The Tower of the Swallow

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However, the player later learns his motivation was to protect Ciri’s genes. He likely didn’t sacrifice himself because he cared for her outside of that.One might surmise that he does care for her because she’s the descendant of Lara Dorran — however, this is at odds with his disdain for humans. Avallac’h gave me his word,’ [Ciri] said hoarsely. ‘Allegedly it’s an insult to doubt the word of an elf.’ Enter The Tower of the Swallow, Book 4 of the Witcher series, which pushed the plot so far ahead that I’m convinced this particular installment could have easily been two books. Bavarian Fire Drill: A subverted example. Cahir gets the party across a bridge closely guarded by the Nilfgaardians by pretending to be a Nilfgaardian officer and browbeating the sentry. The subversion is that Cahir is a Nilfgaardian officer. He's just one who deserted. Ultimately, Avallac’h is a complex character, and it’s impossible to describe him as completely good or evil.

Tower of Swallows is another great instalment to the Witcher series. Though I love it and think it's a great book I have a few issues with this.

Tropes found in the book:

Bonhart, a sadistic bounty hunter, really enjoys killing off the Rats, a bunch of highwaymen who think of themselves as lovable rogues. In contrast to earlier books, Sapkowski really goes out of his way to paint the Rats in a negative light here. Ciri still genuinely mourns them and Bonhart is even more of a monster, but he hammers home that they were not nice people. Fantastic Drug: Fisstech (effectively, cocaine) is first introduced in this book and then retroactively spread across the world.

Later on, Ciri discovers an enslaved human in the Tir ná Lia stables of the Aen Elle world, realizing that humans originally inhabited the Aen Elle world. She also encounters a sea of human remains in a ravine. After 8 days of inhabiting the Elves’ capital city, Tir ná Lia, Ciri learns that they wish for her to bear a child with their king, Auberon Muircetach, presumably to fulfill Ithlinne’s Prophecy. Triss is with Mother Nenneke at the Temple of Melitele. The girls Iola and Eurneid were preparing to leave, to work as nurses in the war effort. They had spent years training at healing all sorts of ailments and were prepared, according to Nenneke. As they watched the girls leave, Jarre exclaimed how he wanted to go to the war too. He wanted to help rescue Ciri. Nenneke scoffed, reminding him his place was that of study. Rience is fond of threatening people about the pain he will cause "With these hands/fingers". Ciri slices off his fingers, causing him to sink into a frozen lake and drown. For bonus points, Rience had previously mutilated Yennifer's fingers, and was the one to cause the ice to break open.In this review of The Tower of the Swallow there may be mild spoilers for previous books in The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. Geralt and Yennefer ride with Ciri, who retraces her steps in Ebbing to punish those who hurt her. She and Yennefer are summoned by the Lodge, and Yennefer goes ahead while Ciri and Geralt go to Toussaint. They find Dandelion about to be executed by Anna Henrietta. The trio departs Toussaint, and Ciri goes to meet the Lodge while Geralt and Dandelion head to Rivia. The Lodge states that since Emhyr has married a "false Ciri" that Ciri cannot claim the Cintran throne; they plan for her to become the mistress of Prince Tankred, the Kovirian heir, to bear the prophesied child that they will raise. Ciri asks to leave with Yennefer, to honour a promise to meet Geralt in Rivia, then return to the Lodge afterwards. Phillipa Eilhart casts the decisive vote in favour of letting Ciri go, arguing it's Ciri's destiny. There’s also the fact that Ciri gets visibly upset when the female elf at Avallac’h’s lab implies that he is only interested in Ciri for his work and can’t wait to be rid of her. Ciri is in fact so mad after meeting her she wants to destroy the lab. Is Avallac’h Good or Evil? Note: For reasons unknown, some of the translations have "Swallow" in its plural form in the title while the original, the Polish title is in singular form. Thus, the most correct translation would be "Tower of the Swallow" or "The Swallow's Tower". The mentioned swallow is a representation of a single person so it feels like a rather big error in translation. The error itself might be related to Polish language complexity; the word "Jaskółki" in itself is in a plural form, however in a phrase "Wieża Jaskółki" it is not, here it is in its 2nd (of 7) declination case. The fact that Aen Elle used the Gate of Time to travel to other worlds and conquer them is untrue. The book gives no such information – the only known instance is in the world of the Aen Elle but not anywhere else. Auberon makes it sound like they were used to leaving places that became boring/no longer suited them. Nowhere is it mentioned they enslaved and conquered everywhere they went.

