If the game wasn't hellbent (so to speak) on everyone attempting to romance you, the player, I do believe that a genuine relationship could develop between Wyll and Karlach.
I love Wyll and Karlach together, and I really appreciate the hints the game gives at them being a potential item if they both go to Avernus at the end and you don't romance either of them.
Knocked Minthara out in Act 1 then saved her at Moonrise Tower, talk to her after Ketheric is defeated. Woops picked the wrong options and now I'm romancing her again.
So true, I love the idea of Wyll and Karlach confessing to each other while slaughtering imps together in Avernus (I was suddenly reminded of Will [haha] Turner and Elizabeth Swan for some reason😂)
i wish there was more mention of Wyll after he goes to Avernus with Karlach, and, in my case i was also there adventuring with them. Every conversation in the end at camp was mostly focused on me and Karlach and how we went on adventures together. Felt like Wyll was pretty left out :/
There is a darker story with Wyll to be explored too. (Massive spoilers): If you let him kill Karlach, negotiate his way out of the pact, and push him to pursuit political power, he will show exactly why he shouldn't be in power. Not for his idealism, but nepotism comes out as the council is dissolved and replaced with him, his father, florrick, and you(I got this when I romanced him). And most of his attention since the wedding has been enjoying upper city life. He falls into the traps of political corruption and believes he knows best. Which tells me, the bad end for Wyll is set at the start of his story, Karlach.
So what you're saying is Wyll get corrupted absolutely by political power if he goes into politics? Interesting. I didn't think he would dissolve the council or whatever system they have in Baldur's Gate. That's crazy. Well I guess anyone can become power hungry or think they know best.
YES THANK YOU! This video is sooo necessary since so many people still treat Wyll like a side character, even in his own story. Including larian studios themselves (cough patch 6 among other things cough). Hope this will show people that Wyll isn't lame and boring, actually. Keep these amazing analyses coming
@@thecoreparadigm8703I wasn’t expecting it, but I came to the same conclusion. He isn’t one dimensional when controlled by a person and his storyline syncs up very well with the entire story. Furthermore, you get to play a warlock with lots of dialogue with your patron so it’s the best warlock RP experience. Whereas I don’t see much a reason to play Shadowheart as an origin character as she’s fine as is just being an NPC. Wyll and Durge are the main two origins that feel like more like a different game to me.
One of the biggest things that a lot of people miss about Wyll's transformation is that in D&D, there are differences between a tiefling and a devil that characters in game would be very cognizant of. We, as players, might not be able to tell the difference, but the Tieflings at the party definitely would know. It is made worse because they are refugees from the holy city of Elturel. That city, where the Tieflings come from, was dragged into hell. Eventually, the city was saved and returned to the material world, but for a time the people in the city were beset and very much harmed by the devils in Avernus (the one with the Soul Coin by the telescope mentions a fiend wanting the coin back, which indicates that the refugees are still very much in danger from the devils they recently fled.) Wyll is not just dysphoric, he's being once again stupidly heroic. He is keeping to himself to try not traumatize these refugees more. We know they are fleeing and that for them, devils represent a lot of terrible things and Wyll doesn't want to remind them of that when they are all trying to celebrate.
I adore Wyll so much and was my partner in my first play-through. I feel like such a jerk whenever I pair with someone else in other play-throughs. He’s the a genuinely kind soul who deserves the best.
I find it unique how Wyll and Karlach have a glaring similarity if you romance them: Theyre slower. Karlach because of literal limitations and Wyll because hes a hopeless romantic type/old fashioned. That being said I wish they would romance each other If I romance neither of them. Only issue I have with wyll is I wish they explored his concept a little more, and he has more input in his personal quest. I feel they could have explored the duality of wyll more personally. Maybe he actually likes Mizora depending on how the playthrough unfolds. Why does "Evil Wyll" have to be an origin thing, cmooooon larian let me ruin my party members! (/s). I just feel they could have done more with the heroic old fashioned hero with a glaring flaw in their past actions. I will say though, my expectations of wyll only exist because of how much detail Larian puts into minor details blowing me away (as i played BG3 as my first one, and blind besides 'its dnd you can do anything'). I dont think wyll needs MUCH work to feel complete, and I have my hopes for future patches. Kinda wild how karlach is so recent she isn't on the game art but she feels more fleshed out in my opinion
I play on Xbox. I never as much as touched the game during beta because so, so I had very little knowledge during my first play through. That included knowing who all the companions would be, so I had no idea Wyll was gonna be one. SO when he first appeared in his pretty cool entrance, my Tav was kind of immediately like ‘oh no, he’s hot!’ THEN she sees him training children in a safe and supportive way so they can learn to protect themselves in the worst case scenario?? I was thinking ‘cool guy!! Wish he were a companion.’ THEN IT’S REVEALED HE HAS A TADPOLE?! Yeah…my Tav is Mrs. Ravengard now….
I did know a little about him before playing and decided on romancing him before even starting the game, but his whole introduction made it even better than I thought. My character was a tiefling, so watching him be so kind to the tiefling kids felt like… yeah we were made for each other.
Remember that due to the contract with Mizora, Wyll can't explain the reasons why he made the pact. The only reply Wyll could make to Ulder's questions is "Because.". That's a lot for a patent to try and understand when a child had sold his soul to a devil.
One thing I DESPERATELY wish the game would have had is the ability to be a wingman for your companions. Let me help them hook up! Then they can all stop hitting on me and let me focus on (character I'm actually interested in for that run).
I played as an evil Dark Urge and slaughtered everyone at the Grove. When Wyll left my party permanently because of my atrocities I was so heartbroken, I had to reload
Wyll is the best pick imo for an Origin hero run of the game both because of the additional insight you get his thoughts, cool extra scenes to romancing Karlach and because he's the only origin for whom it is in-character to accept every side quest from some kid asking him to get their ball out of a tree
Wyll is my absolute favorite and i really feel sad when thinking about how much of a lack of content within the game and agency in his own story he has. it really reflects his sense of martyrdom and service towards others, but prevents growth in making decisions for himself. i really hope that in future updates and the definitive edition that he will be expanded on much more because he definitely got sidelined in a way that many other characters weren't. i don't even necessarily blame it on the rewrites either. sure, they had a big role in him having to start from scratch again but i don't think it quite matches the huge difference between his story and other characters in terms of what they are able to do. regarding Ulder Ravengard, i actually do think that his actions are in character for him based on his previous appearances in adventures. he's always been incredibly stern and stubborn, never backing down from a decision and focused more on utilitarianism than compassion. and from Wyll's description of the things his father taught him, he imparted that onto his son. Wyll just happens to care much more about people than about pure duty. it shows in their alignment too. Ulder is either lawful neutral or true neutral (according to past adventures) while Wyll is neutral good (according to Idle Champions). i wonder as well how Wyll's mother fits into the situation. how did it change Ulder and his feelings about being a father when she died in childbirth? were he and Wyll truly as close as Wyll felt they were, or did Ulder keep him at arm's length anyway? there's so much i want to know about that relationship that is just left unanswered. that being said, fuck Ulder Ravengard he's a bad dad and should feel bad. i only go save him because i know that Wyll cares deeply about him but i personally can't stand the man.
But Ulder realizes his mistake and immediately forgives his son. He was shitty for throwing Wyll out in the first place, but, just like his son, once he realizes he had the wrong of it, he acknowledges it and they make up. Wyll forgives him, so we should too.
Have to take a break in watching this after the first 20 minutes, in order to take care of some off screen life, but I wanted to really thank you for making it. Wyll is a great character overshadowed by other great characters who are ever so slightly better developed, and I can’t think of a better metaphor for warlocks as a class. I am very much looking forward to finishing this.
To me, Wyll's issues are two-fold. The first problem is that he's the archetypal good guy. In and of itself, that's not an issue, but it does become one when you poof Tav/Durge besides him. Most BG3 runs will be done as good guys, and those who don't sometimes won't have Wyll at all since you straight up can't keep him if you massacre the grove. In that regard, he's either going to be redundant plot wise or not present at all. He's also a very passive character, outside of his grove actions and his Blade of Avernus turn around at the very end, he more or less has to suck up everything the world throws at him and obey after maybe uttering an "you asshole". But that's not the main issue (also it can be remedied by playing as origin Wyll, thus eliminating the redundancy). The real issue is that Wyll doesn't have a strong personality. The reality of our group of misfits is that every single companion except Wyll has pronounced excentric traits to make them memorable. Shadowheart is sassy, Astarion is a princess, Karlach is either a ball of anger or a golden retriever, Gayle is annoying whenever he puts on his professor glasses, Minthara is intense, Jaheira is old sassy, Halsin is a love degenerate, Minsc is coocoo in the head and Lae'zel is a githyanki. I wholly believe that Wyll should have embraced the cringe and been the flamboyant hero all the time and not just during the grove encounter. As it stands, his 17 innate charisma is a goddamn lie for the vast, VAST majority of the game, 12 at best when he's recounting personal stories of the blade. I wouldn't say that Wyll is a bad character per say, but he both could have been better and got shafted by the circumstances of the game.
That's fair. I don't mind the redundancy when playing a good alligned character, because I find it nice to have a couple of people (him and Karlach) in my corner when making my choices. I don't feel like I have to explain myself to them (not that the game gives you the option to do so). I found Wyll fairly charismatic and fun, but that's just a personal preference at that point, and is pretty subjective.
This pretty much describes how I feel, though I think it's less that he doesn't have a strong personality as that he doesn't have an internal character arc. He doesn't learn and change. All of the other Origin characters change profoundly. Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae'zel can all learn that the higher power they love has just been using and abusing them and can make a choice to bury what they've learned and carry on with what's comfortable and familiar or reject the past and forge their own way. Gale can choose to slingshot all the way back around to becoming what he hates. Astarion, likewise, can choose to heal or become what he hates. Karlach doesn't have her fundamental beliefs challenged, but she has to come to terms with her mortality just as she thought she had found freedom. Minsc and Jaheira are more support/mentors, but if you play redeemed Durge, even Jaheira has to revise what she thought she knew about certain things. Wyll... doesn't. He is presented with EXTERNAL obstacles and challenges, and the choices he is given are hard, but none of them force him to rethink anything. They could very easily have fixed that with just a few lines of dialogue, honestly. Everyone has noticed that he's the only one who doesn't have the option to make his own decision at crucial moments; he just does what the Tav/Durge encourages him to do. So the solution is to have THAT be his internal arc: He is a chronic people-pleaser who thinks being a hero must mean doing what other people want him to, and he has to learn to make his own damn decisions. If just one or two dialogues previously had Tav tell him to make a decision, and he then insisted they choose for him, and then at his BIG choice, he does finally choose for himself. Or if they wanted to just give him one more personality layer beyond "The Good Guy," they could give him severe impostor syndrome BECAUSE he knows he's a people-pleaser who wants to be seen as a hero, and he's afraid his good deeds are vanity rather than actual goodness. Then his internal change must be learning to trust his own motivations, which then allows him to trust his ability to make decisions. I love him, I love his banter and dialogue, but he's written like a secondary character rather than like part of a protagonist ensemble.
