Robin Moon
Addiction and Destruction
…or so we thought. Season 6 is a whole new kettle of fish that deals with magic in full force with Willow. Instantly, the tone is set in the two-part opener ‘Bargaining’, with Willow performing a resurrection spell to bring Buffy back from the dead. It’s no coincidence that Xander, Anya, and Tara are the only other characters both present for the spell and in the know about it. Aware that it’s extremely risky, Willow purposely leaves Giles, Dawn, and Spike out of the equation; if they knew, they’d undoubtedly try to stop her. In fact, the spell is cast the very evening after Giles leaves Sunnydale, returning to England.
In S6E4 ‘Flooded’, Giles comes back to Sunnydale upon learning about Buffy’s revival. After the emotional greetings are over with, Giles questions Willow about the resurrection spell in a pivotal scene. Throughout the time she’s explaining how scary it was, Willow is excitable and triumphant. In response, Giles snaps: “You’re a very stupid girl. […] Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The forces you’ve harnessed, the lines you’ve crossed?” His words here echo his words to Xander in ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered’—he’s in disbelief and outrage at Willow’s recklessness. Giles also points out that “there are others in this world who can do what you did. You just don’t want to meet them”, suggesting that other witches at Willow’s level of power are evil. Remember that one for later!
Even further on, at the climax of their argument, Giles says, “The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!” Giles’ anger is clearly getting the better of him here, but his concerns are more than justified. By “amateur”, he doesn’t mean Willow isn’t powerful or that she lacks skill, but that she’s emotionally immature when it comes to magic. She doesn’t fully consider the potential negative consequences, not only with the spell itself, but also for the people around her. Crucially, Willow replies, “You’re right. 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.” Again, this threat towards Giles is very significant to the plot.
Later in the episode, Willow suggests conducting a locator spell to find a demon that attacked Buffy and is met by a steely glare from Giles. She quickly backs down, but this doesn’t last long. He obviously thinks she’s turning to magic too often, and Tara soon picks up on this too, taking the same stance as him. This conflict shifts from Giles to Tara since they don’t usually interact, even before he goes back to England again in ‘Tabula Rasa’.
Tara calls Willow out in S6E6 ‘All the Way’ for conjuring up party decorations, asking, “why use magic when you can do something naturally?” She later asserts her point of view again when Willow suggests using a spell to shift everyone who isn’t a fifteen-year-old girl into an alternate dimension to help find Dawn, and directly asks, “what would Giles say?” Tara knows he would take issue with Willow’s overuse of magic. Later on, Willow’s toxic coping mechanism of using magic to control situations and people crops up, as she casts a memory spell on Tara to make her forget their argument. In the next episode, ‘Once More, With Feeling’, she discovers the spell and is paired with Giles in a reprise where she sings about feeling betrayed by Willow. Although Giles is singing about Buffy, it feels right that he and Tara should be put together for the number considering their similar stance on Willow’s use of magic.
At the start of ‘Tabula Rasa’, Tara again calls Willow out for using the memory spell on her. Criticising her use of magic, she says, “you’re helping yourself now, fixing things to your liking. Including me.” They manage to come to some sort of a resolution by Willow agreeing not to use magic for one week. It lasts… not even one scene. Next time we see Willow, she uses a spell to quick-change, and then immediately casts a spell to erase both Tara and Buffy’s memories. For Buffy, it’s under the guise of wanting to help her feel better after being ripped out of heaven, but really, it’s a selfish motive. Willow wants to make herself feel better by just erasing everything bad instead of working through it… sound familiar? Yep, it’s how she’s always coped.
No surprise, the spell goes wrong big time. Tara breaks up with Willow at the end of the episode as a result—and good on her for it! At the same time, Giles leaves for England yet again, this time more permanently. Since he’s not present for these scenes again, he’s rather oblivious to the magic-fuelled fights between Willow and Tara. It’s understandable, what with his preoccupation with making the decision to leave. It also feels deliberate that Willow is deprived of two magic mentor figures in the same episode; she has no one experienced and knowledgeable to ground her anymore, which allows her to become more untethered in the coming episodes.
