codelyoko

I'm not the kind of guy who tries to steal the show.

–William to his new teammates in Final Round

William Dunbar is one of the two secondary tritagonists of Code Lyoko. He is the sixth member of the Lyoko Warriors, who fell under the influence of X.A.N.A. and served him for many months.

After first appearing in the second season of Code Lyoko as one of Yumi's classmates and love interests, William soon became involved in the adventures of the team, earning their trust long enough to be invited to join them in Final Round. However, on his first trip to Lyoko, he was possessed by X.A.N.A., who quickly turned William into his most powerful general and the group's deadliest foe.

William was finally freed in the episode Down to Earth, where he returned to Earth and attempted to make up for his past actions. During the events of the Code Lyoko Evolution episode Rivalry, he was officially accepted onto the team once more.

Personality

Don't give up with that girl, Odd. Just look at me, I never lost hope with Yumi!

– William to Odd in How to Fool X.A.N.A.

William displays a laid-back interest towards almost everything, from classwork and school rules to his own interests and hobbies. The lone exception to this is his interest in girls; William was kicked out of his last school for posting love-letters around the entire school, and was no less theatrical when he arrived at Kadic. He claims that love can 'drive him crazy,' and jumps at any occasion to spend time with Yumi. He enjoys flirting and 'casually' bragging about his dedication to her, despite it never leaving an impact. In the few times his room was shown, music and art supplies were seen, implying he was artistically inclined.

William's playfulness and pursuit could quickly lead into unwarranted harassment. In the episode The Secret, he refused to let Yumi walk away until she 'gave him a kiss goodnight;' in the same episode he later grabbed onto her shoulder after she snuck away from him, leading to an angry reaction from Yumi.

William was mostly cordial with Ulrich, if not slightly dismissive and guarded, but the relationship eventually degraded as Ulrich's jealousy began to show. Despite his awareness of his interest, William warned him to either make a move before he did. Despite it, William gradually earned his favor, enough for Ulrich to approve of him joining the group.

William's actions and personality often fluctuate to accommodate for his role in the particular episode: in demanding situations, such as Attack of the Zombies, Lyoko Minus One and The Secret, he appears more earnest and serious, often acting as an ally and demonstrating his bravery with X.A.N.A attacks, such as showing his ability to disarm bombs and fight an entire possessed class. This earns him a good amount of credit that allows him to be recognized as a potential recruit.

However, in other occasions, such as Final Round, his immaturity is highlighted more strongly and lead to his possession by XANA.

William's intelligence is fluctuating at best. He is easily distracted (a point that made him a prime target for X.A.N.A.), and his academic life often suffers because of his lack of focus and clear-headedness. In the episode Aelita he claimed to have learned everything about American history, before realizing that his exam was in math.

In sharp contrast to his talkative and mellow nature, while XANAfied, William was a quiet and ruthless warrior on Lyoko, never speaking more than a few phrases and often in a deeper artificial tone. Unlike XANA's monsters, William was able to match the combat intellect of others and enter towers, making him far more dangerous. Even after his restoration, his actions were enough to leave a bad impression towards the others, which he felt were not merited.

Biography

William was kind of a loner at first, having been kicked out of his previous school for posting love letters everywhere. At some point between the end of Season 1 and Season 2, he arrives at Kadic and quickly develops an interest in Yumi Ishiyama, his classmate. Upon first introduction, he already makes the effort to get paired with her for classwork and spend time with her. Yumi, for his fault, appears to enjoy his company. However, upon becoming more aware of his more negative personality traits, Yumi found him increasingly less trustworthy.

To nobody's surprise, William wants to be more than just friends, causing conflict between him and Ulrich, when both of them vie for Yumi's affections. His appearances in the show become more frequent during the third season when Jeremie suggests to the team that William should join their group by voting, and everyone except for Yumi agrees. As fighting on Lyoko becomes harder and harder and X.A.N.A. manages to force Aelita to delete the last of four Lyoko's sectors, the group decides to let William join as the fifth backup on Lyoko.

