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The Witcher 2Witcher 2's story is amazing (END-GAME SPOILERS)(17 posts)(17 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 11, 2011
i think i figured out why letho's situation is so awesome:


you're the second fiddle semi-bad guy to his plot-armored protagonist.

the game fundamentally isn't about your quest, it's about letho's. letho's the one who gets all the information, he's the one who gets all the support and funding, he's the one who gets to complete his tasks despite your flailing efforts to stop him.

furthermore, you're the guy who he spares because he doesn't think you're really bad, just on the wrong side at the time. he doesn't want to kill you. in fact, he'd like it if you exited stage left and went away to retire with your honey. you and he were bros at one time, and in honor of that memory, he only wants the best for you. so please stay out of his way.

this makes the ending even more amazing, because you realize that letho beat the game, not you. he's the one who gets to see it all come together. he's the one who gets to have the fairy tale ending. you? you're just the slightly incompetent not-really-a-bad-guy who's confused and misguided and wears a :| face most of the time. in fact, letho still likes that about you, you lovable blunderer! you were never the planning sort of guy, never had an ounce of the guile that living in the south requires. and if you went off on some crusade to save the north instead of rescuing triss from the nilfgaardians, well, he'll rescue her FOR you because he's a decent sort and what are friends for?


it's bloody brilliant. :D

it's a complete inversion of the usual results that gamers expect. geralt's not denied a happy ending of sorts, but it's an "adam pangratt gets to go home to his girlfriend" kind of happy ending, not a "i changed the world and completed my quests" kind of happy ending.

i've got to applaud CDPR for having the sheer balls to do something like this.
Posted June 11, 2011
Well said....made me smile.

I concur!
Posted June 11, 2011
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curlyhairedboy: he's the one who gets to have the fairy tale ending.
Unless, you know... you kill him and whatnot, turning his fairy tale ending into a smorgasbord of pain and death :)

But I agree with all that jazz you wrote. You pretty much just summed up why I loved the story.
Posted June 11, 2011
Beautifully said, I agree with every word :) It only makes the "choices & consequences" part of these games even stronger and makes you wonder if one would've made the same choices if they had the whole picture from the beginning.
Posted June 11, 2011
I really hadn't looked it at that way. Thx for pointing it out, I definitely look it it more fondly now =D
Posted June 11, 2011
pardon me, but that's really quite a ridiculous take on it. this is geralt's story. letho just has a large part. just because a character knows more than you and reveals all doesn't mean you're some an incompetent twit. in fact, it just shows that geralt is able to track down the king slayer, find out everything about him, and uncover the plot, all the while regain his memory and discovering who he is.
Posted June 12, 2011
I agree with the OP to a certain extent tbh.

On my first playthrough i didnt kill Letho because to me,he is just another Witcher on the Path..much like Geralt always ends up entangled in the politics of the countries he is wandering through whether he likes it or not. The same basically happened for Letho.Even if they are from differant schools..Witchers are a dieing breed.

It was only on my second playthrough that it ocurred to me that Letho's story is pretty similar to many of Geralts adventures in a way,as it pertains to the games. He is just another wandering Witcher on the Path who made his choices for good or ill,the same way players make their choices while playing as Geralt.

Geralt ends up entangled in Temerian politics due to the events of the first game and by the time the second game begins he is effectively King Foltests guard dog..a neutral Witcher caught up in the affairs of a King etc.

I think the genius of this game on CDPR's part is that its all about the "Assassin of Kings",Letho is initially portrayed as a bad guy. But through out the story,Geralt who is trying to clear his name of a crime he didnt commit,is constantly put in positions where you have a direct hand in the murdering of royalty (Roche/Henselt or Stennis/vergen peasants)..by the time the game comes to its conclusion,depending on your choices,Letho is still the total bad guy or is actually not an enemy at all. Just a fellow Witcher on his Path.

Also,as you learn more about Letho's history..he is exactly like Geralt,just a differant Witcher school in a differant kingdom with differant royalty but generally the same. Their seperate paths connect right at the end and they can either fight to the death or part ways as two Witchers caught up in the madness of the times. Beautiful =)

I personally fought him to the death on my second playthrough just because i wanted a proper Witcher v Witcher epic duel. But when the Witcher 3 comes about my save-import from W2 will have Letho alive and well =)
Posted June 12, 2011
How mad would you be if there was an expansion pack, where you control Letho. I mean, it would technically be The Witcher, right?
Posted June 12, 2011
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GrimTuesday: How mad would you be if there was an expansion pack, where you control Letho. I mean, it would technically be The Witcher, right?
that would be pretty neat. i'd certainly enjoy it. :D
Posted June 12, 2011
The Witcher 1 was beautiful, in part because of the final encounter's weird and powerful resonance once you figured out who Jacque De Aldersberg was, and that he wasn't necessarily 'wrong'.