What do you think? Is Avallac’h ruthless, racist, and power-hungry, or is he just doing what he has to do to protect his fellow elves? Share your thoughts with us in the comments. Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Despite having boasted about torturing Yennefer and his plans to do the same to Ciri, when Ciri has Rience at her mercy, he desperately begs her to spare him. She doesn't.We, unlike our cousins, the Aen Seidhe, left that world long ago. We chose another, more interesting universe. For at that time — you will be astonished by what I say — one could move quite freely between the worlds. With a little talent and skill, naturally. Beyond all doubt you understand what I have in mind.” And there is still endless bitching between the female characters. I'm not sure there is a single woman who have anything nice to say about another woman, except Ciri but she's basically just a child anyway. And all women love all children. It's a fact. The novel has been published in Czech (Leonardo, 1998), Russian ( AST, 1999), Spanish (Bibliopolis, 2006), Lithuanian (Eridanas, 2006), German (DTV, 2010), Bulgarian (InfoDar, 2010), French (Bragelonne, 2010), Serbian (Čarobna Knjiga, 2013), Finnish (WSOY, 2015), Italian (Editrice Nord, 2015) and Portuguese (WMF Martins Fontes, 2016). An English translation was released in the United States by Orbit (titled The Tower of Swallows) in May 2016, [1] [2] and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz (titled The Tower of the Swallow) in 2017. [3] The Polish title refers to a singular swallow, so The Tower of the Swallow used by Gollancz is the more accurate translation. I want to talk more about stuff like how assassin Bonhart reminds me of DC's Deathstroke, and I want to talk about how fascinated I am with world of Witcher because of some crazy and similar aspects it share with our own world (Months, twisted Norse mythology, festivals), and Spawaski's writing style which at one point reminded me of old western. (Rat's last stand) And Ciri... oh Ciri. Almost raped by a man and then raped by a woman she then deludes herself to fall in love with said woman. Instead of returning home to Cintra or Caer Moren she decide to murder and pillage. She is so unable to make decisions for herself it makes me mad everytime I read about her. Well if anything at least she is able to swing her fking sword without falling on it. Not like her older counterpart.

Also, according to the Witcher Wiki, the Aen Elle did use the Ard Gaeth to travel between worlds and conquer them: “Aen Elle controlled one or more such Gates once, which they used to leave the Continent and conquer other worlds.” Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Leo Bonhart's obsession with Ciri is so great, he's prepared to fight the Wild Hunt for her. I get the appeal of heroes who always do what is right, who are ready to die for their country or whatever greater cause they have in mind. Yennefer however admits that she doesn’t WANT to sacrifice anything, even for some greater cause, that she LIKES taking vengeance for all the wrong that was done to her. It must sound selfish, but I can completely respect that attitude! Unlike all the books that came before, The Tower of the Swallow ended on a somewhat hopeful note. There’s still quite a lot to cover, and I’m excited to see how the finale ties all these loose ends!Some fans also speculate that Avallac’h fancies Ciri in the Witcher 3 because she shares Lara Dorran’s features. The main piece of evidence for this is the drawings you find in Avallac’h’s lab that look a lot like Ciri. The character narratives are not always linear, or even told straightforwardly in the close third person favored by the genre. Yennefer's story, for example, is told over several timelines, with crucial parts related by individuals who may not be reliable narrators. More often than not, the stylistic gambit works, but there are instances in which “The Tower of Swallows” would have benefitted from more conventional plotting. For example, there is far too much space given to the spy Dijkstra's visit to a far-flung (and newly introduced) kingdom--a plot point that doesn't really develop and, frankly, isn't necessary. Sometimes the same event is narrated by different narrators from different times. Then there's this build up that always starts with the same words and goes nowhere: "if someone looked into the cottage, they would have seen an ashen haired girl…” It says it like 7 times, and it's a full paragraph of text. Every time I read it, it heightens my anticipation for bigger things to come -- but nothing ever happens! It feels like Andrzej Sapkowski got bored, and just decided to jump around and experiment with the story from different angles --then decided to throw the whole mess together and call it a book. In 1997, Sapkowski won the prestigious Polityka's Passport award, which is awarded annually to artists who have strong prospects for international success.