Willow was pretty similar to Warren in season 6

[Fool for Buffy]

1. Chasing a high- For Warren, the addiction is power. He simply wants to collect as much power as he can, including physical power, riches, and mental power. For Willow, it's magic, but it's also power. For her, magic is power. And she uses magic to get physical power and mental power. Though riches don't really come up in her scenario, the two characters have similar aspirations.

2. Abusing others along the way- Although Andrew usually complies, Warren coerces/ manipulates Jonathan a lot on his quest for power. He forces him to do all of his dirty work and gives him no reward. Willow also manipulates, using taking Dawn out as an excuse to obtain a high. She has no care for her well being and ends up hurting her terribly in the process.

3. Relationship Manipulation- Warren's relationship with Katrina actually seems like it might have been sweet before we ever saw it. But when it doesn't work out, we see Warren do a mind spell to force Katrina to be his once again. We did see how great Willow and Tara were as a couple. But when things got rough for them, Willow resorted to the exact same thing, a mind spell. Twice.

4. "Fun"- For Warren, it's robbing banks or beating up random guys. For Willow, it's forcing men to strip and cursing an entire club to do whatever she wanted. Which one is worse? Take your pick.

5. Vengeance- This one is the most obvious. When Buffy ruins Warren's plans, he attacks her with an attempt to murder. When Tara is shot, Willow goes for that same attempt at murder and succeeds. It's a better motive, but the same course of action. And we have seen people handle the death of loved ones a lot better than this. Spike is the best example. He actually honored Buffy's memory and continued to live for her after she died.

My Theory- When Willow kills Warren, it's her version of suicide. She knows by killing him she fully becomes him. That's why she had no intent of coming back from it.

Warren is often considered the most evil, unredeemable human in the Buffyverse. Willow is one of the most consistently beloved. And who knows what would have happened with Warren if he didn't die? If he got the chance to go to prison, would he have changed? Is the only difference that Willow got a second chance? If not, why is Willow forgiven?

 

[Ethan Reigns]

There is another parallel:

6. Warren makes the Aprilbot, the Buffybot and the Warrenbot. Willow sees the Aprilbot, reprograms and uses the Buffybot and has the Warrenbot used as a decoy to help Warren escape. Willow has no qualms about repurposing the Buffybot Spike commissioned. Both use their knowledge of robotics to suit their own purposes and reshape the world around them.

 

[Priceless]

The parallels are definitely there. Both Willow and Warren are metaphors for the corrupting influence of power. They both began as nerds who lacked confidence and felt they couldn't get what they wanted without putting thier skills to nefarious uses. Neither of them saw the pitfalls (and never learnt from earlier lessons) until it was too late, but were Willow regretted her actions, Warren revelled in his.

When Willow killed Warren she didn't think she was going to come back from that, and so it could be seen as a form of suicide. I think The Killer in Me shows how much Willow felt she became like Warren.

Willow showed true remorse for her actions which is why she found redemption. I feel that if Jonathan had lived, he could possibly have been redeemed because he was just a foot soldier for evil, but Warren was a true believer and as such, virtually impossible to redeem.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

There is parallel. My blood froze when I watched Seeing Red a couple weeks back and Warren called Buffy "super-bitch." Still, this attempt to equate them is just ridiculous.

2. Abusing others along the way- Although Andrew usually complies, Warren coerces/ manipulates Jonathan a lot on his quest for power. He forces him to do all of his dirty work and gives him no reward. Willow also manipulates, using taking Dawn out as an excuse to obtain a high. She has no care for her well being and ends up hurting her terribly in the process.

That was Willow at her absolute lowest. She is clearly "drunk" through the entire thing. When she wakes up to what she has done, she has a complete break down.

3. Relationship Manipulation- Warren's relationship with Katrina actually seems like it might have been sweet before we ever saw it. But when it doesn't work out, we see Warren do a mind spell to force Katrina to be his once again. We did see how great Willow and Tara were as a couple. But when things got rough for them, Willow resorted to the exact same thing, a mind spell. Twice.

