain in Novigrad and Ermion has a bowl for it in his laboratory where the stuffed animals are. The Lady of the Lake is also a nymph and relatively well known in Toussaint, perhaps that is why she was mistaken for one. 3. The power of the Crones extends beyond Velen: In the settlement outside the city walls of Novigrad you can hear a conversation between two women. One of them says that at night she sometimes hears the laughter of old women coming from the direction of Velen, which scares her more than the cries of war. I also think your reasoning with the names is a bit weak. Names like Ove and Volker are certainly typical names in Skellige and the northern kingdoms. Many people are called that. Whispess is not a common name, she is called that because she overhears whispers.
Hi friend ! I've been following your videos for quite some time even if i don't comment often, i love what you do. And I'm french and it will be my pleasure to answer your questions : personnaly i would put the stress in the beginning so TOUssaint, no the sound "n" is not to be heard in the end, it's just the sound "hein" and the sonority globaly speaking it's "touss hah" = your second pronounciation is the correct one to me so "Toussah". Let me add some informations "tous" means "all" in french, and "saint", well, same as in english. So it's the place of "all of the saints" and the place is clearly inspired from South of France, so the way they pronounce things there might differ a bit from mine since i am not exactly from the region which inspired this place. If this is inspired by the Duché de Provence (close to italian border) it is possible they put the stress at the end of the word. Please keep the good work, love your videos !
As a student of "Modern European languages , Literature & Culture Studies" I can confirm that the pronunciation will much more be likely as in French (very much cause Toussaint is loosely reflective of French culture) . So we should say it like we pronounce end of croissant ... if there are consonants at end of a word they go silent so we should pronounce as TooSO with the stress being on the very last syllable .
19:00... As a french guy, fan of your work for so many years, I'm kinda happy you ask this question about pronunciation !! Stress can be in both position, as for the pronunciation, it's like "one" in french "un". Any online tranlsator can help you there ! As for the silent letters... welcome to the rench bizarre grammatical rules, in which such a common noun like "oiseaux" (birds) (yeah, I'm being picky, because it's probably the only one 🤭) doesn't even have a single letter pronounced the way it should normally be pronounced ! Thanks again for the video and keep up with the good work !
As someone who ISNT French, but spent many years learning the language, and working in an industry where you meet many backpackers- Toussaint, and it’s pronunciation, I think comes down to in-universe Regional Accents and whether a VA can fork out a decent French-esque accent.
13:15 - “It doesn’t sound like Whispess” Consider that maybe Whispess WAS good, and did want to truly help people. And that it wasn’t until she was unjustifiably burned to death by that knight, that she came to hate humanity
French Canadian here! Toussaint is French for All Saints (specifically 'tous saint(e)'). The emphasis would be on 'saint' which sounds like it does in English without the 't' sound. Hope this helps!
I definitely pronounce Toussaint the French way even though I'm English. It's the only foreign language I learned at school though. It wouldn't surprise me if the Whispess was involved, even if CDPR added the tenuous links after the fact. It feels like something that they're fond of doing to help flesh out the backstory. Considering that CDPR likes to keep an eye on what the community comes up with, it makes sense to me. 😊❤❤❤😊
Previously, I had always considered the witch of lynx crag to be playing with semantics when she says she is not responsible for what happened to daphne. I thought that she did curse daphne (not gareth, he's just a cheater), but didn't necessarily prescribe this fate to her; that a combination of the curse and gareth being unfaithful is what landed her in the tree situation. But now I think I agree that the curse was a manifestation of daphne's inability to let go of gareth when he never showed. She held on too tightly and regardless of the witch of lynx crag's involvement, had the choice to move on with her life but didn't take it.
I wouldn’t have assumed Vivienne’s parents had any particular knowledge of the creature, I always assumed the description was more of a way to say that the nymph wasn’t one of many, but a unique creature. Whether our Whispess was ever in Toussaint or not, I have a hard time imagining that was a description of a creature they knew well, otherwise I imagine they would’ve named a creature from myth like one of the ones in the books
I mean people generally arent static and can go through drastic changes in their personality or behaviors out of sheer boredom if nothing else, and ancient deities do live a long time, its a bit of a pet peeve for me these days when people expect other sentient beings to just be one way forever, esp if they live for supposed eons 💀
In polish dub everyone says… hard to describe it in English. It’s something along the lines of „Tusą”. Ą is kinda like „oh” in English, so my best guess would be „Toosoh”
I think analyzing the more complex and well thought out theories that arent straight up nonsens is good content. Liked that one a lot. Anything to see my man posting more witcher 3 content
French speaker here, my father actually having the name Toussaint. We put the stress at the start and don't sound the n at the end. Ultimately i dont think it has ever mattered how someone says it. Its not like "Saint Pancras" where english people would sound the N in pancras.
The crones have the people of Velen convinced that they're extremely helpful - as well as beautiful and benevolent - so maybe the description from B&W is from the perspective of local storyteller(s) who, like the populace of Velen, is under the illusion that Whispess is generally good natured. It fits thematically with the narrative that encompasses the whole series: the fairytale macabre. The text is a summary of "old folks' jabber", so it isn't too far fetched that these "folks" are under a similar collective spell as the ones in Velen. Maybe the version of events described in the text needs to be examined through the filter of local folklore. The locals only know and believe what Whispess wanted them to know/believe.
