I love the Witcher games, but they could only be good because the great developers at CDProjekt RED had the original lore to work with. I admit being bemused by how Sapkowski managed to mix some of the most common fantasy tropes with some quite original interpretations of it. Furthermore, not being anglo-saxon his writing doesn’t take on certain conventions that western-European fantasy tends to hinge upon. As such, his characters feel more grounded to reality (without being realistic per se) and that allows for their lives to be that much more interesting, even as they go through the most classical of fantasy situations, like facing a troll or dealing with Elves or mages. I even like it when he seems to obnoxiously fixate in describing the movements of this character’s training or that other character’s sword duel, or how the water of the river has become muddled over the years, because you can feel it’s sbecause of an unseen quantity for us non-natives to his language, how it reflects a different way of narrating.