However, X.A.N.A. takes advantage of William's immature approach to the dangers of Lyoko and uses the Scyphozoa to take control of his mind and body, effectively trapping him in Lyoko. Jeremie creates a stable polymorphic spectre with William's basic memories, and a basic personality in order to prevent suspicion among the school. Over time, this "clone" becomes much more popular than William was, but due to his 'dumb' personality, he unknowingly causes trouble for the warriors. His personality also became a bit of a gag in the show, best seen in the episode Wreck Room. In Down to Earth, William is finally freed from X.A.N.A.'s control and returns to Earth. However, his behavior pre-X.A.N.A. causes tension between him and the rest of the Warriors (except Aelita), who are reluctant to associate with him any further, as seen in Fight to the Finish. Additionally, many students in Kadic, unaware of the truth, held the belief William was either a comedic genius or truly stupid, on account of his clone's reputation.

In tandem with this, in Quest for Infinity, he was a secondary antagonist. However, he was still rescued from X.A.N.A., complete with recycled footage from Down to Earth.

William's role in the sequel series is to seek redemption, which he later succeeds. In Cortex, after Odd got himself locked up in a utility room, William, instead of helping him out, went to the Cortex and takes Odd's place. For this, Odd was really mad at him, even having a thought of devirtualizing him. After rejoining the team, they stop fighting and became friendly to each other. In Rivalry, William and Ulrich put down their disagreements after William saves Ulrich from falling into Digital Sea. William becomes more serious about the missions in order to be worthy for the others to trust.

When the Lyoko Warriors discover the existence of source codes, William appears to be the only one who does not have them. This makes him a more distanced member, as he is the only Lyoko Warrior who cannot deactivate towers. That doesn't stop him from becoming a vital support to the group when X.A.N.A. attacks or while exploring the Cortex, always fighting with passion and resolving many situations.

Being one of the codeless only deprives him of the ability to deactivate towers on Lyoko. On Earth, William is not targeted by spectres. This makes him the only one who can be exposed to them without risk, or almost none.

In Mutiny, William returns in X.A.N.A.'s possession after he falls victim to the Scyphozoa. However, since the monster fails to seize him completely, it remains attached to William. Later, he is freed thanks to the help of his friends.

William is not given a major role in the group's major decisions. Not only does he support his friends in the fight against X.A.N.A. and its spectres, he also supports them in the discovery of the Cortex and Tyron's Ninjas. Finally, he is on their side for all major decisions regarding what to do next, especially after the discovery of Aelita's mother's survival.

After the team infects the Cortex with their virus, William stands beside Aelita and the rest of the group and says that Aelita is strongest of them. When they go to the Supercomputer Room to shut it back down again, it is a clear sign that he earned his place in the group, once and for all.

In Mutiny, Aelita says that William is a very sensitive person and it is easy to hurt his feelings.

Appearances

William has Caucasian skin, blue-black hair, and (what can only be described as) blue eyes, and wears a black T-Shirt with over a bright-red longsleeved undershirt, navy blue jeans rolled up to his knees, and brown boots. As of Season 4, his T-shirt is branded with a red logo, his pants are unrolled, he carries a black satchel, and wears a brown leather jacket that matches his boots.

On Lyoko, he was dressed in white and grey full-body armor with black accents, dark teel leggings and accents underlining his arms and hands, and pale cyan heeled boots. He also had a reddish magenta belt, spots on the medial malleolus of the tibias on his boots, and half handle on his zweihander (the other half being black), which had a triangular insignia on the apex of the hilt and a silver blade with spots of discoloration resembling Damascus steel and a single notch on the curve of the cutting edge.

After XANA enslaved him, he was completely redecorated in its own XANAfied image, with distinctive asymmetrical and punk elements: his overall color palette swapped to a darker color consisting of black and grey with red-magenta accents. His forehead and chest were branded with the sign of XANA and his white armor was replaced with a dark grey catsuit with silver, black, and reddish magenta accents. Other details consist of black sleeves concealed with dark grey gloves ending with striped bands on his deltoids, strips on his black boots resembling laces, a black corset like belt reaching all the way up to his ribcage and two leather buckled straps on his left thigh. His Zweihander was altered as well, changing the elegant triangular hilt to the XANA symbol engulfed with an infectious black growth giving it the exact likeness of a tower. Finally, he wore a large gray spiked gauntlet on his left arm, which had the unique ability to resist and even deflect other weapons.

