Since I do this all in quotes, there's no way in the House of Hope I'm doing this with spoiler tags. Nothing major in here, anyway and I took out all of the Act 3 specifics.
Want to start off by saying I like Wyll.
Then I'll start my reply by stating I don't. We're off to a good start
People like to joke that he's "just a guy" of the group, but I disagree.
I tend to think of him as the Preston Garvey of the Sword Coast. Just with a single settlement to concern himself with.
...impressive when you remember that Wyll has the largest Charisma/persuasion stat of all the origin characters too when you think about it.
With the exception of Halsin, who I believe to be a bear that changes into druid form - all the characters were written to their stats very nicely. But that is Wyll's schtick. He's a good, smooth talker but otherwise rather lacking. He isn't particularly smart, wise, or strong, and it's showing. So to be as awesome a hero as he regards himself, he had to make a deal with the devil.
I mean, he's a Warlock. He wields his blade by being *charismatic* about it.
I think the scene that really exemplifies my issue with Wyll's writing in this game is this scene in Act 3:
No, it's all the scenes prior to it. Remember the very first time you meet him? He introduces himself to the enemy with a bloody catchphrase. He *loves* being the perceived hero. But. He's hunting Advocatus Diaboli, right? But in the time it took you to get to the grove, he already settles himself and goes to train Tiefling kids, for no other reason than showing off how awesome he is. He can't ever make a proper decision on his own, he's completely reliant on you to fix his life, which he himself ruined so he could be a perceived hero. This, in turn, goes for Gale, too, but that aside.
What I can't buy is that he has no strong opinions, not even a strong look on anything that's happening right now.
That's exactly who he is, throughout the game though. Smooth talker, but a weak man. IN a sense, I kind of like that about him. Him being a weak man that wants to be heroic, is exactly what drove him to his Patron. Where that's conerned, I can compare him to Anomen, who was a complete and total hypocrite through and through. I like falws in characters. But, Wyll has the personality of a weed wacker and he never ever shines or has a character redeeming arc, whereas Anomen actually became a decent man [if you take that route with him]
I was honestly impressed. I've been playing this game since launch, and though to myself, "Wow, this game really scratched an itch I haven't felt since finishing DAO. You can really see the Bioware-like influence in this game. They even manage to mimic the questionable writing decisions of their black characters in the game.
Eh, what? Which black characters are we talking about, here? Ehm. Valygar? I love Valygar. Kotor? I don't even know if there *is* a black character in KotOR, everyone's Asian in Jade Empire.... Then... DAO, so, Sten? I love Sten. What's next? Ehm. Oh, the guy from Mass Effect 2. The one black guy with no-father-problems. Yeah, I got you.
Truthfully, I think they dropped the ball on writing men, and not by accident, either. The one black person just had the bad luck of being one, but the white men have similar issues. Don;t get me started on Halsin and Gale. Sheesh.
You're right Wyll only shines with Karlach beside him, and Karlach steals that show. And it's *very* clear who's the man of the house in that pairing. Karlach *can* make decisions for herself, and does so. Karlach sees her fate a mile away and shrugs it off to do the things that matter. Love, work, make it count. Huh. Yeah, none of the dudes in the party [or outside of it] are like that. You can tell Karlach what to decide, but she'll tell you no, and what she wants instead. Wyll doesn't even decide anything, you have to.
I think a big issue with a lot of Wyll's scenes is that we, the MC, end up doing most of the talking for him.
Precisely.
There's a lack of emotional payoff with a lot of Wyll's story.
That's because he's not involved in it. Tav is. Tav decides everything for him, and he goes along. And that's if you bring him along, he doesn't need to be there for his own quests. He can just sit in camp, Tell his awesome stories to Volo while you do his quests for him.
Act 3 comes along and we get...A PROPOSAL.
That's funny, because I compare him to Preston Garvey. "Hey, did I make clear that I love you, yet?"
Honestly, though? That to me *is* the slow burn. Get married first, bang later. Nah, that fits him. If you have Karlach along, he gets his devil face and that looks horny though. I bet he'll love you long time.
