We first hear Will Solace by name in The Last Olympian:
"I grabbed Will Solace from the Apollo cabin and told the rest of his siblings to keep searching for Michael Yew. We borrowed a Yamaha FZI from a sleeping biker and drove to the Plaza Hotel at speeds that would’ve given my mom a heart attack."
In this sentence we learn a few things: 1) a character named Will Solace exists; 2) he is a child of Apollo; 3) he is a deep enough part of camp to have been both already claimed and to consider the other Apollo children his 'siblings', even from Percy's outsider perspective; 4) Percy, frazzled and worried about Annabeth, protective as he is, has chosen Will, out of several kids -- 'rest of his siblings', not 'sibling' or 'both of his siblings', indicating at least three and by number of archers in camp likely many more -- to heal Annabeth, meaning he is talented enough to be singled out; and 5) both Lee and Michael, at this point, have been killed, and Will is now suffering the ache of their loss.
This is the first sentence with Will in it.
He has not at this point spoken. And yet we know:
Will is a child of Apollo.
Will is an established part of camp.
Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings (this point is currently a little weak but gets strengthened as the series goes on).
Will is a talented healer.
That's a lot from one sentence, I would say.
On the rest of that page, the word choice when considering Will, even before he speaks, gives us further insight to his character. Percy speaks to others several times in between getting on the motorcycle, getting off it, and working through headquarters -- Will does not. That is a deliberate choice, he may be awestruck, or grieving, or focused. There is not quite enough information right yet to infer what exactly he is feeling, but there is enough to easily ascertain that he is doing and feeling SOMETHING.
Far from a fandom-invented character so far, I think, and again, WILL HAS NOT YET EVEN SPOKEN.
We get a couple deliberate actions for Will before he speaks as well. "Will and I ran", "Will and I pushed through a crowd", and "Will unwrapped Annabeth’s bandages to examine the wound and I wanted to faint". Will here is matching Percy's urgency, and he is STILL NOT SPEAKING. At this point, with his silence and urgency matched with his immediately prioritization of Annabeth's injury, and Percy's squeamishness juxtaposed with Will's steadiness, we can safely infer why Will has not yet spoken -- he is focused. He, healer, is working single-mindedly to solve the problem, as Percy has selected him to do. We now have another character trait we can add to our list:
Will is a child of Apollo.
Will is an established part of camp.
Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.
Will is a talented healer.
Will puts his duty first.
Next, we get Will's first line of dialogue. And BOY is it ever telling:
"‘It’s not so bad, Annabeth."
The first thing we ever hear from Will Solace's mouth is COMFORT.
This tells us another great many things about his character. Above all is an impression, to us: this character has been introduced to us as a helper. In the context of a healer, and now in the context of a comforter: by two of the most powerful individuals at camp Will is trusted to help. Not only to help, generally, but to help them at their most VULNERABLE -- Annabeth, physical vulnerability, and Percy, emotional vulnerability. It is also important to add that Will is still quite young (12/13) and watched, last year, his older brother's head get bashed in at this time in the summer; it is not a reach to surmise that he may have been the one to clean up his body, to prepare his pyre. Will has also just been informed that his last remaining oldest sibling (*the 'last remaining' part here is not disclosed at this point in the novel but is disclosed later) has gone missing and is likely dead. He has also been informed that he cannot go look for him and must instead put his duty first. And he DOES; not only does he but he does so with care and gentleness towards his patient.
That is, on an objective level, a difficult thing to do, and an impossible thing to do when feeling your own emotions. Will has, at this point, repressed his own pain and fear to put his duty first.
Now we have even more things to add to our list.
Will is a child of Apollo.
Will is an established part of camp.
Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.
Will is a talented healer.
Will puts his duty first.
Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.
Will is trusted by Percy.
Will is trusted by Annabeth.
