#i also like the idea of Time Looped Tav bc. as i play the game over and over again. there is a sense of grief along with the fondness? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mz-elysium · 9 months

Text

why wyll....

i finished bg3 with wyll and idk if i've ever been SO MAD about any story's writing choices. i legit feel robbed of what we could've had.

i've never felt such a feral need to write fanfic to fix... an entire character.

spoilers and rant under cut

idk if people were whining THAT MUCH about Wyll in early access. I just know he was rarely used bc as the "Blade of Frontiers" w/o Pact of the Blade, he really suffered in combat.

But, hey, he's now... quite good. My hero of Act 2 fights (sorc!Tav, Wyll, Shadowheart, Astarion). Gave him two levels of Paladin and he hits like a truck.

But they ~rewrote~ his story.

They broke him. This was a PERFECTLY good warlock and they ruined him. He was a fraud, a liar, a reckless proud cheat who wanted to be beloved by the smallfolk and sung about by the bards -- and not beat by goblins at level 1, but he was a useless fighter so he made a pact with a devil. Like the others, he was complicated. Flawed. In need of fixing a deep-rooted problem that the tadpoles could've taken advantage of.

But now, he's unfinished. His story feels so empty in Act 3. I managed to free him from the pact AND save his father, but their reunion is so flat and lackluster. I was totally expecting to find that an overbearing father was at the heart of Wyll's need to be praised/admired/loved, but there's just total forgiveness.... after 7yrs of exiling your teenage son for fucking a devil. Their dialogue trees also kept looping and his father addressed Tav as "my son" more than once.

Throughout the game, Wyll also said (in the same convo) that he "always wanted to get out of the pact", "never regretted it", and had "a hero's heart". He encouraged me regularly to follow my heart, that we don't need tadpoles or other powers to Do The Right Thing. Bruh. You're a warlock. What moral high-ground do you have? Either Mizora has never fucked you over by having you kill innocents/do minor evil (obviously not true), or she has, in which case you're a desperate liar but I can't call you out on it.

They made Wyll flawless, mature, always right, and honourably heroic. He never loses his cool. He holds nothing against his father. He's never lost a major defeat to hold grudges against. I would've loved EA Wyll to have a chance to become this stoic, calm, centered paladin. But Wyll, now, doesn't feel like he's earned it.

They made Gale less manipulative/sketchy before launch, which is fine. But completely erasing Wyll's growth by dropping him at the finish line is so unsatisfying.

I can totally see EA Wyll's development: from a lying adventurer crutching on his powers and needing the praise and reputation as a folk hero, to leaving the pact behind and growing up to save his father at the cost of his legend; becoming Grand Duke to do "common boring heroics" that make a difference.

But it just... doesn't exist. I have no idea why full-release Wyll wouldn't become his father's heir. He doesn't seem to need his identity as The Blade of Frontiers as much as EA Wyll did. He's older, mature, and less violent.

It felt the whole time like I was adventuring with someone whose arc had already finished. Shadowheart and Astarion changed dramatically; their comments, greetings, convos. Wyll was so static and painfully dull.

Also, making him half-devil looks super wonky. His horns are too wide and don't really suit him, let alone how he clips. He has no arc, coming to terms with them. You can't uncurse him.

I was most excited for Wyll in full release and I just feel like I played 92hrs waiting for him to turn on. A waste of a companion slot, when I could've taken Lae'zel this whole time and actually had a character with depth and development.

#bg3 spoilers #wyll #justice for wyll: give him back his flaws #wyll whining

15 notes · View notes