Katie Vernon (University of York)
“Chivalry” conjures up ideas of codes of honour and knights in shining armour.[1] One of chivalry’s most enduring symbols is the sword: beautifully crafted but also an object of violence, swords are objects of contradiction.[2] In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), the sword Aerondight typifies such contrast.
Witcher 3 is an open-world Role Playing Game. The protagonist Geralt, a Witcher or monster slayer, searches for his adoptive daughter, Ciri. The 2016 downloadable content (DLC), Blood and Wine,set in the Duchy of Toussaint includes the side quest “There Can Only Be One”. The quest presents trials demonstrating Toussaint’s five chivalric virtues: valour, honour, compassion, generosity, and wisdom. Upon completion, the Lady of the Lake rewards the player with the sword Aerondight.
The depiction of Toussaint, and especially Aerondight, draws on Arthurian romance. A similarly named sword, ‘Arounddight’, features in the Middle English romance Bevis of Hampton, where it is wielded by Sir Guy and originally owned by Lancelot.[3] Robert W. Jones notes that named medieval swords were powerful due to their associations with a line of heroic wielders, wherein the sword’s ‘fate and fame would continue in the hands of another’.[4] These swords are important because of their historical and ritualistic past, enabling them to become ‘symbols of chivalric virtue’.[5]
Geralt’s chivalric trials draw on the imagined concept of an Arthurian past. While adapted, we can see the connection between the chivalric qualities of Toussaint and those identified by Maurice Keen. As Keen notes, the chivalric qualities in medieval works are prowess, loyalty, generosity, courtesy, and franchise.[6]
The focus on chivalry enables us to explore Geralt’s characterisation. Geralt is the ideal killing machine, mutated and trained to hunt monsters. Valour is fulfilled through killing monsters, winning at tournaments, and choosing not to forgive. Later, once all qualities are demonstrated, Geralt undertakes a trial of combat and, when won, the sword’s stats are increased through killing. Violence is required for chivalry; similarly, knights of Middle English romance earn the moniker “flower of chivalry” through martial feats.[7] These medieval works describe the brutality of chivalry with a thrill for gore recognisable to video game players.
However, to get the sword and confirm Geralt’s heroic role, a player must also perform Geralt’s character’s complexity through four other virtues. Social cooperation is key, with tasks including keeping secrets, returning lost items, helping the wounded or poor, showing forgiveness, and lifting curses instead of killing. The Witcher is in many ways all about ethics and codes.[8] Geralt’s characterisation, while ethically complex, presents an opportunity to consider how we can do what is right.[9] When a player chooses to role-play chivalry to gain Aerondight, the item embodies the balance of conflict and cooperation to do right.
Aerondight as an object assists in worldbuilding.[10] The outsider Geralt fulfils the chivalric virtues, unlike local Knights Errant. Aerondight helps us to explore the narrative of the DLC, in which we find that this romance-like world is darker and less chivalric than it appears.
Bibliography:
CD Projekt Red. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Poland, 2015
CD Projekt Red. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Blood and Wine. Poland, 2016.
“chevalrīe n.” definition 6.a. in Middle English Compendium. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary Last Accessed 26th May 2024.
Ellis, George. Specimens of Early English Metrical Romance. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1811.
Jones, Robert W. A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2023.
Leech, Christopher. “Ethics and the Witcher Code” in The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: The Witcher. Edited by Rachel Kowert. Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press, 2023. 32-52.
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, new edition 2005.
Oakshott, Ewart. The Sword in the Age of Chivalry. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1964, reprint 2002.
Węgiel, Magdalena, “The Importance of Body Modifications and Accessories in Character Design for Videogames” MA Thesis, Aalto University, 2021.
[1] Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, new edition 2005), 1-3.
[2] Robert W. Jones, A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2023), 1; Ewart Oakshott, The Sword in the Age of Chivalry (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1964, reprint 2002), 12.
[3] George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Metrical Romance (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1811), 171. This quotation is from the manuscript of the romance: Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 175/96.
[4] Jones, History of the Medieval Sword, esp. 1, 9 28, 35.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Keen, Chivalry, 2, 11.
[7] ” chevalrīe n.” definition 6.a. in Middle English Compendium. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary. [last accessed 26th May 2024].
[8] Christopher Leech, “Ethics and the Witcher Code” in The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: The Witcher. Edited by Rachel Kowert. (Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press, 2023), pp. 32-52.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Magdalena Węgiel, “The Importance of Body Modifications and Accessories in Character Design for Videogames” (MA Thesis, Aalto University, 2021).
Thank you for this!
I was wondering if you have any thoughts regarding player agency in the Witcher 3 with regards to the portrayal of chivalric virtues (and all the objects – like the sword -, quests, NPC’s, etc. that embody or symbolise them)? Is the role-playing aspect of the Witcher 3 potentially damaging to the performance of chivalry in the game? And if so, in what way?
