William Clarke

*See also: Wheeliam*
**Overview** Dialogue Gallery

**William Clarke** is the main protagonist of *Who's Lila?*, and at certain points the main playable character.

Although the game presents itself as though the player is controlling William, it is revealed fairly early on that Lila, who is inhabiting William's body, is actually the main playable character. Most of William's actions and personality is instead revealed through interactive flashbacks and anecdotes from Lila.

## Appearance

Will has short, black hair and wears dark-colored clothing. He's seen to wear a semi-long coat. In the undithered picture of his face, he has fair skin and wavy, ginger hair. His appearance shares some similarities to the mysterious Stranger.

His age is unknown, but it can be concluded that he is at least eighteen years old. This is because he recounts a story about his mother from when he was fifteen, and his mother had died three years before the events of the game.

## Personality

William is a shy and socially awkward boy. Before meeting Tanya, he did not have any friends and rarely attended school. He sometimes struggles with empathy and makes uncontrollable, inappropriate facial expressions in certain situations, which makes it even harder for him to form friendships. He is implied to possibly be neurodivergent, but has never been tested for any specific conditions. Despite his unfriendly exterior though, he is shown to have a great deal of emotional intelligence, giving Tanya thoughtful advice about friends and relationships.

At times, William is shown to be rather innocent and naive, most likely thanks to his sheltered upbringing and lack of extensive social interaction. This made him an ideal target of Lila's manipulation.

He seems to have a great fondness for animals and also mentioned once that he likes lemon soda.

## Backstory

### Childhood

William's father left the family when he was young and as such, William doesn't have much memory of him and was instead raised solely by his mother. She was very strict with him growing up, driving him to and from school until he was twelve and expecting a lot out of him and his grades. She also didn't allow him to date until he was sixteen years old, claiming that he shouldn't be thinking about girls before then. Despite the difficult childhood Will had, it is claimed by Lila that he still loved her and knew she did the things she did because she cared about him.

When William was in kindergarten, he apparently broke his knee. The circumstances for this injury are not elaborated upon.

When William was fifteen years old, there was a girl he had a crush on named Annie. His mother would get upset whenever he brought her up until eventually she stopped. He thought this meant she had changed her mind, so he took Annie home one day. Will's mother asked to speak to them and Will agreed so she sat the two of them down at a table. For the next several minutes William's mother proceeded to say vile things both about her own son and Annie, to the point where William was in tears begging for her to stop. Annie stopped talking to William after this happened.

Three years before the events of the game, William's mother died in an accident that occurred in the boiler room of their house, when she had gone to fix something. This event had a large impact on William's life, forcing him to skip a lot of school in order to work. He also ended up repressing a lot of the events surrounding her death due to how traumatic it was.

### The Fraternity

On June 11, William became a member of the Lawrence Fraternity, after having previously helped out here and there in an unofficial capacity. The fraternity gave the isolated William a much needed sense of community, calling them his "second family". At first he only helped out with tasks related to the nearby farm that was used to produce animal sacrifices for Lila, but later progressed to communicating with Lila directly, which apparently came to him rather quickly and easily. This made the other members of the fraternity jealous of him.

On November 12, Lila instructed William to stay home instead of attending the Fraternity's meeting that day, sparing him from the fire that destroyed Lawrence's apartment and killed all other members except him and Strupnev.

The day after, William learned of the fire through a newspaper and realized that Lila had tricked him into staying behind and making him one of her only remaining hosts. Disgusted with her actions, he locked her out of his mind (by symbolically removing her reel from his projector and throwing it into a pit, seen in The Tower ending), allowing him to forget about her for a time. He later poured cans of beer onto the newspaper, making the address of the apartment impossible for Lila to read, if ever she did come back.

On November 16, William decided to visit the burned remains of Lawrence's apartment in order to investigate what had happened. He entered the building by lying to a police officer about being a tenant there.

