Talk:Triss Merigold/@comment-27334094-20171024092759

Great comment regarding book Triss from Kerok90 from Witcher Reddit:

Triss: I think it's not surprising that I quickly gained a liking to her in Blood of Elves. In my point of view she was unique among the sorceresses with her friendly, cheerful, youthful attitude. Somehow she lacked bitterness and grudge which was a refreshing change. Also Triss was very kind to Ciri which showed me she was a nice person. I liked her deep conversations with the witchers as well and having read them I realized she was so much more than a cheerful young sorceress. Even though Triss looked very young, early 20-ish, I guess she was between 40-60 and had more life experience, more depth than people would think. She striked me as a woman who seemed to be very cheerful but under the surface she wasn't so happy and needed love. When I read her internal monologue about Geralt I thought that she had never experienced this before and that's why she became jealous of the relationship Geralt and Yen had. I believe she never wanted to hurt Yennefer just simply wanted to experience that "thing" with Geralt to understand what Yen saw in him. Don't get me wrong sleeping with one of her friends' ex boyfriend wasn't the nicest thing to do, however, she paid a great price for it: she fell in love with the witcher and had to deal with an inner conflict. Personally I felt sorry for her because she finally found a man who wasn't like the others she had met before - this man friendzoned her, though. I always wanted Triss to find someone else who would have made her happy.

Another thing is that Triss also needed Yennefer, Geralt and Ciri to show her best qualities and to be able to grow as a person. She loved them and one way or another these people really changed her. By the way, I found it interesting that even though Triss and Yen were friends their personalities were so different (introvert/extrovert; older/younger; distant/friendly; confident/insecure etc). Some people say this character was too flat/one dimensional in the books I disagree with them, though. Actually we don't know lot of things about her as Sapkowski just gave us little details regarding Triss which were like little puzzle pieces. We have to collect these pieces to see the bigger picture. To be honest, I've been wondering about her personality because a few fans told me Triss was shy in the books since she even blushed when Geralt kissed her on the cheek at Thanedd Island. Even though she indeed blushed I personally don't think she was this shy little girl. On the contrary, she had feminine pride and confidence as she knew what she wanted when it was about flirting. I think she was flirtatious and was even a bit sly (it was implied in the books). The thing is the readers could only see her inner conflict and behavior towards Geralt because when we met her for the first time in BoE she had already been in love with him so it might have seemed like she was a shy woman. But in my opinion she only felt shy around Geralt. Some people dislike her because she chose the greater good. While I get their point to a certain level I think Triss was just trying to do the right things. She was an idealistic and politically driven since she believed the Lodge could change the world for the better. She wasn't a power-hungry sorceress she was just a woman who wasn't confident enough to choose a side. Even Geralt told her in Blood of Elves that such double loyalty was devilishly difficult to manage. Geralt knew it was impossible to manage and he was right. Even though it's true that (initially) Triss wasn't confident and brave enough also didn't have the courage to say "NO" we shoudn't forget she was a young sorceress who had just started her journey. The way I see it, she needed to learn from her mistakes also these mistakes had helped her to mature and became Fearless Triss Merigold (who read the books know what I am talking about). Actually Triss's story was all about her beautiful metamorphosis. Personally I wasn't mad at her partly because I valued that she realized her own flaws and because it was clear to me that she was (just like Yennefer) a good person. She was a good person who was initially insecure and had to deal with her internal conflicts/inner demons. To me that's what made her believable and it totally felt like I was reading about a real person. Her metamorphosis was beautifully-written and I loved her so much at the end of the last book.