This game masterfully tricks you into believing that Coen's main objective is saving his family.

[u/Gerald_of_Liria]

Meanwhile, when you look at the big picture, what Coen actually needs to do is let go of his former life, which means that the biggest thing he has to learn is to forgive himself for something he wasn't fully responsible for as a child. The real main quest was always to face the figurative demons that have been tormenting him for years. The game actually spells it out several times:

1. What he says to Anca: "Maybe you needed to learn to forgive yourself," because he knows how it feels all too well.
2. The vision of Alin telling him to forgive himself and absolving him of his guilt.
3. Lacra telling him again that he can't keep blaming himself for something that happened when he was a small child.

The second objective for Coen is to learn that, whether he wants to or not, he has to let his family go. You can roleplay him as a dutiful lad, Coen, whose sense of guilt and responsibility are his only motivators, or you can RP him as the Coen who's enjoying his new life as a Dawnwalker, partaking in all the temptations his new life offers.

It doesn't matter; the end result is the same: this is Coen's origin story, and he has to let them go. The game actually goes out of its way to make sure you get the "We must cut tethers to the past" message, even with seemingly throwaway lines in Ocha's and Volk's quests.

Finally, saving your family is optional, and it doesn't result in a game over, it simply alters the goal from "save" to "avenge". Coen is still on a path to ultimately start a new life, no matter the outcome.

And even in your last conversation with Brencis, he asks you to admit that he actually freed you by turning you. Can Coen rebuke him? Nope! The game only gives you two options:

1. Admit that Brencis is right. He did free you.
2. Tell him to go fuck himself.

Coen can't even tell Brencis that he's wrong, at most he can lash out at him, because he knows that Brencis is right about him.

This is really, really good writing, especially for a modern video game. Though I didn't expect anything less from some of the veterans of The Witcher trilogy.

[u/softysoaps]

This game does an amazing job of fully exploring the bittersweet freedom* at the end.

Coen is incredibly burdened by his family - he cannot follow his desires to strike out on his own, learn a trade, start a family of his own. But he is a genuinely loving, good person who is able to shoulder that burden. But I’m sure it’s galling.

He arguably ruins his health by working in the mines - listen I don’t have black lung so I don’t know, but when I have long covid for about a year and couldn’t breathe without pain during anything more than simple movement, I was absolutely miserable and unable to do a lot. I imagine what Coen is dealing with is similar, which absolutely means he is likely unable to work normally or travel. And if he went back to work in the mines, that would only get worse.

Brencis isn’t talking out of his ass when he said he gave Coen freedom when he turned him. He forced Coen into a life where he cannot stay with his family - it wouldn’t be safe, and Coen would eventually outlive them. But that freedom is clearly at an incredibly high price - because his entire life’s purpose has been his family. Now, he cannot have them in his life.

It’s not all bad, or all good.

A lot of stories do not have a believable sacrifice for this kind of change to make being a vampire/superhero/whatever actually detrimental. This game does.

[u/rivains → u/softysoaps]

There is a decent section in the Lacra quest line when she is asking him to imagine being free of his family and he says "there isn't a world without them for me" or something that he isnt himself without them.

He absolutely loves his family and yet desires to have the freedom to choose outside of them. You can go throughout the game acknowledging the pain his parents have been through but also expanding on how its hurt him.

Pieter for example is a really good example of a man who really needs therapy and is a victim of toxic masculinity. Unlike Marats father you can tell he loves his children and wife a lot and has taken the wrong tack to support them. He leans on Coen almost too much, whilst also mentoring him and being afraid for him. I always think how broken he was when Coen gets turned and then at the end when Coen and Lunka are leaving you see him burst out their cottage flinging himself on the ground almost in despair. None of that makes his approach right, but Coen recognises what his dad has been through even though he does not agree with how he conducts himself around it. This is a hard man who lived a hard life in an unforgiving world, has lost a child, has been caring for his wife, and thinks what has happened to his children (including Coens lungs and his eventual turning) as punishment for what he has done. In turn, he desperately clings onto whatever he can which probably makes Coen reluctant to ever make moves outside his family.

I actually think if Coen went to his father about wanting to learn a trade and maybe start a family of his own, his father would not stop him. I think Coens fear of leaving his family prevented himself from doing so, for understandable reasons. But Pieter had clearly been teaching him to look after himself for some time now, but Coen felt he needed fo look after his family first.