daisy's Reviews > Sword of Destiny

UPDATE 21/7/23: Lowering my rating. Highly doubt I'm gonna continue this series 🤷

I'm gonna be completely honest - I didn't really love most of the stories in this one. Those featuring Ciri were by far my favourites, the last one in the little collection was my fave of the lot, but the rest were kind of just? okay? Which is a shame because I do quite like Geralt and find the magic and monsters and all of that jazz enjoyable + interesting.

Something that definitely bogged down my enjoyment - and was coincidentally the only major issue I had with the previous book - was the gross sexist/rapey throwaway lines and world-building.

SPOILERS BELOW
- Yennefer is overpowered, bound, has her blouse ripped open, her breasts groped, and is then basically told she's going to be passed around by a group of dwarves to 'enjoy' after they've completed their hunt.
- There's a line about one of the victims of a dragon being the town halfwit, the son of a 'retarded woman and a squadron of invading soldiers who passed through'... ok.
- Geralt witnesses a crying twelve year old girl being groped by an innkeeper and is just 'annoyed' by it - after which neither of them are mentioned again. It was? pointless? Geralt sucks.
- A teenage squire helps Ciri, a young child, away and Geralt's inner monologue suggests that he did so because he'd 'heard knightly tales about virgins being promised to their heroes' or something.
- There's a mermaid called Sh'eenaz, who I quite liked, but every time she appeared in a scene, there'd be a line about how 'lovely her charms' were. Charms AKA her boobs. How lovely and perfectly shaped and firm her boobs were. Every scene. Every single scene. Boobs are great, I get it, but you don't need to mention it every single time she blinks.
- Women are constantly described via the size of their breasts, how plump/shapely they are, how fair of face they might or might not be, how virginal they are or aren't, etc. etc.
- Also I get that Yennefer being barren is upsetting for her, and something she desperately wishes to reverse, that's understandable, but the way she talks about her infertility is just... strange to me. Like she's not worth anything else as a person or a woman because she can't conceive.

It all felt super unnecessary and gross and I've said it before and it's probably just my personal preference, but I don't have any patience for it anymore tbh.

In saying all of that - I'm definitely gonna continue with the series because a) I do genuinely enjoy the general setting and main cast, b) I think the rest of the books are actually novels, not collections of short stories, which I think I might enjoy a little more, and c) I already own them all, so... might as well! I'm also hoping to get through the books before I dive into The Witcher 3, so fingers crossed that happens.