THE VOICE NOT FROM RIVIA: SILENCE, ECOFEMINISM, AND THEIR LIMITS IN THE WITCHER SERIES

The Witcher book series by Andrzej Sapkowski and the corresponding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game by CD Projekt RED intersectionally relate the feminine to the natural in their joint secondary world of the Continent, and in doing so rely on the “key feminine,” a term to describe a female character who embodies the feminine ideals of the secondary world while also saving it from environmental disaster, yet not being representative of it, deconstructing the goddess and witch dichotomy. Geralt’s predispositions as a witcher places him in conflict with nature, but his moral code and decisive silence allow for a space in which, though the two occur independently and jointly, the voice of the feminine and the voice of the nonhuman world can be heard on their own terms, instead of through the objective filtering of the hero. Yet, in this space of voices and silence, the natural world remains opposed to the protagonists, which CD Projekt RED elevates to monstrifying the natural in opposition to the player, giving voices to some zoomorphic and anthropomorphic monsters, but leaving other nonhuman ecomorphic creatures without voice, encouraging anthropocentric dominance over the environment.