Warren Vs Willow: whos sins are greater

[CordelliasHeart]

Warrens a Jerkass OK I GET THAT.

but do you think his girlfriend might have given him a second chance, he created a elaborate Sex toy yet she gets so offended, and dissaociates with him and doesnt even try to talk it out with him.

Im not approving of the way he killed her mind you.

His use of the Cerebral dampener on her is it ANY WORSE then Willows use of "Tabula Rasa" on Tara.

Tara somehow managed to forgive willow,for Violating Taras mind a day or so after being called on doing so in the past.

Thoughts?

 

[Blaze]

Warren, hands down, without a single doubt.

Let's see, he manipulated people, raped his girlfriend, killed at least 2 innocent people, and cowardly ran off without feeling bad about ANY of it.

Willow did awful things under the influence of magick (as an addiction). She felt bad about it AND redeemed herself in my mind through out the season. What she did was done not because she's an evil person, but because of the place she was in. This is not an excuse for her actions, but they are far less evil than what Warren did, and intentions is also important here. The revenge thing with Willow was probably her worst "sin" (I'm not religious, nor do I believe in sins). I prefer using the term morally good or bad. And in the end, morally Warren was way worst.

 

[Ojuice5001]

Okay, the act of creating a robot like April is certainly something understandable, like Xander perceived it, and not some thing that makes him the kind of freak that Katrina feels he is. If the technology to make robots like April were widely available, it would be commonly practiced and not something that would be morally judged in any tolerant society. (Still, it says something about Warren that he actually wants a sexbot so much that he would go to all the work of inventing one. Kind of like how there's a difference between being a causal stoner, and being the guy who invents a new designer drug like Spice.) It definitely seems that Katrina would have still been extremely creeped out if she had found out in a safe situation --though of course she has a right to be offended by the fact that she could have been killed by Warren's negligence.

Of course, even if making and using a love robot like April is okay in itself, Warren still didn't handle it in a way that is in the best interests of April and everyone else (like Katrina). Warren could have programmed April without the capacity to feel jealousy at all, let alone the impulse to be so jealous that she would attack her rival with violent force. (Apparently he's turned on by the fact that a woman is jealous over him. Otherwise, why would he program jealousy into his robot in the first place?) He could have made a better plan for April to remain happy. What he could do is tell her that the way she can best serve him is by moving to another city and dedicating all her time to collecting comic books and sending them to Warren by mail. No visits, no communications, but she still has a purpose in serving him by collecting comic books.

I think that if Warren had just stayed with April, then it would have been the best for everyone: Warren, April, and Katrina. April's whole psychology is based on the idea that this is what's best for her. Katrina would have been spared the anguish of knowing that she allowed a perv like Warren to be her boyfriend (not to mention that she, like April and Warren, winds up dead, of course). And Warren could have learned to be content with being loved by April. It could really be a lot of fun. And some people (like the writers of the episode) seem to think that you couldn't make a robot that would be capable of having her own true self-interest and creative thoughtfulness, but of course this is based on some superstitious concept that human brains have an "immaterial soul," while a silicon brain couldn't possibly have a equivalent. April could have been programmed to have as much of a soul of her own as Warren wanted (granting that Warren has the super-programmer skills needed to invent April in the first place). If robots were truly incapable of independent and creative thought, then April would have been stumped by the problem of how to find Warren and travel to the place where he is. Instead she figures out how to take the bus and ask questions about where Warren is staying. Warren truly didn't appreciate what a wonderful phenomenon he's really created, in his dabblings in artificial intelligence.

 

[thetopher]

Warren's really just a jerk until 'Dead Things' then he tries to rape his girlfriend, then murders her (accidentally, but its still manslaughter), then tries to frame Buffy for the murder (with help from Andrew, who is never, ever called out for this...or for trying to drive Buffy insane either. 😡 )
Then he goes on to try and coldbloodedly kill Buffy, Tara is colatoral, but still he shows zero remorsre for any of his actions.

Willow mind-wiped Tara (I, unlike some, see no evidence that she 'raped' her in the physical sense) with magic, and puts Dawn's life in danger while jonesing for spells (?), then she loses to person she loves and goes on a vengeful, magic fueled killing spree.
Now its debatable how in control Willow was at this point, (she disassociates and refers to herself in the third person a couple of times but, importantly, doesn't always do this.)
But I don't think Willow would try and kill her friends if she was even remotely in her right mind.


Warren is in control of his actions the whole time, so Warren without question.

 

[Robb Stark]

This is a difficult question. I believe that Willow is vastly superior person to Warren, but she tried to end the freaking world. She tried to end the lives of billions of people, billions of children, because she couldn't deal with her grief. She knew that she couldn't handle the levels of magic she was playing with, and didn't care one bit. She chose to access them anyways. That's not okay.

Willow is not the only person to lose someone. Buffy literally put Angel to the sword in S2. Spike, without a soul, had to deal with losing Buffy in S5. Wesley had the walls of his life come crashing down when Fred died. Angel had to walk away from Buffy, lose Darla to evil again and watch Cordy die after being inhabited by a world-conquering monster. Xander lost his best friend and still had the courage to help Buffy, as a 15 year old kid. Almost every hero in the Buffyverse has endured catastrophic loss, but only Willow tried to end the world.

