The Logic of S6 Willow and the "Magic Equals Drugs" Metaphor

[Taaroko]

I posted this meta on my LJ page a few days ago, and I thought you guys might be interested. It does have some things added, though, as the discussion that ensued over there proved to be very illuminating in a couple of areas, and I wanted to include them.

Ever since I got into the online fandom, I've noticed that most people tend to have some issue or other with the execution of Willow's arc in season six (that it was badly written, that she was out of character, etc.), and with the way that "the magic is such a thin metaphor for drugs that it practically isn't a metaphor at all", and "why would magic suddenly work like drugs when it never has before", and whatnot. I've never understood why this stuff is such a problem for everyone else, because even though it's all a miserable and ugly business (just like the rest of season six, whenever everyone isn't singing or taking a stroll down memory-free lane), it has always made sense to me.

Now, I should tell you from the start that it's been a couple of years since I last watched any of the later seasons, and season six *really* isn't my favorite one to dwell on, so feel free to let me know if I've forgotten about something from the episodes that would contradict this.

So, here's how I see it: it isn't a metaphor at all. Even though we have to see it as a metaphor in order to apply it to real life because what happened to Willow could only happen exactly that way in a fictional world, within the story, the magic Rack shot her up with was literally a drug, and it got her addicted like one.

That brings us to why the magic worked that way when it never had before, and there's a very simple explanation that can be easily supported by canon. We have seen in canon that there are different types of magic. Black magic, white magic, magic from invoking pagan gods, magic that requires skill and ingredients and specific conditions to perform, and magic that can be performed by anyone speaking Latin, even if they weren't trying to do anything except speak Latin. Rack's magic is just one more type of magic. So when Willow gets addicted to it, it isn't because suddenly Buffyverse magic had been rewritten out of nowhere to be some awful drug-like thing. No, it's because this kind of magic is literally a drug and as such is designed to get the people who use it addicted.

It's a drug, but it's still also magic, which makes it much more dangerous than just any old drug. For instance, normal drugs can't taint the benefits of of non-harmful drugs (from prescribed medication to cough drops) by association, because they're all just chemicals. Rack's magic, however, is a drug that can and does corrupt all magic for its users. Once they're hooked, the smallest spell can trigger a relapse and send them running back to him. Which is what he wants, of course.

So with this explanation, Willow's arc doesn't seem inconsistent or poorly written at all. It's just really tragic. It exposes how weak and amoral and selfish she can be, and that's not a side of her I enjoyed seeing. I was much happier with the Willow of the first four seasons, who was nerdy and adorable and innocent. But anyway, now that I've broken down the magic, I'll move on to the breakdown of her arc.

Willow's weakness was always power and a tendency to use it irresponsibly and feel entitled by it. Before she was into magic (and before she had even met Buffy), she was hacking into the computer systems of local government offices--just because she could, not because it was beneficial or necessary. If she was clever enough to get past an obstacle or rule, then it was an obstacle or rule for lesser mortals, not her. But this didn't begin to jeopardize her strong moral integrity until she started applying it to magic.

Early signs of her willingness to abuse magic instead of dealing with her problems the normal way came in "Lover's Walk", "Wild at Heart", and "Something Blue", but the first time she both follows through and gets the results she wanted (unless I'm forgetting something) is when does the spell to bring Buffy back--a deliberate, carefully planned act of extremely scary magic that involved using deception in order to gain the help of Tara, Xander, and Anya. Deep down, she knew it was wrong, otherwise she would have asked for Giles's help instead of waiting until he was out of the country to do it and insisting that nobody tell him. Once she crosses this line, she thinks she's untouchable because she's raised the dead, so the rules don't apply to her anymore and magic becomes her easy answer to everything.

Eventually, Tara can no longer remain silent about her behavior, and the others aren't entirely comfortable with it either (particularly Giles, whose chastisement of her is spot on). Tara knew the resurrection spell was very wrong even without Willow telling her everything, and she could have confronted her about her use of magic then, but she didn't, thinking that the ends justified the means and hoping Willow wouldn't do anything else. By the time she finally abandons that optimism and embraces reality, Willow can no longer be trusted to be responsible with her magic at all, so she lays down the "no more spells" ultimatum.