I'm not sure its intentional, but it is interesting that Wyll is perfect for self projection. People have a tendency to self project onto kind people (figuring their real motives if they themselves would never be so selfless, considering them fools, etc), especially in dnd world where everyone is basically fighting to survive and true kindness is rare. Shadowheart (I believe) even has a line, telling Tav to be careful that their kindness isnt mistaken for weakness. Wyll's storyline definitely doesnt give him enough agency, but its interesting the player themselves get to decide how they treat the "kind" character. If they bother to take him on quests he deserves to be on, if they make choices that value him as a person or his ideals. It forces the player to be yet another person self projecting onto the kind person
Honestly I like that you can make the decision for Wyll because this man would literally sacrifice his soul for eternity for a man who cast him out without a thought. Like Astarion with the ascension, Wyll really needs talking down from a terrible idea like that, especially when finding the Iron Throne just requires talking to some mermaids and them telling you about Grey Harbour. Maybe I’m projecting my daddy issues into the game though LOL
His heroic sacrificial tendencies can often turn into a defeatist resignation. It’s like he spends so much time fighting for others that he needs to be reminded to fight for himself.
Wyll made the biggest leap from early access to release and it shows: In the beginning Larian had him as a conman, a warlock who made a pact for fake fame and revenge, who was obsessed with his patron. A much more complex grey character than the white knight he is now and through that very late change his story feels a bit "meh".
@@PocketLeavesTrue, I'd love it if we at some point get a "evil twin" version of Wyll with a moustache to play his old self. I guess Larian realised that they essentially didn't have a balanced party but a Suicide Squad of morally dubious characters (Gale used to be a lot more shifty too) so they made the warlock of all choices the designated good guy.
@@mnk9073probably the best pick for it though. Not many stories where the parties moral center is the infernal warlock. I think it's actually more interesting than a typical morally grey warlock, just didn't get the dev time he should have gotten.
I think the discussion of the warlock pact not having a good real world analogy is an interesting one, and after chewing on it a bit, I think my interpretation is that both Ravenguards would agree that the moral duty to the city outweighs any personal moral cost. For Wyll, that meant sacrificing his soul, for Ravenguard, that meant banishing his son. Based on Wyll’s story, he took his father to the site of the battle which bore no evidence and couldn’t speak for himself given the pact, so I think Ravenguard tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. And Mizora was hanging out there with him, under no such limitations, and we know that Mizora is perfectly willing to lie about Wyll and his motives, just to make his life miserable, even if it doesn’t work in her general interests. The best metaphor I could come up with would be coming home to find your child agreed to let a known serial killer live with you and to follow said serial killer’s orders. Though, even that doesn’t quite catch the full impact methinks.
Wyll is weirdly the character that my two characters who have made it to act three have the most similar approach to. I have a very hard time imagining choosing the option that doesn’t break his pact.
That's so fair! And honestly, after you find out you can still save his dad, there's no reason NOT to break the pact, unless it's a role play decision.
The way I approached it is that Duke Ravenguard was already very weak from everything he went through, and might not even make it much longer. Additionally, any decent parent would much rather die than have their kid literally condemned to hell for eternity. I know Ravenguard at the time didn’t know the truth, but I don’t think he would want his son to sell his soul for him. I’m just not a fan at how the game presents it. First of all, why are WE making the decision for him? It’s literally his own soul. Though at the same time he probably would sell his soul. Secondly, all the companions act like he *sacrificed* his father. Which…in a way, I guess, but it sounds so much more cold-blooded than it really is.
I should say that Wyll's father is a bit of an asshole if you read the dnd adventure "murder in baldur's gate". He is a character who basically has a black and white only perception on things. In adventure his whole arc was about "we need to wipe out all criminality from the city" that basically lead to police (guard) brutality in a Lower city. So I wasn't so surprised on how he treat Wyll about being a warlock/devil
Wyll is really cool in being normal. In the party where you have an evil god worshipper, a vampire, a bloodthirsty angry alien, a living fcking nuke, he is *just* a litteral normal dude, a classic folk hero archetype. He is polite and courteous and measured(?). If I'd play a good warlock in dnd, it would be probably be a character similar to him. Boring/simple/bland? perhaps, but also classic, relatable doable. Also dance scene is really romantic to me. Please larian give him agency on his contract choice, yes! Mizora being voiced by Lohse from DoS2, almost blushing instantly xD. As for him being sidelined, my theory is that his storyline was reworked - perhaps more than once, so resources were scattered. In EA*, he was a much different person and had many special interaction with goblins and such. Also there was a vibe about him "I wanted to be a hero, so I sold my soul and now I regret it." Which is opposite of full release, now he didn't want to be a hero - pretty much was forced to it and doesn't regret it. Also, he really is kinda dick to you if you become a mindflayer while romancing him. He says he can't be with you as he wanted to because you are basically a monster (heh coming from the horns himself) and he would keep you as his personal secret hidden from the world. Even though I really hated him in EA, I wanted to see his story line. It seemed like it could be about becoming a "true" hero or becoming vengeful againts his father and Mizora.
DUDE! HE tells us to gtfo if we turn into mindflayer?? the man who was crying about him getting horns and ridges in interesting places?? damn...thats a knife in my back
@@loisreed6389 You still hold hands, but Wyll goes on his adventure and promises to visit you in a secluded place to dance, bring books and sustenance and get to his heroic brain eaten maybe xD. (from Karlach origin and Wyll ranger) Shame I have it on an old save and can't see the reunion camp, perhaps more can be found there.
In regards to Wyll, I always bring him with me and do his questlines even if I dont use him in my party. Watching how his existence so clearly shakes the rest of the cast's worldviews even if only a little. And getting him out of his Pact and returning his father to him makes me WEEP every time. Also PLEASE do Lae'zel soon
I was listening to some of wyll's dialogue, and he said "my bond with my father was too deep to miss the mother I never had" NOT ONLY DOES HE HAS DADDY ISSUES, BUT HE MIGHT ALSO HAVE MOMMY ISSUES??
One thing I would fix about the epilogue is that I think Wyll would've been better as a Paladin rather than a ranger. Wyll embodies a lot of traits associated with a Paladin. In-game, I usually re-spec Wyll to be a paladin.
The group I've been playing through Baldurs Gate with entirely consists of Dungeon Masters and = let me tell you - we've been going FERAL for Wyll (and by extension Karlach) because he reminds us of genuinely good players we've seen over the years. The simple but cool hook got us, and he's one of the few characters who - from the start - felt like he was yes anding us as Tav.
My first playthrough I had him save his father, and in the epilogue he mentions Mizora has been quite chill in his dutoes and for the most part seems to be happy to let him slaughter hkd way through whatever demons and devils he comes across. And he seems to even get holidays in the mortal world xD so yeah, even the "eternal pact" ending doesn't seem that bad.
I think off the cuff (only 1 and a half playthroughs down so far), Wyll feels like a character intended to be simpler than the rest to showcase his moral and emotional integrity. Of the Origin companions he is the sole hero, protector and defender of the weak, and as such he’s dedicated himself entirely to that life, b/c at that point it was all he had left. I think for him to embrace it so much, and the depths of his story only being shown in his conflicts with Mizora and his father sells that idea better to me than if he had to work his way up to being a proper hero. But that being said I think his sort of archetype falters hard when he really has no major threads that arent also tied to your major quest, cuz you don’t really do much for him at all? Astarion, Karlach, and Gale all have smaller quests and scenes you can get through committing to them, and Shart & Lae’zel both have areas dedicated to their stories. Wyll really feels like he isn’t an Origin companion to me, and his more reactive story makes his presence feel almost entirely diminished by the other characters with greater agency for longer. I’m only just starting the video now so I’m curious to see if I’m missing anything and just generally another perspective on this goofy dude. EDIT: okay nah i’m with you lol, i didnt even realy clock that Wyll doesnt get to choose himself and that feels so bizarre (Thanks for reading all this if you did lol, have a good day reader)
I liked him very well, but I was a bit off put that he got so devastated because I wanted to dance platonically. Like, dude, you needed that encouragement, but I'm very loudly going with karlack, my turning my face away should be taken with more grace.
I absolutely love this series, and this video was excellent! I, too, wish Wyll's story was a bit more fleshed out, but that just means the story we do have is so compelling that it makes me wish for more. Thank you very much for this video and this series. I've been loving it, and Im very much looking forward to the rest of them (should you plan to make videos for all the companions).
I'm not romancing Wyll in my first playthrough (in another timeline, my sweet) but I admittedly *really* love finding the most regal looking outfits for him, cuz damn he looks good in them! Granted, I've kitted out everyone to look their best, but I seem to have a soft spot for dressing up Wyll.
My only annoyance with the Wyll romance is that if you choose to have him stay on Baldur's Gate, Karlach will just fucking die. If you romance Wyll, as far as I'm aware you either have to make Wyll choose to become the Blade of Avernus which would make Karlach a third wheel while all threw of you go to Avernus, let Karlach lose her soul and become an Illithid, or straight up let her burn up and die. I just wanted to live happily ever after with Wyll in Baldur's Gate AND save Karlach.
In the world that the game is set in, teiflings are racially profiled/mistreated for merely being descended from the devils of the Hells. Wyll has just been transformed into a full-fledged devil. In his mind, Wyll is now the physical embodiment of all the fears and corruption that teiflings are often accused of being. He doesn't want to be a reminder of so much pain and strife to an already persecuted people and/or be seen as a kind of "threat to the Realms" in the eyes of those who would only see th devil and not the kind, selfless hero he fights to be. Even in the Forgotten Realms, people often judge on looks first, then ask questions later.
Because it’s a hell of a party (pun totally intended) and literally everyone he isn’t around daily has horns and has faced persecution for them. It seems like the one environment where he could be at ease, or so I would think Then again, the tieflings are fleeing their home because a warlock made a deal to send their home to hell, so maybe not so odd
He was my first romance and i felt really let down when his story felt so disconnected from him, ESPECIALLY after i romanced astarion and saw what a well thought out romance could be
I feel like Wyll's fatal flaw is short-sightedness. I understand not wanting to see bloodshed at 17, and don't fault him, but the untold dangers and atrocities an entity like Mizora can unleash with the influence the Ravenguard family offers is staggering. Wyll and Ulder both sacrifice what they need for the greater good. Ulder has the terrible burden of protecting an entire city, and the pain of having to do so probably led him to take his "What have you done" stance with Wyll. Every single man, woman, and child is Baldurs Gate is threatened by the presence of Mizora (like when Raphael tries to manipulate Mol). The fact that Ulder is so quick to accept the new Wyll isn’t weak writing IMO, but an insight into the love he really does have for his son.
To anyone who is saying Wyll isn't powerful in combat, you just don't know how to build him. Pact of the blade at lvl 5 he will get his second attack, give him the medium armor trait. His pact weapon will make it so he can use literally any weapon. All the way to lvl 12 he'll be a melee beast. Alternative 5 lvls in warlock then the rest in paladin and watch him burn the world down in radiant hellfire, 3 melee attacks lvl 3 spell slots right away for smite, and decent AoE with Fireball and Hunger of Hadar for crowd control.
