The Witcher: Fading Memories

[stubbleupdate]

This extract comes from The Witcher: Fading Memories #1 by artist Amad Mir and writer Bartosz Sztybor. The cover artist is Evan Cagle who also drew covers for BOOM!'s Strange Skies over East Berlin.

I only got into The Witcher because everybody I knew was singing The Song, and the TV show was quite highly rated. I watched the show with no knowledge of the books and enjoyed it immensely.

During the summer lockdown, my girlfriend and I read all the books. I think that teenage me would have fallen in love with them, and not just because there are pages devoted to how the different sorceresses' dresses accentuate their breasts in different ways.

As it is, current me appreciated the story and the overwhelming moral that monsters aren't the real monsters. People are monsters. They're selfish, cruel and ignorant and their fear of those who are different to them only brings out the worst of them.

I've since pottered a bit more in the Witcher-verse, completing the Wild Hunt on PS4 (again, a game aimed squarely at 15 year old boys) and a few of Paul Tobin's comics (I assume that his career path went Marvel All Ages books, his own Young Reader's books, Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies comics and then The Witcher. It sounds less strange when you see the steps). And this month, as my regular pull list has been whittled away to essentially 1 title, I picked up Fading Memories.

Geralt has become impoverished and dejected since monster threats have seemingly vanished. Times have always been hard for Witchers–but without continual work, his situation has worsened. As Geralt explores new possibilities for his life path, he receives a request from the Mayor of Towitz, a small town where children are being kidnapped by Foglets . . . but something feels off about this new threat.

Our story begins with the Witcher arriving in a village
He finds no monster that need hunting, only people who want him to hurry out of town.

In The Witcher, people don't like Witchers, but tolerate them when there are monsters that need killing.

He enters an inn, but leaves soon after he is offered out for a fight by the resident big lads. Before he leaves town, he is approached with a job offer.

I need you...no, not for a monster, but for plain, honest work. Not sure if witchers take the like, but...well, there's coin to be had, isn't there. Please, you'd be saving my life...







As always in The Witcher, monsters are created when people decide to mess with the natural world.
And there is the really interesting idea in there about being true to your nature, and if you don't do what you are made for, what are you?


The whole thing is much sadder than all of this

Comments

[tripodeca113]

This seems good.

You know, I decided to play the games first, before reading any of the books. I don't recommend doing this, but I had amassed just enough knowledge to figure out the setting (The Witcher 1, is not friendly to newcomers).

If I've learnt anything from the Witcher, there's usually a secret behind quaint villages/towns/business. But sometimes, it's not actually immoral and the magic guy/monster doesn't need to be killed.

[shadur]

... He's that "a pirate", isn't he?

[super_fly]

What, Stumpyfingers The Fisherman there?
We may never know, could be a fairytale

[tinygaylaura]

Toss a coin to your Witcher

A friend of humanity!