Sat, 29 October 2005 "W Heart T" As we researched this episode, we were astonished to learn that a few good things did in fact happen to Willow and Tara. That's sure not what we remember. Comments[32] |
Tara is not quite a “weak� character but I would argue more a 2 dimensional one. She suffers from the Xander complex in that she has a few moments of real character strength but these are few and far between and they are generally counteracted by the long periods between them.
Also I have to disagree with Revello on the idea of her changing, I’m sorry she has one motivation and it never waivers, alters or falters. She is there to protect the Scoobies one and all. She protects Buffy by listening to her and being open and non judgmental about the Spike issue, she constantly looks after Dawn, she lives to serve Willow and she even tries to calm Anya after being left at the alter which inadvertently protects Xander. She helps Giles with trying to convince Willow she is addicted and she is generally a helper/protector character. She does not change from this.
He moments of strength are there to serve and protect the Scoobies. Even breaking up with Willow is designed to try and help Willow overcome her addiction by letting her understand the consequences of her actions. It is clear Tara thinks of this as a selfless action by her later conversations with Giles, Buffy and Dawn. Her not telling Glory was to protect Dawn and keep her word to the group. This is her singular motivation in any and all actions she takes in the show as far as I can tell.
This means that she is in many ways little more than a tool for the writers, while Amber Benson does a beautiful job bringing her to life I do not think that any of us could imagine what she’s doing when not protecting the Scoobies. Does she have hobbies, interests, a job? Not that we know of. Does she have other friends, other passions, hopes, dreams? Not that we get to know about. What would she be if the WB came to Joss and said “We’d like to spin Amber off into her own show, none of the other actors can commit but we want “Tara� on Friday nights at nine.� What would the show be about, a wholesome lesbian with some middling but consistent magic.
Understanding this about Tara means we can now look at the relationship between Willow and Tara. The whole relationship between Tara and Willow really is to show us Willow through a new lens. What Tara gives is a Willow barometer, like when she is casting too much magic since we the audience don’t see it, Tara tells us about it. When we need to see that Willow is heading to a dark place, Tara shows us Dark Willow by getting brain slurped. Also Willow needed a new love interest and the Scoobies needed someone who no one could hate to join. If Tara had been forceful she would have clashed with someone and the show would have had to deal with assimilating a new character into the group… or excluding her like they did Anya. By keeping Tara 2 dimensional, generally likable and group oriented she was an easy addition that the other characters could simply overlook as they did until “Family� when they all said she was nice but they didn’t know anything about her. Then we give the group a decent reason to accept her like a lost puppy and they do.
In the show it was suggested that Willow would not have had the strength to leave Tara, and to that I can only reply “Are you freaking nuts?� Willow was still getting what she wanted from Tara when Tara decided to leave. Tara left and Willow barely grieved, she found Amy and went to go find better magical highs. Willow was already emotionally disconnected the physical stuff might have taken time but Joss spared us the abusive, slow, decaying slump of a drug infected relationship arc.
Now as to the “rage� Willow felt upon losing Tara. Revello you are spot on, it was not about Tara it was about Willow. Willow had given up so much to get her life back, and with hat life the woman who worshiped her (as all should worship Willow I might add.) Then Warren kills her, she has no more worshiper, and no one to tell her how awesome she is for giving up her habit. The Scoobies inherently stopped trusting her after her recovery, Tara would have helped her to continue her sobriety. But I guarantee every morning Tara would kiss her forehead and say how proud she was that Willow was one more day sober. So if you lost your cheerleading section after you had spent a few months in Hell’s Disneyworld you would be heading right back to the most Sadistic Place on Earth looking for ammo.
Now at that point in her life anyone’s death would have likely pitched her into a hateful rage but I think that the clear inequity and the supportive nature of Tara in particular made her less important to Willow as a specific loss and more as a theft in general. I think of it like if Tara had told her two episodes later that she was leaving again I think Willow would have destroyed her either by erasing her free will, killing her, or something else terrible.
The relationship was never equal, the power always lay with Willow. Anytime Willow wanted or needed Tara provided. Tara never needed anything except for willow to stay clean and Willow never got clean for Tara, she got clean because she hurt Dawn, someone that she truly cared about. Clearly she had already hurt Tara a couple of times and did not care enough to stop her behavior, but after hurting Dawn once she went cold spellbook.
