Will Munson and Gwen Norbeck
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Will Munson and Gwen Norbeck Munson are fictional characters and a popular couple on the American soap opera As the World Turns. Will is played by Jesse Soffer and Gwen is played by Jennifer Landon. The couple is often lauded by critics and fans as the show's next supercouple, comparing them to ATWT's staple couple Holden and Lily Snyder. Will and Gwen are commonly referred by the portmanteau "Willen" (for Will and Gwen) on internet message boards.
[edit] Storyline
Will Munson met Gwen Norbeck when mutual friend Alison Stewart set them up. The two did not get along at all, but Gwen was very interested in Will's best friend Casey Hughes. Will harbored a crush on Casey's girlfriend Celia Ortega, but she started to become more and more annoyed by Will's melancholy attitude and finally just told him to get over it. After that, Will started seeing the kind-hearted Celia in a new light.
His feelings for Celia growing deeper by day, Will was devastated to overhear her tell Casey she loved him. Gwen, who'd been bugging Casey for weeks, overheard also and her reaction caused Will to suspect that she was in love with Casey. But Gwen had a deeper secret - she was pregnant with Casey's baby. Realizing that she hadn't been taking care of herself, Will gallantly took her to get some pre-natal care. Later, although Will urged her to tell Casey the truth, Gwen refused and Will promised he won’t reveal her secret. Although Gwen wanted to hide her condition, Celia and Casey accidentally uncovered it. Horrified that someone had gotten Gwen pregnant, Celia demanded to know who the father was. Knowing how devastated Celia would be if she learned it was Casey, Will lied and stated that he was the father. Although Gwen tried to tell Casey the truth, his attitude caused her to clam up and she went along with Will's lie.
When Will’s mother, Barbara Ryan, heard the news, she insisted on a paternity test that proved that Will was not the father. Believing that she couldn’t give her baby a good home, Gwen made plans to give the child up for adoption. She seemed to find the perfect mother for her baby — Rosanna Cabot, now divorced from Will's brother Paul Ryan and married to Craig Montgomery. The lack of pre-natal care at the start of her pregnancy caused Gwen to give birth prematurely. Coincidentally, on the same day, Will's sister Jennifer Munson (who was pregnant with Craig’s baby) was giving birth to a prematurely as well. Sadly, Jen’s baby wouldn’t survive.
Meanwhile, tragedy struck when Rosanna was run off the road by Craig and fell into a coma. With Rosanna incapacitated, and Craig in jail for attempted murder, Rosanna’s sister Carly Snyder, decided to raise the baby, whom she named Rory. The situation greatly distressed Gwen since she agreed to give the baby to Rosanna — she didn’t know or trust Carly. Not convinced that her baby would be better off with Carly, Gwen decided to sue for custody. Gwen faced a major obstacle however when the judge demanded that she name the father. Although she tried to refuse, stating that the father wanted nothing to do with the baby, she was finally forced to confess that the father was Casey. When he continued to deny it, a paternity test was done that proved Casey wasn’t the father. Confused since she knew that only Casey could be the baby’s father, Gwen was hurt when Will seemed to believe what everyone else did — that she was lying. Soon she was able to convince him that she was telling the truth — that Casey or someone else must have rigged the test.
Later the custody battle seemed to be turning in Gwen’s favor with her getting visitation rights. In the meantime, Gwen was shocked when her mother, Iris, stepped back into her life. Iris had been a neglectful, alcoholic mother who Gwen got legally emancipated from. Although Gwen was skeptical, Iris claimed that she’d changed and was here to support her daughter. Unbeknownst to Gwen, Iris had a history with Carly as well — she’d dated Carly’s father when Carly was a young girl and apparently had a baby boy who died by Carly’s hand. Painting herself as the perfect mother, Iris petitioned the court to let Gwen have temporary custody of the baby while under her care. The judge agreed and a reluctant Gwen moved back home.
After a few weeks when Iris accused Will of poisoning her, Gwen and Will ran off with Rory to New York City. It was in NYC that Gwen and Will shared their first kiss. Meanwhile, Carly and her husband, Jack, went to NYC to locate them. Finally they found them. On the steps of the New York University, Carly and Gwen were on the top steps and Jack, Will and Iris were near the bottom of the steps. Gwen was holding on to the baby carriage, when Carly and her got into fight over Rory, Gwen lost her balance. The carriage went over first, and Jack caught the carriage, and saved Rory. Gwen lost her balance and fell down the stairs. At that moment Carly had a memory flash — Iris didn’t have a baby boy—she had a girl. Carly suddenly put two and two together and figured out that Iris set up Carly in order to get her and her baby away from the Tenneys. That meant that Gwen was her half-sister. Iris then went to jail for falsely accusing Will of poisoning her (she'd set him up).
Meanwhile, despite the revelation, Carly refused to acknowledge any sisterly bond and was still determined to keep Gwen away from the baby. In the end though both women ended up losing when another major revelation came out - Rory was NOT Gwen’s baby! He was actually Jennifer’s. Unknown to everyone, Craig had switched the babies so everyone thought that Jen’s baby had died. That explained why the paternity test showed Casey wasn’t the father — because Gwen wasn’t the mother. With the truth finally discovered, Rory was given to Jennifer and renamed John Dustin. Soon after came another stunning revelation - Paul had known about the baby switch for months and kept it quiet. Although Paul tried to defend himself by stating that he was only trying make sure Craig stayed out of Jen’s life forever, a disgusted Will wrote him out of his life.
