 Hey everybody, before we start it's one of the say I'm sorry there hasn't been a video in a while. I have been playing Destiny 2 a bunch trying to do the solstice of heroes thing. It is an intense grind. And while a bunch of it was really really good, some of it was really really bad. I'll be doing a video about that very soon. Also coming up I'll be having a video about Star Wars Battlefront 2. Yeah, it's old but I finally got it after my son reminded me I'd agreed to buy it used once they removed the loot boxes. I'll take a look at that campaign and how it's a perfect example of writing by committee being a failure. And I'll talk about why I didn't even like the multiplayer, though I admit that's totally a matter of taste. And up next I'm going to have a video about Warframe and Destiny 2 and what they can learn from each other. But today we're going to take a look not at a whole game or even just a one concept but rather a single quest line from the Witcher 3. We're going to examine the character of the Bloody Baron, the quest line associated with him and why it's probably the best writing you will ever get in a video game. We'll reference a couple of quests from other games that purport to be morally gray and show why they fall short, but mainly we'll just marvel at the courage of the character and story in this one set of quests and missions. If you like what I have to say, I'll have a sound say in it, do me and you a favor, like, share and tell a friend. I didn't say subscribe because the amount of views I get makes me think that everyone watching this is already a subscriber. Alrighty. So writing in video games is held to a lower standard than in other mediums. The interactive nature of games as well as the importance of the gameplay being fun means that less time and resources are generally put into crafting a great story than are put into making a great gameplay experience. There's also possibly a vicious circle where video game writing is fucking terrible so good writers don't want to write for games. Whatever the reason, game writing is usually bad. In fact, the games that are lauded for their writing often have been games that have gameplay that is at best only fine. The original Mass Effect trilogy didn't even have competent combat until the third game and even there wasn't fantastic or anything. Nobody was itching to play Mass Effect 3 to get their hands in that sweet ass third person shooting mechanics. And then, ironically, the one Mass Effect game that had excellent combat in Andromeda had just a disastrously bad story. Of course, there's the first two Bethesda follow games that had such clunky first person shooting mechanics that the VAT system was an absolute necessity. And then you get Fallout 4 with pretty good combat, but a much weaker story. Hell, writing can often be seen as so unimportant that a game like Destiny can get away with a narrative that's such an incoherent mess it's unfair to stories to call what Destiny had a story. And for the most part, that is as it should be. Gameplay is king, still. Many games have had stories and narratives good enough that we waded through that mediocre gameplay. Mass Effect didn't have any kind of revolutionary narrative. But what it had was at the time, the greatest world building ever in a video game. With deep lore and richly imagined backstory that served as a way to push fully realized characters through a pretty standard save the world story. I finally bought an Xbox One because of the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. When I got the console, Destiny 1 was in one of its notorious content droughts and I was eager to see what the next gen had. I bought the X1, Fallout 4, and the Witcher 3 all at the same time. After waffling a bit and studiously avoiding any and all reviews, I ultimately decided on playing Fallout 4 first. Fallout New Vegas was probably my favorite single-player game of the 360 era and Fallout 3 was right up there with it. And while I loved the story and characters of the Witcher 2 and overall thought the game was great, the gameplay was more okay than fun. There's a point to this I swear, so bear with me. I installed Fallout 4 and as I have always done with Fallout games, proceeded to slowly meander my way through the game playing every quest, looking in every crevice to loot everything I could. I met every companion and did all their loyalty quests. I went way off the beaten path before finally deciding to make my way through the end of the main story. I was having a great time. At that point it was one of the best games I'd ever played. Even dealing with the grotesquely bad facial models and animations, which is odd that they didn't get dinged for that but BioWare did. Either way, I still really enjoyed the game. As always, it was filled with great, interesting, funny side quests but while the game had good enough writing to keep you always interested and much better combat than expected, it was never particularly moving. And as I made my way to the end of the game, I stopped playing suddenly. When it became clear that in order to finish the story I was going to slaughter every member of the two factions I wasn't supporting, I turned the game off and didn't finish for months. This lack of any real choice or depth almost completely ruined the game for me. What I was hoping for was an interesting choice with somewhat realistic options. I wanted the game to make me understand where the institute was coming from. I wanted to have a tough choice when deciding, kinda like I did in New Vegas. And I didn't want the answer to be, now kill everyone. I found it unforgivably lazy. