Having Viggo’s redemption take place on Kate and Humphrey’s twenty-fifth anniversary was completely intentional, which consequently gave me the time needed for Lydia to have her pup, which I named Josh, after myself. Why? I just thought it would be kinda cool. And it also helped the story because when Humphrey tries to kill Viggo upon seeing him, that means that for the past half year, he’s still held onto this hate for what Viggo did.

I kinda had to have Kate and Humphrey leave at night, or else it never would’ve been just them that went after Viggo since everyone else would’ve tagged along. I wanted to have this last part be just Kate, Humphrey, and Viggo because everyone else’s story wrapped up with the final battle, but Humphrey still had his problems with Viggo to deal with. Plus, it gave me a chance to give just Kate and Humphrey some time together.

When it came to Humphrey’s outrage, I wanted to make it seem as terrible as possible without hurting Viggo so he could still be able to do what I needed him to do later.

I really wanted to show how much Runt’s death and the failure to avenge it messed Humphrey up. This is the first time he sees Viggo after everything happened and his first thought is to just straight up kill him. Turning Humphrey into something he wasn’t would also stress how much Runt’s death affected him. I got the idea from the change I made to how Humphrey “died” in The Legend of the Peaceful Warrior. Originally, Humphrey was supposed to be stabbed after jumping on Robert and viciously snapping at his face, but then I figured that was way too out of character for Humphrey, so I changed it to a sacrifice. When I got to writing this, I realized that out of character was perfect, which is why I say he goes full wolf. Because he is acting exactly like a real wolf in this moment.

Then comes that moment where we see the fear on Viggo’s face it’s one of many times where we question if he really has changed this time. Having Viggo be almost completely unarmed was something I put in to add more weight to what Humphrey almost did. If Viggo had his sword or his gun, then he would’ve had a better chance of protecting himself. But if Humphrey had killed him while he had nothing but his hands to protect himself with, it would be yet another thing showing just how far Humphrey had fallen.

Now, for clarity, the reason Viggo goes down so easily here is because he really isn’t trying to hurt Humphrey, unlike the other times they’ve fought. It’s not too dissimilar to Thanos in the MCU. He seems weaker in Infinity War than he does in Endgame because in Infinity War, he’s not trying to kill everyone he’s fighting, wanting the stones to do the work. But in Endgame, he knows that won’t work, so now he’s actively trying to kill everyone that he fights. He’s not holding back in Endgame like he is in Infinity War and I kind of went for the same idea here with Viggo.

I wanted to make it unclear on whether or not Viggo has really changed to keep everyone thinking, especially since he’s played this card before and it was a trick and faking poisoning Kate was part of that deception. It was at this time that I went through the timeline and realized that the volunteer militia was so far separated from the rest of the story that I just got rid of them completely and rewrote it so that Robert just took some of Viggo’s men to the valley at the end of The Legend of the Peaceful Warrior.

I was a bit conflicted at first on the idea to have Viggo logboard with Humphrey. At first, I did it because I thought it was a fun idea. But then I went against it, because it seemed kinda weird and out of character for Viggo. But I ultimately decided to go ahead with it because it’s another thing that shows that Viggo has changed. He’s willing to go along with Humphrey’s plan rather than his own which he knows is much better. And it also shows that they actually kinda work together really well, which is something I had to show before he died.

I didn’t really have a way to explain this in the story, so I’ll do it here. A question that came up when writing Viggo’s death was that if there never was an antidote and Kate was never actually poisoned, then what would Viggo have to gain by telling them to go into the room where the antidote supposedly was? My explanation for this comes in the form of the long and narrow entryway into the room. It’s so narrow that a group of people coming in would have to do so in single file, making it the most defendable spot in the cave.

Viggo’s final monologue came together slowly, with more being added on over the course of the entire time I was writing the story. I wanted to make sure I resolved Humphrey and Viggo’s rivalry the right way, so I was careful about how I worded stuff, saying that they were never really friends, but learned to tolerate each other at the very least or how surprisingly well they worked together. Having Humphrey forgive Viggo was the last step for him to finally let go of everything Viggo has done to him over the course of his entire life. In order to end their story together properly, they had to finally resolve their problems and learn to forgive each other.