Post-Apocalyptic Prognostications in The Witcher

Catastrophes are cross-cultural themes in ancient stories. Similar motifs can be found in the off-balance mythical past of The Witcher. The narrative is set in a continent undergoing a climate crisis known as the Great Frost, which started after the Conjunction of the Spheres, an event that opened a cosmic gateway that allowed humans to leave a dying world and enter a new one. In a way, this development parallels that of the paleolithic Sahara desert, which had wet spells. These allowed our ancestors northward passage through this normally impenetrable barrier, letting them branch out of Africa. Lurking in the background of all of this and imprinted in humanity’s genes is an ache in people to perpetuate themselves and their communities, a desire molded further through cultural experiences of contending with apocalyptic situations. In The Witcher too, this desire drives many individuals. There’s also a figurative sense in which apocalyptic impulses are in our DNA. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) claimed that all people “by nature desire to know,” and the word “apocalypse” has meanings that relate to truth-seeking. The term is a compound of the Greek “apo-‘un-‘ + kaluptein ‘to cover’.” So “apocalypse” literally means uncovering or revealing. In the hands of Greeks like Plato (c. 429-347), knowledge seeking takes on deathly tones because the sought-after truths are perfect, unchanging, and immaterial in short, the opposite of messy, ever changing, and material biological ways of living. We see this deathly Greek ideal personified in Yennefer: because her nearly ageless beauty and otherworldly wisdom are achieved at the cost of her ability to have children.