I hope this covers everything I think it does but I am way open to further discussion/clarification/debate.
posted by: Miles on Sat, 10/29 11:39 PM EDT
Like I told Revello, I think Will saw some of herself in Tara and that's what drew her to her. Also, in Joss's world, when things start going good, watch out. She and Tara are happy and then she gets shot and Will can't do anything about it. I think part of her rage was that reason (perhaps in a narcissistic way, she wished she'd had the power not so much for Tara but for herself) and the other reason was, like Miles said, loosing your cheering section. I too wonder what Tara did in her spare time, and speaking of Family, how did she survive in a family like that, if you recall. LOL
As I've said, I love the Willow/Tara relationship. I agree with you 100% that this was the most "normal" relationship in the show. There were obviously some issues between the two of them, but these were just standard relationship stuff, only re-cast in the supernatural context.
I won't say much more about this rigth now, but move on to the particular question of memory fiddling (I too was struck by the cavalier mention of muggle-wiping in the Harry Potter books). There are quite a few examples of this in the Buffyverse - in Angel, we have the Connor resolution, in which the moral dilemma is painful in the extreme. We have ANgel becoming human in the first Angel-Buffy crossover, and then asking the Powers to reverse the change, so nobody but Angel has any recollection. In Buffy, apart from Tabula Rasa, which is really just an extension of Willow's meddling, but most importantly we have the entire Dawn arc. My understanding is that the memories of every individual on Earth have been manipulated in order to give Dawn a "real" history. Now *that* is creepy.
Thanks again,
Professor
p.s., I thought Willow-Kennedy was the most unheated, contrived relationship ever to be foisted on a Buffy audience, and I really have to learn that sarcasm just does not work in plain text.
posted by: Professor on Sun, 10/30 03:58 AM EST
posted by: Professor on Sun, 10/30 04:14 AM EST
For the record, every time Terrence Stamp opens his mouth in Superman II it's gold. I'd buy a cd of it if I could - Track 8: Is There Anyone on the Planet Houston Who Can Challenge Me?
Lots of good points again, Miles. I agree Tara's very much a supporting character meant to inform us about Willow, and I agree that from start to finish she's the Scoob Protector. And now that you mention it, story-wise she is a lot like Xander. But I also think the way she goes about playing her role as protector changes because she changes; not a lot, but she does change. Early on, she's more of a yes woman, trying hard not to offend. See, for example, that fight in Tough Love. She spends half her time whining about how she's offended Willow. It's also reflected in how she carries herself early on: she stutters, looks down a lot, and slouches. In season six, she's more articulate and confident (relatively speaking) and more ready and willing to stand up to Willow. She still fills the same role, and is never going to approach Kennedy's demeanor, but it seems the acceptance she's found amid the gang, or the experience of surviving Glory's assault, has given her more poise.
As for Willow having the ability to leave Tara on her own, I'm still not sure I see it because, as you say, Willow seems to really need that particular audience. As far as Willow's behavior after Tara leaves, there isn't anything Willow can do about the situation short of messing with Tara's mind again, so she has to wait it out and has two grieving options. She can mope in her room listening to Patsy Cline (the music of pain, per Xander), but that isn't a workable alternative because at this point she's depicted as having a physical addiction to the magic sauce. Option two, Willow and Amy Gone Wild, allows her to satisfy her craving while also distracting her from the mess with Tara. I wonder whether she eventually cleaned up her act out of love for Dawn, or out of fear of what Buffy would do to her if she screwed up like that again. She still seems to have respect for Buffy's ability to dish out punishment.
I also think you're right
Now Riley, surely Riley did something awful. There's gotta be some good reason to hate the guy.
All love,
Professor
posted by: Professor on Sun, 10/30 05:47 PM EST
I forgave Andrew early on simple because he added comic relief to a dull final season, but morally his character is a killer, one who never truly pays for his crimes. It always seemed odd to me that the Scooby Gang really piles the guilt on Faith for her accidental murder, but simply looks upon Andrew as an "annoying" killer, someone who we can leave untied and walking around freely in a house full of teenage girls.
But for me the largest faulty moral decision comes from Buffy in season seven, where she actually chooses not to repair Spike’s chip. After killing countless people when he was with and without a soul, wouldn’t it seem fair to keep the chip running smoothly just in case the First somehow reactivates him or somehow he loses his soul? Heck, I would have put a chip in Angel’s head to if I had the power, just as a preventative measure, to insure if someday Angelus somehow came back he wouldn’t have a human-eating fiesta.