And with that comes Willow's second major abuse of power: erasing this argument from Tara's mind. Even after Tara finds out, Willow isn't sorry for what she's done (nor does she even fully understand the horrible magnitude of it because, again, she thinks the rules don't apply to her). She's just sorry for getting caught. Had she been repentant, she would have changed her ways right there, but instead she tries to do the same thing *again*, fails (which causes wacky hijinks to ensue), and leaves Tara no choice but to follow through with her ultimatum.

Still far from being repentant and now feeling like the wronged party for reaping what she sowed, Willow tries to prove that what she's been doing with magic is good and justified so that she can be right and people will stop expecting her to change her ways and start giving her her dues. She de-rats Amy (so easily that it's inexcusable that it took her that long to figure out how, but that's beside the point) for this reason, and now she has an ally.

She goes with Amy to see Rack. She has no idea what she's getting into, but there are plenty of warning signs, and as far gone as she is, she clearly isn't entirely comfortable with it. But once she's on her magic high, everything is awesome. And once she crashes and is left powerless, all she's thinking about is getting that high back.

As we all know, it spirals horribly downward from there until she finally hits bottom in "Wrecked" and sees how screwed up she's become because of magic. But now it's a long, hard road to recovery on top of making amends and correcting her behavior. And it sucks. Because what that drug-magic did (as it was designed to do) was corrupt all the other types of magic for her, so that any spell could easily send her into a tailspin. However, she still isn't truly repentant yet. She's grudging that she has to do things the slow way, but her fear of what the use of magic will do to her is enough to keep her in check. Her morality throughout this season is actually very childish in a lot of ways. As an adult, she should have known better. Especially since this was all stuff that she seemed to understand way back in "Doppelgangland". ("Magic is dangerous, Anya. It's not to be toyed with.")

Despite Amy shooting her up with uncontrollable magic against her will once, Willow makes it to "Entropy" without slipping. Tara recognizes the efforts she's been making, forgives her, and takes her back. Willow has her reward for conquering her addiction (though at that point, she wasn't doing it for a reward, she was doing it to keep herself from hitting bottom again--which is a more admirable motivation, in my opinion).

And then the golden moment comes to a staggering, brutal, and unforeseeable end when Tara gets shot (I could go into how ridiculously impossible it would be for the bullet to actually have that trajectory with Warren, Tara, and Willow standing where they were, but I won't) and killed within days of their reunion. Willow's happiness (her first happiness in the season that isn't secretly guilt-tainted, mind you) is ripped from her for no logical reason and cannot be retrieved.

I think her behavior as Dark Willow is fairly easy to understand (though I certainly don't condone any of it) so I won't break down the emotions and magic and everything else involved there just now, but I will do the aftermath of it. Xander stops her with his friendship and love, and that's when she *finally* comes to grips with the wrongness of everything she has done. She can't rationalize it or justify it anymore. It was wrong, as were her motivations, period. The rules *do* apply to her. She had really done all of that of her own free will while in full possession of her soul and considerable mental faculties, and she is really going to have to live with it. All of that, and she also allows herself to start grieving.

There's my meta, and there's why Willow's arc and role in season six (and the nature of the magic involved) make sense to me. I might flesh out the Dark Willow bit or expand on how Willow's arc in this season affected that of season seven (and possibly eight, if I'm feeling unusually generous towards the comics) and how her arc from the earlier seasons led up to it, but that'll have to be later.

 

[Blondie Bear]

Makes perfect sense to me. I think you're right; as a metaphor, it's horribly heavy-handed, but if you don't look at it as a metaphor (as the show had mostly moved away from that by then), it is what it is.

And I totally agree with you about the problem with the ballistics of Warren shooting Tara. Grr!

 

[prophecygrrl]

Great meta! 🙂

I'm one of the fans who has a problem with Willow's magic addiction-Dark Willow arc. For me, I do really like the concept of Willow becoming corrupted by magic. I get the white magic vs black magic vs whatever color magic thing, though I feel like that wasn't fully explained until the Coven thing in Season 7, so Season 6 was a bit problematic and confusing when I first watched. I also really understand Willow's arrogance about her capabilities, and I love that the writers explored that. I think there's a lot more to her, even in the early seasons with cute-and-sweet Willow, so being corrupted by magic and becoming Dark Willow makes perfect sense.

