#if they plan to keep Radovid to his canon route why change his personality and mannerisms so much??

[exitpursuedbyasloth]

(So I originally wrote the following in a reply to the post screencaped above. I wanted to reblog this as the S3B is premiering in a couple days and I have major concerns over this potential plot direction. However OP blocked me for my reply and I can’t, however they’re my words so I will repost them as I see fit. Including the original post for context only, and I added some additional clarifying comments.)

…that would be pretty terrible, ngl.

Canon Radovid (in the games, he’s like 12 at the end of the books, although his future turn is hinted at) turns genocidal towards sorceresses and other non-humans both for political power, but also because of the festering resentment of the abuse, manipulations, and wrongs he sees him and father suffer at the hands of the sorceress Phillipa and Dijkstra, including his father’s assassination by an elf at the behest of Phillipa. Phillipa controls him throughout his teenage years. That hate festers in him for years until he grows up, and instead of simply getting revenge on those who personally harmed him and his family, he decides the only way to rule was with an iron fist, and turned that fist against all sorceresses, witches, magic-users and non-humans (both because he hates/fears them, but also for political gain, as these things tend to go). He encourages the non-human hate, uses humans superior numbers to overwhelm and destroy groups of non-humans and magic users. He’s relatively militarily adept too. He made sure of that, because he wanted revenge against Phillipa even as a boy. I don’t think the show would abandon everything that makes Radovid Radovid (but then again, Eskel...), I don’t think he’s just going to be Some Guy. So his sadistic bigotry towards and genocide against all non-humans and (most) human magic-users will come into play at some point. And if it does, his relationship with Jaskier will HAVE to factor in somehow, that’s unavoidable at this point. But should this theory OP mentions come to pass (and there is a good chance it might, I have been concerned about this since it the news leaked of who Jaskier would be paired up with), that would mean the show made a conscious choice to have adult Radovid turn villain…cause his boyfriend dumped him? His boyfriend of like a couple months chose his family of 20+ years over him, and that was enough to make him lose it and just start stabbing everything? Or cause he was angry that Jaskier was using him as a shield because Phillipa was threatening him? And Radovid, a grown ass man, cannot handle this? This would put a homosexual relationship at the core of a xenophobic campaign of witch-burning, be the catalyst of it. And they would put that on Jaskier’s shoulders? Because he dumped Radovid?

Why? What does this do but add cheap angst where it wasn’t needed? There is no need to A.) Start Radovid’s xenophobic hate campaign 15 years early (they have so many world-spanning plots they already can’t write well, why add more?), and B.) connect it directly to someone in the main core cast by having them be the inciting incident for Radovid. That’s unnecessary, that doesn’t offer any narrative improvement to the story at all (FFS, the world is bigger than Geralt, Yenn, Ciri, and Jaskier). And is this the reason Jaskier is now canonically bisexual? Was that the only reason they did that, just to make him the casus belli of a genocide? That really would not be the kind of queer rep anyone should praise, and by god, does it feels downright spiteful.

And to be clear, I don’t think every queer story has to be all sunshine and happiness or perfectly positive (something I’ve been accused of when criticizing questionable writing of gay/bi characters in the past). But there is a vast ocean of difference between “Sunshine and perfection” and “Hey! Let’s change this catalyst for this genocide from ‘Paranoid Fascist takes what should have been a beef between him and like 5 people, and turns it into a full scale witch-burning industry and non-human genocide, for both political gain and cause he’s a paranoid xenophobic fascist’ to 'gay prince super bummed his boyfriend dumped him’, and let’s make sure we wait to show the boyfriend as canonically bisexual until the last possible second, just so people wonder if that’s the only reason we even bothered ”. A vast fucking ocean.

I’m fine with adaptational changes that add to or improve the canon material, or are just different but stand strongly on their own. But this? Would be a terrible miserable hateful idea, and is just cheap writing for forced angst (and I honestly would not put it past the Witcher writers, which is the worst part).

How is this good? How would this an improvement? What does this add? How does this stand on it’s own? Why would they take a bloody campaign of witch-burning and genocide that had a believable catalyst already, and retcon it happening because of The Gays? Cause a dude dumped another dude? If they did this, the writers would have to consciously make the choice to change the catalyst of the genocide to ‘a gay guy was like super bummed that his boyfriend left him for a Witcher’. Do y'all see what that looks like?

#The Witcher #Jaskier #Radovid #The Witcher Netflix #The Witcher S3 #brand new kinds of homophobia #if they plan to keep Radovid to his canon route why change his personality and mannerisms so much?? #[I mean I think I know why...] #[But that's another kettle of fish and another post entirely] #Honestly this is one of the worst choices the writers could have made #which is why I think they'll make it #Jaskier/Radovid #Jaskier/Radovid critical

[fictionplumis]

I’m gonna have to write a fic for this pairing, aren’t I? 