Season Two

Season Three

Season Four

Code Lyoko Evolution

Video Games

Relationships

Yumi Ishiyama

Unlike Ulrich, William doesn't hide his feelings for Yumi. Ever since William arrived at Kadic, he is often seen together with Yumi, chatting with her, and sometimes acting romantic toward her, as first seen in Saint Valentine's Day. If that wasn't bad enough for Ulrich, Yumi doesn't seem to mind it. In A Bad Turn, William directly declared his feelings for Yumi, even trying to steal a kiss, but Yumi rejected him. She remained silent when William bluntly said she was rejecting him for Ulrich. Nonetheless, William still remained the same throughout, not hiding his feelings for Yumi and refusing to give up on her.

During Season 3, William became a pot of glue, which started to annoy Yumi. She clearly tells him this in The Secret, denouncing his "two-bit Casanova act," saying how it was nice at first, but was now simply annoying for her. Her harsh words upset him. She was also the one who refused to let him enter the team following a group vote, believing he couldn't be trusted, though William was convinced that Ulrich was the one who had rejected him. However, she changes her mind at the end of Double Trouble and thanks to her, William joins the group.

X.A.N.A.'s possession at William gave the complex love triangle between himself, Yumi and Ulrich some fresh air. This event moves the tension far away from matters of the heart. Nevertheless, the veracity of William's feelings is pressed in The Lake. Yumi calls the real William while he is preparing to devirtualize her. The real William briefly resurfaces and tries to stop X.A.N.A. from attacking Yumi. However, he quickly caved back to the mind control again.

After William is freed and X.A.N.A. was defeated, he resumed his flirting with Yumi, however, she tells him the truth: he's not the one she loves, and he has to give up hope. However, William will not give up that easily.

In Evolution, William is clearly still in love with Yumi. He shows to be slightly seductive towards her in X.A.N.A. 2.0 by complimenting her hair and tries to give her love poems in Mutiny. He even declares to Odd in How to Fool X.A.N.A. that he has never lost hope with Yumi (to which the latter implied wasn't necessarily a good thing).

However, William seems to have backed down a little, since he never expressed his feelings directly to Yumi as he had done in the past. He even invites Ulrich to support her in Suspicions. In False Pretenses, Odd asked William if he had kissed Yumi yet, to which both the real William and the X.A.N.A. clone responded in the same hesitant answer, saying "Uhh... pass." This made Odd facepalm because they wouldn't answer the question nor did it help distinguish the real William from the fake one.

Ulrich Stern

Since his first arrival at Kadic, Ulrich was the only member in the group who had problems with William, due to both of them competing for Yumi's attention. At first, William doesn't take it too far, but for Ulrich, things quickly turn very hostile. He becomes convinced that William is doing anything he can to seduce Yumi, although, at this point, William's intentions were just to get to know her better. In Marabounta, William quickly found out that Ulrich also has feelings for Yumi. Instead of trying to out-do him, William tries to give Ulrich advice, which, given his huge amount of pride, Ulrich doesn't follow at all, so William decided to take his chance. William gets closer and closer to Yumi, and that's when he realizes that Ulrich is one of the reasons why Yumi doesn't reciprocate his feelings. Since then, William's rivalry with Ulrich became more obvious. William has tried to humiliate him in front of Yumi, insulting and provoking him, even getting into a fist-fight with him in A Bad Turn.

Despite their rivalry, William has shown that he doesn't mind teaming up with Ulrich when the situation calls for it, as seen in Lyoko Minus One, when he joins Ulrich to rescue Yumi from X.A.N.A.'s attack, and when he helped Ulrich to defuse the bomb in The Secret.

During Evolution, William and Ulrich are still on bad terms because both of them are still competing for Yumi's heart, and also because of William's prior possession by X.A.N.A.. However, they decide to put their differences aside in Rivalry, when Ulrich refuses to team up with William in an attempt to prove to everyone that they don't need William. In the end, William and Ulrich decide to become friends after William saves Ulrich from falling to Digital Sea. Since then, they've stayed on good terms, despite William still hoping for Yumi.

Odd Della Robbia

William has a pretty fine relationship with Odd. Odd likes his rebellious side, but deplores his lack of humor. Before William joined the group, they are rarely seen having interactions with each other. The most notable one is in Final Mix, when Odd offered to help him fix a mixing board that William had accidentally dropped, and in A Bad Turn, when he teamed up with Odd to defeat a materialized Krab.