Warren uses a mind spell on Katrina to make her perform fellatio on him and serve him drinks. When she wakes up, he kills her. Willow tries to make Tara and Buffy happier. According to Tara in Under Your Spell it works rather well. I am not excusing Willow, but to her credit, she had very different motivations from Warren. Also, Willow refuses the woman Amy offers her at the Bronze.

4. "Fun"- For Warren, it's robbing banks or beating up random guys. For Willow, it's forcing men to strip and cursing an entire club to do whatever she wanted. Which one is worse? Take your pick.

The men Willow and Amy stripped physically threatened Amy and made fun of Willow's sexuality. Also, this is not a regular nigh out for Willow. Warren does bad stuff all the time. Willow acted out for a couple nights, when she felt depressed and abandoned.

5. Vengeance- This one is the most obvious. When Buffy ruins Warren's plans, he attacks her with an attempt to murder. When Tara is shot, Willow goes for that same attempt at murder and succeeds. It's a better motive, but the same course of action. And we have seen people handle the death of loved ones a lot better than this. Spike is the best example. He actually honored Buffy's memory and continued to live for her after she died.

Warren attempts shoots Buffy and Tara, because Buffy wounded his pride. Willow kills him, because he killed the last person she still believes cares for her.

Warren is often considered the most evil, unredeemable human in the Buffyverse. Willow is one of the most consistently beloved. And who knows what would have happened with Warren if he didn't die? If he got the chance to go to prison, would he have changed? Is the only difference that Willow got a second chance? If not, why is Willow forgiven?

Warren does not want redemption. He feels very little remorse for what he does, despite the fact that his crimes and their circumstances are much worse than Willow's.

 

[Blaze]

Their similarities are actually meant to show their differences in my opinion. By that, I mean that it shows how important context and background is. Warren is evil by nature, he will never be a good person. Willow is a good person who did evil things because of circumstances. Those things are still evil, but Willow is redeemable, she is actually a good person deep down.

 

[Alittlegrim]

I actually think Dark Willow is WAY worse than Warren and her rage against him was completely hypocritical. He killed Tara BY ACCIDENT and she set out to kill Jonathan and Andrew who had even less to do with it. They weren't quite innocents but certainly didn't deserve to die. Warren was a mortal, non-powered human and both of the women he killed were killed by "natural" means and without forethought. This is not to let him off the hook for what he did because he did wrong but the worst any of The Trio deserved is an ass-kicking courtesy of Buffy and some prison time.

 

[buffy1990]

Their similarities are actually meant to show their differences in my opinion. By that, I mean that it shows how important context and background is. Warren is evil by nature, he will never be a good person. Willow is a good person who did evil things because of circumstances. Those things are still evil, but Willow is redeemable, she is actually a good person deep down.

I agree with this. Willow shows repeatedly that she has remorse for the things she's done, even attempting to give up magic in S6 as an attempt to make things right with everyone around her. Only when she suffers a great loss does she spiral downward, and she spend a majority of S7 trying to rebuild and trust herself again.

Warren does not show remorse for his actions. In season 6 when he finds out that Tara died instead of Buffy, his immediate reaction is to protect himself. He has no regret for the killing of an innocent bystander, and probably would have celebrated had he gotten away with it.

I'm not saying either's actions are worse than the other. Warren should not have killed Katrina or attempted to kill Buffy, and Willow should not have killed Warren. But, their actions after the fact show, in my opinion, that Willow at her core wants to do right.

 

[GraceK]

I actually think Dark Willow is WAY worse than Warren and her rage against him was completely hypocritical. He killed Tara BY ACCIDENT and she set out to kill Jonathan and Andrew who had even less to do with it. They weren't quite innocents but certainly didn't deserve to die. Warren was a mortal, non-powered human and both of the women he killed were killed by "natural" means and without forethought. This is not to let him off the hook for what he did because he did wrong but the worst any of The Trio deserved is an ass-kicking courtesy of Buffy and some prison time.

