Wigfrid's Character Breaks - a Short Background

[SkyCommision]

Every now and then, the question of Wigfrid and her pasts has always been asked. "Is she actually a viking?" "Has she went insane with acting?" Well sir, I', here to give a short explanation as to why Wigfrid is the way she is. Let's look into modern-day theatre and acting - and we'll start with the concept of method acting.

Basically, method acting is a tactic that some actors use in order to do their best onstage, or onscreen, or wherever. What they do is, instead of just simply acting as the said character, they literally try their best to make themselves that character - going as far as going on strange diets, refusing to eat, almost never revealing their real self to public. One example is Heath Ledger, who used method acting to turn himself into the Joker (from Batman). However, said character also messed up his life itself, sometimes staying up for hours in a night being awoken by the Joker's insane thoughts.

Now, back to the Don't Starve universe. Wigfrid is probably also using method acting, as she seems to manipulate her own diets (only meat), her body structure (strength), and knows how to craft more realistic props for her character. Of course, there are times when she breaks out of character, and that is also perfectly logical. I'm not sure if it was Heath, but whoever was playing Two-Face in one of the Batman movies was using method acting. However, one of the crew members was carrying a light, which completely threw the actor off, getting him off-character. Fortunately, he was able to get back into character quickly. Wigfrid also experiences this at times, while inspecting certain items.

I hope you enjoyed my brief essay on Wigfrid and her relation to real-world acting. Thanks!

 

[Endrew]

Seems to be a pretty good theory. Either that or she has mental issues.

[ShadowDuelist]

She probably has trouble to separate the don't starve world from a very complex theatrical play, and keeps acting 24/7 (tropical thunder anyone?). I mean when darkness surrounds her she says "and the curtain falls" as if it was the end of an act.
The don't starve world is such a bizarre place that, maybe to her logic nothing is real, and she is just in a masterpiece theatrical show, where she is a glorious viking. It probably makes it easier for her to cope with the situations.

[Auth]

The problem with a few of her character breaks, is that they would either be a bit more subtle or be far more plentiful. Everyone has their own way of coping with the insanity of the world, wigfrid's seems to be the fact she wants to slaughter everything in front of her, to prove her might. The problem is, with some of her quotes to things just as natural appearing as the next thing, it makes it seem like the problem isn't really there. It breaks the illusion of wigfrid, and makes her other hundreds of quotes seem nullified by the existence of eleven.

On 4/8/2017 at 2:24 PM, Weirdobob said:

PIRATEHAT - "This hat confuses my character... I mean, my soul."

ANNOUNCE_ENTER_DARK - "And the curtain falls."

BATCAVE - "They're hiding under the stage."

MULTIPLAYER_PORTAL - "It makes me long for the stage!"

MUSHTREE_TALL (BLOOM) - "An enthusiastic performance!"

MUSHTREE_MEDIUM (BLOOM) - "What a great effect!"

BUNDLEWRAP - "That's a wrap."

BEEFALO?(DOMESTICATED?) -Not sure this one counts- "The critter has finally learned its role."

RABBITHOLE (GENERIC, SPRING) - "Showtime, rabbits!" & "It must be intermission for the rabbits."

GEMSOCKET(VALID) - "Showtime!"

TOPHAT - "It doesn't match my costume."

Honestly, I am fine with the darkness and multiplayer portal ones. They're more logical as it's reasonable for her to break character when her true character really does yearn for something, like being able to be on a stage and the luxuries of it, and, darkness seems to invoke a feeling of general panic in the first place, couple that with Don't Starve's grue effect in darkness, both would most likely break even the strongest actor's will.

As for the others, though, it paints the thought that she's fully aware she's acting. Which makes it entirely illogical. There's nothing most of these items have that would cause this to happen. If you can look straight at a cyclops deer that's 5 times your height with the magic ability to make you go insane and cause ice formations to shoot out of the ground and not lose character, yet looking at a mound of bat crap does, there's some problems with that.