But on the other hand, I'm still irritated by the magic as drugs plotline because of how it was *executed*. To me, with Rack acting as a "dealer", Amy as an obvious enabler, and seeing the "high" the actual "drugs" themselves produced, it was like the drugs metaphor was really, really obvious. It felt a little obnoxious, the way it was shoved in my face as a viewer and I didn't like that at all.
I liked how it was much more subtle in the early seasons, then really showing a problem in Season 5 (with the beginnings of Dark Willow when she goes after Glory), but Season 6's addictive magic plotline was... really over the top for me. My problems with it come down to the fact that it wasn't very well written, IMO, though I do like the concept and I think it makes a lot of sense for Willow to go down that path.

ETA: I re-read your post (don't know how I missed your "it isn't a metaphor" idea the first time lol), and I'm confused as to why you don't think it's a metaphor? Most of BtVS operates on metaphors, big time...practically the whole Slayer mythos is a metaphor for female empowerment, though you can make a case that Joss & Co. failed a lot with that one.

Even if you don't view it as one, my problems (and I think a lot of other people's too) isn't just that it's a tired metaphor, but that that plotline is not very well written.

 

[Taaroko]

But on the other hand, I'm still irritated by the magic as drugs plotline because of how it was *executed*. To me, with Rack acting as a "dealer", Amy as an obvious enabler, and seeing the "high" the actual "drugs" themselves produced, it was like the drugs metaphor was really, really obvious. It felt a little obnoxious, the way it was shoved in my face as a viewer and I didn't like that at all.
I liked how it was much more subtle in the early seasons, then really showing a problem in Season 5 (with the beginnings of Dark Willow when she goes after Glory), but Season 6's addictive magic plotline was... really over the top for me. My problems with it come down to the fact that it wasn't very well written, IMO, though I do like the concept and I think it makes a lot of sense for Willow to go down that path.

That's the point, though. It's not a metaphor at all because this magic is *literally* a drug, and therefore behaves like one and has all the other stuff you'd expect to see surrounding drugs and addiction. I mean, maybe they meant to write it as only a metaphor, but it looked pretty literal to me, so that's how I choose to see it. Besides, I would have been much less interested in a regular drugs plotline (and much less willing to see it as being in character, because I'd have a hard time believing that any of them would do that to themselves) than I was in the drug-magic plotline.

ETA in response to your ETA: I think I basically just answered why I don't think it's a metaphor. While it *is* a metaphor compared to real life, within the story, this magic is literally a drug. I think that in a lot of ways, the show was always about making metaphors literal. "High school is hell" being the example that immediately jumps to mind.

 

[Icarium]

Logic? In BtVS S6? Surely you are joking? 🙂

That brings us to why the magic worked that way when it never had before, and there's a very simple explanation that can be easily supported by canon. We have seen in canon that there are different types of magic. Black magic, white magic, magic from invoking pagan gods, magic that requires skill and ingredients and specific conditions to perform, and magic that can be performed by anyone speaking Latin, even if they weren't trying to do anything except speak Latin. Rack's magic is just one more type of magic. So when Willow gets addicted to it, it isn't because suddenly Buffyverse magic had been rewritten out of nowhere to be some awful drug-like thing. No, it's because this kind of magic is literally a drug and as such is designed to get the people who use it addicted.

Except for the fact that Willow is apparently addicted to all kinds of magic in S6. If she was only addicted Rack's why on Earth would she stop doing any magic even in situations where her life is threatened? There is also the none-too-subtle implication that Willow was pretty much an addict even before she visited Rack - she was trying to do everything with magic - changing her clothes, cleaning, etc. And Sam Finn mentions other cases of magic addiction, presumably by people who never met Rack.

Rack's magic, however, is a drug that can and does corrupt all magic for its users. Once they're hooked, the smallest spell can trigger a relapse and send them running back to him. Which is what he wants, of course.

Interesting theory but why would Rack do that? if any spell could get Willow high once she has "tasted" Rack's magic why would she go back to him? Isn't that akin to a drag dealer selling a drug that makes his clients get high on say sugar? If they can get their "dose" on their own why come back to Rack? And there is also the problem that nowhere in canon (IIRC) is indicated that Rack's magic is that special. Also, it's more than a bit curious how Willow gets over her "addiction" just like that in S7 and Giles even says how magic is not a drug. Amy doesn't seem addicted in S7-8 and she hadn't even had Willow's "epiphany". Nice consistency there, writers...not.

