Wilhelmina "Will" Vandom is the leader of W.I.T.C.H. and the keeper of the Heart of Kandrakar. She moves to Heatherfield after leaving her hometown of Fallen Hills. Her powers include bringing electrical appliances to life, granting them distinct personalities and the ability to speak. Talking with and understanding animals is also one of her capabilities. In issue 80 (emotions) Will's half-brother William was born. Later on, William found that he is magical like Will as well.
Will's guardian outfit consists of a purple crop top with long, bell-shaped sleeves, a blue mini skirt, turquoise and green tights, and purple boots(flats) just below her knees. In the New Power Arc, her skirt changes into a pair of tight shorts, which connect with her top and form swirls on her thigh area. Her sleeves move from her wrists to her mid-arm and she has long, black fingerless gloves. Her hair stays in a bob, but two strands of her hair have grown longer in the front. Her symbol is displayed across her chest on her top.
Before W.I.T.C.H.
Comics
Before she became Guardian, Will was a normal girl who was born on January 19, thus bearing the Capricorn sign, and was raised in the small town of Fadden Hills. When she was still young, her father left her and her mother. When she reached junior high school, she found out that she was able to read people's minds. The more she read her friends' minds, the more she realized the fact that they didn't enjoy her company. Will returned home crushed by this rejection. Her mother suggested that perhaps Fadden Hills held too many painful memories of the past for both of them and it was time to find a new life in a new city. At that moment, an announcement on the radio advertised the sunny town of Heatherfield. Her mother decided that Heatherfield would probably be the best place for them to move to.
Animated Series
Likewise, before she was made a Guardian, Will was a normal girl with divorced parents who lived in Fadden Hills with her mother. Unlike in the comic, however, her mother's job moved them to Heatherfield and her father did not leave them but simply divorced her mother. He is shown to visit Will, indicateing that unlike his comic counterpart, he cares for Will, but he and his ex-wife can not stand each other. Her birthday in the animated series is somewhere in the fall. Little else is known about Will's life before W.I.T.C.H. She became friends with Irma Lair, Taranee Cook, Cornelia Hale and Hay Lin when Hay Lin asked Will to come over for tea. After Will was kidnapped and her new friends rescued her, she realized that they were her real friends and that they wouldn't let her down Forming W.I.T.C.H.
Comics
On her first day at her new school in Heatherfield, Will bumped into Taranee Cook, a girl who had also just moved to Heatherfield a few days before. The two of them became fast friends, and later, best friends, and it was not long before Taranee and Will become friends with Irma Lair, Cornelia Hale, Hay Lin and Elyon Brown. Taranee is now Will's best friend in the series. As luck would have it, that night was the school's Halloween dance and the four girls urged Will and Taranee to come with them. They agreed, Will a bit reluctantly. That night at the dance, a dangerous prank by Uriah and his less-than-intelligent gang, involving firecrackers put the girls and everyone at the party in harm's way, but with Taranee's quick thinking (and a brief use of her powers), they managed to escape without a scratch.
The next day, the girls gathered at Hay Lin's house to recall the strange dream three of them had. It was there that Yan Lin, Hay Lin's grandmother, told them the legend of the Guardians of Kandrakar, the group of five warriors that the girls were supposed to become, and entrusted Will with the Heart of Kandrakar. The girls were naturally in disbelief of these so-called powers and decided to go on with their lives. It wasn't until later that night when two shadowy figures ambushed Will, Irma, and Hay Lin that their powers reached their peak and they were able to transform into their Guardian forms to fight the evil duo off. From that moment on, the group known as W.I.T.C.H. was born and their task at protecting and keeping order in the universe began.
Animated Series
Just a few days after Will's first day at school, Yan Lin (Hay Lin's paternal grandmother) felt the Heart of Kandrakar, which she kept locked up in a Chinese box inside her closet, struggling to be set free. Following orders from the Oracle, Yan Lin used her weak mind-influencing powers to make Hay Lin invite her three best friends, Taranee, Cornelia and Irma and the new girl Will for tea and cookies after school. While eating, Yan Lin explains about the Veil, Meridian, the Heart of Kandrakar, and the elemental powers and abilities of water, fire,earth, and air, each girl was given, although nothing is mentioned about Kandrakar. She then entrusts the Heart of Kandrakar to Will. The other girls' newfound connection to Will draws them close and makes them fast friends with her.
Powers and Abilities
Will is the keeper of the talisman known as the Heart of Kandrakar and she possesses the power of Quintessence, or Absolute Energy (known as Chi in China and Japan). She is the strongest out of the five Guardians and one of the most powerful characters in the series.