Yes, I am salty about this. I made an entire friggin' thread on this very thing last year, which also raises some good points on the issue:

"Remember, Wigfrid is so committed to being a warrior persona that she literally refuses to eat anything besides meat because it isn't fit for a warrior and talks as if she truly believes in Valhalla (And seemingly sends her enemies directly there with her particle effect after killing things)"

There's no way you can be so good at acting you can literally send souls to Valhalla, while others cannot despite using the same exact methods to do so, if you can also be entirely aware you're an actor at the same time.

Unless, there's a more magical background to Wigfrid, of course. But that seems more illogical than the issue at hand.

[minespatch]

2 hours ago, Weirdobob said:

, there's a more magical background to Wigfrid,

Magically forced schizoprenia?

[alainmcd]

7 hours ago, minespatch said:

10 hours ago, Weirdobob said:

, there's a more magical background to Wigfrid,

Magically forced schizoprenia?

At some point, possibly upon entering the DS world, the characters received powers. Given Waxwell's ability to fragment his mind or Webber living inside a spider, I don't think Wigfrid turning into a Valkyrie warrior is the most farfetched idea. And seeing Warly's power to suck, she got lucky. I particularly like her line about darkness because of the implication of being rendered powerless, the rest of the lines breaking character are "meh" to "awful" (Pirate Hat). What bothers me the most about her character is that she happily eats candy (from the Hallowed Nights and Winter's Feast events) and even Hot Cocoa, but she refuses to "eat" Coffee, which has the gameplay effect of making her the worst late-game character in single player.

[Donke60]

2 hours ago, alainmcd said:

And seeing Warly's power to suck,

Why bring Warly into this 

[alainmcd]

Because powers seem to be a lottery. Warly got IMO the worst, but it doesn't mean he's the only one who got unlucky.

[Donke60]

1 hour ago, alainmcd said:

Because powers seem to be a lottery. Warly got IMO the worst, but it doesn't mean he's the only one who got unlucky.

Warly didn't get any powers he's like Wes, Wilson all his things are just natural 

[alainmcd]

Wilson got his beard, Wes got his balloons (and bad stats).

[SkyCommision]

Perhaps Maxwell offered Wigfrid the ability to basically become a Valkirye warrior for her part in the drama?

[Donke60]

2 hours ago, alainmcd said:

Wilson got his beard, Wes got his balloons (and bad stats).

Those aren't powers and Wes just knows balloon twisting 

[alainmcd]

From the Strange New Powers update announcement:

Quote

New special powers for the unlockable characters:

(...)

Wes

• Has pathetic, low stats
• Can make balloon animals

 

[Donke60]

10 minutes ago, alainmcd said:

From the Strange New Powers update announcement:

 

In the game sure they count as powers but in reality  they aren't powers and they barely count as powers in the game anyone can grow beard anyone can learn balloon twisting and anyone can cook.

however people don't get powered up by lightning strikes, summon undead sibling as guardians, turn into monsters, have inhuman strength (with in normal standards) no one can craft a magical spell books, no one can summon minions using shadows, and no one can control spiders making them fight for you.

[alainmcd]

Call them "perks", "special abilities" or whatever you prefer if you don't like the word "powers". My point is that all characters have "special traits" in the DS world (and in-game), some traits greater, some smaller, some better, some worse.

[Auth]

To be fair, we don't fully understand the world they came from either. For instance, Woody is already well acquainted with the fact Lucy talks and she seems to be well acquainted with his werebeaver curse as well. These could all just happen to be coincidences, for instance, Wickerbottom could've already published her books, but due to the high levels of magic just sort of drifting around, now they actually do something.

Similarly, Willow could've been picked on and forced her to lose her best traits in reality, too, for all we know.

Regardless, all the characters seem to already have knowledge of these powers, there's no "Oh holy cow I can do this now?" and there's no discovering them in the first place, they're just already there. 

12 hours ago, alainmcd said:

What bothers me the most about her character is that she happily eats candy (from the Hallowed Nights and Winter's Feast events) and even Hot Cocoa, but she refuses to "eat" Coffee, which has the gameplay effect of making her the worst late-game character in single player.