When I first played the game, I thought it was pretty stupid that Wyll and Karlach are just almost immediately best friends, as typically in rpg’s there’s a slow burn between two characters like that. But then I realized…why would Wyll be mad at her? He feels disgusted that he almost killed an innocent person, and that’s probably how I’d be too. It speaks volumes to his character, and he and Karlach are easily the characters with the best moral compass in the game. I will also never forgive the Emperor for, among other things, stealing the spotlight from Wyll in the final part of his OWN COMPANION QUESTLINE. Wyll’s not boring, the game just didn’t give him as much content as the others! My current Paladin playthrough has Wyll, Karlach and Gale/Halsin always in the party, I call them the Do-Gooders squad lmao
Would a Minthara deep dive be on the table? For one of the more neutral/evil characters, she's shockingly ride or die with both Durge and Tav, as long as they're loyal to her. Her backstory is interesting and there's lots of variance to her choice wise. I just think she's neat!
On the Gauntlet of Shar, in my first playthrough, I didn't take Shadowheart and she left and didn't even give me a chance to try to convince her to stay, so I think you do have to take her to that.
Honestly, the saddest part about Wyll, is that him and Gale are by far the easiest to play as, considering how little impact they have through the full story. Which in Wyll's case hurts more, because his best moments are his introduction, and his silly widdle dance.
quick note: If you dont get Mizora do take your act 2 bargain/maybe specifically not even bring it up? Wyll DOES actually negotiate his own way out of his pact when he finds Mizora in the pod. He still gets hit by the 6 months clause but he CAN do it!
I love your videos about the characters of bg3. Keep up the good work! I romanced Wyll in my first playthrough and I had a glitch in my game that never showed me his ending romance scene and I really felt like Wyll was so boring after that but I'm trying to give him a chance to grow on me. Thanks for the awesome in depth analysis on his character. It helps!
All these deep dive videos are very enjoyable. Thank you. Jaheira and Minsc might require a little knowledge of the older games both of which are very enjoyable.
the thing about wyll's dysphoria and getting used to it at some point is also something trans people sometimes feel after finally getting the surgery they wanted. especially when they felt a lot of pain afterwards (and unfortunately sometimes during it). they can't look at themselves, feel odd and have to relearn their own bodies before being able to be fully content. i can imagine that wyll's journey might resonate with some people because of that as well.
You can break the pact and Wyll can still take Karlach to avernus??? Holy shit i had no idea. Excellent insight, honestly in my second playthrough now and am taking Wyll around a lot more and i really am liking his whole vibe a LOT more knowing his story.
The sadness of having to pause this video to go catch up on the new James Sommerton video to be up to date with the drama... Wyll, my love, wait for me
This is exactly why I got the game for Astarion but fell in love Wyll. My Durge, Astra, grew up sneaking in books about prince charmings to read and dream about, so whem she meets and falls for Wyll she gets her prince charming but also gets to be his 'princess charming', someone who would both die to protect him but also live for him because he makes her existence feel like a thriving life and not a surviving existence
Still haven’t actually finished the game, but I NEED to watch this when I do. Wyll is the best and I feel like nobody else I’ve talked to about the game gets him 😭😭
I fuckin' love your sense of humor! Ha ha ha! Case in point: ~59:00 minutes into the video, she nonchalantly says, "I've slurped up zero 'poles." I laughed so hard that I almost dropped my dogs' dinner on their heads, no exaggeration! Keep up the good work, you dirty bard, you! LoL! You've got a great laugh, too! 👍
EA Wyll seemed to have more darkness and depth. His hatred of Goblins still shows in his approval. But they did downplay his relationship with Mizora. It was implied as more complicated an possibly romantic
The way I see will is he is the light urge, the second option for the suto main character of bg3, I know that's not the case as unlike dark urge, wyll has a voice actor and is a role as a companion. But seeing him as a protagonist character fills alot of the arc void he currently has.
In my current playthrough, I had Wyll leave his pact, but then when I did my rounds in the camp to talk to all my companions, I encountered a bug with Karlach where she reacted as though Wyll sacrificed himself to save his father. It wasn't a one-time thing, either; I reloaded a save and she still reacted that way lol It was just kinda funny that the rest of camp was talking about how Wyll essentially sacrificed his father while Karlach apparently missed what happened lol
I think a big part of Duke Davenguard exiling Wyll is due to the fact that Mizora has access to any sensitive information Wyll might learn by staying in the city. That means incredibly important info regarding the city's defenses, secrets, and stuff to that effect all in the open for a devil like Mizora, who wouldn't hesitate to use those secrets to her advantage. Ravenguard is the type of guy who does love and care for his family, but his duty to the city came first. Also, 17 isn't old, but for medieval cultures, I could definitely see Wyll being treated like an adult at that age. He had responsibilities, he made a choice, and he had to live with those consequences. He was a threat to the city as long as Mizora was around, so he had to be exiled for the city's safety. That's how I believe Ravenguard saw it at least and even how Wyll sees it to a degree.
Wyll was my right hand man in my first playthrough. Every Barbarian needs someone to delete target encounter. MECHANICALLY, Wyll was indespensible. When the time came to deal with the duke i was as headstrong about it as any good barbarian would be. No deals, no devils. Magic-yeeting duke ravenguard bodily out of the trap Mizora put him in felt great. Freeing Wyll from his pact felt even better. Wyll is MY devil friend, Mizora never stood a chance
What I find interesting is that technically, in DnD lore, teiflings are infernal, but Mizora chooses to focus on the heartless aspect of Karlach. Also, most teifling adventurers can understand infernal, so I guess they just did away with that for the sake of Astarion’s scars plot
When I've played as tieflings, I've been able to read Astarion's scars pretty consistently (I don't remember if there was a check or not but my characters have not had super high intelligence), but since it's just one piece to a bigger puzzle, you still have to ask Rapheal for help.
It's so sad that Larian literally gave us a BRILLIANT take on the Novle Hero stereotype only to sideline him in game. I think Wyll is the cutest and it's so sad to see he's jot prioritised. He's in the same flavour of romance as Alistair Theirin and other DA franchise golden boy LI.
truly my one regret with wyll (other than the general lack of content) is that there is no not-completely-rude way to, post saving his dad, tell him that jumping right to Ulder's orders after 7 years estrangement and self-imposed shame might just be unhealthy. LET ME SEND YOU TO THERAPY WYLL. WE HAVE THE GOLD, WE CAN PAY FOR IT.
Homestly i loved wyll as a character cause he felt like someone who was strong willed and had it together. Yeah he had stuff that haunted him and a bit of trauma to boot but in the ed he felt like a character who didn't let things get to him. He felt content at heart and when everything went dow he could pick it back up. He was a rock and was strong enough to help people and thats what he did. When Mizora came in and gave him an impossible question he chose the winning option and played a better hand. At that point we were already going to kill gortash and there was high chance that we could get into the Iron throne, so the hope we could give him was founded. It wasnt a complete trade of a devil it was a misleading final trick she tried to pull. She knew about the Iron Throne and she new about our circumstances. She was hoping to get to us before we got to ravenguard. And in the end( if you save him ) we get him out and betray the devil because it was a technicality you were trading information, she was gonna give you where to find him or you dont get to know and he dies within the prison that we don't know about yet. I thought of it as a last stich effort to keep wyll. Our party has shown to be powerful aswell (if rapheal is dead ) as strong enough to handle devious devilsat this point shes desperate as wylls a valuble asset.
Good video. I did a lot of research into warlocks because that was my first character. The thing is you don't necessarily need to make a pact to become one. There are other ways to get that power. Maybe you found an old infernal book and absorbed its power. Maybe you found some artifact created by some eldritch monstrosity. Maybe you tricked a Fey in some game of theirs. Whatever the case may be, it's usually a part of a character's backstory, so it can really be whatever you want it to be. But if you do make a pact... well, the thing is that Wyll couldn't tell Ulder what his contract contained. And so Ulder could only guess what Wyll could be forced to do. While disobeying such a contract is technically possible (sometimes), we've seen in the game the consequences for doing that. So warlocks tend to obey their patrons. And as terrible of Mizora can be, she was honestly pretty... mild for a Devil. I think she actually liked Wyll. Or found him very amusing. Because she could've done so much worse. Mizora's imagination is kind of the only limit here. So, if she decided she wanted to drag Wyll's soul to the hells and turn him into a lemure, that would have been Wyll's fate. That's why he was so terrified when he decided to spare Karlach. At that point he had no way of knowing what Mizora would choose to do to him. That being said, Ulder definitely had better options. Maybe keeping Wyll close by in Baldur's Gate was just too risky, but he didn't need to disown him! He could've been supporting him from afar, sending him money and other things he might need, helping him in the hero business. Or something like that. Anyway, as for my personal take on Wyll, he suffers for being the least interesting of the origin companions. It's not that he's bad, but compared to the others he just has a lot less going on in his life. He's also not connected to the main story all that much. Sure, there's Ulder's kidnapping, but Shadowheart is the one who has the prism and she's connected to the entirety of act 2, Lae'zel is obviously connected to the entire main storyline in a major way, Gale has his past with Mystra and wants the Crown, and Astarion is Astarion. Karlach is similar to Wyll in that she doesn't have that much going on, but she makes up for it with sheer force of personality. Wyll is also very... dramatic. If that's the right word. Astarion is also dramatic, but his dramatics are funny. Wyll's are often... cringe. At least, to a lot of people. That's probably why he's the last used and popular of the origin companions.
Wyll is my absolute favorite of all the companions, he deserves so much and I love him!! None of my friends know him like I do and they make fun of him to tease me for liking the ‘boring’ character rip. Wyll Ravenguard, the Blade of Frontiers they could never make me hate you
I also sacrificed Ulder Ravengard to get Wyll out of his pact and then still saved him. His first reaction to Wyll almost made me reload a save to leave him to die lol but I didn't
It's a leftover from EA too. The old story went something like this: Wyll is a boisterous nepo-baby wastrel with a silver tongue and a very lose interpretation of the law who get's a commission with the Fists because he's THE Ulder Ravenguard's son to _reform_ him. He completely fudges up the mission, get's lots of people butchered, his eye cut out and ransomed back to daddy by the goblins he was sent to take care of. Daddy has enough, cuts him off and kicks him out of the city. So he makes a deal with that one hot redhead who turns out to be Mizora who he falls in love with because she essentially gives him the "blade of the frontier" persona and the power to live up to his delusion of grandeur. His story in EA act 1 was about finding mommy Mizora and getting revenge on the goblins...
The confrontation with the Flaming Fist in the city can also happen with Florrick (you have to rescue her from prison for that to trigger). If I remember correctly it doesn't matter whether you break the pact or not, Mizora likes to cause trouble. The rescue part with the father is similar whether you break or don't break it, it's just Mizora is more helpful if Wyll is with her and makes that part easier for rescuing everyone.
