When did you first realise that Willow's magic was very powerful?

[Icarium]

Were the members of the Wiccan 'coven' at UCS witches or did they just take on the religious aspect of being Wiccan? What was it Tara said about them?

They were poseurs in season 4 and real witches in season seven. So you can pick your own interpretation, really. 🙂 I tend to go with "S7 got it wrong, since it sucked". The sheer idea that Willow would go to them for help in The Killer in Me just beggars belief, even if they were actual witches she wouldn't know it! Tara says in Hush that if the UCS wicca group members saw a witch they would run the other way.

In Hope, Faith, & Trick Giles tricks Buffy into confessing what happened in that masoleum by telling her he was going to do a spell. Willow came off so hungry to help before realizing that there was no spell. She would sneak into Giles' office to read the advanced occult books he knew were too dark for a novice.

So Willow wanting to help Buffy with a spell is bad now? She had already shown she could handle complicated spells better than Giles, why wouldn't she want to do this one? Also, Giles had already trusted Willow with a spell he describes as dark, he should have helped her with her magical studies instead of doing nothing.

She was going to use magic to curse Oz and then later said that if she were a "real" witch (as in "powerful") she would have used magic to force Oz to stay.

This is an obvious metaphor with magical power meaning sexual attractiveness, IMO. On a non-meta level, Willow did cast a my will be done spell and used this spell to make herself feel better and no on Oz. She is clearly more than powerful enough to make him love her, yet she didn't.

She could have given Dawn a book on a wide variety of pagan topics (herbalism, crystals, tarot) but she chose spells. When Dawn was staying over with her and Tara after Joyce's funeral the thing she thought of to cheer her up was using magick to make stuffed animals dance.

So what? Is there a law or something that magic has to be used for fighting evil only? I don't see Tara protesting when she is levitating in the sex scene in OMWF...🙂

After all, it is the person that chooses to be good or bad that counts. Willow doing that spell against Xander was also her doing a good spell for Oz.

Yes and she never actually did the spell. For Willow magic is a tool and the danger in using it is spell backfiring. No more, no less. And since this approach was working like a charm until the writers came up with the retarded "Willow is evil, magic is addictive" plot line, I agree with her. If magic demanded a very religious approach, Willow shouldn't have managed to become so powerful in the first place...

 

[ApesFindShapes]

I knew Willow was going to have a future as a powerful witch after Angel's intense re-ensoulment spell. Her eyes turned black, reminiscent of Catherine in "Witch." Magic allowed Willow to be someone she "wasn't." To her, it helped her shed her "shy nerd" image and be an important part of the gang and a more confident being, not just computer research girl. I also think spending so much time with Ms. Calendar helped her pick up the interest since Ms. Calendar is both a computer wiz and technopagan. I can see her acting as a role model to Willow for a short period of time.

In season three's "Doppelgangland," Anya comes to Willow because she was told that Willow could help her find her necklace and restore her demon self. It is apparent that word of Willow's growing knowledge of magic has already gotten around. She also tried to cast the "de-lusting" spell on Xander in this season. I'm sure she wouldn't have messed with Xander's emotions prior to being involved in magic.

Season four is when it starts to take a serious turn with her attempt at cursing Oz and various other spells to do her bidding. She began using magic as a crutch to have her life play out the way she thought it should and to take the "easy way out" of situations. She began her mission to find a spell to solve any problem. In "Something Blue" she is given the choice to become a vengence demon, so there is obviously some noticable dark power brewing. There was a scene in "Goodbye Iowa," I believe, in which Willow is doing a spell with Tara, and Tara takes the handful of dust she is holding and throws it underneath her bed. I think Tara (who had been practicing magic far longer than Wil) already knew by this time that Willow needed her ego deflated a bit by allowing the spell to fail.

This builds up to season five's "Tough Love." Tara says Willow's growing power and confidence "frighten" her. After Tara is brain-sucked, Willow seeks revenge and attacks Glory. Buffy says Willow is the only one who had managed to hurt Glory at that point.

 

[electricwillow]

It was towards the end of season five for me, when she battled glory. Before this battle we had never seen her harness such incredible power before. I was awestruck.

 

[Ms.Trick]

I think it was obvious since the beginning, but there is something weird...
In season 2, she was very new in the whole wiccan universe, but one of her very first spell was when she restored Angel's soul, which I think, a Hogwart student wouldn't have done that easily. So I already thought it was impressive...
But then, in season 3 she is not-so-powerful Willow who can't communicate with spirits, can just float a pencil, hide a zit, or do a protection spell. It was weird that she went from soul-restorator-Will to Amy-is-more-advanced-than-me Will.

In season 3 and 4, before she meets Tara, it doesn't seem like she is that much a good witch...

But in the end of Hush, Tara says to Willow that she herself has been doing magic since she was little and that Will was already very powerful, I thought "So, if a girl that has long been used to magic says to another that she is powerful, while we don't see that much magic strenght in her...Will has probably a big power in herself then!"

 

[Chris2]

It was almost as if she were possessed during the re-ensoulment spell in Becoming #2. I think that there was outside forces helping for that one.

I got that impression as well. It's slightly odd that they never touched on that again. There are powerful forces with an interest in restoring Angel's soul, like the Powers That Be, the Senior Partners or Jasmine, but they hadn't been established at that point in the continuity. I've even heard fan speculation that it was Jenny's spirit.

I think Tara (who had been practicing magic far longer than Wil) already knew by this time that Willow needed her ego deflated a bit by allowing the spell to fail.

This could well be true, although I think her primary motivation was to prevent the spell from revealing her own demonic heritage (which she doesn't really have, but she didn't know that at the time).

It was apparent to me from "Becoming" at the latest that Willow had the potential to become seriously powerful, but I think her attempt to curse Oz and Veruca in "Wild at Heart" was probably the first time I would have described her as dangerous. Certainly not the last.

 

[Whirlwind]

I knew she was pretty good in Season 2, but when she faced off against Glory I realized she had loads of power.