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

[itsxpaperdoll]

...And I mean that in an evil, dark and veiny kind of way.


Reading something in a thread about Something Blue, about that Willow's behaviour there showed for the first time that she might not be able to control her powers and such.
Now I'm not too sure that was the first time I realised that Willow and her magic might go down the wrong route. After all, she was grieving and still learning, so it's not too strange that she messed up. The first time I thought that Willow was becoming dangerously powerful, was probably when she went after Glory with a bag of knives. To see how relatively cold-blooded she decided to use her powers for something quite nasty (no matter how evil Glory was), how she attacked, how exhausted she was in the end.. I think it was a very big foreshadow of what was to come. During all s5, she started using magic more easily. Her addiction already started then and it was only logical that she's raise Buffy, IMO.

What do you guys think?

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

For me, it was when Alarm bells starting going for Tara, which lead to the fight which lead to the Glory brain suck.

Tara was more knowledgable about all of that, so when she starts to worry, thats time for us to sit up and go 'Uh oh'.

 

[Aly Fan]

For me it was when she had her argument with Giles start of season 6, and there was one line that made me literally drop my jaw, something like,
"You're right, the magicks i used are very powerful, I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off."

Considering her previous relationship with Giles it was so out of character...she always looked up to him..but her new attitude made her believe she had surpassed him..That's when i knew something had seriously changed..

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

For me it was when she had her argument with Giles start of season 6, and there was one line that made me literally drop my jaw, something like,
"You're right, the magicks i used are very powerful, I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off."

Considering her previous relationship with Giles it was so out of character...she always looked up to him..but her knew attitude made her believe she had surpassed him..That's when i knew something had seriously changed..

Which is another reason why Giles wouldn't have gone - Giles could see that she was being affected by the magicks, that she was losing control (Tabula Rasa was ALL about this!) and he still left!

Joss and Co dropped the ball with his reasons for leaving.

 

[Willowsgirl]

For me it was when she had her argument with Giles start of season 6, and there was one line that made me literally drop my jaw, something like,
"You're right, the magicks i used are very powerful, I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off."

Considering her previous relationship with Giles it was so out of character...she always looked up to him..but her knew attitude made her believe she had surpassed him..That's when i knew something had seriously changed..

Damn, you beat me to it! I thought Giles was acting pretty harshly to her at first. Calling her a "Rank amateur", but when Willow made the comment Aly mentioned, that scared me a little. It was a very unWillowish comment that sent of sirens off in my head.

I knew Willow was powerful before then. The minute Tara told her that she had a lot of power, I knew she did but not in a dark, veiny sorta way. It just let me know that she had a lot of power that could go either way.

 

[itsxpaperdoll]

For me it was when she had her argument with Giles start of season 6, and there was one line that made me literally drop my jaw, something like,
"You're right, the magicks i used are very powerful, I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off."

Considering her previous relationship with Giles it was so out of character...she always looked up to him..but her new attitude made her believe she had surpassed him..That's when i knew something had seriously changed..

Like I said, I think she'd changed before that already. I mean, s3, early s4 Willow wouldn't dare mess with the forces of nature etc to bring Buffy back. Or at least, I think. But it's good that you mentioned that moment because that was when I realised that she was actually going down the wrong way.


Anyway, I just noticed I made a mess of my thread title. :embaresse
Could a friendly mod maybe transform it into a grammatically correct sentence?

 

[MinwaraYana]

I agree with EB that it started in Tough Love when she went to face Glory.

But I'd like to add that since she talked with Tara about making light from fly in season 5. She said thing like 'I just make the fly bigger'. I knew in that moment that Willow's gonna be a mega witch because she's not only powerful, but she learned to adapt. 😉

 

[Aly Fan]

Like I said, I think she'd changed before that already. I mean, s3, early s4 Willow wouldn't dare mess with the forces of nature etc to bring Buffy back. Or at least, I think. But it's good that you mentioned that moment because that was when I realised that she was actually going down the wrong way.