There is also the extremely sloppy execution. In just a single episode Willow is introduced to Rack, gets high, gets to rock bottom (with a literal car crush, no less!) and learns the lesson that "drugs are bad, 'mkay". All this on a show that was once praised for its subtlety and lack of preaching. Gee, I wonder why people hated that storyline...

 

[frankie]

That was a great read and does make perfect sense. I actually never considered Willow's computer hacking before. A big problem with the Dark Willow arc for me was how blatant it was, Amy breaking in to steal a bag of sage, might be one of the show's dumbest moments. I half expected her to shout " I need my fix ". And the biggest problem was the fact that Willow was just a horrible person, if the drug was bringing out parts of who Willow was, then yikes! Taunting Dawn over Joyce's death, threatening to turn her back to energy. Killing! Not a nice lady. That is why I hate the Dark Willow storyline, because we got a glimpse into who lies beneath the "shy, nice" surface - and I didn't like her at all.

 

[prophecygrrl]

That's the point, though. It's not a metaphor at all because this magic is *literally* a drug, and therefore behaves like one and has all the other stuff you'd expect to see surrounding drugs and addiction. I mean, maybe they meant to write it as only a metaphor, but it looked pretty literal to me, so that's how I choose to see it. Besides, I would have been much less interested in a regular drugs plotline (and much less willing to see it as being in character, because I'd have a hard time believing that any of them would do that to themselves) than I was in the drug-magic plotline.

I added more to my post, lol, but maybe you didn't see that yet. 🙂

The thing is, even if it wasn't a metaphor...in my opinion, it's still kind of badly written. Not just because the analogy is heavyhanded. Different preferences when it comes to writing, I suppose. Personally, even just reading the synopsis and not seeing things on a meta-level, I'm still kinda like 😵. Not because Willow goes bad or because I don't like the concept (cause I do, lol), but more like...Rack was horribly written, Willow getting shots of his magic like that was oddly portrayed, Amy's addiction to magic isn't even very well explained when uh, she was a rat for years precisely because she was messing around with magic and put herself in a situation she couldn't get out of, etc...

I actually am a pretty big fan of Season Six, for the record. I think the first half is incredible. But Willow's storyline was just. Not working for me.

ETA: LOL, we seem to be missing each other's replies to things 😉 And just wanted to add that in regards to the execution, the pacing of it was also...off.

 

[Taaroko]

Except for the fact that Willow is apparently addicted to all kinds of magic in S6. If she was only addicted Rack's why on Earth would she stop doing any magic even in situations where her life is threatened? There is also the none-too-subtle implication that Willow was pretty much an addict even before she visited Rack - she was trying to do everything with magic - changing her clothes, cleaning, etc. And Sam Finn mentions other cases of magic addiction, presumably by people who never met Rack.

Yes, Willow is addicted to all kinds of magic, but that's because of the way Rack's magic works. His is the only kind that will get her high, but the use of any kind will severely endanger her self-control, and pretty soon she'd be back at his place looking for another dose. Before she went to see Rack, magic did not have the same effect on her; she was just being extremely irresponsible with it and viewing it as the answer to every problem in life. I didn't remember that from Sam, but Rack doesn't necessarily have to be the only drug-magic dealer in the world, does he?

Interesting theory but why would Rack do that? if any spell could get Willow high once she has "tasted" Rack's magic why would she go back to him? Isn't that akin to a drag dealer selling a drug that makes his clients get high on say sugar? If they can get their "dose" on their own why come back to Rack? And there is also the problem that nowhere in canon (IIRC) is indicated that Rack's magic is that special. Also, it's more than a bit curious how Willow gets over her "addiction" just like that in S7 and Giles even says how magic is not a drug. Amy doesn't seem addicted in S7-8 and she hadn't even had Willow's "epiphany". Nice consistency there, writers...not.

Any spell wouldn't get her high. (Did I say that? If I did, it's not what I meant and I will fix it.) It would just set her off--feed the addiction but not satisfy it, and pretty soon she'd be back at Rack's place. Canon may not specifically state or otherwise indicate that Rack's magic is that special, but that's the only way it makes sense to me for it to behave the way it does. I think Willow was already over her addiction when Tara took her back. Dark Willow wasn't a relapse into the drug-magic, it was a relapse into the power-hungriness and being a law unto herself. Giles isn't the final authority on magic, is he? Just because he never encountered or heard of drug-magic, it doesn't mean it can't exist in the Buffyverse. Willow's entire addiction arc took place while he was in England. As to Amy, she had no choice but to get over her addiction after Willow had killed Rack, if she couldn't find anyone else who dealt in similar magic.