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me as much if it actually felt like a legitimate choice. The brotherhood's position was silly. The institute was clearly murdering and replacing innocent people for, I don't know actually, they'd never really tell you why but, well, no particular reason as far as I could tell. Rather than giving me the morally ambiguous difficult choices that New Vegas had and to be fair that Far Harbor had, the game just kinda ran out of steam and decided I had to kill everyone to end it. As if the writers just couldn't think of any good reason not to. So I didn't finish it for several months because the game made me angry. The choice, it was so insistent of giving me felt arbitrary, pointless, and absurdly unrealistic. I decided to play The Witcher 3 to get over it. The Witcher 3 The Witcher 3, like Fallout 4, made major strides in gameplay from the previous version. While the second game had pretty good combat, the third game leaned much more into an action type game with quicker and more fluid combat while still retaining much though not all of the depth of the second game. Unlike Fallout 4, The Witcher 3's writing is nearly flawless. We'll get to the Family Matters questline soon but before we do, I want to focus on one moment very early in the game that happens right after you complete the first small introductory quest. After asking some people in the White Orchard Tavern about Yennefer, you'll be sent by Gunter O'Dimm to the nearby Nilfgaardian army camp where you'll witness this scene. You'll immediately be impressed, if not necessarily by the sincerity, at least by the fairness of the commander, and after accepting a quest to kill Griffin in exchange for information about where Yennefer went, you'll return and witness this scene. These two cutscenes, two of the very first of the game, perfectly set the tone going forward. It's easy to arrive at a pretty simple interpretation. Oh, the commander was pretending to be cool but was actually a dick. But if you think a little longer, you can see a lot of depth here actually. Is he a dick? It seems clear the man was probably a farmer. His offer of taking less than the village farmer offered is clearly an effort to minimize the burden his army will place on the inhabitants of the land he's occupying. Maybe it was sincere care for the common people. Or maybe it was practicality, an effort to not cause subversive rebellion. And what about the farmer? Is the grain rotten because that's all they had? Did the commander's generosity lead the villagers to assume he was weak? And how should the commander reasonably react to that? Is he left with any choice other than whipping the farmer? This seemingly simple interaction put before the player in these brief cutscenes are deeply ambiguous and not because the writers weren't sure what they were trying to say. Both of these characters behave believably. They're living, breathing people within the world, reacting to pressures and obligations. And unlike in most video games, you are basically powerless to intervene. I played through this part of the game just to get to the bloody Baron quest. I did not even remember it. It's maybe 40 minutes into a 150 hour game, but it's important. And this moral ambiguity, the complexity of the characters' motives and actions are a perfect introduction to what The Witcher 3 does better than any game ever made. Narrative complexity and realistic characters who behave like human beings. After you give the commander the griffin's head and decide whether you want his money or not, I always take the money. You'll be told where to go. And before long, after an amazing performance by Tywin Lannister, you'll end up looking for Philip Stranger, the Bloody Baron. Act 1. Introducing the Baron You'll find the Bloody Baron by asking after him at a local tavern. Before you were able to get the information, two of the Baron's men will come in as the bar clears of patrons. It's obvious that the entire area is scared of these men and they are brutes. What follows is one of the first instances of actual player choice in a questline with a shocking amount of branching paths. Like much of The Witcher 3, the different outcomes that branch out of these small choices are often rather subtle or small, but there are so many of them that the game manages to retain a choose-your-own-venture style storytelling that the best RPGs do, while simultaneously rigidly adhering to telling the story of Geralt of Rivia. You are