What?? Warren mind controlled Katrina, along with Jonathan and Andrew by the way, and they were going gang rape her. When she snaps and rightfully tells them off, Warren murders her. Did he mean for her to die? No...he only meant for her to be bludgeoned then back under his control to have a sex slave.

He then frames Buffy for her murder, and Jonathan is the only one who is upset. Andrew is stoked that they got away with it and isn’t bothered in the least.

Warren gets his hands on those orbs, and what’s the first thing he does? Try to force a girl to be with him and beat up her
Boyfriend, then tried to kill Buffy.

When that fails, he instead shoots her in cold blood, then goes to a demon bar to brag about killing her. I don’t know how Tara being hit by accident while he was trying to murder someone else is somehow better. Also , he wasn’t exactly a little weak man. He went to Rack immediately to shoot up some dark magic to try to kill Buffy AGAIN, and instead finds out Willow is after him and changes plans. He would have killed her if he could.

You can think that Willow was unjustified in going after Jonathan and Andrew, but Warren deserved that flaying and I was happy to see him die horribly. In no universe is Willow worse than Warren. She Realized the error of her ways and her abuse of Magic and accepted the responsibility of ruining her relationship. She let Tara go with love and was determined to fix her ways and eventually earn her trust again. She didn’t build a robot Tara or try to force Tara to be her sex slave when they broke up. She was actually on a very stable path both with her magic addiction and with Tara when Warren murdered her. I don’t blame her for going off the rails. Especially in a show where the main hero is prepared to feed a woman to her boyfriend to save his life . No one is perfect, and if anything, Warren and Willow are a perfect example of where choices can take you. Warren had every opportunity to change and work on himself and he didn’t. Willow did. I will never understand this whitewashing of Warren Mears and attempts to justify his actions or make him appear as less of a monster.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

I actually think Dark Willow is WAY worse than Warren and her rage against him was completely hypocritical. He killed Tara BY ACCIDENT and she set out to kill Jonathan and Andrew who had even less to do with it. They weren't quite innocents but certainly didn't deserve to die. Warren was a mortal, non-powered human and both of the women he killed were killed by "natural" means and without forethought. This is not to let him off the hook for what he did because he did wrong but the worst any of The Trio deserved is an ass-kicking courtesy of Buffy and some prison time.

He did not kill Tara by accident. He fired a gun in the direction of Buffy. Warren tries to use this as an excuse, but Willow answers that it does not matter to her that he aimed for her best friend rather than her girlfriend.

Andrew and Jonathan were not innocent. They assisted in the abduction of Katrina, they intended to rape her and they were complicit in her murder. Jonathan made some snarky comments to make himself feel better, but they both continued to aid Warren on his made quest to avenge himself on the world in general and womenkind in particular. Willow knew this, because she read Warren's mind and conjured Katrina's ghost.

You say the murder was without forethought. Warren clearly intended to kill Buffy. Katriana died while she was escaping from being raped. The Trio seemed to have planned to keep Katrina's mind subdued permanently. If they had been successful, that would in itself have been murder.

 

[Alittlegrim]

He did not kill Tara by accident. He fired a gun in the direction of Buffy. Warren tries to use this as an excuse, but Willow answers that it does not matter to her that he aimed for her best friend rather than her girlfriend.

Andrew and Jonathan were not innocent. They assisted in the abduction of Katrina, they intended to rape her and they were complicit in her murder. Jonathan made some snarky comments to make himself feel better, but they both continued to aid Warren on his made quest to avenge himself on the world in general and womenkind in particular. Willow knew this, because she read Warren's mind and conjured Katrina's ghost.

You say the murder was without forethought. Warren clearly intended to kill Buffy. Katriana died while she was escaping from being raped. The Trio seemed to have planned to keep Katrina's mind subdued permanently. If they had been successful, that would in itself have been murder.

