Let’s talk about Geralt’s age – Weekend Lore Ramblings

Today's post will be a little bit different than usual. This time I want to addres the issue of Geralt's, Triss' and Nenneke's age during the events of the books and games. I will try to deduct how old were those characters.

Let's begin in the source – the author of the books, Andrzej Sapkowski himself. When asked about Geralt's age, he said "he's above 60 years old". Pretty vague if you ask me, but most people would interpret it like "well, so he's around 60". But it just doesn't add up.

The critical piece of information is in the first novel of the series "The blood of the Elves" ("Krew Elfów"). There, we find out about the angry mob attack on Kaer Morhen that killed almost all of the witchers from the Wolf School. Triss as a narrator tells us that those events took place 50 years before her birth. So if Geralt was 60-something, Triss would be not much older than 10 by the time she arrived in Kaer Morhen. And we know she was an adult woman, not a child. Moreover, we alse know from there that Vesemir was the only witcher present in the castle that survived the attack (he says that he survived by mistake). That means that Geralt, Eskel and Lambert had to already finish their training and go on trail. We don't know at what age do witchers leave the fortress, but I think around age 15/16 is a reasonable guess. We also know that while Geralt and Eskel are the same age, Lambert is younger than them, we don't know by how much, but let's say it is at least a 2 year difference. So that means by the time of the attack Geralt was around 17 years old. That means he would be 67 years older than Triss. Now we need to figure out how old was she. It is stated many times throughout the series that Triss is rather young for a sorceress, but we also learn that it means "100 and younger" through the descriptions of Vilgefortz, who was callled "young" by Yennefer during the banquet on a day before Thanedd Coup, so it isn't particularly helpful. But she was already pretty experienced already both as a mage (fighting on Sodden Hill, advising King Foltest) and as a woman (it was described that she went through all of the common /*for sorceresses*/ stages of sexual activity). I'd be generous and say she was like 36 during her stay in Kaer Morhen (47 in the Witcher 3). That would mean that Geralt was 103 years old at the time and 114 during the Witcher 3. Keep in mind that what was not told by author in the books I had to fill with assumptions/educated guesses, but because they were pretty generous, I'd say if those numbers were not totally on point, they would be higher rather than lower.

Which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle – Nenneke, the high priestess of Melitele, who is in charge of the temple in Ellander. In the short story "The Voice of Reason" ("Głos Rozsądku") she says in a dialog with Geralt that "she knows him since he reached her skirt's belt". That line indicates that she's at least 7-8 years older than the witcher. There are 3 theories:

A) this is actually a lie that they keep telling themselves to justify Nenneke being a "mother figure" for Geralt and Nenneke is in fact a normal human being aged more modestly around 80 years old

B) it is true and she is a former sorceress that abandoned magic and dedicated herself into priesthood C) it is true and she's a higher vampire

If you ask me theory A is the most plausible, I can kinda see theory B being true, while theory C is just too wild to be true. For now I'd stick with explanation A and say that Nenneke isn't older than Geralt, but sth like 85-86.