Human Hatred of Witchers
In Andrezj Sapkowski's series, The Witcher, there is subtext of "racial supremacy." It is shown not in the ethnicity of the characters, but in their race. The Witcher takes place in an universe were a nonmagical world was combined with other worlds, causing the emersion of magic, mystical races, and monsters. Elves, dwarves, and halflings began to mix into human society. Magic gave it's wielders the power to create or destroy empires. But, creatures such as sirens, vampires, wraiths, wyverns, werewolves, and other monstrous beings hunted humans and the new cohabitants of their world. All of this led to the creation of the schools of witchers.
This group of warriors are chemically altered to have a faster metabolism, keen senses, and to become stoic. This has caused them to be become the subject of hatred based on their apparent lack of sympathy and their insistence to only do their job for coin. The apparent lack of sympathy was in fact due to the mutagens causing those who survive their implementation to become much more stoic in demeanor. Witchers are recognizable from their animal shaped pendants that tell which school they were inducted in (e.g. wolf, cat, bear) and their cat like eyes. Certain witchers are augmented further, giving them white hair, such as in the case of protagonist Geralt of Rivia. This, however, only increases the discrimination he faces.
Witchers are humans that have been mutated. However this does not stop others from calling them freaks and abomination. The Cult/Church of the Eternal Fire from the books and games stated that after they massacred the magicians, elves, dwarves, and halflings, the group would move to exterminate the witchers. Some humans, like Dandelion/Buttercup/Julian Alfred Pankratz, is close to Geralt of Rivia. Some nonhumans like Zoltan Chivay the dwarf, Dudu thedoppeler disguised as a halfling merchant, and Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy a higher vampire, view the witcher Geralt as a friend as well. This can partially be attributed to the fact that the humans view the witchers as nonhumans and not mutated humans. A major factor for the reason why witchers are seemingly universally despised is because they alway demand pay for their services. If the paying party cannot offer the coin, then the witchers can invoke the the Law of Surprise, that would allow Witchers to take children to put through the witcher program or sleep with a female family member of the owner of the contract in lieu of payment. This is tough on low income areas that have a monster problem. This has lead to villagers and others attempting to screw over witchers to save some coin, even attempting to kill the monster hunters. That is why along with their monster slaying silver longsword and education about monsters, witchers also carry a steel longsword and are trained in man to man combat and alchemic recipes that are poisonous to beings that are not considered to be monsters in order to defend themselves. Witchers of the school of the Cat were said to specialize in assassinations. This treatment of the witchers could have been mostly, if not entirely, better if the human population looked at how much they really needed these professional monster hunters to save them.
This group of warriors are chemically altered to have a faster metabolism, keen senses, and to become stoic. This has caused them to be become the subject of hatred based on their apparent lack of sympathy and their insistence to only do their job for coin. The apparent lack of sympathy was in fact due to the mutagens causing those who survive their implementation to become much more stoic in demeanor. Witchers are recognizable from their animal shaped pendants that tell which school they were inducted in (e.g. wolf, cat, bear) and their cat like eyes. Certain witchers are augmented further, giving them white hair, such as in the case of protagonist Geralt of Rivia. This, however, only increases the discrimination he faces.
Witchers are humans that have been mutated. However this does not stop others from calling them freaks and abomination. The Cult/Church of the Eternal Fire from the books and games stated that after they massacred the magicians, elves, dwarves, and halflings, the group would move to exterminate the witchers. Some humans, like Dandelion/Buttercup/Julian Alfred Pankratz, is close to Geralt of Rivia. Some nonhumans like Zoltan Chivay the dwarf, Dudu thedoppeler disguised as a halfling merchant, and Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy a higher vampire, view the witcher Geralt as a friend as well. This can partially be attributed to the fact that the humans view the witchers as nonhumans and not mutated humans. A major factor for the reason why witchers are seemingly universally despised is because they alway demand pay for their services. If the paying party cannot offer the coin, then the witchers can invoke the the Law of Surprise, that would allow Witchers to take children to put through the witcher program or sleep with a female family member of the owner of the contract in lieu of payment. This is tough on low income areas that have a monster problem. This has lead to villagers and others attempting to screw over witchers to save some coin, even attempting to kill the monster hunters. That is why along with their monster slaying silver longsword and education about monsters, witchers also carry a steel longsword and are trained in man to man combat and alchemic recipes that are poisonous to beings that are not considered to be monsters in order to defend themselves. Witchers of the school of the Cat were said to specialize in assassinations. This treatment of the witchers could have been mostly, if not entirely, better if the human population looked at how much they really needed these professional monster hunters to save them.
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