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revoevokukil · 8 months

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What's ur pov on the burning of birka and why this single elf burned the whole village after getting rejection from a single human women.At last I didn't know that any male elves find human women pretty enough for dating.

Ah, but it's a bit of question mark whether male elves are, indeed, averse to human women, isn't it? The incredibly high rate of mixing between Aen Seidhe and humans by the 1200s would not hold up otherwise.

I believe we hear about this topic for the first time in the Last Wish. In Geralt's view, pure-blooded elves are not known for admiring human women for their beauty; i.e. the reader is led to infer that male elves don't find human women attractive enough to have sex with, much less to pursue a romantic relationship with.

But Geralt is already, how to put it, compromised. He has met Yennefer. He is wont to wishful thinking, including dismissing any signals of Chireadan harbouring romantic feelings toward Yen. Geralt is likely looking for rationalisations to deny this possibility (besides, he likes Chireadan). Alas, Chireadan - a male elf - is very much infatuated with Yennefer of Vengeberg - a human sorceress.

Okay, but doesn't Yennefer have elven ancestry? Probably.

I wouldn't put too much faith in the words of any man who pulls any variation of the "tainted womb" argument with the woman they slept with, but then again this is the Witcher & I am partial to an elf who exploded the cousin of that line of argumentation onto the level of foreign and domestic policy, so whatever. It's always the women who are at fault anyway, am I right? Yennefer is born a hunchback; an elven changeling if there ever was one to dear pa, Janka. And it's only because of her vague and distant elven ancestry (and sorceresses' enchantments) that Chireadan could be taken with Yen in the first place, surely. What would that make elven males then? Bloodhounds? Because it's the elven women, who were blood traitors, surely, not elven men.

Ah. Well.

'Unbridled lust never leaves you, sex totally governs you; it’s a drive more powerful even than the survival instinct. To die? Why not, if one can fuck around beforehand. That is your entire philosophy.’ Geralt didn’t interrupt or comment, although he felt a strong desire to. ‘And what suddenly happens?’ Avallac’h continued. ‘Elves, bored by she-elves, court the always-willing human females. Bored she-elves give themselves, out of perverse curiosity, to human males, always full of vigour and verve.' - Avallac'h Tower of the Swallow

Avallac'h is pretty unambiguous - humans are easy and elves are ever so often looking for something that would keep them from turning into their precious Amell marble statues.

The entire discourse is an ethnic conflict classic in how it treats women's bodies, to be honest, but that's a longer story; I recently wrote about the political underpinnings of elven sexual relations. The realism of Sapkowski's fantastical races desires is sufficiently proven though, I think, in the very nature of the problems they are made to face. And not only long-lived elven women crave novelty (or intensity of emotion), and not only elven women should get the blame for it.

(Obvs blame game here is inherently fucked up in the first place, and a symptom.)

Male elves are not somehow biologically coded not to desire human women. Their contribution to the shared human-elf gene pool had to be pretty significant for it to have become hard at present day to find any human who would not have a dash of Seidhe Ichaer in their veins. In fact, the view Geralt parrots in the 1200s - when the Aen Seidhe have become a de facto ethnic minority - is probably more reflective of elven nationalist views adopted AFTER the experiment with coexistence and cooperation took a turn for the usual - ideological poisoning and resurgence of Them vs Us, persecution, cleansing & genocide.

Okay, sure. But what if it's just sex then? Romance is still laughable. Because did you read Auberon's & Ciri's interactions??? I did. One too many times, trust me.

But I don't think Aen Elle give definite proof. The reasons for all three rejecting Ciri 'the woman' on various levels - even while trying to get her with child as a matter of course - are pretty complex; not to forget that Ciri is not a grown woman yet and that this is - overall - her nightmarish becoming-of-age story, the loss of innocence, etc.

(For Auberon, romance is likely out of the question since Ciri's eyes remind him of his dead daughter - Lara - but sex might be achievable due to equal resemblance to Shiadhal, Lara's mother; and ends justify the means. There is also the deep-seated hatred for humanity as a whole, for humans cost Auberon his daughter's life & his ambitions which were installed within that life.

