"Why wouldn't you travel by main roads?"

Episode 3, Betrayer Moon - Geralt (& Jaskier)

Another one where there's gifs that are too big for Wattpad.

As I mentioned in Episode 2 metas, when next we see Geralt, he's split with Jaskier. He's not on his own, though, as he's hired some company.

Geralt...does not seem to be getting his money's worth. The prostitute is very into his scars, both touching and kissing them as well as trying to match them with songs Jaskier made, and Geralt's only interaction is rolling onto his back to hide one of them and then just giving up as she moves on to the ones on his side and front. I remember once someone describing a wolf getting harassed by puppies where they were chewing on her ears, so she stood up, so they chewed her paws, so she lay down to tuck her paws under herself, bringing her ears back into range...

It's unclear exactly why Geralt doesn't tell the person he is paying to stop doing something that's bugging him. Is it because he's just really bad at asserting boundaries, or is it because he's just so used to people ignoring him when he does? Does he feel it's rude to complain? Is he putting up with it because she's apparently enjoying herself?

(This also now brings us to 4/4 humans that Geralt has been uncomfortable holding a conversation with.)

"The vampiress bled/As white as a sheet/And yet her dead heart did beat/Did beat. The kikimora?" (kiss)

So, Geralt knows people are into his scars. It's not that he needs someone to say that actually his scars are very impressive to make him feel better but no one ever has. (And while she's referencing the songs and that might've made it more common, the weary familiarity we see from Geralt is not that of a man who's never experienced this in his long life before now.) Geralt's discomfort is because he does not like people making a big deal about the scars, even if it's compliments and caresses.

"Hmm. I don't recall the bard singing of this one."

Now, Geralt is scarred up, but he's been around quite a while and the individual scars are distinct, so he's not getting mauled every fight. Given that and how the prostitute is surprised she can't identify just one, it sure sounds like Jaskier pried the info about old scars out of Geralt. It's possible Geralt's displeasure now is that he really regrets telling Jaskier and hearing people singing at random, but given he must've had several conversations with songs being written between them, it seems more likely he just particularly hates people poking his scars. Or maybe the poking is less annoying than expecting him to respond?

And it does seem they're accurate, despite Jaskier's bit about respect not making history when we left him. Admittedly, we don't know if they're accurate beyond the information of what caused the scar and precisely what the scar looked like, but the fact information we know Jaskier had available is meticulously accurate makes me think if they're not, it's down to Geralt not telling/outright lying, rather than because Jaskier chose to misrepresent anything.

How come?

Well, there's the thing I pointed out earlier, that the song doesn't seem to take any liberties about Geralt's own self-identification. Lying about his scars may be a similar matter of respect, especially given Geralt's complained about inaccuracies. There's also the fact the kickoff for the events of the previous episode is Geralt saying and Jaskier agreeing that songs would be better if they're true. And the song about the evil devil and elves was Jaskier's first popular song, and it makes sense that if he's not confident, he'd try harder not to say anything controversial, but when he succeeds he'd be willing to take bigger risks afterward. Indeed, going by the first discarded rhyme, Jaskier's first impulse was to try to compose a story about what actually happened, he just chickened out.

It's also possible this is because every time Jaskier tried to compose another song Geralt refuses to give any criticism beyond "it didn't happen like that" until he changes it. Geralt gave up after a single try at the end of the second episode, but if Jaskier convinced him to be talkative enough to explain his scars, Geralt may also have been talkative enough to whine about any resulting inaccuracies, especially when we know Jaskier asks people what they think while composing. Also possible is that Geralt just refused to talk about the next scar until Jaskier's song about a previous one was reworked. And the accurate songs clearly are finding an audience, so Jaskier has no reason to stop.