[Pride 2021] How Buffy Inadvertently Created Her Own Worst Villain...And It Wasn’t The First

If you had to pick the most powerful villain Buffy inadvertently created throughout her seven seasons, The First would probably come to mind. Afterall, it was credited as being the first evil in all the world and was activated by Buffy’s resurrection, something Buffy herself could not have prevented. The First also opened the Hellmouth and was not defeated until Sunnydale was decimated. Despite all this, The First still was not the worst villain Buffy ever set the stage for. It was, in fact, Dark Willow and it all stemmed from an event that happened between seasons.

“I’m not an age group. I’m me. Willow group.”

— Willow, "Gingerbread"

To understand the full impact of how Buffy inadvertently created Dark Willow, we have to start by taking a closer look at Willow’s relationships over the years. Ever since she was a child, Willow had always been in codependent relationships. Throughout the course of the series, we are given glimpses into her inseparable friendship with Xander. We know that they met in kindergarten, shared beds on sleepovers, and even dated briefly before breaking up because Xander stole her Barbie.

According to psychotherapist Gabrielle Usatynski, MA, LPC, “Children who grow up to be codependent tend to grow up in families where they did get a certain amount of good loving contact: hugging, kissing, rocking, and holding from a parent. However, at other times, the parent was not emotionally available to them.”

Usatynski explains that these children tend to feel emotionally abandoned by their parents and this causes them to suffer from fear of abandonment when they enter adulthood. Codependent people then decide to put the needs of others first in order to maintain relationships.

In the brief moments Willow describes her parents throughout the series, she does not seem to hold any animosity towards them. She claims that they never fight or bicker, so they were likely content with their marriage. Unfortunately, when we meet Willow’s mom, Sheila, in season three’s “Gingerbread” it is clear that she is not involved in Willow’s life whatsoever. When Sheila comments on Willow’s new hairstyle, Willow points out her negligence by saying, “It’s just a sudden whim I had in…August.” Because of her parents’ lack of attention, Willow experienced this emotional abandonment that Usatynski describes and it followed her into adolescence.

Willow, unfortunately, was also alienated from Xander, who considered her to be his best friend, yet he presumably dedicated most of his time to his other best friend, Jesse, prior to season one. Jesse allowed Xander to have another guy to easily relate to and talk about typical teenage boy stuff with, namely other girls. We know that Willow was in love with Xander in the beginning of the series and, as a result, she was forced to watch the object of her affection objectify every other girl on Earth besides her.

Enter Buffy. The moment Buffy moved to Sunnydale, Willow’s life began to change. She finally had another female she could relate to who built her up and gave her confidence. But in addition to that, Buffy was also The Slayer. Willow had spent most of her life on the outside looking in, so by having someone as special as Buffy adopt her into her inner circle, it gave Willow the opportunity to also feel special. Buffy had power, confidence, and Xander’s attention, everything Willow longed to have. It only stands to reason that she would want to be just like her. And she does become just like her, eventually.

“She bothered me. She’s so weak and accommodating. She’s always letting people walk all over her, and then she gets cranky with her friends for no reason. I just couldn’t let her live.”

— Willow, "Deoppelgangland"

Willow’s codependence only grows stronger over the years and we see a pattern of Willow jump from one relationship to another. In season two, when Xander disregards her affection and starts dating Cordelia, Willow then turns to Oz. A few episodes after Oz cheats on her and leaves town, she meets Tara. When Tara breaks up with her for using too much magic, she transforms Amy from a rat to a human. Finally, when Tara dies shortly after the two reconcile, Dark Willow is born.

Willow does not like to lose people and she habitually turns to dark magic whenever she is in danger of being abandoned. We see this when she attempts to curse Oz the second she discovers that he cheats on her in season four and her dark side is teased again when she faces off against Glory for harming Tara in season five. When Buffy dies, again, Willow brings her back from the dead. Willow goes to extreme lengths to protect the ones she loves, but more importantly, to keep them around.

The reason for this is that Willow needs the constant approval of those around her to feel special. She explains this to Buffy in season six “Wrecked” when she asks, “If you could be, you know, plain old Willow or Super Willow, who would you be?” Even after she brought Buffy back from the dead, she selfishly admits to Tara that she was half-expecting Buffy to be grateful. When Giles confronts her about the powerful dark magic she channeled, she says she thought he would be impressed by what she accomplished. By this point in the series, Willow has already accepted that she is more powerful than any of her friends, but she still needs them to acknowledge it. So, how exactly did Buffy’s actions lead to the creation of Dark Willow?