Comic books
In the comic books, Will could wield the power of Absolute Energy ever since she became a Guardian of the Veil. This power and ability manifested itself in hot-pink energy blasts, which Will later learned to use as a barrier or shield. In addition, her powers allowed her to talk to inanimate objects and electrical appliances and even give them names. That's how she discovered all of them have a personality of their own.
Will also possesses other Guardian powers such as glamouring, teleporting, sensing magical phenomena, and empathy toward animals. Will also is the first one to learn how to make herself invisible and has special abilities due to her status as Keeper of the Heart of Kandrakar that her four fellow Guardians do not possess. For instance, she can contact the Heart's past Keepers and transform the girls between their Guardian and human forms. During the time of the Veil, Will could open portals. When she is in a desperate situation, Will can sometimes allow the Heart to improvise and help her out.
Will's empathy toward animals works this way: animals are empathic to Will, and react to her mood, for example, when Will is happy, the animals around her are happy. Animals can also read Will's mind, as seen in one issue.
With the Heart of Kandrakar, Will can also create astral drops that are exact physical copies of the girls; but they have a catch: they're totally mindless.
At the beginning of the New Power Arc, Matt, on the orders of the Oracle, steals all of Will's original powers and abilities, as well as the Heart of Kandrakar. This is so that she, and the other Guardians, would be able to receive the immense power and ability of the five elements in their purest form, giving them the strength to defeat the Dark Mother. The Heart of Kandrakar reappeared at the end of this story arc, and was presented to Yan Lin when she became the new Oracle of Kandrakar.
Animated series
In season one, Will is shown not having any power other than flight, opening portals, and the ability to unite and transform herself and her fellow Guardians. It is unknown as to why she has no elemental ability, although it can be debated that she either had not known that she had any power (note that Yan Lin had not specified that Will had the power of Quintessence or Energy: "One of the five binds the others, and with the Heart of Kandrakar, unites them, summoning and magnifying their powers".), or her power are not fully developed. How ever, she can improvise by summoning flashes of pink light from the Heart of Kandrakar, as shown in the episodes and.
In season two, Will is granted the power of Quintessence. Quintessence manifests itself in whitish blue lightning, which she can use to animate inanimate objects, fire offensive lightning bolts and produce a full body pulse, shockwave or discharge of electrical power and energy. In addition, her powers grant her the ability to talk to electrical appliances.
It also possible for Will to literally become one with her elemental ability (also becoming one with the nymph Xin Jing, the original possessor of Quintessence), becoming a whitish blue lightning-like being of pure electrical energy, greatly increasing and strengthening all of her powers and abilities to their absolute zenith. However this is risky and dangerous as it costs Will her humanity (both her human form, heritage and memory) which she managed to literally find with Matt's help. This occurred for the first time in the season two finale as a last resort when the Guardians found no other way to defeat the enhanced Lord Cedric.
As the Keeper of the Heart of Kandrakar (also spelled Candracar), the physical embodiment of Kandrakar, a.k.a. the Heart of Infinity's power, Will has the power to channel the magic of the Aurameres into the Heart and therefore enter the Guardians greatly strengthening and amplifying all of their powers and abilities and transforming them into their Guardian form with colorful blue-and-pink costumes, different hairstyles, and pixie-like wings which they can all use to fly. Will can use the power of the Heart to close and,as the series progresses, open project in the Veil, release a blinding pink light from the Heart, project a force field of pink energy, create numerous fake copies that would disappear in a flash of light, reveal the true form of another, locate other Guardians using their Aurameres and show images of places and people. The Heart of Kandrakar, has a telempathic connection with Will able to instinctively respond and act on its own will when the Guardians are in danger and can absorb, activate, and merge with other magical items. When the Veil was taken down, Will soon learned how to open folds in space and time to traverse different dimensions. Unlike the comics Will does not keep the heart within her but in her backpack or, around her neck.
Will has displayed the power of superhuman strength and toughness on several scales, able to use a tree like a baseball bat, catch a falling catapult like it was a football, and has a sensitivity to magic and supernatural writing and phenomena. She has empathic abilities with animals as they seem to reflect her mood and has an natural affinity for tele-transportation, being the first to wield this universal Guardian ability. She is even strong enough to break through steel or rock with but a single punch and is semi-invulnerable. She took down several of Takeda's robots on her own in a matter of seconds.
Weaknesses
The Star of Threbe: Will as well as the rest of the guardians was rendered powerless due to the power of the Star of Threbe, used to find Elyon. The star renders powerless anyone who might prevent her from returning home. Ironicaly the star was created with the Heart of Kandrakar.