In love, Will and Gwen wanted to live together but met resistance from everyone since they were considered too young. This wouldn't have been a problem if Will had his trust fund but he was underage and his parents refused to give him his trust fund early. Finally, Will came up with a plan to steal the money from his mother. The plan went awry with Barbara catching them. In the process of threatening to call the police, Barbara was accidentally knocked unconscious by Will in the struggle to get the phone. When she woke up she lied and stated that Gwen had done it. Will and Gwen then went on the run to avoid the authorities. With help from Casey and Maddie Coleman, the pair was able to hide out at Metro, which was long-abandoned. After a few weeks, they were discovered and Barbara changed her story when it seemed that Will, as well as Gwen, would go to jail.
Not long after, Will and Gwen decided to run away and get married. Later, Paul, in jail for what he'd done to Jennifer as well as faking his death, announced that he was turning all of his assets over to his little brother. But Will was still disgusted with Paul and refused to take a penny from him. While Barbara, unsuccessfully, tried to pay Gwen to leave Will, Will's father Hal Munson accepted the pair into his home and offered to support them as long as they went back to school. Although Will objected to the arrangement, since he felt Hal was trying to control him like Barbara did, he conceded for Gwen's sake.
Will was desperate to graduate high school so he and Gwen could move out. Noticing that Will was struggling to write a term paper that was due ASAP, new Oakdale resident Jade Taylor offered a solution - why not buy a term paper off the internet? Jade found a paper on the ecosystem on internet and pointed it out to Will who ended up passing his course. Someone found out and Will ended up not graduating and Jade later wound up losing her job. The night of graduation, Jade came across a distraught and drunken Will. Upset over an argument with Gwen, Will was comforted by Jade and the two made love on Mathers Bridge. The next day, Gwen and Will made up and he and Jade agreed to forget their tryst ever happened. However, Jade was still unemployed and she used the tryst to get Will get her a job at a new nightclub, Crash. At the same time, Jade was shocked when Gwen suggested that Jade stay with her and Will at Carly's house. Extremely touched, Jade accepted the offer and assured Will that she would never reveal their secret. The secret later came out when Maddie overheard Will and Jade talking. The same day that a hostile Maddie confronted the pair about the affair, she was attacked. Luckily for Maddie, Gwen saved her. In shock, a dazed Maddie let slip about the affair.
After throwing Will out, Gwen was attacked by a crazed slasher but was saved by Will. Devastated that Gwen seemed unable to forgive him, Will sought comfort from Jade on more than one occasion. Later, Will and Gwen seemed to be on the road to reconciliation when he saved her from the slasher again. That is until Jade made a shocking revelation — she was pregnant. Gwen refused to forgive Will for this betrayal and proceeded to leave him. Meanwhile, Jade informed Will that she would raise the baby alone, but he refused to neglect his responsibilities. Not long after, Will and Gwen got stuck in a freak snowstorm. The two talked things over and ended up making love. But no matter how much she still loved Will, Gwen could not get over the fact that Jade was having his baby. In the meantime, Jade and Gwen continued to clash and finally Jade forced Gwen into a confrontation. Jade fell and was rushed to Memorial where Will and Gwen were shocked to learn that Jade was not pregnant after all. Realizing that Jade had lied all along, Gwen forgave Will and the two reunited.
Soon after, the Munsons received devastating news — Hal was killed in a shoot-out. Will's other brother Adam Munson, now a successful record producer, arrived for his father's funeral and decided to stick around. One of the first new people he met was Jade and the pair struck up a friendship. He was also impressed with Gwen’s singing, and offered her a record deal. The problem was that Gwen was leery of working with anyone who was friends with her rival. Ultimately Gwen opted to work with Adam anyway. Gwen was inexperienced and her unprofessionalism irked on Adam. That put him in conflict with Gwen as well as Will and Casey who defended her against Adam’s criticisms.
Meanwhile, Will finally passed his GED. After offering to buy Will a cup of coffee to celebrate, . Jade wasted no time to playing on Will’s insecurities about Adam and Gwen. In the meantime, Iris was released from prison. Gwen tried to tell her she didn’t want her around, but when Iris pulled at her heartstrings, Gwen relented and cautiously let her into her life. However, Will wasn’t as charitable and bribed Iris to stay out of Gwen’s life. He later confessed the bribe to Gwen who was understanding but determined to give her mother one last chance. Before Gwen was scheduled to perform in Los Angeles, Iris showed up backstage drunk, and Gwen told her to go. Angry, Iris called Gwen trash, and Gwen slapped her. Upset, Gwen was in no shape to perform, but Adam convinced her to go on stage. Gwen’s performance was a hit and Adam spontaneously kissed her, but Iris saw the kiss and later mentioned it to Jade. Jade lashed out at Adam and Gwen confessed the kiss to Will and then decided to quit the record business to work on her marriage. Adam later tried to downplay kissing Gwen to Will, but then took full responsibility, and convinced Will to get Gwen to stick with her career.
