Heck, if I remember correctly, Wildbow was /planning/ on Taylor dying and gave her a low chance of survival. However, not only did she beat the odds, but /the character he was planning on replacing her with/ died instead.
IIRC the plan was actually for Taylor to die and Aegis to be the new protagonist. Whoops!
To add on the “death by dice roll” reveal… characters actually had modifiers on it depending on their place in the fight and their powers. Taylor had very low odds. Wildbow expected her to die. He had the story planned for her dying. And then she didn’t. Near-Invincible Alexandria almost died. No-weakpoint Aegis died. Squishy bug girl survived.
Ahaha! That’s RNG for ya!
I was rather surprised when Aegis died, but man, I can’t help but imagine Wildbow’s reaction. Especially if he rolled Aegis before Taylor and had to worry about both of them dying. Though given what I’ve been told before about Wildbow going through several protagonists before settling on Taylor, I’m sure he’d think of something.
I suppose this means that Wildbow had to go through a similar process as the one Taylor did in 8.8. “Well then, Taylor survived and Aegis didn’t. What do I do with her character now?”
…hm, I wonder, would following Aegis mean leaving the wreck of Brockton Bay behind? I mean, would they still go through with the rearrangements of the Wards in the wake of an Endbringer attack?
If so, it seems like Wildbow intended to get rid of both the current protag and the specific setting, and got stuck with both… for now, at least. Not gonna lie, I hope it stays that way, especially now that Taylor seems to have come up with a long-term objective.
In any case, I respect that Wildbow didn’t take his artistic license to ignore the dice when they fell in ways that didn’t match his plans.
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