Willow's season six arc

[AngelAmongUs]

Season six had some interesting concepts that are overall poorly executed. Willow had a slow build through the series of using magic to make her life easier:


Trying to cast a de-lusting spell on herself and Xander.

Casting a spell that " her will be done" in something blue.

Trying to cast a spell on the female werewolf after she caught her with Oz.


This wasn't an addiction, this showed a need for control and power over others and using magic to do it.


In season six she:


Threatened Giles saying: "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."


This was about power and control. Not a drug addiction.

She violated Tara's mind twice with magic forcing her to stay in a relationship she had chose not to be in and having sex with her in this state which is technically rape. She had already chosen to take a break from a relationship and by magically making her stay in the relationship she had overridden Tara's ability to consent.


To suddenly change magic use into a afterschool drug PSA was just bad writing. It Ignores the real narrative that had been building the entire series.

Willow: "Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser, and she always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college with her stupid mousy ways."

It is because of these insecurities that she was vulnerable to abusing her power over others.

 

[bespangeled]

Completely agree. I'd also add that using the magical shortcuts deprived her of the opportunities that the other Scoobs had to learn important life skills - such as patience, delayed gratification, and failure. These lacks, rather than magic, were what made her life so much harder without magic. In fact, she says something to that effect when she is back to using computer research.

That's part of why I can't stand Kennedy. It seems that this "rich brat" is the poster girl for all of those negative qualities, while Tara encompassed grace and compassion. If I look at her as rebound girl I can see why her very difference from Tara would make it hard for her to fall in love with Kennedy. Thankfully, since I am comic free, I can pretend they broke up shortly after the astral plane vacation.

 

[Blaze]

You bring up a lot of good points. And honestly, the s7 storyline would have been better with your telling of the events. In s7 Willow learns to control her magic, which makes a lot of sense with the idea that she has this superiority complex and needed to learn what true power was about. But if we're speaking addiction, the s7 storyline makes no sense because you don't learn to control your addiction by continuing to do the exact thing you're not suppose to do.

But if we're looking only at s6 (because I think they did an awful job at the continuation in s7), I think the way she seeks power and her magic addiction aren't mutually exclusive. I agree that it started as her abusing power, or seeking power, but then magic started consuming her. We know by other mentions that magic has had that effect on other people (Rack, the Tibetan monks that Riley's gf talks about, Amy). I just think that in the case of Willow, it was about power, and then turned into something more. The line between the two is blurred.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

Yeah I see your point, but why are the issues of power/insecurities and addiction mutually exclusive?

I can agree with your idea that a lot of the build-up of Willow's character and problems revolved around insecurities and issues related to power; that seems very clear. But thinking back on it, I see her abuse of and subsequent addiction to magic as a consequence of taking the easy way out of those said problems. She became too reliant on magic as an easy solution to her various life problems (power, insecurity, etc.), and then found out the hard way through that process that, "oh shit", abusing magic like that can have unhealthy consequences, e.g. its addictive properties. I guess what I'm saying is that the addiction was a consequence of the problems of power, insecurity, etc. She opted for easy solutions to those problems and in the process abused magic...which we learned from the beginning of the show in season 1 how magic should be respected and the potential danger of its abuse. I mean, Whedon made that point about magic pretty clear very early in the show right, and then reinforced that point of view over the course of successive seasons. So it's not like it came out of the blue.

I don't know, the addiction element doesn't bother me as much as other people, because in my eyes it follows those other problems she had, not obscures them. It's the consequence of choosing irresponsible solutions to her persistent problems, and it was suggested in various ways in seasons before that abusing magic has real consequences, so addiction happening afterwards kind of makes sense to me. Plus, I really feel like Willow crossed serious lines after reviving Buffy beginning of S6, because what she did there, regardless of the fact she did a good thing in some sense by bringing back Buffy, it was still black magic, no doubt about it. And afterwards I feel Willow's magic use was guarenteed to have more serious consequences from that point forward, because using that magic to bring back Buffy changed her in a serious way, and it changed her relationship with magic forever afterwards.

The season 7 point you guys are making I believe, but S7 was a trainwreck imo. As far as S6 goes, I don't have as much of a problem with the narrative as other people do.

 

[bespangeled]

I agree, Blaze. Even as far back as resouling Angel there was mention of how dark magic can cause permanent effects. I think that spell opened the door, and once she used necromancy/ blood magic to bring Buffy back her magic was irrevocably tainted. Unfortunately the show made a real hash of it by using the magic addiction idea in season 6, and then starting season 7 with Giles telling Willow:

GILES
But everything's connected. You're
connected to great power, whether you
feel it or not.

WILLOW
You should just take it from me.

She rises. He follows.

GILES
You know we can't. This isn't a
hobby, or an addiction. It's inside
you now, this magic. You're
responsible for it.