Geralt and cannot do something he wouldn't do, but life is complex and little decisions can have tangible changes in how the people around you behave. Back to the game. The soldiers will confront you and you'll have the option of fighting them, which might get the bartender in trouble and means you'll have some difficulty getting to the Baron's castle. Or you can bribe the soldiers. Or you can swallow your pride and buy them a drink. The first time I played it, I of course killed them. The second time, I bought them a drink. If you buy them a drink, the bartender will thank you for not causing trouble and tell you about the bloody Baron. The first hint that this man will be a complex character comes if you inquire about his name. The bartender will explain that the Baron isn't actually a Baron, but merely a soldier from the now broken and defeated Tamarian army. After his division was shattered, the Baron coalesced a group of deserters, broken men and robbers into a military unit and took the local castle, before collaborating with the despised, occupying Nilfgaardian army. It turns out he got the bloody prefix for a raid that occurred at a dye mill. The bartender explains that the Baron's men took the mill without any serious fighting, but after drinking, his soldiers spilled barrels of red dye into the river, leading locals to assume that he'd slaughtered everyone there. After you digest this, the Tavernor says that while he's called the bloody Baron for a atrocity he didn't commit, nobody talks about the one he did commit several weeks before. So, before we even meet this guy, what do we know about him? He's a soldier that the broken remnants of the Tamarian army have rallied behind. He has set himself up as a Baron through his own cunning and skill. His men are a terror on the area. He's collaborating with the hated invading army, and he may or may not have committed atrocities in the area. All of this before we even meet the character face to face. Now, I'm sure most players were expecting one of two things. That the man was going to be an obvious villain and a brute, or that he's actually going to be a good guy who's allowed rumors of his monstrosity to spread to keep power. I actually assumed it was going to be the latter. Even after seeing the complexity of the first encounter with the Nilfgaardian commander, complex ambiguous characters are so rare in video games, it's impossible to expect them. When you do get to Crow's Perch, if you're an observant player, as you ride through the gates to the Baron's keep, you'll notice some posters that show the Baron's wife and daughter are missing. And when you finally meet the guy, everything becomes clear. No, actually you just end up with more questions. Everything here conspires to create a character of immense depth. The Baron himself is charismatic and funny. He's overweight but powerfully built. He's gregarious and seemingly generous. He doesn't seem the least bit arrogant. In fact, he seems like a pretty decent guy. A decent guy with a missing wife and child. Seems like. After a good long spell and a long conversation with Philip Stranger himself, you still aren't sure whether you're talking to Philip or the Bloody Baron. This quest is going to have you run through some great dialogue about his history. He'll honestly explain how he came to be the Baron. He'll admit to the truth behind his title of Bloody Baron. He'll confess that he's collaborating with the Black Ones because resistance is futile and he hopes to be confirmed in his title and lands if he helps the invaders. His answers are honest and insightful. He isn't evasive at all. And while his responses will shed light on who he is and how he's gotten here, it won't allow you to make a full judgement about the man. All the information you get here confirms what you've already learned about the man, but his easygoing nature and natural humor and charisma make it hard to form a judgement about him. You still can't decide whether or not this is a good guy or a bad guy. Finally, you can ask about Ciri and the quest gets fully underway. You'll end up playing the first of the game's Ciri sections, which has you leading a girl from the woods and fighting wolves. The girl is in the wilderness because her parents didn't have enough food and had her follow the trail of treats deep into the swamps. You'll fight your way through before getting to Akatsuma Ciri, the little girl, and the Baron. The man who took Ciri to the Baron asks for a reward. The castle is plastered with posters offering a reward for finding the Baron's family, and the man thinks he may have found him. The Baron reacts angrily, threatening to whip him because Ciri and the girl are clearly not his wife and daughter. It's the first tangible hint that the Baron has a cruel streak and a temper, and maybe more than the jovial fat man he seems. It's a jarring shift in his character, but mere seconds after showing that cruel side, we see him treat Ciri and the little girl with genuine kindness and generosity. He feeds them and refuses to even bother