40 pages • 1 hour read
Andrzej SapkowskiThe Last Wish
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Nature of Monstrosity
A primary concern of the collection is the nature of monstrosity—how we distinguish the monstrous from the human, and in what ways the two overlap. This theme manifests both overtly and more subtly. “The Witcher” and “A Grain of Truth” overtly deal with beings that exist somewhere in between human and monster dichotomy, with the striga on the side of the monstrous and Nivellen on the side of humanity. Because both became monstrous through curable curses, their existence complicates Geralt’s profession as a monster-hunting witcher. His solution to their problems makes redemption as significant a theme as destroying evil.
Geralt often finds that humans are more monstrous than the supernatural beings he fights. In “The Lesser Evil,” slaying the monstrous kikomora is so easy it happens off the page. Instead, Geralt must wrestle with human monstrosity—Stregobor’s past actions and Renfri’s present ones. Neutralizing them without violating his code proves impossible. Likewise, in “A Question of Price,” there is no true monster: Urcheon is cursed, but only the whims of humans escalate the situation. In “The Voice of Reason,” we learn that the first monsters Geralt faced were ordinary highway robbers.
All of this defines Geralt’s inner conflict—his pseudo-monstrosity. Geralt navigates the world of monsters and humans to better understand himself. As a witcher, Geralt is neither human nor monstrous. Though he fights monsters for a living, the humans he saves shun him in fear. It is possible that Geralt wishes he could be human, but currently he resigns himself to his outsider status, using it as a protective shell. However, unlike Yennefer and Renfri, Geralt does not believe his fringe existence justifies using ordinary people to his own ends.
An Ever Changing World
Complicating Geralt’s search for his place in the world is the fact that his world is leaving him, and people like him, behind. Gerald dispels Nivellen’s belief that there are fewer and fewer monsters—the problem, as he explains to Dandelion, is that people don’t want him to battle the ones that do exist. In “The Witcher,” Geralt discovers that Ostrit has been paying people not to solve the striga problem in a bid to remove Foltest from the throne, while in “A Grain of Truth,” Geralt must take it upon himself to dispose of Vereena, as Nivellen is resigned to whatever fate she decrees.
The collection is ambivalent about whether this change is positive or negative. Geralt laments the loss of his profession, but Dandelion points out that it was a manufactured profession to begin with: Witchers only exist because humans chose to take over a world that didn’t belong to them, and if witchers do their job properly, they will put themselves out of work.
The collection does make it clear human behavior is driving the shifting of the landscape. “The Edge of the World” brings to the fore the impact that humanity’s reshaping of the world is having on other species: Elves must now resort to secretly stealing humans’ destructive farming techniques. In “The Voice of Reason,” the formerly widely available elixir ingredients Geralt needs for his profession now only grow in one small cave.
Individual Responsibility and Choice
Central to the novel is the nature of choice, in particular the responsibility we have for the consequences of the choices we make. This manifests in several ways. In “The Witcher,” Geralt can deal with or avoid the striga, but he feels his only choice is to complete his task. In “A Grain of Truth,” Nivellen’s insists that his actions have made him monstrous; however, Geralt argues that since Nivellen acted under duress rather than by choice, the picture is more complicated. Geralt must make immediate choices with dire potential consequences for himself and others in “A Question of Price,” and in “The Last Wish,” he chooses to save Yennefer at the loss of his freedom.
The theme of choice and personal responsibility is most clear in “The Lesser Evil,” where Geralt must choose from a several bad options. Geralt initially believes he can simply avoid choosing altogether, but Stregobor and Renfri prove him wrong. They are willing to sacrifice scores of people while refusing to accept personal responsibility for their actions—if Geralt does not intervene on one side or the other, he is tacitly allowing their evil actions to stand unchallenged. When Geralt opts to protect one monster against another to prevent the deaths of innocent people, the people turn on him, exiling him from Blaviken.
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By Andrzej Sapkowski