There is also the extremely sloppy execution. In just a single episode Willow is introduced to Rack, gets high, gets to rock bottom (with a literal car crush, no less!) and learns the lesson that "drugs are bad, 'mkay". All this on a show that was once praised for its subtlety and lack of preaching. Gee, I wonder why people hated that storyline...

*shrug* I agree that drugs are bad and don't mind when TV makes that the moral of the story, which might be another reason why that aspect of Willow's arc doesn't bug me. I mean, I didn't hate "Beer Bad" either; I thought it was funny.

 

[prophecygrrl]

The thing is, seeing as how to some extent we're debating technical facts (like whether or not Rack's brand of magic is special, what specific kind of magic Willow was addicted to in S6, etc.) just, IMO, makes a case for how the storyline wasn't executed all that well. :/

 

[Icarium]

Any spell wouldn't get her high.

So what's the problem then? All she needed to do was go kick Rack's ass and voilà  - problem solved? Why didn't Willow do it sooner then? Remove the temptations? Not kill him but at least force him to leave Sunnydale. I am pretty sure the addiction was played straight, up to removing magic supplies from the house in yet another ridiculous drug "metaphor". If Willow's situation is so rare why is everybody, including Tara and Anya (who has practiced magic for more than millennium and works in a magic shop) accept the situation so easily instead of investigating how come magic suddenly became addictive? There is even a mention of "Spellcasters Anonymous" - just Rack's victims? Sorry, too contrived for my taste.

I agree that drugs are bad and don't mind when TV makes that the moral of the story, which might be another reason why that aspect of Willow's arc doesn't bug me. I mean, I didn't hate "Beer Bad" either; I thought it was funny.

Beer Bad is the opposite of Wrecked - it makes fun of such clumsy preaching.

Dark Willow wasn't a relapse into the drug-magic, it was a relapse into the power-hungriness and being a law unto herself.

So why bother with the addiction crap if power-hungriness would do (for the record I hate that development even more than magic!crack) but it 's a valid question)?

 

[Taaroko]

So what's the problem then? All she needed to do was go kick Rack's ass and voilà  - problem solved? Why didn't Willow do it sooner then? Remove the temptations? Not kill him but at least force him to leave Sunnydale. I am pretty sure the addiction was played straight, up to removing magic supplies from the house in yet another ridiculous drug "metaphor". If Willow's situation is so rare why is everybody, including Tara and Anya (who has practiced magic for more than millennium and works in a magic shop) accept the situation so easily instead of investigating how come magic suddenly became addictive? There is even a mention of "Spellcasters Anonymous" - just Rack's victims? Sorry, too contrived for my taste.

Beer Bad is the opposite of Wrecked - it makes fun of such clumsy preaching.

So why bother with the addiction crap if power-hungriness would do (for the record I hate that development even more than magic!crack) but it 's a valid question)?

Hey! Stop poking holes in the only way I can make sense of this season! 😛 Unless you've got another explanation. I know I'm stretching a bit with the mechanics of the drug-magic, but I can't think of anything else that makes the remotest sense within the context of the entire series.

And you took that first line out of context. Any spell wouldn't get her high, it would just crank up her craving for another fix. I do agree that if the characters were being more logical, they would have confronted Rack on behalf of their friend--but did any of them even know about him? Did Dawn tell anyone? I can't remember. And Willow didn't trust herself around him enough to do it herself.

I also agree that power-hungriness would have made a more compelling and less controversial arc overall. But that's not what we got, and this is how I'm dealing.

 

[Icarium]

I have another explanation - they needed Willow to be powerless, because otherwise she would have dealt with Warren long before he managed to kill anyone. So they puled the magic crack out of somebody's posterior. In other words the writers were incompetent. Fits with the rest of the season like a glove.

 

[Taaroko]

I have another explanation - they needed Willow to be powerless, because otherwise she would have dealt with Warren long before he managed to kill anyone. So they puled the magic crack out of somebody's posterior. In other words the writers were incompetent. Fits with the rest of the season like a glove.

