Season Six and the downfall of Willow
Before I start, the first part of this post is something I have posted on another site (albeit with a different username), so if you see it, don’t think I’m plagiarising anything! I’ve modified it somewhat from my original thoughts to explain and add more detail. PS – I’m aware of the differences in opinion over whether Willow abused magic/ mind-raped Tara, and mine is that she did both. I DON’T want to get into an argument about it, it’s just my opinion. My rewrite eliminates these problems and shows what I believe should have happened.
For me, Season Six went stale at ‘Wrecked’. I have to say that on paper (and spoiler free), I was looking forward to it – an episode written by Marti Noxon (who has written some of Buffy’s best sad/dramatic episodes. Not even Joss can write heartbreak like she can. Compare Amends to Wild At Heart.) centring around my favourite character, Willow and my favourite Buffy actress, Alyson Hannigan. Plus we were going to get fallout from Buffy and Spike. Things couldn’t be better. And then I saw it. Oh. God.
I’m aware the reason that this episode has been lambasted is because of the heavy-handed drugs metaphor, but that isn’t what bothered me. In fact, the car crash with Dawn was fine by me as well (never having been exposed to anything like an after-school special, although I can see how it would be different to those of you who’ve had them rammed down your throats by other people). I found the trips interesting and cool to see, Jeff Kober played Rack really creepily, and Willow’s breakdown at the end was beautifully played by Aly.
But it just didn’t fit with anything we’d seen before on Buffy. And when a core character’s storyline does a 180, it’s a reason for alarm. Before Wrecked, we’d seen solely one inference to magic being used in order to induce euphoria – Giles’ recollection of his participation in the summoning of Ehygon in ‘The Dark Age’. In ‘Wrecked’, magic suddenly transforms into an all-powerful, consuming drug that nearly destroys a character who’s been practising for several years who has never displayed an inkling of any kind of dependency on the use of magic to satisfy a biological craving.
And that is what infuriates me. Willow has never been addicted to magic in any way, shape or form. True, she abused it numerous times (‘All The Way’, ‘Tabula Rasa’, nearly in ‘Wild At Heart’) but that was never because she had to. She acted selfishly in order to benefit herself, and even worse, tried to pretend that she was doing it for the benefit of others (e.g. ‘Tabula Rasa’ – she wanted to wipe Buffy’s memory not only to relieve Buffy of her suffering but to remove her sense of guilt in engineering the entire resurrection). All of these actions were undertaken of her own free will when she was in full control of her actions.
After ‘Wrecked’, we’re treated to the typical recovery/rehab, which seems surprisingly brief and painless for someone supposedly horribly addicted. Sure, she has the shakes, but that’s it. It’s as if the writers knew the addiction was a load of crap and tried to cover it up as best as it could.
First of all, I don’t know if it’s ever become apparent why Willow suddenly became addicted. Well, there is a reason: poor planning by the writers. I read an interview with Marti Noxon and she said that the staff never stopped to think that Spuffy and BMW would be going on at the same time. If Willow had continued toying with the black magics, her eventual transformation would have still occurred, but her abuse of magic would discourage viewer empathy, and with Spuffy also occurring, the show’s three main characters would all lack sympathy from the viewers. That’s a dangerous place to be, if viewers lack empathy they won’t care what happens: ratings fall, bad for the show. So the staff want to keep Spuffy going, so they decide to make the viewers feel sorry for Willow – hence addiction and making Willow a victim rather than an abuser.
So at the start of the rewrite we have a couple of story requirements – we need to obtain dark Willow at the end of the Season, but without destroying any affection/sympathy that viewers have for her. I prefer that DMW takes up only three episodes, as any longer ‘deflates’ the story and removes its poignancy, IMO. But the key factor is that we have to prevent the obvious. No death. Tara got some good character development in early S6, but she was pretty much discarded after W/T broke up and only came back to act as a plot device. We have to remove that and give Tara a better role for the mid-season. Here’s what I propose. I’m going to work within the story parameters on the show, so no 100% brand new things, just make some modifications to show how easily the story could have been written without OOC behaviour and resorting to the cliché.
5.19 – ‘Tough Love’ - The first thing has to occur here. I believe that Willow constructs her perfect identity using both Tara and magic. Her anger after Tara is brain-sucked is fine, as is her attack on Glory. But Willow shouldn’t have unlimited power. After being creamed by Glory, she should begin to develop an inferiority complex about her magic use and failure to save Tara from Glory – therefore she decides to obtain an external power source.