Anyway, I just noticed I made a mess of my thread title. :embaresse
Could a friendly mod maybe transform it into a grammatically correct sentence?

Yeah, i agree that she'd changed before that!! Something blue is a great example of how she lost control of her powers due to emotional reasons...but i think the quote i said before from season 6 was when i knew there was no coming back...that there was something seriously wrong with her character...because at that point she wasn't really under any emotional distress..she just lashed out because Giles wasn't impressed with her...

I don't know if you understood that...i know what i'm trying to say 😛

 

[Have Faith]

For me it was when she had her argument with Giles start of season 6, and there was one line that made me literally drop my jaw, something like,
"You're right, the magicks i used are very powerful, I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off."

Considering her previous relationship with Giles it was so out of character...she always looked up to him..but her new attitude made her believe she had surpassed him..That's when i knew something had seriously changed..

I truly realized that she had it in her to be evil in that scene as well. Also the fight with Glory after Glory brainsucked Tara was foreshadowing of what was to come. AND after that Tara started to really crack down on Willow about limiting her magic, and since Tara is a witch herself I knew Willow was getting more and more dangerous, and even using magic to lie to Tara and make her forget. Willow would never do that to someone if there wasn't something wrong with her. But also after Dawn gets hurt, she has a complete mental breakdown screaming "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" and she tries to give it up. That was sad, but it didn't convince me. Willow was not just going to suddenly give it up, it just wasn't going to happen.

 

[white avenger]

Actually, I thought that they did a very good job of slowly progressing from the high school girl who could just manage to levitate a pencil to the powerful witch who just might have been powerful enough to destroy the entire world over 5 years. The progress was so subtle that it almost came as a shock at the end when she turned out to have that kind of power.

 

[Fake Shemp]

For me when she could float a pencil.....

Actually before that when she souled Angel, I knew there and then here's a future powerful witch, there was no way they were not going to develop it and use it later.

 

[Silum]

Old post...but I kinda like when these things are thrown up, especially when they're even older than this one...Anyway...

I think the Willow magicness popped up, unsurprisingly in S2 when she starting going into magic... but you expressly mention evil magic... so I have to be along with ancient Al; when Tara was noticing problems.

It can't be when Willow said its 'maybe best you not piss me off' because by that point we had already seen some real damaging effects of magic in S5 and Willow continually using magic as an answer to any problem that came her way.

The timeline as i see it...S1-3 represents her growth from obliviousness to understanding of magic.... In S4, she was using magic as exploration, both sexually, physically, and ideologically... in S5 she was using magic as a drug to make her life easier... and in S6 she was addicted to magic with it representing an uncontrolled addiction.

 

[Fake Shemp]

I know it was the evil kind of way, but goody willow is the quiet one who once gets a taste of having power is the one who goes off the deep end, yes its a cliche, and a cliche i thought Joss would use.

I mean look what she was like when she lead the scoobies in little tasks like her interrogating Jonathan.

I always saw them setting her up to be the one who turns later on.... if the show wasnt cancelled (sw)

 

[ElmoHasAGun]

Well, I remember when I was watching s2, after Willow re-ensouled Angel, even though she'd never practiced magic before (and that had to be a heck of a hard spell) was when I said "Dammit this chick is gonna be powerful!" but I got worried in Tough Love, when she attacked Glory, even though I fully understood her motive.

 

[Eleftheria]

She proved she was talented since s2. She was inexperienced and yet she messed with forgotten magics. The only living person ever to re ensoul Angel. In s5 she impressed me when she fought Glory and fixing Tara's mind.

The moment I was afraid of her, that I thought she indeed was arrogant and her magics were dangerously powerful, was in s6 when she brought Buffy back. She messed with the dead and it was obvious that the source of that magic was kind of dark. I knew that she was going to abuse power.

