I disagree wholeheartedly with your analysis of Willow in the sixth season. She was still able to be strong, and while it did boil down to a Buffy vs Willow fight, I believe you’re looking at the wrong things. The beauty of Buffy was that it could take mundane everyday things and portray them compellingly on screen guised in the Supernatural. While it’s true Willow did snap after Tara’s death it wasn’t to show how fickle women are. Willow’s storyline in season 6 was a very clear parallel to something a lot of addicts go through. Her addiction to magic and her need for it, being helped by friends to stop the abuse of the magicks, secretly still using behind her friends back.
Evil!Willow was the personification of a relapse that could have very well killed Willow, it wasn’t something Buffy could fix with her fists. In the end it could only be fixed by Xander, her oldest friend, being there for her. It could only be stopped when she was ready to get help and face the problem head on.
Maybe it wasn’t something you had to deal with personally in your life so you couldn’t see it that way I do, but I’m someone who lost a cousin to an overdose and nearly a sister before she got clean.
Willow was far from 2 dimensional in season 6, and she was far from only being villainized to boost Buffy as a hero. She was a struggling addict trying to get better only to be pulled back into her habits by a devastating loss.
Willow was relatable to be throughout the entire series. I was the nerdy old reliable homework type, I also struggled with my sexuality before realizing I was gay, and I saw first-hand what drug addiction can do to a person.
It didn’t diminish Willow’s story, if anything it made her more human, more relatable, and was a damn compelling way to fit an addiction storyline into the supernatural aspect of the Buffyverse.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your analysis of Willow in the sixth season. She was still able to be strong, and while it did boil down to a Buffy vs Willow fight, I believe you’re looking at the wrong things. The beauty of Buffy was that it could take mundane everyday things and portray them compellingly on screen guised in the Supernatural. While it’s true Willow did snap after Tara’s death it wasn’t to show how fickle women are. Willow’s storyline in season 6 was a very clear parallel to something a lot of addicts go through. Her addiction to magic and her need for it, being helped by friends to stop the abuse of the magicks, secretly still using behind her friends back.
Evil!Willow was the personification of a relapse that could have very well killed Willow, it wasn’t something Buffy could fix with her fists. In the end it could only be fixed by Xander, her oldest friend, being there for her. It could only be stopped when she was ready to get help and face the problem head on.
Maybe it wasn’t something you had to deal with personally in your life so you couldn’t see it that way I do, but I’m someone who lost a cousin to an overdose and nearly a sister before she got clean.
Willow was far from 2 dimensional in season 6, and she was far from only being villainized to boost Buffy as a hero. She was a struggling addict trying to get better only to be pulled back into her habits by a devastating loss.
Willow was relatable to be throughout the entire series. I was the nerdy old reliable homework type, I also struggled with my sexuality before realizing I was gay, and I saw first-hand what drug addiction can do to a person.
It didn’t diminish Willow’s story, if anything it made her more human, more relatable, and was a damn compelling way to fit an addiction storyline into the supernatural aspect of the Buffyverse.