Talk:Triss Merigold/@comment-88.5.17.226-20180708082142/@comment-79.121.84.143-20180708235344

"Triss used magic to seduce Geralt: something unnatural, a power before which he is vulnerable. The facts are that Geralt was manipulated, in a greater or smaller way, and that therefore it was rape."

The bold part's just your assumption that you're trying to sell as fact. As discussed in the threads I linked before, there are just too many ways magic can be used in benign ways to help with seducing someone. Even the dinner with Keira Metz in TW3 could be an example of that, she's seducing Geralt, with the help of magic. Are you suggesting he's raped?

"That's what matters. Not what the method was. So your argument is irrelevant."

That's akin to saying that because drugging people and having sex with them is considered rape, it can be rape to use perfume to be more attractive, since it's also seduction with the help of a chemical substance. After all, the method or the extent of the effect don't matter, right?

"And do you really think that Geralt of Rivia would forgive Triss and welcome her with open arms to Kaer Morhen if he knew what she did to him? Of course she did it without him knowing about it."

Circular logic. You ignore the possibilty that nothing was actually done to Geralt that he wouldn't forgive.

"But hey, that has nothing to do with the discussion. Not really."

Actually, it does, since it helps explaining why no one considers it important at the time to tell Geralt about his family from the past - they've been gone for years, and no one heard anything about them since then.

"The problem is not that nobody tells him about Yennefer. I support what they did, or at least the broad strokes. Not telling him much about his past, letting him fill in the gaps himself, because that's something Geralt decided for himself. I cannot complain about that. It might not be the best option to deal with his amnesia, but it was his own."

If that's a valid reason for someone like Dandelion, then it can also be just as valid for Triss. That she starts a relationship with him (with his consent) before he recovers his memories, that's another matter, but if we consider that "abusive", then so it is for Shani.

"She used lines that Yennefer once said, evoking old moments they shared, letting him assume that the sorceresses he had been in love with was her, instead of Yennefer."

You conveniently ignore that she uses lines she never heard, so either she has superhuman powers, or it's in fact just bad writing by CDPR. Besides, the reused lines aren't even only from Yennefer.

"Yes, I know Geralt fell into her manipulations, that he was partly to blame for it and he played an active role in their romance, but because a victim falls into the manipulations of his abuser that suddenly means that is not a bad thing anymore? Do you really think like that?"

There's not enough information to be able to fully judge the alleged manipulation myself. What I do know is that Geralt knows everything by the third game, yet he never once suggests that he's a victim or has been abused or anything like that. In fact, he outright denies that he's been taken advantage of. And that's important if I'm role playing as Geralt. This topic is just not something that would matter to his decisions,

"In addition, it’s curious that she is willing to tell him so much but stops when the time comes to divulge the most inconvenient details for her, for her goal: to win Geralt’s heart. Don’t you think so?"

She tells him as soon as he actually asks.

"You said that the sentence about Triss using a bit of magic to seduce Geralt is too vague to serve as evidence. So, why do you settle for the bad excuse that it was CDPR first game, and it was done on limited budget?"

If you make an accusation against a person, real or fictional, the burden of proof is on you. You have to prove the alleged rape, abuse, and whatever else you may come up with. "Innocent until proven guilty." As long as there are alternate explanations to the situations being discussed that are plausible, the accusations are just speculation, not facts. And TW1 being CDPR's first game isn't just some random excuse, there were real issues with the development that explain some of their decisions, but that'd be its own topic.

"Do you think CDPR was going to overlook what reusing those sentences would suggest to book fans?"

I doubt they ever suspected there will be people on the internet on a crusade to vilify their characters, obsessively picking apart and twisting every little detail they can to that end. In any realistic likelyhood, such considerations must've been pretty low on their list of priorities. More likely they were included as nothing more than easter eggs for book readers.

"Finally, comparing Triss with Fringilla Vigo does not do her any favors. You know that, right? Since we are on that, please tell me when Yennefer did or try to do something like that. I must have forgotten."

She tried to do it on some guy at a party, but was interrupted by Geralt. Anyway, I'm not comparing anyone, I merely wanted to point it out that the use of magic in various ways (which can be different in each case, see the Keira example) when trying to seduce someone is not unusual among sorceresses, it's not necessarily the kind of horrible act in the Witcher universe as you seem to imply.

"Lambert had sex with Triss, and more than once."

Oh, now it's more than once. Wonder how you arrived at that conclusion?

"It’s more than clear and if you do not recognize that, is because you have made a conscious decision to ignore what he said."

He never says he had sex with Triss, so I don't know what I'm supposed to be ignoring. What you have listed as clues may or may not mean something, they aren't hard evidence. In fact, it was said by Marcin Momot on Reddit that this particular topic is something they left open to interpretation. In other words, saying that they didn't have sex is valid as much as saying that they did. And I still fail to see why starting a relationship with Lambert before the events of TW1 and ending it before committing to Geralt later would make her a horrible person.

"They don’t really hold up against even a cursory examination."

They hold up as much as your arguments - different ways of interpreting ambiguous content. There's nothing wrong with seeing the same things differently when they aren't fully explained by the games or books, it's something the developers may even encourage (see above). But from their communication, it was never apparent they intended to portray Triss as abusive, rapist or whatever else, on the contrary, she's been described positively in their interviews, in the narration of the games, and by Geralt himself. I don't see how your opinion to the contrary holds authority when it's based mostly on speculation. You're entitled to it, of course, but claiming it as unarguable fact, and calling everyone who disagrees misguided or ignorant because of "a cute face and a nice pair of tits" (which is pretty insulting) is just not right, and I wanted to point that out.

"About your last paragraph: Are you really going to resort to that? To paint my motives as childish and thoughtless, and call me sad person?"

I didn't call you a sad person. Don't twist my words.