That's because DST is meant to be a little more kindhearted and forgiving than DS. There's a very stark difference between the two games, with DS' motto seemingly being "Everything is out to get/kill you" whereas DST's motto seems to be "You are out to get/kill everything" But, the thing is, is that DST rewards you for being a little more skilled at the game by giving you a few more short-term benefits, with some long-term benefits sprinkled in. For example of it's difficulty, Deerclops has twice the health and your armor doesn't do too well anymore. But, there's more niceties thrown in, like the holiday events, to counteract this for people that actually can manage to get past the more difficult twist.

[PillsStealer]

It's possible these characters have been cursed before entering the ds world.

For example, in Webber's quote when examining a Maxwell statue in Don't Starve. He says "That jerk tricked us" This could mean Maxwell tricked Webber and the spider into thinking they'll get separated but instead trapping them into the ds world.

As for Wigfrid, maybe she wanted to be a better actor but got tricked into the Wigfrid we know.

That or she's really committed idk

[Donke60]

I think it's more a matter we don't know how long the other characters have spent in the don't starve world we only get to see Wilson Webber and Wes.  And we get to see the aftermath of two instances for those characters but we don't get to see traces of what Woodie  or Willow or Wickerbottom of Wendy so we don't know honestly besides Wilson how many times the other don't starve cast have gone through this one before but it is clearly possible that. Their powers are not new to them because when they were new we missed it we actually don't know when we as players came into the story other then about halfway through and definitely not near the beginning

[alainmcd]

12 hours ago, Weirdobob said:

That's because DST is meant to be a little more kindhearted and forgiving than DS. There's a very stark difference between the two games, with DS' motto seemingly being "Everything is out to get/kill you" whereas DST's motto seems to be "You are out to get/kill everything" But, the thing is, is that DST rewards you for being a little more skilled at the game by giving you a few more short-term benefits, with some long-term benefits sprinkled in. For example of it's difficulty, Deerclops has twice the health and your armor doesn't do too well anymore. But, there's more niceties thrown in, like the holiday events, to counteract this for people that actually can manage to get past the more difficult twist.

Yes, but Hot Cocoa is virtually useless while Coffee is one of the best items in the game. Her inconsistency on this is, to me, surprising and very disappointing because of the huge effect it has.

12 hours ago, Weirdobob said:

To be fair, we don't fully understand the world they came from either. For instance, Woody is already well acquainted with the fact Lucy talks and she seems to be well acquainted with his werebeaver curse as well. These could all just happen to be coincidences, for instance, Wickerbottom could've already published her books, but due to the high levels of magic just sort of drifting around, now they actually do something.

Similarly, Willow could've been picked on and forced her to lose her best traits in reality, too, for all we know.

Regardless, all the characters seem to already have knowledge of these powers, there's no "Oh holy cow I can do this now?" and there's no discovering them in the first place, they're just already there. 

We have seen two characters before they entered the world: we learned how Maxwell started to deal with shadows in the William Carter puzzles, and how Wilson built the portal after being contacted by Maxwell in the Forbidden Knowledge trailer. So it might not be that they got their powers suddenly, but that they learned how to use them over time.

Besides, do we know if the characters only live once, or are they cursed to start all over after dying? (Think procedurally generated Groundhog Day.) If it's the latter, then it could be that we just get to see them after they've got used to their powers.

[Auth]

6 hours ago, alainmcd said:

Yes, but Hot Cocoa is virtually useless while Coffee is one of the best items in the game. Her inconsistency on this is, to me, surprising and very disappointing because of the huge effect it has.

You and me both. 

6 hours ago, alainmcd said:

Besides, do we know if the characters only live once, or are they cursed to start all over after dying? (Think procedurally generated Groundhog Day.) If it's the latter, then it could be that we just get to see them after they've got used to their powers.

Well, seeing as our heroes can easily identify skeletons of their fallen comrades rather than the skeletons of people they've never met before, yet Maxwell will say "Ha! I remember that one!" and how they never bring up "Hey, that's my body!" (unless they've revived using something in the world already, which we play as them for) I don't really know if that'd be the case.