 

[GrrArghx]

When she was going to curse Oz in Wild at Heart. I was like 'Will, WHAT are you doing?!' Luckily she didn't do it, but I can't believe she even though about it.

 

[pieceofgosa]

Yeah it has to be when she re-ensouls Angel. That obviously took some serious mojo, If any wanna-blessed-be with an Orb of Thessala could pull it off there would be ensouled vamps all over the joint. That was the point that they laid down the marker & said "Will's got some serious game".

 

[crazysoulless]

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.

As early as S2 you could see something other than a thirst for knowledge, fascination with the occult, and eagerness to be useful. She felt more powerful and important. The way she told Giles, "I may be the best person to do this". She was taking pride in the magicks, using it as an ego boost. She was already doing spells that she had no business even attempting that summer, such as contacting the spirit world which caused the lights in her block to go out. Even though it was dangerous and it scared her, she rushed forward.

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.

She had every right to be annoyed by those Wanna-blessed-be girls in the "Wiccan coven" at UCS since they were more interested in commercial paganism and fake empowerment. But she didn't realize that she wasn't much better. She was a witch because of spells and magick. She didn't observe the holidays, respect the natural order of the universe, or yet know about the things that the English coven knew and would later teach her (the connectedness of everything in the cosmos). In Fear Itself she was already growing impatient with being able to float objects and wanted to move on to transmorgification. She wanted Buffy to cheer her on and called Oz "Brutus" (back-stabber) because he warned her about tapping into the dark.

She was already using spells for selfish reasons in S3 and S4. She was going to do a spell to rid herself of her attraction to Xander and do the same to him against his knowledge. She was going to put a vengeance spell on Oz for cheating on her. Her "my will be done" spell nearly got everyone killed. She was so eager to help Anya and happily said, "I like the dark arts" only to get freaked out when she realized the arts really were dark.

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.

She would perform advanced spells even when her mind was not focused. Buffy warned her not to do the spell in the frat house in FI and Giles warned her not to do magicks while upset in Something Blue. Giles warning just had her believing, "So I'm getting punished because I'm in pain?!" Notice that her fear in FI was her magick getting out of hand and backfiring on her. She was attacked by the things she created.

She was messing with the elements and creating fire in Buffy v Dracula and may have been responsible for the thunderstorm. 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. She seemed to have little issue with ressurection and was more concerned with whether it was possible while Tara was firmly against it. She went behind Tara's back to show Dawn that book on resurrection and then lied about it.

By OOMM she is tinkling with the Tinker Bell spell. Tara admitted by Tough Love that it was almost scary how fast Willow was passing her in magickal aptitude despite the fact that Tara was a hereditary witch (at least three generations) and practiced her whole life.

By Bargainning #1 she was doing blood rituals with animal sacrifice. She was at a place that Tara disproved of and so she kept her from finding out. She lied about knowing what the Thomogenesis demon was talking about "the blood dried on your hands, didn't it? You were stained. You still are!" By Flooded she no longer needed to recite chants and could just channel the mojo needed for powerful spells. She was erasing Tara's memory. She would argue with anyone that questioned her use of magick or recklessness with the occult.

In Afterlife she expected Buffy to thank her the same night she was raised from the dead, crawled out of her own grave, got beat with metal bats, etc. She was so far gone by Flooded. She was bragging to Giles and made it clear that doing the spell was about a lot more than just trying to rescue Buffy.

Giles: The magicks you channeled were more ferocious and primal than anything you could ever hope to understand and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!
Willow: You're right. The magicks I channeled are very powerful. I'm very powerful and maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off.

I think that the biggest increases in her power came from opening Giles' occult books in Tough Love (she had to break a lock and the book was almost its own entity), sucking out ALL of the magickal energy from his occult books in Villains, sucking out ALL of the magickal energy from the sorcerer Rack, and sucking out the magick that Giles borrowed from the UK coven.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Just a couple(?) of little things.

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?