talking until they've rested. After the cutscene, you can inquire about the little girl and find that she still lives in the castle and is being well cared for. And if you ask where Ciri is gone, he'll say he knows, but he won't tell you a thing unless you've helped him find his family. Now, you can't find Ciri without this man, so you've got no choice but to help him find them. And that begins the Family Matters questline, one of the best quests you will ever play in a video game. Act 2, Family Secrets The quest begins with the Baron explaining what he remembers of the night his family disappeared. He seemingly has almost no information aside from the fact that they're gone, and nobody heard or saw anything. You'll have to choose a dialogue option that says you need more information and ask to examine his and his daughter's rooms. The Baron does not react well to this request. He blusters and says he won't allow strangers to paw through their belongings before relenting on the condition that he accompanies you. His reaction is somewhat suspicious, and it's in moments like this that the difference between extremely talented voice actors and just average ones really shines through. If you search the Baron's room first, you'll get all the information you need to continue the quest. But if you search his daughter's room first, you'll find some very cryptic and interesting information. In Tamara's room, you'll find a letter that hints at a hidden past and some incense that you can follow to a hidden shrine to the Eternal Fire. We don't have time to get into it now, but the Church of the Eternal Fire is a radical religious group dedicated to killing or removing all non-humans and magic from the world. When you finally get to Novigrad, you'll find them deep in the midst of a murderous pogrom of burnings and torture. At the shrine, you'll find a prayer, presumably written by Tamara Stranger, that reads, Eternal Fire, which lighteth our hearts and give us light, heat us with thy warmth, dry our tears, burn our foes, embrace our friends in thy care, give my mother health, punish my father, help me with my destiny. Hmm, you'll then move on to search the Baron's room and come across the obvious scenes of a violent struggle. There's a hole in the wall, a broken candlestick, wine spilt on the floor. Eventually, you'll follow a trail to a hidden magical talisman. When confronted with the evidence of a loud struggle in his room, the Baron will be seemingly surprised. He insists he has no idea what happened and that maybe he had too much to drink that night. He says he questioned all of his men in the morning and none heard or saw a thing. This leaves Geralt with no choice but to find out who made the talisman. The Baron points you in the direction of the local peller, basically a witch doctor, and off you go. When you arrive at the peller's house, you'll encounter another one of the small, subtle branching paths the quest line offers up. There are a group of soldiers outside the peller's hut, angrily demanding he come out. When you ask why they're there, they will tell you that one of their friends had gotten treatment from the peller but was still sick. Now, if you attacked the soldiers at the end earlier and you tell them you're a witcher, you will have to kill them all. Or, you can use one of your signs to bewitch them. Or, you can give them money. Or, you can tell them how to make a treatment that will cure their comrade. This time, I told them how to make a potion and they left. It's only in a second playthrough that you realize just how many subtle little differences there are based upon your dialogue options. And again, most of these little choices don't have massive narrative altering consequences, but they change things enough to give all of them weight. And every so often, they do have a big consequence, meaning you can't just treat them like flavor texts. It's pretty great. Anyway. After dealing with the soldiers, you'll end up helping the peller find his goat. The goat that the Baron implied the man fucks. And then he'll talk to you about Anna, the Baron's wife. The peller admits to having made Anna the amulet to protect her from evil. The peller believes the amulet was to protect her from the Baron himself, though you'll find out that's not actually true. Finally, the peller will perform a blood ritual with a goat's milk and a rat's blood and in a trance, he will tell you that Anna was pregnant with the Baron's child but miscarried when the Baron abused her. He was unceremoniously buried and became a monster called a botchling. And here's where the quest gets really crazy. In order to find Anna, Geralt has two options. He can remove the curse from the fetus by burying it under the family threshold and giving it a name and a ritual. Or he can find the botchling, kill it, and bring the blood to the peller who will use it to locate Anna and Tamara because blood calls to blood. It's like a fetch quest, except with an aborted fetus and blood magic. This transformation is time to return to the Baron. But before we go