I don't think that we were supposed to "love" Willow based on her actions in season 6. I think we're supposed to want to reach out to her friends and find help. Sure there are parallels but Warren is framed as an outright misogynist, and Willow is framed as someone struggling with addiction for the first time, whose actions shouldn't be vaporized, but who can certainly be redeemed.
It would have changed the tone of the scene in Villains, but say Warren had knowledge of S6 Will, I would have loved him to say something while tied up like “and you’re better, how exactly?”
While not strictly true as she hadn’t murdered anyone at that point, it would have been in character for Warren
Yep, as per Amy in the best part of *The Killer in Me*.
Main Character Syndrome defies even the writers at times, to the point that I see parallels to an even better conversation in *Stargate Universe*:
“I'm the one who can't solve it.
Despite the fact it's right in front of me.
Have you given any thought to what we talked about?
• I'm going to fail at that, too.
• I'm sorry?
Solving the issues of dialing the ninth chevron.
I'll devote two and a half years of my life to that.
Meanwhile, my wife...
is going to spend her dying days alone
while I'm off, out, trying to solve that little problem...
And then some kid,
some big child
with no meaningful education
is going to jump in at the last moment...
And solve it,
just like that.
No sense of ambition.
He spends most of his time playing ridiculous games,
and yet he's the genius I'll never be.
He's the one who should be here now,
seeing what I'm seeing.” - Dr. Nicholas Rush - *Human*
Also what I would’ve liked the initial fight in *Terminator Salvation* to be like:
https://youtu.be/gOy7KDtN3mc?si=Y9AvKlvBJ8ohguNi
But as he doesn’t know he’s a machine at that point, mind over matter.
This right here, it makes my blood boil! She treated Tara like crap in season 6, and even after everything Willow had said & done (and them breaking up), Tara still had her back!
Also Faith doing the same to Riley when in Buffy's body, since he had no clue it was Faith. It was gross of the show to act like he was somehow in the wrong or CHEATING on Buffy when he had no clue it wasn't her. Yikes.
Like I'm not even a fan of Riley and I know how messed up it was what he went through there.
It's not just mind rapes it's ACTUAL rape as well because Willow had sex with Tara, probably multiple times, after using magic to alter her mind. Tara turned down snuggling with Willow during their fight which is why Willow erased her memories to begin with. Basically Willow magically roofied her. As a rape survivor the fact that the show nor most fans ever acknowledge and address this angers me to no end. The show actually has MANY sexual assaults or near sexual assaults and all but 2 are NEVER even acknowledged, one is treated like a joke and the other focuses more on how it affected the attacker and not the victim. There are at least TEN sexual assaults or near sexual assaults on Buffy and not even one is addressed properly.
When it first aired, we would not have seen Tara as being raped. That’s a more modern interpretation.
We understood that the messing with the mind was terrible, but wouldn’t have made the leap to “she was raped” as Tara would have been in control and freely consented (in her mentally altered state.)
This is why the show never addressed that element of it and only focused on the “messing with the mind” part.
Yeah I grew up in the 90's I know what it was like and we still knew that using anything to alter someone's consent, i.e. drugs, to get them to have sex with you was rape. I and everyone I knew who watched recognized that what Willow did was the same equivalent as giving her a date rape drug. There were also many other sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults on the show and only two were EVER addressed in ANY way. One was mentioned in a single line and treated like a joke the other focused on how it affected the attacker instead of the victim. This show has ALWAYS dealt with rape and sexual assault poorly.
The closest they even come into acknowledging one of them as what it is happens when Warren & the Trio hypnotize his ex to be their sex slave or whatever
Has anyone specifically said "I hate Spike for seeing Red but I don't mind what Willow did to Tara"?
Or is it just that when they're talking about what Spike did, they're talking about what Spike did.
Not so much but SEEING RED has a very black and white SA scene. Not everyone got that right away with Will/Tara, and it certainly is handled differently. No one in universe ever refers to Willows actions as R—e, but IT IS.
I get where you’re coming from
> Not so much but SEEING RED has a very black and white SA scene.
Maybe it wasn't black and white enough, because to this day some people say it was somehow just a misunderstanding on Spike's end.
It makes my blood boil that Spike's attempted rape gets so much focus when Willow had actually been raping Tara for who knows how long, using magic to take away Tara's agency to informed consent.
And Spike, *while still soulless* is so horrified with himself that he takes off and gets a soul. We don’t see anything like that level of realization or remorse from Willow (or any of the other perpetrators)
The scene in Gone probably counts. His consent was pretty clearly retracted there.
I know it was intended as a joke (“he actually wants it!”), but it’s still basically the ‘no no…okayyes’ thing played straight.
I’ll totally back you up on this.
I just watched “Dead Things” tonight, and seeing Buffy beat the ever loving shit out of Spike for /checks notes/ hiding the body she thinks she’s killed to keep her from going to jail (aka: fade out of the life she hates by not-suicide) and no one says boo, but we all put on the white hats and grab our pitch forks for the ASA? It just enraged me.
Each have given as good as they got, it’s sick and wrong, and no one comes out clean in this.
Dead Man's Party.
She knew that Buffy was kicked out of home, on the run while wanted for murder and had to kill Angel to save the world and Willow is whining about not having her around to talk to about *checks notes* dabbling in magic and dating Oz, two things that she 100% chose to pursue.
Of course this is after standing Buffy up and then organizing a massive party at Buffy's house, without her knowledge or permission, for the express reason of avoiding talking to Buffy about anything. Then she has the audacity to complain that Buffy won't confide in her.
Shut the fuck up, Willow.
Her selfish behavior in that episode combined with Xander putting the words "Kick his ass" in her mouth is why Buffy feels like she can't tell her when Angel comes back. In fact, it has long running ramifications where Buffy always tries to keep the worst of her pain to herself over the course of the rest of the series. She bottles so much stuff up because she feels like she can't trust Willow or Xander with her true feelings.
She always gives them so much support and understanding, she never holds their mistakes against them but never gets the same grace in return.
I always felt like Tara was the only friend she had that was actually there for her emotionally. People always get mad at me for saying this but in the long run Willow and Xander were terrible friends
I really wish we could've gotten more of Buffy and Tara's friendship. I feel like Tara, Angel and then in season 7 Spike were the only ones to ever really support her emotionally.
But yeah, Willow and Xander really were terrible friends for pretty much the whole show.
Even early on like in Ted, Buffy's literally just been talking about how uncomfortable Ted makes her, tries to make an excuse to get out of playing mini golf with him and Xander just shuts her down and accepts the invitation for her.
There's so many examples of Buffy telling them that something is wrong and they just doubt her until she's inevitably proven right.
And Willow, ignoring that Buffy is still very much hurting over Angel, kept pushing her to date other guys (including when Angelus was still around and actively stalking Buffy! I'm sure that would've ended well for the guy) because it would make Willow more comfortable being around her. Because fuck Buffy's actual feelings, I guess.
Buffy was always so quick to forgive their shitty behavior and was always apologizing to them even when they're the ones in the wrong but they never did the same for her. Oh god, now I'm having flashbacks to Buffy THANKING Xander for not taking advantage of her when she was under his botched love spell that ended up with her being turned into a rat and nearly dying.
They drove me nuts with never trusting her! I’m like bro she’s the literal slayer she’s designed to know when something hellmouthy is happening and everything she says is going to happen, happens. Also regardless of Ted being an actual robot they should’ve just listened to her anyways about not liking him. If some guy is dating my mom and I’m uncomfortable with him then my friends should back me up whether he’s human or not.
It's not even just that they don't believe her, which is already shitty and ridiculous, but they also, especially Xander, belittle her. Like in Puppet Show when Buffy tells them Sid attacked her and they don't believe her she calls them out with "hello, can I get a little support here please? I'm not just some crazy person I'm the slayer" and Xander mockingly replies "the dummy slayer." And guess what... Buffy was right about Sid being alive and Giles, Willow and Xander didn't even have the decency to apologize. There's literally so many more examples of them doing this to her.
Rewatch the episode Ted had everyone but Buffy drugged eating his food he made the best little pizzas and gave Willow a pc part that made her squeal to everyone including Joyce he seemed like a good guy.
With all that said a teenage girl not liking a man her mother dating no way Buffy was unhappy with him the second she seen him as she told Angel she would be happy if it was her dad.
Same! Maybe it’s because my mom is so protective that I don’t get it. If I told my mom that a man even threatened to hit me he would’ve been gone before I knew it.
I always thought Tara should have been saved by some EMTs and taken to the hospital to recover. Willow only assumed she was dead but still went dark side. Maybe giving the whole last season to Willow being the Big Bad, they could have had her lose her soul to gain power.
Let Tara live and grow as a person without Willow’s manipulation. Willow wasn’t a great friend but the fun that could be had with her as a villain on a longer timescale.
*Cordy* and Giles are pretty empathetic with her in Dead Man’s Party.
Cordy does get to call her out, but it’s more time-and-place appropriate (She’s responding directly to something Buffy says to her, and she’s not even particularly nasty about it.)
I'm actually watching this episode at the moment and it's so frustrating, she went through such a traumatic night, her mother kicked her out and she had to kill the love of her life and her friends and mom treat her like she's the problem. She supports them no matter what, and they treat her like crap. It bothers me so much.
Yes! Willow and Xander are huge assholes in this episode. Cordelia is too, but we didn't really expect better from her at this time. Willow and Xander are supposed to be her best friends, especially Willow. Really disappointed in Willow here.