Thanks!
Hi Jéssica, thanks for your question! It’s an area I would have loved to explore more but yes I do think player agency is really important. I feel like if we play it out properly as role-playing Geralt (according to his characterisation in previous games and the books) then we would meet the conditions of performing chivalry. I think then the game responds to this performance really well by confirming our consistent enactment with a sword from his past (from the previous games). But it is definitely possible to role-play Gerlat in a really brutal way and so fail the quest by doing the wrong things or by ignoring the quest altogether and only focusing on the main story which means that the chivalric aspect isn’t properly performed – although the quest is really forgiving and there are lots of opportunities to succeed at it.
I think there’s also a question of player agency in how much the player buys into the idea of chivalry that the game presents. We know because of all the dark goings on in Toussaint that the land isn’t the chivalric ideal it first seems, and things like helping the poor as part of the quest (and even the need for a sword) reveal this darker underside and the hierarchical/exploitative society. And I always think it is kind of ironic that you get this sword as a symbol of you doing all these good deeds but then use it to brutalise your way across Toussaint…
[…] •15:30: The Sword as Symbol of Chivalry in The Witcher 3 – Katie Vernon (University of York) […]
Thanks for this Katie – it’s really impressive to see these connections and tensions between grotesque and romantic medievalisms set out so clearly. Do you think this was a conscious design choice on the part of the developers? Or is it filtered through common conceptions of knights in shining armour colliding with the more brutal world of the Witcher?
I think it’s probably a bit of both but very much a design choice, especially for this land compared to the other landscapes we see earlier in the game. The highly saturated colour scheme especially is a complete shock to the senses compared to the main area of the game with its more muted colours and very dark themes. As the player we arrive in Toussaint thinking it’ll be different but then find isn’t, e.g. one of the first things to head to is where the body of a knight who has been murdered is fished up from the river.
We then see this theme repeated later on in the main questline of Blood and Wine when we find out that Syanna (the disinherited ruler of Toussaint) is seeking revenge on knights who mistreated her including beating her unconscious and leaving her for dead in the woods. Previously these knights were held up as paragons of Toussaint’s knightly culture, only to find out that they are all killed because of past wrongs. Similarly, there’s a part of the main quest in which we go into literally a fairytale land (e.g. with Puss in Boots, the wolf from Red Riding Hood) and once again it turns out the land due to human actions is much darker than first seems.
However, I do think it draws heavily on the clash of conceptions of the knight in shining armour and the contrast with the world of the Witcher, especially in the original books as source material Sapkowski draws heavily on Arthurian romance/myth, subverting it in subtle ways, and then this has been used by the game developers for impact.
Thanks Katie! I remember the fairytale section. You’re absolutely right: I think it’s so effective because it combines and subverts a lot of both the grotesque and romantic depictions.
Some fascinating insights here, thank you, Katie. I was wondering if you could say more about how Aerondight exists in the greater ecosystem of symbolism around swords in the gameworld of the Witcher series. As I understand it, Geralt carries two swords—silver for monsters and steel for humans—which tells us a bit about how the role of the witcher is one who metes out (often violent) justice to the magical and the mundane alike. This itself suggests perhaps a notional ethical absolutism in a world of often gray moral realities and difficult decisions. What are your thoughts on how Aerondight and the quest to claim it fit into this larger picture?
Thanks, Mikael, yes you’re correct in the games he carries two swords one sliver and one steel. Aerondight is a silver sword which, I agree, plays into into this idea of ethical absolutism which doesn’t quite work in the world of the Witcher.
Given the chivalric ideals of the quest, it is perhaps suitable that it is a silver sword because it plays into the side of a Witcher we might find “less problematic” (for want of a better phrase), e.g. killing monsters, being a hero etc. Although, this is definitely not without its complications and one of the things we see repeatedly throughout the game (and the wider universe) is that the monsters are often not anywhere near as monstrous as people can be. A little earlier in the game (in Skellige) there is a side quest in which Geralt can be judged by four monsters and as a player you can make a choice to give examples of where in the game you have helped monsters (or you can fight and kill them). The player also meets trolls who can be talked to throughout the game, so this ideal of straightforward decisions is definitely complicated.
Interestingly, if you accidentally draw the wrong weapon you can use the wrong weapon although this does less damage (and is explained away that some monsters are sensitive to silver). Which can show how the moral divide is really just an ideal constructed to present a certain kind of easier to accept world-view.
I think the quest really highlights some of the problems and cognative dissonance needed to navigate this division e.g. one side quest can fulfil either valour or compassion depending on how you play it out which I think can make you really consider what the meaning of the virtues is or even if there is any meaning.