I really miss the EA version of Wyll, he was my nepo baby failson. I still like the current Wyll, but I was just so invested in where EA Wyll's story would go, and was excited about potentially meeting his upper class family, who I imagined being just a bunch of assholes, in Baldur's Gate (because I at least stand by that he wasn't Ravenguard's son during EA). And also the way Mizora was being built up, and hers and Wyll dynamic back then. Really miss the scene that you had with him during the party, or that one cute scene that could happen outside camp where Mizora contacts him, and after he responds he tries to play it off as nothing in front of your character. Can't help but get a bit sad, EA Wyll is not coming back now, I sincerely doubt Larian would make such a drastic change to one of the character's story after the game has had its full release. This situation has taught me not to get too attached to something that is in early access, since it can always change.
So... This is my second time through after accidentally basically ignoring Wyll my first go through. I think his choices for his future seemingly coming out of nowhere makes sense for him. I think similar to how you noted he seems like he maybe never had a relationship in his life before meeting us, I think he might not have had any close friends. For a majority of the other origin characters we even bump into a friend or two of theirs. It's very obvious that Wyll lived a very sheltered life. It's why I think it makes sense that his plans for the future basically come out of nowhere. I bet he has been stewing over the questions of his future ever since it wasn't set in stone by his father. But... he lacked a close friend to help him navigate his own mind. I think Wyll defaults to fairy tales when we talk to him because it's the outside world he never experienced. Reading was probably was his only life beyond being his father's son. I basically imagine his whole life revolved around him trying to be the person his father wanted him to be. His only escape from the pressures of reality being books.I think his father was very much like the worst kind of sports dads. Wyll felt he was close to his dad because he probably got was VERY close to his father while he was hitting home runs and scoring touchdowns. But the second his father couldn't show off his perfect son Wyll became disposable. Or maybe I'm way off because I totally let his father die in my first playthrough so I've never seen his father come to a realization of Wyll's sacrifice and accepting him. Although, I dunno... being able to brag to people about why Wyll now looks the way he does might be a reason for even the worst kind of sports dad to overlook a couple of horns. It just very much seemed to me that his father raised him to be a trophy son... but Wyll messed up. He read his fairy tales and maybe it made him take the wrong lesson from his father. His father wanted him to appear to be the perfect son, the hero... But Wyll admired the heroes in his stories and decided to BE the hero. Even if it was at the expense to appearances.
I started reading these cheesy D&D books called Brimstone Angels and now I kinda get some of the stuff in BG3 better now; namely, how much everyone is prejudiced against tieflings and warlocks. Oh, and how devils are all just Like That. (They’re cheesy straight romance books with a gay dragon dad who is the most relatable character to me, lol. I wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re rly bored or just wanna get some D&D lore.) But yeah I still agree with you about what’s the big deal about being a warlock but I guess it’s easier to absorb that after seeing more examples of why it is a big deal elsewhere in the lore…? /ramble
Finally got to finish this and really enjoyed it. You gave a fond, kind look at Wyll, and he definitely deserves that. I just wish the developers had given him the depth and care they gave the rest of the core Origin companions. Only Karlach got similarly short changed, and at least they tried fixing her ending. I also wish we could have seen a Karlach-Wyll romance develop before that ending. They are absolutely perfect for one another. Lae’zel & Astarion have a casual fling, but that’s not the same at all. I would say any end where Wyll stays in Mizora’s service is his bad end. As Gale points out, Hell isn’t a metaphor in Faerun. Wyll will be a mindless slave, then (best case) corrupted and still enslaved, unless he breaks that contract. Death is a lot worse in the realms. I have nothing to say in defense of Duke Ravengard, other than that he too needed another few rewrites to work as a character. You don’t disown and disinherit your kid just because he’s dating a toxic BDSM goth. Can’t wait to see your next take.
Glad to learn more about Wyll, since on my current chaotic evil durge run I took the idol and he got killed by 2 random druids along with all the refugees before I even recruited him. I was a little disappointed with his Blade of Avernus ending going with Karlach looking like he just filled a generic role the Tav could've filled with no dialog while Karlach is having her own whole epic ending.
Most warlocks are absolutely bazaar what you remember that celestial warlocks are a canonical thing in the forgotten realms. Why sell your soul to a devil, or some hag or aaboleth, when you can ask a solar or ki-rin for superior powers and sell your soul to the upper planes????
20:54 from Mizora’s point of view (and I imagine any sufficiently long lived race like…elves) humans would be like pets and the human “rush” to do things when they have centuries (or eternity in a devils case) is cute to them. We’re not really people to the devils, we’re assets to be leveraged for their personal gain in their eternal game.
It's me again. Apparently doing things way out of order than everyone else 😭. I did iron throne before going to gortash so when we fought even though I had non lethal on, older ravengard was killed by minzora 😭
I understand where the writers were going with Wyll, but……….I feel like he wasn’t interesting to write so they spent more time on other companions. When I first heard Wyll’s character description I, for some wild reason, assumed that his character and quest are about duality and appearance vs reality. Hear me out: he is dressed and fights like a ranger but he is actually a warlock, he is a folk hero and saves innocents but his mission is basically doing devil’s bidding. He even has two different eyes, one his own, and one a gift from Mizora. I believe in EA that WAS his character. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe he had a different backstory and hated his contract with Mizora but couldn’t give it up because he would lose his status of the Blade of Frontiers along with it, or something like that. And a lot of fan base including me were really hyped about that. I’m not saying that THIS is the way he was supposed to be written and any other scenario is automatically worse, not at all. My point is that there is so much room for creativity with him, there could’ve been so much more done with his personality, his quest, and his backstory. Also the trope of self-sacrificing hero was already given to Gale, so Wyll is kinda pales in comparison even here. I don’t hate Wyll’s character, I’m just disappointed that with so much cool lore and potential he was so outshined by other five companions, who got much more development and details, hence fanlove
I actually think that the good ending for wyll It is to refuse mizzora For multiple reasons one it shows growth of character he is synonymous with his own personal sacrifice In order to save people To be a little selfish is not a bad thing it allows you to live a fuller life And second it's as jahira actually says "his father would not wish for him to sacrifice his soul"
I'm 25 mins in, but I wanted to say as well that sucks as well as Mizora being the ONLY thing holding his plot together (I romanced Wyll, I wish we could honestly kill her), is Councillor Florrick is so randomly placed, when you find her, and not understand whats going on and she dies in the fire, you unknowingly loose a huge friend for later arc appearances, same with her in act 3, I randomly discovered her in the basement and freed her, but even then, she randomly shows up to threaten to attack you because "Lady Mizora" said he had KILLED his father and she believed a disguised Mizora we never see. She gives the book over for Anzur, but I got the exact same book and dialog again from his father, after acidently saving him after the Game TRIES SO HARD TO tell you that you leave him to his fate if you get Wyll's soul back.
I think that if they had developed Wyll a lot more the same way they did with Astarion or Karlach, then I think a lot more people online would be on the Wyll band wagon
Spoilers ahead. when you free wyll of his pact and talk to mizora. with one of the options you get an insight check that she is planning to kill his father, since a pact is a pact. if you talk to wyll while / after he choose to be the blade of avernus, there is another insight check. which you then realize wyll wants to go to the hells so he can hunt mizora for revenge. You can talk him out of killing her for sake of revenge and he will then only hunt her if she hurts another person. I have no idea how high / rare it is to manage those insight checks I only got that outcome once in palying the game multiple times (i didn't even romance wyll in that one). Doing the conversations in that order, didn't have any impact on the epilog as far as i remember.
You know what would have given Wyll’s father some more depth? If he sent his son away so he could work on finding a way to break the pact without having his patron spying on him.
I have 10 playthroughs of bg3. The first 5 are my Tav and I pretty much exclusively romanced Astarion because his romance is just too good and his story has clear arcs. It was not until I started playing as an orin character that I started romancing around and it actually create my favorite run. I play Astarion and romance Wyll and I am so surprised how much I like Wyll as a character. To me, Asterion and Wyll's stories are tied together perfectly. they help each other to be free. they yearn for the freedom that seem impossible to acquire. Duke Wyll and freed Aastarion are definitely my main headcanon for bg3
I didn't have Wyll and Karlach in my first playthrough. Second playthrough, I played a gold Dragonborn Durge with redemption arc. We three end up in Avernus together, bffs. I adored these characters and found it to be the perfect bookend ending.
Let me preface by saying i loved the video and ill be watching your content from now on. That being said i had a couple of problems with your anyalysis of Wyll's relationship with his dad. Namely, that it was absolutely a massive deal that Wyll sold his soul to a devil. Demons and their kind are a very real existensial threat for humanity. The fall of Elturel prooves that all too well. His banishment of his son may have been harsh, but it is projecting oir society's values to say that Wyll was a child, he wasn't. He's young, but people grow up fast in Faerûn. The Duke trusted his son to take care of his peoples, and came home to find he made a very stupid, irreversable decision. Not only was his trust grievously betrayed, but he also jad to live with thr fact that his son was damned to burn in hell.
If the game wasn't hellbent (so to speak) on everyone attempting to romance you, the player, I do believe that a genuine relationship could develop between Wyll and Karlach.
I love Wyll and Karlach together, and I really appreciate the hints the game gives at them being a potential item if they both go to Avernus at the end and you don't romance either of them.
Knocked Minthara out in Act 1 then saved her at Moonrise Tower, talk to her after Ketheric is defeated. Woops picked the wrong options and now I'm romancing her again.
So true, I love the idea of Wyll and Karlach confessing to each other while slaughtering imps together in Avernus (I was suddenly reminded of Will [haha] Turner and Elizabeth Swan for some reason😂)
i wish there was more mention of Wyll after he goes to Avernus with Karlach, and, in my case i was also there adventuring with them. Every conversation in the end at camp was mostly focused on me and Karlach and how we went on adventures together. Felt like Wyll was pretty left out :/
I thought the same thing, so much so that I am so ng a Wyll playthrough as will to romance Karlach. Lol.
There is a darker story with Wyll to be explored too. (Massive spoilers): If you let him kill Karlach, negotiate his way out of the pact, and push him to pursuit political power, he will show exactly why he shouldn't be in power. Not for his idealism, but nepotism comes out as the council is dissolved and replaced with him, his father, florrick, and you(I got this when I romanced him). And most of his attention since the wedding has been enjoying upper city life. He falls into the traps of political corruption and believes he knows best. Which tells me, the bad end for Wyll is set at the start of his story, Karlach.
What an interesting playthrough!
So what you're saying is Wyll get corrupted absolutely by political power if he goes into politics? Interesting. I didn't think he would dissolve the council or whatever system they have in Baldur's Gate. That's crazy. Well I guess anyone can become power hungry or think they know best.
you can kill Karlach and still go for the Blade ending.
YES THANK YOU! This video is sooo necessary since so many people still treat Wyll like a side character, even in his own story. Including larian studios themselves (cough patch 6 among other things cough). Hope this will show people that Wyll isn't lame and boring, actually. Keep these amazing analyses coming
OMG YEAH I AM SO MAD ABOUT PATCH 6!!! I love Wyll a lot, and he deserves the world
What happened in patch 6?