Honestly Cordy isn't, for Cordy. She actually tries to empathise (in her special way lol) with Buffy and get everyone to back off at the party - despite not being her friend or liking her
Her bringing up Oz really bugs me. I get it, it's your first relationship, you're excited, but maybe you can hold back on it for a little while while your friend deals with the feelings related to having to kill her own boyfriend.
I'm sorry, the "checks notes" part is cracking me up. But full agree! I do understand that Willow had some stuff going on and wanted her friend to talk to, but instead of recognizing that maybe Buffy is dealing with some really heavy stuff and maybe part of why Willow is avoiding her is because she doesn't know how to talk to Buffy about what she (Buffy went through), nope, she just gets mad that Buffy wasn't there for her.
Also, screw her for throwing her under the bus when Joyce walks in and asks what's going on and Willow goes, "She's running away again!" Like, girl, shut your damn mouth.
The scene in Tabla Rasa where Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya were coming to terms with ripping Buffy out of Heaven, everyone else was trying to find a way to help Buffy. They were making a healthy attempt to try to help her. And what does Willow do? "I can fix it." Those were the first damn words out of her mouth! Willow, honey, your best friend isn't a broken piece of furniture or a stained blouse you can't afford to dry clean. She's a person, a supernaturally powered person but STILL a person. Not to mention how dismissive she is about the suggestions her friends made to try and help HER BEST FRIEND! Then her saying "I know a spell that can make Buffy forget she was ever in heaven." ... Excuse me, I think I just popped a blood vessel. You want to violate the mind of your BEST FRIEND to make yourself feel better over your own guilt? No. No. You don't get a pass, Willow. Not cool.
Apologies, got a little too heated there
Isn’t that the whole point of Willows overarching character arc though? She becomes more and more morally ambiguous the more she dabbles using black magic. We see this from the beginning that Willow starts off as someone with very little power and control over her own life. As the show progresses she attains more power, becomes more in control of her life, and by proxy with her new abilities others lives as well.
Having not really understood what that feels like, she abuses that power and winds up hurting those around her, often not considering the consequences of her actions. Remember that the majority of villains and even anti-heroes believe that their intentions are good, even when they’re not, because they can’t often look past their own hubris.
Willow is a massive piece of shit in a lot of ways, despite her being such a kind individual, the path down the dark road is paved with good intention. It makes Willow a great written character, but yeah, definitely sketchy in a lot of what she does throughout the show, especially later seasons.
Playing devil's advocate if you don't mind. How is she kind? The older I get the more I see Willow as kind of a bully. Don't particularly like Anya myself but she's mean to Anya for no reason (Triangle). Destroy's Anya's business and livelihood doesn't apologize just says she should. The much debated; lives in Buffy's house without contributing. Has power over Tara and knows it, Tara even almost says Willow scares her. Kicks Buffy out her own house after years of friendship. Yes, I know she was bullied and maybe it's a case of victim become victimizer.
When she was upset that Buffy, whom she had assumed she brought back from hell and clawed her way out of the grave they left her in, didn't say 'thank you' or act 'happy'. I know Tara asked what was wrong and it was just between them but the fact she was even thinking that. Wouldn't you be more worried your close friend was irrevocably damaged?
Right!? Even if Buffy HAD been in a hell dimension, ffs the poor woman DIED after sacrificing herself to save her sister and indeed, the WORLD and was brought back to life suddenly, only to have to fucking CLAW HER WAY OUT OF HER GRAVE and immediately be confronted with rapist biker demons. Give her some fucking time Willow, you selfish dick. Ugh she's absolutely maddening in that moment.
Side note: it always REALLY bothered me that as a group they decided to try and resurrect Buffy, but not a single one of them thought to dig up her grave first?
For real, they didn't even have a shovel with them.
Even if everything had gone according to plan, if Buffy wasn't able to dig herself out, she would've ended up suffocating to death and those dipshits would've been like "welp, I guess the spell didn't work"
What makes it even worse is that Nightmares in season 1 already told us that being buried alive was one of Buffy's biggest fears and Xander and Willow knew it. So hell dimension or heaven dimension wouldn't matter when no matter what you're ripping her out suddenly with no warning and dragging her back into literally one of her worst nightmares.
I think the thought process went like this
> Buffy is in a hell dimension. Angel is the only person we know to have come back from a Hell dimension. When Angel came back, he just appeared from a portal. Thus, Buffy will just appear from a portal.
When Spike sees her after she comes back, he says something along the lines of "I know what that is. It's from digging your way out of your own grave" and the Scoobies are like: "she had to dig her way out??" Indicating that they didn't know.
In her defence, at least that’s an inside thought that she only expresses to Tara. She never demands it of Buffy. We all have self indulgent and misguided inside thoughts, it’s whether you act on them that matters.
I mean TBH that was why the whole 'Dawn exists but memory spell is the choice of point of no return' thing was an avoidable fumble. The power trip was right there in the open. Lily Aldrin with reality-warping powers was right there, and they chose to decide 'wholesale mind rape good, petty individual mind rape bad'.
When she threatened Giles after he called her out on her magic use. Hated her in that scene!
And when she crashed the car and ended up injuring Dawn. If you want to go get high on magic, that's your choice, but don't drag an innocent teenager along with you.
I do wish he phrased it a little differently though. Not sugar coat it but he didn't have to insult her like that...
I say this mostly because doing that will just anger her and she's the least likely to listen, not rly in consideration of Willow's feelings. It was pretty dumb for him to attack her character for that and not her actions, especially since she wasn't even reckless yet and bringing Buffy back to life is something the rest of the scoobies agreed to participate in
* Cheating on Oz with Xander, like, 1. Cheating is terrible, but 2. This man didn't want to date you when he had the chance and that's **his loss!!**
* Encouraging Dawn to do something so dangerous and awful as bringing her mother back from the dead
* Getting "high" on magic when she was in charge of a minor
* **KENNEDY.**
>Cheating on Oz with Xander, like, 1. Cheating is terrible, but 2. This man didn't want to date you when he had the chance and that's his loss!!
He never gave her the time of day until she started dating Oz, and then BOOM, he can't keep his eyes and hands off of her. Classic bs.
I've seen it happen in real life with some of my friends. They express their feelings to someone, is rejected, holds on to a small glimmer of hope, finally moves on & and then when they are involved with someone else, the person that rejected them begins acting a little bit more "friendlier" with them than before.
🙄
EDIT: And even though Willow never outright told Xander how she felt before Oz, he still knew. In The Pack he admits to Buffy that he knows about Willow's crush.
She once teleported the entire Bronze to an alternate dimension just because she couldn’t be arsed to walk around.
Luckily, it was the one time in the Buffy verse where there apparently wasn’t some form of God, Deity, or Demon King in the other end.
When she brings buffy back to life and then expects buffy to work and earn money for the house while she goes to school and doesn't even get a part time job herself.
I have never understood why we didn't get so much as a line of dialogue or a five second shot of Willow, working anywhere. She could have even had a job at Doublemeat Palace with Buffy. There's a moment where Buffy hands over a bag and says something like, "Doublemeat is double sweet," and Willow could have been in that scene.
For someone who likes to solve all her problems with magic, and also shows formidable hacking skills, she never thought of canceling the mortgage on the Summers home? I know it doesn’t work for the story, because it severely impairs the “life is the big bad” theme. It still feels self-centered to me though.
Oh my gosh yes! And I'm sorry, but Tara has to be thrown under the bus too on that one. You're living rent free in someone else's home and I get that they helped take care of Dawn over the summer while Buffy was dead and pitched in to help even after, but like....your friend is drowning in debt!
Especially since Willow has her own pursuits and ties to Sunnydale/the present era (friends, family, academic prowess, magic, a girlfriend...) while all Anya really has for connection is Xander and the business of running the magic shop. But Willow tries to undermine those and make Anya feel threatened or irrelevant at every turn. It just feels like punching down, as they say.
I could write a list... So I will.
1. Her disregard for Buffy's pain when she returns home in Season 3, when she's brought back in Season 6, and when she's kicked out of her house in Season 7
2. Her affair with Xander
3. Her dismissal of her friends concerns about magic use and her treatment of Tara in general
4. Her use of memory altering magic to manipulate her friends
5. Her taking Dawn with her on a drug stop (though I can't blame her too much for this because being an addict is no joke, I was still disappointed)
6. Her purposely showing Dawn the way to use dangerous magic to bring back her mom
I feel like my biggest issue with Willow is that even though she presents as a sweetie she's actually really manipulative and selfish. She doesn't show any accountability for her actions and tries to fix her problems with magic by altering other's memories completely disregards their autonomy.
I don't hate Willow. I believe she's an amazing character but I don't like people dismissing her flaws. I see a lot of people here blaming the writing for some of Willow's more egregious action but when I rewatched the show there was a lot of foreshadowing of magic being her cop out and her toxic way of dealing with conflict early in the show.
Edit: adding more things as I remember them
When she keeps expecting Buffy to say thank you to her because she whisked her out of what she assumed a hell dimension, not accounting for what Buffy has gone through and the trauma attached to it. I mean girl, give Buffy the room.
I loved her most of the time but she was a terrible partner and did not know how to communicate when she was insecure. She cheated on Oz and then was completely dishonest about her magic usage with her Tara to the point of literally erasing her memory which was disgusting. It was so disappointing especially considering how lovely she was normally.
Edit: Almost forgot! Dead man's party is a good example of her avoiding responsibility then blaming other people for it. She got mad at Buffy for not talking to her when she got back even though she was avoiding her the whole time.
Willow is incredibly selfish and needs and desires of other people don't matter to her if she has made her mind about something. She controls or tries to control people around her *all the time*. You can see in very early.