Love Life
In both the comic book series and animated series, Will's crush is and always has been Matt Olsen, a boy from her school who plays in a band, though their relationship has not been easy. In the comics, when Will's Astral Drop kissed him as a mistake and then slapped him across the face a day later he finds it difficult to understand Will, even finding the situation annoying. However he does mention that this makes her "special". Due to Will's insecurity she can become quickly jealous of seeing Matt with another girl and always suspects that they're dating. She even once thought Matt was flirting with Hay Lin when in truth they were just talking and making jokes. When Matt introduces Will to his friend, Mandy, she believes she must be his girlfriend due to the fact that her Astral Drop saw them hugging. She becomes cruel to Mandy even using her powers to make her lose a swimming contest. She also behaves cruelly toward Matt, saying how much of a coward he is of not telling the truth. When Mandy finally finds out the reason why Will is rude to her, she tells her that she used to date Matt when they were in kindergarten but they remained just friends after they became older. The reason why they hugged was because Mandy heard that night that her parents were going to have a divorce and Matt was comforting her.
Another situation which caused Will to have an outburst was when she thought Matt liked Orube. Will screamed to him to tell her the truth and how he did not understand her going as far as saying she believed he was her friend. This caused Matt to become a bit annoyed by her dramatic behavior. However, Matt also has become jealous: Due to a misunderstanding, he believed Will dated Eric (Hay Lin's boyfriend), and ignored her because of this. This caused Will to be very confused as they had a romantic date weeks ago. Nevertheless, the two started dating again.
During a date they were attacked by Cedric who was trying to steal the Heart which Will used to save Matt from a deadly fall. Before Cedric could steal it away Matt saved Will and stopped Cedric. Because of these events Will was forced to tell Matt everything. The two of them become closer but Matt finds the responsibility of even knowing all this about Will too much to bear and he remains distant with her. Will also becomes distant with the rest of W.I.T.C.H., who believed Will made a huge mistake and she should never have told him. Matt and Will find each other again soon afterward, and become closer.
In the New Power Arc Matt becomes more and more involved with their adventures. He starts rather behaving very seriously and is cold toward Will, making her question if he truly loves her. Yet, in Issue 83, she finally confronted Matt with the question: "Do you love me... still?" and with a somewhat poetic speech, he assures Will that he's still in love with her. After that, they share a romantic night in the W.I.T.C.H. headquarters.
In Issue 50 a possible future was shown, in which Matt had broken up with Will.
In Issue 128 they have a huge argument and Matt finally ended the relationship.
Later they return to being lovers.
In the first W.I.T.C.H. novel, Will falls in love with her new neighbor, a cute boy who is talented in dancing. (His name is Danny Nova) However, he turned out to be an alien and steals the Heart of Kandrakar from her. Will, Matt and her friends go to his planet to get it back.
In the animated series, Will starts to date Matt, but once Matt finds out of Will's "other life", their relationship gets more complicated. In season 2 episode "V is for Victory", Will meets Mandy, Matt's friend from summer camp. Will sees her and Matt talking after she lost the race to Mandy (Mandy is first place and Will is second place). Will quickly becomes jealous. She used her powers to beat Mandy in the second race and immediately regrets it.
Irma is 14 year old teen. She has shoulder length, light-brown, slightly wavy hair and greenish-blue eyes. her birthday is March 13, and her sign is Pisces.
She likes taking long baths and showers, shopping, rock music and making up nicknames.
Irma is crazy about boys and has had many different crushes, the first being Andrew Hornby (but nothing happened between them),and after she has a sweet friendship with Joel. But her first love was Stephen, her only real boyfriend.
Her idol is Karmilla, a rock singer; she's also a big fan of soccer player David Addams.
In Issue #50 her alternate future was a Dolphin Trainer, but in issue #121 her true future is to be a teacher.
Irma is a spunky, cheerful, optimistic, and humorous person. Compared to the other members of W.I.T.C.H., she is the cockiest member of the team and she often appears to be the least serious as she is known to crack jokes about almost anyone she comes in contact with. Despite her tendency to joke around when faced with a problem, she is a kindhearted person who cares about those she has relationships with.
She can often be seen using her powers for personal gain. Irma can be a bit squeamish at times, and fainted when she saw Mrs. Rudolph in her true Meridian form the first time.
When necessary, she exhibits leadership qualities. Irma almost always wants to be center stage, and, depending on the person, can or can't hold grudges for long. She also has a big appetite, revealed by the time she devours all of Mrs. Rudolph's cookies without a care for them possibly being poisoned, unlike the other more cautious Guardians. Irma can be seen as the biggest flirt and boy expert of the group.
She only told one person about being the water guardian — Stephen.
Irma loves music, her idol is Karmilla and in the TV Show, she runs K-Ship at Sheffield Institute.
She lives in a house with her policeman father Tom Lair, her pesky 7 year old half-brother Christopher Lair (who only misbehaves due to copying his sister's immaturity), and Anna Lair, who is her stepmother in the comics and her mother in the animated series. In the comics she has a pet turtle named Leafy, in whom she confides all her secrets.