‘Smashed’ and ‘Wrecked’ reach a pivotal point in Willow’s obsession with magic—here, it becomes a full-blown metaphor (barely even) for drug addiction. In the aftermath of her breakup, Willow finally turns Amy Madison back into a person from a rat, which she’s been stuck as for three years. To blow off some steam, the two women hit up the Bronze and cause some magic-induced chaos. It’s what comes next that fuels the fire even more.
Amy takes Willow to Rack’s place in ‘Wrecked’. He’s an evil warlock who essentially doubles up as a drug dealer, his building emulating a drug den. On meeting Willow, he takes “a little tour” of her with magic. Since Rack senses her power and is interested in her because she’s young and new, he’s most likely exploring Willow’s essence in this moment, feeding off her innocence and pure magic. In return, he gives her a boost of magic which has the effect of recreational drugs; Willow appears to be in an ecstatic daze. Judging by Rack’s fondness for “little girls”, the way he refers to how Willow “tastes”, and Willow crying in the shower after she gets back, there’s also a strong predatory implication with his character. He takes advantage of young women, preying off their innocence and creating a destructive dependence on magic.
Due to Willow’s addiction, she ends up taking Dawn to Rack’s when babysitting her later in the episode. Her eyes are black when she comes out, signifying danger and power like when she attacked Glory in ‘Tough Love’. Soon, it’s revealed that she accidentally summoned a demon when getting high off magic, and it comes after her, scratching Dawn in the process. Since Willow is still inebriated, she ends up crashing the car that she and Dawn try to escape in, injuring Dawn more than herself. The demon keeps attacking, and Buffy starts to ward it off, but Willow uses magic to dissolve it.
By now, it’s obvious just how powerful Willow is if she can destroy a demon with a simple hand gesture. However, it’s also obvious that she’s in way too deep, and has a dangerous addiction to magic that is out of control. Once she realised that she’s got Dawn hurt, Willow breaks down crying, apologising repeatedly to Buffy and pleading for help. After reprimanding her for putting Dawn in danger, Buffy takes pity on her friend and embraces her, having an honest conversation with her about her addiction. Willow goes cold turkey as we later see her shaking and sweating in bed to represent withdrawal symptoms.
It makes sense that Giles is absent during this rough period of time for Willow. His use of black magic at university was recreational, and created a high for him as well. With such a blatant parallel between Willow and Giles’ experiences, it would have been nice to see him be the one to support her through it. However, if he was there, then perhaps it’s less likely that Willow would have got to that point, since Giles probably would have intervened. When Giles does eventually get involved, it’s at an even worse low for Willow.
After quitting magic, Willow finally wins Tara back at the end of ‘Entropy’, who is overjoyed to see her progress. Sadly, it’s short-lived. When Tara is murdered by Warren in ‘Seeing Red’, Willow snaps. Unleashing all her power and magic, she calls on Osiris to resurrect her, but he refuses since it was a “human death by human means”, unlike Buffy’s demise. Willow’s next stop is the Magic Box, where she heads straight for the dark magic books, freezing Anya in place so she can’t stop her. It’s significant that Willow gains magical power from the forbidden books that belonged to Giles when he hid them from her back in Season 3 to protect her. Placing her hands inside one of the books, Willow absorbs the words which scroll and crawl up her skin until they reach the top of her head, turning her hair black as well as her eyes. This is the start of Dark Willow’s reign.