So -- by the time Will has spoken only one time, and on top of that by just the first sentence of his first line of dialogue, we have established nine characteristics for Will Solace. These characteristics hold through during the rest of this multi-series Olympian story. In fact we EXPAND upon them. By the time he is finished healing Annabeth, he has gone gray himself -- he is now putting his duty above his physical needs as well as his emotional needs. He expresses explicitly his distaste for theft and dishonesty, glaring at Travis for his flippancy towards it, but acknowledges that it may be unavoidable in effort to save as many lives as possible. That not only establishes some of his tastes and distastes but also gives us insight to how he handles disagreements and testing from others -- with nuance, yes, but with frustrated stubbornness as well (beating any allegations that Will has no personality; he has personality in his very first scene). The next time we hear from him he is 'scrabbling' around with his siblings to care for the wounded.
So, just by the tail-end of the first series, the text gives us insight to the following 13 character traits:
Will is a child of Apollo.
Will is an established part of camp.
Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.
Will is a talented healer.
Will puts his duty first.
Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.
Will is trusted by Percy.
Will is trusted by Annabeth.
Will puts his duty above his physical needs.
Will hates theft & dishonesty.
Will has nuanced perspective.
We get more as the story goes on. We hear from Will again in the Lost Hero, and then a few times in Blood of Olympus when he is either mentioned by Nico or directly interacting with him. We also hear from him heavily, of course, in the Hidden Oracle and throughout the Trials of Apollo Series. In each we get new character traits as well as sundry interactions that confirm the traits we already discerned. To name a few:
1. Will is openly frustrated when Annabeth brings back the ruined chariot, however he is quick to forgive and acknowledges her struggle and pain given the circumstances of her borrowing the chariot in the first place. This reinforces our analysis of Will's stubbornness, as he has held onto the chariot despite the rivalry it brings with the Ares cabin. It adds to our analysis in that we see him get frustrated and can clearly see exactly HOW he gets frustrated -- with his words, more than anything. It adds to our analysis in that he is quick to forgive. It reinforces our analysis that he has a nuanced perspective.
2. He is Leo's tour guide. He is distracted throughout the tour, understandably so, but he answers Leo's questions and Leo has a positive impression of him, enough to find him trustworthy and charming. He is also physically described as resembling Apollo.
3. In Blood of Olympus, Nico dreams/overhears a counsellor meeting. In it, he compares Will to a lanky cat, describes his appearance as surfer-like, mentions his nervous tic -- the bandage rolling -- and his use of it in the tense meeting, his otherwise laid-back demeanor in this tense meeting, and his calming of Clarisse with a touch. That is a LOT of noticing, which tells us quite a bit about Nico, but aside from the identified physical characteristics, we learn many genuinely deep details about how Will handles conflict and tension. He, for one, is aware of tension. He has a small nervous tic, but is otherwise capable of keeping his body language neutral and nonchalant. He can even calm others -- with a touch, which either tells us that he is close enough and trusted enough within camp that his touch is comforting and calming, or that he, as an extension of his medical-based powers, can calm escalating emotions with a touch (which would make sense, when there is someone behaving erratically or irrationally as a result of stress and may endanger other patients or workers in a hospital/infirmary environment). It also tells us that he is specifically close and trusted by CLARISSE, despite the rivalry between their cabins, as she not only allows him close enough to touch her but is not angry with him for calming her (as she might be with Percy, or Annabeth). She also IS calmed, whether that is a power of his or otherwise. Will also holds his own in the meeting, expressing his opinion and ensuring he is heard by the other, arguing counsellors.
