Not for everyone, and that's the problem

Evelyns cave also had a map marker, and you would die horrible if you went there first thing. (if not at Dietmar, then in the Evelyn fight ,p)
Imo the entire first half of the game teaches you to do random side stuff before main quest stuff. And in the forest, if you do this, you end up confusing yourself with perfection ;p
To me, White Witch was like Eveyln, "ought to do it at some point, but not right now*" ;p