5.20 – 5.22 ‘Spiral – The Gift’ – Willow has to continue using powerful black magic in order to lead the group. She begins to heavily tire from this extended use of her power. In The Gift, Willow restores Tara’s mind, as she did on screen. But instead of Spike trying to save Dawn from Doc, it should be Willow – using magic. Doc discards her, she falls but Tara saves her from being killed by use of her own magic. Buffy dies. Now Willow has a real reason to blame herself for the death, and to desire to make things right by restoring Buffy. But does she have the power?
6.01, 6.02 – ‘Bargaining’ – Events of the summer occur. Willow is finding it extremely hard to fight off demons every night using her magic – researches ways to obtain more power. Research leads her to Rack, who offers to increase her power for cash. This way, we get the drugs angle without it being so OTT. Willow also mentions that the only other ‘safe’ resurrection spell she knows requires three human hearts. After visiting Rack, Willow finds she can use powerful magic easily – performs the resurrection, and this can also explain the Sabrina-esque ‘point-and-zap’ magic use, as Willow has enough power now to not require the incantations etc.
6.03-6.05 can remain the same. Bit of concern from Tara over Willow’s sudden power surge and eagerness to use black magic. Willow telling her not to worry – shutting her out as she wants to appear a strong leader to the Scoobs. Willow finds that her own power is diminishing and she is reliant on what Rack gives her = Willow going back for more power from Rack.
6.06 – ‘All The Way’ – No mind-wiping but big scale argument over Willow’s lack of respect for magic. Willow feels that she has to do it to protect her friends, or that there is no problem as she’s not hurting anyone.
6.07 – ‘OMWF’ - As it happened (except for the Tara finding-out bit as that never happened). Willow going back for more power from Rack (Can you imagine him singing!! J)
6.08 – Willow does the forget spell, even after Tara warns her not to. Tara is furious, still leaves her. (This may seem a bit sudden, but if my partner disregarded my opinion on something important so casually I’d question what was going on in the relationship.) Willow is convinced she’s done nothing wrong as she was trying to help her friends – Tara is just overreacting.
6.09 – The nerds steal the diamond. Instead of researching, Willow decides to summon a demon to hunt the thieves down. Again, she goes back to Rack as her power is dwindling faster and faster – so she needs more.
6.10 – Willow takes Dawn to Rack’s – she’s become more and more dependant on him. Car crash caused by the demon Willow summoned. Willow breaks down, Buffy throws her out for nearly killing Dawn. Willow goes to Tara, who takes her in, reminded of the time Willow cared for her. She makes it clear that this is not an invitation to continue their relationship. Willow accepts that she was out of control and decides to leave magic alone for a while.
6.11 – 6.18 – Willow slowly recovers, attempts to put things right with Buffy and Dawn. She and Tara tentatively begin to rekindle their romance, one step at a time. Willow’s own power is returning to her after her period of rest. She and Tara perform a few simple spells.
6.19 – Scoobs (X, W, T) go over to Buffy’s to finally sort things out over what happened earlier. Warren shoots Buffy, Tara and Xander. Xander dies (let’s face it, would the show suffer without him?) Buffy and Tara are close to death and taken to hospital.
6.20 - Willow completely freaks, returns to black magic to save Buffy and Tara, then decides to take out Warren. She drains the magic books, finding the three-heart resurrection spell (remember, she’d want to help Xander, what with him being her best friend of 17 years). The dark power within the books is changing her for the worse. She kills Warren and rips his heart out.
6.21 – Willow continues to spiral out of control, going after the other nerds. Buffy and Tara try to stop her; she attacks them, not understanding why they won’t let her do the spell to bring Xander back. Willow kills Rack and drains him – her statement about having surpassed the need for his power. Giles arrives.
6.22 – Willow drains Giles, fights him, Buffy and Tara. Decides to destroy the world etc. Tara goes after her and stops her, saying how she knows that Willow is still there and she loves her regardless of how Willow has acted or how Willow feels about herself. Therefore, evil world-destroying lesbian is counteracted by good world-saving lesbian – no cliché.
Okay, I know that’s not brilliant, mainly because there are several faults still in the story. But I believe this is much more in character for Willow than what actually happened. Again, I don’t mean this to be a full comprehensive rewrite – I just did it to show that ME could have still done what they wanted with the character without making her a ‘junkie’ and using the cliché.
. I especially liked the following aspects of the season:
)
from me for being cold , calculating and manipulative.
) But Wilow's alaways had some personality traits that make the "forget spell" at least plausible.
at: 4/21/03 10:09:51 am
