Wilford âMOTHERLOVINGâ Warfstache
Well, that was certainlyâŠinteresting. I think itâs safe to say that this video is another @markiplier masterpiece, both from a production standpoint and a story standpoint, and I love all the little moments throughout this video that simultaneously answered old questions and yet brought up new ones.Â
SO, what Iâm going to do in this post is share some of my observations, thoughts, and theories about this video and how it fits into the timeline. Iâm going to do what I used to do with my WKM posts and just go through the video chronologically, and point out things that I think are worth mentioning/considering. At then end, Iâll try to wrap up my thoughts into a blanket theory, but keep in mind that that may be hard to do, considering all the different places this video went. With all that said, letâs get into it.
Perhaps a bit irrelevant at this point since weâve known from Markâs past hints that Abe survived the gunshot in the manor for awhile now, but this is total confirmation that yes, he definitely survived that gunshot. During this intro segment, we learn a few interesting things.Â
We learn Williamâs full nameâŠWilliam J. Barnum.Â
We learn itâs been several years since the manor incident.Â
âI canât count how many countries Iâve cornered him in. Couldât tell you how many times Iâve had him in my big strong hands.â <âPut a pin in this line, weâll come back to it.Â
We also learn that as Abe has been chasing him, there have been a few things that always lead him to get close to Will. Drinking. Fighting. FlirtingâŠand Dancing. All things that could be used as distractionsâŠways of forgetting the horrors of the past.Â
Wilford âMOTHERLOVINGâ Warfstache
In this scene, we get the first glimpses of Wilford. From Abeâs words, we learn that Will has been going through many personas, but that this one, Wilford âMotherlovingâ Warfstache, is the most eccentric yet.Â
We also get a glimpse of what time period this may beâŠIâm going to wager itâs meant to be a seventies disco club. So itâs not just been a few years since the manorâŠitâs been decades, as most of us pegged WKM for taking place in the late forties or early fifties.Â
So, Abe comes in and tries to apprehend Will. I find it noteworthy that while firing a shot makes most of the clubâs attendees scatter, it doesnât stop Willâs dancing. In fact, nothing doesâ
ânothing fazes him at all until the music stops. Only once the party stops does he sort of âcome to.â And whatâs the first thing he says when he does?Â
âDo I know you, friend?âÂ
He doesnât remember Abe on sight, which clearly startles Abe. He cycles through several names, none of which are correct, and when Abe tries to arrest him for the murder of âway too many people to count,â Will adamantly states that he âwould never kill anybody.â This is strikingly similar to his line in WKM âI didnât kill anybody.âÂ
This confirms our suspicions, that from ^^^THIS moment on, death lost all meaning for Will. <âAgain, put a pin in that. Iâll come back to it.Â
One taser shot later, weâre in Abeâs car, and this is when the weirdness really sets in. First off, I donât think that this was just a clever editing trick to note a scene transition (though itâs up there on the list of awesome scene transitions Mark and Co. have been putting in ADWM and WKM). I think this moment is part of Wilfordâs physics defying nature. He has already shown this a bit in the video, when Abe was talking to him here:
âbut interestingly, Abe doesnât quite notice at first. He also doesnât notice the physics defying scene transition, but he does notice when Wilford (quite hilariously) starts responding to Abeâs inner monologue. And it freaks him out so much that he tazed Will again, unintentionally triggering another physics breaking moment. (Iâll talk more about the physics in a bit)
âWilliam J. Butterfeelâ
âWilson Jackson Bartholomew IIIâÂ
âWingleheimerâÂ
Abe thinks these are aliases. But I donât think they are. I think that Will has forgotten his real name, which again is William J. Barnum. The first two âaliasesâ are strikingly similar, same initials, and I think that Will was trying to make sense of his memories and put things together in his head. As he says later:Â
âMemories start to get jumbled after awhile. Sometimes I forget even the simplest of things.â Heâs lost his grip on his mind, and he struggles to make sense of the pieces that are left.Â
Will only remembers Abe after Abe calls him a murderer. That is what triggers him and allows him to remember that night, what makes him look at the photos on the wall and recognize them. He recognizes everyone from the manor, saying that they all âlook so young.â (To me this also confirms that this is decades later, from the 40s/50s to the 70s, thereâs a noticeable difference in their appearances) He recognizes Celine, admits that he still has feelings for her, though adds that sheâd probably âcarve his heart outâ if she saw him. During this scene and the moments that follow, we see Will more lucid than weâve seen him in a long time. HOWEVER, he is still not all there. And even though he remembers Abe, he doesnât remember everything, at least not properly. Remember the pin about how death lost meaning for him?