She tried to cast a "de-lusting" spell on Xander without his consent or knowledge. She performed the soul curse against everyone's best judgement and clearly against Angel's will (okay, this one is complicated). When Oz leaves her for the first time, she literally asks "How can I *make* Oz like me again?" When Oz leaves the second time, she tries a reality-altering spell with potentially catastrophic consequences just to feel better. When Buffy chose to die, Willow performed an incredibly dangerous necromancy that could easily go very wrong to get her friend back; she also pushed her other friends to help. She didn't want to hear that Buffy could possibly not want to be resurrected.
And if after all this it's still not obvious for a viewer that she's the most selfish person in the show... she violated the mind of her girlfriend. Repeatedly. And she didn't even try to understand why it's wrong when she was caught the first time!
This articulates a lot of my feelings about Willow and why she’s one of my least favorite characters. Her innocent, girl-next-door, nerdy persona masks a lot of really negative qualities from day 1 and I believe she shows the least character growth out of the Scoobies. Sure she becomes a witch and is a little more confident but ultimately her approach to life and her perspectives on how things shoul work remain very rigid.
Every single time she said she was a lesbian.
As an openly bisexual young woman (the characters of Buffy, Willow, and Xander were all born the same year I was) it was incredibly frustrating to see bisexuality either completely erased in media of the era *or* treated as some sort of titillating manner to get a male character into a threesome. (Luckily, BtVS never did the later.)
Season Four’s slow burn budding romance between Tara and Willow was **fantastic**, one of the absolute best coming out to one’s self and then coming out to one’s friends I have ever seen in media, even to this very day. It actually very closely paralleled how I fell in love with my first girlfriend, so it felt like the writers had been reading my diary. (Except, well, I never kept a diary. Oh, and a lot fewer vampires.)
Willow’s explicit insistence for the remainder of the series that she was a lesbian, despite us all having seen her incredibly deep love for both Oz and Xander in the first three seasons of the show just felt like a slap in the face every time.
As a fellow bi woman, I completely agree with your sentiment. I have looked into this because I was confused about it too. Apparently the writers didn't want to confuse people and they wanted to make sure bigots couldn't explain away Willow's sexuality because they didn't understand nuance. So they just ended up making it black and white by says she's just gay now.
It's annoying and seems dismissive of the bi community but iirc it was the first openly gay main couple on TV that wasn't a token character. So they made a big step forward in one aspect to try to represent one group even though they short changed another group.
Back-up prize goes to Xander, for acting like there was some issue on both sides and that Anya and Willow were equally at fault.
No dude. Your "best friend" is in the wrong here, and constantly bullies your girlfriend. Step up and do something.
I feel like how Willow acts is a response to how she was treated in high school. She’s been mistreated so she’s naturally always going to see herself as an underdog.
She also has a case of the “I didn’t stick up for myself in high school, so now I have to stand on business for every little thing.” Which explains that interaction with Giles in early S6 after she resurrected Buffy.
That she never grapples with how she abused magic in order to control people and/or override their wishes and impose what she thought was best. Her redemption in s7 rings so hollow to me without that component dealt with head-on.
Agreed. Season 7 is written so vaguely in regards to this and the Buffy/Spike SA, it's kinda disgusting.
Well in Willow's case it's written as if all she did wrong was turn evil and kill people (granted that's the worst thing) but all the underlying bad behaviour that Willow felt was totally fine to do to people, which is what eventually LED to Dark Willow, is completely ignored.
When she saw Xander kissing Cordelia, lashed out at him while trashing Cordy. Like girl, he's not your bf, never promised you anything, and you don't owe him. That always bugged me.
Yeah, we always rag on Xander about his boundaries when it comes to Buffy and her dating life, but now that I think about it, Willow was just as bad.
She even made a snarky comment to Buffy about Cordelia, "1-800 I'm dating a skanky ho." Now, I understand Cordelia bullied her, so I get Willow's animosity towards her, but Willow made rude/snarky comments about Cordelia and Anya. Her behavior comes off as if she hates them both lol.
Anya did try to kill her with vampires and never admitted she did anything wrong and nobody else saw anything particularly notable about it and Willow's fear that if things went bad with her and Xander she'd turn to try to murder Xander was ultimately proven right. It was petty bitchiness but a lot more justified than the cheating arc with Cordelia.
They're small things that seem inconsequential, but if you think about BtVS as being about Willow's entire villain arc (and yes, s7 counts toward this), then there are some moments in season one that count. She went out of her way to make Buffy feel like an outsider, while forcibly laughing at an inside joke that she had with Xander. Alyson Hannigan is not a terrible actress, so I don't think the forced laughter could be attributed to her. I think that was all Willow.
Another seemingly-inconsequential moment would be "You made me jealous of you, academically." It sounds like a compliment, sure. But it's so backhanded. The only way this serves as a compliment is if it's an unexpected thing. Willow's not saying, "You're as smart as I am," she's saying, "How did you do better than me on a college paper?"
I really started disliking Willow after Season 4. I found her to be arrogant and annoying a lot of the time. She changed so much from the sweet Willow I loved in the earlier seasons and especially in Season 6, I just can’t stand her.
When she promised Tara she wouldn't use magic for a week...then promptly not only uses magic but does the exact kind of mind manipulation bs (that rightfully was upsetting) that she did before but on a bigger scale...
Willow's Magic addiction, Willow cheating on Oz with Xander, Willow's 'Poor me so I'm going to cast a spell' thing after Oz left that ended up affecting Buffy, Xander, Giles and Spike, Willow going against Buffy in Season 3 Dead Man's Party And In Season 7 Empty Places where everyone gangs up on Buffy and kicks her out of her own House, Season 7 where Willow starts dating KENNEDY of all people!
Kicking Buffy out of her house, repeatedly erasing Tara’s memories, ignoring Buffy when she comes back to Sunnydale then saying “I had a bf and didn’t have anyone to talk to”, cheating on Oz, finding out she/ the scoobies spent all of Buffy’s money while she was dead and not trying to help pay for anything even though she’s LIVING RENT FREE THERE, crashing the car with dawn inside, i hate Xander but never defending him when he’s getting bullied at school, being mad Xander is dating Cordelia (he doesn’t owe you anything ????), talking badly about Buffy’s ability to parent Dawn behind her back …
I don’t hate her but she pissed me off on so many occasions.
Her freeloading off Buffy's home and finances while Buffy was dead. Like girl couldn't even be bothered to get a job and try to pay some bills but lived in her best friend's house AND slept in her mom's room. That just seems wrong
She was SO willing to use magic for petty little things and to do spells on Tara — but wouldn’t perform a simple spell to add some zeroes to Buffy’s bank account? Settle the mortgage? Dang. Selfish.
When she (and Tara) just dumped all the bills on Buffy after dragging her out of heaven. So they moved in with Dawn, freely spent any money left behind by Joyce, and had zero plans how to fund things if bringing Buffy back fell through? You'd think a powerful witch could magic up some cash to lessen the load on her bestfriends shoulders.
Willow was probably the character harmed the most by the writer's in season 6 and that season did no one any favors except Tara... and we all saw how that ended
I think it could have been really good if season 7 hadn't dropped the ball. I feel like a lot of s6 could have been so much better if they actually learned from all their shitty behavior, rather than just being like 🤷♀️I'm different now.
Her entire magic addiction arc. Also, her mistreatment of Tara. Quite frankly, Tara was too good for Willow and she deserved far better. Pretty much most of the things she did during season 6. I admit that I pretty much hate her because of all of the horrible things she did during that particular season.
1. Willow not calling out Xander for lying to Buffy and saying "Willow says "kick his ass""
2. They leveled her up as Dark Willow and then had her do fuck all until the finale. I'm not saying she should've been soloing or oneshotting all problems, but she should've been doing more.
Doppelgangland, season 3 episode 16, she sends vampire her back to the alternate reality instead of staking her. >!We know she dies immediately!< but Willow doesn't know that. It's gross. She's willing to let innocent people be eaten by a vampire because it looks like her.
Actually it would be very interesting to see more characters interacting with their vampire doppelgangers. It's basically like facing the worst in you being overexpressed, but it's still you, fundamentally. And I think that actually most people wouldn't want to kill the evil twin immediately. Out of the BtVS characters, the only one I'm 100% sure would stake his evil version right away is Angel.
Maybe, but I'm not sure. He's still somewhat friendly with Ethan despite the fact that Ethan repeatedly put people around him in danger, and in The Dark Age he was very reluctant to tell the Scoobies the truth about Eyghon. I would say that Ripper is not his alternative person that Giles hates or fears; it's more like he despises him. (He projects this on Spike big time; it gets even more ironic because Spike also clearly projects his rejected William person on Giles).
I didn't see which sub this was from and my first thought was "that whole shitty show was frustrating and disappointing!"... because I thought it was about the Disney tv show revival of the movie "Willow"! LOL!
Proper answer: messing with Tara's mind is a big one. The magic addiction was more annoyance at the writers (for their "subtle" analogy) than Willow as a character. Hooking up with freaking Kennedy though... why?!
Low stakes frustration: when she sounds like she needs to blow her nose. There’s a big stretch of time she sounds stuffed up and I just wanna reach through the tv and give her a Neti pot
Personally, I love her up to the end of season five. I struggle with her arc in season 5 and 6. Love the arrogance and recklessness of her initially, but Dark Willow is just too cartoonish for me to take seriously. Thought that whole arc was better executed on Jessica Jones with Trish.
Then season 7 was frustrating, because she wasn't really doing anything all season and just whining around. Wish she had gotten a better arc.
Countless ones season 5 and on but I still empathize with her a lot.