I took it from early on that Willow wasn't Wiccan, that she was a witch and as magic is both good and bad/evil at the same time, what she did didn't mean anything specific. 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.

Giles not wanting Willow to see his books could be viewed in two ways, him protecting her from that side of magic, or him knowing that an evil aspect of magic existed yet he left her vulnerable to it.
Is it better to know how to control magic that has a side effect, or run and hope it doesn't follow?

About how Willow's use of magic backfired on her? That's normal when you are self taught. The person who could have helped teach her wasn't much good at talking to her, as noted when he tried to tell her not to do magics when her emotions were out of wack.

About Willow starting the fire for the food, at the beach, was she being helpful to the others?
And the thunderstorm? I took that to be about the arrival of Dracula.

As for what happened in Fear Itself, the single light only became many as Willow thought of the others in the house. Each light, as I saw it, was a representation of each person. Would those lights (people) have wanted to be near her for protection, or in her?

Making stuffed toys dance about? Admittedly not the best use of magic, but it was done for Dawns enjoyment.
Helping Dawn bring Joyce back from the dead? She didn't, all Willow did was show her a book, as far as I remember it, a certain vampire helped Dawn to bring back Joyce by taking her to see the right person.

As for Tara leaving Willow, that I saw to be because Willow used magic to much, that is normal, I wouldn't expect anything any different. Tara being Wiccan would have certain beliefs about the use of magic; it being almost sacred. Where as Willow, not being Wiccan but a witch, would use magic as, where and how she wanted.

Bringing Buffy back to life? Powerful, with some knowledge but not enough, and lots of ability.
Did she want to help her friends? If she was accepting the dark magics then I'm fairly sure that bringing a person back to life who would battle the physical aspect of evil proves she wasn't accepting the evil.
I am fairly sure the demon didn't tell her that stuff to make her feel good about herself. But if anyone wants to accept what the demon said, that is up to them.

About Dark Willow, I thought it was made quite obvious in the show that it wasn't Willow being evil, it was how she reacted after Tara's death. Had it been evil, then Giles wouldn't have tried to give her the spark of humanity from the coven and Xander wouldn't have been able to make her feel like a person again just by saying I love you, and showing he cared for her.

Tinkering with the Tinker Bell spell, ultimately Willow wanted to make it big enough and as a sun so that it would help Buffy.

So, was Willow powerful? maybe. But it was her ability to utilise that power effectively that made her very powerful. Was she accepting the evil side at all? Definitely not, at the end of season seven she helped create several thousand(?) vampire slayers to battle the evil.

(Also in case no one noticed, I like the character Willow.)

 

[Skytteflickan88]

I think I realized it in Tough Love, the first time her eyes went black. But really, it's something we all should have seen in Becoming. She succeded with a powerful spell Giles didn't dare to try (and he had practised a lot more than her) on her first attempt at magic ever. That's something.

Btw, I still don't get why Giles let her do that, if it was only the lack of knowledge missing? It was dangerous. What, he thought she'd have beginner's luck? I think I'll start a thread about this.

GILES: What are you saying?

BUFFY: The curse. This is it.

WILLOW: Looks like Ms. Calendar was trying to replicate the original curse. To restore Angel's soul again.

GILES: She said it couldn't be done.

BUFFY: Well, she tried anyway. And it looks like it might have worked.

XANDER: So he killed her... before she could tell anyone about it. What a prince, huh?

CORDELIA: This is good, right? I mean, we can curse him again.

GILES: Um, well, this, um... certainly points the way, but... the ritual itself requires a greater knowledge of the black arts than I, I, I can claim.

WILLOW: Well, I've been going through her files and, and researching the black arts, for fun, or educational fun, and I may be able to work this.

GILES: W-Willow... channeling... such potent magicks through yourself, it could open a door that you may not be able to close.

BUFFY: I don't want you putting yourself in any danger, Will.

WILLOW: And I don't want danger. Big 'no' to danger, but I may be the best person to do this.