Hii i have a question abt tlol u mihht know thr answer to. ❤️
While geralt and ciri fight their enemies on the stygga castle, geralt tells ciri several times yen wants to look at the sky. (If i temember correctly it was yen) Why?? Its so random? Does it have a hidden meaning? Does it refer to vilgefortz quote 'You Mistake Stars Reflected In A Pond For The Night Sky' ?
i can’t be certain that it’s not a reference to something elsewhere in literature, but i just interpret it as an expression of weariness and exhaustion. as geralt’s emotions are described:
He didn’t feel anger, resentment or hatred. He felt only weariness. And a huge desire to be done with all of it. (…)
as geralt learns from ciri, by a shake of her head, the rest of his company (cahir and angouleme) also did not survive. so he realizes all of his friends were lost. and that there is nothing left for them here.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ said Yennefer. ‘I want to see the sky.’
‘I’ll never leave you both,’ Ciri said softly. ‘Never.’
* funny mistake here - in the official english translation, it was printed that yennefer says “I want see the sky” :’)
In front of them was a stairway, a great stairway drowning in smoke, in the twinkling glow of torches and fire in iron cressets. Ciri shuddered. She had seen that stairway before. In dreams and visions.
Down below, far away, armed men were waiting.
‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.
‘Me too,’ admitted Geralt, drawing the sihill.
‘I’ve had enough of killing.’
‘Is there no other way out?’
No. There isn’t. Only this stairway. We must, girl. Yen wants to see the sky. And I want to see the sky, Yen and you.
they want to get out of stygga castle, but between them and escaping it is one final battle, for at the end of the staircase they see stefan skellen and his men, who they know they will have to kill in order to leave from here.
they are tired, they are wretched after having killed so much. the moral weight of killing is a huge theme in the witcher, and here is no exception - it’s not glorified that the heroes brandish their swords, the heroes feel the weight of them.
they don’t want to kill anymore. but they have to, in order to get out of the place where they killed.
it’s like ‘the only way out is through.’
“seeing the sky” = an end to this episode, freedom from this place of killing and death, escape from this black citadel, return to life
a significant reminder here is that they cannot see the sky from within stygga castle. for it had no windows (which was mentioned in chapter 2, but likely ceases to be present in the mind by the time you get to chapter 9). but essentially, it’s dark in that stone castle, hewn from rock:
The tapestry measured about five foot by seven and its tassels rested on the floor. It showed a rocky cliff over a tarn, and a castle carved into the cliff, which seemed to be part of the rock wall.
The castle didn’t have any windows through which she could see the surrounding terrain, or even the sun to try to orient herself.
(what a horrible place, as percieved by our human heliophilia!)
i think generally, darkness/light symbolism (or cave/sky symbolism… hi plato) is very ancient, even primal, even biological.
another analogy might be finishing a work shift at a retail store where you’ve been under flourescent lights for eight hours, and now want to leave this infernal place and finally see the sky above. there’s a feeling of exhaustion, horror, nausea whenever you’ve been separated from the sky for so long
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