Nasty Characters Masquerading As Good - Willow Rosenberg

I never liked Willow. Even in the early seasons, her pseudo-mousy persona always seemed to me to be a front for greater shortcomings. Perhaps it was a subversive concept the writers of Buffy The Vampire Slayer came up with to have one of the rankest, most evil villains ever be cast as one of the main characters.

Originally a meek, passive-aggressive loser with a penchant for technology, Willow is actually a sinister, power-hungry witch with an infinite stockpile of anger and self-entitlement at her disposal. Her character arc is interesting in that she never really grows as a person; instead, season by season, layers are peeled from her nerdy persona until her bitter core self is revealed in its entirety in the season six finale.

A dangerous bitch who is not afraid to summon the forces of darkness for her own ends, Willow is every bit as nasty as her twin soul, Xander Harris. In the first two seasons, she is equally as pathetic as Xander, a low form of evil not to be taken seriously. But as the show progresses, and Willow tastes power, we witness Willow become what Xander only wishes he could be, and it's pretty ugly - a black eyed little pussy with a chip on her shoulder the size of Jupiter.

1.1 Welcome To The Hellmouth: After being labelled 'boring' by Cordelia Chase (who is at least forthright with her anger), Willow enacts revenge by tricking her into deleting her computer assignment. One episode in, and Willow is already demonstrating her unhealthy passion for vengeance. It may be small beginnings - but as we all know, deleting people's homework leads to torturing and mutilating people, more often than not.

2.3 - School Hard: Willow purposely gives Cordelia the most sour glass of lemonade she can find (the one with no sugar) and then watches her flinch. Passive-aggression that's slowly skirting into sadistic territory.

2.4 - Inca Mummy Girl: Willow seems indifferent to the fact that her 'good' friend Xander is continually bullied, and she even expresses amusement over this. She never once stands up for him to Cordelia unless it concerns her. Now, I am by no means a Xander fan, but who does Willow really care about? Oh, that's right, just Willow.

2.14 - Innocence: Willow is furious that Xander dares to date Cordelia, asking him 'What about the We Hate Cordelia Club'? She then reminds Xander that he is the treasurer of that club, and views his new relations with Cordelia as a betrayal of their friendship. For people like Willow (and Xander - more on that plonk later), hatred is an obsession, and vengeance is the natural result.

2.22 - Becoming: Willow gets a smug, self-satisfied look on her face when she's asked to restore Angel's soul. Definitely not the last time you'll see her smugly face gloating over her magical prowess.

3.2 - Dead Man's Party: This was the turning point for me, the moment I realized Willow was a fickle, self-centered brat. Buffy's mother throws Buffy a welcome home party (she had run away), and Willow and Xander attend, but they bring legions of people with them so they can snub Buffy. Buffy asks Willow what's wrong and Willow passive-agressively denies that she is avoiding her. When Buffy gets upset, her mother and Xander begin to lecture her on her behaviour, but it's Willow's sideline taunts that border on creepy.

Wow. Just wow. Did she just encourage them to physically fight? And it's VERY telling that spineless Willow, who pretended moments ago to not have a problem with Buffy, allows the more aggressive characters confront each other while she sits on the sidelines. So much pent up anger, Willow. Get therapy.

3.6 - Band Candy: In a vile moment of mutual sociopathy, Xander and Willow play footsie under the table with Cordelia sitting right in front of them. What's worse is that neither seem to feel any guilt - screw the fact that they are both in relationships. Let's fuck and flirt near our lovers so we can get off on the emotional pain we cause them. Disgusting.

3.9 - The Wish: After being caught cheating with Xander, Willow begs Oz to talk things over, and acts sort of entitled. Oz thankfully calls her out on it, but it just shows how self-excusing Willow is about her own misdeeds.

3.15 - Phases: Despite the fact that Cordelia began to go out of her way to make amends with Willow, the magnanimity was not requited, as we see in this vicious outburst (again, behind Cordelia's back);

Xander and Buffy also perpetuate the 'Cordelia is a ho' bitchery, but Willow is the most perturbed, and the most hypocritical, considering she seduces and kisses Xander while he is in a relationship with her.

3.16 - Doppelgangland: This disgusting Willow-centric episode begins with Buffy and Willow mocking Faith behind her back on the grounds that she is mentally ill. This lack of empathy is surprising, considering Buffy's unrelenting depression and Willow's own mental instability, which will prove to be much more deadly than Faith's in coming episodes.

