This blogpost was originally written circa 2005, nearly two years after the conclusion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after seven seasons, and three years after the events of Evil Willow. It was written as an email in response to the question of the character Willow’s redeemability. It was meant to add some potential background context to my sister’s doctoral folklore thesis, which included a section from this series. [But not, ultimately, this character.] It was my favorite show, I had introduced her to it, and I had a great deal of knowledge regarding details from each episode:

I’ve been asked for an answer on my thoughts re: Willow’s redeemability and how responsible I feel she was morally on what she did [in Season 6]. Here is my answer, although it is more putting down single thoughts than a cohesive unit. My memory is not quite what it was in my Buffy immersion years [as of that writing, it had been some two years since the show concluded], so I probably can’t be quite as detailed as I once could.

I feel, of course, that Willow can be redeemed—and that she has. I do not feel she was made to suffer enough for what she did. My feelings stem from two separate groups of events. The first group is what I might loosely term her history. The second group falls under the hypocrisy shown in how other characters’ deeds are punished in contrast to hers.

To start with, I cannot excuse Willow’s behavior as a form of possession or temporary insanity brought on by Tara’s sudden and shocking death. Willow has shown too much of a history of similar, if less extreme, behavior. She proved long before she gained magic (and power with it) that she couldn’t control her temper, emotions, and arrogance, and that she could be very self-centered. This behavior was demonstrated as early as the first season, in the 8^th episode “I Robot, You Jane”. In it, Willow gains an Internet buddy with whom she communicates constantly. Her friends are naturally cautious and she (also naturally) is resentful and puts it down to their being jealous and unwilling for her to find love. Fine so far. Only she has spent 7 episodes seeing just how strange their world really is and seeing an almost identical situation with Xander in “Teacher’s Pet”. Her natural intelligence and common sense should have helped see her through it, but it didn’t. And she overreacted, believing Buffy and Xander to be jealous of her being given attention by someone else. It isn’t terribly serious on its own, just a beginning one can point back to.

In season two, there were at least a couple of worrisome events. The first, again very small, was in “Innocence”, in which she is willing to make out with Oz to make Xander jealous. She has the grace to be ashamed and moments later begins to truly see Oz in his own light, after his very sexy and romantic speech, but the fact remains she knew it was wrong and couldn’t help it anyway—she was willing to hurt them both for instant gratification—revenge against Xander. Later in the same season, she begins her foray into magic—not entirely with Giles’ approval. In other words, while she appears to listen to his caution and advice, she also almost immediately is ignoring it and thinks she can handle more than she can, the essence of pride and arrogance.

In the third season, Willow’s first full season using magic, there are again multiple examples. In “Lover’s Walk”, Willow pulls the reverse on what she did in “Innocence”. She is willing to hurt Oz so that she can have that moment with Xander and ends up hurting multiple people as a result. Then there is “Doppelgangland”, in which Willow again shows how upset she can get, instantly. Luckily, Vampire Willow appears, so she is able to get it out of her system quickly. I believe that if Vampire Willow does not appear, our Willow has a nervous breakdown. There are also other instances of Willow using more magic than Giles wants her to use—and her actively ignoring him.

In season four, there is “Something New” [an incredibly funny episode, which is the highest ranked comedy in my Buffy countdown], where she hexes all of her friends to help relieve her own pain over Oz, and because she believes they are being selfish in not listening to her misery any more. Despite blinding Giles, and nearly killing Xander before she is able to reverse the curse, her only punishment is baking cookies! As with season three, there are other micro examples through this season.

In season five, there is “Tough Love”, where she goes bats over Tara and goes after Glory—after agreeing with Buffy that it will only get her killed. Here she can not only not control her emotions but further shows she thinks she has full control of the magics—and her near defeat at the god Glory’s hands shows she is wrong.

And then there is the beginning of season six, with all the “addiction” stuff. I have never bought into a physical addiction as such, but I have always bought into the idea of an emotional and physical addiction to power that she has consistently shown, as a result of an inferiority complex or a severe superiority complex hidden inside an otherwise painfully shy girl. [Her withdrawal to me is lack of power and the thrill.] I’ve also always bought into the idea that she clearly enjoys using the magic more than she should—and always has (again, the thrill). But I am thinking of “Tabula Rasa”, where she cannot even keep “clean” for 30 days (this after using magic to decorate for a party)—and doesn’t seem to care that she is messing with Tara’s mind in trying to wipe it—the same as she did with Buffy in bringing her back, the same as Glory had done with Tara. Not to mention further proof that even as powerful as she is, she STILL doesn’t have as much control as she thinks she has. As for that lack of control, not only does she not care, she bristles when her friends question her control. In “Two to Go”, after she has turned, she arrogantly tells Buffy that she will no longer be the “sidekick”. All of this shows to me that Willow had esteem issues, a moral problem and a control problem long before Tara’s death—she was a ticking time bomb. For the record, I’m not even listing every possible example, but rather touching on the highlights. Were it something new, I might find it much easier to forgive. “Might” being the operative word. Her punishment for nearly ending the world? She’s sent off to a new age witch’s camp to learn to control herself, enveloped in peace and love.

