Did we *see* enough of the Willow/Anya tension prior to Triangle?

[YummySushiPJs]

I have no problem with the fact that there was a brewing tension between Willow and Anya which finally boiled over in the episode Triangle. We see little hints of this, particularly on Willow's side ("Oooh, we could not invite Anya" / "I KNEW you hated her". ). But do you think they could have shown more?

I have seen comments elsewhere on this episode which state that their "feud" pretty much comes out of nowhere. I don't hold that opinion, but I can understand why others might have missed the friction which at some points, was little more than subtext.

It's not like they don't all hang out often enough for the writers to have put a little more effort into their dislike/distrust of each other. It seems like for the most part they have a "keep out of my way, and i'll keep out of yours" relationship, which isn't particularly interesting viewing nor interesting character development.

 

[NightLady]

Agreed. I expected more tension between them, especially from Anya. She knew about Xander and Willow's brief affair and given her vengeance streak I've always thought it was weird that she didn't show her distrust and dislike of Willow.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Yea I agree, they could have built up the tension. I never got that Willow didn't like Anya cause she was afraid she was going to break Xanders heart or anything, I just thought it was because of what happened in Doppelgangland. Also one thing that annoys me is that Anya's vengeance days were always used for comic relief and thy never bring up what she did in Dopplegangland or granting a wish where Buffy never comes to Sunnydale. It's never really taken seriously until Selfless and even then it goes back to the old Anya. So I think that if they had played it less for comic relief then that is something that Willow should have been more concerned about. She didn't seem to care about Cordelia hurting Xander.

I totally believe Anya would be a bit jealous of Willow or whatever, knowing Xander had cheated on Cordy with her. But shouldn't she be more upset with Xander? The tension did kind of come out of no where and then is all of a sudden resolved by the end of the episode. It really is basically there to service this one off episode plot.

 

[redruM]

I think it could have been expanded on more, but it didn't totally come out of left field for me. Triangle is actually in my top 5 episodes for Season 5.

 

[Mr Trick]

Never thought about it much. I guess they just decided to make Anya comedy character more so I think that is why the storyline went in the direction it did, it might have something to do with her not being in tune with human nature too, because I guess a every day human would might make more out of it than she did. It would have given her and Willow more scope outside of their main storylines, but I don't see it as a big problem than they didn't.

 

[thetopher]

In season 3 and 4 we definitely got enough of Willow's feeling towards Anya. But they did seem to forget about it in Season 5.
A few pointers/reminders as to their relationship would've been nice.
And although I do love 'Triangle' the writers try too hard to make Willow the unlikable one when really Anya's always been more obnoxious.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

I kind of think we got enough of that tension. It also seemed realistic, because I can recall people I have known who didn't like each other but kept it "keep out of my way, and i'll keep out of yours" as you said until one day it all just blew up and could no longer go unspoken. So I think it was a realistic portrayal; one plausible version of how that might go down.

But I don't like the idea of drawing more attention to that than they already had. Too much of that would turn the show into something more like a soap opera, which I can't stand and which Buffy always kind of flirted with the line with anyway. So I would vote that what we got was enough between those two.