I'm making a personal effort to not add theories that have too much reliance on things outside the stated plot ...but not having much luck. I've said it before, but Ocean is great at making mysteries, and making us care about discovering them.
I really like the direction of your thoughts. My reason for thinking her=Leia was more because I inherently believe that Willi was blackmailed over something more damaging than a non sexual relationship with Leia. The 'her' mentioned is someone Katie wouldn't be stupid enough to tell, so that does narrow it down. The grandmother having inheritance money - is that mentioned in the script? The way I read the novel the grandmother sounded like a strict lace doiley and teapot kind of grandmother - the kind that thinks a church summer camp is fun and wholesome rather than the start of a horror story. BUt thats not the script either, all we know is that the grandmother is there, and Helen used to burn the flyers for the camps, we've only got one mention of her, and it's not in a fearful way, it sounds more like the grandmother is a busybody and Helen was having none of it:
l "It's about an organization we've encountered in our youth."
l "Remember the flyers about these religious summer camps?"
l "Where our fucking grandma wanted to send us?"
scene af242 with dssa
d "Oh yeah, I remember them."
d "Helen always burned them."
I do agree that it's more likely to be something more than Leia that caused William to leave, as he didn't flinch when Dana mentioned the rumours about him and Leia after he left.
I don't think the old version had anything specific to cause him to leave, but in the old version it was most likely being found out about Leia, whereas now I'm unsure. I think the idea of WIlli having set up up the conditions for someone as mysterious as Asavera is intriguing, but again it's not part of the script, so it's hard for me to agree without considering it a wild goose chase. But I do like the idea that Willi's action all those years ago set all these current dramas in motion, that the revenge or targeting of the Zane's is due to his lack of restaint or wisdom as a kid, and he crossed some serious boundaries. I don't think there was anything Machiavellian in his intents, but something that snowballed into the current situation (potentially).
And yeah, most of this could go 37 different ways, because all this is speculation extending the script to it's limits over pretty thin ice.