Hah, I was looking more for explanations that don't involve the motives and carelessness of the writers (which I fully acknowledge). Their failure to attend to continuity has driven me nuts at many points in the series. For my own sanity, I have to try to explain it away from within the story. Sometimes my explanations amount to ridiculous crackfic (like my theory that the reason why Angel was completely useless and incompetent in "Some Assembly Required" was that the stupid beige jacket he was wearing in that episode and only that episode was actually cursed, and he figured it out and burned it before "School Hard"), and sometimes they turn into serious metas like this one.

 

[The Unspoken]

So why bother with the addiction crap if power-hungriness would do (for the record I hate that development even more than magic!crack) but it 's a valid question)?

Well, you could argue that her hunger for power led to her addiction, which in turn led to her being more prone to becoming Dark Willow. Similarly to how she loses herself in her addiction, she loses herself in her anger and sorrow.

By the way, re there any interviews with the writers that go in-depth about this particular storyline?

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

Gosh, I think the only thing that bugs me about the magic = drugs metaphor is that magic was supposed to equal sex back in season 4 with Tara. They changed the meaning of the magic to fit what they wanted it to and that's troublesome for me.

Unless we're saying that Willow is addicted to sex. And she used sex to erase Tara's mind.

 

[msfantastico87]

OMG I love this Meta. Bravo! Thank you for helping me see s6 and Willow's arc in a whole new light. I used to hate it with a passion, well I still do, but at least now I can appreciate how it was written. Some things I'd like to point out:

Eventually, Tara can no longer remain silent about her behavior, and the others aren't entirely comfortable with it either (particularly Giles, whose chastisement of her is spot on). Tara knew the resurrection spell was very wrong even without Willow telling her everything, and she could have confronted her about her use of magic then, but she didn't, thinking that the ends justified the means and hoping Willow wouldn't do anything else. By the time she finally abandons that optimism and embraces reality, Willow can no longer be trusted to be responsible with her magic at all, so she lays down the "no more spells" ultimatum.

And with that comes Willow's second major abuse of power: erasing this argument from Tara's mind. Even after Tara finds out, Willow isn't sorry for what she's done (nor does she even fully understand the horrible magnitude of it because, again, she thinks the rules don't apply to her). She's just sorry for getting caught. Had she been repentant, she would have changed her ways right there, but instead she tries to do the same thing *again*, fails (which causes wacky hijinks to ensue), and leaves Tara no choice but to follow through with her ultimatum.

^^^^^ This. Finally! someone has the balls to say that Tara was also wrong. Don't get me wrong, Tara is my absolute favorite character of the entire Buffy-verse. But this bothered me soooo freaking much! If Tara was so against it, she would have demanded that Willow find an other way at least. To try and find a spell that wouldn't be as dark or what not. She could have consulted the pagan gods and tried something else. If that didn't work, Tara should have demanded that Willow stop the spell all together. And the fact that Willow doesn't mention a damn word to Giles shows how much more "above" him she thinks she is. She believes she is so above everyone and like you put, unstoppable. I guess this can also be applied to s8, about

Spoiler

how Willow becomes dark again in s8. Throughout all of s8, she is still relying on magic far too much and it's almost ridiculous. Flying? psshhh. Then they see in the future she is turning dark again. That could only mean one thing: abusing dark magic again, or the death of a loved one. Both of which are totally capable of happening in s9.

And then the golden moment comes to a staggering, brutal, and unforeseeable end when Tara gets shot (I could go into how ridiculously impossible it would be for the bullet to actually have that trajectory with Warren, Tara, and Willow standing where they were, but I won't) and killed within days of their reunion. Willow's happiness (her first happiness in the season that isn't secretly guilt-tainted, mind you) is ripped from her for no logical reason and cannot be retrieved.

I completely and totally agree! No possible way that the bullet could have hit Tara. It is just imple 😡 It is still going to upset me so much how they wrote this part out. They could have done something way better to cause Willow to go to her dark place and go bat crap crazy like she did. the way they ripped her from Willow, it was just an easy way out for the writers, well, to me at least!

Gosh, I think the only thing that bugs me about the magic = drugs metaphor is that magic was supposed to equal sex back in season 4 with Tara. They changed the meaning of the magic to fit what they wanted it to and that's troublesome for me.

