Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 5 Times We Felt Bad For Willow (& 5 Times We Hated Her) – Screen Rant

Willow Rosenberg was often a ray of light on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there are some moments where fans hated her too.

In a show about vampires, demons, and werewolves, Willow Rosenberg was often a ray of light onBuffy the Vampire Slayer.She was also sometimes a shroud of darkness. Few characters in the classic series vaulted from such extremes in their arc, from adorable to bored-now back to cute.

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Creator Joss Whedon once said the surest way to make the audience feel something has to make Willow cry. That turned out to be very true, but sometimes she made fans cry, too.

Like most teenagers, Willow was a ball of confusion when it came to romance. She found love with Oz, a laconic werewolf who paired perfectly with her nervous energy. The grass is always greener, or at least more Xander because in season three of the show, Willow kissed him while she was dating Oz (and Xander was falling for Cordelia). Willow's feelings for Xander were complicated, and she was still growing and understanding her own sexuality, but this wasn't her best moment on the show.

Early Willow was adorable. She was also a target for others, especially Cordelia. Their first interaction on the show displayed Cordelia's patented condescension - 'There is a softer side of Sears' - and Willow's inability to stand up for herself. This got better as time went on - to the misfortunate of people like Warren - but it still made fans upset whenever Willow was. She would often bite her lip when things weren't going her way, which could lead to nasty consequences.

Maybe Oz and Willow weren't that great together. In season four, Willow discovers that Oz is drawn to Veruca, another werewolf. Despite knowing herself how confusing those pesky feelings can be, she is so upset by his even thinking about another woman that she decides to cast a spell on him. This is a pretty extreme spell - 'I conjure thee by Barabbas, by Satanas, and the Devil. As thou art burning, Let Oz and Veruca's deceitful hearts be broken.' - and is the first time Willow turns to dark magic to mend a broken heart. It's not the last.

In the classic sixth-season musical episode "Once More, With Feeling," a demonic spell causes everybody to sing. Mostly. Willow only really sings for one line, and that was pretty much all to do with Alyson Hannigan's lack of confidence in her own singing voice.

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The episode was great, but not having Willow participate was a bummer. It did serve her character, though. As everyone else opened their hearts in song, Willow couldn't, illuminating the fact that despite Willow's earnestness, there was a lot about her that was concealed.

Carrying on a - proud? - tradition, Willow initially treated Xander's new girlfriend Anya with low-key disdain. Willow always got territorial about Xander, even after she found romance with Oz and Tara. This was an unconscious response to a childhood crush that never really abated. It could get nasty and super passive-aggressive, with the two women bristling at each other pretty much anytime they came into contact. While it may have come from Willow's concern for Xander's well being - Anya was a vengeance demon from another dimension - it wasn't always the best look.

Fans enjoyed that Willow discovered a new way to become more involved in the defense of Sunnydale when she discovered magic. They did not enjoy Willow's seeming lack of self-control. She actually gets her first taste of dark magic in the season three episode 'Dopplegangland' (courtesy of Anya) and after, she becomes a bit too easy with it. That was obvious in the spell she almost cast on Oz, and fans felt for her as Willow slipped step by step down a slippery and obvious slope.

A major waypoint in Willow's journey from adorable to yikes occurred when she utilized dark magic to bring Buffy back from the dead. This came from a good place - most everything Willow did was with the best of intentions - but the wisdom of it, like with her smaller mistakes with Xander or Oz speaks to her lack of restraint. Buffy was at peace in death, and Willow tore her out of it. Willow should have left well enough alone, despite the good Buffy would go on to do in the world.

Willow cried a lot. And every time she did, fans felt her pain. When she lost Oz, when she lost Tara, when she realized she was kind of evil and almost destroyed the world - more on that in a moment - Willow's pain was the fans' pain.

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Buffy was the central character of the series, but Willow was the heart and soul of it. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, good and bad, and she provided a human reference point in a world that was often over the top and aware of its own strangeness.

The absolute low-point for Willow and perhaps the series occurred in season six. Willow's girlfriend Tara was shot and killed, and Willow went mad with rage. Besides fulfilling a terrible trope when it comes to LGBTQ characters, the creation of Dark Willow transformed a fan-favorite into a monster who wanted to destroy the world. Her murder of Warren and her apocalyptic magic left scars slow to heal. If not for yellow crayons, this would have been the abiding memory of Willow.

Tara'sdeath shattered Willow and broke the hearts of fans. In hindsight, there were likely other ways the show could have gotten to Dark Willow, but the choice of killing off Tara certainly made fans feel for Willow. Tara provided Willow an enormous amount of comfort and stability, with her identity and her heart, and losing that would have destroyed anybody. Willow eventually found her way forward, but it was a brutal and difficult journey to recovery.

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Darby Harn is a contributor for Screenrant, CBR.com, Star Wars News Net and Movie News Net. His sci-fi superhero novel EVER THE HERO debuted in January. His short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shimmer and other venues.

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Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 5 Times We Felt Bad For Willow (& 5 Times We Hated Her) - Screen Rant

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