Joss says killing humans is wrong with a capital “W�, but ultimately how wrong it is depends on the needs of his story.
anyway i was just thinking about charecters getting away with bad stuff and i instantly, after stoping to think, came up with Anya. I am realy talking Anya pre - turning into a demon again after being striped of her powers, ie: pre season 7 days.
I mean Anya did heaps of bad stuff when she was a demon and never realy feels bad for it, on the contrary she delites in remanising on them and if zander wasnt there i often think that she would have gorn back to being a demon all the more soner...hang on that's exsactly what she did after they brock up...so it was only her love for zander keeping her from the dark side. anyway back to the point. Anya seems to have very little conshens isus and Zander realy becomes her conshens, telling her that what she did when she was a demon was wrong and bad and often even then it is played to comic relef as most of the things thoughs two do is.
this might jst be a tangent that i went off on and you clever people will probly find many holes in my thery but there you go for charecters under the theam of penance.
Lot's of love,
Kira
P.S wasn't it just grat to have a Willow and Tara podcast?
By "Xander's Lie" are you referring to the infamous "Willow says 'kick his ass'!"? That was bad but not as bad as summoning Sweet in OMwF. Sweet directly caused the painful deaths of innocent humans yet Xander never had to bear any guilt for causing harm to innocent people, nor did anyone even castigate him for doing so.
In "Triangle" Anya and Willow's stubborness causes a troll to be released, who causes physical (and presumably very expensive) damage to the Bronze, and also seriously injures a number of innocent bystanders. Anya and Willow never take any responsibility for the great deal of pain and distress directly resulting from their stupid behavior. And in Season 7 Anya robs a bank in "Him", which is played strictly for laughs.
I don't think it is an accident that all these incidents come from the last 3 seasons. Ironically after the group left high school they actually became less responsible members of society. During the first 3 seasons human death and distress was taken fairly seriously, as the Faith story line shows. By Season 5 I get the feeling that all the Scoobies had started to view themselves as "better than", not subject to the rules of human society if those rules are too constraining. (As a poster noted above, compare the Faith storyline to Andrew's, or the difference between Angel's suffering after being ensouled and Spike's). Obviously Willow takes this to an extreme but the attitude seems common to the whole group. Certainly the change in tone cause by the Scoobies growing from scrappy outsiders into a self-selected powerful elite is an element that alienated a lot of viewers during the later years of the series. I think an interesting question is to what extent this change is justified internally by the narrative, and how much is simply due to the writers getting more jaded and more campy.
But I also agree about Andrew. He doesn't exactly pay for is crime, despite Storyteller. And it shouldn't have taken so long for the gang to make him face up to it.
Never liked Dawn completly altering the entire Earth's reality. That was a big one in being mind f**ked.
As for Xander's Lie, sure it's a relatively small thing, compared to killing people, but in the context of the show, it was a very big thing indeed. The writers acknowledge this in passing in season 7, but Xander inever pays. He has, essentially, been living with this betrayal on his conscience for 5 years, although there is of course much debate about whether the Lie was jusified.
Many great thoughts from everyone... as ever
Professor
posted by: Professor on Tue, 11/1 04:02 AM EST
I also liked what Vanya said about the group becoming less responsible after becoming 'adults'. It's like they just didn't know how to become adults and fumbled and fell along the way, creating grave mistakes.
I also think about Willow bring Buffy back. I remember the fight she had with Giles and in OMWF, how horrible it was to find out how Buffy felt.
I don't think anything was ever really resolved there, like with a scene with Will saying she was sorry she brought her back or with Will and Giles and her saying she wished she'd hadn't taken it upon herself to spearhead Buffy's ressurection.
But Kendra isn't mentioned anymore and that's sad and not fair. But what about when people are under spells and whatnot? Like when Joyce and Will's mom almost burned them at the stake?
And what about Will turning Amy into a rat? LOL, she didn't die, but I always wondered what the heck her family was thinking. Were there no missing person reports on Amy?
Willow didn't turn Amy into a rat, Amy turned herself into one to escape Joyce and the angry mob. Willow was simply trying to turn Amy back.
As for Xander in OMWF, as I noted in my earlier post, Joss has no problem tossing away the morality thing for a laugh, and that's what Xander's revelation at the end of the episode is used for. In fact everytime I watch OMWF, I always forget it's Xander who cast the spell, simply because it doesn't make much sense. Just a simplistic way to explain the phenomenon and move on.
