Dark Willow and Redeemability

[AlphaFoxtrot]

The best understanding of this situation has always been from Andrew. This is Darth Rosenberg, Willow has chosen the path of the dark side, she is now a slave of her fear, anger and hate, she was seduced by the promise of power, only to have been lied to and received suffering. It's a terrible take on Dark Phoneix saga, it's an excellent take on Star Wars.

So yes, she is irredeemable, on her own merit, she deserves to end up like Catherine Madison, to have her magic backfire on her and to spend eternity as the slave of some elder thing, to be in the same state she saw Buffy in at the start of the season.

But it's not really about her, it's about Xander. His ability to love is what saves the day. The question must then be, does her Penance in S6 and S7 demonstrate sufficient remorse? Has she embraced the right handed path? Does she only use her talents for the greater good?

 

[NoShip]

I think if you can class Angel as redeemable and Spike & Faith then why not Willow? They all did unspeakable things due to darkness inside them forced onto them or by situations. Willow was in unspeakable pain and let the darkness swallow her whole. She drowned in the dark magic and needed saving as at the core I don't believe her to be an "Evil" person and it is the supernatural we are talking about.

If you ever hold each character morally accountable for what each did, the show falls apart. Moral accountability was never on the table.

 

[garfan]

If you ever hold each character morally accountable for what each did, the show falls apart. Moral accountability was never on the table.

to much metaphor, not enough lore to examine the actual moral complexities of the show. And we found out the showrunners were EXTREMELY flawed individuals

 

[NotASlayer]

did not say they were perfect, just redeemable. Yes, Giles made horrible mistakes and I have issues with his choices too... Sadly, ASH needed to make the choices he made for his family, so Giles vanished from the landscape kind of abruptly and the writers did not handle his leaving in a reasonable way. Given that ASH is now gone, I'm glad he got to spend time with his family.

Everyone was redeemable.

Well, maybe not Andrew.

😀

But that's coloured by the fact I really, really hate Andrew.

Honestly, I'm not sure anyone could have made Willow make different choices. She was making world threatening choices back in season 4. She was ARROGANT. Arrogance (pride) is one of the deadly sins for a reason.

It's not so much "all the way back" as Giles had left her alone for four seasons already. What he should have done, instead of leaving Willow alone with magic, was, all the way back in season 2 if not season 1, he should have introduced her to the coven. He knew he couldn't teach her, he knew the consequences and he knew people who could, and did, help.

Out of universe, this is because the coven was not invented until late in season six. In universe, it makes Giles look like uncaring and dangerously incompetent. Again, the garbage writing of the last two seasons.

It's so hard to blame this on Giles as a character, because his writing was so bad in the last two seasons, but he really should have done more. While I don't think that every bad decision Willow made with magic was Giles's fault, it seems inconceivable that he left town when Willow was so clearly going down a dark path. You make a great point about the coven; if Giles 1) had bad experiences with magic and 2) knew people who could help, why would he just leave Willow to spiral? Clearly in the show's canon there are good witches and healthy ways to learn magic, but no one significantly tried to intervene other than Tara, and it even took a couple of seasons for her to speak up about it.

And maybe I'm misunderstanding what happened there, but why did he think that casting a spell to make Willow experience all the pain of people in the world would make her calm down or become more reasonable?

***
I am wondering, what are either of your opinions of the level of control Willow had when she was corrupted by the magic? Do you think that the corruption or the height of emotions triggered by the dark magic she took in make her any less responsible for what she was doing?

See above about the bad writing. 😀

By the time Willow was corrupted by the magic, she wasn't Willow. If she is responsible, then Spike is responsible for every bad thing he did as a vampire, something he chose to do. It's impossible to say "it's not Spike's fault, he was possessed by a demon" without also going "it's not Willow's fault, she had been taken over by dark magic." In fact, she was even less in her right mind by this point than Spike ever was.

Also, as a member of the rainbow tribe, I really hate the statements the last two seasons make about LGBTQ+ people.
1) lesbians aren't nice people. they do horrid things to their friends and they are unrepentant and arrogant.
2) kill your gays. The old hollowwood trope that the only good gay person is a dead person? yeah, NO. NO. NO.
3) punish bad behaviour by killing a gay person to punish the 'bad' gay person.
4) It is OK for lesbians to exploit other lesbians. They can get away with things that straight people would not... oh and lesbians aren't nice people.

I find the last two seasons homophobic, season six blatantly so. And let's not forget Andrew; closet gay and horrible person.