So it was clearly not an addiction, Nor does it appear that Willow suffered any damage from her forays into the darkest magics...🙄 

Yeah I see your point, but why are the issues of power/insecurities and addiction mutually exclusive?

I can agree with your idea that a lot of the build-up of Willow's character and problems revolved around insecurities and issues related to power; that seems very clear. But thinking back on it, I see her abuse of and subsequent addiction to magic as a consequence of taking the easy way out of those said problems. She became too reliant on magic as an easy solution to her various life problems (power, insecurity, etc.), and then found out the hard way through that process that, "oh shit", abusing magic like that can have unhealthy consequences, e.g. its addictive properties. I guess what I'm saying is that the addiction was a consequence of the problems of power, insecurity, etc. She opted for easy solutions to those problems and in the process abused magic...which we learned from the beginning of the show in season 1 how magic should be respected and the potential danger of its abuse. I mean, Whedon made that point about magic pretty clear very early in the show right, and then reinforced that point of view over the course of successive seasons. So it's not like it came out of the blue.

I don't know, the addiction element doesn't bother me as much as other people, because in my eyes it follows those other problems she had, not obscures them. It's the consequence of choosing irresponsible solutions to her persistent problems, and it was suggested in various ways in seasons before that abusing magic has real consequences, so addiction happening afterwards kind of makes sense to me. Plus, I really feel like Willow crossed serious lines after reviving Buffy beginning of S6, because what she did there, regardless of the fact she did a good thing in some sense by bringing back Buffy, it was still black magic, no doubt about it. And afterwards I feel Willow's magic use was guarenteed to have more serious consequences from that point forward, because using that magic to bring back Buffy changed her in a serious way, and it changed her relationship with magic forever afterwards.

The season 7 point you guys are making I believe, but S7 was a trainwreck imo. As far as S6 goes, I don't have as much of a problem with the narrative as other people do.

The addiction metaphor annoyed the crap out of me more because of the sledgehammer approach rather than the metaphor itself. I completely agree that it cost Willow any chance of learning important life skills - which makes magic a key part of the downward spiral. I just wish they had dealt with the permanent results of dealing in black magic - the results we were warned of since Willow first started to use magic. Instead season 7 throws all of the build-up away and decides that magic is innate and there is no addiction. The coven really seems to do very little - just reinforces what Willow had been told by Tara all along - though of course she is in a more receptive frame of mind.

You make a good point - there are reasons for the addiction, and I think those reasons are actually pretty commonplace. I have to say that I believe Giles was irresponsible, as well. He shared books with Willow and encouraged her to do spells with ever increasing difficulty, but he neglected to actually train her. Since Giles had been summoning demons at Willow's age it seems he was uniquely qualified to recognize the signs we saw in the earlier seasons. I would have liked to see him training Willow, even if that training had no effect.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

@bespangeled I agree with your last post regarding S7. The "problem" with the addiction storyline (beyond just dubious execution) had more to do with the follow-through in S7. They didn't follow through on it in a consistent way so it threw the credulity (believability) of events of S6 under a cloud.

That quote you bring up between Willow and Giles can be interpreted differently. Giles says "It's inside you now", so I can see an alternative reading suggesting that what Giles is trying to say or implying is that, like it or not, magic is inside of you now and you're responsible for it, so you can't afford to assume an irresponsible (i.e. addiction) posture towards it. In other words, maybe Giles is advising Willow to change her orientation and attitude to the whole problem and stop thinking of it as an addiction or hobby anymore, because she is too powerful of a witch and she has had too many experiences with it to consider it in those terms anymore.

But yes, in broad strokes I agree with you, S7 failed to bring home the themes developed in the previous season with regard to Willow. 

I have to say that I believe Giles was irresponsible, as well. He shared books with Willow and encouraged her to do spells with ever increasing difficulty, but he neglected to actually train her. Since Giles had been summoning demons at Willow's age it seems he was uniquely qualified to recognize the signs we saw in the earlier seasons. I would have liked to see him training Willow, even if that training had no effect.

And I think this is a fair point to make. It's interesting how so few people lay any blame at Giles footstep. It's more Willow's problem than anyone else, but Giles didn't really give Willow the assistance she needed. He was too busy playing surrogate father to Buffy to notice that he really had two powerful people to play "watcher" for, not one.

 

[bespangeled]

And I think this is a fair point to make. It's interesting how so few people lay any blame at Giles footstep. It's more Willow's problem than anyone else, but Giles didn't really give Willow the assistance she needed. He was too busy playing surrogate father to Buffy to notice that he really had two powerful people to play "watcher" for, not one.

Once he started to use her abilities for the group, to support his slayer, he was morally responsible to make sure she was properly trained,IMO. He gave her tools and books, and by season 4 he was expecting her to do some pretty strong spells to aid the group.

(I tried to make this a karma comment but apparently you can't do that once you've given karma in a double post).