Hi, I'm French ! The word Toussaint is a common word in french meaning "all the saints". There is no "N" sound at the end in french. The "A" at the end is not pronounced as a "O". In french, "stress" in words are quite low but I would say it's in the beginning. Your pronounciation at 18:45 is quite good, it's the right one :)
To my mind I always thought that the story about the nymph of the woods that cursed Vivienne was just a nod to traditional fairytales because of how "fairytale like" this quest is, because it is so random when you stop and think about it alot more random than the Witcher usually is with quests that do a twist on fairytales, which is very reminiscent of beginnings of many actual fairytales. I mean when I heard it for the first time I was like "this is so random and strange" but it fit perfectly with the fairytale vibe of both Toussaint and this specific quest. I mean think back on most fairytales and you will find that the event that sets things into motion for those stories is very random
Whispess has a motive to keep visiting Toussaint. It's the magic lake itself. I guess, she too, like Vivienne, takes her original look after dive in the lake, right? Good work, anyway. I also hope moders will expend Viviennes story in Skellige. Like side quest and romantic option.
I'm not french but I speak it. I think it makes sense to stress the "OU" in Toussaint because you can break it down into "Tous" meaning all and "Saint" meaning saint, sort of like they're calling it the "All-Saints Land" and usually in french you would stress the "Every" part like in english with "Everybody". Again, French isn't my primary language but think I know enough to share my thoughts on it. 🤘
About Whispess - it could mean something enterally different. In polish szeptunka or szeptucha were witches/shamans. So it was more of a proffesion than name. It could be some local shamanka. But I would have to check game in polish, but I don't have acces to it at the moment.
Could it be, I think the Crones choose Velen as their home but as they are insanely old beings (I don't know how canon it is, but in Gwent lore entries it is said that Mother was a very ancient being from even before the Conjunction) maybe they have wandered across the world for quite a long time, so I think it's plausible.
@@luisemoralesfalcon4716of course it's just a theory, but in one of the entries it says that she "wandered the world" in search of all kinds of knowledge, so it's quite possible that her daughters could do the same and were not just tied to Velen (although I don't think Mother cursed Vivienne, because she was killed and her spirit imprisoned quite a long ago, like, it happened so much time before that it is even an ancient event for the Crones lol).
Witcher was meant to be a subversion of fairy tale tropes, and I love Blood and Wine’s take on Rapunzel and the choice you have to make about Vivienne. While Rapunzel was a love story, in Blood and Wine you have to decide whether you sentence Vivienne to a long life of obligation to her “hero”. Or a shorter life of freedom. It’s a great take. Related to this, and what you touched upon in the video is a concept that comes up in the Witcher books, about payment and how one must always pay their debts. So the idea of taking payment in some of these scenarios with the crones or the master mirror is super consistent with the world of the books and may not be smoking gun proof that links Vivienne and the lady in the tree to the crones.
My guess xLetalis, is that it is intended to be the same person but it is one of the things that was not properly stablished, like the age thing was a small detail that they didnt realised OR we are missing something to make the connection. Just like i mentioned you with "Following the Thread" im sure there are either missing details there, or stuff we havent been found. Sorry writting this as im watching. About Whispess being considerate a nice person in that writting, remember that in Velen people there considers the Crones to be good, they arent, but that description would fit how Velen people describe the ladies, definately. if we are going to analyse that deep i could ask how Vivianne mother knew she was going to have a daughter, this could be explained with the classic "a mage did it". But still. I dont really think they think about it too deeply, i do support that if it has the same name = same person, this is how things are 99% of the time, at least. One thing i feel it wasnt considered is that, Whispess being in Thousand, at some point, i think the name is evidence enoght, BUT being involved Vivienne curse is all expeculation, and thats to me, is where all the problems are.
These theories are indeed fun to think about... but I dont think they are true. Like you said, some curses can occure "naturally" or the witch of Lynx Crag could be behind Daphnes curse all along. We dont know for sure but both of these explanations seem much more likely to me than having to rely on some lines on the fast-travel sign... Also when we actually get a reference to another character in this very DLC, Gaunter cursing someone, the Devs made it extremely clear! Like the backstory we are told and even Gaunters OST. The crones also have a unique/memorable soundtrack and using that at the end of one of these quest would be as mind blowing as Gaunters sountrack was with the other quest, so I think the Devs would have done this if it really was intended. So I dont think these theories are true, but we cannot be sure... and I wouldnt be mad if they came back to this in the Witcher 4 or so and confirmed it... (Also the sign description in german gives no more hints than the english one... the same name but the way the description is written... could be just a coincedent that they share the name, but yeah... why would they use the same name when they could also just use a different one?)
![ค้างคืนโรงเก็บกระสวยอวกาศร้างกลางทะเลทราย [Around The World Ep. 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E5bWZQhABJE/mqdefault.jpg)
So early xLetalis didn’t sell Ciri yet
3:20 😭
My favourite sale of Ciri is the one where she watches it happen on an Apple computer lmao 17:36
One of the only ones who had the courage to do this was him, not even I, who finished the game 12 times + the DLCs and got 100% in the achievements, I never had the courage to do this.
@@joaocarlospaesjr2324I’ve sold Ciri off before and still refuse to fuck up enough to get the dead Ciri ending.
2 weeks ago: Last video.
Welcome back Letalis.
Whispess (polish Szeptucha) also means a woman who, heal people by traditional methods like herbs, and also by spiritual healing. As far as I know, you can still meet them in many slavic countries. So this theory may be possible 50/50.
True. And all Crone names looks like a nicknames after a very common things people are doing in everyday life. So i.e. I wouldn't make any connections with every single chiefmaster in the game just because he/she is brewing something in big pot ;) Yes, it really seems to have some connections here with Whispess, but at the same time it doesn't. So to me it is 50/50 until devs give us some more details to find :P
Yes but everything in this game is connected to everything so, if it mentions by name it is intended to be a direct reference.
@@shivanSpS Honestly, if we want to get closer to the answer whether the name used was intentional or not. We should check the description of this cave in the Polish language version of the game. The Witcher 3 was written in Polish and then translated to other languages. So if the Polish version uses the name "Szepciucha" we know that it is about the Crone, but if "Szeptucha" or some other name is used we can be sure that it is about a different character.