I think Willow was well punished for bringing Buffy back. She spent the rest of that season in Hell, at least from OMWF on. She was a bad girl having a bad time. She only got one episode of happiness, even had her girlfriend in the opening credits just to suck her in, and we know how that ended.
Prof.
posted by: Professor on Tue, 11/1 11:28 PM EST
Back to Andrew, He kills Jonathon and later has a squad of slayers? What's that about? Do I think he's truely evil? no, but still. (btw, wasn't he being tricked by Warren/The First?)
As for Faith, she's supernatural. And supernatural beings do have special circumstances. For Faith it means protecting innocents. I mean, humans kill humans all the time. They go to jail, and they aren't "superheroes". She had a secial duty to *not* harm humans. So, if Andrew is punished by living captive at Buffy's house, I guess Faith going to jail is fair.
PS "W heart T", I really liked the relationship, but (being gay myself) I didn't think Willow suddenly liking women and being gay was realistic. She gushed over men, dated Oz and helped Xander cheat on Cordy. Not gay. Didn't seem to be smitten with Buffy (Or Cordy, or Anya, or Faith for that matter). Noy gay. I guess she had to realize it for herself, but I never had to. I did however have to accept it. Yes, many gays are in denial and date hetero. I know that Willow wouldn't have come right out and hit on her friends. It just seemed like Willow was gay because the writers said so. Was there any foreshadowing (besides Vamp Willow)?
posted by: Professor on Wed, 11/2 06:39 AM EST
Now, I don't think I feel Giles should pay for killing Ben. Unfortunetly, it was something that had to be done. If he didn't die, wouldn't Glory just come right back? I liked that Giles killed him, it pushed home the unfortunate reality that there are innocent casualities in a war (war against the demons that is)
As for Faith, I agree with Professor that if somebody gets killed in the middle of it, then so be it. I also agree that Buffy and Giles' mantra was No Human Killing. Faith wanted to save the innocents too, but she wasn't worried about all the moral stuff. Plus, she really liked her power and being "extra" special.
When Buffy went to turn herself in thinking she'd killed Katrina, I was appalled that she'd just up and do that, leaving Dawn and not even investigation what happened. I just felt it was a serious leap, even though a death had resulted. I felt the bigger picture was Slayer Needed in the World, not in jail.
As far as Faith and the Deputy, I think Buffy was just shocked that Faith was like, 'oh well' though she wasn't really. I think Faith was sorry, and scared, and understood it was an accident. It's certainly different to lop of a humans head than a vampires, but I think Buffy always felt that they didn't have the authority on everyone, just demons and vamps.
But if a human is involved in destorying the world, is it the slayers obligation to take him down? I say yes.
Let's begin with the definition of penance as that may wel become very salient to our discussion. Penance stems from paenitentia a Latin word meaning "to be sorry." This shares a common root word with repentance which in many cases serves as a synonym. There are three parts to our definition of penance 1) The subject must recognize wrong doing which then 2) creates guilt and results in 3) an external self-punishment in order to express this guilt and try to alieviate it. Penance is NOT other people punishing or making people pay for thier transgressions, that is penalizing not penance.
GILES: Giles takes a human life in the smothering of Ben in the end of Season 5. Giles does not see this action as wrong, he in fact sees it as completely proper and therfore cannot pay any penance. I in this case agree with Giles, Ben is tied to "The Beast" which in this case was Glorificus. His life was not the life of a human being but the life of a vessel of an evil diety. Just like vampires are vessels that house some kind of evil force or are in some way evil in and of themselves due to thier lack of a soul (refer to Angel episode blog for more on this) so Ben is a vessel and is exempt from the protection of humanity.
XANDER: Xander lies, he lies to Buffy about "Willow said go get him" he lied about remembering his hyena possesion, he lied about a lot of things. I do not know if he really regrets this or sees it as real wrongdoing however. Assuming he does, the guilt is minimal as is his penance for the action. He certainly continues to lie when it suits him and so there is no real lesson learned. However Xander is fully human, he is just like you or I in these situations and so his standards for morality have to be lower. He isn't chosen, he isn't trained, he isn't blessed, he isn't even psychic or special in any way. He is far more culpable for his actions in Once More with Feeling, but while some people realize that this causes deaths the worst he experiences directly is some musical numbers that damage his relationship with Anya, while he feels a little guilty he does not feel the need to commit any real act of penance over this. I do think it is reasonable to assume he knew about the deaths, though I think it is equally reasonable not to make any assumptions. He is however the cause of a good deal of strife among the group, that was caused by overt honesty... I would have to say that the exposition in Once More with Feeling was in fact a net benefit to the scooby gang by getting out into the open things that were on all the characters minds. I realize that is however a very uncommon opinion.
