Hey there, Miner47... Tom here. I'm the guy who wrote Wattson's dialogue for Apex Legends. (Apparently, folks get skeptical around here... can you blame them? It is the Internet. I've been assured though that a Dev Sticker will appear on my account, but as this is my first post, I'm not sure if it will... so let's see if it actually does... I eagerly anticipate lots of responses about how she created the Ring. WE KNOW, WE KNOW! LOL!)
Anyway, first up, I'm so very, very sorry about your dad. There are no words at a time like this... that's what I tell myself, at least. But apparently there were: Wattson's words. And that's an incredibly powerful thing to read. I have a bit of a story for you, myself. About Wattson and those lines.
I think most would agree, Wattson isn't your typical FPS or BR character. In the months leading up to her launch, I went from feeling super confident in her, to being utterly terrified of her. The truth is, I'm not close to my father. We haven't spoken in years. He was never there for me. So when we created Wattson, and there was talk about the kind of fantasy she fulfilled for the person playing her, I remember thinking "she has a dad who loves her". An unusual fantasy for a BR game. Not quite The Trickster, or the Teleporter, or Spider-Man, or Hannibal Lecter. No, the fantasy I created was of the kid who had a dad who showed up. Every day. No matter what. Even when life got tough, he never let her down. So it just made sense to include those lines when I wrote her dialogue.
And then one month before her launch, I panicked. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! THIS WAS AN FPS! I mean, I actually wrote a line where she prays to her late father, as a celebration line for her championship?! What kind of buzzkill was I?!?!?! My colleagues at Respawn told me over and over again not to worry so much, that we had created something special in Wattson. But I thought for sure she was going to crash and burn. (We writers are our own worst critics, and there's nothing anyone on the Internet can write about our work that we haven't told ourselves, in harsher language, a thousand times over.) I was so sure those lines were a mistake... I almost cut them out of the game entirely, in fear they'd be considered laughable.
I'm so glad I was talked out of it.
To read that these lines in particular brought you comfort and (if you'll forgive the pun) solace when you needed it most is... it's humbling, to say the least. Video games are so damn powerful... just as powerful as a film or a television show. In some ways, more so. Because even though we create a character, you CONTROL them. You write your own story, through them. Everything happens for a reason. I half-joke that I don't actually write these characters. They write themselves. Wattson hopes her dad is proud of her... but it's said with a knowledge and an optimism in her voice. She isn't timid, or scared that he won't be proud... she knows he was proud of her. Same as your dad was proud of you. When I wrote that line, I wondered if maybe my dad actually was proud of me, deep down, and he just couldn't express it. And a lot of that anger I felt over being abandoned dissipated a little. And when you heard those lines, you felt close to your dad again.
I guess that Wattson really is a genius, after all. She said exactly what we both needed to hear.
Except in your case, I don't think it was Wattson. I think it was someone else. The joy you felt in the midst of sorrow - that's so real. There's some weird voice that tells us we shouldn't smile in times of mourning, but I think that's incorrect. I like to think that those we've lost would want us remembering them and smiling, or chuckling at something they did, or laughing at some way they were silly. Memories should be happy. Something tells me what happened with Wattson and her dialogue... it won't be the last time something like this happens. Something tells me your dad will send you messages like this, when you least expect it, for the rest of your life.
Take care, and thank you again for trusting us with this story. :-)
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