The other problem I have with Willow’s accountability is that Willow is held to a different (and reverse) standard than literally any of the other characters. There are exceptions—Xander doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist for the people he hurt and/or inadvertently killed in “Once More, With Feeling”. Anya is forgiven relatively quickly after the events in “Selfless”—made easier by her return as a mortal. There are some other examples. But it is some of the other standards I find disturbing. In my world, I was raised to believe that there are some people who are held more accountable than others (and should be), based on their intelligence, education, financial background, power over others, etc. Willow gets away with most of her “sins”. But how ‘bout Anya, Spike, Angel, or Faith? Faith provides a really good example. In the back story, we learn that she was raised on the wrong side of the tracks, apparently no father figure; a mother who emotionally and possibly physically bused Faith; she is a drop out—and there is no indication that she ever had the academic smarts to make it to college and rise above her past. She has emotional baggage in watching her watcher brutally killed—while doing nothing about it due to fear. She does some bad things in the first half of season three—which Buffy frequently is a part of, until the Mayor’s assistant is killed—and even Buffy admits that there but for the Grace of God so she might herself have gone. My point is that Faith is expected to be totally accountable for her actions, despite her background and PTSD. And in the end, she makes herself accountable. She deserves (and gains) redemption. And yet Willow, from her nice comfortable upper middle-class upbringing, with all her intelligence, her moral upbringing, and her opportunities, may apparently do as she likes, without repercussion. Willow’s only real punishment is her own guilt—more on that below.

Then there are Angel and Spike. Both of them committed unspeakable crimes when they had no soul, and yet they are held fully accountable for those even once they have souls. [And the irony in Spike’s case is that he repeatedly shows soul (when technically he doesn’t) when he takes care of Dawn and allows himself to be tortured by Glory sooner than reveal the key, yet everyone views him as a monster.] There are understandable instances. After Angel is re-ensouled, while Giles can intellectually understand that Angel cannot be blamed for Angelus’ murder of Jenny or Giles’ own torture, emotionally he can’t face him, and I understand that, in part because Giles knows the difference, whereas others don’t. But other times, they all (even Buffy) make it clear it is never far from their minds the crimes committed by these two vampires—and once again, it seems beings without a soul are held to a different standard than a girl who absolutely should have known better—when if anything it should be the reverse. Then there are Anya, Xander, Giles—even Buffy herself when she is kicked out of her own home (don’t get me started on that particular issue). There is an episode in season seven (I don’t remember which episode or all the details), where Anya is speaking to an outsider (dunno who, probably a Potential), and she is explaining that you get forgiveness in that household if you are a vampire ex-lover of Buffy’s, or her best friend, or something else (can’t remember what), and Xander points out that Anya has also benefitted from Buffy’s forgiveness, which she shrugs off with a sense of irony. I am probably misremembering that scene, but the point is what first watching the episode reminded me—that almost everybody in that house has committed horrible crimes (well, Dawn shoplifting isn’t horrible, but most of the others have taken human life). And on the subject of Buffy being kicked out at the end of “Empty Places” – like a sore tooth I can’t stop poking – isn’t it lovely that her treatment for only arguably mismanaging is worse than what the killer Willow received. To review, I believe that Willow, with the circumstances of her background, probably should be held more accountable than most of the others—and her crimes were far worse, ranging from the awful torture of Warren, to the attempted murder of most of her friends to the attempted destruction of the whole world. Even if you factor in the circumstances that led it all this—to wit, Tara’s death—at best she should be held to the same accountability. And yet she isn’t.

What would be a suitable punishment? I’m not sure. I am not a big believer in an eye for an eye, so the season seven episode “Same Time, Same Place” doesn’t appeal to me as an answer. Having said that, I also am glad it happened to her, because she got a first-hand account of what it felt like to be Warren in those moments. She probably could have stood to suffer a little more. But not too much more. And that alone is not suitable punishment. I don’t advocate her going to prison, either (necessarily). For one thing, it would be difficult to even bring before a court, because of the mystical nature of her acts. Then there is the whole part of ending up on death row (and for people who believe in that, she deserves it). So, I can’t really answer my own question. I do believe that Willow needed to undergo a lot of training in controlling her baser emotional impulses—her months in England might have taught her a great deal about magic—its source, its power, etc., but there is no indication they taught her about controlling some of the very things she spent years exhibiting, that I mentioned up top. Thus, as far as I’m concerned, she could well go off the deep end again. One hopes not, but still…

This bring me to my conclusion. I mentioned Willow’s only punishment is her own guilt. Thanks to the show ending, we cannot explore that further. Based on the episodes that aired that season, while it is reasonable to assume that Willow learned her lesson, it is also reasonable to assume she’ll forget it all too easily. By the end of the season, she has gained a new love in Kennedy, she has become the jewel in her “family’s” belly button once again, and she has been given symbolic forgiveness from Mother Earth, in allowing her to perform that spell in the series finale, “Chosen”. While the final season of Angel indicates that she is continuing to fight evil, it strikes me that it will be all too easy to forget what she did and allow herself to be happy. I’m reminded once more of two other characters. The first is Angel. Part of the point of his curse is that he might never forget what he did before. I will argue that he deserves happiness (as does Willow), but his punishment (for a long lifetime indeed) is that he will always remember what he did wrong. The other individual is Faith. She went to prison. She endured the usual prison afflictions (being beaten, etc.) without using her slayer skills. There are practical reasons for this, but it’s also because she feels she deserves it and is trying to do the right thing now. And in the final season of Buffy, some three years into her prison term, Faith shows that she still thinks about what she did and does not take redemption for granted. And she saves Angel in gratitude. [Plus let’s not forget one of the few genuinely amusing moments in season seven, when she asks if she is now the good slayer, and Buffy the bad slayer.] I wonder how reflective Willow is 3 years after (which would be now)—and not having undergone any punishment? And for a crime I feel is far greater than what Faith did—mitigating circumstances notwithstanding. If Willow allows herself to forget, then the only punishment that she has will be gone. She should not wallow in misery the rest of her life—but she owes it to herself, to those she killed, to those she tried to kill (including all humanity) to remember it, so that she might not repeat it. Only then can she be completely redeemed.