further, let's go back over how the Baron has been characterised thus far. We learn about him from the behaviour of his men that we see and the disturbing stories of the tavern owner. Then we meet the man and find him to be charismatic and open. Then we see him threatening to whip the guy who brought him Ciri. Then we see him treat Ciri and the little girl with kindness and hospitality. Then we learn his family was afraid of him because he was an abusive drunk. With their opinion and expectations of the character swing from pole to pole, from bad person to decent to bad to decent to bad. With the new information it's beginning to look like perhaps the Baron is just pretending to be decent and is actually a terrible person. When we get back to Crow's Perch, it's time to confront the Baron in what the first time through I assumed was going to be the end of the quest where we discovered that the Baron is an evil bastard who actually killed his family. As you ride up to Crow's Perch when you ask a soldier why nobody is trying to put it out he'll respond that the Baron is drunk and raging and nobody wants to get near him. Further cementing the suspicion you had that the Baron is an irredeemable turd. A stable boy runs up and asks you to save the horses and a man caught in the barn. You can apparently let them all burn to death if you want. I saved them both times because that's how I roll. As to playing the hero or the dick you approach the Baron and get treated to another cutscene. The Baron is violently drunk and will attack you. Let's take a look. After punching and dunking him you'll end up in his solar where the Baron will come clean about his constant drinking, his violent outburst against his wife and his terrible guilt at his belief that he had caused the miscarriage by throwing his wife down. He tells a graphic story about finding the bloody fetus on the floor and how the death of the baby was crushing to him because it represented his hope for fixing his marriage by being a chance to start over. Everything about this scene and dialogue is fantastic and the acting is top notch. Especially if you're aware that people in doomed, codependent marriages often actually do try to use pregnancies as a way to repair their marriages. It almost never works. The Baron talks about how Anna knew exactly how to attack his weaknesses to make him angry. How he regrets his drinking and violence. How he never hit his daughter. This is all heavy stuff, man. And it would be very, very dangerous for less talented writers to tackle. If you're gonna make a character who beats his wife and causes her to have a miscarriage you either need to make that character an unambiguous villain or be an extremely talented writer. Can you imagine any other game making this man anything other than a mustache twirling villain? I feel very comfortable saying that in any other game ever made the quest would end here with you realizing the Baron is a monster and either finding his family and helping them escape or killing the Baron. Because doing anything else risks a controversy. But that's not what The Witcher 3 does. Instead, The Witcher 3 lets you decide to dig up the corpse of the miscarried fetus with the Baron. In both playthroughs I decided to perform the ritual to turn the botchling into a spirit because it's just so awesome. The quest for you walk with the Baron down to the grave including includes great dialogue, great cutscenes, fun gameplay and legitimately powerful emotions. I don't think it would have been possible to do 6 years ago. Everything works the way it does because the animations are believable, the facial animations are excellent, the character models lip syncing all of it so good that it never for a second attracts from what the characters are saying. By the end of your walk with the Baron he is on the edge of tears and is creating a monster against himself. So let's pause again before we go any further and examine exactly this series of quests has accomplished and why it's so dangerous in an age where games are so afraid of offending anybody that every story has to be one of perfect heroes against unspeakable evil. We have just agreed to help a man find his family. Only to find out that his family ran away fleeing from his alcoholism and violence. We found out that his violence against his wife caused her to miscarry and we had the choice to either kill his undead miscarried child or to have him form an emotional connection to it in order to get its help. That's insane and powerful and to top it all off there's no denying that the player still even now feels an emotional connection to the Baron. It's an uncomfortable thing to realize and something we'll be coming back to because ultimately it's that emotional connection that is the real story of the quest. So after you've done this you will follow the spirit of the baby as it leads you to the family that helped the Baron's wife and daughter escape. You'll find out the daughter has gone to Novigrad during the Witch Hunters of the Faith of the Eternal Fire and that his wife was