Justice For Wyll - Blog Posts

Again with poor Wyll:

I was randomly reminded of this scene the other day and how you have the option of talking Wyll down from wanting to kill Mizora. It's framed as a good thing, like you're steering him away from a dark path of digging two graves, but is that really what this is? I think he has every right to want to kill her (monster hunter that he is), not just for himself, but to protect anyone else she'd take advantage of and hurt in the future. I understand that what this line is saying is us telling him that he might do more good in taking on enemies as needed rather than putting all this time into a single target, but if that's the case I don't like how it's phrased.

I get that Wyll is the most morally righteous of the companions, and being driven by revenge isn't exactly a good thing, but he has every right to want it. She forced him into a slavery contract, directly violated his bodily integrity at least twice, supported the death of the most important person in his life, and has been mentally tormenting him all the while.

Wyll is absolutely the type to fight out of love and the desire to protect rather than to hurt and avenge, yes. But I still think it's really condescending to tell him "revenge is bad", when (to my memory), we never tell Astarion that wanting revenge on Cazador is wrong. And Shadowheart taking out the Sharrans is seen as a grim and unfortunate but necessary public service. Even with Karlach, I think the most we say about her wanting end Gortash is "let's wait and be smart about this" (if you're planning to kill him at all, that is). Either this is another example of Wyll not getting the same treatment as other characters (and dare I say, being reductive of his trauma), or I'm just projecting. Maybe I'm misreading this whole thing — let me know.

But telling him to "let it go" is kind of wild no matter how you look at it.

(to be clear I don't think murder and revenge are "good" things. But killing devils seems to be framed as like killing a monster rather than a person, and even then, killing people is commonplace in this game. I'm just saying the morality should be consistent.)

I don't claim to know how studios or developers work, but it really is disappointing to see how obviously Wyll always gets the short end of the stick. I didn't know about those changes in earlier patches for other characters, but the Astarion one really bugs me if that's true. I loved Wyll from the beginning of my first playthrough, but even without knowing the meta stuff going on with his content having to be cut/rewritten, it did feel like he was not getting as much attention as other characters and that was sad to see.

With Wyll being the only Black character in the main cast, it's absolutely worth talking about that he just so happens to also be the one neglected the most. There are lots of people more qualified than me to talk about this (and who have been talking about this, for a while, and providing some very important criticisms) but it rubs me the wrong way to see people completely dismissing the possibility of racism entirely just because they love the game. You can love the game and the artists behind it, while also being critical and calling things out. I love the game, but the entire situation with Wyll does bother me and it's worth talking about. I really love Wyll as a character and wish people gave him more love, even if Larian doesn't.

Also Theo Solomon did a fantastic job with the character, and I loved him in the D&D live session. I'd love to see him do more projects!

As patch 8 is going to be released, we are going to see new features and changes.

The declaration of an end of an era.

But Larian Studios still won’t give Wyll any content.

Larian knows people want Wyll to have more content they have seen comments from them but they’re actively ignoring them while liking people’s demands of having a Gortash romance.

Before anyone says “complaining won’t do anything”, it does anything.

For examples:

• Ascended!Astarion fans complaining about their Tav being afraid when Astarion kisses them. Larian changed Ascended!Astarion’s kiss to have Tav smiling after being treated like they were nothing.

Basically Larian threw out the whole entire point that Astarion is continuing the cycle of abuse that Cazador placed him through. Because they wanted to placate the Ascended!Astarion fans.

• Fans complaining about how Lae’zel is “too mean” when you first meet her after escaping the ship. Larian changed that to have her a bit nicer.

If there’s more let me know.

Larian has shown time and time again how little they care about Wyll and his story, heck! He’s the most integral piece of the story since he’s literally the son of Uldr Ravenguard, the grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate, but they don’t bother to give him content or fix the bugs that he has.

They don’t even bother to give Wyll a page that talks about him only without putting Mizora in it. Just put his enslaver with him instead of giving him his own page.

Larian can do better and they should be actively better but they chose not to do better since they would rather listen to other fans instead of Wyll fans that want him to have more content.

I honestly feel bad for Theo Solomon, Wyll’s VA, for getting the short hand of not getting anymore voice lines or content for Wyll, because Larian gave up on Wyll. He does an amazing job as Wyll and he’s entirely a sweet guy.