Alright. Now let's define
willpower. That is mostly:
> Self-discipline, training and control of oneself and one's conduct, usually for personal improvement.
> Self-control, the ability of a person to exert his/her will over the inhibitions of their body or self.
Endurance:
[...](also called Sufferance, Stamina, Resilience) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from, and have immunity to trauma, wounds, or fatigue. In humans, it is usually used in aerobic or anaerobic exercise.
Alright. We've that defined. Let me expound on the bolded part of endurance and why we use that instead of willpower. Firstly, when endurance is mentioned, I'm thinking of a muscular person, running long distances - perhaps with sweat trickling down her/his forehead along with the rhythmic breathing followed by the constant pounding of the feet. This does not stop no matter how long given the runner's health.
Now willpower - its the thinking that gets you through this. How far will I get to the finish? Does it matter? I need to keep on going just for this bit longer - just another stretch of road. Just a bit more. No distractions. The scenery is aesthetically pleasing. But I'm focused. Just control your breathing.
Like that.
Now let me begin on poking at why you feel pain and why this is different from your willpower, in general. See, your skin is the largest organ of your body - that we know. Your skin contains nerve receptors and endings located on everywhere. Those that specifically feel pain (yeah, your receptors are
specified: Temperature (salinity, electric forces, humidity...), Pain, Pressure (in yer blood vessels, external body pressure, internal body pressure...), Stimuli (chemical origin, physical origin...), Light...). Whatever happens, you will feel these things.
We're focusing more on the ones that dictate your pain threshold. Nociceptors.
Back to your nervous system - its divided into two categories: Your
Peripheral Nervous System and your
Central NS. Latter = spinal cord/brain, former = nerves outside that area - everywhere else. I'll talk about the former because that's what matters
(END rolls regarding a brain wound or a spinal fracture...don't seem to help. So I've a technical excuse here 
)
While it is possible to blank out pain with mental training [This is a viable biography choice
],
your body reacts both consciously and unconsciously to pain. Your brain mostly controls the conscious part - muscles you can move and other things. Internal organs and their response mechanisms don't go under that classification. [Don't rip out your darn nervous system like I mentioned somewhere before. :I] At the mention of pain, your brain will begin going into a heightened state of alert: your responses will pick up, blood rate will flow faster, perhaps production of adrenaline in your adrenal glands (yay kidneys) would kick in...Still, in the presence of a wound you
will feel it. What matters is how you'll counter the effect - you
CANNOT do this through willpower alone because just thinking 'oh hey I'm ok' would work - though you won't be doing anything in the process of persevering through the wound. This is the logical explanation why END > WIL in pain tolerance. You need
to do something in order to cope with the pain - moving away from the stimulus is generally the good thing to do (hello reflexes). If you don't act, your body will. Whether you like it or not.
But still,
there is a possibility of you using Willpower instead of Endurance. I won't spoil it though but it is possible.
Not that practical given what we've seen in ER.
I mean, you can remove those nociceptors. You won't be able to feel pain, aye. But there are minor details on
why we have them that matter. The body will still be damaged, and the pain is a stimulus which tells us to retreat, take cover, go on defense...
And in general not be a suicidal person.
tl;dr: You'll feel pain no matter what you do unless you do unspeakable and generally impractical things to your nervous system - ask the Doc. Willpower affects how you approach or handle a situation affecting you while under some external sort of stimulus. Endurance is how you'd live through that stimulus and if your body won't fail on you in your action of defending yourself against said pain stimulus.
To expound, unrelated: The body uses resources at its disposal in order to continue that heightened state of safety - sure, adrenaline can turn you into a superman for a bit, but afterwards you'll feel exhausted. Feats requiring bodily exertion without the feeling of pain may often delude the person into thinking that
nothing has gone wrong. This is because the person is focused on the task at hand - ignoring any wounds as
he/she hasn't felt it.I mean, yeah, you'd live and stave off whatever is damaging you at the moment, but you're at a higher risk for future occurrences of pain.
Also, on another ironic note. I feel fully justified in saying "Yay I'm helping here" out of context from PW's depictions of me XD
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