#I love Dying Light 2 and have nothing but respect for the writers and devs

[tafferling]

So I had a some lore ideas about DL2, especially with now having played through a few times. I don't think Waltz, or Colonel Williams(The Burcher) were inherently evil, per se. Were they 100% good? No. But they weren't evil. Waltz seemed to care greatly for all of those children in his care, and I'm sure he didn't want to be doing what he was any more than they wanted to be there. I have a feeling he was desperate to find a cure, not only for Mia's sake, but for humanity as well. I also don't buy that the GRE wasn't secretly wanting to weaponize THV, possibly even creating bioweapons. Thus testing on all of those kids, plus I guarantee they probably tested on prisoners and others, anyone they could get away with that the world wouldn't likely miss. The GRE and the world's leaders and militaries likely were trying to make weapons to win wars, as world powers tend to do. I honestly also don't believe Colonel Williams was responsible for the chemical bombings of Villedor, I'm sure he had knowledge, yes, but directly responsible? No. I think that other guy, I forget his name right now, I believe he was more directly responsible. Hell, Jack Matt was more evil, he apparently had orders to evacuate and chose not to, plus he wanted Col. Williams dead so badly, and I wonder why? Probably because Col. Williams knew that Jack Matt ignored the evacuation orders, and that was a loose end he couldn't afford to have, because if it got out that the so called Savior of Villedor aka Jack Matt had let all those people die? Not good for his image, I'd wager. He would be finished as the leader of the PK and I bet there'd be loads of pissed off civilians, and other PK, gunning for his head.

I LOVE ALL OF THIS

Anyway!

I have a lot of thoughts on the Dying Light villains and its story line.

More so now that I've made headway with my outline, because the more I think about it the less sense it makes.

Waltz. Totally agree with you. He looked after the kids and he was very likely just trying so hard to find a cure (or, you know, just get Mia through this), like you said. That's the impression we get based on the messages we find, from when Aiden remembers how things really were, and based on the notes the kids themselves wrote.

But. He still had children kidnapped. He still held them hostage. What he did was not right, not by a long shot.

Though let's assume he does it for the love of his child.

... and then he goes completely off the rails. I bought Waltz as a villain who was just straight up a villain, before we knew Mia was his daughter and how she was the driving force behind all of this. I stopped buying him when he was turned tragic by his struggle and his obsession to cure her led him to make a decision to murder everyone in Villedor because for some reason its their fault, when he had the means, the MEANS, THE MOMENT HE HAD THE KEY, to give Villedor AND HIS DAUGHTER life. He must have known what they had stored in X-13. He absolutely knew where it was, at all times (since that is where he did his experiments).

So instead of going "hey we found a key, we can get all those supplies and I can cure my daughter :3" he must have indicated to Dylan and anyone else involved in this that he was going to do something absolutely terrifying, causing Dylan to try and get the key out of the city.

Good job, Waltz.

Was it the compound? Is that was twisted him around so badly? So quickly? And what's up with the hecking timeline.

Report 13, 2036. "Funds are gone. Ran out of test subjects. Jabbing myself now with the compound." What funds? Who funded you? It's 2036, are you saying you were getting literal funds from Williams? Who you are supplying with souped up soldiers? And he ran out of funds? *record scratch* I buy resources. If you swap funds with resources (which is one of the many things I change 'cause I'd lose my mind if I didn't), then the drive to crack open X-13 makes more sense.

Report 20/2036. He sounds more excited. "Lucas found the key! Sent Dylan and a team over to Old Villie to investigate!"

Report 23/2036 He sounds sad. Collected. "Six months since funds ran out. 20 since last improvement. If its true that Lucas found the key then X-13 is the only hope."

Btw all those are dated with 130th day into the year being the latest time stamp, which would make it May, but it's clearly autumn during the game. You can see the seams where the story was patched together after they lost Avellone (which I am not sad about, btw) and the hints indicate something that made more sense.

See, when Aiden arrives in Villedor, Lucas was just murdered. A few days ago. But, you can still hear dialogue of people lamenting that they haven't seen their families in months because of the blockade, which never made any sense to me until I heard Waltz's recordings and figured out the original plan maybe had Old Villedor and the Central Loop disconnected for much much longer.

So. Uh. Sorry, I got carried away. And I wanna scream so much more, but I'd be spoiling like half of the Monsters, We. if I did and I kinda don't want that. If you want me to scream pop into my DMs :3

Oh. Yeah. Williams. This dude confuses me. Supposedly he's the same guy as in the Banshee comic?! And that's Villedor?! I don't buy it?! 'cause gee, talk about comic book villain. Literally and figuratively. And I thought Waltz was supposed to be inspired by Resi Wesker.

Also when I say "I don't buy it" what I mean is: I have heard you, canon. I choose to ignore you.

So did he order the chemical bombing? Fucked if I know. Maybe? Depends if you subscribe to the comic book dude being Williams, which I doubt cause didn't he choke on some of that gas at the end? But then again the banshee with the cure dangling off her neck was in the DL2 trailer and that was in Villedor so, ya know.

But I am also still trying to wrap my head around the inefficiency of the fail-safe protocol which Williams originally stopped (that was one of the first things I smothered with a pillow for Monsters, We.), which is "Let's send a handful of rockets. At a long interval. :3 :3 :3 For no other reason than to give the protag time to stop it but also give us a moral choice :3 :3 :3"

And look at that, I got carried away again.

And I haven't even touched the GRE secretly working on furthering their bioweapons research. *hides Monsters, We. Kyle Crane under a tarp* They'd NEVER. *shocked face*

(They did, they totally did. The GRE were mostly a bunch of wankers.)

I should stop. I will stop.

HAVE A GREAT DAY