Baptism of Fire

Baptism of Fire is the worst so far in The Witcher series. It fails to advance the main plot in any way, shape, or form, forgets to develop most of its characters, and still presents a problematic structure.

The events of the novel take place shortly after those of The Time of Contempt, with Geralt seeking refuge in Brokilon while Ciri tries to survive as an outlaw, attacking small settlements. The famous witcher comes back to be the protagonist of the story, which accompanies his tireless search for the missing girl.

Geralt’s narrative arc is quite different from previous volumes. Here, the character’s political impartiality is no longer important since the pain he feels for failing Ciri is brought into the spotlight. Many characters offer Geralt help, but he rejects them all without hesitation. The witcher believes that he must feel this pain alone in order for it to make sense. Positioning himself as the one to blame for the situation, Geralt considers himself the only one with the right to suffer: he believes that the more he nurtures his pain, the more value he will be giving to Ciri, transforming his suffering into proof that she matters to him. In his eyes, if he doesn’t suffer it will mean that it was all for nothing. The witcher, therefore, dives into a self-destructive mindset, refusing any help, alienating his friends while he feeds his own suffering.

Geralt’s journey, then, is an introspective one, as he learns to accept his own failures while dealing with tireless friends, who never leave his side even when they are explicitly told to do so by the witcher. A barber-surgeon named Regis, for example, continues to insist on giving Geralt advice even after being threatened by him, and it is Regis, with his advice, who contextualizes the book’s title: “The need for atonement, a baptism of fire, guilt, these are things to which you can’t claim an exclusive right. Life is different from banking; it allows debts to be repaid by the debt of others.”

The development of the other characters, however, is nowhere near the one given to Geralt. The archer Milva, for example, is prominent at the beginning of the novel, but then forgotten as soon as the first chapter ends, only once more gaining the spotlight, when a twist gives her a tragic story. However, by then it’s too late. She is a character who, up to the moment of the twist, is devoid of purpose and conflict: she seems to accompany Geralt for having nothing better to do with her life and, excluding her participation in the action sequences, has no impact on the narrative whatsoever.

Regis has no better luck. He is that typical character who is kind and wise and is always offering pertinent advice while, when the time is right, also serving as a deus ex machina. His role in the novel never goes beyond that: the plot twist surrounding him is ruined for those who know the game series, but it also fails to bring any tragic undertones to the character, unlike what happens with Milva. Meanwhile, Dandelion continues to be the comic relief, though here he’s only annoying – his arrogance is emphasized rather than his optimism –, and the knight Cahir remains a question mark until the end: he also wants to find Ciri, but what he intends to do when he meets her – the key to understanding the character – remains unclear.

Andrzej Sapkowksi, however, deserves credit for at least making some characters go beyond what their first impressions indicate. Monsters, considered so sometimes because of their species, sometimes because of their nationality, are the characters that show the most sympathy for Geralt’s plight. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the only man of faith who emerges in the story hides his corrupted soul under a veil of religious authority. Trying to burn a girl he believes to be a witch, the man accuses women of being sinful, manipulative, and devious. The more independent they are, the worse. Regis rightly defines the man’s problem with a little bit of humor:  “This is phobia, in its pure, clinical form. Holy men often dream of vagina dentata.”

The novel’s main problem is once again its narrative structure. It features several useless chapters that focus on the formation of a society of sorceresses, which in the end just amounts to filler. These chapters are rife with exposition, tiring the reader with the amount of irrelevant information they provide. There is a scene, for example, in which the sorceresses keep describing Ciri’s genealogy over several pages, detailing how she came to have the blood that makes her special. These details, however, don’t matter in the slightest and the didactic, humorless form in which they are conveyed makes the narrative even more boring.

Much like Blood of Elves, Baptism of Fire also fails to have a proper conclusion, feeling like it’s just half of a novel. Yes, Geralt’s plight finds resonance during a battle at the end, but this battle is totally random and its conclusion is not expanded upon. Geralt’s quest is interrupted, the council of sorceresses doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, and Ciri barely does anything new, repeating her actions from the end of the previous book.

Even the frequent humor of previous books is a rare find here. The funny bits of dialogue are very brief and soon give place to descriptions of how war is a brutal and horrible event, with the narrator preferring to focus on descriptions of broken bodies and families.

The structure of the first two novels of The Witcher series suffered from some problems and those issues persist in Baptism of Fire, which tells a story that is as tedious as it is incomplete.

October 02, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on June 07, 2017.