### The Party

On the night of November 20, William attended a party at Matt Hurley's house, where he met many of his acquaintances for the first time. The first he encountered was Martha Jennings, who was very drunk and laying down on a bed upstairs. William comforted and connected with Martha, in spite of her drunken state. He went downstairs to look for Matt and encountered Ellie Cooper and Tanya Kennedy, making this the first time the two had met. Ellie left to go look for Martha, and once William returned to the room Martha was in, he found Ellie, Tanya, and now Michael Graves all sitting around her in a comforting scene. Things got heated between Tanya and Michael and Tanya left the room, followed shortly by William. The two stood in front of a painting and had a brief conversation together, before Michael entered the hallway, interrupting them. He stormed off, angry, and Tanya asked William to go on a walk with her. He agreed, and the two began to walk aimlessly in the area surrounding Matt's house.

During the walk, Tanya and William conversed about an assortment of topics, mainly Tanya's history and her inner turmoil about the constant pressure to be perfect. She admitted that she felt as though nobody really knew the real her, and vented about all the pressure she had from her community to always be successful. She admitted that she started dating Michael because she thought he wouldn't be any good for her but had instead come to think he wasn't actually that bad of a guy. At one point, she snapped at William, mocking his face and inability to make normal expressions. However, she quickly apologized and tried to move on.

Once the pair returned to Matt's house, they decided to dance in the backyard to the slow music that was coming from inside. While they danced and even kissed, William's mind was taken elsewhere, through unknown means. He found himself standing in a featureless, windswept void, standing face-to-face with a character known as the Stranger. William was confused, asking where he was and who the Stranger was. The Stranger replied with a robotic voice, that "she had her face". William attempted to deny this, but the rest of this scene is not shown, and so it is unknown what transpired afterward. However this moment, of meeting Tanya and being reminded of Lila's face, was enough to start bringing the memory of Lila back into William's mind.

### Possession and Tanya's Death

From that point onward, William and Tanya began hanging out a lot, even meeting each other late at night, despite Tanya still officially dating Michael. William however became increasingly troubled by their relationship, with memories of Lila floating around and her at times even taking control of William's body for short periods of time.

This all came to a head on November 29, William and Tanya were lying in bed together, discussing their feelings for one another. William, confused in that moment, accidentally called her Lila instead of Tanya. Tanya, confused, asked who Lila is. This moment gave Lila enough power to completely take over William's body, forcing him out of control. From here, Lila/the Stranger murdered Tanya in William's kitchen, while William, a disembodied soul, was forced to watch what his body was doing in horror.

## Plot

Having now been relegated to an unused reel, the essence of William's being has slipped through the cracks, only accessible in strange, metaphysical locations. It is possible that there are certain moments where his true self comes through in Lila's responses during the events of the game, but never is he able to completely regain control of his own body. Of course, it is not revealed to the player right away that Lila is the main character being controlled, and not William.

The body-less William can be encountered in a few ways. First, his voice can be heard on the mobile phone that sits on the end table in his own living room. This phone call occurs after practicing facial expressions in the bathroom mirror at the start of the game. He says, in a weak, quiet voice "Lila, please... I beg you, let me back in." before hanging up. This refers to him being locked out of using his own body.

William can be next encountered during the Wheel of Fortune ending, where he takes the form of a large machine with a rotating wheel attached at the top of a tower (similar to, but not the same as the tower seen in The Tower ending). He converses with Lila, but in an unexpectedly friendly way, which seems to annoy her. She tells him to stop calling her on the phone and mentions that even with "her" help he won't be able to trick her. William then says he has something for Lila, and the wheel that is attached to his mechanical form is put into Lila's inventory. William cannot be further interacted with at this point.

Finally, William can be encountered as Wheeliam, accessible only by corrupting a save and loading into it. See Wheeliam's page for more specific information on this form of William.

## Trivia

* William is confirmed in-game to have black hair, thanks to one variation of the Justice ending mentioning Professor Murie describing him as a young man with black hair.
* Garage Heathen has stated that William's appearance was initially inspired by Richard Horne, a character from *Twin Peaks* .