thinking that iorveth has a completely warped sense of humor. his idea of a joke is something so bizarre and unhinged that it makes the recipient either deeply concerned or uncomfortable. like….
iorveth:
geralt, ciaran, saskia, literally anyone with a brain:
on the other hand, he is a pretty decent orator, so he can anddoes say things that would make anyone sensible laugh. only, it doesn’t quite hit the same for him–he’s probably just repeating something he heard once because he remembers the reaction it got. so, he’ll just keep on cracking his fucked up little jokes anyway because he enjoys them. that’s all that matters.
i myself have rejected the spear of destiny as the explanation for iorveth’s lost eye and other facial disfigurements. in this post, i explain, in detail, why that is.
(be warned, this gets dark and somewhat graphic in the ways it’d be expected to)
my gripes:
the shape of the scar
look, i’ll admit i really know nothing about spear fighting, but i did watch a 9 minute youtube video on techniques and also have a bit of common sense. enough to say that things are just not adding up here.
quite simply, the scarring looks precise and premeditated. it’s following right along the contour of his cheekbone. could a spear have been so exacting? doubtful.
yet, while the placement is precise, the line itself is not. if it had been made in a quick slash, the scar would be even and smooth. if it had been made in a slow and drawn out manner, well, then it might take the more jagged and uneven path that it does. it looks deep and it looks brutal. perhaps it was even repeatedly started and stopped.
is this the work of a spear? it can’t be.
the rate of healing
if it takes about a year to adapt to suddenly losing the vision in one eye, then this must be an injury that has been healed for at least that long. else he probably wouldn’t be as active as we see him. shooting a bow? fighting with a sword? yeah, that’s gonna take some time to relearn. to say nothing of the pain.
so, if this injury is so old, then why is the skin around it still so red? what is the cause of the discoloration? is it from bruising? is it from burns? why is it also not swollen?
not to mention, the conflict in upper aedirn would seem to be too recent for him to have been hurt then, which is when the spear was around.
my theories:
one is not the other
his eye injury and facial disfigurement may have been done by two separate weapons. certainly, an eye could be taken out by a spear. most certainly, some weapon other than a spear was what injured his face. i suggest a dagger or knife of some sort.
at the same time
if we assume that the spear was used in battle, and if we settle on the idea that his scar was the result of something thought out and drawn out, then his face and eye could have not have been injured at the same time. furthermore, the scar appears to start at his brow. they are two separate injuries.
yet, the rate of healing wouldsay that they happened at the same time; one does not appear further along than the other. perhaps, then, there was no spear involved at all and it was done entirely by that dagger or knife.
with magic
this is a world where such a thing exists. i can think of no other explanation for why his injuries would still look like shit after they have healed except that they were enchanted to stay that way. what kind of person would have gone to such trouble to do that? someone who wanted to hurt him.
my conclusion:
iorveth is an archer, so his sight is crucial for what he does. if somebody wanted to weaken him, an eye would be the obvious target. but the presence of such facial disfigurement would say that this was something much more than that: it was personal. it was an act of cruelty and hatred.
someone took his eye and then decided that they would also ruin his beauty. carve out those damn fine elven cheekbones and take away the very thing most aen seidhe so pride themselves in. take away everything that made him exactly who he was and leave a husk behind.
but after all is said and done, why not take both eyes? why not disfigure both sides of his face?
so that he can still see himself and what he’s become, so that he would have to struggle through relearning something that once came as easily as breathing. so that the blank, untouched expanse of skin can remind him of how it all used to be. to take every bit of his pride and power and reduce him into nothing.
and why, more than anything, was he left alive?
because they underestimated him. they thought that they’d broken his spirit, that this was a fate worse than death. he’d slink away to lick his wounds and it would be the end of him. but this person, his tormentor, had pride greater than even iorveth did. so much that it rotted into arrogance. who are they to think that they would be the one to stop him? never.
so, then, just who are they?
someone who can use magic would be the easy answer. someone who would have access to magically-enhanced weapons is another one. but this took careful planning. this was close to the heart. this was born of passion. this was not the work of a sorcerer or the nobility. it was done by someone who’d lost something by iorveth’s own hand.
it was done in revenge. messy, devastating, wicked revenge.
