[SMooTHRiLL]

Just had an idea. I read some of the other topics here where people posted quite a number of thoughts regarding Alvin being the Grand Master or not. Now it all seems to add up real nice, except for this thought which just popped up in my head.
I don't know if anyone has thought of it before, I guess someone probably has, but just in case:

Alvin has blonde hair, right? SO... if he were the Grand Master, how come the GM has brown hair and beard?
It's a stupid thought, but think about it. Someone who has blonde hair couldn't possibly have brown hair when he's getting old right... unless he changed his appearance, mutated or whatever...

whaddaya think?

[rumbagod]

up until i was 6 i had blonde hair, 30 years later it's now brown and gray :P

[mardana]

Same here, my family line all has dark hair but, I had bleach blonde hair up until about 6 or 7 as it gradually got darker with age. Still have brown hair as opposed to bluish/black like my moms but, definitely fairly dark brown. :peace:

[Thaes]

I had blond hair till I was 6 or 7 or so, after which it became darker. It's brown now, but it was somewhat darker some years ago.

[SMooTHRiLL]

isn't alvin older than 6-7?
I don't remember if it's mentioned in the game.

[game widow]

I don't think his age is ever specifically mentioned .. i just always assumed he was 8 but i have no idea why i chose that particular age :)

[Evnissyen]

It's an interesting idea, considering that the Alvin thread really is not followed up on. (The "Alvin illusion" in the ice-lands really is next to pointless.)

Until the medallion was discovered: I had the impression that the Grand Master's visions of an icy cataclysmic future were just delusions. But... the medallion suggests otherwise.

But... the idea is really interesting. Alvin 'seems' to be about... maybe... 8 or 9... but still the writers could easily allow him to change from blonde to brown and not have to worry their selves about the details of at what age people's hair can at the latest turn from blonde to brown. I don't think his hair color is a significant detail at all, not one to worry about. I can see the very real possibility that he could be the Grand Master.

After all, the Grand Master just 'shows up', in Ch. 5, with no previous reference at all. A little odd that someone so important could have no in-game history.

[*Tommy*]

I have heard all the theories concerning Alvin-Grandmaster storyline but i still don`t buy it

Chap. 1 when talking to wild hunt in church cellar he says you will give me something very near and dear and that which you know by another name

Murky Waters- in the kill the elf game alvin doesn`t say i play the GM he says i am the GM and i always win well almost or something to that effect

Chap 5 When tha GM saves you from the echinops and says we are even

And all the things you say to alvin during different playthroughs come back to you in the end

In my EE edition game manual it states
Take the stolen secrets and a peculiar dimeritium amulet which resembles the one belonging to Alvin? What could have happened to that poor boy?

Who knows,who knows...

Is this CDPRs way of making us scratch our heads and ask is he or isn`t he? who knows, who knows...

[Seeker]

How I love this debate as well at who was that Assassin
have hard it all
To Alvin being the grand master to they share the same blood line and yes there are some hints here and there in the game itself
But it all comes down to this  Nobody knows for sure
Only the Red team dose
Because in the world of TW not everything is what it seems to be *Wink*

[Evnissyen]

Eh...

Assuming that the Grand Master is Alvin -- which seems to me almost a certainty, now that I've thought about it (it is strange that I hadn't thought much of the 'coincidence' of the amulets, I sort of just figured, "Oh... interesting. He had an amulet like Alvin. So he was another Alvin. Whatever." ...which, I guess, sort of brings us closer to the sort of closure the game should have had regarding Alvin) -- assuming this to be the case :

I think the game would've been very much enriched if the writers hadn't changed Alvin's name to Jacques but had rather kept his name... called him Alvin de Alderberg if they liked, whatever (but kept that name secret until the Epilogue, at the beginning of which someone calls him "Alvin de Alderberg" so that we can then think: "Ah! Wow." and then the process of closure is begun) . . . and then, when they finally confront one another, had Alvin actually acknowledge Geralt for the one-time-father-figure and one-time-idol from Alvin's boyhood, and have him actually plead with Geralt to understand (instead of his seeming-pretend-plea)... and most of all have Geralt take on the emotional burden of assassinating his very own would've-been-foster-son, and then confronting the King of the Hunt to take ownership of the responsibility of Alvin's death, of the burden of being Alvin's assassin. ...It seems to me that this would've enriched the story.

...AND, more importantly, it would've brought desperately-needed closure to a very important thread.

...Because: since the writers refused to literally make this acknowledgment: the lost thread of Alvin becomes very much an open wound, one that I very much doubt will be healed by whatever the sequel's story ends up being.

[mothra]

it's called a cliffhanger, not an open wound. I like that the game does NOT give closure on everything like those lousy movies where the last half hour is dedicated to visiting all characters and getting monologues that explain the story to the last moron who could not have guess it or doesn't have any imagination to speculate and wonder himself. That we all still engage in this discussion or wonder about it is a credit to the designers/writers and - imo - pays off much more than "here is how it went". And I don't expect them to touch upon Alvin in TW2, at least not in a major way.