In Cortex, William was very upset at Odd when he refuses to let William rejoin the group, also because Odd reminded William about how he got captured by the Scyphozoa like an amateur. Later in the episode, William get his revenge at Odd by taking Odd's place in a mission and ignoring Odd, who was locked in the locker room (he even asked Odd about how it feels to be trapped like an amateur). Due to this, Odd was very mad at him. After William rejoined the group, they started to have a good relationship again. Often, William gets annoyed by Odd's crazy acts on Lyoko, despite sometimes he finds it helpful.

Jeremie Belpois

During Season 2, William is almost never seen talking with Jeremie. The only time they were interacting in Season 2 was in Attack of the Zombies, where William tried to prevent Jeremie Aelita and Odd from leaving the cafeteria to the Factory because of the zombies.

Even after William joined the team in Season 3 and rejoined in Evolution, they are still rarely seen together. Despite this, they are still good friends. However there were some moments of tension like in Final Round where William ignored Jeremie's warnings about the Scyphozoa which lead to his possession.

Aelita Schaeffer

Just like with Jeremie, William is rarely seen talking with Aelita before he joined the team. The only time they talked in Season 2 was in Final Mix, when Aelita was fixing the mixing board and William offered her to be a DJ in the school party. She was also the only one who defended him after the group rejected his company in Fight to the Finish, saying that he is not their enemy anymore and he was X.A.N.A.'s slave against his will. She also notes to the rest of the group that she was captured several times by X.A.N.A. and that anyone could have been in his situation. Interestingly, due to her role as Waldo's daughter and the only person able to deactivate towers, William often targeted Aelita on behalf of XANA.

After he rejoined the team in Evolution, they become good friends. Often, William saved the day for Aelita in missions, as seen when he saves Aelita in Cortex, and when he sacrificing himself to save her in Suspicions.

Laura Gauthier

Laura appears to be the member that William was being the least open to. He shows to be incapable of stopping her from going to the Factory in Virus. He has never shown to be outwardly hostile about her presence in the group and he accompanies her on her last stand in Mutiny. During this period, he even draws Laura's attention to the consequences her behavior would have on her being in the group. In the end, he remains silent when the group decides to exclude her. This tacit sympathy is due to the fact that Laura is in a more or less similar situation to his.

Parents

Unlike the rest of the group besides Yumi, William regularly contacts his parents. After X.A.N.A. possesses William in Final Round, William's father calls Mr. Delmas a few weeks later in Double Take worried that his son hasn't been answering his phone.

William's mother and father become so concerned that they decide to visit Kadic in Down to Earth to check on their son (really the clone) and ask him why he hasn't called them lately. The clone's behavior disturbs them so much they nearly call the authorities to run tests on him to see if he really is their son until the real William shows up.

William has a good relationship with his parents, who lied about him being expelled from his last school so he could get into Kadic. His parents don't look down on him for his behavior, with his father describing him as "a dynamic, rebellious youngster" to Mr. Delmas. William's mother also calls him by the nickname "Willy" in the French version.[1]

Powers and Abilities

William wields a large sword called Zweihänder. Its name literally means "Two-Hander" in German. Traditionally, Zweihänders are wielded with two hands due to their great weight. Evidence of the sword's weight can be found in the episode Final Round when William attempted to hold it with one hand and then dropped it. His sword also fires energy slashes when he swings it. Due to it's size and weight, William relies on raw strength than specialized technique, unlike martial arts trained warriors such as Yumi and Ulrich, and to block projectile weapons such as laser arrows and energy fields.

Current Power

Former Abilities (Exclusive to When Under X.A.N.A.'s Control)

Vehicle

Etymology

William is an English variant of the German given name Wilhelm, which itself roughly translates to "the will to protect." Dunbar is a surname of Gaelic origin, taken from the town of Dunbar in southeastern Scotland. The name loosely translates as "fort on a summit," a reference to Dunbar Castle, located on headland overlooking the North Sea.

Trivia

Gallery

>> More images of William in Season 2

>> More images of William in Season 3

>> More images of William in Season 4

>> More images of William in Evolution


Others


See Also

References

  1. ↑ "French vs English - S4 - Part 2" (Down to Earth) - CodeLyoko.fr
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Interview with Sophie Decroisette" - CodeLyoko.fr (2016)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Interview - Sophie Decroisette, partie 2". Ces Dessins Animés-Là qui méritent qu'on s'en souvienne. March 11, 2014.
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