Unfortunatelly I don't have Witcher 3 installed and I can't find polish description online :/
Edit: I managed to get hold of someone who checked this description for me and in the Polish version of the game the word "Szeptucha" was used. So it's a folk name for a village witch and healer, not the crone.
@@rafal.qwerty I just wonder why in polish version it is Szeptucha and Szepciucha and in english they didn't use Whispess and Whisperess...
@@thrustvectoring8120 I think that just no one paid special attention when translating the description to some waypoint, a piece of text that most of players will ignore. The difference between the two words is so small that someone could not even notice and simply translate it the same way.
NEON KNIGHT MENTIONED LETS GOOOOOOOO
On a different version of reality, Iris got fed up by Olgierd's shenenigans and went rogue, bringing the Shovel😂
As Daphne's fate is clearly based on that of the water nymph Daphne in Greek mythology, I think we should consider the ways in which CDPR has adapted and changed the original tale. In all the versions that I am aware of, Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree by her father, the river god Ladon. This is not a curse, but a blessing or 'gift' of sorts: before she is transformed, Daphne is pursued by the god Apollo. Since she cannot outrun him, she asks her father for help. He then changes his daughter into a tree in order to prevent Apollo from forcing himself on her. Daphne's story in Blood and Wine is essentially an inversion of the original tale, at least in terms of its motivation: Daphne here does not wish to run away but - as you point out - to wait as, unlike the Daphne of the Greek myth, she loves the person who has professed his love for her. Being a tree allows her to do so for an exceptionally long time. Not really a 'blessing' as it also causes her to suffer for a very long time, but not a true curse, either.
Interesting, thanks for that insight, I didn't know
@@xLetalis You're most welcome! And thanks for all your Witcher content. :-)
So, the new version of my editing software has this automatic subtitle generation tool, which is what produced the embedded subtitles in this video, and I was wondering how you guys feel about it? Is this something you would like to see in the future or is it needless/annoying to you? It takes a bit of work to fix all the small errors and the occasional weird formatting, but if you like it, I could use it more often. And do let me know how you feel about the main topic of the video too :)
hey xletalis
hey, good feedback ;]
@@xLetalisthe subtitles are alright its not too invasive to the video so imo its fine
It's fine for me since I usually munch on some crisps when watching a video and this way I do not have to max the volume😂
It is fine
And we're back.
As a French-speaking Belgian (French is a national language here, and my mother tongue) i will do my best to answer your questions 😄
1 - I can safely confirm that if you need to put the stress somewhere it's on the second part of Toussaint, but ideally, you don't stress any part of the Name. The most appropriate pronunciation wouldn't end with a half-silent "N". The way you pronounced it when you wrote "Toosah" is near perfect, honestly.
2 - The last "A" sounds neither like an individual "A" or "O" because of the other letters following it, changing the way it's pronounced into a more "nasal" sound. The way you say it at 18:56 is the way it's supposed to be said, the rest of the pronunciations are essentially approximations of a French accent, but incorrect.
3 - Despite finishing with an "N" and a "T", those two letters are essentially silent and both contribute to the sound "aint" (or "hein") that is rather specific to the French language and doesn't really exist in the English language.
4 - French is obnoxiously complicated, has a lot of exceptions and rules that change the pronunciations of other letters. In short, why is it stupid and complicated ? Because it's French.
Hope it helps ! 😂
PS : Personally i'm not overly fond of CDPR putting Gaunter O'Dimm behind the Usurper. Ultimately it doesn't change a thing to the whole story of his coup and assassination of Emperor Fergus. I thought it was more interesting when it happened organically, as coups tend to happen in powerful Nations when some ambitious man thinks he can do better than the current Ruler. What did O'Dimm seek to achieve ? Because ultimately Emhyr comes back and reclaims the Throne that is rightfully his, restoring the normal order of things. I'd hate the whole idea behind it to be Gaunter O'Dimm nudging events around and being indirectly responsible for Ciri's birth and thus basically the whole Witcher story, books and games.
Why worcestershire ? Because it's English ;) Old languages with many influences.
Hey thanks for the clarification
Also french here, and yeah, we don't put stress on most words with a few exception, to me the one that sounded the most accurate was at 19:05 just without the stress. And if youare ever interested in subtilities : "ain", "aint", "in", "im" and "un" are basically the same sound but with different uses depending on what letters follow the syllable : for exemple, "ain" and "aint" are usually at the end of a word, "im" is either used before a "p" or a "b" while most other cases will use "in". "un" is an outsider as it see very few uses aside from the number (one=un in french). hope those few explanation for the french syntaxe rules might help you if you are ever interested.
I'm German I learned to pronounce french words similar as you, I would put the stress somewhere in the middle. I never really learned french thou, just got a feeling for the pronounciation.
Very cool, thanks from a French learner (from years back) - wouldnt Toussaint, as long as we assume it's closely releated to the actual French-based word, mean something like All Saints? An all-saint town, city of all saints etc?
In french, you generally (always) put the stress on the last syllable (except if it's silent, obviously). so tousSAINT. Also, Toussaint (in french) literally means "All Saints" and there's a national holiday attached to the rememberance day of All The Saints, and it's called "jour de la Toussaint". No audible N or T. "Why" is the most common question asked while learning french, and as a french person, i cannot say (historically it's because of contractions and there used to be letters in between and yadda yadda yadda)
So "toussaint" (like google translate would say it) is "french-approved" version, but as it is a fictional place, it should be pronounced however the author intended it to, and i don't know how the Polish would say it.
P.S. Chuchote Cave is literally "whisper cave" in french (whisper as the imperative verb form)
You ruined such a good language
So just TuSa?
@jakub_paints6775 xLetalis pronounced it correctly when he wrote "Toossah".
