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Attention: Novel Content This article or section contains information original to the novel Fable: Blood Ties, which is a licensed Fable work, but does not necessarily conform to Lionhead's Fable canon. |
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Warning: Spoilers This section or article may contain spoilers! |
William Finn is the second eldest brother of Ben Finn. In Ben's autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Benjamin Finn, he writes that, some years prior, William was arrested for trying to run a con game on a plainclothes town guard. He was promptly arrested and taken to Bowerstone, and was never heard from again.
Early Life[]
William Finn was born in the small hamlet Ben refers to as Gunk, the second oldest of four children. Raised by his shop-keeping parents, who often struggled to buy shoes for William and his brothers and put food on the table, William and his brothers had to find other sources of sustenance, money and entertainment. For William, Jason, and Quentin, their main source of income was pickpocketing. While Ben would tell jokes to earn money (having recognized the immorality of pickpocketing and not being any good at it), William and his other brothers would rob the distracted villagers blind.
Because of Ben's help in getting them their ill-gotten gains, on Ben's eleventh birthday, William and his brothers bought him a beautiful pellet gun. It was not long after Ben discovered his talent with firearms that William and his brothers put his talent to "good" use. William and his brothers would set up a fair booth in which they challenged all comers to pit their target practice skills against Ben's. After fleecing all the locals, they soon had to rely on traders, passers-by and the occasional neighbouring villagers, out of which more often than not they would have been run out by the authorities. Unlike Ben, William didn't save up any of the money he earned. When the king died and Ben was merely fifteen years of age, a series of tragedies befell William and his family. Shortly after Jason died in a duel with an irate farmer, William was arrested after trying to run a con with the wrong person (a passing plain clothes guard). William was taken to Bowerstone, and most of his family never heard from him again.
Sometime prior to the events of Blood Ties, William was sold into slavery. Time and time again, William would escape from his master and went underground, often acquiring a new identity, and tried to lay low for as long as possible. Hoping to avoid drawing attention, he hoped to resurface and go back to his old life. Unfortunately, he never had the chance thanks to a slave hunter named Taggert, who had considered it a personal challenge to track down and capture William. Every time that he would begin to settle down, William was knocked out and awoke in a cage, chained up like an animal with Taggert up front driving a wagon back to William's master.
Reaver was soon looking for people like William - runaway slaves that were more trouble than they were worth - since he could purchase them for little money. Reaver then used these people along with the help of an alchemist named Baro to turn them into Half-breeds.
Fable: Blood Ties[]
One strange night, the town of Blackholm found itself besieged by Half-breeds, the result of an alchemical mix of humans, hobbes, and balverines held together by the forces of shadows. Lead by a large and powerful Half-breed known as the Prime, Ben goes to confront the monster, only to be pinned to the wall. Spying Ben's signet ring, the creature points to a similar ring on it's own finger and mutters a guttural "Benny?" in shock. In that moment, the youngest Finn learns that the leader of the Half-breeds is none other than his missing brother, William. Calling out to his fellows, William Finn retreats into the forest, casting one final gaze at Ben before slipping into the shadows.
Ben, desperate to find his brother again, sets off to track the retreating Half-breeds to an elaborate mansion in Millfields. Ben makes his way into the bowels of the home until he hears William's screams, afterwards in which he runs to see William being tortured by Baro. Furious, Ben beats Baro to near death, but William pleads with Ben not to kill the alchemist, as he was the only one who could restore their humanity. Attempting to escape, the two brothers are blocked off by the other Half-breeds and are forced into Reaver's arena, where Reaver offers Ben a deal - William will be cured and the two can be set free if Ben agrees to leave Blackholm to Droogan and to assassinate Page, another revolutionary hero and advisor to the Hero King that Reaver finds troublesome.
Despite William's protests, Ben agrees and leaves William behind. However, Ben is unable to bring himself to kill Page, and the two of them are attacked by the Half-breeds, who capture Page and bring her to Reaver's mansion. When Ben arrives at the mansion, Reaver proposes a new deal to Ben to save William - if he lets Page die at the hands of the Half-breeds, then he'll release William, but if he was to defend Page from the Half-breeds, then William would remain his slave.
As Ben is being led to the arena, William speaks to him for a moment. William tells Ben that they have been witholding their treatments to make them more savage, and that it was taking everything for him to just talk to him. William tells him that if Ben was to oppose him and the other Half-breeds, he doubted that he'd be able to make any of them hold back. He makes Ben promise that he'll do what it takes to survive before he's escorted the rest of the way to the arena.
The Half-breeds never make their way into the arena though, as the gnome that had been traveling with Ben destroyed the control crystal that Reaver had been using to control the Half-breeds. Now freed from control, the Half-breeds lost control and escaped, killing the guards and Baro in the process. However, due to their animalistic nature, their minds 'reset', and were compelled to complete their last unfulfilled mission - to seige Blackholm. Reaver informs Ben that by sunset, all the Half-breeds remaining humanity would be gone.
As the other Half-breeds attacked Blackholm's main gate, William made his way around and attacked Ben and Page. William promtly knocks Page out and attacks Ben, knocking him down. With the last of his humanity, William informs Ben that the gnome told him of Page's plan to take out the Half-breeds by blowing herself up with them, but he tells him that she had the wrong person in mind, taking the grenades from Page. Ben objects, but William tells Ben that he doesn't want to live as a beast and that he wished to die a man.
Willam headed for the town square, which was lined with gunpower, and summoned the Half-breeds to him. As William was about to pull the pin from one of grenades, the sun had set, and the last of William's humanity disappeared. Left with no choice, Ben shot one of the grenades on the bandolier he was wearing, setting off it and the rest of the grenades, killing William instantly.