The Last Wish

The Last Wish marks the first big appearance of the most famous character of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski: the witcher Geralt of Rivia. Geralt’s subsequent adventures became so famous internationally that even a video game series called The Witcher was created to further develop them. But unlike the videogame – which has an intricate web of political plot lines – the book adopts a much less pretentious narrative strategy, being built around short stories that gradually develop its protagonist.

Geralt of Rivia is a mercenary specialized in killing monsters and supernatural creatures. Because he has undergone special training, which has modified some of his genetic traits, he is called a witcher – a being that uses magic and potions to destroy the creatures of the night, but is rejected during the day by the very people he protects. Geralt, then, naturally resembles those typical heroes that are shunned precisely because they are saving people, even though he appears to care little about this condition, preferring to distance himself from society and its political problems.

The opening tale, The Witcher, introduces the character and his methods. Geralt is hired by a king to cure his daughter of a curse that turned her into a terrible striga – a huge beast that “is four cubits high, shaped like a barrel of beer, has a maw which stretches from ear to ear and is full of dagger-like teeth, has red eyes and a red mop of hair!”

The story shows the witcher’s main characteristics. The task – saving the princess – is extremely dangerous; completely impossible, some say. Many others, even witchers, had tried and failed already. Geralt, however, never hesitates. His personal code of justice, meanwhile, comes into play when he comes upon court intrigue: there are parties that would prefer if the princess never returned to her normal state, but Geralt pushes them away immediately. At the same time, he doesn’t accept the mission just because he has a good heart, making sure he’ll receive proper payment.

He’s a cautious man. Fighting the monster is just half the job, after all; the other half is preparing for the battle. We will observe him studying the situation to know which potions he should prepare, for example. They modify his features and physical traits, such as dilating his pupils to allow for sharper vision in the dark. His fighting style also matches his personality: Geralt usually circles his enemies, studying their patterns, to finally end the fight with just two or three quick moves. His infallibility, however, is quickly demystified and his mistakes are severely punished.

The structure of the book is episodic with self-contained tales and the following story highlights some of the themes and narrative devices used to tell Geralt’s story.  In A Grain of Truth, the witcher, looking for work and following a trail of corpses, comes across a castle where a huge, well-dressed, educated beast lives, and is invited to spend the night there. The small arrangement of blue roses in front of the castle, beloved by the beast, reveals the book’s most recurring feature: the presence of fairy tales. One of the characters says that in each fairy tale there is at least a grain of truth. In this case, the grain is the subject of prejudice: appearances can be deceiving in The Last Wish, and the most beautiful things are often found to be the most dangerous.

The main narrative arc of the protagonist is best outlined in The Lesser Evil. Geralt hates getting involved in moral or political dilemmas – they often demolish consolidated beliefs – so, the farther he is from them, the better. However, sometimes people simply have no choice in the matter: because they exist in a certain political environment it’s still up to them, whether they like it or not, to act. Subverting Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sapkowski puts Geralt in a horrible scenario: the dwarves are murderers, the princess is a psycho revolutionary capable of killing dozens of innocents, and they only want the life of the wizard who exiled her. The wizard has tried to hire the witcher to kill the princess and has locked himself inside a tower. Since Geralt has free access to the tower, the princess makes a similar offer to him. Noticing that the two options are not ideal, Geralt’s decision is initially firm. But he soon realizes that staying away from politics is a political choice in itself. If a person refuses to choose because they think both options have problems, they can very well be choosing the worst of them: inaction, after all, always favors the oppressor.

The Edge of the World, in turn, puts the focus on worldbuilding. The witcher sets off on an adventure with his troubadour friend, Dandelion, through a distant region where they eventually encounter a goat-shaped creature that is being accused of stealing people’s crops. It’s in this tale that characters stop to reflect not only on their dilemmas but also on how they affect the universe around them. Geralt’s discussions with his friend share a strong melancholic and nostalgic tone, in which the protagonist realizes how different the world has become: true monsters are increasingly rare and their problems are increasingly political. This shift is no coincident, as the story turns to the issue of racism, and the villain becomes linked not to the supernatural but to human cruelty.

Serving as interludes between the short stories, there are a number of chapters entitled The Voice of Reason. In these chapters, in which Geralt is recovering from the confrontation with the striga, the protagonist reflects on his adventures. These short chapters are, however, completely unnecessary since they fail to add anything relevant to the narrative. To make matters worse, they’re also responsible for the book ending with a very cheap hook, which only undermines its conclusion.

Despite these problematic interludes, The Last Wish is a simple fantasy book that develops its themes and protagonist quite effectively, exploring the problems of human nature and their political consequences.

August 01, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on July 03, 2014.