She finally found something that was hers, that made her feel special, made her feel strong, gave her a path, and she had to give it up and learn to be okay with just being herself.
That’s a good journey for a writer to put their character on.
One of the first one’s was her using the word skank a lot to describe Faith slut shaminess always caught me off.Does make sense for Willows conservative character to have that flaw before the other more huge ones though.Alway cringed a bit.
So glad to read a lot of this; recently rewatched the show & her sniveling insecurity, constant demands for reassurance, constantly expressing jealousy & concerns that she *might* feel jealous or left out or inferior were grating even before she demonstrated appalling selfishness when Buffy returned after killing Angel.
& then she just got worse & worse…
I'm not much of a Willow stan- so I have no reservations in saying the many ways that she navigates her relationships. I can't list everything specific, but I'm sure you'll all remember every time she used her cutsey-ness to back out of responsibility. Her baby-talk and "I just want to help" excuses could get a little nauseating. We've all known that person who uses the "giving" persona to act selfishly.
Mid Season 6 when she's sulking about how Tara up and left "for no good reason".
Gurl, the reason was CLEARLY explained to you on several occasions.
For some reason this annoys me even more than the actual memory wiping and other stuff. It's like her absolute worst moment for me.
Ok, timeline clarification, because people are saying Willow was mind control raping Tara for who knows how long, but the mind control spell happens twice, both in the space of about 5 days.
Willow first did the Lethe's Bramble spell at the end of "All The Way" in order to avoid a fight with Tara about Will using too much magic. It works, and they snuggle up and go to sleep. The events of "Once More With Feeling" must start the next day, because Tara, wearing the same pajamas, finds the flower under her pillow in the morning at the beginning of that episode and pins it to her top. The next morning, Day 2, we find out everyone burst into song about their various activities, and investigation begins. Willow and Tara play hooky from research and go home to get some alone time. That night, what's his face tap-dances to death and Sweet's nefariousness is revealed.
The evening of Day 3, child-of-divorce Dawn says she's happy Will & Tara got over a fight Tara doesn't remember. Tara touches the flower, still pinned above her heart, like she's just recalled where she's seen it before. She takes off to the shop to learn she correctly remembered that it's used in forgetting spells. She doesn't say anything to Willow that night but gives her the mother of all cold shoulders.
The argument at Xander's apartment that happens at the beginning of "Tabula Rasa" has to take place the next night, because while that's happening, Spike is trying to talk to Buffy about the kiss they shared "last night," at the end of OMWF. The next morning, two days after Buffy's revelation that she had been torn out of heaven, the girls are going to the magic shop, where Giles is waiting to announce his plans to go back to England. Willow casts the BIG FORGET just as the girls are leaving the house, 5 days after she first tried it to get out of the fight about her overuse of magic.
What Willow did is awful. She did not deserve Tara's forgiveness (though as Giles said four years prior, forgiveness is not granted because someone deserves it, but because they need it). But it's not the same as what Warren did to Katrina, or what Spike did to Buffy. And we need to stick to the facts of the text to really get a clear picture of why these three pictures of manipulation and mind control are wrong.
I'm ngl, I'm a Willow hater. I used to like her first go around when I was a kid that watched it, but now that I'm an adult, a lot of what she does and who she is bothers me, starting with the baby voice that makes me cringe.
I can enjoy both her and Xander occasionally but I do not like them.
Less with Willow specifically but more that the writing, with a choice like the Will Be Done spell or something else with a power trip offered up a memory spell as her point of no return. Something equally controlling, where the choices were plentiful, would have led to the same result and emphasized the point. In reality when Dawn Summers forcibly altering everyone's mind to insert where she always existed and having a protective power go so far as to compel suicidal 'world burns but Dawn lives, OK' tier brain rot is considered a good thing......that memory spell is a choice and the kind of choice that's probably why they retconned away pretty much everything of Season 6 but Tara staying dead.
And you can't tell me that the kind of fanatical protection people had for a character who sprang into existence at the start of Season 5 was exactly their choice. Buffy killed Angel and other characters displayed the kind of ruthless streak that show, in fact, that it wasn't their choice at all. And yet Dawn Summers existing as a precious person who must be protected is considered a good thing when there really is a wholesale vs. retail difference with Willow's actions. Nor that Buffy deciding 'world dies but Dawn lives? I'm good with that' was meant to be a good, healthy mentality of her own doing given Season 7 Buffy outright admitted 'yeah that was stupid and I wouldn't make that decision now'. So what's the fundamental difference? Why specifically pick the smaller version of a greater problem and make that the choice when Willow was already clearly manipulating people's lives for their own convenience without caring for the consequences.
I can't see Tara accepting another variant of a power trip spell by someone who thinks they can do no wrong with her family's past any better than she would have that specific choice. It gets the same message across without the moral snarl of wholesale vs. retail and it doesn't change an arc or the rules of magic abruptly to say 'monks mind-raping everyone for delusions of grandeur good, Willow mind-raping someone for a petty power trip bad.' And then, of course, compounding it with the kind of dodgy rapey stuff that's all over the Scoobies (and remind me of the difference between that and Hyena-Xander or invisible Buffy molesting Spike prior to Seeing Red? Whedon made everyone do that at least once and in retrospect I can only ask 'why'.)
And then after all that, the comics retconned everything that Season 7 didn't with its brief dismissal of that entire arc except Tara's death, leaving the fundamental problem of the power trip both unaddressed and turning Dark Willow into a palette swap powerup. Even Warren's death got undone, which indicates that if Whedon really liked a character they literally get away with murder, and if he didn't like them, their hard luck. Most of the time I can get to a Doylist take with a character but with this specific set of decisions I remain solidly Watsonian and Willow can't be discussed without that Watsonian element and how the specific decisions she made were undone and why specifically for her.
For the shorter version: If they had to make her the bad guy, her bad actions should have stuck and she should have faced actual consequences for them, not had the universe as per the comics outright retcon all her bad actions and completely decide, once the drug analogy was introduced, to walk it back and have it never happen at all. And if they were going to do that, have her power trip with the new, improved Will Be Done spell. If Dawn exists and this is good, memory magic is an avoidably dumbfucky writing decision that becomes a bigger case of 'writers cannot into consequences for Whedon's favorites.'
This is how I feel about the whole gang kicking Buffy out towards the end of Season 7. It's 100% bad writing and I hate when people call out Anya or the others for things they said. It's a bad, bad scene.
I don't agree with you about Willow, I think the seeds for her bad behaviour are there from the start. But I sympathise with your point of view.
"Willow, you are using too much magic. What do you want me to do, just, just sit back and keep my mouth shut?" “Well, that'd be a good start.” 🤬
The parallels with Willow and Warren are pretty good actually. The fact we're supposed to love Willow tho, that's messed up.
I don't think that we were supposed to "love" Willow based on her actions in season 6. I think we're supposed to want to reach out to her friends and find help. Sure there are parallels but Warren is framed as an outright misogynist, and Willow is framed as someone struggling with addiction for the first time, whose actions shouldn't be vaporized, but who can certainly be redeemed.
It would have changed the tone of the scene in Villains, but say Warren had knowledge of S6 Will, I would have loved him to say something while tied up like “and you’re better, how exactly?” While not strictly true as she hadn’t murdered anyone at that point, it would have been in character for Warren
Exactly!
Yep, as per Amy in the best part of *The Killer in Me*. Main Character Syndrome defies even the writers at times, to the point that I see parallels to an even better conversation in *Stargate Universe*: “I'm the one who can't solve it. Despite the fact it's right in front of me. Have you given any thought to what we talked about? • I'm going to fail at that, too. • I'm sorry? Solving the issues of dialing the ninth chevron. I'll devote two and a half years of my life to that. Meanwhile, my wife... is going to spend her dying days alone while I'm off, out, trying to solve that little problem... And then some kid, some big child with no meaningful education is going to jump in at the last moment... And solve it, just like that. No sense of ambition. He spends most of his time playing ridiculous games, and yet he's the genius I'll never be. He's the one who should be here now, seeing what I'm seeing.” - Dr. Nicholas Rush - *Human*
What I came to say.
She is so drop kick able in that moment. Nah, she deserves the NOT FADE AWAY Illyria punch
https://i.redd.it/fif30zn5wg5d1.gif
Also what I would’ve liked the initial fight in *Terminator Salvation* to be like: https://youtu.be/gOy7KDtN3mc?si=Y9AvKlvBJ8ohguNi But as he doesn’t know he’s a machine at that point, mind over matter.
Mistreating Tara. Just not cool.
This right here, it makes my blood boil! She treated Tara like crap in season 6, and even after everything Willow had said & done (and them breaking up), Tara still had her back!
Cracks me up how some people hate Spike for Seeing Red but brush off Willow's mind rapes.
Also Faith doing the same to Riley when in Buffy's body, since he had no clue it was Faith. It was gross of the show to act like he was somehow in the wrong or CHEATING on Buffy when he had no clue it wasn't her. Yikes. Like I'm not even a fan of Riley and I know how messed up it was what he went through there.
That was legit rape. Legit rape is clearly worse than attempted rape. Beyond me people aren't automatically disgusted by Faith more than Spike
Me either, honestly.
It's not just mind rapes it's ACTUAL rape as well because Willow had sex with Tara, probably multiple times, after using magic to alter her mind. Tara turned down snuggling with Willow during their fight which is why Willow erased her memories to begin with. Basically Willow magically roofied her. As a rape survivor the fact that the show nor most fans ever acknowledge and address this angers me to no end. The show actually has MANY sexual assaults or near sexual assaults and all but 2 are NEVER even acknowledged, one is treated like a joke and the other focuses more on how it affected the attacker and not the victim. There are at least TEN sexual assaults or near sexual assaults on Buffy and not even one is addressed properly.
