a thing about the witcher books's perception that drives me insane is that you'll have people who've straight up never read them saying "oh aren't they super problematic tho???" based on the testimony of people who ALSO haven't read them but heard from someone who read them and didn't like them that they're bad.
like i'll use the example that I had before i read the books: there's a scene in blood of elves where ciri is like "the girls at school told me virgins can't do magic! i'm bad at magic because i'm a virgin! i'm gonna lose my virginity [at 13]" and yeah ok if you phrase it like that with zero context it sounds insane.
but the CONTEXT IS. ciri has just fumbled her crush, she's failing magic class, the other girls hate her because she's getting extra attention from the teachers, and her mean teacher mum (who's literally the hottest woman alive) keeps on calling her "ugly one". she's in a CRISIS and decides to link all of her self esteem issues into one thing that she can fix!!!
and literally the next line is yennefer saying "ok look if you want to have sex i won't stop you,, even though you're too young imo. but where the hell have you gotten this "virgins can't do magic" bs because i have a master's degree in sorcery (and didn't have sex until my 20s) and it's news to me!!"
but then you'll have people go "In the Witcher is sooooo misogynistic the lore says virgins can't do magic" like that wasn't textually folklore that was complete rubbish.