Even if "aint" / ain / ein / un / in / im is almost impossible to pronounce for non native speaker (and I know it, my name is Quentin and I lived abroad for a long time), and it's same sound as Toussaint. Just different writing.
Since Toussaint is a French word, religious event, and also a town in France I suggest that there is way a pronouncing it ... otherwise they would've just change the name of it...
@@jakub_paints6775 We in Polish have two weird vowels: "ą" and "ę". Those are represented in French as well, for example in "on" = "ą", "en" = "ę".
French have a third weirdo vowel sound which is kind of like if you tried to say "ą", but starting with "a" instead of "o" (like when saying "ą"). This vowel is used in "Toussaint", so it's not just TuSa, but TuSaą. You can try hearing it in google translate, if you know it's there, maybe you can hear the difference.
The fact that I love is there is a game designer / narrative designer somewhere that know all the plots / complete story line of all the characters and he.she is probably watching all your videos
I appreciate the visual puns you do in the videos: "root", "hand", etc.
Also the "bear" in this video and "but" while entering Tomira's house in some older videos 😅
You convinced me that there were two whispesses.
Also, I find it worth a video to talk about how summoning doesn't require being a mage and even peasants can accidentally curse someone. It's such a huge concept within the lore.
I have to say that when you announced no more details missed I thought it will be the end of Witcher 3 videos from you , but seeing you making more Witcher content has made me so happy 😊
i dont know if that is by mistake, but in polish, Whispess as a crone is called "Szepciucha", whereas in that description of a cave, it says "Szeptucha" - similar but not the same
I've checked in game and yes, thery are really written differently, as You said. One may say they are two different ways to say the same nickname. But since "szeptucha" was a common name for healer woman who "wispers the illnesses out of the body" it seems it can be just a coincidence with similar name but different characters.
Interesting, thank you!
@@xLetalis The dialogues and descriptions in Witcher 3 were written in Polish and then translated into other languages. So since the cave description states that "Szeptucha" (a folk witch and healer) lived there, and not "Szepciucha" (the crone). We can be sure that the coincidence of names in the English version is a translation error, not a intentional action.
What was I expecting there will never be a definitive last details you missed in witcher 3
I once contacted you on Twitter regarding the Crones/Vivienne theory and you told me the time line doesn't really match up so I knew you bring this up here. This really convinced me but its also a weird concidence with the puppet and the feather. Though I like for some mysteries to stay hidden. Maybe they also wrote it like that for people to spin their theories about it.
For quite a while now, every time I see one of these vids, I keep thinking "not only is xLetalis awesome for finding all this stuff", but also "damn this game is DEEP, how many hours did the game devs spend putting in this many intricacies?"...
The man, the myth, the legend returns with more witcher videos
French guy here, about Toussaint you can pronounce it like this : 'too ss un'. The 'un' sound at the end sounds like number one (1) in french (check google translate). I do not recall any similar sound in english. In french, Toussaint is the translation of All Saints' Day. Then about the stress, in french it supposed to be on the last syllable of any word, though, in French french we don't really do it. I believe Swiss French put more emphasis on the stress, perhaps Belgian or Quebec french also ? Not sure about these two.
I'm always interested in hearing theories. Even if they don't have a lot of evidence and/or the evidence doesn't definitively point to one specific answer, it doesn't matter, because I just enjoy hearing the different thoughts floating around out there. It sort of takes me back to literature classes when we used to pick apart stories, which I always loved.
I have to admit it never occurred to me that Daphne could have cursed herself. (I'm a bit embarrassed to say that honestly, because the book in Ciri's room at Crow's Perch about how it's possible to create a curse without ever meaning to is something I frequently reference in discussions of Witcher content.) It's now my favorite theory.
Also, thank you for asking about Toussaint's pronunciation. I'm curious to know what folks say, as someone who's terrible with French pronunciation and therefore just tries my best to mimic however I've most recently heard it pronounced.
Ok, so about vivienne story. One Polish youtuber, sway play, was talking about this one. She searched through the files connected to this quest and found a model character, pointing to this nymph, that changed vivienne into monster. The surprising thing is, it had same model as the lady of the lake. Maybe you should dig through that?
Idk if they wanted to put this nymph in the game and the lady of the lake was just a placeholder, or maybe it was her's fault?
Lady of the Lake doesn't really fit here, as she owns a different lake.
Sure, may have been a different creature of the same kind, but I suspect as it was never used it's more likely just a copy and paste and was supposed to be replaced by a more individualized version later on. That's common practice, and would leave such an artefact
Hmm curious indeed! The Lady is quite helpful and sort of embodies virtue and what not, the way she is presented currently, so I wouldn't normally associate her with such a curse, but who knows. It may indeed be a placeholder similar to how Whispess simply has a low res version of Weavess' face
That was just a case of a model getting recycled. I think Philipp Weber mentioned it in an interview.
@@xLetalis She is helpful... but turned Goliath to monster :) Yet here I see it only as coincidence, it's look like creature who cursed viviene is on the same "race" as Lady of the Lake and.. that's all. Geralt also tell that this small lake on Viviene's glade have very strong magical power and is probably above some magical intersection... so who know? Maybe they planned "Lady of the other lake"? :)
I appreciate the subtitles. Not because of your accent, you speak pretty clearly, but because sometimes I'm not in the mood of wearing my headphones.
Great video as always!
Also, I'm Québécois so I can try to help with your questions. First, you don't say the "n" because it's part of a sound that can be written as wither "in, "ein" or "ain" (ignore the "t" at the end haha). It's more of a nasal sound, although we pronounce it slightly differently in Québec. You can Google the pronunciation of the word "Saint" in French and you'll be able to hear how it sounds.
Second, we don't usually put stress in our words if there is no visible accent (é, è, etc.).
