BoM/TWS Message Forum

This is an interesting way to see Will as a protagonist, how he evolves as a character, and the concept of character development per se.

I'm of the kind of people who stand by the idea that characters talk to their authors. One of the challenges of writing an interactive is to listen to what characters made by other people say. As an author of an interactive, you have to see how each character (the protagonist and all ancillary characters, which comprise the supporting cast) evolves as decisions are made. Even then, characters have their own personalities, and will react to the same event in a different way. When an author listens to what the character does based on that event, and writes based on it, the chapter becomes strong by association. When an author forces an option without listening to the character, the author eventually blocks off, because it recognizes the character wouldn't act in such a way.

This is what makes writing about Will so easy, and so hard at the same time. Will is definitely an interactive protagonist, whose neutral (neutered?) nature allows him to essentially blend everywhere, not just when wearing a mask, but by himself. However, Will would be a pretty horrible novel character, or dramatic character, or a character on a fixed story, since while it could easily adopt to the story it's written and essentially blend into it, it doesn't lend to a structured story because it fixates his personality traits. In that regard, it's pretty hard to listen to Will when you set him on an action, because he could basically do anything, and you need to essentially push him into action.

I mean..it's possible, yeah, to make him a character on a novel, since the whole point is that he develops as a character, but the issue here is that it would cement his personality rather than make it mutable.

That said: Will does have a personality, and it usually manifests when he sets an anima band of himself on someone, or when he works a golem of himself. Almost in every chapter where there's a Will golem, he always responds with "boss", and when someone is under Will's personality influence, he seems to be quite the trickster. Left to his own devices, Will seems to have a slightly malevolent bent to himself. (I feel one of the traits that Will has as part of his core personality is self-preservation; this is why he works so well under pressure and develops plans on the fly, and why he's smarter than he himself gives credit to.) However, even this doesn't explain Will as a character per se. Will is best explained when set in contrast to another character.