Narrative Trickery in WILLOW
or, how to use audience bias and expectations to teach us about empathy and our own dickishness
"The Whispers of Nockmaar" is a classic haunted house episode in the tradition of genre TV from Angel to Xena. “Whispers” plays mix-and-match, revealing desires, secrets, and more through 1-on-1 (sometimes 2-on-1) character interactions we haven’t seen before.
The potential for characters to get up close and personal — for bonding or blowups or both — is one of my favourite side-functions of an episode which breaks a show’s usual form or structure to play with a trope such as haunted house, time travel, I’m-a-ghost-and-nobody-can-hear-me, etc.
Let’s look at how Willow uses established identification with a primary protagonist (Kit), how it shapes our feelings about a secondary character (Graydon), and how “Whispers” flips BOTH those things on us.
be warned: spoilers for ALL of Season 1 abound
Established Empathy and POV
Kit is literally the first person we see in Willow’s world: filling the opening frame, flying down from the sky, brandishing a sword.
In following scenes Kit is put in a position where we unequivocally (unless you’re some kind of royalist, anti-romantic sociopath, I guess?) side with her: being forced to marry someone for politics, while she’s in love with someone else. A classic!
That Kit’s not fully self-aware of the latter ‘love’ part doesn’t lessen the impact of the first part; we naturally want someone free to follow their heart, not forced into marriage.
With that in mind, look at the POV in which we’re introduced to Graydon:
We’re literally and figuratively in Kit’s point of view; she looks over, then we get a shot of Graydon from her perspective as she snidely comments to Jade, then the scene cuts between shots of her looking at him, and us looking at him through her eyes or behind her.
When Sorsha announces Kit+Graydon’s marriage, we see Kit’s open frustration and Jade’s attempt to hide her anguish; we’ve been aligned with these characters, so we take their emotions towards Graydon as our own.
The first we hear Graydon speak is also from Kit’s POV, when she marches across the crowded ballroom to confront him. She rattles off a compelling story of a princess fighting a duel to gain agency, and we cheer inside; an easy win. Graydon tries to make nice, but his response is not compelling; certainly we don't get the best side of him. Despite Kit publicly, unfairly putting Graydon in an awkward situation, she’s the protagonist, the initiator, the one whose desires and objectives and roadblocks we understand, and thus whom we empathise and side with.
When Sorsha interrupts to drag Kit away, we hear Kit plead her entirely sympathetic case; she’s trapped, treated like a pawn, oppressed by her mother. Airk tries to play peacemaker, claiming “Graydon’s not such a terrible guy!” but we don’t see Graydon’s side of things, so don’t likely consider how he feels, whether he deserves our compassion as much or more than Kit.
Kit who is not just protagonist, but royalty and brash and brave, and sets out on an epic quest to save her brother. Sure she’s bratty, and oblivious, and self-centered, but who’s perfect?
On the other hand, because Kit’s marriage is to Graydon, we’re introduced to him as an obstacle, and are inclined against him from the start. Everything we know about Graydon is framed from external perspectives (mostly Kit’s), and what we see of him from that point til “Whispers” serves to reinforce those impressions.
There’s Something About Graydon
Graydon first speaks for himself giving testimony about a surprise attack in darkness. We can see Graydon isn’t cruel or stupid, but he’s definitely shy and deferential, and between what we’ve seen from Kit and heard from Graydon’s dad and Sorsha, we gather he’s also meek, whiny, and a coward . . . all true to some extent.
In Eps 1-3 Graydon makes soft objections, provides comic relief (intentionally or otherwise), and shows flashes of compassion, but his arc of gaining bravery doesn't really start until “Whispers.” (More on that later.) Only during / after “Whispers” does
Kit fully accept Graydon
Graydon open up and do more to endear him; talks about the novel he's writing, spills deeper feelings about his relationship with his father, cares for various creatures, practices magic with Elora, etc.
Until the end of “Whispers,” Willow intentionally portrays Graydon as the clear ‘weakest link’ within a group of: a princess; two knights; a broad, strong, brash, handsome, funny knave; a cook / clever girl / prophesied Empress, and Willow.
What does all that have to do with Graydon getting infected? Why thank you for asking and providing this handy segue.
Let’s Talk About Death, Baby
Graydon being infected at this point in the story seems an ‘easy out.’ Graydon has been positioned as a barrier to Kit’s freedom, an impediment to Jade getting what she wants, a hindrance on the group’s ability to find Airk and fight off attackers, a drain on Willow, and annoying to Elora.
It’s a TV staple to put a character in danger to make us Feel Something. In many cases the audience gets the adrenaline rush while feeling confident the character will live. At other times the audience is truly on edge. In this case, do we think Willow might really Do It?
“Whispers” trades not only on ‘all tropes of fantasy and supernatural and adventure shows’ but everything established in the preceding three episodes, where plenty have died. Ep1 starts ‘light’ as various unnamed redshirt palace guards die in a palace attack, but Kase is killed by Bone Reavers before the rescue party even reaches Willow, and in Ep3 Jade mercy-kills father figure Ballentine after he begs her to, having been ‘turned’, infecting and killing others. Graydon is infected by the thing which killed Ballentine, so we know it’s lethal and not always reversible.
With Willow having already killed two characters at least as ‘main’ as Graydon, we’re prepped to expect almost anyone is at real risk . . .
Except all the other remaining members of the search party.
