Discussion topic for Willard H. Wright, the SSVD’s head inquisitor of heresy. Feel free to discuss the entirety of Umineko without [spoiler] tags, but please tag references to outside works, providing adequate context in parenthesis. This topic will contain massive spoilers, so if you have not finished reading Umineko yourself proceed with caution.
Nobody has anything to say about poor Will? Truly, this is the real Rokkenjima Tragedy.
Despite how small a role Will played in the series as a whole, I rather like his character. He serves as a nice foil to Erika - he is a brilliant detective, but he doesn’t use his intelligence to put others down so he could feel better about himself. Instead of approaching the Rokkenjima massacre as a game to be solved for fun with no regard for the people involved in it, he approached the incident as a real tragedy involving real people. Which makes sense, considering that in-universe, it was exactly that. Plus, his interactions with Lion were fun. Intelligent, respectful, amusing, cool, what’s not to like? If the recently announced new When They Cry story was “When the Shuttlecocks Fly”, a story about Will and Lion’s badminton escapades, my life would be complete. Ryukishi did say something to the effect of “it being different from the previous WTC titles”, so one can always dream…
Anyhow, I didn’t post here only to show appreciation for Will. There are two things I’d like to ask people here about, regarding the mystery interpretation of Will’s character.
First off, do you think the metaworld Will is a reflection of a real individual, or a collective reflection of people with a certain approach to the Rokkenjima mystery? That is, is there a single real world character who is Willard H. Wright, who approached the Rokkenjima mystery trying to understand the heart of the incident, and was clever enough to reach the solution? Or is the metaworld Will a more abstract being, a representation of everyone who tried and succeeded in understanding the human element of the tragedy? Or is Will perhaps something entirely different?
As I don’t have the information needed to argue either way, my personal interpretation goes with the option I like more, which is Will being a singular individual. As such, I interpret Episode 7 as Will having caught Ikuko’s attention somehow, with Ikuko having Will read a forgery she created for him as a challenge or a test of sorts. Perhaps the theatergoing authority is the power to ask questions directly from the author, or demand the story expand on something he wants to know more about. Or perhaps the whole thing was less a story Will read and more a roleplay of sorts where Ikuko gave Will a piece on the gameboard she prepared and allowed him to do whatever he wanted to with it? I recall him finding the theatergoing authority distasteful - perhaps he didn’t like the idea of playing around with representations of real people. It is rather questionable.
The second question is about how Will got involved in Episode 7 in the first place. He was called there by Bernkastel and Bernkastel stopped him from leaving until he solves the mystery she prepared for him. What is this from a mystery perspective? What does it represent in the real world, if anything? The answer to this depends heavily on what one’s anti-fantasy interpretation of Bernkastel is. I’ve seen people say Bernkastel is Ikuko’s cat in real life, but if that’s all there is to it, then I can’t see how Will’s interactions with Bernkastel could make any sense from a real world perspective. I mean, yeah, Will loves his cat Diana, but I don’t suppose even he can actually speak with cats.
I once had the idea that the higher witches such as Bernkastel and Lambdadelta could be considered abstract representations of specific desires. Bernkastel would represent curiosity - the desire to know the truth, with no regard for the journey of discovery or whether the truth brings only suffering to the people for whom it actually matters. She just wants the answer. Looking at it this way, Will would be called in to solve the mystery by “curiosity”, and was kept from leaving by “curiosity”. Not necessarily his own curiosity, could be Ikuko’s curiosity as well. Or perhaps the collective curiosity of those who approached the Rokkenjima massacre just as entertainment. Perhaps Will found the idle gossip about the incident distasteful and that drove him to seek true understanding of what happened?
I’d be happy to hear how other people interpret these things. I consider my own views pretty shaky - it’s been a long time since I read Umineko, and I’ve read it only once, so I’ve probably forgotten a plenty of information that could be used for more solid theories.
Best boy and real human bean. Empath detective is best detective.
Also, I loved how Will is such a subversion of Kai Keiichi.
May I ask how? I haven’t thought about Higurashi as deeply as Umineko.
As someone who considers the metaworld a perfectly valid alternative world/perspective to view the Rokkenjima events from, I don’t really consider Will to be representing anything, but rather being his own person in a world different from the human world. That being said, now I almost feel bad for thinking this way, because reading interpretations like these is a damn joy =P
For me the most interesting thing about Will is how he willingly puts his own identity aside during all of Episode 7 to truly let Clair have a requiem where everything is about her as a person, which is something no one else seemed willing to give her. It’s not until the Tea Party that Will finally speaks up about what he himself believes and thinks about all this.
For me personally, I see Will represent the readers to some extend who approach the Rokkenjima mystery with an humanistic method in understanding why the crimes was committed in the first place. Whether he did exist as an real individual or not is up for debate, but without a doubt he truly is an amazing detective for allowing Clair to tell her story without anyone speaking over her in order to understand her motive for the crimes.
In spite of his short role in episode 7, Willard is by far my favorite Umineko character not just because of his compassionate nature, but as well as to remind readers to not neglect the heart as the series always empathize that without love truth cannot be seen.
Yeah, Will is fucking awesome.
For me, I see Willard as a representation of the person that Sayo wanted Battler to become. Someone who could solve all her mysterious and manage to understand her.
He was without a doubt a great character and addition to the story. But I think there’s just more to him than being ‘The totally op character who everyone loves’.
@Aurora reckons that he’s actually supposed to be Hachijo.
She brought up some pretty decent evidence for it too.
I didn’t care about him when I first started reading Episode 7, but now I very much have come to like him. I like it a lot how Will is a detached, cool and intelligent person and how helpful and insightful he is when solving the mystery. His explanations of the different questions posed are so well-written and well-thought-out on his part. I also truly like how he is mature, yet is not condescending in his maturity and in the end, even when he doesn’t like what somebody says or does, he always keeps neutral and objective. I don’t care much about the part that he cares for the heart of the mysteries, but I suppose that that goes to show how meticulous he is in his work. Anyhow, I think dear, dear Will might have the prospect of becoming my favourite male character in Umineko! 
Insert screaming about my best boy here-
I love Will so much ridiculous.
But really I just wanted to bring up a bit of text in his profile about him being merciless in his youth. I have a bit of a headcanon that he worked with ‘Father Knox’ every so often (different divisions in heaven and all that) but basically had a personality almost similar to Erika when it came to hunting witches if not worse considering how strict the Van Dine rules are and just turned it down by a lot when he got older.
Thus we get our competent yet lazy detective that we see in the series.