Wyll is great as an Origin character, very weak as a companion compared to the rest of the cast in my opinion.
@@thecoreparadigm8703I wasn’t expecting it, but I came to the same conclusion. He isn’t one dimensional when controlled by a person and his storyline syncs up very well with the entire story. Furthermore, you get to play a warlock with lots of dialogue with your patron so it’s the best warlock RP experience. Whereas I don’t see much a reason to play Shadowheart as an origin character as she’s fine as is just being an NPC. Wyll and Durge are the main two origins that feel like more like a different game to me.
Wyll is the player at the table that prefers to take their turn in combat and watch the rest of the story play out as it will.
One of the biggest things that a lot of people miss about Wyll's transformation is that in D&D, there are differences between a tiefling and a devil that characters in game would be very cognizant of. We, as players, might not be able to tell the difference, but the Tieflings at the party definitely would know. It is made worse because they are refugees from the holy city of Elturel. That city, where the Tieflings come from, was dragged into hell. Eventually, the city was saved and returned to the material world, but for a time the people in the city were beset and very much harmed by the devils in Avernus (the one with the Soul Coin by the telescope mentions a fiend wanting the coin back, which indicates that the refugees are still very much in danger from the devils they recently fled.) Wyll is not just dysphoric, he's being once again stupidly heroic. He is keeping to himself to try not traumatize these refugees more. We know they are fleeing and that for them, devils represent a lot of terrible things and Wyll doesn't want to remind them of that when they are all trying to celebrate.
I adore Wyll so much and was my partner in my first play-through. I feel like such a jerk whenever I pair with someone else in other play-throughs. He’s the a genuinely kind soul who deserves the best.
I find it unique how Wyll and Karlach have a glaring similarity if you romance them: Theyre slower. Karlach because of literal limitations and Wyll because hes a hopeless romantic type/old fashioned. That being said I wish they would romance each other If I romance neither of them. Only issue I have with wyll is I wish they explored his concept a little more, and he has more input in his personal quest. I feel they could have explored the duality of wyll more personally. Maybe he actually likes Mizora depending on how the playthrough unfolds. Why does "Evil Wyll" have to be an origin thing, cmooooon larian let me ruin my party members! (/s). I just feel they could have done more with the heroic old fashioned hero with a glaring flaw in their past actions. I will say though, my expectations of wyll only exist because of how much detail Larian puts into minor details blowing me away (as i played BG3 as my first one, and blind besides 'its dnd you can do anything'). I dont think wyll needs MUCH work to feel complete, and I have my hopes for future patches.
Kinda wild how karlach is so recent she isn't on the game art but she feels more fleshed out in my opinion
@@jammerthebaws4287 Did you mean to write this as it’s own comment?
I’m very glad to see Wyll getting love. He was my best bro in playthrough one and I defend him in every conversation!
I play on Xbox. I never as much as touched the game during beta because so, so I had very little knowledge during my first play through. That included knowing who all the companions would be, so I had no idea Wyll was gonna be one.
SO when he first appeared in his pretty cool entrance, my Tav was kind of immediately like ‘oh no, he’s hot!’
THEN she sees him training children in a safe and supportive way so they can learn to protect themselves in the worst case scenario??
I was thinking ‘cool guy!! Wish he were a companion.’ THEN IT’S REVEALED HE HAS A TADPOLE?!
Yeah…my Tav is Mrs. Ravengard now….
REAL YOU ARE SO REAL FOR THAT!!
I did know a little about him before playing and decided on romancing him before even starting the game, but his whole introduction made it even better than I thought. My character was a tiefling, so watching him be so kind to the tiefling kids felt like… yeah we were made for each other.
@@monkeysbrains omg, my tav was a teifling too! I never thought of that aspect. I like it! 🤔 Totally ripping it off!
Remember that due to the contract with Mizora, Wyll can't explain the reasons why he made the pact.
The only reply Wyll could make to Ulder's questions is "Because.". That's a lot for a patent to try and understand when a child had sold his soul to a devil.
One thing I DESPERATELY wish the game would have had is the ability to be a wingman for your companions. Let me help them hook up! Then they can all stop hitting on me and let me focus on (character I'm actually interested in for that run).
I played as an evil Dark Urge and slaughtered everyone at the Grove. When Wyll left my party permanently because of my atrocities I was so heartbroken, I had to reload
Wyll is the best pick imo for an Origin hero run of the game both because of the additional insight you get his thoughts, cool extra scenes to romancing Karlach and because he's the only origin for whom it is in-character to accept every side quest from some kid asking him to get their ball out of a tree
He's not a companion or a main character but please do one on Raphael! He's a much more personal villain to the squad and is so fun to look at.
Wyll is my absolute favorite and i really feel sad when thinking about how much of a lack of content within the game and agency in his own story he has. it really reflects his sense of martyrdom and service towards others, but prevents growth in making decisions for himself. i really hope that in future updates and the definitive edition that he will be expanded on much more because he definitely got sidelined in a way that many other characters weren't. i don't even necessarily blame it on the rewrites either. sure, they had a big role in him having to start from scratch again but i don't think it quite matches the huge difference between his story and other characters in terms of what they are able to do.
regarding Ulder Ravengard, i actually do think that his actions are in character for him based on his previous appearances in adventures. he's always been incredibly stern and stubborn, never backing down from a decision and focused more on utilitarianism than compassion. and from Wyll's description of the things his father taught him, he imparted that onto his son. Wyll just happens to care much more about people than about pure duty. it shows in their alignment too. Ulder is either lawful neutral or true neutral (according to past adventures) while Wyll is neutral good (according to Idle Champions). i wonder as well how Wyll's mother fits into the situation. how did it change Ulder and his feelings about being a father when she died in childbirth? were he and Wyll truly as close as Wyll felt they were, or did Ulder keep him at arm's length anyway? there's so much i want to know about that relationship that is just left unanswered.
that being said, fuck Ulder Ravengard he's a bad dad and should feel bad. i only go save him because i know that Wyll cares deeply about him but i personally can't stand the man.
But Ulder realizes his mistake and immediately forgives his son. He was shitty for throwing Wyll out in the first place, but, just like his son, once he realizes he had the wrong of it, he acknowledges it and they make up. Wyll forgives him, so we should too.
Have to take a break in watching this after the first 20 minutes, in order to take care of some off screen life, but I wanted to really thank you for making it. Wyll is a great character overshadowed by other great characters who are ever so slightly better developed, and I can’t think of a better metaphor for warlocks as a class.
I am very much looking forward to finishing this.
To me, Wyll's issues are two-fold. The first problem is that he's the archetypal good guy. In and of itself, that's not an issue, but it does become one when you poof Tav/Durge besides him. Most BG3 runs will be done as good guys, and those who don't sometimes won't have Wyll at all since you straight up can't keep him if you massacre the grove. In that regard, he's either going to be redundant plot wise or not present at all. He's also a very passive character, outside of his grove actions and his Blade of Avernus turn around at the very end, he more or less has to suck up everything the world throws at him and obey after maybe uttering an "you asshole".
But that's not the main issue (also it can be remedied by playing as origin Wyll, thus eliminating the redundancy). The real issue is that Wyll doesn't have a strong personality. The reality of our group of misfits is that every single companion except Wyll has pronounced excentric traits to make them memorable. Shadowheart is sassy, Astarion is a princess, Karlach is either a ball of anger or a golden retriever, Gayle is annoying whenever he puts on his professor glasses, Minthara is intense, Jaheira is old sassy, Halsin is a love degenerate, Minsc is coocoo in the head and Lae'zel is a githyanki. I wholly believe that Wyll should have embraced the cringe and been the flamboyant hero all the time and not just during the grove encounter. As it stands, his 17 innate charisma is a goddamn lie for the vast, VAST majority of the game, 12 at best when he's recounting personal stories of the blade.
I wouldn't say that Wyll is a bad character per say, but he both could have been better and got shafted by the circumstances of the game.
That's fair. I don't mind the redundancy when playing a good alligned character, because I find it nice to have a couple of people (him and Karlach) in my corner when making my choices. I don't feel like I have to explain myself to them (not that the game gives you the option to do so). I found Wyll fairly charismatic and fun, but that's just a personal preference at that point, and is pretty subjective.
This pretty much describes how I feel, though I think it's less that he doesn't have a strong personality as that he doesn't have an internal character arc. He doesn't learn and change.
All of the other Origin characters change profoundly. Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae'zel can all learn that the higher power they love has just been using and abusing them and can make a choice to bury what they've learned and carry on with what's comfortable and familiar or reject the past and forge their own way. Gale can choose to slingshot all the way back around to becoming what he hates. Astarion, likewise, can choose to heal or become what he hates. Karlach doesn't have her fundamental beliefs challenged, but she has to come to terms with her mortality just as she thought she had found freedom. Minsc and Jaheira are more support/mentors, but if you play redeemed Durge, even Jaheira has to revise what she thought she knew about certain things.
Wyll... doesn't. He is presented with EXTERNAL obstacles and challenges, and the choices he is given are hard, but none of them force him to rethink anything.
They could very easily have fixed that with just a few lines of dialogue, honestly. Everyone has noticed that he's the only one who doesn't have the option to make his own decision at crucial moments; he just does what the Tav/Durge encourages him to do. So the solution is to have THAT be his internal arc: He is a chronic people-pleaser who thinks being a hero must mean doing what other people want him to, and he has to learn to make his own damn decisions. If just one or two dialogues previously had Tav tell him to make a decision, and he then insisted they choose for him, and then at his BIG choice, he does finally choose for himself.
Or if they wanted to just give him one more personality layer beyond "The Good Guy," they could give him severe impostor syndrome BECAUSE he knows he's a people-pleaser who wants to be seen as a hero, and he's afraid his good deeds are vanity rather than actual goodness. Then his internal change must be learning to trust his own motivations, which then allows him to trust his ability to make decisions.
I love him, I love his banter and dialogue, but he's written like a secondary character rather than like part of a protagonist ensemble.
I'm not sure its intentional, but it is interesting that Wyll is perfect for self projection. People have a tendency to self project onto kind people (figuring their real motives if they themselves would never be so selfless, considering them fools, etc), especially in dnd world where everyone is basically fighting to survive and true kindness is rare. Shadowheart (I believe) even has a line, telling Tav to be careful that their kindness isnt mistaken for weakness.
Wyll's storyline definitely doesnt give him enough agency, but its interesting the player themselves get to decide how they treat the "kind" character. If they bother to take him on quests he deserves to be on, if they make choices that value him as a person or his ideals. It forces the player to be yet another person self projecting onto the kind person
Honestly I like that you can make the decision for Wyll because this man would literally sacrifice his soul for eternity for a man who cast him out without a thought. Like Astarion with the ascension, Wyll really needs talking down from a terrible idea like that, especially when finding the Iron Throne just requires talking to some mermaids and them telling you about Grey Harbour. Maybe I’m projecting my daddy issues into the game though LOL
His heroic sacrificial tendencies can often turn into a defeatist resignation. It’s like he spends so much time fighting for others that he needs to be reminded to fight for himself.