For Avallac'h, romantic notions are very much present in his idealization of the Swallow, Lara's daughter, but at the time Ciri offers herself to him, sex is still unacceptable; the humiliation too evident, the anger too deeply entrenched in ennobled suffering (even against the temptation of taking petty revenge), and the threat ever-present - of having the source of the projection of his romantic notions be over-written and erased in the course of the act, resulting in total loss of control over the narrative-Lara and narrative-Crevan Avallac'h has never let go of in his thoughts and forever-loving heart; like a true necromancer.

For Eredin, the notion of a storybook-worthy romance is veilled in a kind of wistful melancholy, irony, and indifference; because ultimately the notion is Ciri's projection, which he sees through and uses to further the elves' ends. They are both tools in the greater scheme of things - which orders them about - and while sex is not unacceptable, it is just unnecessary given the parts they presently have to play and, insofar, remains uninteresting. Ciri is Death and Eredin a corpse; a corpse can create nothing but itself through communion with Death. And that's not in the Plan of things.)

Elves are, by nature, a "not so rational" species; soundbite courtesy of Ida Emean. "Neither our race nor our power draws its strength from rationality. In spite of that it has endured for tens of thousands of years." Fey folk can be famously mercurial and temperamental, and, as we have learned, value beauty, novelty, and memory of life's particularity.

Bringing us to what happened at Birka, or the later Flaming Jealousy.

First of all - an elven farmer. Elves don't farm. So you have a mature elf who has tried to integrate, or a young elf who has been born into the current world order where elves are either giving up or losing their culture, magic (connected to land, which integrates them), and position in the society. Definitely not elven elite here, and we have already seen what elven elite can get involved in. However, upbringing matters in regulating expressed behaviour and in this instance we probably have an elf who is trying to go with the flow despite the difficulties; indeed, why not even entertain him a supporter of the co-existence and co-operation - khm, commingling, khm - ideals? In fact, would not pursuing a miller's daughter advance our elven farmer in the new social structure better than remaining isolationist along with his fellow elves? To then have this denied to you in the aforedescribed fashion is like the entire human society spitting in your face.

Secondly, nobody likes having their feelings mocked, especially if said feelings are deep and true.

Thirdly, it is said the elf exploded somewhat untypically for his race. That's what humans think due to elven haughtiness. Yet, if we take another explosion - Avallac'h at Ciri - then I cannot help but wonder how "untypical" it really was; if deeply personal matters are concerned (matters which give way for foundational memories in a long-lived species)? Especially given that jealousy and dramatic outcomes accompanied the Crevan-Lara-Cregennan triangle as well, and who knows how blind was Crevan's love or what was Lara's attitude to everything.

There is also the option that the story blames the miller's daughter. A culprit is needed, after all; a village was burned down! It better be that the cause for such tragedy is sufficiently dramatic and understandably horrible. A woman who slept around - with her relatives even! - just to spite an elf could serve as a solid wicked witch; co-existence advocates can blame her, while humans can blame the hotheaded, unreliable elf. Win-win. Given that we are given this information in Tower of the Swallow - the same book that provides a scene where Avallac'h says something eerily similar in effect about Lara's choices and their tragic consequences - the possibility of historical revisionism remains.

So I think the burning down of Birka can serve as great insight into how deeply and strongly elves - those cool and distant-seeming creatures - can feel, and how partial they can become once they have made their mind up about something or someone, especially if spurred on by a strong emotion. (Consider how elves, who value life inherently, genocided and subjected humans to servitude in their new homeworld; how it all could have happened after Lara's death or as a result of developments between Aen Seidhe and humanity.) But I also think it can show us how unexpectedly drastic can be the results of male jealousy, and how retroactively told stories can always find a reason and an ultimate culprit.

Personal feelings drive most of the Witcher's tragedy - beneath all the great Plans and machinations - and so, too, here.

#asks #the witcher #birka #tower of the swallow #aen elle #aen seidhe #the last wish #auberon #avallac'h #eredin #elves #the witcher meta #ciri #witcher books

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