Knowing Warren also shot Buffy, Willow heads to the hospital and telekinetically removes the bullet from her best friend, healing her. Once this is done, she begins her vendetta against Warren. Buffy and Xander are initially unaware of Tara’s death, but they still try to stop Willow from killing Warren after finding out. In an attempt to convince her, Xander says, “You said it yourself, Will—the magic’s too strong, there’s no coming back from it,” to which Willow replies, “I’m not coming back.” Willow’s grief, rage, and power is all-consuming; she can’t see past it. Since Buffy’s whole moral code is against killing or harming humans (even though there are exemptions, and the code doesn’t even make total sense anyway, but that’s a debate for another time), she pleads with Willow not to go through with it. This only makes Willow realise she must do this alone, so she pushes Buffy and Xander away.
Conducting a locator spell, Willow tracks down Warren in the woods (the same woods in which she did the spell to bring Buffy back to life) and traps him in tree branches. She telekinetically pushes the bullet that he shot Buffy with through his torso, and sews his mouth shut to stop him talking. Right as her friends arrive, Willow uses magic to flay Warren, then incinerate his dead body. It’s an absolutely brutal scene, but also extremely cathartic to watch. Like Xander says, “that bastard had it coming to him”. But in the longer term, it signals Willow’s spiral into destruction and devastation as she evolves into the Big Bad of Season 6.
She spends the next episode, ‘Two To Go’, tracking down Jonathan and Andrew and powering up via killing Rack—another satisfying moment considering his creepy, predatory behaviour. When Dawn comes face to face with her at Rack’s place, she notes that she’s back on the magicks, but Willow corrects her: “No, honey. I am the magicks.” Willow is now inseparable from magic and power as she turns into an almost unrecognisable entity. Black veins curve around her temples now as well as the black eyes and hair. She threatens Dawn, and then Buffy after she shows up to intervene, turning on everyone who gets in the way of her vengeance mission. She even admits to Buffy that she never wants her magic trail of destruction to end.
Cue big boss fight with Buffy. After teleporting back to the Magic Box, Willow tries to kill Jonathan and Andrew but fails due to Anya’s counter-spell. She then proceeds to give herself Slayer-level super strength (and fighting skills apparently?) via a quick spell. Once Jonathan and Andrew have been escorted away, a super-superpowered Willow and Buffy engage in combat and classic hero-villain quips. Here is where Willow’s state of mind is revealed to have regressed to intense spite and malevolence. She says, “Six years as a side man, and now I get to be the Slayer”, proving that she feels insecure next to Buffy and wants a taste of her power for once. This is confirmed when Willow further speculates, “I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn’t about the violence. It’s about the power.” Sick of being underestimated, she wants to take centre stage and claim her power.
And she does. Willow’s strength allows her to actually defeat Buffy in their fight. This could have been the end, but Giles returns to help (in one of the most spectacular entrances in Buffy, might I add). Blasting a ball of green magic at Willow, he manages to incapacitate her after some intense dialogue. One of the first things Giles says to her is, “I’m here to help you,” and then, “You concern me, Willow. Stay on this path and you’ll wind up dead.” At last, he’s fully present and putting all his effort into setting Willow back on the straight and narrow. Based on his past experiences and fatherly role, he’s the best person to do this.
We find out that Giles’ magic is borrowed from a coven in Devon who sensed “a dark force, fueled by grief”. Giles and Willow then engage in a battle of their own (which mostly involves Giles getting beaten up); at one point, Giles comments on Willow’s current disregard for her loved ones, saying, “I wonder what Tara would say about that.” It’s reminiscent of Tara’s “what would Giles say?” back in ‘All The Way’, emphasising that the two figures share the same stance. Willow ends up draining Giles of his borrowed power for another level-up, which we discover was his intention. This magic connects her to every human being, enabling her to feel their emotions and their pain so intensely that she decides to end their suffering—end the world.
But Giles’ borrowed power from the coven was “the true essence of magic” as opposed to Willow’s rage-fuelled power. It was intended to be stolen and tap into her remaining humanity so that Xander’s unconditional love could reach her, bringing her back from the brink. Willow’s love for Tara was the match that sparked the burning fire of destruction, and Xander’s love for Willow extinguished it. Even if Giles’ presence couldn’t be grounding for Dark Willow, his magicks were.