Willow is quick to label Faith a murderer, despite the fact that the killing in question was accidental. Buffy herself has come close to being responsible for the death of an innocent. But instead of offering support to the blatantly tormented Faith, Willow and Buffy instead have a bitch-fest. While Buffy at least feigns empathy for Faith (the sanity fair quip betrays any genuineness on her part), Willow is unable to do even that, instead criticizing her for traits Willow frequently exhibits herself. Willow's attempt to discredit Faith stretches all across season three, but it's at its worst here, and her deep hatred for the girl (and humanity) is reflected in her magical display of violence. Of course, Willow denies she has any negative emotions until they burst to the surface, disturbing even Buffy.

Willow later proves her instability by acting up when Buffy labels her as a 'reliable' person.

Willow's vampire doppelganger appears in this episode (and "The Wish"), and she is sadistic even by Vampire's standards. She is vicious, domineering, overtly-sexual and rather dull-witted. In a disturbing display of sentimentality, Willow asks Buffy to spare her vampire self out of simple vanity. Vamp Willow's catchphrase, 'bored now', makes a return in season six. This reveals that vamp Willow isn't so much a separate demonic entity so much as Willow's dark side. Nasty stuff.

4.4 - Fear Itself: Willow becomes aggressively defensive when Buffy calls her up on her sub-par witchcraft. She passive-aggressively mumbles stuff about Buffy throughout the episode.

4.6 - Wild At Heart: Willow recites the following spell to enact revenge on Oz.

Even though she doesn't go through with the spell, it shows us that not only is she willing to invoke the darkest of the dark, but vengeance is also her go-to coping mechanism. Crazy bitch.

4.9 - Something Blue: The beast sees only it's own pain, though I have to admit, these two are as bad as each other. Watch these frenemies subtly destroy each other.

4.16 - Who Are You: Willow's incessant bitching about Faith is downright disturbing, and it's somewhat gratifying to see Faith (the true heroine of Buffy The Vampire Slayer) fantasize about stabbing the red-headed gimp in the abdomen several times after she unwittingly bitches about Faith to her face.

The unhealthy degree of hatred Willow harbours for Faith reveals her lack of empathy, and her desire to punish the already abused is not just cruel, it's cowardly. Willow's spinelessness ties in with her sadism. She enjoys inflicting suffering, so long as she has complete control and there are no repercussions. Otherwise, count this two-faced bitch out.

5.19 - Tough Love: Willow criticizes Buffy's parenting skills behind her back, and Tara defends her, saying it's difficult to raise a sibling after the death of a parent. Tara's mother died so she knows what it's like. Instead of empathizing, Willow gets offended because her mother is still alive and she feels like her opinion isn't invalid because she hasn't suffered that. Ah, poor, pathetic Willow. Her warped self-obsession is shocking, and it's uncomfortable to watch her bully Tara into submission...

6.1 - Bargaining: Where to start with this one? One of Buffy's worst fears was being buried alive (as we saw in "Nightmares") and Willow considerately grants Buffy the opportunity of living this fear by resurrecting her while she's in her grave. They didn't even bother to dig her up. The sloppy, vile witch doesn't even apologize. Did I mention that she stabbed a freaking deer and drained it of its blood in order to do the spell? And of course, she lies about where she got the blood from to save face. And ripping your friend from heaven back to the dull-as-dishwater Earth because you 'miss' her? Really? Shocking lack of morals, truly reprehensible.

6.4 - Flooded: Season six contains some of Willow's most disgusting personal moments. Among them is the resurrection of Buffy in Bargaining, but it's her boastful, casual attitude that really takes the cunt cake. Because nothing motivates you to resurrect your best friend more than boastful egomania.

Giles is disgusted at Willow's magical vanity. She honestly is happier to have her magical ability validated than she is to have Buffy resurrected, and she even expects Giles to laud her for her irresponsibility, despite the fact that she could have ended the cosmos. Plus, she conveniently neglects to tell him of the side-effects her spell caused in Afterlife. Le sigh...this boastful, narcissistic bitch knows no bounds. It gets worse.

And Willow's true colours show. When she is denied respect, she threatens people for it. Remember how she used to passive-aggressively deal with Cordelia? Now she has the luxury of magic to strike fear into those who damage her ego, even if they are sensible, good-hearted people who care about her. It doesn't help that Buffy has run out of money and Willow is LEECHING off of her to go to college, yet doesn't help out in the least. Some may think she resurrected Buffy just to force her to get a minimum-wage job to pay the debt she caused.

