quote:
Originally posted by bzengo:
...I think Willow - and this is based on Afterlife and on Willow's actions at other places in the season as she mucked around with dimensions and threatened time travel - attempts to reset time/dimensions to before Buffy's resurrection....Because Willow blames Tara's death on Buffy's failure to stop Warren – just as Dawn blamed Buffy for Willow's Rack night where Dawn's arm got broken - and Willow also blames Buffy for the fact that it was Buffy whom Warren was after. The Buffy who died in The Gift easily beat Warren and Jonathan in prior years; if she were not wrong, she would never have been stopped by silly nerd boys. Furthermore, if Buffy had stayed dead, then Warren wouldn't have even been coming by their house to attack her, so Tara would still be alive.
Clearly, Buffy must be unresurrected.
Willow will likely attempt to reverse the resurrection, using the power of Dawn the Key, or any other magic source she can find. My guess and hope is she attempts to use Dawn as that has the most dramatic oomph to it. Remember, Willow has already hurt Dawn once while under the influence, and she almost got Dawn killed as well.
Gotta hand it to you bzengo...you certainly do the homework and I have to say, your scenario feels much more ME-like in nature.
But a couple of things jump out at me...One is that some of the dialog that you reference from the scripts was cut from what actually aired; the overall theme behind the scenes may still have come across, but without a script, viewers aren't privvy to all that corroborating evidence. Not saying that your points aren't still valid and strong, just that it's a little risky to include dialog/scenes that have been cut...
The other thing that really gets me to thinking though, is your spec that Willow's primary intention is to turn back time to before Buffy's resurrection, because if she had stayed dead, Warren would never have had a reason to come after her, and Tara wouldn't have been killed in the process. But then why would Willow have expended the Dark energy necessary to track down, torture, and kill Warren before getting on with her plan for de-resurrection? Just for revenge? Revenge that will just end up being undone once she turns back time? Just seems like she would be more keen on wanting to conserve all her energies to give herself her best shot at succeeding with that plan, if that's what she had in mind all along. Especially since it's not something she's ever attempted before...
But I just keep thinking about the ramifications of Willow giving herself back over to Dark Magicks. And Willow is very aware of those ramifications. In AYW, Sam tells her that she's never before met anyone strong enough to resist the pull of Dark Magicks, and then she tells Willow about the two shamans who got caught up in Dark Magicks and ended up "just gone". Then, in OAFA, Willow resists the bullying from Anya and Xander who want her to use magic to break the spell on the house. So far, she has shown remarkable strength in being able to stop the magic use cold turkey. But she tells them quite clearly that she doesn't believe she would be able to stop again if she ever started back down that path.
Finding Tara murdered, though, makes her desperate enough to take that path. And it is an act of desperation... because she wants and needs desperately to be with Tara. I'm just not so sure that bringing Tara back to life is what she has in mind. First of all, she knows how Tara feels about resurrection spells, and you can only assume that Tara would feel even more strongly about being made the object of one, for whatever reason; plus Willow knows that there is a risk of bringing Tara back "wrong" or even slightly altered as in Buffy's case...and having witnessed what Buffy has gone through in the aftermath of her resurrection, Willow would not likely want to risk putting Tara through anything even remotely similar. Which leaves me more inclined to think along the same lines as what Xita said...that this is a suicide run on Willow's part. Plain and simple. She knows where the Dark Magick road leads and that is her ultimate destination...poof...gone...passed over into a "next" dimension...but a dimension that has Tara in it as well. Just a theory, or more like a niggling idea at this point, but it's got me to thinking that maybe what Willow really has in mind is to open up a portal to other dimensions -- through Dawn or some other means -- so that she can first find Tara and then cross over and be with her in whichever dimension that turns out to be.
At that point, Willow would be just as "dead" as Tara. But Buffy -- as someone who's been there done that twice already -- would be in the unique position of knowing just how to "navigate" the (possibly fiery) portal...and thus very capable of crossing through it and back in order to bring both Tara and Willow back to "this" dimension. And she certainly has more than enough motivation to attempt it...the fact that she loves them both dearly, guilt over Tara's death and how that's affected Willow, gratitude that Tara was there for her when she needed a confidante, the fact that Willow has always come through for her, etc. This time, she not only chooses life...she goes after it, seizes it, and yanks it right back with her. For all of them.
I still need to think further on this...see what holes I can poke in it. See if any confirmed spoilers pop up to either make me abandon this train of thought outright or pursue it further. But the one thing that would follow that is still in keeping with what you have outlined is that in this scenario, Willow would still return magic-less, inasmuch as she would have used everything she had in order to get to Tara.
Like I said...I need to go away now and do some more thinking...but thanks, bzengo, for providing me a fresh path to follow...In a way, it's really quite exhilirating to try to match wits with ME...especially seeing as how they hold all the cards and they get to deal them any which way they see fit. Won't keep me from trying, though...*damn them*
