Rebuilding kaer morhen - starting over with an ethical policies

[scathtroy2147]

Lore, the early attack on kaer morhen and other witcher schools nearly wiped the witchers. Then again, some of the witcher schools were involved in some nasty stuff. The recruiting of very young boys was using highly unethical policies. IMHO, the attack on all witcher schools wasn't all anti-mutant madness. That nasty stuff made the hate a lot worse.

 

The lore isn't specific about adults going through the trial of the grasses. IMHO, adults might have a much higher survival rate. Full disclosure about the insane risks your taking.

This time around, recruiting only adults after an age. What minimum age?  I'll let the other hard core fans answer that.

Screening out those who do so because they have no choice. Doing so for other no so good reasons. The author of the books might be best on this issue.

Something to think about...   For you fans of the "The Witcher" games.

 

 

[BlickJustice]

It's uninspiring nobody has posted any answer, but well, it's been only half a year since you posted 

First of all, I hope you've read the books, not reading them and judging the witchers based only on the games or other sources doesn't show the whole picture. Putting aside Sapkowski's lore and additions to it from CDPR or other adaptations.

There's no excuse for a mob attack against monster-slayers that risk their lives every day in defence of society, based only on that people were told they were "bad" and supposedly were the sole reasons for people's misfortunes. Especially when we can consider the School of the Wolf as the most "honourable" and true to their purpose (at least from what we can read from the pages or see in the games, Sapkowski doesn't talk much about the other schools). Killing everyone they found in the castle, based only on the fueled anger that someone told them the witchers were bad, isn't excusable. 

About nasty stuff...In the books it's said that the Cat School had a problem with their witchers, which was an effect of different and twisted experiments on them. The emotionally unstable Cats have brought a bad reputation to the profession by being assassins or just outright psychos, that's true. But it's funny how it's easy to generalise all the witchers as one-that's why the mob hadn't attack the Cat School, but Kaer Morhen, which was the hidden fortress of the Wolf School. The Trials and the selections weren't ethical-but if you consider the situation on the Continent at the time of the creation of first witchers-monsters roaming everywhere, humans settling down in the new world-they were necessary, otherwise the humanity wouldn't have survived. And in the books only the Wolf, Griffon and Cat schools were mentioned, by the way.

About "recruiting of very young boys was using highly unethical policies". I don't remember it was stated in the books that witchers kidnap children and forcefully bring them to their schools (at least if we talk about Kaer Morhen, the author is enigmatic about the others, far-away schools). It's either the Law of Surprise (Lambert in the games' lore, Ciri), willingness of a parent/parents to give their child to the witchers (Visenna with Geralt), or taking in an urchin after a war (Leo in the first game). Proofs of kidnapping come only from the texts or people who hate witchers often just for being witchers, which aren't proofs at all. The Trials are another matter, they are horrible events that no wonder why witchers don't like to talk about-because if people hear about it-or hear an even more twisted version of the truth-they can consider witchers bad-and that's what had happened and what happens when people are prejudiced to Geralt in the games, for example. But mind you-the reasons for the massacre weren't so reasonable-read the "Monstrum or a description of a witcher", that was quoted in the books and games, you'll see the reasons I've been writing about.

The massacre was fueled by many harmful stereotypes. Witchers mostly have always been the defenders of the people (I don't include the Cats, they are a different matter), taking money for it but risking their lives for people who often don't look at what a witcher does, but how he looks like. "Monstrum, a description of a witcher"-how many lies are there, twisting everything that a witcher stands for. Remember how Bonhart talked about the witchers-he, himself, was a true abomination that brought only suffering, but somehow he thought that about the witcher when he was bragging how he supposedly got rid of a few. The stereotypes live long after the massacre, and it's funny how real monsters believe in them.

You know, children have the best capacity to learn, that's why the earlier they are trained in something, the better they can be at that. Plus, if they survive the Trials, it's easier to mold them because they are a blank page-all they will know, will be taught by witchers, when if you took an adult, he would be "tainted" by his previous knowledge/abilities, as to put it that way. But I think my first point is enough-in the Star Wars canon is a similar thing-the Jedi Order considers a twelve years old Anakin Skywalker as an already too old for training-why? Because he's not such a blank page anymore, and to be honest, we all know how it went with Anakin later.

Another thing is that we shouldn't go full 21-th century ethics when we talk about a semi-medieval, fantasy setting- because if we did so, we'd have to accept for witchers only adults with their written permission and insurances. In the medieval times, children weren't taken care of as today, so sadly, Sapkowski's way of taking young recruits and putting them through such harsh selections and the Trials is believable and immersive when we consider the medieval-inspired setting. Making it more ethical would destroy the immersion and believability of his creation. 

But your idea is worth of discussing, of course, but my opinion is how it's in the books and the games-there's no hope of rebuilding the witcher schools the normal, old way-first, there's no mages that could make the experiments anymore, but more importantly, the world is changing, for example in the Season of Storms it's show that even 100 years after the Lady of the Lake, witchers are already almost a fairy tale, same with monsters-"modern" times come closer, just like it happened in our world (Tolkien touched that subject in his works too), and the fantastical beings go into shadows, slowly disappear...But there will always be darkness, and in the darkness claws and blood-and there will be always a need for a witcher. Such as Ciri-if we end The WItcher 3 the proper way (I mean Ciri becomes a witcheress), that's how it should go-you don't need the mutations at all, let's leave it in the past, because as I said, the world is changing. And yet Ciri is a sign of hope, that witchers will be still there. 

Thank you for the question, I wish we could see here more insightful opinions from others