âI wonder what heâs up toâŠhave you seen him? Maybe I should stop byâŠâ
He still thinks Damien is alive. He still thinks Celine is alive. He still thinks that he âdidnât kill anybody,â that he âwould never kill anybody.â For as sane as he seems when heâs talking to Abe, the part of him that properly understands loss is gone forever.Â
How the hell do you keep doing that???
SO. Iâm going to talk about how Will defies physics for awhile now.
From this moment in Mark on Darkiplier, we know that neither Dark nor Warfstache obey the laws of physics. And this video demonstrates Willâs complete lack of physicality better than anything weâve ever seen. Throughout the entire interrogation in Abeâs office heâs appearing and disappearing, Mark and Co. using camera tricks and editing brilliantly to show how heâs moving without really showing us, and Abeâs startled responses all giving us clues.Â
Will is teleporting somehow, but when he does move, you donât notice him move, you just realize that heâs gone, and then you see him where he is. Thatâs not just the camera, from how Abe reacts we know that thatâs how itâs really happening. Especially from the scene in the club.
Iâve seen some people ask how Will could be in two places at once, but I maintain that he was not in two places at once, but that he was teleporting around, not obeying the laws of physics, but that Abe didnât notice at first because he was so focused on catching him. Will is weird, and I get the feeling heâs like a mirage or illusion sometimes, you think you see him but if you properly focus youâll see you were wrong.
Also, apparently Willâs breaking of the laws of physics isnât just limited to the actual physical world, but involves the laws of time as well!
âOh! The train! I remember the trainâŠhow long were we stuck in the snow for? ⊠Oh, you donât remember? Oh, itâs ok, it probably hasnât happened yet.âÂ
SOMETHING is up with the timeline. And WillâŠhe knows that. He gives Abe a âspoilerâ for the train (which is a Murder on the Orient Express reference, just like WKM referencing some relevant literature with Willâs character), and when Abe starts to spiral and not understand, Will knows exactly what to ask him that will him see just how out of it they both are.
âWhat would you say our closest encounter was? Before this very moment right here?âÂ
Pull out that very first pin from the beginning of this video yâall, cuz this is just some brilliant writing right here and I love it.
âI canât count how many countries Iâve cornered him in. Couldât tell you how many times Iâve had him in my big strong hands.âÂ
Abe wasnât just being metaphorical for the sake of his dramatic narration. He. LITERALLY. Canât count. He LITERALLY canât say how many times heâs come close to catching Will, because he doesnât know. Again, like a mirage, or if Doctor Who is more your thing, like a perception filter, he doesnât realize it until itâs pointed out to him, but Abe doesnât know where or when he is. Heâs been so obsessed with chasing Will that he doesnât realize what Will already knows, that something is very broken about the way they both are experiencing the world. When Abe tries to pinpoint what happened on the chase, Will asks âThree years? What year was that exactly?â knowing that Abe wonât be able to answer.