“The only thing Willow was ever good for...the only thing I had going for me…were the moments, just moments, when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful.”

— Willow, "Two To Go"

The very first time we see how magic negatively affects Willow is when she successfully casts the Restoration spell to return Angel’s soul in the season two finale. At first, Buffy tells Willow she does not want her to put herself in danger, but Buffy later retracts that when she finds the Claddagh ring Angel gave to her on her birthday. Finding the ring reminds Buffy of what Angel meant to her before he lost his soul and became Angelus. Buffy justifies her reasoning for allowing Willow to cast the spell by stating that Willow cursing Angel is their last resort in case she is unable to kill him. However, later in “Becoming Part 2” when Willow apologizes to Buffy for not being able to cure Angel the first time around, Buffy tells her she knows that she will never get Angel back the way he was. It is in this moment Willow resolves to curse Angel again, not only to save the world, but because she knows that doing so would bring her best friend joy.

So, Willow casts the Restoration spell in her weakened state and becomes corrupted by dark magic—except Buffy has no idea. After putting a sword through Angel’s heart and watching him get swallowed by a portal, Buffy runs away from home. And it is that one summer, when Buffy fails to check in with her friends between seasons two and three, that leads to the beginning of a dangerous character arc for Willow. Buffy hid out in Los Angeles and Willow lost her best friend. She felt abandoned, so she filled her time by practicing magic. When Buffy does return eventually, Willow even tells Buffy that she was performing spells she was not prepared for. If Buffy, her best friend, had been there, she could have warned her not to delve into dark magic or to pace herself.

So how do we know Willow felt abandoned by Buffy? Willow tells her as much in “Dead Man’s Party” when Buffy considers running away again. “I’m dating. I’m having serious dating with a werewolf, and I’m studying witchcraft, and killing vampires, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about all this scary life stuff. And you were my best friend.”

What Willow says is true. Whenever Buffy had problems or questions about her relationship with Angel, Willow was there to listen. When Buffy left town, the world did not stop turning, no matter how badly she wanted to hide from her responsibilities. As a result, Willow did not have her best friend to confide in when her life also began to change. Although Buffy was not responsible for the choices Willow made in life, she did allow her to come into her world of vampire slaying and exposed her to magic for her benefit. Buffy did not mean to change Willow’s life, but she did leave her when things got rough. In the end, Buffy let her best friend down and that is why she inadvertently created her own worst villain.

 All this is not to say it was Buffy’s fault. Willow was a young adult capable of making her own decisions. But she still blamed Buffy because she was not there for her when she needed her. And this feeling of abandonment by Buffy would only rear its head again multiple times over the series as evidenced in “Bad Girls” when the two are discussing the protection spell Willow made for Buffy. Willow is super excited to join Buffy on her patrol, but Buffy still leaves her behind because she had plans with Faith, a much stronger character than Willow and Buffy’s equal. You see the disappointment in Willow’s face when Buffy leaves and she continues practicing spells on her own to become someone worth Buffy’s time. While Buffy was out saving the world, she did not pay as much attention to her best friend, who continued to long for power. Finally, in season six, Willow steps out of the shadows of being a sidekick to become more powerful than Buffy herself.

And that is what makes Dark Willow Buffy’s greatest villain. The people closest to us are the ones that can hurt us the most. Dark Willow knows all of Buffy’s secrets and confronts her about her depression and insecurities when they face off in “Two To Go”. Villains like Angelus and Dark Willow are such strong foes because they have personal connections to Buffy. Though The First did bring about the events that would destroy Sunnydale, it could not physically hurt Buffy and relied on others to do its dirty work for it. Dark Willow was much stronger than both it and Angelus combined and could have burned the world down by using her own power.

Lastly, it is important to note that before Willow started going off the deep end in season six, Buffy did step in and try to help her. But Buffy only did so after her sister got hurt in a car wreck that Willow caused. Both Buffy and Xander had multiple chances to help Willow when Tara first broke up with her, but Buffy admits in “Gone” that she was too wrapped up in her own problems to notice how bad Willow’s addiction to magic had gotten. Fortunately, Xander was able to stop Dark Willow in the end by reminding her of their friendship, but the seeds had already been sewn by that point. Because Willow felt abandoned by her best friends throughout the series, Willow did the only thing she knew how to do…become someone special, no matter the consequences.

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