Scisca said:
I haven't seen the English translation, but I'd expect it to lose a chunk of its magic. It's the same with the games, while I always prefer to play (or watch movies) in English instead of Polish translations, I can't imagine the same thing with The Witcher. That unique Slavic vibe would be lost and the experience wouldn't be as rich, the jokes as tigh and punchy. Our languages, while much more difficult, give a skilled author more room to play with words and express himself than the English language. What's also worth noting is that Sapkowski's books do not fall into the typical fantasy scheme of good vs evil. You know, basically every fantasy story follows the same general script - be it Eragon, LotR, Star Wars, etc. Not really the case here. Geralt isn't your typical medieval knight, coming to save the day.
Also, I'm gonna brag at bit |
Yeah, all literature is best in its original language, translation is difficult and there are hundreds of jokes and proverbs I know in Norwegian and Swedish that simply don't translate well to other languages.
The moral ambiguity is one of the main reasons I find The Witcher games so far up on my list of favorites, it goes against most conventions in the genre and creates a world filled with people and creatures who are more or less gray and not black & white when it comes to the decisions they make. There was one sidequest in particular in TW3 (not gonna spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it) that ties into the main story, that utterly blew my mind and used this moral ambiguity to perfection, I literally had to pause the game and go out to think about what happened. Not only because it impacted the game world and characters that I genuinely cared about, but also because it was so inspiring for a wannabe writer like myself to see it executed so well. Going back to games like Fallout 4, Skyrim or Horizon: Zero Dawn just feels like stepping into a world of children's cartoons in comparison, it's so soft and lacking in consequence.
Congrats on landing Sapkowski as a client, that's really awesome! 