Life Needs a Bit of Madness
Of course, Will canât necessarily answer either. As he said a bit before this, when Abe asked What the hell is going on? :
âI donâtâŠreally know. Honestly I donât understand anything anymore.â But despite this, Will doesnât view himself or Abe as crazy.Â
(screencap of gif by @spdys)
Abe knows that whatâs happening is impossible, that itâs impossible to know things that havenât happened yet.Â
âJust like itâs impossible to survive a bullet through the heart.âÂ
When Abe realizes that he shouldnât have survived, he starts to drift away again, but Will pulls him back, and says "It was a bit of a shock for me too. Life needed a bit of madness, but why should death be any different?âÂ
This is where things get confusing. Iâve seen some people suggest that whatâs happening is actually all in some sort of hell or purgatory. The first person I saw mention it was @craayon-clouds, in their post here, and directly after that I saw one by @roserocks01 in their Purgatory Theory, where they propose that Abeâs spirit refused to move on after being shot in WKM and is still obsessed with the case and chasing Will. And while the Purgatory Theory is certainly a possibilityâŠI think thereâs something else going on here.Â
I believe that both Abe and Will are aliveâŠin some fashion. Maybe not fully, itâs really hard to say. Weâre still so unclear on what the entity in the manor is capable of, but weâve had so much evidence, from the end of WKM when Abe says âColonelâŠyouâd better runâ to the hints in the DDLC play through that âAbe didnât dieâ to the fact that Will himself never was dealt a fatal blow, all of this says to me that both Abe and Will are alive in this story. So if theyâre aliveâŠthen why did Will say âwhy should death be any different?âÂ
I think that Will thinks that theyâre dead. Maybe not all the time, and maybe not all of him, but part of him definitely thinks theyâre dead. Because whatâs happening is impossible, he knows that. It doesnât make sense, and he knows that, he has these moments of lucidity that justâŠbreak through and shed so much light onto everything. But when heâs in those moments of lucidity, he realizes how ridiculous everything is, and assumes that they must be dead, because they canât be alive, that makes no sense at all?Â
But hereâs the thingâŠhe doesnât really care.Â
And he doesnât think we should either.Â
Right here, heâs talking to Abe.Â
âBut I think the stress is getting to you a little bit. You need to unwind, youâre, youâre a freshly born fawn-âÂ
in the middle of this line, the camera shifts. The whole video has been shot in a traditional style with back and forth shots, cuts, edits, etc. But as Will is finishing this line, it cuts back to the ADWM and WKM camera style of being in perfect first person; Mark is looking directly into the camera. Directly at us.Â
â-trying to find its legs in a world that doesnât make sense. So just for tonight, letâs forget about all the chasing and the killing and the shooty-shooty bang bang GAH! youâre a murderer! Just for tonightâŠâ
ââŠwhy donât we have a little fun?â
Will knows his life is ruined, he even thinks he might be dead, he knows that nothing makes sense anymore. But instead of facing that, he choses to forget. He ignores his warped reality and forgets it byÂ
Wilford knows the details donât make sense, but heâs oddly at peace with that. He can see bits of the bigger picture, and unlike us Abe, who is obsessed with the little details, he is content to let the âbeautyâ of the uncertainty wash over him. And the video (and in my mind, Abeâs character arc) ends when Abe finally accepts the same mindset, and chooses to forget, rather than pursue the âtruth.â
Mark told us this video would be about friendship
And it sort of was. Will clearly views Abe as a friend, even apologizes to him for what happened. And, the way I interpret it anyway, it is that âfriendshipâ that fully solidified Willâs identity as Wilford Warfstache.Â
This video is really the birth of Wilford Warfstache. For years, Will had been going through identity after identity, all variations of his real name. But after Abe accepted his offer to just forget their troubles, to have fun, to put on a maskâŠ
âŠonly then does Will stop changing names every few years. Only then does he truly take the nameÂ
Thereâs so much still that we donât know, and Iâm probably not done posting about this, so stay tuned for more thoughts, but thatâs my TL;DR statement, I suppose. âThis video shows us the moment that Will truly became Wilford WarfstacheâÂ