I was hoping for something similar in Witcher 2, and at first glance, what Letho's doing isn't as nuanced - but for one small encounter in Chapter 2, if you take Iorveth's path.

If you talk to Stennis in Vergen enough to piss him off, asking about politics, he'll lay into Geralt, basically telling him that Foltest was just using him, because simple people with moral codes are easily manipulated by the promise of decency & friendship from powerful people, that by pretending to be Geralt's friend, Foltest got use out of him for pennies that he would have had to pay a fortune for from anyone else. It comes off as mean spirited and shallow from Stennis, who is a complete tool.

But talking with Letho at the end of the game, you realize that the Emperor of Nilfgaard (by all accounts a total bastard) was doing that exact thing to him - exploiting him for political gain, with small promises. Letho's probably even more duped than Geralt has been (by Foltest, Radovid, or any of them), and I felt an overwhelming sadness at how many people in the story had died because of it.

That's why I chose to kill him, too many people had died. If you're clued in to the big picture, it's a really sad ending, like the first one was.
Posted June 12, 2011
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rmomega: That's why I chose to kill him, too many people had died. If you're clued in to the big picture, it's a really sad ending, like the first one was.
On the other hand, many of the people that died "my" Geralt didn't care about, while Letho saving Triss was a big plus in my book.

I wondered while playing how much Geralt would have cared for Foltest death if he wasn't directely involved. Maybe enough for a toast in his loving memory?

The mess Letho did was a big one, but one with a purpose, and nobody in Witcher world can say to have the hands clean?
How many people died by the hands of people that we call "victims"? Foltest, Henselt, prolly Radovid too have more blood on hands than Letho.

Also, another question I wondered myself after the final confrontation. Can we say Geralt wouldn't have done the same things as Letho if places were swapped? If some powerful person offered him to restore Kaer Morhen in exange to assassinate kings in a foreign land?
Probably not, as Geralt actively tries to stay out of politics, but I can't deny he would be tempted, at least in my opinion.
Posted June 12, 2011
Letho is a pitiful Nilfgaardian sellout in the end. He didn't have to do what he did. Geralt sides with kings out of necessity. There are quite big differences in character here.
The Letho part of the story is interesting, but the whole story revels too much about politics and not so much about hard moral choices. There are, in fact, almost none of these in TW2. For instance, choosing whether to save Triss or Anais isn't much of a dilemma, even less when you realise Triss will survive no matter what, so saving her is obvioulsy a bad choice in retrospect.
Siding with the Order or the Scoia'tael, or even funnier trying to remain neutral, was much more interesting than the current installment.
Some endings are also very poor at telling whether people still believe you to be the kingslayer or nor, which was kind of all the reason why Geralt got embarked in that quest in the first place.
Posted June 12, 2011
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Seren: I agree with the OP to a certain extent tbh.

On my first playthrough i didnt kill Letho because to me,he is just another Witcher on the Path..much like Geralt always ends up entangled in the politics of the countries he is wandering through whether he likes it or not. The same basically happened for Letho.Even if they are from differant schools..Witchers are a dieing breed.

It was only on my second playthrough that it ocurred to me that Letho's story is pretty similar to many of Geralts adventures in a way,as it pertains to the games. He is just another wandering Witcher on the Path who made his choices for good or ill,the same way players make their choices while playing as Geralt.

Geralt ends up entangled in Temerian politics due to the events of the first game and by the time the second game begins he is effectively King Foltests guard dog..a neutral Witcher caught up in the affairs of a King etc.

I think the genius of this game on CDPR's part is that its all about the "Assassin of Kings",Letho is initially portrayed as a bad guy. But through out the story,Geralt who is trying to clear his name of a crime he didnt commit,is constantly put in positions where you have a direct hand in the murdering of royalty (Roche/Henselt or Stennis/vergen peasants)..by the time the game comes to its conclusion,depending on your choices,Letho is still the total bad guy or is actually not an enemy at all. Just a fellow Witcher on his Path.

Also,as you learn more about Letho's history..he is exactly like Geralt,just a differant Witcher school in a differant kingdom with differant royalty but generally the same. Their seperate paths connect right at the end and they can either fight to the death or part ways as two Witchers caught up in the madness of the times. Beautiful =)

I personally fought him to the death on my second playthrough just because i wanted a proper Witcher v Witcher epic duel. But when the Witcher 3 comes about my save-import from W2 will have Letho alive and well =)
I like this one too - you guys are making some excellent points in this.

I need more Witcher
Posted June 12, 2011
Thank the for those interpretations of the story. I just read them, ston3d, with The Witcher suite played by symphonic orchestra in the background.

And all the points you made started to evolve into images of the story right in front of me.

Damn, I'm trippin... :)
Posted June 12, 2011
lol nice,enjoy^^
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The Witcher 2Witcher 2's story is amazing (END-GAME SPOILERS)(17 posts)(17 posts)
(17 posts)