Willow (Origin)
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About the character
| Full Name | Willow |
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| Age | ≈20 |
| Born | May 7, ??. |
| Favorite Food | 
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| Curio Cabinet Bio | Willow is a candid woman whose penchant for fire often gets her into more than a little trouble. |
| Motto | "All will bathe in the prettiest of flames." |
| Favorite activities | Burn |
| Friends and Relatives | Caregivers |
Childhood
Willow's backstory was revealed in an animated short titled From the Ashes. An official summary of the short was provided in DST's Compendium:
Willow always regarded being brought to The Constant as a new beginning. It allowed her to leave everything behind, after all. From a young age, Willow seemed to possess a knack for attracting bad luck. Orphaned at a young age and forced to live in a children's home with cruel caregivers, she soon found her nights plagued by shadowy visions of terrible creatures... creatures that could only be held at bay by her faithful teddy bear Bernie. But when Bernie was taken away as punishment for what her caregivers saw as unfit behavior, Willow was left to fend for herself when the shadows came for her. That's when she learned that nothing holds back the darkness like a roaring flame. Nothing is more comforting than watching your troubles light up and crumble to ash... It wouldn't be the last time Willow burned it all down to start anew.
From early childhood, she was an orphan and lived in an orphanage. Judging by the fact that there is no one in the orphanage besides Willow, she may have been the last child left who was not yet adopted due to being a problem child. This may explain the negative attitude of the caregivers towards Willow. She has her favorite bear Bernie. One night, Terrorbeak enters the orphanage. Terrorbeak tries to catch Willow and accidentally breaks the floor, waking up the caregivers. Willow fends off Terrorbeak with Bernie, but then the caregivers arrive. The caregivers decide to punish Willow. They take away Bernie and lock her in a closet. There, she is vulnerable to Terrorbeak. With the help of the tools in the closet, and possibly with the help of Willow's Lighter (it appears in the background in the closet in the short), she creates a fire, thereby driving away the Terrorbeak. The caregivers die in a fire, and Willow takes Bernie and leaves the burning orphanage. After that, she realized her love for fire.
It is also known that at some point in time, a little Willow "crashed" girl scouts.
New York State Capitol fire
On March 29, 1911 Willow sets fire to the New York State Capitol where Wickerbottom worked. This case allows Maxwell's shadow projection to lure Wickerbottom into the Constant and take away passages from the Codex Umbra that Wickerbottom found and kept secret. Later, a Terrorbeak appears behind her and leaves behind a note reading "One more to go".
Assumptions
- The Terrorbeak shown in the short is most likely the same terrorbeak that Maxwell accidentally summoned using Codex Umbra in Part 5 of the William Carter Puzzles
- When Willow is locked in the closet, Willow's Lighter can be seen. The first prototype of such a lighter was created in 1924 by Dunhill. This contradicts the fact that Willow burned the library as an adult, since the library fire occurred in 1911.
- This can be justified by the fact that when the library is set on fire, Terrorbeak appears. Considering that in the Wanda short, we see that shadows can travel through time and be used in Wanda's time travel devices. It can be assumed that Willow was transported in time thanks to Terrorbeak, who was subordinate to Maxwell.
- There are no children in the short film except Willow. This may indicate that Willow was a problem child and either they did not want to take her from the orphanage, or they returned her very often. This may explain the negative attitude of caregivers towards Willow
Trivia
- Willow was originally stated to be around her late teens.[1] However, Klei later said that Willow is in her early 20's.[2]
- According to her examinations of the Tent and the Siesta Lean-To, Willow was a Girl Scout, and she earned all of the patches.
- According to her examination quote for the Pinetree Pioneer Hat, she wasn't actually in the organization, instead having "crashed" Girl Scouts.
- According to her examination of Bacon and Eggs, she might be colourblind, either this or she was talking about real life eggs which have a yellow yolk rather than the eggs displayed on Bacon and Eggs, which appear blue.
- Sometimes a message like this may appear during the loading screen in DST: "Nothing brings Willow more comfort than snuggling her faithful teddy bear Bernie, and committing a playful bit of arson."
| Characters | |
| Don't Starve |           |
| Reign of Giants |   |
| Shipwrecked |     |
| Hamlet |    |
| Don't Starve Together |       |
| Removed |  |
| Unimplemented |         |
| Other |        Minor Characters |
- ↑ Archive of forum thread "What the Devs said during the live stream": "Wilson is around 30s, Willow is maybe late teens, Wolfgang is about 40s." March 11, 2013.
- ↑ Archived screenshot Klei Entertainment confirming Wilson and Willow's age on Facebook: "Wilson is in his early 30's. We never really established where Wilson is living or from but the "Gentleman Scientist" theme does kind of come from a "Proper English Gent" kind of personality. The story is 1920-ish. Willow is roughly in her early 20's." June 17, 2014.