I never said Jonatan and Andrew were innocents. I said they were "not quite innocents". They didn't have any direct hand in killing Tara but they did with Katrina. But you will notice that I wasn't actually defending Warren. I clearly said that he DID WRONG. He should have had his ass-kicked by Buffy and gone to jail, possibly for life. Neither of them very nice experiences. By the moral system established in the Buffyverse none of the Trio deserved what Dark Willow had planned for them. Something Buffy acknowledges by protecting Jonantan and Andrew, not for their sake but for Willow's killing them being something she could not come back from morally. Jonathan recognizes this too, vocalizing their caupability and saying they should go to jail.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

You say you find Willow "way worse" than Warren. I would not condone Willow's actions, but I would forgive her in a heartbeat. If I was Buffy, I am not even sure I would try to stop her. Warren, on the other hand, I would never forgive. I don't condone vigilante murder, but I would not waste my tears on anyone in The Trio. Not that I could. I was already all cried out.

Jonathan recognizes this too, vocalizing their caupability and saying they should go to jail.

Jonathan was always good with words.

 

[Alittlegrim]

Okay, I

What?? Warren mind controlled Katrina, along with Jonathan and Andrew by the way, and they were going gang rape her. When she snaps and rightfully tells them off, Warren murders her. Did he mean for her to die? No...he only meant for her to be bludgeoned then back under his control to have a sex slave.

He then frames Buffy for her murder, and Jonathan is the only one who is upset. Andrew is stoked that they got away with it and isn’t bothered in the least.

Warren gets his hands on those orbs, and what’s the first thing he does? Try to force a girl to be with him and beat up her
Boyfriend, then tried to kill Buffy.

When that fails, he instead shoots her in cold blood, then goes to a demon bar to brag about killing her. I don’t know how Tara being hit by accident while he was trying to murder someone else is somehow better. Also , he wasn’t exactly a little weak man. He went to Rack immediately to shoot up some dark magic to try to kill Buffy AGAIN, and instead finds out Willow is after him and changes plans. He would have killed her if he could.

You can think that Willow was unjustified in going after Jonathan and Andrew, but Warren deserved that flaying and I was happy to see him die horribly. In no universe is Willow worse than Warren. She Realized the error of her ways and her abuse of Magic and accepted the responsibility of ruining her relationship. She let Tara go with love and was determined to fix her ways and eventually earn her trust again. She didn’t build a robot Tara or try to force Tara to be her sex slave when they broke up. She was actually on a very stable path both with her magic addiction and with Tara when Warren murdered her. I don’t blame her for going off the rails. Especially in a show where the main hero is prepared to feed a woman to her boyfriend to save his life . No one is perfect, and if anything, Warren and Willow are a perfect example of where choices can take you. Warren had every opportunity to change and work on himself and he didn’t. Willow did. I will never understand this whitewashing of Warren Mears and attempts to justify his actions or make him appear as less of a monster.

Okay, I think I may have expressed that wrong. Warren was a monster but only in a metaphorical sense. He did wrong but in the moral system set up in universe he did not deserve to die, especially not like that. Something even Buffy acknowledges by trying to save him. Not because she likes him, he did shoot her after all, but because killing him would be wrong. Jonathan and Andrew are caupable to some degree but also deserve jail and not a horrible agonizing death. Again, something Buffy recognizes by protecting them to save Willow from losing any sense of morality,

 

[Anyanka Bunny Slayer]

I actually think Dark Willow is WAY worse than Warren and her rage against him was completely hypocritical. He killed Tara BY ACCIDENT and she set out to kill Jonathan and Andrew who had even less to do with it. They weren't quite innocents but certainly didn't deserve to die. Warren was a mortal, non-powered human and both of the women he killed were killed by "natural" means and without forethought. This is not to let him off the hook for what he did because he did wrong but the worst any of The Trio deserved is an ass-kicking courtesy of Buffy and some prison time.

