Yes HELLO! I am very excited. Can you please explain to me the Ferrant thing because I only just got into the Witcher (netflix and barely starting the second game) and after all the fic insisting we hate him I am shook to hear Dandelion likes him???? Please dish! My heart is ready for 1 Slightly Evil new boyfriend!
ask two: oh lol. Someone beat me to the ask!
Hehe. Gotta be a tiny bit faster next time!
One thing I did want to say is that I really, really don’t think Ferrant is evil. To me, he’s the absolute personification of morally grey.
Ferrant doesn’t do any of the things he does because he doesn’t like Geralt (he doesn’t, but that doesn’t factor into his decision making). Everything he does is because someone told him to do it.
Deep down, he really does care for Jaskier though, and I get the feeling that it goes beyond “this is my cousin so I have to tolerate him.” He seems to be the one financially supporting Dandelion (and therefore Geralt) in Season of Storms.
At one point Jaskier is taken hostage by men who intend to use him to get Geralt to do their bidding. Geralt barely manages to fight them off (he wasn’t armed and had to get one of the bad guy’s weapons). Ferrant comes in, sees Geralt armed (he’s not supposed to be), sees blood and bodies everywhere, and yet the first thing he does is run to Jaskier to make sure he’s alright.
Only AFTER making sure Jaskier is okay does Ferrant ask what’s happening (he knows the dead men, they were actually co-workers of his) and this interesting exchange happens:
“They carried out their orders,” said the Witcher, shrugging, looking down at his sword. “Like you, they obeyed their orders. And you didn’t know anything about it. Confirm that, Ferrant.”
“I didn’t know anything about it,” the instigator confirmed hastily and stepped back, leaning against the wall. “I swear! You can’t possibly suspect … You don’t think …”
“If I did you’d be dead. I believe you. You wouldn’t have risked Dandelion’s life, after all.”
That exchange tells us a few things:
Geralt is more than willing to stab Ferrant
Ferrant is scared of Geralt
Geralt knows that deep down Ferrant would never endanger Dandelion.
It’s similar to an earlier conversation between Geralt and Ferrant where Geralt starts interrogating Ferrant (about his involvement in Geralt’s incarceration) and he admits that he knew Ferrant was involved the whole time, but he didn’t want to bring it up in front of Dandelion.
They have this interesting dance around each other where they seem to intentionally avoid one another. On Geralt’s end, at the very least, it’s because he doesn’t want to get between Dandelion and his family.
At the end, when he’s about to be tortured, all he cares about is getting Dandelion to safety:
“Get out of here, Witcher,” whispered Ferrant de Lettenhove, pushing Geralt’s sword into his hand. “Take Julian away. Vanish, both of you. You haven’t seen anything, haven’t heard anything. Let no one link you with all this.”
Even Geralt seems to acknowledge that Ferrant is just “carrying out his orders” (he repeats that phrase several times throughout the book).