Nevermind the fact I still haven’t finished my Eddie/Venom/Flash one yet and I can never just write a short fic, no, it has to be a Thing and I always go for the really small pairings.

I just have a lot of feelings about the concept of coming to know yourself through your shadow, and let’s face it, Roche and Iorveth are each other’s shadows. All the qualities they hate about each other are the same things that personally drive them. 

And it’s true for both of them but I just keep sticking on Roche for some reason, the loyal Temerian Hound, who committed a lot of wrongs at the order of a king who saved him, and then lost that king, and, uh... 

Look, I’ll be honest, I haven’t played the second game so I’m not too clear on what happens with Saskia and Vergen and Henselt (besides the fact he’s shit and Roche kills him, spoiler alert I guess), so I can’t really say how all that ties in to where he ends up in the third game, but in the third game he’s in a pretty shit situation, doesn’t seem all that concerned with the Socia’tael anymore, and is more than willing to kill Radovid for the sake of Temeria. I’m assuming the general idea is that Anais will take over the throne, and then what? 

What does Roche do from there? 

He has the blood of two kings on his hands and Emhyr isn’t exactly the kind of man to give into his promises without some kind of backhanded result. Making a deal with him is like the damn Monkey’s Paw, and it wouldn’t really be smart of any ruler to give Roche a position of power in a court. 

So we have a man who’s known nothing but war and following the orders of his king, who has decided one of his first acts WITHOUT orders is to kill another king for his country, and then really has no place in that country afterwards. 

We could obviously go down the PTSD and depression route very easily here, but I’m not the kind of person to just settle on that and Vernon Roche probably isn’t either. Now that he has no ties, it’s time for this bitch to go find himself. 

And maybe that means just wandering aimlessly for a little bit. 

And maybe that means coming across some wayward elves getting harassed. 

Roche, naively maybe, had thought that with Nilfgaard taking over, shit like that would have stopped. It was supposed to stop. The elves are allowed wherever they wish now, so long as they behave, and these ones clearly aren’t Socia’tael or the people harassing them would have been long dead. And that’s how Roche finds himself helping Aen Seidhe refugees under an alias and realizing how much of an absolute shit lord he had been. 

I know some people like to have it where Roche doesn’t hate non-humans, he just did it because he was ordered, but shit like that tends to be a bit more engrained. When you’re around someone, ADMIRE that someone, and they’re so flippantly disregarding the lives of people they consider OTHER, it rubs off. Roche is not immune to propaganda, nor is he necessarily a good person since there’s really no such thing. There’s just people, who sometimes try their best and sometimes don’t, and who sometimes change and sometimes don’t. 

So here we have Roche realizing the hate he felt for these people was never really his own. There’s nothing here to hate. The Socia’tael, yeah, maybe, but not the innocents he drove from their lands and sometimes killed if they didn’t obey Foltest’s ordinances. 

So he does a Personal Growth, which both makes him feel shitty and wrecked with guilt, and also makes him determined to help and be Better. 

And then fucking Iorveth shows up and nearly blows his cover to shit.

At this point, it’s still okay to hate the Socia’tael for Roche, because they’re war criminals and gods dammit, if he can be better, then so can Iorveth, Iorveth just chooses not to. But whatever, Roche has officially decided that he’s not going to pick a murderous fight over this because he’s not that kind of person anymore and it’s not his job to enforce the rules. He’s helping now. 

But, uh. Roche can have a little fistfight sometimes. As a treat. Because Iorveth’s face is very punchable and Iorveth is his usual haughty, smug self who takes way too much amusement from Vernon fucking Roche helping elven refugees. 

Only he’s not just very amused, he’s only amused to pissed off Roche, reality is he’s pretty confused and suspicious of this. Because HE would never go off and help dh’oine no matter how bad off they are, so obviously Roche wouldn’t go off and help Aen Seidhe without some ulterior motive. 

Iorveth bides his time and somehow manages to find a time that’s ripe for Talking. Not the goading shit-talking they do, but like an actual TALK. It maybe starts out as an interrogation, but Roche doesn’t raise to the bait like Iorveth assumes and then Roche is all sincere about shit that happens to relate a lot to what Iorveth has been feeling too, and oh gods damn it all, now he’s sympathizing with Vernon Roche. Empathizing, even.

Iorveth hates it. 

Roche doesn’t seem to particularly care how it makes Iorveth feel and Iorveth hates that too. 

Overall he regrets he even asked.

Then something something something they have to do a Thing together. I don’t know the exact details, probably has to do with displaced elves. 

Let’s just say Nilfgaard hasn’t fully conquered the North yet, like they’re almost there, it’s in that stage where they technically occupy the area but there’s a lot of unrest and certain people (racists) aren’t very keen on certain rules (rules telling them not to be racist) so they’re causing Problems about it. 