Agreed. Though I enjoyed Dark Willow, she saw herself as judge, jury, and executioner...Warren was a spineless piece of crap, but he didn't kill Tara on purpose. He was gunning for Buffy, and the second bullet hit Tara. (But if you look at the layout of the house, it's hard to figure out how the bullet hit her from where he was standing)

The first few times I watched Villains, I was totally on team Dark Willow. But after awhile, it's like, "Wow. Over-dramatic much?!" Yeah, the flaying of Warren was AWESOME, but after that...she rather grated on the nerves.

I still hate every aspect of the Trio, and would've gladly seen all of them die horribly. But, they were human, warts and all. I totally agree with Buffy's little speech about the law and not killing humans. (Except Kennedy, Wood, S7 Faith, the other Potentials, S7 Spike, and Andrew. Yes, I know Spike wasn't human but whatever. Kill them all! )

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

The Dark Side of the Force is a gateway to many abilities some would call unnatural, yes.

 

[Alittlegrim]

You say you find Willow "way worse" than Warren. I would not condone Willow's actions, but I would forgive her in a heartbeat. If I was Buffy, I am not even sure I would try to stop her. Warren, on the other hand, I would never forgive. I don't condone vigilante murder, but I would not waste my tears on anyone in The Trio. Not that I could. I was already all cried out.

Jonathan was always good with words.

I may have overstated things. Probably because of the horror of seeing Warren skinned alive. Something that would usually be done only by the 'verse's worst villains (notice Buffy's look of shock when it happens). In a practical terms their actions are similar, killing is killing, but Willow's motives are far more sympathetic. I didn't shed any tears for Warren per se but seem to be one of the few to realize that torture and flaying are actually quite horrible, even as well as especially for someone like him.

 

[Spanky]

Willow's motives are far more sympathetic.

How is it more sympathetic? Both of the deaths Warren was involved with were manslaughter, Willow was straight-up murder. I didn't find anything sympathetic about her whole quest for revenge. She threw a temper tantrum and had the ability to actually take her anger out on people whereas in the past she was never afforded that luxury.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

You talk about the internal moral of the Buffyverse. Willow's little rampage are peanuts compared to some of what Buffy, Faith, Angel, Spike, Giles, Wesley and Anya got up to, and they were all forgiven. As Willow's attorney I plead temporary insanity due to agonising circumstances brought on by the people she harmed and ask for a full pardon.

 

[Alittlegrim]

I mean in a general sense because she had lost a loved one. Katrina and Tara were manslaughter. Buffy was attempted murder. Maybe even more than attempted becuase she did flatline.

 

[Anyanka Bunny Slayer]

As Willow's attorney I plead temporary insanity due to agonising circumstances brought on by the people she harmed and ask for a full pardon.

As Superior Court Judge of Sunnydale, I decree that your request for a full pardon is hereby denied.

Nice try, though.

 

[Alittlegrim]

You talk about the internal moral of the Buffyverse. Willow's little rampage are peanuts compared to some of what Buffy, Faith, Angel, Spike, Giles, Wesley and Anya got up to, and they were all forgiven. As Willow's attorney I plead temporary insanity due to agonising circumstances brought on by the people she harmed and ask for a full pardon.

I don't remember Buffy getting too much with the fatal badness and Faith and Spike were villains as was Angel when he did his nasty and Giles has long been complex an fairly morally ambiguous (see his speech at the end of "Lie to Me". His bit about "good guys" refers to him also). Villains are supposed to break the rules to help set the standard. Two of the main tenants of the Whedonverse in general are free-will and the idea of evil as action. Willow freely chose to take revenge and acted in a singularly evil way, not only killing or trying to kill those who wronged her but anyone who got in her way, like when she slammed the truck into the car that held her friends as well as her enemies, or when she drains Giles, attacks Anya and threatens Dawn, who really had nothing at all to do with it and if anything was as traumatized by Tara's death as anyone. Though we don't see her going off on a vendetta of rage so strong it can be felt by Witches in England now do we?