yeah okay rewatching prime defenders and holy shit. early william reminds me so much of lui.
SPOILERS: PD season 2 and Empty Graves Case File 4
obviously this could not have been intentional on charlie’s part but its so jarring. i notice it near the end of episode 6 especially, while they’re investigating the lab. Its subtle but the moment William hears about how the lab got destroyed (and that there were some kind of experiments going on) his demeanor visibly shifts. It’s not exactly the kind of thing he faced off against in UPP, but its not far off. So while Dakota is speed-cleaning without a second thought and Vyncent is sort of kind of helping, William is RUSHING to investigate before Dakota cleans up the evidence, and suddenly William doesn’t feel like a hero in training anymore, he feels like a boy who has seen to much and is immediately preparing for the worst.
Its the way William approaches it that really gets to me. In UPP, William is still obsessed with solving the mystery, but he’s far more interested in chasing it physically (following the bugs into the woods in diseased residents, for example) rather than putting the clues together. In fact, Lui’s usually the one locked in on getting all the answers, and understanding the horrors at the root.
But in PD? Sure, Williams thrown into action more often but when it comes to the mysteries, William is using Lui’s approach. He looks at the clues, researches them, tries to find leads and answers but would he ever recklessly run into a situation he didn’t understand? Fuck no! He has an easy enough time doing this in UPP but in Prime Defenders William is so scared of running into danger, not only does this lead to being in more danger, but it leads to his literal death in the finale. Its obvious why this changed happened, knowing what we do about UPP, but knowing there was once a William willing to recklessly run into danger without the power to face it recontextualizes so much about William’s arc in PD. And its so ironic that once William has the power to face that danger, he didnt, and both in UPP, and in PD, his response to danger, despite changing so drastically, always happens to be the one that gets his friends hurt.
Not that William isn’t reckless in PD. Actually, to me he feels reckless in the way that Lui feels reckless in Empty Graves. When the stakes are high enough, both are ready to throw everything away in a way that almost feels desperate.
Regardless of Lui’s fate at the end of UPP, I think the way Lui approached everything he did really stuck with William, and it’s interesting to consider a world where he tried to embody that even though situationally, PD was so so different. And its makes sense, Lui and William have known each other the longest out of the whole UPP group, he knew how to search for answers, how to be there for his friends and guide them through a safe course of action. Now that William cant be there for his old friends, why wouldn’t he want to embody those traits in order to protect his new friends?
The best way I can describe it, and this will only make sense to homestuck fans im sorry, is that Lui is a light player while William is a Prince of Void. I have a lot of thoughts about classpecting JRWI characters but thats a post for another time. To simplify it: There’s a lot of parallels between Lui and William, and the way they approach situations, and for William how this changes over time.
I wonder if it applies to Norah and Isaac too, if William tried to embody traits of theirs once he became a Prime Defender such as Norah’s caution or Isaacs spirit. I haven’t gotten far enough to make any comments on it but I’ll come back to this post if I spot anything.
I’ll also say this. and not really elaborate but maybe i will another day. There’s a lot of parallels between Lui and Ashe. and not just magic books that can do crazy shit. Its kind of haunting, and I wonder if it ever freaked William out because it freaks me out/pos
maybe its just me but watching pd i always thought it was strange the way william interacted with ashe. gotta rewatch to make sure im not tripping, but maybe thats why
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