It's been ages since I last saw any of Season Four, and I'm having a hard time remembering. What was the reason why Tara purposefully messed up the demon locator spell that Willow was trying to cast in that episode?
Why did Tara mess up the spell in "Goodbye Iowa"?
- Thread starter Old Master 3.0
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doppelgänger2
Meh.
The spell was to locate demons (or create a mist over where the demons were), right? Tara thought she was a demon (or part demon?) as seen in 'Family'. She messed it up so that Willow, and the rest of the gang, wouldn't find out about her being a demon.
T
The Arcane
That's it, although as Spike proved later, there was absolutely no demon in her, in truth.
Thank you for the response. It was drivin' me nuts. I'd have never actually made the "Tara thinks she's a demon" connection, since I have yet to watch "Family".
ProphecyGirl
Scooby
doppelgänger2
Meh.
The Arcane
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eponinethen
Majk
Well, I really understand why they did that, made her believe that she was a demon, and also the fact that it was actually her father who had been lying to her... But I somewhat agree the whole thing was a bit weird. It worked nicely on the show, actually, but at first when I saw that episode... I loved all of it except that thing, 'cause that's not something she had even been worried about before that episode and so on.. I don't know, wasn't that bad, just.. not my favorite storyline I guess..
+ Matt +
Potential
I did like the ending of that epsiode, just because it was cool to see Tara being accepted as one of ''the scoobies''. I'm not really sure about the whole episode though...Didn't love it, but didn't hate it either.
Cohen
Hellhound
The Arcane
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I think sometimes it's really hard to keep a topic of a thread related to just one season, due to the massive amount of continuity on the show.
Hell, sometimes it's hard to keep certain topics related to just the one series. Quite a few storylines crossed from Buffy to Angel, and vice versa. 🙂
eponinethen
Majk
Yeaa, I always thought that she just did that 'cause she thought they weren't ready to handle such magic (that she already started to see that Willow tended to be too into the whole magic thing and that it could be dangerous for her/them).. And that they came up with the whole "Tara might be a demon"-thing later, and the season 4 ep happened to fit into that story... Don't know but I just didn't see the Tara-demon thing as one of those things Joss had planned for a long time..
The Arcane
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This is just my guess here but i actually think it was more the opposite of that. I've always assumed that they may have actually intended for Tara to have some dark, hidden secret and that the plan was to spin it out for a little while, letting the viewers guess, then later on Joss thought to himself "Okay, now we have everyone thinking Tara is some secret, evil demon. Let's make her perfectly normal! That will throw everyone!", and so creates the idea that Tara has only been told she is a demon but it was just her family's manipulations. Joss has a habit of doing the opposite to what you expect.
eponinethen
Majk
Yeah it's not like it would be like Joss to not think about each detail in these situations. My question is though, when exactly is it suggested to us that Tara has some dark secret? I can only think of in Restless, when she says "You don't know everything about me", apart from Family that is.. Maybe it's just 'cause I never believed that sweet adorable Tara could actually have a dark secret, I always "knew" she was as cute and good as she seems 😉
Edmund Blackadder
Scooby
This was the first and last time that Tara hinted to her possible dark nature with the spell.
The dream, i kinda always thought as it was Willow's subconcious, mixed with all the rest, it was them extrapolating that they didn't know everything about our fave wiccas fantastic new Girlfriend.
I kinda always knew that it was something important why Tara didn't do the spell, but i wasn't sure enough to say she was part Demon(or thought that anyway).
eponinethen
Majk
Sort of what I meant, just like in the discussion about if people new Dawn was coming 'cause they "mentioned" her in Restless... That wasn't exactly Tara, so I don't know if we were supposed to expect Tara to have some dark secret. Maybe we were and I just didn't get it 'cause I always saw her as such a sweet and lovable character.. Did everyone else expect her to turn out to be an evil monster? Heh..
The Arcane
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The thing about the Buffyverse is that whenever somebody does something mysterious (or doesn't do something, in the case of Tara and the spell) then you automatically assume that is has to some deep, dark secret. I mean, at the time you saw the episode what else could possibly have stopped Tara from helping Willow? The spell was to show the location of all the demons in the local area. Why else would Tara not want that to happen unless she, herself, was a demon and would be revealed by the spell.
What was said in the dream could easily have been prophetic. Willow and the others were all linked to Buffy and the First Slayer in the dreamscape and so were accessing their slayeresque ability to see what was to come. This allowed Willow to see that Tara was keeping something from her, which was the case. It just turned out that Tara was wrong about herself in the end.
What was said in the dream could easily have been prophetic. Willow and the others were all linked to Buffy and the First Slayer in the dreamscape and so were accessing their slayeresque ability to see what was to come. This allowed Willow to see that Tara was keeping something from her, which was the case. It just turned out that Tara was wrong about herself in the end.
eponinethen
Majk
Because she already now sensed that Willow might like the magic a little bit too much and that they would be dealing with magic they weren't ready for if they tried this spell..?
Hey, I agree with you, it's shown that she did it 'cause she thought she was a demon, I'm just saying it is possible to believe something else when you first see it, or at least I believed that until I saw Family (maybe I missed something huge there, not suspecting that Tara was evil, but I just always assumed she was as innocent and sweet as she seems)..
Cohen
Hellhound
I always thought it was cuz it was a 'big spell'...i think thats what tara herself said in that episode...but i havent watched it in FOREVER so..
Edmund Blackadder
Scooby
no...it IS because of the events in Family....she believed she had Demon in her, and that it would manifest...she never alludes to something else..
The Arcane
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Hmm, possibly but i tend to think that it was way too early for any of the viwers to have assumed that from what we knew at the time. Nobody, least of all Tara, knew that Willow was going to go the way she did. And if that had been the case she could simply have refused to help her do the spell and explained why she thought it was too dangerous.
The main problem with that theory though is that it wasn't supposed to be a particularly difficult or dangerous spell and Willow knew that.
The fact that she chose to make it appear the spell had simply failed made it look like she had something to hide, which is exactly the intent Joss had for Tara's actions.
It worked as well because i remember a whole load of speculation and theories about why Tara did what she did and what she might be starting straight after the episode aired. Everything from a demon herself to the possibility that she was somehow involved in the Adam project and didn't want him found.