Hope that helps! French is so complicated with exceptions to the exceptions and the non-pronunciation of so many letters, especially last consonants within words haha
Hey there and thanks for the comments :) I had a surprisingly few Canadians answering the question!
love your detailed explanations and the self critique. shows how much thought, time and research you put in to it.
I think you should start making videos that deal in the book series too, not just TW3. Never stop TW3 videos obviously, but some kind of videos regarding the books would be welcome too
yes please. so many people will never read the books but still watch these videos, it leads to lots of fans saying or thinking things that just aren't correct. and then book fans barely get a bone from xLetalis' videos, outside of references.
He couldn’t handle two weeks without witcher content 😂
Glad to have you back 😊
About botchling - the one with we interact - was work from ladys of the Woods. Wife of red Baron wanted help to Lost a child And they did It this way.
French speaker here 😄 About the pronunciation of "Toussaint", you can get the exact perfect pronunciation for that word if you go to Google translate and choose "French - to - whatever language" and write "Toussaint" under French and hit the "Listen" icon. This is exactly how any french person would pronounce it (except if that person is from a local place that has a specific heavy accent - and there are a couple of them in France 😅). No real stress on any syllable, and litterally pronounced as "Tout" (everything, in French) and "Saint" (a saint, in french); final "T" are silent. "Toussaint" is literally "All Saints Day" (that is commemorated every first of November). And, regarding your question "why does this word have three silent letters in succession?" : well, it does not! In french, the combination of vowels, and vowels + consonants produce new different sounds. The final "T" is silent, when the word is in it's masculine form. in feminine form, it takes a final "E" and then you pronounce it. About the three letters before that, "A" by itself is kinda pronounced as the A in "Pat", the "I", by itself, is pronounced like the "E" in "Me". When these two (A+I) are together then you pronounce them like the E in "pest". But when you add an "N" to A+I, it then roughly produces the sound as the final [an't] in the word "can't". Very nasal and also how we pronounce the word "Un" which means "One", in french"… Easy, right? ☺RIGHT? The french language has enormously evolved in the more than 2000 years of it's existence. A lot of diphthongs occurred, and the language has been enriched by roman/italian words, but also celt, arabic, old english, etc. It is the European language that derives from roman (just like Spanish and Italian) that has mutated the most…
Am very glad to see you covered this topic in details. :D I remember commenting this exact thing on one of your previous videos (Idk which one or how long ago), saying that the Whispess from Toussant is most probably not the same one from Velen (and Polish commentators seem to confirm this).
And I like this because it makes the world feel more interesting, like if I go to a different part of the continent I don't need to run into the same characters as I saw in Velen. =)
And yeah if Whispess from Velen had some obvious burn marks I would then be inclined to believe she was in Toussant, but that's not the case...
The name of the cave, "chuchote", means "whisper" in french. As for Toussaint, I suppose it's pronounced in French as well, it's the name of the "all saints" religious feast, 1st of november (which is generally related to the dead, visiting cemetaries, or halloween). There's not much stressing in french, but if there is, it would be tousSAINT, the T is silent, and the "ain" sound is like the french word "pain" (for bread) or "vin" (wine).
Love that you are still doing videos! As a Canadian I pronounce Tousaint To-sawn
you always make me feel better with your videos
wholesome comment from a creepy profile pic but I'm happy to hear
As a French man I can tell you we say "Tou Sain"
About the timeline. The thing you seem to not have considered is that two Crones might have come to Velen first and Whispess joined them later. None of the conversations you showed here specify how many Crones there are. It neither proves nor disproves anything but I enjoy it so much when you consider even the slightest possibilities that the fact you didn't mention it kinda broke my heart a bit🥲 But damn man thank you soooooo for such profound content. After your previous video I appreciate it even more))
Whispess is the oldest of the crones, as far as we know
Could You please explore the theory that Toussaint is secretly governed by vampires? Some evidence falls into place: there is a katakan in Oxenfurt which likes to feed on the drunk people, the book that can be encountered in Toussaint about how to breed humans, but in a “gentle” way, many higher vampires settle there, there are signs connected to the highest vampire scattered around e.g. near the inn, which serves alcohol of course. So could there be that since they drink blood for fun, that they established a land, with wine yards to breed happy humans, who would not object to being taken advantage of?
The only channel I actually instant click and like the moment I see a video drop
Also thank you for the subtitles! I normally understand you fine but subtitles are always welcome.🤗
Commenting just to say love the longer videos and interesting content.
“Good luck on the path” as my favourite merchant would say
My man is always on point I love this channel so much 🙂
Thanks for sharing this. I have to say I never really thought much beyond what Vivienne's parents said and dismissed it as something that you'll just never learn. I think as gamers we always like everything resolved and explained, but life isn't like that. Especially the life of a witcher. You are always on the move and very rarely stay in one location long enough to see the conclusion to an event. I think there are a few instances in the game where Geralt asks people what became of something after he left. That is just something we all have to learn to live with and it gives you a subtle taste as to what it must feel like always being on the outside and just passing through. Personally I agree with your theory of things just happening whenever strong emotion is involved
This was a good interesting watch.
It's always a treat to watch xLetalis's Witcher video :)
I finished the video now. I really hope, that you will continue to do these kind of videos, really interesting!
I appreciate Ciri being sold in this video
I really like your ideea behind Daphne’s curse. You’re always the best Letalis ❤
Always a pleasant when @xLetalis upload keep it up bud
nice video, I liked the subtitles btw
French Canadian living in France here. FYI, Toussaint is the French version of All Saints, like the religious holiday. In Quebec we put the same amount of emphasis on both halves of that word. As for pronunciation, "Tous" would be like "Too" and "Saint" would be like the word "Sane" without the NE sound at the end (the T in Toussaint is silent), so Too-sa(ne).
