Word. Idk how well it works in the game, but a lot of his aloof badass persona is Geralt coping with being an outsider in a violent, bigoted world. His long life, education, outsider status as a mutant, and regular contact with all kinds of people from different cultures gives him perspective that most normal folks don’t have.

He’s a smart, farily compassionate dude with superpowers in a world where trying to use his superpowers to help the oppressed and change things would very quickly get him and the people he loves killed. He’s snarky and superficially cynical to try to protect himself from the weight of that.

But even in the first short story collection he shows that he does care for people deeply, is deeply wounded by bigotry and injustice, and has seen enough weird shit that he judges “monsters” only by who they’ve hurt and why.

It is an extremely macho series in many ways, but Geralt is the gruff badass with a heart of gold character rather than just edgelord badass. But he deliberately plays up the edgelord badass thing both to protect his own psyche and to create a legendary impression among the normal humans he interacts with that somewhat protects him from their bigotry and violence.

Also, it’s been a while, but I think a large part of the reason all the cool ladies want to bang him is that he’s genuinely a smart, respectful dude who takes women seriously. Being a gorgeous muscleboy who can’t get sick, hence can’t give you the clap, and can’t make you pregnant doesn’t hurt either.

I think Witcher 2 does a pretty cool job of fleshing this out, Witcher 3 relies more on the “omg cool swords and bewbz” that it’s harder to see the characterization