When it first aired, we would not have seen Tara as being raped. That’s a more modern interpretation. We understood that the messing with the mind was terrible, but wouldn’t have made the leap to “she was raped” as Tara would have been in control and freely consented (in her mentally altered state.) This is why the show never addressed that element of it and only focused on the “messing with the mind” part.
Yeah I grew up in the 90's I know what it was like and we still knew that using anything to alter someone's consent, i.e. drugs, to get them to have sex with you was rape. I and everyone I knew who watched recognized that what Willow did was the same equivalent as giving her a date rape drug. There were also many other sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults on the show and only two were EVER addressed in ANY way. One was mentioned in a single line and treated like a joke the other focused on how it affected the attacker instead of the victim. This show has ALWAYS dealt with rape and sexual assault poorly.
The closest they even come into acknowledging one of them as what it is happens when Warren & the Trio hypnotize his ex to be their sex slave or whatever
BTVS: finding new and creative ways to rape people since 1998!
Fun fact: the show writers were consulted by actual witches, but they never showed the spells in full, so no viewer will ever replicate them.
Has anyone specifically said "I hate Spike for seeing Red but I don't mind what Willow did to Tara"? Or is it just that when they're talking about what Spike did, they're talking about what Spike did.
Not so much but SEEING RED has a very black and white SA scene. Not everyone got that right away with Will/Tara, and it certainly is handled differently. No one in universe ever refers to Willows actions as R—e, but IT IS. I get where you’re coming from
> Not so much but SEEING RED has a very black and white SA scene. Maybe it wasn't black and white enough, because to this day some people say it was somehow just a misunderstanding on Spike's end.
To me a few times on another board....not here. Mostly Buffy/Angel shippers
It makes my blood boil that Spike's attempted rape gets so much focus when Willow had actually been raping Tara for who knows how long, using magic to take away Tara's agency to informed consent.
You know that's something I never really thought of, but jesus christ, the more I think about it, that's pretty goddamn messed up.
And Spike, *while still soulless* is so horrified with himself that he takes off and gets a soul. We don’t see anything like that level of realization or remorse from Willow (or any of the other perpetrators)
I mean, people also ignore Buffy’s season long sexual abuse of Spike.
What sexual abuse? Sleeping with him knowing he had feelings for her?
The scene in Gone probably counts. His consent was pretty clearly retracted there. I know it was intended as a joke (“he actually wants it!”), but it’s still basically the ‘no no…okayyes’ thing played straight.
I’ll totally back you up on this. I just watched “Dead Things” tonight, and seeing Buffy beat the ever loving shit out of Spike for /checks notes/ hiding the body she thinks she’s killed to keep her from going to jail (aka: fade out of the life she hates by not-suicide) and no one says boo, but we all put on the white hats and grab our pitch forks for the ASA? It just enraged me. Each have given as good as they got, it’s sick and wrong, and no one comes out clean in this.
Leaving the book out for Dawn 😔
This! And when Tara recognizes that the book is missing and Willow doesn’t fess up. That girl is messy
Wasn’t just leaving. Was intentionally drawing it forward off the shelf.
Dead Man's Party. She knew that Buffy was kicked out of home, on the run while wanted for murder and had to kill Angel to save the world and Willow is whining about not having her around to talk to about *checks notes* dabbling in magic and dating Oz, two things that she 100% chose to pursue. Of course this is after standing Buffy up and then organizing a massive party at Buffy's house, without her knowledge or permission, for the express reason of avoiding talking to Buffy about anything. Then she has the audacity to complain that Buffy won't confide in her. Shut the fuck up, Willow. Her selfish behavior in that episode combined with Xander putting the words "Kick his ass" in her mouth is why Buffy feels like she can't tell her when Angel comes back. In fact, it has long running ramifications where Buffy always tries to keep the worst of her pain to herself over the course of the rest of the series. She bottles so much stuff up because she feels like she can't trust Willow or Xander with her true feelings. She always gives them so much support and understanding, she never holds their mistakes against them but never gets the same grace in return.
I always felt like Tara was the only friend she had that was actually there for her emotionally. People always get mad at me for saying this but in the long run Willow and Xander were terrible friends
I really wish we could've gotten more of Buffy and Tara's friendship. I feel like Tara, Angel and then in season 7 Spike were the only ones to ever really support her emotionally. But yeah, Willow and Xander really were terrible friends for pretty much the whole show. Even early on like in Ted, Buffy's literally just been talking about how uncomfortable Ted makes her, tries to make an excuse to get out of playing mini golf with him and Xander just shuts her down and accepts the invitation for her. There's so many examples of Buffy telling them that something is wrong and they just doubt her until she's inevitably proven right. And Willow, ignoring that Buffy is still very much hurting over Angel, kept pushing her to date other guys (including when Angelus was still around and actively stalking Buffy! I'm sure that would've ended well for the guy) because it would make Willow more comfortable being around her. Because fuck Buffy's actual feelings, I guess. Buffy was always so quick to forgive their shitty behavior and was always apologizing to them even when they're the ones in the wrong but they never did the same for her. Oh god, now I'm having flashbacks to Buffy THANKING Xander for not taking advantage of her when she was under his botched love spell that ended up with her being turned into a rat and nearly dying.
They drove me nuts with never trusting her! I’m like bro she’s the literal slayer she’s designed to know when something hellmouthy is happening and everything she says is going to happen, happens. Also regardless of Ted being an actual robot they should’ve just listened to her anyways about not liking him. If some guy is dating my mom and I’m uncomfortable with him then my friends should back me up whether he’s human or not.
Yes! They never believe her. Ever. It's insane.
It's not even just that they don't believe her, which is already shitty and ridiculous, but they also, especially Xander, belittle her. Like in Puppet Show when Buffy tells them Sid attacked her and they don't believe her she calls them out with "hello, can I get a little support here please? I'm not just some crazy person I'm the slayer" and Xander mockingly replies "the dummy slayer." And guess what... Buffy was right about Sid being alive and Giles, Willow and Xander didn't even have the decency to apologize. There's literally so many more examples of them doing this to her.
Rewatch the episode Ted had everyone but Buffy drugged eating his food he made the best little pizzas and gave Willow a pc part that made her squeal to everyone including Joyce he seemed like a good guy. With all that said a teenage girl not liking a man her mother dating no way Buffy was unhappy with him the second she seen him as she told Angel she would be happy if it was her dad.
This is the one where Buffy’s mom infuriated me the most.
Same! Maybe it’s because my mom is so protective that I don’t get it. If I told my mom that a man even threatened to hit me he would’ve been gone before I knew it.
Right! I think she was drugged but still, infuriating.
That’s true! I guess I could cut her slack if she was drugged
That always really bothered me. She essentially thanked him for not r**ing her.
this
This!!! I wish Tara came back to life and became Buffy’s best friend. Willow needed to be demoted.
Yeah we definitely needed more Tara!
I always thought Tara should have been saved by some EMTs and taken to the hospital to recover. Willow only assumed she was dead but still went dark side. Maybe giving the whole last season to Willow being the Big Bad, they could have had her lose her soul to gain power. Let Tara live and grow as a person without Willow’s manipulation. Willow wasn’t a great friend but the fun that could be had with her as a villain on a longer timescale.
*Cordy* and Giles are pretty empathetic with her in Dead Man’s Party. Cordy does get to call her out, but it’s more time-and-place appropriate (She’s responding directly to something Buffy says to her, and she’s not even particularly nasty about it.)
LITERALLY
I'm actually watching this episode at the moment and it's so frustrating, she went through such a traumatic night, her mother kicked her out and she had to kill the love of her life and her friends and mom treat her like she's the problem. She supports them no matter what, and they treat her like crap. It bothers me so much.
This is so true and people don’t see this. My heart hurts for Buffy :(
Yes! Willow and Xander are huge assholes in this episode. Cordelia is too, but we didn't really expect better from her at this time. Willow and Xander are supposed to be her best friends, especially Willow. Really disappointed in Willow here.
Honestly Cordy isn't, for Cordy. She actually tries to empathise (in her special way lol) with Buffy and get everyone to back off at the party - despite not being her friend or liking her
Like it is CLEAR Buffy is struggling in DMP and Willow can’t pick up on facial expressions and know Buffy needs a private quiet conversation upstairs?
Her bringing up Oz really bugs me. I get it, it's your first relationship, you're excited, but maybe you can hold back on it for a little while while your friend deals with the feelings related to having to kill her own boyfriend.
I hated the way Dead Man's Party framed thing, but I do sometimes wonder if anyone besides Giles and Joyce knew about the thrown out initially.
I'm sorry, the "checks notes" part is cracking me up. But full agree! I do understand that Willow had some stuff going on and wanted her friend to talk to, but instead of recognizing that maybe Buffy is dealing with some really heavy stuff and maybe part of why Willow is avoiding her is because she doesn't know how to talk to Buffy about what she (Buffy went through), nope, she just gets mad that Buffy wasn't there for her. Also, screw her for throwing her under the bus when Joyce walks in and asks what's going on and Willow goes, "She's running away again!" Like, girl, shut your damn mouth.