Yes, and look at the horrible consequences of their choices. I'm not clear that they knew fully the consequences as Darla did, but it is indisputable that their actions had a huge toll in broken lives and dead bodies, probably by the hundreds or even thousands.

Darla, and Dru, are the two I have the most sympathy for. Darla was dying, and was being treated even worse than women already were. Dru had been driven nuts. Neither Liam nor William had those excuses. Both were born into wealth, I'd judge Liam even more so than William, both were already better off than almost everyone, and, not a minor point, both were men so already had a major leg up, both chose monsterhood.

 

[quillandfang]

The best understanding of this situation has always been from Andrew. This is Darth Rosenberg, Willow has chosen the path of the dark side, she is now a slave of her fear, anger and hate, she was seduced by the promise of power, only to have been lied to and received suffering. It's a terrible take on Dark Phoneix saga, it's an excellent take on Star Wars.

I really enjoy the Star Wars comparison, it really makes a lot of sense. "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." It's interesting to compare Dark Willow to a character like Vader who committed many evil deeds but eventually turned away from the Dark Side in the end. I really like how you put this!

But it's not really about her, it's about Xander. His ability to love is what saves the day. The question must then be, does her Penance in S6 and S7 demonstrate sufficient remorse? Has she embraced the right handed path? Does she only use her talents for the greater good?

I would say sort of? But not entirely. In season 7 she mostly uses her powers for the greater good (sensing the coming evil, the slayer spell), but I don't think her penance in s6 and 7 demonstrates sufficient remorse. As I mentioned previously, all of her magical rehab was shown off screen and was depicted more as bringing the magic under control than reflecting on her actions. And when she got back to Sunnydale she just... started using magic again? She definitely had the potential for redemption and is redeemable in my opinion, but it wasn't executed sufficiently.

Also regarding Xander, I really do love his role in stopping Willow. I felt his character arc was all over the place for several seasons before this, and him playing such a crucial role as the only "normal" member of their group helped to reestablish the Scoobies in my eyes, even though the other characters probably should've been more upset with Willow for longer. Anyways side tangent.

It's not so much "all the way back" as Giles had left her alone for four seasons already. What he should have done, instead of leaving Willow alone with magic, was, all the way back in season 2 if not season 1, he should have introduced her to the coven. He knew he couldn't teach her, he knew the consequences and he knew people who could, and did, help.

Out of universe, this is because the coven was not invented until late in season six. In universe, it makes Giles look like uncaring and dangerously incompetent. Again, the garbage writing of the last two seasons.

100% agree! Giles mentioned his negative experiences with magic early on, so as soon as Willow started showing significant power in season 2 he should have done something to help. Willow never had a magical mentor like witches and magical characters in other media do, and that ended up being a huge problem. Because power like that inherently requires responsibility and ethics, and Willow went straight to doing magic and skipped over that aspect, probably because she was confident she could handle those moral choices on her own.

By the time Willow was corrupted by the magic, she wasn't Willow. If she is responsible, then Spike is responsible for every bad thing he did as a vampire, something he chose to do. It's impossible to say "it's not Spike's fault, he was possessed by a demon" without also going "it's not Willow's fault, she had been taken over by dark magic." In fact, she was even less in her right mind by this point than Spike ever was.

This is an interesting point because I kind of do hold Spike responsible for some of what he did as a vampire? Though the vampire lore in Buffy is quite inconsistent and perhaps I feel that way because there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between ensouled and soulless Spike.

 

[NotASlayer]

This is an interesting point because I kind of do hold Spike responsible for some of what he did as a vampire? Though the vampire lore in Buffy is quite inconsistent and perhaps I feel that way because there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between ensouled and soulless Spike.

Inconsistency, thy name is Spike. Too many contortions were done to keep him around that it did, as I believe JM himself stated could happen, end up destroying a lot of vampire lore.

I also hold Spike responsible, especially as he himself felt absolutely no guilt for anything he had done to anyone until well into Angel S5. Compared to Angel, who felt huge remorse for everything he had done, souled Spike comes across in S7 as a narcissistic sociopath. After all, a soul does not make someone good or moral.

It's not uncommon for magic of any kind to be corrupting in fantasy, and myth, and often when that happens the person is considered to not be the same person any longer. Even more so than vampires, who are in fact based on the person they used to be (according to Angel in Dopplegangland); I would say the person they could be with all inhibitions lifted.