Wyll made the biggest leap from early access to release and it shows: In the beginning Larian had him as a conman, a warlock who made a pact for fake fame and revenge, who was obsessed with his patron. A much more complex grey character than the white knight he is now and through that very late change his story feels a bit "meh".
Ooh that's WILD! He has changed a lot then! I would have loved to see what the "good" and "bad" paths for that version would have been.
@@PocketLeavesTrue, I'd love it if we at some point get a "evil twin" version of Wyll with a moustache to play his old self.
I guess Larian realised that they essentially didn't have a balanced party but a Suicide Squad of morally dubious characters (Gale used to be a lot more shifty too) so they made the warlock of all choices the designated good guy.
@@mnk9073probably the best pick for it though. Not many stories where the parties moral center is the infernal warlock. I think it's actually more interesting than a typical morally grey warlock, just didn't get the dev time he should have gotten.
I think the discussion of the warlock pact not having a good real world analogy is an interesting one, and after chewing on it a bit, I think my interpretation is that both Ravenguards would agree that the moral duty to the city outweighs any personal moral cost. For Wyll, that meant sacrificing his soul, for Ravenguard, that meant banishing his son. Based on Wyll’s story, he took his father to the site of the battle which bore no evidence and couldn’t speak for himself given the pact, so I think Ravenguard tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And Mizora was hanging out there with him, under no such limitations, and we know that Mizora is perfectly willing to lie about Wyll and his motives, just to make his life miserable, even if it doesn’t work in her general interests.
The best metaphor I could come up with would be coming home to find your child agreed to let a known serial killer live with you and to follow said serial killer’s orders. Though, even that doesn’t quite catch the full impact methinks.
Wyll is weirdly the character that my two characters who have made it to act three have the most similar approach to. I have a very hard time imagining choosing the option that doesn’t break his pact.
That's so fair! And honestly, after you find out you can still save his dad, there's no reason NOT to break the pact, unless it's a role play decision.
My first play through, I couldn’t save his father with out Mizora, on account of Laezel accidentally putting a sword through the elder Ravenguard >_>
The way I approached it is that Duke Ravenguard was already very weak from everything he went through, and might not even make it much longer. Additionally, any decent parent would much rather die than have their kid literally condemned to hell for eternity. I know Ravenguard at the time didn’t know the truth, but I don’t think he would want his son to sell his soul for him. I’m just not a fan at how the game presents it. First of all, why are WE making the decision for him? It’s literally his own soul. Though at the same time he probably would sell his soul. Secondly, all the companions act like he *sacrificed* his father. Which…in a way, I guess, but it sounds so much more cold-blooded than it really is.
I should say that Wyll's father is a bit of an asshole if you read the dnd adventure "murder in baldur's gate". He is a character who basically has a black and white only perception on things. In adventure his whole arc was about "we need to wipe out all criminality from the city" that basically lead to police (guard) brutality in a Lower city. So I wasn't so surprised on how he treat Wyll about being a warlock/devil
You're so right about Wyll's dad. I only committed myself to saving Duke Ravengard because of how important he is to Wyll lmao.
Wyll is really cool in being normal. In the party where you have an evil god worshipper, a vampire, a bloodthirsty angry alien, a living fcking nuke, he is *just* a litteral normal dude, a classic folk hero archetype. He is polite and courteous and measured(?). If I'd play a good warlock in dnd, it would be probably be a character similar to him. Boring/simple/bland? perhaps, but also classic, relatable doable.
Also dance scene is really romantic to me.
Please larian give him agency on his contract choice, yes!
Mizora being voiced by Lohse from DoS2, almost blushing instantly xD.
As for him being sidelined, my theory is that his storyline was reworked - perhaps more than once, so resources were scattered. In EA*, he was a much different person and had many special interaction with goblins and such. Also there was a vibe about him "I wanted to be a hero, so I sold my soul and now I regret it." Which is opposite of full release, now he didn't want to be a hero - pretty much was forced to it and doesn't regret it.
Also, he really is kinda dick to you if you become a mindflayer while romancing him. He says he can't be with you as he wanted to because you are basically a monster (heh coming from the horns himself) and he would keep you as his personal secret hidden from the world.
Even though I really hated him in EA, I wanted to see his story line. It seemed like it could be about becoming a "true" hero or becoming vengeful againts his father and Mizora.
DUDE! HE tells us to gtfo if we turn into mindflayer?? the man who was crying about him getting horns and ridges in interesting places?? damn...thats a knife in my back
@@loisreed6389 You still hold hands, but Wyll goes on his adventure and promises to visit you in a secluded place to dance, bring books and sustenance and get to his heroic brain eaten maybe xD.
(from Karlach origin and Wyll ranger)
Shame I have it on an old save and can't see the reunion camp, perhaps more can be found there.
In regards to Wyll, I always bring him with me and do his questlines even if I dont use him in my party. Watching how his existence so clearly shakes the rest of the cast's worldviews even if only a little. And getting him out of his Pact and returning his father to him makes me WEEP every time.
Also PLEASE do Lae'zel soon
I just started an Honor Mode Origin Run for him. We eating good.
Edit: We beat Honor Mode, boys. We got the gold dice.
same haha
Ooh good luck!!!!
Sometimes I forget Wyll’s a warlock
That, alone, makes him compelling.
I was listening to some of wyll's dialogue, and he said "my bond with my father was too deep to miss the mother I never had"
NOT ONLY DOES HE HAS DADDY ISSUES, BUT HE MIGHT ALSO HAVE MOMMY ISSUES??
One thing I would fix about the epilogue is that I think Wyll would've been better as a Paladin rather than a ranger. Wyll embodies a lot of traits associated with a Paladin. In-game, I usually re-spec Wyll to be a paladin.
The group I've been playing through Baldurs Gate with entirely consists of Dungeon Masters and = let me tell you - we've been going FERAL for Wyll (and by extension Karlach) because he reminds us of genuinely good players we've seen over the years. The simple but cool hook got us, and he's one of the few characters who - from the start - felt like he was yes anding us as Tav.
My first playthrough I had him save his father, and in the epilogue he mentions Mizora has been quite chill in his dutoes and for the most part seems to be happy to let him slaughter hkd way through whatever demons and devils he comes across. And he seems to even get holidays in the mortal world xD so yeah, even the "eternal pact" ending doesn't seem that bad.
I think off the cuff (only 1 and a half playthroughs down so far), Wyll feels like a character intended to be simpler than the rest to showcase his moral and emotional integrity. Of the Origin companions he is the sole hero, protector and defender of the weak, and as such he’s dedicated himself entirely to that life, b/c at that point it was all he had left.
I think for him to embrace it so much, and the depths of his story only being shown in his conflicts with Mizora and his father sells that idea better to me than if he had to work his way up to being a proper hero. But that being said I think his sort of archetype falters hard when he really has no major threads that arent also tied to your major quest, cuz you don’t really do much for him at all?
Astarion, Karlach, and Gale all have smaller quests and scenes you can get through committing to them, and Shart & Lae’zel both have areas dedicated to their stories. Wyll really feels like he isn’t an Origin companion to me, and his more reactive story makes his presence feel almost entirely diminished by the other characters with greater agency for longer.
I’m only just starting the video now so I’m curious to see if I’m missing anything and just generally another perspective on this goofy dude.
EDIT: okay nah i’m with you lol, i didnt even realy clock that Wyll doesnt get to choose himself and that feels so bizarre
(Thanks for reading all this if you did lol, have a good day reader)
I liked him very well, but I was a bit off put that he got so devastated because I wanted to dance platonically. Like, dude, you needed that encouragement, but I'm very loudly going with karlack, my turning my face away should be taken with more grace.
OMG I HATED THAT! I wish his dance scene was like Gale's magic scene where you could let him know that it's a platonic moment.
@@PocketLeavesI also wish we got a platonic astarion in the graveyard scene like we get the starry night scene with gale.
So excited that you made this! Been looking forward to you doing a deep dive on Wyll 🤗 as always, awesome analysis and takes
I absolutely love this series, and this video was excellent! I, too, wish Wyll's story was a bit more fleshed out, but that just means the story we do have is so compelling that it makes me wish for more. Thank you very much for this video and this series. I've been loving it, and Im very much looking forward to the rest of them (should you plan to make videos for all the companions).
I'm not romancing Wyll in my first playthrough (in another timeline, my sweet) but I admittedly *really* love finding the most regal looking outfits for him, cuz damn he looks good in them! Granted, I've kitted out everyone to look their best, but I seem to have a soft spot for dressing up Wyll.
Wyll has main character energy, he’s the first origin character I played as.
My only annoyance with the Wyll romance is that if you choose to have him stay on Baldur's Gate, Karlach will just fucking die.
If you romance Wyll, as far as I'm aware you either have to make Wyll choose to become the Blade of Avernus which would make Karlach a third wheel while all threw of you go to Avernus, let Karlach lose her soul and become an Illithid, or straight up let her burn up and die.
I just wanted to live happily ever after with Wyll in Baldur's Gate AND save Karlach.
Also, did feeling self conscious about devil horns at a tiefling party strike anyone else as odd?
Not sure why that would be odd? The man had a hell of transformation, no pun intended.
In the world that the game is set in, teiflings are racially profiled/mistreated for merely being descended from the devils of the Hells.
Wyll has just been transformed into a full-fledged devil.
In his mind, Wyll is now the physical embodiment of all the fears and corruption that teiflings are often accused of being.
He doesn't want to be a reminder of so much pain and strife to an already persecuted people and/or be seen as a kind of "threat to the Realms" in the eyes of those who would only see th devil and not the kind, selfless hero he fights to be.
Even in the Forgotten Realms, people often judge on looks first, then ask questions later.
Because it’s a hell of a party (pun totally intended) and literally everyone he isn’t around daily has horns and has faced persecution for them. It seems like the one environment where he could be at ease, or so I would think
Then again, the tieflings are fleeing their home because a warlock made a deal to send their home to hell, so maybe not so odd
He was my first romance and i felt really let down when his story felt so disconnected from him, ESPECIALLY after i romanced astarion and saw what a well thought out romance could be
I feel like Wyll's fatal flaw is short-sightedness. I understand not wanting to see bloodshed at 17, and don't fault him, but the untold dangers and atrocities an entity like Mizora can unleash with the influence the Ravenguard family offers is staggering.
Wyll and Ulder both sacrifice what they need for the greater good. Ulder has the terrible burden of protecting an entire city, and the pain of having to do so probably led him to take his "What have you done" stance with Wyll. Every single man, woman, and child is Baldurs Gate is threatened by the presence of Mizora (like when Raphael tries to manipulate Mol).
The fact that Ulder is so quick to accept the new Wyll isn’t weak writing IMO, but an insight into the love he really does have for his son.