Yaaay, you are back!
Welcome!
Your pronounciation of Toussaint is actually quite good just after you asked if the A is pronounced like an A/O.
And I'll add there are no stressed syllables in French unlike in English for example. It is kind of a non-tone language. However, depending on where you go, French speaking people can have very different accents and could stress more the first or the last syllable or even add phonemes. But basic French does not stress syllables.
Furthermore, Toussaint is the French name for the All Saints' Day at the end of October, it literally means "All Saints" ;)
Hope this will help !
Too sant [Nasal N]. Perhaps it's the Crone's mother(?). I like the natural manifestation theory. I ignored the bird lady story because I decided the knight had fallen in love with a Bruxa and deserved his fate.
Regarding the Nilfguardian Officer's club: I wonder if it was abandoned content to find the Lt (as part of the love affair in white orchard). It doesn't sit well with me for Geralt to hear about monsters attacking humans and decide not to investigate.
CDPR should hire xLetalis full time to track the consistency of the plot of Witcher 4 with the rest of the series.
I would really like to see you meet up with the producers of Witcher 3 one day and discuss some of these theories
As a Canadian who speaks french as a second language the pronunciation at 18:45 is how I would pronounce it.
Also French Canadian, seconded
As a swiss who speak french I confirm aswell 🇨🇭 (yes french is spoken in a lot of countries). Stress would more likely be in the end.
Toussaint dosent have three silent letters, only one. -ain makes one sound and the -t is silent.
I can see why some folks might think that the voodoo doll with feathers is Vivienne's. It's Johnny's, though.
Love your videos dude.
Just googled and learned that chuchote means whispers in French and also when in doubt, it is all Gaunter's fault Lol
It doesn't really matter how you say Toussaint. Just like in America, for example, one state pronounces water "water" and others pronounce it like "warder". Me as someone who used to speak french(I stopped when I moved to America), I pronounce Toussaint like the knights, without the stress at the end.
I personally never associated Daphne’s case with Whispess, rather thought the Lynx witch was lying to Geralt that she had nothing to do with this matter. But I was curious about the Vivienne theory, and all your arguments are firmly presented enough to leave the Whispess story in Velen only, particularly considering the fact that B&W was released ofc later.
I would also say that the Crones are not human creatures and do not care about/understand human emotions and relationships, let alone feeling some kind of jealousy just because some human woman is in love. They treat Velen inhabitants as inferior to them, or servants even, and want to have power over this land. Crones punish for disobedience (Anna Stenger), not from sheer hatred, as you said.
PS Yayy I knew it wasn’t the end! So happy to watch this video, thank You so much ❤ Very well made material.
Thank you :)
Letalis: This is last Witcher 3 video.
Letalis a few days later: New video.
Keep up the good work man. Also, I still consider that The Witcher 1 and 2 details series are not a bad idea.
yoo, back again i see! the longer videos are a nice surprise :)
This ending! :O
In polish version 'Toussaint' is being pronounced more or less in the same way: 'Tusą', with stress on 'są', where 'ą' is a nasal 'o' vowel. My guess is it's quite good approximation, at least for an untrained Slavic ear, but I won't bet it is correct.
About all this theories. Or rather hypothesises one should say, since theory is a part of science knowlegde which has been already proven, and hypothesis is something that seems plausible but have not been proven yet. I personaly like to use scientific method in my life whenever I'm not sure what to do or what to think. In this case it means, I see any of those hypothesises as a possible as long as one find anything that proves it wrong without any doubt. This is called 'falsifiability' and this is the very base of scientific method in general.
And this is in general very good way of dealing with any uncertains in life: to look for some contradiction rather for confirmation. It's because we, people, have tendency for "confirmation bias", which is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. So if one want to avoid this bias it's better to look for contradictions.
And if there is no contradiction, I think it is save to leave the hypothesis as a possible yet not proven. That is until we find some strong evidence for confirmation.
I forgot to mention before. As I remember, some years ago, before any game was released, probably about the time when a polish TV series had being prepared (around year 2002 after Conjunction) or earlier, Sapkowski was asked for making some officiall guidelines of how to pronounce names of people and places, the evlish language and other strange words he used in his books, because those things are difficult for Poles as well. He didn't like the idea, but after some time and pressure he finally did it and even have published. Or let others to publish. Problem is, I've never seen this guide, and now I cannot even find it anywere online :(
So now I'm not even sure, if it really happened, or it's just my brain makes fun of me :/
I was hoping you'd found more stuff to talk about, Witcher-Love is neverending!
I think it’s likely that Whispess was benevolent at some point, being burned alive and then resurrected by the Lady of the Woods twisted her into her current malevolence. “She Who Knows” claims that the Lady made her daughters of dirt and mud, but how different is that if you add a charred corpse or human ashes?
I've seen many people explaining fairly properly how French is pronounced, and I'd like to add on the subject of silent letters in some of our words. When int comes to Toussaint, the only truly silent letter is the T since "AIN" are making a single sound together. But overall, most of our silent letters, be it at the end or in the middle of words, are traces of ethymology. The French language has very strong latin and greek roots, and you can often find remnants of these roots
2:42 That point is a bit strange, as far as i know, Dryads, the nymphs of the woods, are born in the same way as humans or elves: with a father and a mother.
Personnally, i think Vivienne curse is too recent to be the doing of Whispess but i can be wrong on that.
it could be argued that converted dryads are "born without mother or father" but generally yes, I do mention it again, later in the video, wondering how exactly did the nymph's appearance make Vivivnne's mother think so
@@xLetalis i would argue that even in that case, there was a human mother and father.
the appearance of nymphes is not very clear beyond little beautiful women. The fact that they are green skinned is a addition of the game. So i guess any beautiful humanoids could be mistaken as a nymph.