Maybe they get wind that there are some Witch Hunters holding a decent amount of elves hostage, but not quite enough for Nilfgaard to bother with them, so Roche is like, sure, okay, I’ve been getting better at this whole sneaky sneak thing, I’ll go sneak the elves out. And Iorveth is obviously not letting Roche go do that alone, because it’s Roche, and Iorveth still wants to be suspicious of him and doesn’t like him, and someone needs to be there to actually rescue the elves if Roche dies, also he kind of wants to see Roche die (he doesn’t, but semantics) so he goes. 

The sneaky sneak plan fails, go figure. And here’s where I might have to twist canon a bit because how well known is it that Roche helped plot against Radovid? Dunno, but we’re gonna say not too many people actually know, just those in power. And Temeria is established and under Nilfgaard, but Roche isn’t in a position of power there and when the sneaky sneak plan fails, he’s not wearing any indication that he’s WITH Temeria. So say someone that knows him from his Blue Stripes days sees him and they’re like, huh. Vernon Roche hates non-humans and didn’t immediately ally himself with Temeria and Nilfgaard. Clearly this is an ally. 

So at first getting caught is sort of fine, because now he’s making awkward conversation with a racist and getting introduced to other racists but no one is trying to kill him so like. Okay. Could be worse. 

And then the alarm sounds because Iorveth was spotted and they drag Roche to go corner him. 

Iorveth is fully expecting Roche to keep up his little ploy and he can’t even say he blames Roche, because it’s a good way to sneak in and save people, IF Roche isn’t seriously considering going back to being a shit lord just because it’s convenient. They’re pretty out numbered. Fighting would be a bad idea. Iorveth is still pissed, obviously, and feels betrayed, and he plans on giving Roche no end of shit about this later even if he DOES use the position to save the elves. 

Only Roche curses under his breath and turns his sword on the nearest Witch Hunter and all hell breaks loose. For the first time Iorveth finds himself fighting WITH Roche instead of against him. 

And it’s kind of fun. 

Just as thrilling. 

And they actually turn out to be a very deadly team together. 

So they rescue the elves and have every intention of escorting them back to the refugee camp they know of when they’re told about the camp these elves came from. One that was attacked by Witch Hunters. It’s a thing they’re doing now, kidnapping elves and destroying refugee places. So instead they point the elves in the direction of the camp they came from since the roads are all clear, and they go on their little crusade to save elves. 

And along the way they learn stuff about each other. 

Roche learns more about elves in general, and the uncultured swine actually starts finding himself more and more fascinated by the deep complexity and emotional connection to the world they have. He envies it, even, because even when Iorveth has nothing, he has that connection. Roche has only ever had Temeria and now, well. Only himself, really, and he’s still trying to figure out what to do with that. 

Iorveth takes the slightest amount of pity for the useless dh’oine, because the idea of not having that connection, that thing to moor him down, sounds intolerable. How do humans survive without that? So he starts making a half-assed (or at least he tells himself it’s half-assed) effort to help Roche recognize the natural world around him a bit more and have more respect for it. 

It’s the fact that Roche is TRYING, genuinely TRYING that really makes Iorveth feel a certain way. 

And he opens up a bit about himself, his past, why he joined with the Socia’tael, and after seeing everything he’s seen, and what he’s STILL seeing, Roche starts understanding it a bit more. The actions of desperate people pushed to the edge, what they do when diplomacy fails, when assimilation means death, the tactics they resort to because there is no fair fight otherwise. 

Now he can’t hate the Socia’tael either. He can’t even dislike them. Hell, he even finds himself admiring them. 

And Iorveth learns about humans. 

Nothing groundbreaking, exactly. Not about the species as a whole, anyway. Maybe that they’re capable of change, which is pretty revolutionary in his mind, and sometimes they stop into places and Iorveth sees that some humans do, indeed, have compassion for things that aren’t exactly like them. 

The most interesting and useful thing he learns is that human body hair isn’t that bad and against what he would have assumed, he actually kind of likes it? Especially the stubble that Roche can never seem to entirely shave off in the morning--because it turns out Roche is actually pretty cleanly for a human when he has regular access to be. 

The texture and burn of it scraping at his skin is nice, okay? It’s new and nice and maybe he can understand why there are so many mixed-elves running about despite how awkwardly bulky and clumsy dh’oine are. Also they’re warm. And, at least in Roche’s case, large. So yeah. He’ll concede the point that they make good bedpartners, and that’s ALSO something Iorveth learns about humans. 

#rorveth #vernon roche #iorveth #witcher 2 #rocheiorveth #this might have gotten away from me #anyway if anyone wants to rp it #just like #hit me up #i might write it #but my motivation to write stuff that isnt an rp is p shite so #dont hold your breath