To anyone who is saying Wyll isn't powerful in combat, you just don't know how to build him. Pact of the blade at lvl 5 he will get his second attack, give him the medium armor trait. His pact weapon will make it so he can use literally any weapon. All the way to lvl 12 he'll be a melee beast. Alternative 5 lvls in warlock then the rest in paladin and watch him burn the world down in radiant hellfire, 3 melee attacks lvl 3 spell slots right away for smite, and decent AoE with Fireball and Hunger of Hadar for crowd control.
When I first played the game, I thought it was pretty stupid that Wyll and Karlach are just almost immediately best friends, as typically in rpg’s there’s a slow burn between two characters like that. But then I realized…why would Wyll be mad at her? He feels disgusted that he almost killed an innocent person, and that’s probably how I’d be too. It speaks volumes to his character, and he and Karlach are easily the characters with the best moral compass in the game. I will also never forgive the Emperor for, among other things, stealing the spotlight from Wyll in the final part of his OWN COMPANION QUESTLINE. Wyll’s not boring, the game just didn’t give him as much content as the others! My current Paladin playthrough has Wyll, Karlach and Gale/Halsin always in the party, I call them the Do-Gooders squad lmao
Wyll gets along so well with my Devotion Paladin I've really become attached to him over my current playthrough.
Would a Minthara deep dive be on the table? For one of the more neutral/evil characters, she's shockingly ride or die with both Durge and Tav, as long as they're loyal to her. Her backstory is interesting and there's lots of variance to her choice wise. I just think she's neat!
On the Gauntlet of Shar, in my first playthrough, I didn't take Shadowheart and she left and didn't even give me a chance to try to convince her to stay, so I think you do have to take her to that.
he was still calling himself the blade of frontiers in the end of my playthrough, but i don’t think i should explain why
Honestly, the saddest part about Wyll, is that him and Gale are by far the easiest to play as, considering how little impact they have through the full story. Which in Wyll's case hurts more, because his best moments are his introduction, and his silly widdle dance.
quick note: If you dont get Mizora do take your act 2 bargain/maybe specifically not even bring it up? Wyll DOES actually negotiate his own way out of his pact when he finds Mizora in the pod. He still gets hit by the 6 months clause but he CAN do it!
I love your videos about the characters of bg3. Keep up the good work! I romanced Wyll in my first playthrough and I had a glitch in my game that never showed me his ending romance scene and I really felt like Wyll was so boring after that but I'm trying to give him a chance to grow on me. Thanks for the awesome in depth analysis on his character. It helps!
Love your deep dives ❤ please do minthara next 🙈
All these deep dive videos are very enjoyable. Thank you. Jaheira and Minsc might require a little knowledge of the older games both of which are very enjoyable.
the thing about wyll's dysphoria and getting used to it at some point is also something trans people sometimes feel after finally getting the surgery they wanted. especially when they felt a lot of pain afterwards (and unfortunately sometimes during it). they can't look at themselves, feel odd and have to relearn their own bodies before being able to be fully content.
i can imagine that wyll's journey might resonate with some people because of that as well.
You can break the pact and Wyll can still take Karlach to avernus??? Holy shit i had no idea. Excellent insight, honestly in my second playthrough now and am taking Wyll around a lot more and i really am liking his whole vibe a LOT more knowing his story.
The sadness of having to pause this video to go catch up on the new James Sommerton video to be up to date with the drama... Wyll, my love, wait for me
not this comment being how I find out there's an update to the drama asdfasdf
Oh wow, I've been out of the loop. I didn't even know there was a drama going on with him
Great video! Wyll is such an underrated character. Everyone who says he's boring haven't interacted with him enough
This is exactly why I got the game for Astarion but fell in love Wyll. My Durge, Astra, grew up sneaking in books about prince charmings to read and dream about, so whem she meets and falls for Wyll she gets her prince charming but also gets to be his 'princess charming', someone who would both die to protect him but also live for him because he makes her existence feel like a thriving life and not a surviving existence
You get a lot of interesting dialogue with wyll if you’re a warlock too.
These videoes are so great and I watch them repeatedly 🥰
Still haven’t actually finished the game, but I NEED to watch this when I do. Wyll is the best and I feel like nobody else I’ve talked to about the game gets him 😭😭
I fuckin' love your sense of humor! Ha ha ha! Case in point: ~59:00 minutes into the video, she nonchalantly says, "I've slurped up zero 'poles." I laughed so hard that I almost dropped my dogs' dinner on their heads, no exaggeration!
Keep up the good work, you dirty bard, you! LoL!
You've got a great laugh, too! 👍
Anyone else play "Dancin' in the Moonlight" during the midnight dance?
EA Wyll seemed to have more darkness and depth. His hatred of Goblins still shows in his approval. But they did downplay his relationship with Mizora. It was implied as more complicated an possibly romantic
The way I see will is he is the light urge, the second option for the suto main character of bg3, I know that's not the case as unlike dark urge, wyll has a voice actor and is a role as a companion. But seeing him as a protagonist character fills alot of the arc void he currently has.
In my current playthrough, I had Wyll leave his pact, but then when I did my rounds in the camp to talk to all my companions, I encountered a bug with Karlach where she reacted as though Wyll sacrificed himself to save his father.
It wasn't a one-time thing, either; I reloaded a save and she still reacted that way lol
It was just kinda funny that the rest of camp was talking about how Wyll essentially sacrificed his father while Karlach apparently missed what happened lol
I think a big part of Duke Davenguard exiling Wyll is due to the fact that Mizora has access to any sensitive information Wyll might learn by staying in the city. That means incredibly important info regarding the city's defenses, secrets, and stuff to that effect all in the open for a devil like Mizora, who wouldn't hesitate to use those secrets to her advantage. Ravenguard is the type of guy who does love and care for his family, but his duty to the city came first. Also, 17 isn't old, but for medieval cultures, I could definitely see Wyll being treated like an adult at that age. He had responsibilities, he made a choice, and he had to live with those consequences. He was a threat to the city as long as Mizora was around, so he had to be exiled for the city's safety. That's how I believe Ravenguard saw it at least and even how Wyll sees it to a degree.
Wyll was my right hand man in my first playthrough. Every Barbarian needs someone to delete target encounter. MECHANICALLY, Wyll was indespensible.
When the time came to deal with the duke i was as headstrong about it as any good barbarian would be. No deals, no devils. Magic-yeeting duke ravenguard bodily out of the trap Mizora put him in felt great. Freeing Wyll from his pact felt even better.
Wyll is MY devil friend, Mizora never stood a chance
Gale instantly knew his class. He talks about it if you speak with him
What I find interesting is that technically, in DnD lore, teiflings are infernal, but Mizora chooses to focus on the heartless aspect of Karlach. Also, most teifling adventurers can understand infernal, so I guess they just did away with that for the sake of Astarion’s scars plot
When I've played as tieflings, I've been able to read Astarion's scars pretty consistently (I don't remember if there was a check or not but my characters have not had super high intelligence), but since it's just one piece to a bigger puzzle, you still have to ask Rapheal for help.
Tieflings are humanoid, not Infernal. They have an infernal bloodline and can understand the language but they themselves are classified as humanoid.
Thanks for assisting me on the last hour or so of my shift 💜
It's so sad that Larian literally gave us a BRILLIANT take on the Novle Hero stereotype only to sideline him in game. I think Wyll is the cutest and it's so sad to see he's jot prioritised. He's in the same flavour of romance as Alistair Theirin and other DA franchise golden boy LI.
truly my one regret with wyll (other than the general lack of content) is that there is no not-completely-rude way to, post saving his dad, tell him that jumping right to Ulder's orders after 7 years estrangement and self-imposed shame might just be unhealthy. LET ME SEND YOU TO THERAPY WYLL. WE HAVE THE GOLD, WE CAN PAY FOR IT.
Also, generally, THANK YOU FOR GIVING MY BEST BOY SOME LOVE im romancing him as my durge right now and this fictional man has me BLUSHING.
Homestly i loved wyll as a character cause he felt like someone who was strong willed and had it together. Yeah he had stuff that haunted him and a bit of trauma to boot but in the ed he felt like a character who didn't let things get to him. He felt content at heart and when everything went dow he could pick it back up. He was a rock and was strong enough to help people and thats what he did. When Mizora came in and gave him an impossible question he chose the winning option and played a better hand. At that point we were already going to kill gortash and there was high chance that we could get into the Iron throne, so the hope we could give him was founded. It wasnt a complete trade of a devil it was a misleading final trick she tried to pull. She knew about the Iron Throne and she new about our circumstances. She was hoping to get to us before we got to ravenguard. And in the end( if you save him ) we get him out and betray the devil because it was a technicality you were trading information, she was gonna give you where to find him or you dont get to know and he dies within the prison that we don't know about yet.
I thought of it as a last stich effort to keep wyll. Our party has shown to be powerful aswell (if rapheal is dead ) as strong enough to handle devious devilsat this point shes desperate as wylls a valuble asset.
I've got a pot of tea and a love for wyll im ready for this video
Good video. I did a lot of research into warlocks because that was my first character. The thing is you don't necessarily need to make a pact to become one. There are other ways to get that power. Maybe you found an old infernal book and absorbed its power. Maybe you found some artifact created by some eldritch monstrosity. Maybe you tricked a Fey in some game of theirs. Whatever the case may be, it's usually a part of a character's backstory, so it can really be whatever you want it to be. But if you do make a pact... well, the thing is that Wyll couldn't tell Ulder what his contract contained. And so Ulder could only guess what Wyll could be forced to do. While disobeying such a contract is technically possible (sometimes), we've seen in the game the consequences for doing that. So warlocks tend to obey their patrons. And as terrible of Mizora can be, she was honestly pretty... mild for a Devil. I think she actually liked Wyll. Or found him very amusing. Because she could've done so much worse. Mizora's imagination is kind of the only limit here. So, if she decided she wanted to drag Wyll's soul to the hells and turn him into a lemure, that would have been Wyll's fate. That's why he was so terrified when he decided to spare Karlach. At that point he had no way of knowing what Mizora would choose to do to him.
That being said, Ulder definitely had better options. Maybe keeping Wyll close by in Baldur's Gate was just too risky, but he didn't need to disown him! He could've been supporting him from afar, sending him money and other things he might need, helping him in the hero business. Or something like that.
Anyway, as for my personal take on Wyll, he suffers for being the least interesting of the origin companions. It's not that he's bad, but compared to the others he just has a lot less going on in his life. He's also not connected to the main story all that much. Sure, there's Ulder's kidnapping, but Shadowheart is the one who has the prism and she's connected to the entirety of act 2, Lae'zel is obviously connected to the entire main storyline in a major way, Gale has his past with Mystra and wants the Crown, and Astarion is Astarion. Karlach is similar to Wyll in that she doesn't have that much going on, but she makes up for it with sheer force of personality. Wyll is also very... dramatic. If that's the right word. Astarion is also dramatic, but his dramatics are funny. Wyll's are often... cringe. At least, to a lot of people. That's probably why he's the last used and popular of the origin companions.
tysm for the warlock info!! that is do cool!!! I should really make a warlock character next time I play a dnd campaign!