It could be that Whispess cursed Vivienne's parents from Velen. I have several reasons for this:
1. She has so many ears in Velen that there would be almost no inhabitants with ears left if they were to rot normally. I think they are somehow magically prepared and last forever. So she could still have a few ears in her old home and hear certain things.
2. We also see her speaking through Anna and she has control over ravens and the Fiend. Perhaps she still controls a being in Toussaint or simply makes herself appear in the reflection of the lake. That seems relatively easy, Triss does something similar in the fountain in Novigrad and Ermion has a bowl for it in his laboratory where the stuffed animals are. The Lady of the Lake is also a nymph and relatively well known in Toussaint, perhaps that is why she was mistaken for one.
3. The power of the Crones extends beyond Velen: In the settlement outside the city walls of Novigrad you can hear a conversation between two women. One of them says that at night she sometimes hears the laughter of old women coming from the direction of Velen, which scares her more than the cries of war.
I also think your reasoning with the names is a bit weak. Names like Ove and Volker are certainly typical names in Skellige and the northern kingdoms. Many people are called that. Whispess is not a common name, she is called that because she overhears whispers.
Hi friend ! I've been following your videos for quite some time even if i don't comment often, i love what you do. And I'm french and it will be my pleasure to answer your questions : personnaly i would put the stress in the beginning so TOUssaint, no the sound "n" is not to be heard in the end, it's just the sound "hein" and the sonority globaly speaking it's "touss hah" = your second pronounciation is the correct one to me so "Toussah". Let me add some informations "tous" means "all" in french, and "saint", well, same as in english. So it's the place of "all of the saints" and the place is clearly inspired from South of France, so the way they pronounce things there might differ a bit from mine since i am not exactly from the region which inspired this place. If this is inspired by the Duché de Provence (close to italian border) it is possible they put the stress at the end of the word.
Please keep the good work, love your videos !
As a student of "Modern European languages , Literature & Culture Studies" I can confirm that the pronunciation will much more be likely as in French (very much cause Toussaint is loosely reflective of French culture) . So we should say it like we pronounce end of croissant ... if there are consonants at end of a word they go silent so we should pronounce as TooSO with the stress being on the very last syllable .
19:00...
As a french guy, fan of your work for so many years, I'm kinda happy you ask this question about pronunciation !!
Stress can be in both position, as for the pronunciation, it's like "one" in french "un". Any online tranlsator can help you there !
As for the silent letters... welcome to the rench bizarre grammatical rules, in which such a common noun like "oiseaux" (birds) (yeah, I'm being picky, because it's probably the only one 🤭) doesn't even have a single letter pronounced the way it should normally be pronounced !
Thanks again for the video and keep up with the good work !
As someone who ISNT French, but spent many years learning the language, and working in an industry where you meet many backpackers- Toussaint, and it’s pronunciation, I think comes down to in-universe Regional Accents and whether a VA can fork out a decent French-esque accent.
I never get bored of videos of witcher of this guy.
13:15 - “It doesn’t sound like Whispess”
Consider that maybe Whispess WAS good, and did want to truly help people. And that it wasn’t until she was unjustifiably burned to death by that knight, that she came to hate humanity
French Canadian here! Toussaint is French for All Saints (specifically 'tous saint(e)'). The emphasis would be on 'saint' which sounds like it does in English without the 't' sound. Hope this helps!
I definitely pronounce Toussaint the French way even though I'm English. It's the only foreign language I learned at school though.
It wouldn't surprise me if the Whispess was involved, even if CDPR added the tenuous links after the fact. It feels like something that they're fond of doing to help flesh out the backstory. Considering that CDPR likes to keep an eye on what the community comes up with, it makes sense to me. 😊❤❤❤😊
Previously, I had always considered the witch of lynx crag to be playing with semantics when she says she is not responsible for what happened to daphne. I thought that she did curse daphne (not gareth, he's just a cheater), but didn't necessarily prescribe this fate to her; that a combination of the curse and gareth being unfaithful is what landed her in the tree situation. But now I think I agree that the curse was a manifestation of daphne's inability to let go of gareth when he never showed. She held on too tightly and regardless of the witch of lynx crag's involvement, had the choice to move on with her life but didn't take it.
that is a possibility as well
Thanks to god we have you xletalis
Love your videos
I wouldn’t have assumed Vivienne’s parents had any particular knowledge of the creature, I always assumed the description was more of a way to say that the nymph wasn’t one of many, but a unique creature. Whether our Whispess was ever in Toussaint or not, I have a hard time imagining that was a description of a creature they knew well, otherwise I imagine they would’ve named a creature from myth like one of the ones in the books
I mean people generally arent static and can go through drastic changes in their personality or behaviors out of sheer boredom if nothing else, and ancient deities do live a long time, its a bit of a pet peeve for me these days when people expect other sentient beings to just be one way forever, esp if they live for supposed eons 💀
YOU CANNOT LEAVE 💖
Siempre es bueno un video de The Witcher, muchas gracias
There’s something very troubling about Tomira wielding a sword like a witcher, battling oversized wild boars in slow motion, wearing tight pants.
bro. It’s been years! You still updating? Legend.
yeah...
In polish dub everyone says… hard to describe it in English. It’s something along the lines of „Tusą”. Ą is kinda like „oh” in English, so my best guess would be „Toosoh”
I think analyzing the more complex and well thought out theories that arent straight up nonsens is good content. Liked that one a lot. Anything to see my man posting more witcher 3 content
Thank god, you are still making witcher videos!
French speaker here, my father actually having the name Toussaint. We put the stress at the start and don't sound the n at the end. Ultimately i dont think it has ever mattered how someone says it. Its not like "Saint Pancras" where english people would sound the N in pancras.