captured by a monster and dragged into a swamp that is run by a group of powerful witches known as the Crones. You go back to the Baron to report these findings and he becomes enraged that you haven't brought his family back and it's at this point that the game really goes out on the limb by trying to humanize a family abusing drunk and again, I cannot stress enough how gutsy this is. Think about the possibility for outrage and controversy if this was handled in a less artful way. During this conversation, after you tell the Baron that you'd held up your end of the bargain and found his family and that it seems they left him of their own free will you can either just leave him and continue the quest or if you want you can hear him try to justify his actions. Let's get something else clear right up front here. If every abusive alcoholic was an actual monster no fucking buddy would be married to an abusive alcoholic. Life is extremely complex and people end up in deeply toxic relationships not because they're captives but because for a variety of reasons they've chosen to be there. People can and do make terrible choices in their relationships. They can and do stay in abusive, codependent relationships and most abusers aren't psychopathic maniacs. The reason abusive relationships continue to exist is because most alcoholics and abusers are charismatic or caring or loving all of the time except when they're abusing. It's this cycle that allows abuse to continue. Very few people will stay if their partner does nothing but abuse them but when 90% of the time you're with someone it's fine it gets very easy to justify the other 10% when it's terrible. Beyond even that truth the Witcher is about to make excuses for the Baron's abuse and amazingly they somewhat work. The Baron finally settles down to tell you exactly why he'd done what he's done and frankly I think it's best if we just watch it play out like it does in the game, to the tape. And after that they sent me to Sidaris. The Warlord had risen against King Athen and Foltests sent help. It was one battle to the next. One conflict after another. It was a life of war. I was sold him home and I found comfort in drink. Grew so fond of Hooch I couldn't part with it when I did get home. All right, what then? I went from front to front battle to battle collecting soldiers' coin while Anna sat along with the babe for months. Later I learned she'd not been so alone after all. For nearly three years she'd found comfort in the arms of one Evan a childhood friend a dog's bunghole. Understand, dammit? One tossle in the hay I'd have waved aside but it out of my mind but the woman cook-holded me for years without a whisker of concern for me, for my love. How'd you find out? Came home one day and Anna was gone the things too found a letter she wrote that she didn't love me that she'd left me for that knob-licker taken to Mara with her felt like I'd been rammed in the ass by a horse I went to find the booger to get the girls back bring them home yet soon as I saw him something turned inside me something dark I slaughtered the shit-eating and fed his carcass to the dogs Imagine Anna wasn't exactly pleased Not the understatement if I've ever heard one she flew into a fit hysteria threw herself at me kicking and clawing finally grabbed a knife it would have been the end of me if I'd not leapt aside it was the first time I hit her I had to calm her felt I had no other means things changed they would never be the same Anna tried to take her own life and mine several times she would prod me gold me taunt me in the hope I would hit her again perhaps she'd scream that I'd robbed her life of love but I'd destroyed the idea for her and so might as well kill her how many times I apologized how many armfuls of blooms and gifts I brought she cared not a bit two years of our anger had turned to indifference broken at times were a bouts of hysteria and more bouts of drunkenness cannot fathom how we survived those years but we did and as you know now not everything was as it might have seemed you're right faults on both sides yours and hers after all these twists there's one other that we end up discovering along the way the Baron didn't cause this miscarriage his wife so deep in her hatred of him and his bullshit made a deal with powerful witches to kill the fetus in exchange for one year of servitude his wife wasn't captured his wife is in voluntary indentured servitude we find out the root cause of the problems here the Baron as a soldier in wartime became an alcoholic as a way to deal with the crippling loneliness depression and brutality of war his only solace at these times was the fact that back home in the world he had a loving wife and daughter to return to but when he finally gets back he finds that not only has his wife not been faithful she's been having an affair the entire time he was gone and has taken his daughter and left him completely alone that's tragic and to be fair it is deeply shitty of his wife we can understand that we can understand being angry but here's where we get back