#kinda sorta mostly

So I've read a TON of Wild fics. Not all of them, but a whole bunch, and let me tell you, I love every version of Wild, every characterization. Brooding and angsty? Cool! Goofy and silly? Heck yeah! Competent experienced knight? Awesome! Feral gremlin? One of my favorites! I like kid!Wild, fox!Wild, wolf!Wild, winged!Wild, and every other variation I've come across.

So when I wanted to start writing Wild fics, I had to decide what way I wanted to portray him as: what felt right to me, what agreed with LU canon, what agreed with the game(s)... It was quite the head scratcher because all of those ways I mentioned earlier are valid and logical conclusions. I thought about it alot and this is what I came up with:

In BotW, Wild’s personality is primarily defined by two factors: his previous training or “programming” as a royal knight which although isn’t remembered, it is still there, serving as the framework guiding his thoughts and actions, and by his lack of memory (and baggage) and childlike lack of knowledge and experience of the world (remember when you started the game and he didn't know what an apple or a stick was?).

I had a breakthrough though when I was watching a BotW Let’s Play: I realized that Wild is basically every BotW Let’s Player ever (actually, every player) because everyone starts Breath of the Wild with their own life experiences guiding their thought processes and actions but they come to the game with no knowledge of how anything works in the game or what the story is.

So, all I had to do is write Wild like how I play him, or how my favorite Let’s Players play him: lighthearted and cheerful, pretty clueless about social interaction, wanting to help others but not knowing how to beyond providing practical help, logical and strategic problem solver but without memories, he ends up doing things in unorthodox ways. He's a talented fighter and can use any weapon, but big picture battle strategy is not his strong suit. He's a sticky-fingered goblin in the towns but he's always very helpful to anyone he meets.

While I do tend to write him as more the silly, goofy, gremlin style, I do recognize and include that he does have a troubled past, and he can be dramatically angsty and he does go wordless sometimes, but I figure there's a threshold for it. He's normally very resilient and bounces back easily from "Oh man, what an intense memory that was" to "ooh shiny carrot! Mine now!"

But there's a point when things get tough and he drops below the "bounce back" level, he can revert to his old knightly ways of silence, emotional suppression, anxiety, self-sacrificial tendencies, plus the troubles of having only 1-2 years-worth of memory/experience (and ADHD) like issues with emotional regulation, conflict resolution, excessive guilt, confusion, flashbacks, etc. I figure it takes a lot to knock him down to that level, but when it does happen, it takes a lot of time and support for him to revert back to his usual happy-go-lucky self.

In summary, to me, Wild is a cheerful goofy teenager, a scrappy and competent fighter, a knight with a troubled past, and a good kid.

******

the dark horse.