Did she feel bad for it afterwards? Yes, she did, but her arrogance and her insecurity over her own self worth led her back to magic once again, even though she'd proven, pretty conclusively, that she had neither the will or the right to handle it. She butchered a man, no matter how bad he was that's wrong, tried to kill everyone she's ever cared about and tried to end the world. I don't care that she was "feeling the world's pain". That means nothing. It just makes her a terrorist. The world has been filled with arrogant people thinking they should kill to mold the planet to their whims. Willow as nothing different. The fact that she would even want to do magic again absolutely baffles me. It shocks me. What kind of a person would be so recklessly arrogant to start using magic again after that? And it's not just Willow. Her friends in S7 bear part of the responsibility for not walking the hell out on her when she starts up again.

Warren was a prick. He was a piece of crap who never comprehended what accountability means and who murdered people. He should have rotted in prison for the rest of his life. But if we're strictly comparing, Warren was a pathetic little man who killed because of his own self-weakness. Willow tried to kill billions, and then felt so bad about it that she started using magic again half a season later.

Who is worse? They both suck.

 

[CordelliasHeart]

Lets face it someone who nnows magic but solemnly swears never to use it again, gets boring after a while, such oaths, in fiction are almost ALWAYS Meant to be broken.

 

[thetopher]

This is a difficult question. I believe that Willow is vastly superior person to Warren, but she tried to end the freaking world. She tried to end the lives of billions of people, billions of children, because she couldn't deal with her grief. She knew that she couldn't handle the levels of magic she was playing with, and didn't care one bit. She chose to access them anyways. That's not okay.

Willow is not the only person to lose someone. Buffy literally put Angel to the sword in S2. Spike, without a soul, had to deal with losing Buffy in S5. Wesley had the walls of his life come crashing down when Fred died. Angel had to walk away from Buffy, lose Darla to evil again and watch Cordy die after being inhabited by a world-conquering monster. Xander lost his best friend and still had the courage to help Buffy, as a 15 year old kid. Almost every hero in the Buffyverse has endured catastrophic loss, but only Willow tried to end the world.

Did she feel bad for it afterwards? Yes, she did, but her arrogance and her insecurity over her own self worth led her back to magic once again, even though she'd proven, pretty conclusively, that she had neither the will or the right to handle it. She butchered a man, no matter how bad he was that's wrong, tried to kill everyone she's ever cared about and tried to end the world. I don't care that she was "feeling the world's pain". That means nothing. It just makes her a terrorist. The world has been filled with arrogant people thinking they should kill to mold the planet to their whims. Willow as nothing different. The fact that she would even want to do magic again absolutely baffles me. It shocks me. What kind of a person would be so recklessly arrogant to start using magic again after that? And it's not just Willow. Her friends in S7 bear part of the responsibility for not walking the hell out on her when she starts up again.

Warren was a prick. He was a piece of crap who never comprehended what accountability means and who murdered people. He should have rotted in prison for the rest of his life. But if we're strictly comparing, Warren was a pathetic little man who killed because of his own self-weakness. Willow tried to kill billions, and then felt so bad about it that she started using magic again half a season later.

Who is worse? They both suck.

I think the problem with this assertion depends on the season. In S6, magic is a drug, Willow is the equivelant of an alcoholic trying to quit, cold turkey, failing and then going on a bender (and killing people in the process). If that still held, as a metaphor, I agree that Willow should never have done magic again ever.

But then in S7 Giles and The Coven tell Willow that the magic is part of her now. That its not as simple as just giving up and not doing it again. (as The First, y'know, the untrustworthy evil thing, tries to convince Willow of this) That she can't afford to quit because 'something' bad is coming.
That's why Giles urges a deeply troubled and unsure Willow to go back to Sunnydale because she will be needed, not because Willow goes, 'hey, I've had a few months of not killing somebody- back on the magics!'

Willow spends a lot of S7 pretty much crippled with self-doubt (with little support from her friends), but in 'Orpheus' we see a turning point, Willow learning to handle her power a bit better.
Would I have liked to see a Willow redemption arc as she struggled with this inner darkness? Would I have liked to see more consequences as she struggled with having blood on her hands? Would I have liked to see the Scoobies rally round her for more than about an episode before they all just forgot about it? Absolutely, but instead we had the Spike repemption show and Willow was relegated to 'romance with girl she has no chemistry with'. 🙁

Warren knew what he was doing the whole time, he knew he was accountable when he killed Katrina, the first thing he does is try and dispose of the body because he knows he's just committed a serious crime.
His solution? Frame Buffy. He's a calculating, odious little toad, but still dangerous.

 

[Kean]

While magic is used as a drug abuse metaphor for Willow in much of S6, when it came to the last half of the season, all the horrific things she did, she did by choice. She decided to call on Osiris, she decided to tear Sunnydale apart looking for the trio, she decided to fight Buffy, to nearly kill Giles, to flay Warren, to try to end the world. We can talk about grief and addication metaphor's but when it gets down to it, Willow wasn't under any influence but her own. She was in an enormous amount of pain but I think it is important to remember that pretty much every main character we have in the verse has faced that type of soul wrenching grief and didn't try to take the world with them. Point of fact, Cordelia, who is traditionally regarded as a "mean girl" and maybe lacking depth, at least for a portion of canon, was too opened to the world's pain, in a much more visceral and literal way than Willow, and she came out of that wanting to help people, not end their lives.

Warren is set up to be hated and reviled. He's a two dimensional cretin. Willow is supposed to be one of our heroes. She is supposed to know better, be better, than destroying people. I will always feel that Willow's actions in the back quarter of S6 were worse, because she did them with a soul and years of experience of fighting the good fight.