Why does it bug you so much? I mean, there are different forms of magic,as the OP stated. So saying that magic=drugs could also refer to magic=sex and sex=drugs. Sex is addicting. Magic is addicting. Drugs are addicting. So I think the metaphor goes very well with their sex life. Not all magic is going to be a drug, this is true. But When Willow first started using magic, you could say that the kind of magic she was doing (simple floating spells and what not) are like a gateway drug. So by the time she finally had sex with Tara, her addiction started to flourish. Does this make any sense? no? ok *crawls back under rock*

 

[zobothehobo]

I just read this entire thread like I've been meaning to do all day and I have to say, I think everyone has said some really interesting things here.

To me personally, I've always thought of it as it's not so much the magic Willow was addicted to... it was the power. This fits nicely with meek quiet geeky Willow's hacking in the early seasons and doesn't mess up the magic=sex/wiccans=lesbians metaphors they had going on. Up until season 6, Willow had been told she had a lot of power but she denied it. After resurrecting Buffy when she had her little encounter with Giles in the kitchen, she tells him he should be congratulating her. The congratulations is because of the new extreme level of power she's reached. As Buffy says in Two to Go Willow's got an addictive personality... therefore, she's more sensitive to possibly addictive things. That's why Rack's drug magic (I do agree with the OP with the different kinds of magic and that Rack's magic is special... and BTW it is indicated in cannon that Rack's magic is special because never before have we seen someone use magic and have a literal high that resembles a hallucinogen) effects her the way it does and that quickly. Before she tasted Rack's magic, she was becoming addicted to the power magic gave her. After tasting Rack's magic she was literally addicted to the magic. I personally think this is where the storyline went wrong. They should have had her hit rock bottom by physically hurting one of her friends using the "magic that couldn't hurt a fly" that she and Tara fought about in the Bronze in All the Way or something like that.

As far as Tara being to blame... I agree. Upon actually examining it... I think Tara was partially to blame for not asking more questions about the resurrection spell. I think she and the other Scoobies should have read the spell themselves. Since Willow didn't give it to them or at least her to read, it should have been pretty obvious the she had something to hide. Also I felt the way she defended Willow around that time was really... like she was trying to convince herself of something. Like in After Life when Xander asks Tara if Willow knew something like that might happen and Tara says "No! Willow is a talented witch, and she would never do anything to hurt anyone." The way she says it... it's almost like she thinks Willow probably did know but she's going to pretend she didn't. Does that make sense? I feel like this paragraph might not be making much sense. When that happens, I usually should just post and come back later. So I'll do that.

 

[msfantastico87]

Like in After Life when Xander asks Tara if Willow knew something like that might happen and Tara says "No! Willow is a talented witch, and she would never do anything to hurt anyone." The way she says it... it's almost like she thinks Willow probably did know but she's going to pretend she didn't.

This. A million times this. I've always wanted to just smack Tara for 1. lying and 2. defending Willow like that. Especially when she knew damn well that Willow shoud have been questioned. Especially by her, when she was a very powerful witch as well. More powerful than Willow was when they even met. So she should know off hand just how dangerous these spells are and not to toy with them.

Tara I love you. This is your ONLY flaw. *sigh*

 

[zobothehobo]

This. A million times this. I've always wanted to just smack Tara for 1. lying and 2. defending Willow like that. Especially when she knew damn well that Willow shoud have been questioned. Especially by her, when she was a very powerful witch as well. More powerful than Willow was when they even met. So she should know off hand just how dangerous these spells are and not to toy with them.

Tara I love you. This is your ONLY flaw. *sigh*

I'd rep you but you're the last person I repped. AND especially since it was Tara who was telling Dawn less than a season before not to mess with resurrection spells with Joyce. I mean I know they're different because Buffy died from mystical forces... but Tara knew how dangerous resurrection spells were. She should have questioned. And I mean Willow told them one of the ingredients was black market stuff. Even thought it was actually Willow killing a cute little baby dear, thinking it was a black market magic supply should have triggered a thousand red flags for everyone involved ESPECIALLY Tara and they all definitely should have asked what it was. And when they saw it, they should have known it was blood and asked her where it came from.

 

[prophecygrrl]

I agree that all of the Scoobies involved with the resurrection spell should've asked more questions about the spell, and maybe especially Tara since she was a witch too. But I do wonder if even if they had done all their research on the spell, questioned Willow and even (if we're going to the farthest logical possibility), refused to participate, if Willow wouldn't have just found another way to resurrect Buffy, possibly with an even darker form of magic? I just personally think that's a very likely outcome given what we're shown of Willow's arrogance, determination, and power at that point in time. It's an interesting idea though either way. 😀