Kit is a main protagonist and Airk’s twin; Jade is the last remaining knight and also Kit’s love interest; Boorman is the comic relief and has those big broad shoulders as well as a mysterious past he and Sorsha (and the writers) have insinuated will come into play; Willow and Elora we care about because of how they're introduced and we know the lore / plot requires them to function. The only one who could feasibly be sacrificed here is Graydon.
To sum up everything at the start of “Whispers”: this show kills people; Graydon hasn’t demonstrated a reason he’s ‘required’ for the plot, or any skills and traits which service our group; the lives of characters we love and identify with would be easier without Graydon; thus, Graydon may actually die.
And the audience is gonna be mostly cool with that.
Expendability and Audience Expectation
Five minutes into “Whispers” Kit voices what we’re all thinking: “if I have to decide between saving Airk and waiting for Graydon to turn into some kind of monster . . .” she trails off, but we all know how the sentence ends.
Everyone responds in-character: Boorman makes a joke, Jade tries to be diplomatic, Elora challenges “if her highness is in such a hurry to see it done, she oughta do it herself.”
Though Kit backs down for the moment, the stakes are clear: Graydon’s death would probably raise the chances of the search party finding Airk, AND remove a huge barrier to Kit getting what she wants (more agency), and Kit and Jade getting what we know they want (each other). Three birds, one stone!
Not only ‘can’ Graydon be sacrificed, and his death would help everyone left be better off and/or happier, but we wouldn’t have to feel [too] bad because it’s an evil, deadly infection. It’s not like Kit wants to kill him or we want him to die, but if he just, y’know, turns, or succumbs . . .
Kit’s thoughts and actions reflect and inform audience biases. ‘If Graydon dies, that'd be sad, I guess? But, could be necessary, even nice. Just saying.’ Thinking of Graydon this way is as infectious as it is insidious.
Here’s the ‘turn’ in Willow’s narrative trick: the rest of “Whispers” plays out as a repudiation of that nasty mindset.
What “Whispers” Has To Teach Us
I’m not going to give a play-by-play; if you’ve read this far, you’ve seen the show. Making us empathise with Graydon even as he’s not ‘himself’ is an excellent bit of work, helped by flashbacks which can be seen as a narrative cheat but are used throughout Willow, here as part of Graydon’s fever-dream.
By the end of “Whispers” Graydon beats the infection and lives, and we see the grossness of Kit’s and our ‘he’s expendable’ attitude.
On reflection and rewatch from the start of the series (of course I have) you can clearer see Graydon is in a horrific position the same as Kit. Tony Revolori does a wonderful job during the ballroom feast; you can read his expressions as snobbish, bored, or standoffish, but on second watch see anxiety and despair. Once you look through that lens you see he's taken the mess with more grace (and lashings more diplomacy) than Kit. We don't hold her rebellion against her, but barrack for her to overcome; the same as we should with Graydon who is also trapped, an unwilling Prince with personality flaws and merits.
But on a first watch all we see is he lacks the brashness, wit, defiance, and bravery of Kit; the writing uses that neatly to manipulate and set us up for “Whispers”.
Applying “Whispers” as Audience or Writer
When “Whispers” makes characters face their deepest fears and personality flaws, it makes the audience re-examine how we see them, particularly how we too easily excuse / embrace Kit’s assholery and view Graydon as ‘dead weight.’
Just because a protagonist is the story’s centre, is fun and funny and has ‘reason’ to be mean or angry, doesn’t mean we should completely accept their line of thinking. But we often do, in life as in TV. When it comes to Graydon, it’s easy to dismiss him and determine his ‘worthiness’ as less than everyone else. Sure the show ‘leads’ to these perceptions, but that’s no excuse! They’re not founded in fact or action.
So as an audience member, think about not taking everything at face value.
As a writer, consider how you can shape, then challenge, peoples’ expectations of characters as well as storyline outcomes.
Now, narrative / plot relevance which can give someone ‘plot armour’ (eg. Elora and Willow can hardly die in Ep 4) is not the same as character worth. But not only does Willow play with both in regards to Graydon, I argue they’re related; the writers are able to delay giving Graydon an arc / B-plot / narrative worth because the audience assumes he’s unworthy as a character. To state the same another way, delaying then upending the audience viewing him as a ‘worthy’ character means they can more easily keep him as an ‘‘ace up their sleeves” character we really think may die.
Last, both “Whispers” death-fake-out and the belated emergence of Graydon as The Best, Softest Boi ties into his arc in the final episode, where instead of being secretly-kinda-relieved at the potential of his death, audience and characters alike are all devastated at his death-but-not-really. It’s a wonderful triple twist which is slowly set up all season.
If only we got a second season to see how Willow could continue to play with and confound our expectations.
Stray Observations
I wish there were a clearer upfront explainer on how the castle’s haunting worked. Look at a dozen Buffy / Charmed / Lost Girl ‘haunted’ episodes to see how to depict specifically how or why a house / labyrinthian cave / garden is moving against our plucky heroes, even when hallucinations / demons / gods / sex-vines are affect them differently.
Between the scenes of Kit talking about / drunkenly assailing Graydon, we hear Sorsha call Graydon “a mouse” to Boorman. Hilariously, I’m pretty sure if Kit were there she’d defend Graydon to Sorsha out of sheer obstinacy.
Ep’s Best Line Reading: Elora (Ellie Bamber)
Willow: “The vermiscus goo; don’t sniff it, don’t wipe it, don’t eat it.”
Elora: “Why would we eat it?”
really a fantastic exploration of graydon's place in the narrative, how he's used to establish kit's character and then subvert some of what we've assumed. great read!