Witcher 3 should I kill the tree Reddit

The thing is... it really doesn't matter.

It doesn't effect end game, any of the characters that really matter to Geralt, or the world very much. I mean if you let the tree spirit go than later you will find wraiths in Downwarren (sp?), which I though was a clever touch actually. But ultimately, it makes no difference.

The villagers and children are barely characters, they have couple lines of dialogue here and there, but they are all disposable characters. From a story perspective, who cares if they live or die?

If you want to think of them as "real" people then choosing between them also isn't rewarding because you're just choosing between these dead people or those dead people.

But as others have pointed out, that's not how this is supposed to work anyway. Like if you let the tree monster go, it is supposed to be a surprise that villagers, Baron and Anna are killed.

This is the game presenting an illusion of choice, which I can't decide is brilliant or stupid, really.

On my current playthrough, knowing all the consequences because I played it before, I feed the tree monster, just because I like getting a black horse, seeing that cool red-eye horse monster animation, and pissing off the Crones.

The reason people are so obsessed with saving the baron is the anchoring fallacy. That the first lot you throw in with will always be the one you consider the most.

In truth, the baron is not an innocent man. He’s pretty terrible. He regrets his actions and wants to atone. The wife is relatively innocent, but.. she HAS entered into a pact with the crones, which is kind of fucked up.

The villagers worship the crones and clearly perform human sacrifice and god knows what other fucked up shit in return for some mild prosperity. They’re all guilty, even if they do it for their own good.

The only real innocent people in this story are the children. So in technicality the “best choice” is to free it. But because of the anchoring issue we find it extremely hard to choose here. It’s a great example of a good moral conundrum to have in an rpg.

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Posted by3 years ago

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level 1

There's no correct/incorrect choice here; just do what you feel is right. You aren't going to miss anything either way, only the consequences will be different.

level 2

I don't know, both of them doesn't feel right in any way

level 2

So if I did the baron one first, I wouldn't miss anything at all?

level 1

The two stories intertwine and play out together regardless. You can actually save both the children and Anna if you free the spirit before starting any of the questlines, you just need to know the location beforehand

level 2

No, you can't. These children later appear in Novigrad if you make the choice where they're supposed to survive - but they are nowhere to be found if you try to cheese it by doing the Spirit quest ahead of time.

level 1

Yepp, kill it. Unless you will unleash a dangerous monster on the world

level 2

But innocent children die?

level 1

I killed it. If you pick up the book She Who Knows in game and read it, she doesn't sound much better than the Crones. I say kill them all, personally.

level 1

I just go free the tree spirit before I meet the crones. Then I imagine everyone lives happily ever after.

EDIT: the kids won't show up at the school in novigrad this way, but in my imagination they lived.

Kill it.

If you listen to any of the dialogue in Downwarren, not even all the townsfolk are "in" on it. They're having horrible dreams and don't know why. And there are children in the village who are no doubt as innocent as the rest.

And the spirit goes on to kill not only everyone there, but to terrorize the entire countryside. Killing even more innocents and children.

And if you pay attention to the books you're given, the Tree Spirit is the Crones' mother. And was so evil that even they locked her away. And the tree spirit is so evil she's killing the ground around the tree she's under - something that doesn't happen with the Crones.

The big moral dilemma is to make you feel back about not saving the orphans. But, in reality, you're killing a lot more if you let the Tree Spirit go.

Plus, you get to kill the Crones shortly afterwards anyway. So you can both keep the Tree Spirit from going off to murder across the countryside as well as stop the Crones. (The one can get away, but Geralt does swear to hunt them all down after finding Ciri, so even if you don't see it, it's a good bet they do get the last one.) So all of them dead>>>evil spirit mudering children across the countryside.

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