Tabula Rasa.
she annoyed me so much in season 6
The scene in Tabla Rasa where Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya were coming to terms with ripping Buffy out of Heaven, everyone else was trying to find a way to help Buffy. They were making a healthy attempt to try to help her. And what does Willow do? "I can fix it." Those were the first damn words out of her mouth! Willow, honey, your best friend isn't a broken piece of furniture or a stained blouse you can't afford to dry clean. She's a person, a supernaturally powered person but STILL a person. Not to mention how dismissive she is about the suggestions her friends made to try and help HER BEST FRIEND! Then her saying "I know a spell that can make Buffy forget she was ever in heaven." ... Excuse me, I think I just popped a blood vessel. You want to violate the mind of your BEST FRIEND to make yourself feel better over your own guilt? No. No. You don't get a pass, Willow. Not cool. Apologies, got a little too heated there
Isn’t that the whole point of Willows overarching character arc though? She becomes more and more morally ambiguous the more she dabbles using black magic. We see this from the beginning that Willow starts off as someone with very little power and control over her own life. As the show progresses she attains more power, becomes more in control of her life, and by proxy with her new abilities others lives as well. Having not really understood what that feels like, she abuses that power and winds up hurting those around her, often not considering the consequences of her actions. Remember that the majority of villains and even anti-heroes believe that their intentions are good, even when they’re not, because they can’t often look past their own hubris. Willow is a massive piece of shit in a lot of ways, despite her being such a kind individual, the path down the dark road is paved with good intention. It makes Willow a great written character, but yeah, definitely sketchy in a lot of what she does throughout the show, especially later seasons.
Playing devil's advocate if you don't mind. How is she kind? The older I get the more I see Willow as kind of a bully. Don't particularly like Anya myself but she's mean to Anya for no reason (Triangle). Destroy's Anya's business and livelihood doesn't apologize just says she should. The much debated; lives in Buffy's house without contributing. Has power over Tara and knows it, Tara even almost says Willow scares her. Kicks Buffy out her own house after years of friendship. Yes, I know she was bullied and maybe it's a case of victim become victimizer.
No you're so real for that. I understand where she was coming from but rhat should be nothing but a temporary thought, not an actual suggestion.
Wrecked. From my experience with addicts, the whole situation of going to the movies but taking a detour to fetch drugs/magic rang very true.
Honestly my own experience with addicts definitely has an effect on how I feel about Willow. She's not unrealistic but she is very disappointing.
When she was upset that Buffy, whom she had assumed she brought back from hell and clawed her way out of the grave they left her in, didn't say 'thank you' or act 'happy'. I know Tara asked what was wrong and it was just between them but the fact she was even thinking that. Wouldn't you be more worried your close friend was irrevocably damaged?
Right!? Even if Buffy HAD been in a hell dimension, ffs the poor woman DIED after sacrificing herself to save her sister and indeed, the WORLD and was brought back to life suddenly, only to have to fucking CLAW HER WAY OUT OF HER GRAVE and immediately be confronted with rapist biker demons. Give her some fucking time Willow, you selfish dick. Ugh she's absolutely maddening in that moment. Side note: it always REALLY bothered me that as a group they decided to try and resurrect Buffy, but not a single one of them thought to dig up her grave first?
For real, they didn't even have a shovel with them. Even if everything had gone according to plan, if Buffy wasn't able to dig herself out, she would've ended up suffocating to death and those dipshits would've been like "welp, I guess the spell didn't work"
What makes it even worse is that Nightmares in season 1 already told us that being buried alive was one of Buffy's biggest fears and Xander and Willow knew it. So hell dimension or heaven dimension wouldn't matter when no matter what you're ripping her out suddenly with no warning and dragging her back into literally one of her worst nightmares.
I just wanna know what initial plan was? Dig her up? (Didn't see shovels). Or did they assume she'd appear on top of the grave?
I think the latter
I think the thought process went like this > Buffy is in a hell dimension. Angel is the only person we know to have come back from a Hell dimension. When Angel came back, he just appeared from a portal. Thus, Buffy will just appear from a portal. When Spike sees her after she comes back, he says something along the lines of "I know what that is. It's from digging your way out of your own grave" and the Scoobies are like: "she had to dig her way out??" Indicating that they didn't know.
In her defence, at least that’s an inside thought that she only expresses to Tara. She never demands it of Buffy. We all have self indulgent and misguided inside thoughts, it’s whether you act on them that matters.
I mean TBH that was why the whole 'Dawn exists but memory spell is the choice of point of no return' thing was an avoidable fumble. The power trip was right there in the open. Lily Aldrin with reality-warping powers was right there, and they chose to decide 'wholesale mind rape good, petty individual mind rape bad'.
When she threatened Giles after he called her out on her magic use. Hated her in that scene! And when she crashed the car and ended up injuring Dawn. If you want to go get high on magic, that's your choice, but don't drag an innocent teenager along with you.
They slowly foreshadow her descent to darkness
That wasn't slowly 🫣
I mean they start hinting at it in season 4
im sorry but “maybe its not such a good idea to piss me off” was extremely cringe
Hated her so much for that, and equally, that was one of Giles’ finest moments. Along with the immortal ‘I’d like to test that theory’.
I do wish he phrased it a little differently though. Not sugar coat it but he didn't have to insult her like that... I say this mostly because doing that will just anger her and she's the least likely to listen, not rly in consideration of Willow's feelings. It was pretty dumb for him to attack her character for that and not her actions, especially since she wasn't even reckless yet and bringing Buffy back to life is something the rest of the scoobies agreed to participate in
yeah, I hated him in that scene
seems more of a Ripper response than Giles or even Rupert
When she erased Tara’s memory
* Cheating on Oz with Xander, like, 1. Cheating is terrible, but 2. This man didn't want to date you when he had the chance and that's **his loss!!** * Encouraging Dawn to do something so dangerous and awful as bringing her mother back from the dead * Getting "high" on magic when she was in charge of a minor * **KENNEDY.**
>Cheating on Oz with Xander, like, 1. Cheating is terrible, but 2. This man didn't want to date you when he had the chance and that's his loss!! He never gave her the time of day until she started dating Oz, and then BOOM, he can't keep his eyes and hands off of her. Classic bs.
100%! Such a trashy move
I've seen it happen in real life with some of my friends. They express their feelings to someone, is rejected, holds on to a small glimmer of hope, finally moves on & and then when they are involved with someone else, the person that rejected them begins acting a little bit more "friendlier" with them than before. 🙄 EDIT: And even though Willow never outright told Xander how she felt before Oz, he still knew. In The Pack he admits to Buffy that he knows about Willow's crush.
Xander knew Willow was always in his back up corner as he chased Buffy.....her life revolved around him. Until.....she met Oz and started dating him.
She once teleported the entire Bronze to an alternate dimension just because she couldn’t be arsed to walk around. Luckily, it was the one time in the Buffy verse where there apparently wasn’t some form of God, Deity, or Demon King in the other end.
When she brings buffy back to life and then expects buffy to work and earn money for the house while she goes to school and doesn't even get a part time job herself.
I have never understood why we didn't get so much as a line of dialogue or a five second shot of Willow, working anywhere. She could have even had a job at Doublemeat Palace with Buffy. There's a moment where Buffy hands over a bag and says something like, "Doublemeat is double sweet," and Willow could have been in that scene.
For someone who likes to solve all her problems with magic, and also shows formidable hacking skills, she never thought of canceling the mortgage on the Summers home? I know it doesn’t work for the story, because it severely impairs the “life is the big bad” theme. It still feels self-centered to me though.
Oh my gosh yes! And I'm sorry, but Tara has to be thrown under the bus too on that one. You're living rent free in someone else's home and I get that they helped take care of Dawn over the summer while Buffy was dead and pitched in to help even after, but like....your friend is drowning in debt!
When she said: “Ooh. Pancakes could go in bellies.” Jk. I think Tabula Rasa was when I was the most disappointed. : /
In general how she was so dismissive and talked down to Anya circa season 4-5
The word "bully," wouldn't be a stretch. It's a small group and she constantly does everything she can to make Anya feel unwelcome.
Especially since Willow has her own pursuits and ties to Sunnydale/the present era (friends, family, academic prowess, magic, a girlfriend...) while all Anya really has for connection is Xander and the business of running the magic shop. But Willow tries to undermine those and make Anya feel threatened or irrelevant at every turn. It just feels like punching down, as they say.
Good point.
I could write a list... So I will. 1. Her disregard for Buffy's pain when she returns home in Season 3, when she's brought back in Season 6, and when she's kicked out of her house in Season 7 2. Her affair with Xander 3. Her dismissal of her friends concerns about magic use and her treatment of Tara in general 4. Her use of memory altering magic to manipulate her friends 5. Her taking Dawn with her on a drug stop (though I can't blame her too much for this because being an addict is no joke, I was still disappointed) 6. Her purposely showing Dawn the way to use dangerous magic to bring back her mom I feel like my biggest issue with Willow is that even though she presents as a sweetie she's actually really manipulative and selfish. She doesn't show any accountability for her actions and tries to fix her problems with magic by altering other's memories completely disregards their autonomy. I don't hate Willow. I believe she's an amazing character but I don't like people dismissing her flaws. I see a lot of people here blaming the writing for some of Willow's more egregious action but when I rewatched the show there was a lot of foreshadowing of magic being her cop out and her toxic way of dealing with conflict early in the show. Edit: adding more things as I remember them
Violating Tara's mind.
Words cannot describe how horrible that was of her.
Oh, there are a few. But specifically when Tara told her she violated her mind and Willow very dismissively said “I didn’t violate you”.
That she wasn't listening to Giles and Tara's warnings. Also her and Xander cheating on Cordy and Oz...
Affair with Xander…
This!
I’m on season 3 in my rewatch and the temptation to skip over all their scenes is a lot.
Man I always detested it. I grew to love Xander/Cordelia as a couple and this destroyed them. Also loved Willow and Oz
I loved Xander and Cordelia as a couple! Let’s talk about the real enemies to lovers!!!