ANYA: Anya while a vengence demon never expressly loses her soul and she often does things that she must understand human society finds wrong but she has a cultural block to prevent her from feeling guilt. What I mean is most of her actions do not create guilt, the exception being as Tahoffran says the "Abercrombie and Fitch cataloge exploded." Generally she is able to deal with the guilt people would normally feel through ahighly flexible set of moral values. While she wants to get rid of the Troll she doesn't even really take responsibility for summoning it so much as she does for creating it. She has a very different set of values from anyone else on the show while we apply our own views to her, she clearly does not have a great deal of guilt to create penance. As for her bank robbery, she did that while under the effects of a love spell and the show has pretty consistently let people off the hook for thier actions under love spells (Ref. "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered)
WILLOW: While she often made horrible mistakes she clearly had a great deal of guilt and manifested penance in varying degrees for her transgressions. While she hath not suffered as Angel hath suffered she is clearly sorry for her Dark Willow phase, her magick addiction, and her spells gone wrong. She does however go back to Sunnydale because they will need her even though she feels she sould remain in England paying for her misdeeds. She feels quite bad about bringing Buffy back though I do not know if she has any external shows of this past saying she is sorry a couple of times, though that is penance if in a smaller dose than we the viewer might feel appropriate.
SPIKE: The main issue here is his attempted rape of Buffy. He paid for that, he lost his mind after regaining his soul in order to externalize the fact he could be worthy of her. While he does not perform a specific action in order to relieve the guilt of his actions he clearly does pay a price of his own devices for that action. Spike however does not always pay penance for the hurtful things he says and he never shows any penance for showing Buffy her boyfriend being a blood doll for vampires which one might argue is an action designed to hurt Buffy and Riley in order to impose himself in thier relationship. While there may have been a net gain, though I think not, the action was still selfishly motivated and caused pain whcih does not creae any guilt for Spike.
RILEY: Riley cheats on his girlfriend and never appologizes. The act of being fed on he describes as feeling "Needed." so there is clearly a relationship element to his actions, he does not however see this as something to be guilty about. Though it is unclear if he does so because he thinks this behavior is OK or if he believes this because he thinks his sin was motivated by Buffy being emotionally distant. I think he does view the action as wrong, however his guilt is somehow blocked by the relationship being so out of balance that he feels he was without emotional alternatives. Without the guilt building he cannot then create penance because he is not yet sorry. However he is punished as Buffy dumps him over it.
ANDREW: First off let me admit I HATE ANDREW. The reason I hate him is deeply attached to this however. He is a party to drugging and killing a woman in an attempted rape, he is a theif, he is a demon summoner (The School Play, The Construction Site), and worse than that he betrays those closest to him for porfit. He betrays Jonathan not once in the jetpack hiest but again in his murder. The only act of penance we get from him is a little crying over the seal when his life is in danger from Buffy. Now add to that the fact he is a human being, he has free will, he has a soul and he has people who love and care about him, one of whom he sticks a knife in and tosses onto a seal to the First. He must be held to the greatest standard as he has numerous opportunites to perform penance and his most noble acts are motivated by self preservation rather than any sort of true guilt.
FAITH: Of anyone in the Buffyverse Faith porvides us with the truest sense of penance. She begins not caring about her crime, and over time and reflection she comes to realize her wrongdoing, feel guilt and express that guilt in submitting to the law. Had she done this in the early going the council would have reviewed the whole matter and likely ruled it an accident, but she ended up performing a higher level of penance because it took her time to realize her wrongdoing. By Season 7 we can see she is fighting for the side of good not because she was chosen but because she wants to imporve her world, one of the truest forms of penance.
ANGEL: I havent watched Angel's show since they killed Doyle so I can't speak to his actions on his show. However in his seasons on Buffy he does seem to be living his life as an act of penance in order to balance out the evil that Angelus had wreaked upon the world. He did seem to honestly feel great guilt about many things and often perform acts of penance in order to externalize his grief and work through it.