[Evnissyen]

Quote

it's called a cliffhanger, not an open wound. I like that the game does NOT give closure on everything like those lousy movies where the last half hour is dedicated to visiting all characters and getting monologues that explain the story to the last moron who could not have guess it or doesn't have any imagination to speculate and wonder himself. That we all still engage in this discussion or wonder about it is a credit to the designers/writers and - imo - pays off much more than "here is how it went". And I don't expect them to touch upon Alvin in TW2, at least not in a major way.

I think you completely misunderstand me, Mothra. I hate that Hollywood crap where they explain everything away as if we're all idiots. It drives me crazy. I like ambiguity. But... an artist has to know how to use ambiguity, the artist has to understand the audience's mind. And always there're threads that can and should and often must remain unresolved, while there're others that're so important that they must be resolved -- in a way that does not actually explain things that're better left to the imagination but rather simply acknowledged. All I'm looking for is acknowledgment.

Alvin is one of those threads that is given so much attention and weight that it simply must be brought to some sort of closure. We don't need to have all kinds of things explained to us, but we need closure... or at least I feel that I need closure. I guess maybe you don't feel that way, or you've decided to ignore it, I don't know. I can't ignore it.

It's just . . . I feel that Alvin as a character was given so much importance that, after 'vanishing' and going 'someplace-but-no-one-knows-where-or-when': he must reappear at or before the end of the game. He must. Because he did not reappear (the 'hallucination' doesn't count): I feel that there's something missing. We don't need lots of explanations and have everything lain out for us: I'd hate it if the game did that. It'd kill the work. Art cannot exist without questions, without ambiguities. But the Alvin thread needs closure. It's just been given too much weight to be left unacknowledged.

This is not a cliffhanger, it's an open wound.

[cpt.nemo]

Quote

Alvin is one of those threads that is given so much attention and weight that it simply must be brought to some sort of closure. We don't need to have all kinds of things explained to us, but we need closure... or at least I feel that I need closure. I guess maybe you don't feel that way, or you've decided to ignore it, I don't know. I can't ignore it.

Alvin is Chekov's Gun. http://en.wikipedia....Chekhov%27s_gun

[Corylea]

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This is not a cliffhanger, it's an open wound.

The Witcher isn't a complete story.  It's the first half of a story, with the second half coming in TW2.  I think we won't be able to completely evaluate how good of a job the writers did until we see both halves.

For me, the questions of who raised Geralt from the dead and why, and what happened to his memory in the process are the burning questions.  I was furious when I finished the game for the first time, because I wanted the answers to these questions SO much, and I thought the writers owed us answers before the end of the game.  I've come to terms with having been left hanging, though I felt, as you did about Alvin, that these questions were more than just cliffhangers.

I think it's to the credit of the game's writers that so many people are taking the various questions the game raises so seriously.  In most games, one doesn't really expect things to make sense because the standard of the writing is so low.  But this game -- even translated from another language and culture -- is so well written that we want it to be perfect.  It isn't.  But then, nothing human ever is. :-)

[*Tommy*]

Quote

Quote

This is not a cliffhanger, it's an open wound.

The Witcher isn't a complete story.  It's the first half of a story, with the second half coming in TW2.  I think we won't be able to completely evaluate how good of a job the writers did until we see both halves.

For me, the questions of who raised Geralt from the dead and why, and what happened to his memory in the process are the burning questions.  I was furious when I finished the game for the first time, because I wanted the answers to these questions SO much, and I thought the writers owed us answers before the end of the game.  I've come to terms with having been left hanging, though I felt, as you did about Alvin, that these questions were more than just cliffhangers.

I think it's to the credit of the game's writers that so many people are taking the various questions the game raises so seriously.  In most games, one doesn't really expect things to make sense because the standard of the writing is so low.  But this game -- even translated from another language and culture -- is so well written that we want it to be perfect.  It isn't.  But then, nothing human ever is. :-)

I agree with you on the unanswered questions from TW1 but then i "think" (not my strong suit) that if they had answered those questions then TW2 wouldn`t be a true sequel and now there`s talk of a possible TW3 and i wonder how many unanswered questions TW2 will leave us hanging with

[scouten]

"that sword is for monsters"






Chap 5 When tha GM saves you from the echinops and says we are even that (works for me)

[dlevere]

Alvin is twelve years old. 

That old guy sitting outside the Swamp Cemetery church who is looking for his son is looking for Alvin.  IMHO.

[Drag0ntamer]

So, one thing I was looking forward to in The Witcher 2 was continuing my romance with Shani and making a family with her and I and an adopted Alvin. I have not seen anything about Shani at all, but I see Triss in videos etc. What about those of us who chose to romance Shani instead? Where is Alvin, are we ever going to find out what happened to him? Unless I am missing something did the story I played through and the character I developed just get shafted?

[Corylea]

There's a thread about Shani, where many people share feelings similar to yours, here.

You can't form a family with Alvin, though -- he teleports out at the end of Chapter 4, and you never see the child again.

[Drag0ntamer]

Yes, I am aware of that, but I was still unsure whether we would see him,