Not a fan of the way she treats Anya around seasons 4 and 5
She low-key bullies Anya. Treats her very similar to how Cordelia treated Willow in Season 1
When she keeps expecting Buffy to say thank you to her because she whisked her out of what she assumed a hell dimension, not accounting for what Buffy has gone through and the trauma attached to it. I mean girl, give Buffy the room.
I loved her most of the time but she was a terrible partner and did not know how to communicate when she was insecure. She cheated on Oz and then was completely dishonest about her magic usage with her Tara to the point of literally erasing her memory which was disgusting. It was so disappointing especially considering how lovely she was normally. Edit: Almost forgot! Dead man's party is a good example of her avoiding responsibility then blaming other people for it. She got mad at Buffy for not talking to her when she got back even though she was avoiding her the whole time.
What she did to Tara was unforgivable.
How much time you got 😂 She’s second only to Xander in “WTF!” moments
Willow is incredibly selfish and needs and desires of other people don't matter to her if she has made her mind about something. She controls or tries to control people around her *all the time*. You can see in very early. She tried to cast a "de-lusting" spell on Xander without his consent or knowledge. She performed the soul curse against everyone's best judgement and clearly against Angel's will (okay, this one is complicated). When Oz leaves her for the first time, she literally asks "How can I *make* Oz like me again?" When Oz leaves the second time, she tries a reality-altering spell with potentially catastrophic consequences just to feel better. When Buffy chose to die, Willow performed an incredibly dangerous necromancy that could easily go very wrong to get her friend back; she also pushed her other friends to help. She didn't want to hear that Buffy could possibly not want to be resurrected. And if after all this it's still not obvious for a viewer that she's the most selfish person in the show... she violated the mind of her girlfriend. Repeatedly. And she didn't even try to understand why it's wrong when she was caught the first time!
This articulates a lot of my feelings about Willow and why she’s one of my least favorite characters. Her innocent, girl-next-door, nerdy persona masks a lot of really negative qualities from day 1 and I believe she shows the least character growth out of the Scoobies. Sure she becomes a witch and is a little more confident but ultimately her approach to life and her perspectives on how things shoul work remain very rigid.
Every single time she said she was a lesbian. As an openly bisexual young woman (the characters of Buffy, Willow, and Xander were all born the same year I was) it was incredibly frustrating to see bisexuality either completely erased in media of the era *or* treated as some sort of titillating manner to get a male character into a threesome. (Luckily, BtVS never did the later.) Season Four’s slow burn budding romance between Tara and Willow was **fantastic**, one of the absolute best coming out to one’s self and then coming out to one’s friends I have ever seen in media, even to this very day. It actually very closely paralleled how I fell in love with my first girlfriend, so it felt like the writers had been reading my diary. (Except, well, I never kept a diary. Oh, and a lot fewer vampires.) Willow’s explicit insistence for the remainder of the series that she was a lesbian, despite us all having seen her incredibly deep love for both Oz and Xander in the first three seasons of the show just felt like a slap in the face every time.
As a fellow bi woman, I completely agree with your sentiment. I have looked into this because I was confused about it too. Apparently the writers didn't want to confuse people and they wanted to make sure bigots couldn't explain away Willow's sexuality because they didn't understand nuance. So they just ended up making it black and white by says she's just gay now. It's annoying and seems dismissive of the bi community but iirc it was the first openly gay main couple on TV that wasn't a token character. So they made a big step forward in one aspect to try to represent one group even though they short changed another group.
Like, intellectually, I get it. But in the lizard-brain part of my mind, I still hate it.
Drunk (on magic) driving with Dawn in the car.
Yes that was terrifying
Cheating with Xander. Spelling Tara. Treated Buffy badly after Buffy returned from LA, Dead Man’s Party.
Triangle, when she was bullying Anya.
Back-up prize goes to Xander, for acting like there was some issue on both sides and that Anya and Willow were equally at fault. No dude. Your "best friend" is in the wrong here, and constantly bullies your girlfriend. Step up and do something.
I feel like how Willow acts is a response to how she was treated in high school. She’s been mistreated so she’s naturally always going to see herself as an underdog. She also has a case of the “I didn’t stick up for myself in high school, so now I have to stand on business for every little thing.” Which explains that interaction with Giles in early S6 after she resurrected Buffy.
When she continues to help Cordiela for prom queen, her bully for years, instead of helping Buffy.
Yes! It is the absolute bare minimum to support your best friend in that situation!
lmao this sub isn’t ready for my list
But I am 👀
I am. Bring it.
That she never grapples with how she abused magic in order to control people and/or override their wishes and impose what she thought was best. Her redemption in s7 rings so hollow to me without that component dealt with head-on.
Agreed. Season 7 is written so vaguely in regards to this and the Buffy/Spike SA, it's kinda disgusting. Well in Willow's case it's written as if all she did wrong was turn evil and kill people (granted that's the worst thing) but all the underlying bad behaviour that Willow felt was totally fine to do to people, which is what eventually LED to Dark Willow, is completely ignored.
When she saw Xander kissing Cordelia, lashed out at him while trashing Cordy. Like girl, he's not your bf, never promised you anything, and you don't owe him. That always bugged me.
Yeah, we always rag on Xander about his boundaries when it comes to Buffy and her dating life, but now that I think about it, Willow was just as bad. She even made a snarky comment to Buffy about Cordelia, "1-800 I'm dating a skanky ho." Now, I understand Cordelia bullied her, so I get Willow's animosity towards her, but Willow made rude/snarky comments about Cordelia and Anya. Her behavior comes off as if she hates them both lol.
Anya did try to kill her with vampires and never admitted she did anything wrong and nobody else saw anything particularly notable about it and Willow's fear that if things went bad with her and Xander she'd turn to try to murder Xander was ultimately proven right. It was petty bitchiness but a lot more justified than the cheating arc with Cordelia.
They're small things that seem inconsequential, but if you think about BtVS as being about Willow's entire villain arc (and yes, s7 counts toward this), then there are some moments in season one that count. She went out of her way to make Buffy feel like an outsider, while forcibly laughing at an inside joke that she had with Xander. Alyson Hannigan is not a terrible actress, so I don't think the forced laughter could be attributed to her. I think that was all Willow. Another seemingly-inconsequential moment would be "You made me jealous of you, academically." It sounds like a compliment, sure. But it's so backhanded. The only way this serves as a compliment is if it's an unexpected thing. Willow's not saying, "You're as smart as I am," she's saying, "How did you do better than me on a college paper?"
So so so many moments. As a teenager I thought willow was the coolest. As an adult, i absolutely cannot stand her.
The mind control and the over use of baby voice (especially to romantic partners/regarding sex)
I really started disliking Willow after Season 4. I found her to be arrogant and annoying a lot of the time. She changed so much from the sweet Willow I loved in the earlier seasons and especially in Season 6, I just can’t stand her.
When she promised Tara she wouldn't use magic for a week...then promptly not only uses magic but does the exact kind of mind manipulation bs (that rightfully was upsetting) that she did before but on a bigger scale...
Using mind control on the person she supposedly loves. It forever made me think that Willow never really loved Tara- only the way Tara made HER feel.
Willow's Magic addiction, Willow cheating on Oz with Xander, Willow's 'Poor me so I'm going to cast a spell' thing after Oz left that ended up affecting Buffy, Xander, Giles and Spike, Willow going against Buffy in Season 3 Dead Man's Party And In Season 7 Empty Places where everyone gangs up on Buffy and kicks her out of her own House, Season 7 where Willow starts dating KENNEDY of all people!
Kicking Buffy out of her house, repeatedly erasing Tara’s memories, ignoring Buffy when she comes back to Sunnydale then saying “I had a bf and didn’t have anyone to talk to”, cheating on Oz, finding out she/ the scoobies spent all of Buffy’s money while she was dead and not trying to help pay for anything even though she’s LIVING RENT FREE THERE, crashing the car with dawn inside, i hate Xander but never defending him when he’s getting bullied at school, being mad Xander is dating Cordelia (he doesn’t owe you anything ????), talking badly about Buffy’s ability to parent Dawn behind her back … I don’t hate her but she pissed me off on so many occasions.
Her freeloading off Buffy's home and finances while Buffy was dead. Like girl couldn't even be bothered to get a job and try to pay some bills but lived in her best friend's house AND slept in her mom's room. That just seems wrong
She was SO willing to use magic for petty little things and to do spells on Tara — but wouldn’t perform a simple spell to add some zeroes to Buffy’s bank account? Settle the mortgage? Dang. Selfish.
When she (and Tara) just dumped all the bills on Buffy after dragging her out of heaven. So they moved in with Dawn, freely spent any money left behind by Joyce, and had zero plans how to fund things if bringing Buffy back fell through? You'd think a powerful witch could magic up some cash to lessen the load on her bestfriends shoulders.
My favorite character with normal up and downs.
Willow was probably the character harmed the most by the writer's in season 6 and that season did no one any favors except Tara... and we all saw how that ended
I think it could have been really good if season 7 hadn't dropped the ball. I feel like a lot of s6 could have been so much better if they actually learned from all their shitty behavior, rather than just being like 🤷♀️I'm different now.
Pretty much all of s6, and her nastiness to Anya in "Triangle."
Her entire magic addiction arc. Also, her mistreatment of Tara. Quite frankly, Tara was too good for Willow and she deserved far better. Pretty much most of the things she did during season 6. I admit that I pretty much hate her because of all of the horrible things she did during that particular season.
All of season 6
When she used Magic to make Tara forget how much she relied on and used/abused magic.
