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At one point in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt has to enter a certain house in Oxenfurt. In that house, there is a cat:

An ordinary-looking cat staring at Geralt

Now, it is well established in the books that cats don't like Geralt - or maybe any witcher - probably because of witchers' cat-like eyes.

One example of that is the cat of Codringher, whom Geralt visits to solve some problems related to Ciri. Poor cat jumps off the chair it was resting on, which prompts a small banter between Geralt and Codringher.

However, this particular cat express no disgust or fear towards Geralt - on the contrary, it behaves rather indifferent.

Same cat minding own business

It has also been established in canon that cats, like dragons, are magical creatures, able to draw magical energy and store it for unknown purposes. It has also been established that sorceresses and sorcerers can train themselves to be able to shapeshift.

This all brings me to my question: what on Earth is wrong with that cat? Is just a normal cat, but without prejudice towards witchers? Is it a spy sent to... spy on Geralt? Is it a shapeshifter? What is it?

Bonus for cat lovers!

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  • Shapeshifting would be quite improbable as it was supposed to be very rare and limitrd to one form. There might be 0 wizards able to turn into cat on the Continent (at least in the books).
    – Mithoron
    Commented Feb 21, 2017 at 21:14
  • Developers have contradicted book canon on multiple occasions, and adding just one guy/gal who could transform to a cat is a relatively innocent feat. For instance, at the beginning of the first game we encounter Professor, whom Geralt very much kills in the book (before Tannedd).
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 17:26

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That one resolved itself rather easily. Searching for witcher 3 cat yielded, among some Cat School gear acquisition guides, an article by Kotaku, which I thought was too interesting not to share.

It turns out that I am not the only person wondering about that cat - Nibbles. There is a whole thread at Reddit discussing same concerns as I do. Apparently, a lot of people were wondering about Nibbles, given also that it appearred at other point during the game, and even in the expansions!

The community was so interested in this, that the developers of the game had to explain the role of Nibbles. The same Kotaku article quotes Kajetan Kapuściński, the cinematics artist (emphasis mine):

The truth is Nibbles was born as a filmmaking trick due to a technical necessity that came up [. . .]

[. . .] we needed a diversion for that short period of time. So I sat down with one of the quest designers and we added a cat sitting on a table to the scene. We had it play a small role where it would interact with Geralt by exchanging stares with the Witcher, distracting players [. . .]

Nibbles might not be part of some bigger plan, or a cursed character, or a mage practising the art of polymorphy. But he’s our little actor that started out small, and, through hard work, has managed to become the star of its own little internet legend. We couldn’t be any prouder of Nibbles!

All in all, the cat turned out to be just a cat. It is left unclear whether the developers are aware of the fact that cats generally don't like Geralt, but I thought this trick was rather interesting - given it led to such a community effort to identify the part this cat plays in the game.

Again, for cat lovers:

A cat is your own private Batman (cat in a Batman mask chasing a terrified bird)

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  • There seems to be a couple points of tension between CDPR and the author of the novels, so I don't think the developers have/had any real reason to be adherent to the source material. However, I was just playing the other day and a cat definitely hissed at Geralt when I walked past it.
    – Ross
    Commented Apr 17, 2017 at 20:30
  • It wasn't as much as tension, from what I understand, but a clear-cut line. Sapkowski got his bag of gold, CDPR got to whatever they wanted, not being constrained by adhering to canon, or whatever. IMO, they did a terrific job, and the last game has more than enough hat tips to the novels in it.
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Apr 17, 2017 at 20:32

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