Willard H. Wright

"Don't think too deeply about it. You'll just get a headache."

- Willard H. Wright, Willard H. Wright (ウィラード・H・ライト) is the Chief Inquisitor of Heresy at the SSVD, the 8th District Repentance Enforcement Agency of the Great Court of Heaven. He serves as the protagonist of.

Appearance
Willard appears as a slim man with golden eyes and auburn hair containing a single streak of bright red. He wears a white shirt under a blue longcoat. A purple sash is tied around his waist and two brown belts cross his body. He wears a thin necklace with a golden anchor.

Though usually unseen, Willard carries a black-and-white sword that he uses to slice through illusions.

Personality
Willard sometimes speaks in a brusque manner, which earns him the occasional ire of Lion. Otherwise, he maintains a relatively neutral personality, often preferring to mirror the level of formality used by whomever he is speaking to. He remains impartial, to the best of his abilities, when it comes to the nature of magic and the Beatrice. Willard is a firm believer in the importance of motive in mysteries, a belief shared by Battler Ushiromiya.

Requiem of the Golden Witch
Willard serves as the protagonist of and is forced to play a game against Bernkastel. His objective is to solve the murder of Beatrice. To help his investigation, Bernkastel gives him a new piece: Lion Ushiromiya. Together, the pair interrogate several members of the Ushiromiya family about three different Beatrices; they ask Rosa Ushiromiya about her experience with Beatrice Ushiromiya, Kinzo Ushiromiya about his experiences with Beatrice Castiglioni, and Maria Ushiromiya about the nature of the witch Beatrice.

After hearing the story of Sayo Yasuda from Clair Vaux Bernardus, Willard determines the two culprits responsible for "killing" Beatrice. Bernkastel releases him from the game and he leaves the Fragment. He returns during the Tea Party to save Lion from Bernkastel's cruelty.

Trivia

 * Willard's namesake is Willard Huntington Wright, a famous art critic who wrote a series of popular detective novels under the pseudonym "S.S. Van Dine."
 * Willard's Twenty Wedges are derived from Van Dine's essay Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.
 * Willard has a cat named Diana.
 * The colors used in Willard's design (red hair, golden eyes, blue jacket, purple sash) mirror the four types of color-based truths used throughout Umineko no Naku Koro ni; Red Truth, Golden Truth, Blue Truth, and Purple declarations.