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garroterjuryandjudge:
something i think that kind of irks me about some popular tropes in geraskier fic is the way that people try to make jaskier, like, a soul mate or Destined True Love for geralt.
and like, people are valid and allowed to use whatever tropes they want for a ship, but one of the things i personally really like about geraskier is that it’s fundamentally not that. like, everything with geralt and yennefer and geralt and ciri is all Fate and Destiny and Magic Binding You Together.
but jaskier is in geralt’s life because jaskier has chosen to be. jaskier is there because he took one look at geralt and went “yep, i pick that asshole to follow for the rest of forever.”
and, like, for the majority of their acquaintance, geralt let him. geralt chose him, too, in his weird, awkward way.
and the moment geralt stopped choosing him, jaskier left. he just went, because geralt, in a broken-hearted moment, said he wanted him gone. as much as it clearly broke his heart — see “her sweet kiss” — he took geralt’s choice as law.
geralt didn’t choose to be a witcher. geralt didn’t choose to have a child surprise, and, for most of ciri’s life, didn’t want her any more than calanthe wanted to give her up. geralt didn’t even really choose yennefer anymore than she chose him — a desperate attempt to save her life, since she saved jaskier’s life, and he felt duty-bound not to let her die.
but his entire relationship with jaskier is built on geralt having room to make choices. jaskier can’t make him stay. jaskier isn’t bound to him by fate or djinn-magic or even by duty. jaskier asked him to bodyguard him in cintra, and geralt chose to do that. geralt chooses to let jaskier keep following him over the years, despite everything geralt has said about witchers not having friends or attachments.
for me, the whole geraskier dynamic allows geralt to fundamentally consent to something. to choose, without anything but his heart involved in the choosing.
and idk, taking that choice away, making jaskier into another avatar of geralt’s mythic destiny…it sits wrong with me. i know that’s not what people are trying to do — it seems mostly to come from the completely reasonable desire for jaskier to not become something geralt has to lose — but it’s how it reads to me, and i don’t like it.
i think that’s part of what makes the witcher as a show so compelling to me: the way it plucks the vibrating string of tension between fate and choice. fate brought yennefer to aretuza, but yennefer brought yennefer to the surgeon-mage’s table. ciri is destined to find geralt in the woods, but her choices fundamentally affect the nature of that meeting, and her choices are meant to protect herself and others. geralt’s duty-bound to the life of a witcher, but he chooses to be kind, in his way, to be noble.
and i think the fact that jaskier is so predicated on choice speaks to that tension, those narrative contrasts. certainly, geralt’s caring about jaskier brings him to his destinies — he follows jaskier to pavetta’s betrothal, and jaskier’s encounter with the djinn brings geralt to yennefer — but he didn’t have to care. he made the choice to let jaskier come closer to him than anyone else, even if it was the kind of choice you make simply by not doing anything, because jaskier certainly does the lion’s share of the actual work.
but jaskier gives geralt an opportunity to choose, and that feels very and distinctly different, to me, than what suits a Destined love.
tl;dr — i just really like the way choice is framed in the canon arc of geralt and jaskier’s relationship, so it kind of weirds me out when people try to frame jaskier as some kind of destiny for geralt.
garroterjuryandjudge:
something i think that kind of irks me about some popular tropes in geraskier fic is the way that people try to make jaskier, like, a soul mate or Destined True Love for geralt.
and like, people are valid and allowed to use whatever tropes they want for a ship, but one of the things i personally really like about geraskier is that it’s fundamentally not that. like, everything with geralt and yennefer and geralt and ciri is all Fate and Destiny and Magic Binding You Together.
but jaskier is in geralt’s life because jaskier has chosen to be. jaskier is there because he took one look at geralt and went “yep, i pick that asshole to follow for the rest of forever.”
and, like, for the majority of their acquaintance, geralt let him. geralt chose him, too, in his weird, awkward way.
and the moment geralt stopped choosing him, jaskier left. he just went, because geralt, in a broken-hearted moment, said he wanted him gone. as much as it clearly broke his heart — see “her sweet kiss” — he took geralt’s choice as law.
geralt didn’t choose to be a witcher. geralt didn’t choose to have a child surprise, and, for most of ciri’s life, didn’t want her any more than calanthe wanted to give her up. geralt didn’t even really choose yennefer anymore than she chose him — a desperate attempt to save her life, since she saved jaskier’s life, and he felt duty-bound not to let her die.
but his entire relationship with jaskier is built on geralt having room to make choices. jaskier can’t make him stay. jaskier isn’t bound to him by fate or djinn-magic or even by duty. jaskier asked him to bodyguard him in cintra, and geralt chose to do that. geralt chooses to let jaskier keep following him over the years, despite everything geralt has said about witchers not having friends or attachments.
for me, the whole geraskier dynamic allows geralt to fundamentally consent to something. to choose, without anything but his heart involved in the choosing.
and idk, taking that choice away, making jaskier into another avatar of geralt’s mythic destiny…it sits wrong with me. i know that’s not what people are trying to do — it seems mostly to come from the completely reasonable desire for jaskier to not become something geralt has to lose — but it’s how it reads to me, and i don’t like it.
i think that’s part of what makes the witcher as a show so compelling to me: the way it plucks the vibrating string of tension between fate and choice. fate brought yennefer to aretuza, but yennefer brought yennefer to the surgeon-mage’s table. ciri is destined to find geralt in the woods, but her choices fundamentally affect the nature of that meeting, and her choices are meant to protect herself and others. geralt’s duty-bound to the life of a witcher, but he chooses to be kind, in his way, to be noble.
and i think the fact that jaskier is so predicated on choice speaks to that tension, those narrative contrasts. certainly, geralt’s caring about jaskier brings him to his destinies — he follows jaskier to pavetta’s betrothal, and jaskier’s encounter with the djinn brings geralt to yennefer — but he didn’t have to care. he made the choice to let jaskier come closer to him than anyone else, even if it was the kind of choice you make simply by not doing anything, because jaskier certainly does the lion’s share of the actual work.
but jaskier gives geralt an opportunity to choose, and that feels very and distinctly different, to me, than what suits a Destined love.
tl;dr — i just really like the way choice is framed in the canon arc of geralt and jaskier’s relationship, so it kind of weirds me out when people try to frame jaskier as some kind of destiny for geralt.
