‘The Witcher 3’: Yennefer Trumps Triss

It was no secret when The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was announced, that Triss would be back desperately trying to win over Geralt’s affections from his long-lost love, Yennefer, who we finally get to know in the third installment. While patiently awaiting the game’s release, all I could think was, “I hope Yennefer kicks Triss’s butt right out of her overly-snug trousers”.

I hate Triss with the passion of a billion burning fireballs hurling from Kiera Metz’s hands. When I began playing The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, and the first scene is literally Geralt waking up next to a stark-naked Triss, I took a deep breath, put down my controller, and slowly walked out of the room. It took me over a year to retry that game. Luckily, being a Witcher game, I chose not to save her in the end at Loc Muinne, and thus I exacted my revenge!

Fans of the games who have also read the books might agree with me on this. You see, Yennefer was actually once deformed. She had a hunchback, moles, whiskers – pretty much your standard idea of a witch. However, she used magic to keep herself young and beautiful. Unfortunately, as with any cosmetic surgery, magic comes at a price. Yennefer, like all sorceresses, was rendered infertile.

One day, while Geralt was skipping through the village and whistling soothing tunes (ha! Just kidding. That was Dandelion.), he stumbled upon a djin. Unfortunately for Geralt and Dandelion, this is The Witcher and not Aladdin, so the djin was not quite as friendly as one might think. Trying to save Dandelion (this happens a lot), Geralt sought out Yennefer, and they met for the first time *cue fireworks and violins*. Long story short, it turns out that the djin that almost killed Dandelion was bound to Geralt all along, and so he saved the day and won the girl (who destroyed an entire village in the first place trying to trap the djin and his powers).

Then there’s Triss. Yeah.

Anyway, so Triss and Yen had been friends for a long time, though if you had read the books, “friend” is a very loose term in the sorceress community. Case in point: Yen’s bestie, Triss, decided to get to ‘know’ Geralt in the Biblical sense, so she tricked him into taking a love potion and… well, you can imagine the rest. There are various other points in the books in which she attempts to lure Geralt away from Yennefer (not forgetting the entirety of The Witcher and The Witcher 2, in which she probably would have tried to live happily-ever-after  with Geralt had he not regained his memories of Yen). This chick’s desperation knows no bounds, as she even tried to seduce him while suffering from a stomach bug and leaking from both ends. Romantic, no?

In between all of this, we are introduced to Ciri. To explain her relationship to Geralt and the role she plays in the story, I’d need to write an entirely new article; but of course, as we know from the third game, Yennefer and Geralt basically raised Ciri as a witcher, even though she had not undergone the Trial of the Grasses (I know it sounds like a marijuana smoking competition, but it is actually the process by which witchers are mutated, and only 3 out of 10 would ever survive the pain). Ciri was destined for Geralt through something known as the Law of Surprise, which ended up being serendipitous, as around this time in their relationship, Yen had started aching for a child – remember, she’s infertile, and so is Geralt after having undergone the Trial. Poor Yen even risked her life trying to find a dragon scale which might make a hypothetical fertility potion work.

I’ve left my trump card for last (see what I did there? No? Read the title again). Before the events of the first game, there is a riot in Rivia, where Geralt was born. They were massacring non-humans, and Geralt decided to jump in, as did Yen. However, as Geralt was turning away form his freshest kill, a bewildered young farm boy impaled hardened warrior with his plough. As he lay dying, Yennefer put his head on her lap, in the middle of a massive battle, and then – wait for it – she attempted, in her last moment of life, to revive her love. Obviously, they were both killed, but their daughter, Ciri, transported them to a magical land with her powers, just so that they could be happy for all eternity.

So let’s sum up, shall we? Andrzej Sapkowski clearly wrote his books with the intention of making Yen and Geralt the canon couple. He also wrote Geralt’s character as a ‘playa’, which is probably why he can bed any female he wants to in the games. I like to think of Triss as one of those cheap tramps because a few flings can never erase a pre-written destiny.