I think that is about enough of me babbling. Hopefully that codifies some things for everyone, at least as to my thoughts on the upcoming episode.
posted by: Miles on Wed, 11/2 09:15 PM EST
(P.S i apologise for my terible spelling)
posted by: Miles on Fri, 11/4 11:33 AM EST
miles, when you say ben was just a vessel and not human, are you saying that dawn is not human too? maybe that's another subject for discussion...
adi
Dawn isn't human, she's energy given form. Much as I like her she doesn't qualify as human but she would qualify as "an innocent" for moral purposes. If Dawn died as a person she would not have a soul to move on she would likely (as I see it) revert back to being energy.
Miles
posted by: Miles on Wed, 11/9 05:51 PM EST
I think the isu here is that you are defining somone to be gay as a person who has allways had an attraction to a person of the same sex even if they did date the oposet sex it was allways going agenst there tru sexuality. Willow I don't think realy cared that mutch, she realy just FELL IN LOVE with Tara not because she was a woman but because she was who she was, her personality. Willow herself never realy had the delema of fealing bad about herself because she fell for a woman, do you think it is nessissary for her to make it a big deal that Tara is a woman in order for the ordianc to realy beleve that she is now Gay?
And I think that when it comes to labaling ones self Hetrosexual, Homosexual, Gay, bi Lesbian, Strate, the list goes on...It is allways up to the indervidual person to do that for themselfs, what "Lable" (if they wont one) Will be for them. OK Willow is who the writers made her, they said that she was gay, she identifed as gay more or less the moment after falling for a nother woman and she said on many ocations that she was gay. I think that the argument whether willow was realy gay or bi or becaim a lesbian too soon or too suddenly is unfar to willow as a charecter because we can not tell her who she is, she made that disition for heerself, and it is clearly on the gay side of the streat.
Lot's of love
Kira
See, Joss, Willow isn't a lesbian. She's what we technically term as a LUG — 'Lesbian Until Graduation', one of those women who uses her college years as an opportunity to make out with other girls, then puts her youthful indiscretions behind her and embraces heteronormativity as soon as she finds herself in the 'real world' (where homosexuality is not nearly so trendy)'. And while I believe she truly fell in love with Tara — I mean, you don't go all black-eyed and world-endy for just anyone — it got even more obvious over time that she hadn't actually discovered anything new about her inherent sexuality so much as fallen for the World's Most Wonderful Person (who just happened to be a girl). Now, while this is all well and good, your efforts to continue with her lesbian lifestyle past the object of her affection's death had such an obligatory feel that you might as well have had THIS IS TO PLACATE THE ANGRY LESBIANS scrawled across the bottom of the frame (though my lecherous self finds it hard to fault a girl-on-girl makeout scene with a tongue stud). Kennedy was as obvious a response to the crisis of OH NO WILLOW NEEDS A GIRLFRIEND as Riley was to OH NO BUFFY NEEDS A BOYFRIEND, and felt just as artificial, body jewelery or no.
In my opinion (mentioned somewhere on this site), the same thing about Willow that attracted her to Oz is the same thing that attracted her to Tara, which is why the Willow/Kennedy relationship was so wrong.
I believe (especially in a pschological sense) that Willow is the weak link in their relation (RIP). Willow is trying to not only prove to others but herself that she is strong...that she is different than mousy Willow in high school (which is alluded to in the season 4 finale w/ the dream of the ripping Willow's new disguise and revealing what we all know...she is the same person she was before, and the reference from Willow or actually Dark Willow when she was taking about Willow being a junk for power and her mousy ways. Sorry for the run on.
Back to the topic at hand. Before I explore anymore let me say Willow was always my favorite character but after reviewing the series I have to say not so much. I feel in hindsight that Buffy never tried to prove how powerful she was, at times she ran away from that power/responsibility (literally in Anne)...Tara like Buffy was born into this power...Willow became obsess with the portrayal of power not the wielding capacity to understand and respect it (ironically until the last season).
On your podcasting of this topic you said something that sent chills through my spine. You said was Willow grieving because she lost Tara or she lost a possession? I think by losing something so indefinite...she was as helpless as she was before in highschool and in essense she was grieving but trying to seek revenge for her own insecurity.
Isn't it ironic how she sucks power but rarely channels it from inside herself?