Wyll is my absolute favorite of all the companions, he deserves so much and I love him!! None of my friends know him like I do and they make fun of him to tease me for liking the ‘boring’ character rip. Wyll Ravenguard, the Blade of Frontiers they could never make me hate you
I also sacrificed Ulder Ravengard to get Wyll out of his pact and then still saved him. His first reaction to Wyll almost made me reload a save to leave him to die lol but I didn't
It's a leftover from EA too. The old story went something like this: Wyll is a boisterous nepo-baby wastrel with a silver tongue and a very lose interpretation of the law who get's a commission with the Fists because he's THE Ulder Ravenguard's son to _reform_ him. He completely fudges up the mission, get's lots of people butchered, his eye cut out and ransomed back to daddy by the goblins he was sent to take care of. Daddy has enough, cuts him off and kicks him out of the city. So he makes a deal with that one hot redhead who turns out to be Mizora who he falls in love with because she essentially gives him the "blade of the frontier" persona and the power to live up to his delusion of grandeur.
His story in EA act 1 was about finding mommy Mizora and getting revenge on the goblins...
The confrontation with the Flaming Fist in the city can also happen with Florrick (you have to rescue her from prison for that to trigger). If I remember correctly it doesn't matter whether you break the pact or not, Mizora likes to cause trouble. The rescue part with the father is similar whether you break or don't break it, it's just Mizora is more helpful if Wyll is with her and makes that part easier for rescuing everyone.
Thankssss you so much for this Wyll video analysis, I never thought I would fall for a 2D man but here I am 💖💖💖💖
Every time I see the intro cutscene for wyll I’m certain there’ll be a borderlands style pop up with his name
I really miss the EA version of Wyll, he was my nepo baby failson. I still like the current Wyll, but I was just so invested in where EA Wyll's story would go, and was excited about potentially meeting his upper class family, who I imagined being just a bunch of assholes, in Baldur's Gate (because I at least stand by that he wasn't Ravenguard's son during EA). And also the way Mizora was being built up, and hers and Wyll dynamic back then. Really miss the scene that you had with him during the party, or that one cute scene that could happen outside camp where Mizora contacts him, and after he responds he tries to play it off as nothing in front of your character.
Can't help but get a bit sad, EA Wyll is not coming back now, I sincerely doubt Larian would make such a drastic change to one of the character's story after the game has had its full release. This situation has taught me not to get too attached to something that is in early access, since it can always change.
So... This is my second time through after accidentally basically ignoring Wyll my first go through. I think his choices for his future seemingly coming out of nowhere makes sense for him. I think similar to how you noted he seems like he maybe never had a relationship in his life before meeting us, I think he might not have had any close friends. For a majority of the other origin characters we even bump into a friend or two of theirs. It's very obvious that Wyll lived a very sheltered life. It's why I think it makes sense that his plans for the future basically come out of nowhere. I bet he has been stewing over the questions of his future ever since it wasn't set in stone by his father. But... he lacked a close friend to help him navigate his own mind. I think Wyll defaults to fairy tales when we talk to him because it's the outside world he never experienced. Reading was probably was his only life beyond being his father's son.
I basically imagine his whole life revolved around him trying to be the person his father wanted him to be. His only escape from the pressures of reality being books.I think his father was very much like the worst kind of sports dads. Wyll felt he was close to his dad because he probably got was VERY close to his father while he was hitting home runs and scoring touchdowns. But the second his father couldn't show off his perfect son Wyll became disposable.
Or maybe I'm way off because I totally let his father die in my first playthrough so I've never seen his father come to a realization of Wyll's sacrifice and accepting him. Although, I dunno... being able to brag to people about why Wyll now looks the way he does might be a reason for even the worst kind of sports dad to overlook a couple of horns.
It just very much seemed to me that his father raised him to be a trophy son... but Wyll messed up. He read his fairy tales and maybe it made him take the wrong lesson from his father. His father wanted him to appear to be the perfect son, the hero... But Wyll admired the heroes in his stories and decided to BE the hero. Even if it was at the expense to appearances.
I started reading these cheesy D&D books called Brimstone Angels and now I kinda get some of the stuff in BG3 better now; namely, how much everyone is prejudiced against tieflings and warlocks. Oh, and how devils are all just Like That. (They’re cheesy straight romance books with a gay dragon dad who is the most relatable character to me, lol. I wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re rly bored or just wanna get some D&D lore.) But yeah I still agree with you about what’s the big deal about being a warlock but I guess it’s easier to absorb that after seeing more examples of why it is a big deal elsewhere in the lore…? /ramble
Finally got to finish this and really enjoyed it. You gave a fond, kind look at Wyll, and he definitely deserves that. I just wish the developers had given him the depth and care they gave the rest of the core Origin companions. Only Karlach got similarly short changed, and at least they tried fixing her ending.
I also wish we could have seen a Karlach-Wyll romance develop before that ending. They are absolutely perfect for one another. Lae’zel & Astarion have a casual fling, but that’s not the same at all.
I would say any end where Wyll stays in Mizora’s service is his bad end. As Gale points out, Hell isn’t a metaphor in Faerun. Wyll will be a mindless slave, then (best case) corrupted and still enslaved, unless he breaks that contract. Death is a lot worse in the realms.
I have nothing to say in defense of Duke Ravengard, other than that he too needed another few rewrites to work as a character. You don’t disown and disinherit your kid just because he’s dating a toxic BDSM goth.
Can’t wait to see your next take.
Glad to learn more about Wyll, since on my current chaotic evil durge run I took the idol and he got killed by 2 random druids along with all the refugees before I even recruited him.
I was a little disappointed with his Blade of Avernus ending going with Karlach looking like he just filled a generic role the Tav could've filled with no dialog while Karlach is having her own whole epic ending.
Most warlocks are absolutely bazaar what you remember that celestial warlocks are a canonical thing in the forgotten realms. Why sell your soul to a devil, or some hag or aaboleth, when you can ask a solar or ki-rin for superior powers and sell your soul to the upper planes????
Oooh??? I didn't know that, that's really cool!!!! I may now have an idea for a warlock character next time I start a new dnd campaign!
20:54 from Mizora’s point of view (and I imagine any sufficiently long lived race like…elves) humans would be like pets and the human “rush” to do things when they have centuries (or eternity in a devils case) is cute to them. We’re not really people to the devils, we’re assets to be leveraged for their personal gain in their eternal game.
It's me again. Apparently doing things way out of order than everyone else 😭. I did iron throne before going to gortash so when we fought even though I had non lethal on, older ravengard was killed by minzora 😭
I understand where the writers were going with Wyll, but……….I feel like he wasn’t interesting to write so they spent more time on other companions.
When I first heard Wyll’s character description I, for some wild reason, assumed that his character and quest are about duality and appearance vs reality. Hear me out: he is dressed and fights like a ranger but he is actually a warlock, he is a folk hero and saves innocents but his mission is basically doing devil’s bidding. He even has two different eyes, one his own, and one a gift from Mizora. I believe in EA that WAS his character. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe he had a different backstory and hated his contract with Mizora but couldn’t give it up because he would lose his status of the Blade of Frontiers along with it, or something like that. And a lot of fan base including me were really hyped about that. I’m not saying that THIS is the way he was supposed to be written and any other scenario is automatically worse, not at all. My point is that there is so much room for creativity with him, there could’ve been so much more done with his personality, his quest, and his backstory. Also the trope of self-sacrificing hero was already given to Gale, so Wyll is kinda pales in comparison even here. I don’t hate Wyll’s character, I’m just disappointed that with so much cool lore and potential he was so outshined by other five companions, who got much more development and details, hence fanlove
I actually think that the good ending for wyll It is to refuse mizzora For multiple reasons one it shows growth of character he is synonymous with his own personal sacrifice In order to save people To be a little selfish is not a bad thing it allows you to live a fuller life And second it's as jahira actually says "his father would not wish for him to sacrifice his soul"
YESSS I was waiting for wyll 🙏
I'm 25 mins in, but I wanted to say as well that sucks as well as Mizora being the ONLY thing holding his plot together (I romanced Wyll, I wish we could honestly kill her), is Councillor Florrick is so randomly placed, when you find her, and not understand whats going on and she dies in the fire, you unknowingly loose a huge friend for later arc appearances, same with her in act 3, I randomly discovered her in the basement and freed her, but even then, she randomly shows up to threaten to attack you because "Lady Mizora" said he had KILLED his father and she believed a disguised Mizora we never see. She gives the book over for Anzur, but I got the exact same book and dialog again from his father, after acidently saving him after the Game TRIES SO HARD TO tell you that you leave him to his fate if you get Wyll's soul back.
I think that if they had developed Wyll a lot more the same way they did with Astarion or Karlach, then I think a lot more people online would be on the Wyll band wagon
Spoilers ahead.
when you free wyll of his pact and talk to mizora. with one of the options you get an insight check that she is planning to kill his father, since a pact is a pact.
if you talk to wyll while / after he choose to be the blade of avernus, there is another insight check.
which you then realize wyll wants to go to the hells so he can hunt mizora for revenge.
You can talk him out of killing her for sake of revenge and he will then only hunt her if she hurts another person.
I have no idea how high / rare it is to manage those insight checks I only got that outcome once in palying the game multiple times (i didn't even romance wyll in that one). Doing the conversations in that order, didn't have any impact on the epilog as far as i remember.
He makes a good main character. You get to be a hero without the jarhead barking about doing the right thing on the sidelines.
You know what would have given Wyll’s father some more depth? If he sent his son away so he could work on finding a way to break the pact without having his patron spying on him.
Funfact, if you accidentally explode the duke (like me) in this scene with Mizora she will offer to bring him back, the rest is the same
I have 10 playthroughs of bg3. The first 5 are my Tav and I pretty much exclusively romanced Astarion because his romance is just too good and his story has clear arcs. It was not until I started playing as an orin character that I started romancing around and it actually create my favorite run. I play Astarion and romance Wyll and I am so surprised how much I like Wyll as a character. To me, Asterion and Wyll's stories are tied together perfectly. they help each other to be free. they yearn for the freedom that seem impossible to acquire. Duke Wyll and freed Aastarion are definitely my main headcanon for bg3
I didn't have Wyll and Karlach in my first playthrough. Second playthrough, I played a gold Dragonborn Durge with redemption arc. We three end up in Avernus together, bffs. I adored these characters and found it to be the perfect bookend ending.
It’s so funny bc wyll’s intro in the grove got my brother to try this game. xD
I saw a clip of wyll and that’s what made me get the game
Wyll is the homie
Let me preface by saying i loved the video and ill be watching your content from now on. That being said i had a couple of problems with your anyalysis of Wyll's relationship with his dad. Namely, that it was absolutely a massive deal that Wyll sold his soul to a devil. Demons and their kind are a very real existensial threat for humanity. The fall of Elturel prooves that all too well. His banishment of his son may have been harsh, but it is projecting oir society's values to say that Wyll was a child, he wasn't. He's young, but people grow up fast in Faerûn. The Duke trusted his son to take care of his peoples, and came home to find he made a very stupid, irreversable decision. Not only was his trust grievously betrayed, but he also jad to live with thr fact that his son was damned to burn in hell.