They were promised Dol Blathanna, and Nilfgaard had at least treated the Elves a bit better than the Northern Kingdoms. Still not well, mind you, but better. Then when the time came, Emhyr and/or Francesca threw them under the proverbial bus because they were no longer useful.



Not talking genocide here, merely the eugenic (technically euthenics, really, but since the Nazis couldn't even get their Aryan race notions right why be surprised about their shaky grasp on other areas of biology?) ideals of creating a version of humanity that is inherently superior.



Why? I know that there will always be a section of an any audience who will reject any depiction of Nazis in games or other media (indeed, I believe Germany itself has laws about it that made the version of Wolfenstein they got rather different to everyone else) but while the Nilfgaardian Empire is heavily and evidently based around the idieologies and trappings of WW II-era Germany, I don't believe that is a bad thing on an intrinsic level.

The books certainly don't shy away from showing those similarities as hypocritical, stupid, or repugnant; Nilfgaard is the "bad guy" to the "good guys" of the united Northern Kingdoms. If it was unambiguously glorifying Nazism, then sure; some things are just vile and should be treated with the contempt they deserve, which in the case of Nazism is all the contempt, ever.

But that doesn't mean you can't tell a good story by exploring some of those elements, or that such depictions should be avoided purely because of their source. Terrible as Nazism was, it's still a force in the world today, and as repugnant as their ideology is in total the reason its adherents have hung around for so long is because they are able to leverage individual parts of it to their advantage in gaining new recruits. I think any kind of media that shows those ideologies in action is an opportunity to present alternative means by which they can be used, and thus for the consumer of the media to be able to spot and keep away from them and where they lead.

I think by this point CDPR has proven that they can handle the level of maturity and nuance to address the issue in a worthwhile fashion. I don't think we're going to see Nilfgaardians goose stepping everywhere and Sig Heil-ing, with Nazism (or near-Nazi ideas) played up as the best thing since self-slicing bread.

We haven't seen the Nilfgaardian Empire much in the games, but the books draw very heavily on WWII Germany for its ethos and symbolism. Short of having Emhyr grow a moustache, publish Mein Kampf and adopt the Swastika as their national emblem, I'm not really sure how much clearer Sapkowski could have made thed parallels.

"Nilfgaardian exceptionalism" in this cse was a reference to how they see those with an Elven heritage as being superior and even base their own language around the Elder Tongue, yet they treat actual Elves very poorly, in a manner similar to the mis-approprpiation of the Aryan ideal. There are many more examples, those are just two that immediately sprang to mind.

Erm... have you read the books? Nilfgaard draws extremely heavily on Germany of World War II for influences. The Vrihedd Brigade wears lightning bolt insignia, there's to focus on "racial purity" that makes no sense since being "racially pure" means belonging to a different group than the one supposedly being promoted as "pure", and and and and and.

Can't get the quote tags working for some reason; my apologies.

>Shilard, and by extension Emhyr definitely played a part, but the groundwork
>to eliminate the Lodge was already set in motion by Radovid, who said was his
>plan ever since TW1.

Radovid's plan was to amass as much power as possible. Taking the Order under his wing was a purely opportunistic move, as was wedding Adda (if she was saved) or acting against the Lodge, which threatened his ascent to greater power. Prior to that he may have been acting to get out from beneath Phillipa's thumb, but he had no idea what he was up against until the Nilfgaardians filled him in on what Yennefer had inadvertantly revealed.

>I'm basing it primarily on the megascope scene with Saskia. It doesn't really
>seem feasible that everything she says and thinks is directly decided by Philippa,
>when she was so worried about her and telling Sile that she wants to save her,
>when it's definitely not something Philippa would want.

Depends on how the spell worked. I seriously doubt that Phillipa would have been completely OK with being captured and threatened; if the Dimeterium cut off her direct control Saskia might well have been operating on the last impulse she got from Phillipa, which would have been along the lines of "I do not want to be captured." If the Dimeterium didn't cut off the spell, it's entirely possible that Phillipa's fear or desire to escape were enough to put Saskia on that track.

She's obviously able to control Saskia given Dethmold's execution; she doesn't even blink before echoing the command.

>A ruler having a party when there's a rebellion, kinda shows me he is incompetent.

Why? Some commoner nobody had ever heard of with a peasant army, fighting the military of the man who was in large part responsible for turning Nilfgaard back in the last war. I'd probably have a party and send a general to deal with it, too; part of being a good leader, military or otherwise, is being able to delegate effectively.

>Without Iorveth's intervention, she would have lost.

That's far from certain; she still had other options available, up to and including assuming her dragon form and roasting Henselt's forces personally. Phillipa was also there, and she's one of the most powerful mages in existence; we saw what a curse from a dying, less powerful practicioner in Sabrina could achieve and what Sabrina did with combat magic when she cut loose; Phillipa would very likely be capable of annhilating a large portion of Henselt's forces by herself, too. And she'd definitely rather do that than watch all her plans fall apart at once.

The real turning point in the battle for Vergen was before it; had Saskia not been incapacitated, the defence of Vergen would have been a lot more organised.

The man who bought down Phillipa isn't Radovid, though. It's Shilard, possibly Emhyr. Radovid got very, very lucky and was able to take Phillipa completely by surprise when she arrived at Loc Muine; were she not operating with such haste he never even would have had a chance. Despite being blinded and in chains her contingencies were enough to get her out alive (potentially); she seemed to be putting her faith in them rather than simply playing her trump card in Saskia straight away, and if she'd done that the chances of her sweeping the board of Radovid, Shilard, and Henselt were good to excellent; the complication would be that she'd then have to do something about the witnesses, in this case everyone in Loc Muine.

She's cold, but I don't know that she's "exterminate an entire city full of innocents" cold, at least not directly- she seems to be all right with that happening at one step removed from her, but perhaps not doing so herself.

I'd also be hesitant to put too much faith in the way Phillipa said her mind control spell worked. The number of things she says in the game that are pure truth (rather than half-truths, evasions, or outright lies) can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, if not the fingers of one head. When she explains how it works she's blinded, chained with Dimeterium, trying to come up with an escape plan, and may or may not have Iorveth looking for any excuse to kill her outright. Given Saskia's dramatic personality change- which was commented on by observers in Vergen, with things like Deathmold's execution- I strongly suspect that Phillipa had a lot more control over Saskia than she wanted to let on.



Whilst Demavend was presented in the opening cinematic as a bit of a fop, he was having some kind of party and was taken by surprise by Letho who we well know is exceedingly dangerous. The other monarchs may not have liked him, his people may not have liked him, and his son may not have liked him but I've seen no evidence he was regarded as incompetant. The game mostly doesn't address him or his capabilities at all, which is pretty understandable given that he's dead before it even really begins.



Which she really asn;t able to do much with given the Curse and the fact she was out of commission due to the poisoning. Henselt had pretty much every advantage in the conflict, because he was awake and able to act where Saskia was taken out.

Once she was on her feet and took the field, she did quite well.