I want you to know that I tried but I truly cannot make sense of that perspective. I understand it, I get why it make sense to you but it just does not to me.
Genuine question, if you were to play WiAB again from the beginning, replay all content there is so far with this new knowledge, that only William and Leia are related, does it still feel natural to you?
The only way it does for me is if I assume Leia and Willi don't know that they are adopted. And if they don't know, if they were never told, were I in their place, for the rest of my life I would harbor nothing other than hatred and resentment towards them for hiding the truth for so long.
But if they do know, then I'm gonna be honest, nothing about the story so far feels natural or makes sense to me. Given how close Willi and Leia were they would always have this "us against them" mentality. If they had no blood bond to Katie, Dylan or Helen that feeling would naturally be 10x stronger. If they were not related to them I would not feel enough shame to just leave because Leia would always come first. Therefore I can not envision giving in to Katie's blackmail. I can not envision the same fear of disappointing someone I'm not related to no matter how much I love them/am thankful to them. And likewise I can not envision feeling the same guilt, enough to return all those years after. I would return for Leia. I would never consider returning for the rest of the "family".
I'm not saying I'm in the right here. And maybe there is something wrong with me, I'm not ruling that out. But the fact is, no matter how hard I try, I cannot, for a single second, even pretend that blood bond = adoption/guardianship.
I partially disagree on your topic in general, but specifically on WiAB I completely agree. Just look at the relationship between William and Dylan which has that "I think you did a shitty job but you're still my father" feel to it. A feeling that, I fear, would become resentment in an adoption situation.
None of this choice makes any sense at all. I can only pray ocean comes to his senses.
View attachment 3860981
While I don't fully agree with all that you have said, I do for the most part. As of right now we are all guessing, but I think that William and Leia always knew they are adopt - if this is the direction Ocean goes - simply because if it was a intent to become a plot point, given how Ocean spoon feed information information in each update, he would not do so in a devlog. The change will be retroactive, maybe add some lines when William and Miru are talking in Chapter 1, I don't know, but to reveal now... it disrupts the flow of the story. William goes back to make amend, but finds out that his parents lied to him all his life, for me changes too much too fast. In short . It does not work.
About William and Leia, I fully agree, some of the relationships dynamics will have to change they can not stay the same. Who I see suffering most of it is Katie, her thing is that she was the third wheel but now her resentment towards the Twins and Helen and Dylan has to be a lot deeper she was the passed over child while being - maybe - the only natural one. That is the type of thing that really fucks up a child head. The thing is that I don't think Ocean will want to go that direction, because I don't think this change is born out of a artistic view but rather of a pratical need, so my fear is that the story becomes much like SG S1, a patched out thing, where you can see where was cut and stitched together. The difference is that SG it affected only one season, WiaB the whole story.
I very much agree with you on this development! It is bleedingly obvious that Ocean is bowing to Patreon here! Not Steam, since for Steam not incest is the problem, but the sexy pics. Due to their laughable age verification, Steam fears that minors could see sex stuff on the game page (which is the reason some nations get blocked unlawfully) like the devil does holy water.
This move by Ocean is clearly Patreon-related and in my honest opinion a storyline mistake of epic proportions! I am a hobbywriter myself and know a bit about worldbuilding. Until now the various relationships were based on the premise that the Zanes were a bloodrelated family.
One major example is the Dylan-Willi relationship which is practically swinging a sign saying "We had our problems, sometimes you did a shitty job, but in the end you are a good and MY father". While there can be deep love in adoption relationships (as can there be horrible bloodrelated parents), in this case it does NOT work due to the events and stuff that happened before.
Going alone by the known "Happenings" the Twins were involved (and we know there were more and hefty ones) and the mega trolling of Kati (now the "only" direct child of the Zanes), for Dylan and Helen to keep the Twins it only makes sense if they are bloodrelated. While Dylan and Helen made mistakes raising the three kids, it is clearly hinted that they were more than ok parents.
Or Willi´s "I troll the hell out of you, but you are still my little Sis" stance on Kati. Willi admitting to Miru that he tihnks daily about the family back in Wollust. Kati´s blackmailing of Willi so severe that he fled alone in a short-circuit reaction. While this can happen with adopted children, it makes more sense with bloodrelated ones.
Hopefully Ocean comes to his senses and sees that once you start to make stitches with things that work, you will keep on making stitches after stitches, because the seams pop up here and there now. Do not try to repair what is working.
At least we can be sure that at least Miru, Willi, Leia and Kati make it into the SG present.
