Willow going Dark Willow in "Tough Love"

Joshua

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Do you think Willow going Dark Witch Willow on Glory in "Tough Love" was foreshadowing her future as a witch in season 6?
 
Wesley Pryce
Wesley Pryce
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No. Finale of season 6 is just a boring, lazy copy-paste of "Tough Love". Actual foreshadowing happens even before Willow gets into witchcraft, in "The Witch".
 
I don't think it was as much foreshadowing as it was being consistent with the story.

Eg: Spike in the brown suit talking about shark and Giles as his father figure in Restless is foreshadowing for Tabula Rasa

Willow going "dark" before the events of Seeing Red is having a good story continuity.
 
I'm fairly certain that by 'Tough Love' they knew what they were going to do to Willow's character going dark in S6, they'd been planting that seed since S4.

Claiming that they foreshadowed in 'The Witch' is just ridiculous, Joss is good, but he's not that good.🙂
 
[MENTION=12614]thetopher[/MENTION]
Claiming that they foreshadowed in 'The Witch' is just ridiculous, Joss is good, but he's not that good.

Dude, Whedon's absolutely crazy about foreshadowing. Dawn is foreshadowed in season 3, stuff from season 8 in season 1, 3 and 4.
 
Okay, in Season 1 they weren't thinking ahead five years- they didn't even know if they'd get picked up for a full season. They were a mid-season replacement on a brand-new network, they had no 5/6 year plan for any of the characters.

What your seeing is 'character growth' here, not foreshadowing. Willow shows no interest in magic until S2. Only then you can argue foreshadowing.

There is such a thing as 'reverse foreshadowing' I guess, where things in earlier episodes are refered back to, to make a pattern of sorts.
The trick is to sort one from the other.🙂
 
AnthonyCordova
AnthonyCordova
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It's not foreshadowing - it's character development.

Dawn was foreshadowed - 'Graduation Day', 'This Year's Girl', 'Restless', there's even some speculation that Michelle Tractenberg was actually IN 'Restless'.

Willow - in this instance - is very different.

This is moment where we see Willow REALLY start to change, where she disregards everything apart from her needs, and in this case, it was her need to take vengeance on Glory for what happened to Tara. She was willing to delve into some dark, dark magics in order to get the power she needed to really hurt Glory.

It was a warning shot - Look, look at Willow, look how far she's willing to go to for Tara, this is some hardcore stuff. She's not going to be able to come back from that, is she? Oh, wait, she's okay. She's looking after Tara, she's going to keep Tara safe, she' okay. Isn't she?

I think we had to see Willow go dark before S6 in order for us to accept that phase of her life. We saw those black eyes and know that she had that in her, but we also saw her come back from it, to turn away from it, so we knew that it was a choice Willow made. Yes, she was consumed with grief, but it was still a choice that Willow made to turn to the darker magic to do what she wanted, and seeing her turn away from it before was always in the back of our minds when we were watching S6, so we had hope that she would be able to do it again.
 
thetopher
thetopher
This, exactly this!
Ethan Reigns
Ethan Reigns
We saw Willow's black eyes in her hospital room where she put the Gypsy curse back on Angel.
SRMarx
SRMarx
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I doubt that they just did season 1 then when they found out it was accepted then started to do a season 2 based on what happened in season 1.
Plans and contingencies would have been made in case season 1 was accepted.
Did they plan on Willow being a witch?
What she did in season 2 needed knowledge, when did she start to accumulate that knowledge and what were the occurences that drew in her interest? Chances are it was something that happened in season 1.
Did they have a long term plan for the characters, probably. Joss would have had a plan how he wanted to end the series. How does a story seem to move ahead without a lot of back story? Have a psychic who can say what is about to happen, or have someone who is a witch.
Having said that it was doubtful that much thought had gone into a Dark Willow type scenario as the show was going to end at season 5, but it might have done.
A lot depends on a persons understanding of the words foreshadowing and character development.
If you were planning on writing a long story initially you might plan how a character will be in the story (foreshadowing) then as the story developed you would have the character development.
Had Joss planned on doing seven seasons the chances are he would have pre-planned the major plot twists, so from that point of view it is possible a character was going to be a Dark person, as the series progressed he would have been able to see the best person/character for the role.
 
thetopher
thetopher
I thought Willow learned magic because she looked through Jenny Calendar's stuff after she died?
thetopher,
what do you think was on Jenny Calenders' stuff? How to put Liam's soul back into Angelus, to make him Angel.
The chances are that if Willow had not investigated the use of magic, the lighter side, beginner stuff like making objects move without touching them, causing a pencil to float.
If Willow had read what was on Jenny's disc without any prior knowledge it would have made her run for the hills.
Also it would have taken a damn sight more than just reading what was on Jenny's disc to learn about magic.
 
Well, I'm not just talking about the only the disk, Willow states in 'Belonging' that she got curious and started looking through all of Jenny Calendar's stuff. All the stuff on her computers- her cyber pagan material.
That would make a lot of sense since Willow took over running Jenny's computer class, going through all her lesson plans and notes, maybe stumbled across a lot of Jenny's magic notes, maybe contact details for her online pagan friends.
Honestly, I think Jenny's death might've caused Willow to think of ways to be more useful. To find a way to fight back and protect the people she cared about, and about not feeling so helpless.
To me, that makes perfect sense, there's no hint in S1 that Willow has any interest in magic or spells. She just good with computers and investigating in the library. She's a Slayerette.
 
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