The crones have the people of Velen convinced that they're extremely helpful - as well as beautiful and benevolent - so maybe the description from B&W is from the perspective of local storyteller(s) who, like the populace of Velen, is under the illusion that Whispess is generally good natured. It fits thematically with the narrative that encompasses the whole series: the fairytale macabre. The text is a summary of "old folks' jabber", so it isn't too far fetched that these "folks" are under a similar collective spell as the ones in Velen. Maybe the version of events described in the text needs to be examined through the filter of local folklore. The locals only know and believe what Whispess wanted them to know/believe.
Hi, I'm French ! The word Toussaint is a common word in french meaning "all the saints". There is no "N" sound at the end in french. The "A" at the end is not pronounced as a "O". In french, "stress" in words are quite low but I would say it's in the beginning. Your pronounciation at 18:45 is quite good, it's the right one :)
To my mind I always thought that the story about the nymph of the woods that cursed Vivienne was just a nod to traditional fairytales because of how "fairytale like" this quest is, because it is so random when you stop and think about it alot more random than the Witcher usually is with quests that do a twist on fairytales, which is very reminiscent of beginnings of many actual fairytales. I mean when I heard it for the first time I was like "this is so random and strange" but it fit perfectly with the fairytale vibe of both Toussaint and this specific quest. I mean think back on most fairytales and you will find that the event that sets things into motion for those stories is very random
Whispess has a motive to keep visiting Toussaint. It's the magic lake itself. I guess, she too, like Vivienne, takes her original look after dive in the lake, right?
Good work, anyway. I also hope moders will expend Viviennes story in Skellige. Like side quest and romantic option.
I'm not french but I speak it. I think it makes sense to stress the "OU" in Toussaint because you can break it down into "Tous" meaning all and "Saint" meaning saint, sort of like they're calling it the "All-Saints Land" and usually in french you would stress the "Every" part like in english with "Everybody".
Again, French isn't my primary language but think I know enough to share my thoughts on it. 🤘
yes you got it if you have ant doubt listen do the pronuonciation on google trad it pretty good
About Whispess - it could mean something enterally different. In polish szeptunka or szeptucha were witches/shamans. So it was more of a proffesion than name. It could be some local shamanka. But I would have to check game in polish, but I don't have acces to it at the moment.
Maybe it was Mother? The Crones strike me that they had a bigger area of domain than in the game.
Could it be, I think the Crones choose Velen as their home but as they are insanely old beings (I don't know how canon it is, but in Gwent lore entries it is said that Mother was a very ancient being from even before the Conjunction) maybe they have wandered across the world for quite a long time, so I think it's plausible.
@@thehunter5896 good point.
@@luisemoralesfalcon4716of course it's just a theory, but in one of the entries it says that she "wandered the world" in search of all kinds of knowledge, so it's quite possible that her daughters could do the same and were not just tied to Velen (although I don't think Mother cursed Vivienne, because she was killed and her spirit imprisoned quite a long ago, like, it happened so much time before that it is even an ancient event for the Crones lol).
@@thehunter5896 so true.
@thehunter5896 true, I initially saw the Crones as a required evil in Witcher 3 but, f--- them.
Witcher was meant to be a subversion of fairy tale tropes, and I love Blood and Wine’s take on Rapunzel and the choice you have to make about Vivienne. While Rapunzel was a love story, in Blood and Wine you have to decide whether you sentence Vivienne to a long life of obligation to her “hero”. Or a shorter life of freedom. It’s a great take.
Related to this, and what you touched upon in the video is a concept that comes up in the Witcher books, about payment and how one must always pay their debts. So the idea of taking payment in some of these scenarios with the crones or the master mirror is super consistent with the world of the books and may not be smoking gun proof that links Vivienne and the lady in the tree to the crones.
didn't i tell you 2 weeks ago.... that you gonna upload another one in next few weeks 🤣🤣 here we are...😍
My guess xLetalis, is that it is intended to be the same person but it is one of the things that was not properly stablished, like the age thing was a small detail that they didnt realised OR we are missing something to make the connection.
Just like i mentioned you with "Following the Thread" im sure there are either missing details there, or stuff we havent been found.
Sorry writting this as im watching. About Whispess being considerate a nice person in that writting, remember that in Velen people there considers the Crones to be good, they arent, but that description would fit how Velen people describe the ladies, definately.
if we are going to analyse that deep i could ask how Vivianne mother knew she was going to have a daughter, this could be explained with the classic "a mage did it". But still. I dont really think they think about it too deeply, i do support that if it has the same name = same person, this is how things are 99% of the time, at least.
One thing i feel it wasnt considered is that, Whispess being in Thousand, at some point, i think the name is evidence enoght, BUT being involved Vivienne curse is all expeculation, and thats to me, is where all the problems are.
Thanks for videos xLetalis
Pronunciation of Toussaint depends on how much wine have you drink. If you are sober is Toussaint, half bottle Tousant, whole bottle Tuson
These theories are indeed fun to think about... but I dont think they are true. Like you said, some curses can occure "naturally" or the witch of Lynx Crag could be behind Daphnes curse all along. We dont know for sure but both of these explanations seem much more likely to me than having to rely on some lines on the fast-travel sign...
Also when we actually get a reference to another character in this very DLC, Gaunter cursing someone, the Devs made it extremely clear! Like the backstory we are told and even Gaunters OST. The crones also have a unique/memorable soundtrack and using that at the end of one of these quest would be as mind blowing as Gaunters sountrack was with the other quest, so I think the Devs would have done this if it really was intended.
So I dont think these theories are true, but we cannot be sure... and I wouldnt be mad if they came back to this in the Witcher 4 or so and confirmed it...
(Also the sign description in german gives no more hints than the english one... the same name but the way the description is written... could be just a coincedent that they share the name, but yeah... why would they use the same name when they could also just use a different one?)