6.6 - All The Way: No explanation, just a disgusting transcript.

6.7 - Once More, With Feeling: Willow essentially drugs her girlfriend Tara using magic to make her forget their lover's quarrels, in spite of the fact that Tara had previously been mind raped by Glory in season five. Then Willow proceeds to have sex with Tara in her altered state. At best it's mental rape. At worst? Well...

6.20 - Villains: Willow taunts, tortures and then flays Warren, yet displays little emotion. She seems to enjoy holding the power of life and death over other people...and guess what her motive is? Vengeance. This is the real Willow; dangerous, sadistic, vindictive, self-entitled and completely desensitized to human emotion. And this bitch had the audacity to call Faith mentally unstable?

6.21 - Two To Go: Willow meets with Rack, drains him of all magical ability and kills him. Grief is NOT an excuse for double homicide, you vile excuse for a witch, lesbian, feminist and friend.

6.22 - Grave: Willow has a bitch attack against Buffy and Dawn, raises a satanic temple of dark magic from underground to destroy the world, and destroys the beloved magic shop. Lovely girl, isn't she? The episode is probably titled what it is because Tara is turning in her grave, regretting every single second she spent with the ginger control-freak.

Repercussions for attempted apocalypse? A holiday to England, funded by Giles. No prison time, like Faith had. No eternal torment, like Angel had to suffer. Just trip to England and suddenly she's 'free'.

And there's more. Much more. But I feel like I've written a book on Darth Rosenberg. I'm sure you'll agree there's plenty to NOT like about this freak.

 

An excellent opening volley.

 

No, sorry. I like Willow.

 

She never remembered our anniversary when we dated.

 

Didn't she promise to kill you last, though?

 

And this one time, at band camp...

 

Willow seems like she would smell like flowers.

 

Angel was another one. He was supposed to be a champion, but he betrayed all his friends and not just when he was Angelus.

 

Willow did do some nasty things (mostly in season 6 though) but I don't think that she was an unsympathetic character for her flaws. I think the issue a had with her the most was that we spent most of the series just setting up her issues, then saw her spiral down to rock bottom in season 6, but then there wasn't much time spent with her dealing with them in a productive way. Although I also think that post Tara there weren't many ways they were able to really examine her character, because Tara created the best development for Willow and was the best moral support/adviser.

Hold on there, Willow is irredeemably evil for having insecurities that turned into power issues, but Faith, who blew off manslaughter and reveled in murdering that one smuggler demon, is all right? Faith was one of my favorite characters in the show, but I think it's kind of silly to let Faith off so easy in comparison. They were at least as bad as each other at their worst, and neither were completely terrible people.

 

Is that Lesley Anne Down?

I don't know if Faith 'revelled' in killing the Demon. When Buffy and Faith look at the corpse, Faith makes it pretty clear it was somewhat of a struggle.

Willow at her worst attempted to raise underground satanic temples and destroy the entire world. Faith was clearly unstable, and arguably sadistic, but she was no where near as entitled as Willow, who committed a double homicide of two humans and got a complete rush out of her destructive path. Flaying Warren was the happiest moment of her life. Faith by comparison was a lot more self-destructive and had some sort of death wish. I don't think Faith really enjoyed destroying other people, it was more of a prideful statement.

I would be a lot harsher on Faith had she not sucked it up and went to jail. She took responsibility, and suffered for her crimes. Willow, on the other hand, went globetrotting in England and never really made up for past sins. What kind of redemption is that?

 

​

 

It's hard to take your arguments seriously when you use such relentlessly misogynistic language to describe Willow's character.

 

It's hard to take his arguments seriously for many reasons. I can't choose just one.

 

I, too, like chicken wings.

 

Mmmmmmm, chicken wings..

 

Damn, chicken wings. And I made hamburgers tonight.

 

Why not both?

 

Stuffed. That's an opportunity for chicken wings I'll never get back.

 

Too bad, now ribs, that's something to go for. Wings are good, but ribs are a whole other world. Pizza, for all its deliciousness, just doesn't satisfy on its own. I think I'll get some ribs for the movie coming up. Watching a bunch of old Hammer Horror films, they always give me the munchies.

 

Rachel from Friends was a character I always thought was a terrible person despite the fact that the show wanted us to think she was great. I felt the same way about Kate in LOST and the tenth Doctor in Doctor Who sometimes.