BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the universe?

ok so i'm watching season 6 and she seemed to harm the god Osiris. she could handle Buffy without any issues as well as the combined Trio. could a full powered Dark Willow beat Glory and Adam? Adam poses an issue in the form of high intelligence and a strong resistance to magic while Glory is just pure brute strength.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Adam? I'd say she could defeat him easily.

Glory? Not sure. The downside to Dark Willow's power is that she needs to keep up her energy. Using all that magic completely wore her out. I don't know if she could defeat Glory before that happened.

Although Buffy defeated Glory with a hammer, so Willow could probably take her.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

While she was incredibly powerful, I doubt she was the most powerful being in all of existence. There are plenty of gods and godlike beings in the Buffyverse, and I just don't see her outclassing them all.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Depends on what you mean by "universe". She wasn't the most powerful being in existence, but she was probably the most powerful being in this dimension.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

yah i meant buffyverse, but it couldn't fit.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

No, a simple carpenter defeated her through the power of love...hmmmm? Think I've heard something similar to that before?

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

She was just a witch, that's it. I doubt she's even the most powerful witch in the world.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Powerful but not the most powerful and I can't help but feel Buffy was holding back in the fight.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

And when your entire fight strategy is running up to something and punching it in the face you tend not to do to well against magical beings. I imagine most witches could take Buffy in a fight as long as they get the first shot in.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

I'd say Illyria (pre getting slightly depowered in Time Bomb) would be able to defeat all of the above

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Anya said that Willow was the most powerful wiccan in the Southern Hemisphere (if I recall), but she may have been exaggerating.

I used to imagine that maybe Willow was a goddess reincarnated, but that was only because I didn't like the idea of her being a murderess. If one of the parties ain't human then it's technically not murder.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

^^^ Nitpick: Willow is not and has never been a Wiccan. She's just a witch. As much as the writers and/or characters use the terms interchangeably, they're not the same thing.

Wicca is a specific set of rules and philosophies involved in the use of magic. It's what Willow derides as "Gaia-moon-blah-blah-menstrual-life-force-thingy" in Hush. It's what Tara and Willow argue about later on in Tough Love and Tabula Rasa. Tara does believe in those philosophies, while Willow clearly does not - she is only interested in the power that magic can provide her, not in respecting the connection to existence that it provides or the people that it affects.

.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Yes she could have easily beat Adam, they had to maker her unstable, the cost being too great or else she would break the plot.

she was a rule breaker. The Axe could cut through Adam and she had the power to manipulate and condition the axe, the fetish-object that was used to create the Slayers power. She made it so every girl who was in line to be a slayer was a slayer.

She was powerful, cunning and knew how to change the paradigm entirely... and could.

Adams brawn isn't a match for that.
Glory. as powerful as she was is more defeat-able than Willow.

Remember it took plot and character development to stop her. No force could stop her, Xander had to help her remember lil Willow.

The First could give her a run for her money, as the first is abstract and doesn't really incarnate as to be killed, only it's plans thwarted.

To go beyond Willow you have yo noncorporeal. However that also means not being a character in the play of things so there's a trade off. You could argue for a few beings in the Buffyverse being more powerful but that doesn't mean they get more done, or wreak as much havoc.

She came closer to destroying the world than any other villain.

I don't remember her name, but the demon who got rid of Buffy by tricking Cordy into wishing her away, conceptually I would say that she is more powerful however she was also much easier to thwart.

Willow was the stage, she became the nature that governed her world. Anyone playing by the rules of their reality is going to lose.

They weren't in the Southern Hemisphere.

Edit: Most traditional witches, of things pre-gardner don't identify as Wiccan or Wican, trying not to be associated with Gardner's movement. Prior to this however Wicca and Witch were just variants of the same word. Today, a specific way tends to be implied.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Wicca is very different than it was in the fifties, and Wicca as a religious clergy in the 50's was very different than how the word was used prior.

Wicca, or more accurately Wica (to denote a difference from earlier references of the word) was formulated, from various sources, by Gerald B. Gardner.

Gardner's Wica wasn't "love and light" though there was an ethos of conduct, especially regarding what you got your fellow witches involved with.

Today, when many people say Wicca they are talking about Wicca as understood in pop-culture and the influence of authors such Scott Cunningham. This Wicca has been influenced by peace and newage movements and is very pacifist.

Whereas with Gardner's Wica, it came down to the consensus with the coven and ones oaths with no dogma of moral absolutes.