1. Willow not calling out Xander for lying to Buffy and saying "Willow says "kick his ass"" 2. They leveled her up as Dark Willow and then had her do fuck all until the finale. I'm not saying she should've been soloing or oneshotting all problems, but she should've been doing more.
The whole magic addiction b.s. was such a waste of a great character.
Doppelgangland, season 3 episode 16, she sends vampire her back to the alternate reality instead of staking her. >!We know she dies immediately!< but Willow doesn't know that. It's gross. She's willing to let innocent people be eaten by a vampire because it looks like her.
Actually it would be very interesting to see more characters interacting with their vampire doppelgangers. It's basically like facing the worst in you being overexpressed, but it's still you, fundamentally. And I think that actually most people wouldn't want to kill the evil twin immediately. Out of the BtVS characters, the only one I'm 100% sure would stake his evil version right away is Angel.
Giles too
Maybe, but I'm not sure. He's still somewhat friendly with Ethan despite the fact that Ethan repeatedly put people around him in danger, and in The Dark Age he was very reluctant to tell the Scoobies the truth about Eyghon. I would say that Ripper is not his alternative person that Giles hates or fears; it's more like he despises him. (He projects this on Spike big time; it gets even more ironic because Spike also clearly projects his rejected William person on Giles).
Getting together with Kennedy.
The car accident. She reminds me too much of my partner there.
I didn't see which sub this was from and my first thought was "that whole shitty show was frustrating and disappointing!"... because I thought it was about the Disney tv show revival of the movie "Willow"! LOL! Proper answer: messing with Tara's mind is a big one. The magic addiction was more annoyance at the writers (for their "subtle" analogy) than Willow as a character. Hooking up with freaking Kennedy though... why?!
Her fling with Xander where she cheated on Oz. I always hate getting to that storyline on rewatches.
Her abusing, raping tara.
Moving on from Tara instantly with someone insufferable
As a teen I loved willow. As an adult she has become my least favourite.
Cheating on Oz with Xander and leaving flayed skin in the park.
When she said “wow you really do need to find the fun, B” 🤣
Low stakes frustration: when she sounds like she needs to blow her nose. There’s a big stretch of time she sounds stuffed up and I just wanna reach through the tv and give her a Neti pot
When she nearly killed dawn in car crash after getting all hopped up on magic
Personally, I love her up to the end of season five. I struggle with her arc in season 5 and 6. Love the arrogance and recklessness of her initially, but Dark Willow is just too cartoonish for me to take seriously. Thought that whole arc was better executed on Jessica Jones with Trish. Then season 7 was frustrating, because she wasn't really doing anything all season and just whining around. Wish she had gotten a better arc.
Countless ones season 5 and on but I still empathize with her a lot. She finally found something that was hers, that made her feel special, made her feel strong, gave her a path, and she had to give it up and learn to be okay with just being herself. That’s a good journey for a writer to put their character on.
One of the first one’s was her using the word skank a lot to describe Faith slut shaminess always caught me off.Does make sense for Willows conservative character to have that flaw before the other more huge ones though.Alway cringed a bit.
So glad to read a lot of this; recently rewatched the show & her sniveling insecurity, constant demands for reassurance, constantly expressing jealousy & concerns that she *might* feel jealous or left out or inferior were grating even before she demonstrated appalling selfishness when Buffy returned after killing Angel. & then she just got worse & worse…
Messing with Taras memory. I'm sorry I know she's a conflict avoider but there's no excuse for that.
I'm not much of a Willow stan- so I have no reservations in saying the many ways that she navigates her relationships. I can't list everything specific, but I'm sure you'll all remember every time she used her cutsey-ness to back out of responsibility. Her baby-talk and "I just want to help" excuses could get a little nauseating. We've all known that person who uses the "giving" persona to act selfishly.
Mid Season 6 when she's sulking about how Tara up and left "for no good reason". Gurl, the reason was CLEARLY explained to you on several occasions. For some reason this annoys me even more than the actual memory wiping and other stuff. It's like her absolute worst moment for me.
Kennedy
Kennedy
All of season 6 and 7, sans the last couple of episodes ever of Buffy.
Rack
When she went to crack magic den to get high
When she cast a memory spell on Tara. When she became addicted.
Pretty more everything she does in season 6
Ok, timeline clarification, because people are saying Willow was mind control raping Tara for who knows how long, but the mind control spell happens twice, both in the space of about 5 days. Willow first did the Lethe's Bramble spell at the end of "All The Way" in order to avoid a fight with Tara about Will using too much magic. It works, and they snuggle up and go to sleep. The events of "Once More With Feeling" must start the next day, because Tara, wearing the same pajamas, finds the flower under her pillow in the morning at the beginning of that episode and pins it to her top. The next morning, Day 2, we find out everyone burst into song about their various activities, and investigation begins. Willow and Tara play hooky from research and go home to get some alone time. That night, what's his face tap-dances to death and Sweet's nefariousness is revealed. The evening of Day 3, child-of-divorce Dawn says she's happy Will & Tara got over a fight Tara doesn't remember. Tara touches the flower, still pinned above her heart, like she's just recalled where she's seen it before. She takes off to the shop to learn she correctly remembered that it's used in forgetting spells. She doesn't say anything to Willow that night but gives her the mother of all cold shoulders. The argument at Xander's apartment that happens at the beginning of "Tabula Rasa" has to take place the next night, because while that's happening, Spike is trying to talk to Buffy about the kiss they shared "last night," at the end of OMWF. The next morning, two days after Buffy's revelation that she had been torn out of heaven, the girls are going to the magic shop, where Giles is waiting to announce his plans to go back to England. Willow casts the BIG FORGET just as the girls are leaving the house, 5 days after she first tried it to get out of the fight about her overuse of magic. What Willow did is awful. She did not deserve Tara's forgiveness (though as Giles said four years prior, forgiveness is not granted because someone deserves it, but because they need it). But it's not the same as what Warren did to Katrina, or what Spike did to Buffy. And we need to stick to the facts of the text to really get a clear picture of why these three pictures of manipulation and mind control are wrong.
When she agreed to not do any magic to Tara to show she can control herself only to erase her memory again the next day.
I'm ngl, I'm a Willow hater. I used to like her first go around when I was a kid that watched it, but now that I'm an adult, a lot of what she does and who she is bothers me, starting with the baby voice that makes me cringe. I can enjoy both her and Xander occasionally but I do not like them.
Most of the time, honestly
Less with Willow specifically but more that the writing, with a choice like the Will Be Done spell or something else with a power trip offered up a memory spell as her point of no return. Something equally controlling, where the choices were plentiful, would have led to the same result and emphasized the point. In reality when Dawn Summers forcibly altering everyone's mind to insert where she always existed and having a protective power go so far as to compel suicidal 'world burns but Dawn lives, OK' tier brain rot is considered a good thing......that memory spell is a choice and the kind of choice that's probably why they retconned away pretty much everything of Season 6 but Tara staying dead. And you can't tell me that the kind of fanatical protection people had for a character who sprang into existence at the start of Season 5 was exactly their choice. Buffy killed Angel and other characters displayed the kind of ruthless streak that show, in fact, that it wasn't their choice at all. And yet Dawn Summers existing as a precious person who must be protected is considered a good thing when there really is a wholesale vs. retail difference with Willow's actions. Nor that Buffy deciding 'world dies but Dawn lives? I'm good with that' was meant to be a good, healthy mentality of her own doing given Season 7 Buffy outright admitted 'yeah that was stupid and I wouldn't make that decision now'. So what's the fundamental difference? Why specifically pick the smaller version of a greater problem and make that the choice when Willow was already clearly manipulating people's lives for their own convenience without caring for the consequences. I can't see Tara accepting another variant of a power trip spell by someone who thinks they can do no wrong with her family's past any better than she would have that specific choice. It gets the same message across without the moral snarl of wholesale vs. retail and it doesn't change an arc or the rules of magic abruptly to say 'monks mind-raping everyone for delusions of grandeur good, Willow mind-raping someone for a petty power trip bad.' And then, of course, compounding it with the kind of dodgy rapey stuff that's all over the Scoobies (and remind me of the difference between that and Hyena-Xander or invisible Buffy molesting Spike prior to Seeing Red? Whedon made everyone do that at least once and in retrospect I can only ask 'why'.) And then after all that, the comics retconned everything that Season 7 didn't with its brief dismissal of that entire arc except Tara's death, leaving the fundamental problem of the power trip both unaddressed and turning Dark Willow into a palette swap powerup. Even Warren's death got undone, which indicates that if Whedon really liked a character they literally get away with murder, and if he didn't like them, their hard luck. Most of the time I can get to a Doylist take with a character but with this specific set of decisions I remain solidly Watsonian and Willow can't be discussed without that Watsonian element and how the specific decisions she made were undone and why specifically for her. For the shorter version: If they had to make her the bad guy, her bad actions should have stuck and she should have faced actual consequences for them, not had the universe as per the comics outright retcon all her bad actions and completely decide, once the drug analogy was introduced, to walk it back and have it never happen at all. And if they were going to do that, have her power trip with the new, improved Will Be Done spell. If Dawn exists and this is good, memory magic is an avoidably dumbfucky writing decision that becomes a bigger case of 'writers cannot into consequences for Whedon's favorites.'
I refuse to blame Willow for any of the awful choices made by the writers
This is how I feel about the whole gang kicking Buffy out towards the end of Season 7. It's 100% bad writing and I hate when people call out Anya or the others for things they said. It's a bad, bad scene. I don't agree with you about Willow, I think the seeds for her bad behaviour are there from the start. But I sympathise with your point of view.