to the complexity deep in his totally understandable grief and fury the Baron goes looking for his family and happens upon the man they are now with and he murders him in front of her now they both have nothing and each of them is responsible for the other's loss she stole everything from him and he in turn stole everything right back the Baron is clearly more wrong than his wife but she is hardly blameless and it's fairly obvious that the Baron has become introspective that he regrets his actions and that he desperately wants one last chance to save them both the final act will depend almost entirely upon what you do in the last parts of this quest and it's kinda complex you can end up with several different endings depending on what choices you make after meeting the Crohn's and Anna it becomes obvious that the Baron's wife is in danger and deeply disturbed now she appears to have aged 20 years and she's currently caring for children left with the Crohn's because their parents can no longer feed them unfortunately it also becomes clear that these children like the ones you met earlier with Ciri are going to be eaten by the Crohn's in this final quest you have the choice of either killing or not killing an evil spirit that the Crohn's say is causing murders when you arrive it is clear that this thing is monstrous the tree where it's imprisoned is surrounded by bodies and bones and the spirit itself is terrible looking but all of that is also true of the Crohn's the evil spirit promises to help the Orphans the Crohn's are going to eat but this is the spirit that is causing people to murder each other like everywhere else in the game there's no good answer free the spirit and you will indeed save the 10 Orphans but everyone in the village nearby will kill each other in an orgy of madness and violence kill the spirit and the Orphans will be eaten and the Crohn's will stay in power but they will also continue to protect the villagers though at a hideous cost there's simply no happy ending here and the game doesn't even give you the satisfaction of judging the villagers who are making humans sacrifice to the Crohn's as the village alderman says when you collect a grisly form of payment from him ok after all of this depending upon the choices you've made you'll end up with one of a few outcomes you'll either free Anna from the Crohn's only to have her die broken and tired though she appears to finally forgive the Baron still the Baron's daughter does not forgive him and when you return to Crohn's nest to retrieve your money you will be able to find a way to save the Crohn's and then you will be able to save the Crohn's and you will be able to save the Crohn's and you will be able to save the Crohn's and you will be able to save the Crohn's and when you return to Crohn's nest to retrieve your money you'll come across one of the most arresting ends to a video game quest ever however if you choose differently you can save Anna's life but her time with the Crohn's has driven her mad the Baron will then leave his castle and give up all of his power to care for her while he takes her away to find someone anyone who can cure her and give them another chance your reaction to these two outcomes depends entirely on how much sympathy you have for these characters the ending that has the Baron taking and caring for his broken wife isn't a happy ending but it's a chance whether he cures her or not for atonement it gives him the opportunity to act selflessly and finally attempt to right the wrongs he's done to her or if you're the type who doesn't believe someone can really change so late in life the Baron hanging himself is also strangely satisfying it's a final example that people can and do push their lives to a point beyond redemption there aren't always happy endings and sometimes our actions can never be forgiven none of these endings forgive the Baron but none of them condemn him either CD Projekt Red leaves that up to the player the writers write they made interesting characters with deep complex histories and relationships and then they let the player interact with and observe them and form their own opinions it is absolutely masterful and in lesser hands easily could have been an offensive disaster it's the greatest quest in gaming history in the very rare instance of narrative literary art and video game form despite how I sometimes come off the truth is I am a pure and eternal optimist I believe in 2nd, 3rd, and 40th chances because I needed that many and though my transgressions were nowhere near as bad as the Baron's to many they might seem fairly extreme people can change and they can make amends if chance provides them with a proper angle for introspection and repentance perhaps that's why I found this so deeply powerful because even though I'm not an abuser somehow the writers of The Witcher 3 were able to make me deeply identify with someone who if we read the story in a newspaper column would have been an irredeemable monster that's what art is for alright that's all I got see you next time and thanks for coming