Traditional Witchcraft is very live and let live meaning if you do not mess with a practitioner they wont mess with you but it is hardly pacifists nor are there any strictures of right and wrong. You don't out others or impose on how they choose to live and if you cross that line you don't whine when they kill you.

So as far as ones ethos and philosophy, to each their own in traditional witchcraft, though honor has been a strong element historically.

Wheres today you get people saying you can't be Wiccan and be forceful or aggressive... rubbish, that is a very new idea in witchcraft.

Tara would be what is called a "fluffy bunny" whereas a more traditional witch, while not necessarily a jerk, doesn't deny the darker aspects of life.

This was very interesting because Willow has her innocent, childish and submissive side, and that provides not only chemistry with Tara but brings out Willows darker side in protecting Tara.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

She might not have been the most powerful being but she definitely was the most dangerous Big Bad during Buffy's seven seasons. No one is more deadly than when avenging a loved one.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Short answer: Definitely not. Gods in general are certainly far more powerful than Willow. I also doubt very much that Willow could actually defeat Glory. Or Illyria. Or even Marcus or Cyvus Vail, for that matter.

By that logic, Angel and Spike are incapable of murder... And also Buffy... And possibly Dawn.

I agree about Adam. He was all brawn, and therefore uniquely vulnerable to magic in general. Primeval showed very clearly that a powerful magic user could kill him in a matter of seconds.

Glory was clearly not more defeatable than Willow, however. Glory was quite literally unkillable - you had to kill Ben, and the only way to ever know who Ben was was for Glory's spell to interfere with the magic that separated them. Could Willow pierce that spell on her own? I don't believe so. She clearly has magical limits and her abilities, while strong, seem to be very clearly standard witch abilities.

Yes, Glory was defeated by force while Willow wasn't - that's only because Willow was their friend. If Buffy had attacked Willow with Olaf's hammer, she wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as Glory did, but they weren't going to do that because they didn't want to kill Willow. Also, the hammer didn't seem to be on hand at that moment, either. The only advantage Willow has over Glory in that situation is that she can use magic spells to force Buffy to back off, while Glory only uses her fists. But, again, Anya whispering a standard counterspell is enough to prevent Willow's spells from taking effect, and Giles is still capable of trapping her with a single word (remember when Willow tried a similar spell on Glory in season 5 and she just shook it off?)

Also, Willow did not even remotely cause more havok or come closer to ending the world than other threats. Glory murdered dozens of people in Sunnydale, and wiped out the Order of Dagon and the Order of Byzantium, and her end of the world was already underway before she was defeated, forcing Buffy to kill herself to save the world. Jasmine locked all of Los Angeles in permanent night for weeks and by the time the post Jasmine riots died down, her apocalypse probably killed hundreds if not thousands of people (between giving demons free reign, destroying Wolfram and Hart, eating a dozen or so people every day, etc). Angelus even killed more people than Willow, and his end of the world was also closer to success than hers, and he's just a vampire.

At the end of the day, Willow got past them primarily because they were completely unprepared and they didn't want to hurt their friend.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Nope, not even close.

WR&H are so far above her as to not even care that she was tearing down the world, well I'm sure they would when it crossed over into their real estate, at which point they would have smacked her down.

Their lackies were shown to be able of taking down Illyria without effort, Illyria was more powerful than Dark Willow even *after* her magical castration.

The pantheon of Goddesses from which witches (ow) derive their power, when we meet them in season 8, could have killed her without hesitation too.

The First Evil, Old Ones, the Vengeance Bureau probably could all have taken her out, either on their own or combined.

In the Angel series when we meet the Angels, I'm sure their swords would have been invunerable to any of her powers.

She was a little league player massively dosed up on magic that didn't belong to her. In magical terms that seems to matter a lot, as stolen magic can never be as powerful or coherent as the inate version.

And from the sounds of it, there were at least half a dozen powerful entities ready to step in should she have been even close to doing what she planned, if she could at all.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

^Wait, when were there actual angels on Angel?

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Sorry, Angel *comic series* following the entire After the Fall arc.

A bunch of Angels or angelic beings turned up to try and restore order, they seemed pretty invunerable to most things.

 

Re: BUFFY Fans: Was Dark Willow the most powerful entity in the univer

Ah. So is it still undecided on the Man Upstairs, or do the Angels have actual direct history with him, like on Supernatural?