4. Of course the most famous Will-centered interaction is his argument with Nico on Half-Blood Hill, at the end of Blood of Olympus. Will is with Cecil and Lou Ellen, children of Hermes and Hecate respectively -- troublemakers. It is an easy inference that Will is a troublemaker himself, especially since the three of them are dressed identically and are planning a kind of heist. We also learn, by the interactions between Will and Nico, that Will has a bit of an attitude (he spends a good amount of his dialogue time huffy and scolding, worried for Nico's health -- he's also quite bossy). We learn that he CARES for Nico, even though this is a shock to Nico himself, because Will exclaims with no insignificant amount of frustration that he (and he, wrongly, presumes others, which speaks more to his vehement care for Nico than not) has been trying to befriend Nico for some time. We can also see that in his frustration, at least when Nico is involved, he is not great with boundaries, as he touches famously touch-averse Nico, but that is a bit of a double-edged sword: either Will struggles with boundaries, which is possible, or Will is pretending to be bad at boundaries to try and ascertain just how injured Nico is, which is equally possible. It is also possible that Will, who has just delivered a baby for the first and hopefully only time, is sleep-deprived, in shock, and convinced he is about to die, and his usual ability to respect boundaries is compromised. I'll leave that one up to you. (Although I like to think a little bit of both are true -- Will is maybe a little loose with physical boundaries, and he is also trying to make sure he is not going to lose someone he considers a friend (which he calls Nico by name -- a friend).
We also learn, in this section of the novel, that Will has something of a temper ("No, I am the son of Apollo, you anaemic loser!") and expresses his insulting frustration with medical-based insults, which is an objectively nerdy thing to do. We learn Will is unwilling to let even villains die, although when Nico told him some deaths were unpreventable, he listened and -- presumably -- agreed. Just before confronting Octavian, we learned Will is impulsive, as he ran off to have the Romans chase him, despite Nico's protests; we also learn he is athletic as he didn't die. We learn he has nice legs as Nico continues to comment on them. We learn he is hung up on Nico himself, as not only has he said so, he also continues to distract and run up to Nico, updating him on battle needs and keeping him within sight. When the battle has ended, we learn that he is busy, as he spends a significant amount of time rushing around camp, from cabin to cabin with a packed medical bag, as Nico notes, and we learn that he is serious about a few things: 1) Nico's -- and by extension his patients' -- health; and 2) oaths and promises, as he holds Nico accountable for his promise to receive medical attention and to stay in camp. Most important, perhaps, Will is happy that Nico is staying. He is the first person to tell Nico to his face that he wants him around.
Let's, at the end of series two, count those facts up:
Will is a child of Apollo.
Will is an established part of camp.
Will cares for and has recently lost his siblings.
Will is a talented healer.
Will puts his duty first.
Will represses his own emotions and feelings to put his duty first.
Will is trusted by Percy.
Will is trusted by Annabeth.
Will puts his duty above his physical needs.
Will hates theft & dishonesty.
Will has nuanced perspective.
Will gets frustrated (and expresses that frustration largely with his words).
Will physically resembles Apollo.
Will has a 'surfer-boy' aesthetic.
Will has a bandage-wrapping nervous tic.
Will is otherwise capable of appearing calm when he is not feeling calm.
Will is very self-controlled.
Will is perceptive of emotions and feelings in a room (i.e. tension).
Will can calm with a touch.
Will is trusted by Clarisse.
Will is friends with Cecil.
Will is friends with Lou Ellen.
Will is (probably) a troublemaker.
Will is (potentially) loose with boundaries.
Will considers Nico a friend.
Will is worried about Nico's safety.
Will is advanced enough in his healing/medical arts at this point to successfully deliver a baby.
Will is a nerd who uses medical-based insults.
Will is unwilling to let people die.
Will can eventually acknowledge that some deaths are not preventable.
Will is hung up on Nico (and maybe has been for a while).
Will cares about Nico's health and safety.
Will is serious about oaths and promises.
Will is happy Nico is staying at camp.
That's an even FIFTY THINGS we know about Will Solace, with, as OP joked, around 12 lines of dialogue. He is absolutely an established character in his own right, and the the expansion of his character -- and his added roles as Apollo's son and Nico's boyfriend -- give us even more insight and confirm a lot of our inferences.
Next time someone says Will is flat, Will is boring, or Will is made up by fandom -- I'm gonna make them count.
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