[This is a rough draft. it may be rough in spots. I welcome insight to improve it or clarify points or whatnot. this is my first attempt to post a new thread message to this forum. I apologize ahead of time if I did something wrong. Please be gentle. Thanks. =)]

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"Well, you can fight monsters naturally, with sticks and stones. Don't recommend it, though." - Willow

A Broken Yellow Crayon

At what point did Willow go bad? To the casual observer, Willow went over the edge when Tara was murdered in cold blood by Warren in the sixth season episode "Seeing Red." However, it can be argued that the potential for evil has been there for some time. It was a gradual change that occurred over several years, and quite innocently.

Many fans of the series dislike the apparent comparison between using dark magic and casual drug abuse. It seems like the series is being cautionary and almost holier-than-thou, perhaps even preaching to its youthful audience that all drug use or all magic use is bad. I don't see it that way. The correlation between drug use & dark magic is done in order to give viewers a base from which to understand what the character is going through. I mean, let's face it, in the real world the average viewer probably hasn't come across someone who's eyes turn black before they turn a teacher or employer into a toad. So the writers used the drug comparison to communicate to the audience what Willow's been going through. Unfortunately, like most metaphors, this comparison simplifies Willow's situation. It's a little more complicated.

In order to properly understand Willow's fall from grace, one needs to first understand the difference between bad uses and good uses for magic, then one should examine the actions Willow has committed, and from that one can see where she went wrong.

Tara tried to warn Willow throughout season six that she was in trouble, even ending their relationship because she felt so strongly. "What if something went wrong?" she cautioned. Frivolous magic often has consequences, and even the best of intentions can go awry. Willow didn't become a master of magic overnight, and some would argue even at the end of season six she was no master. She was more like a toddler playing with matches in a basement filled with cardboard boxes and yellowed newspaper.

In season two's episode "Becoming Part Two," Willow used magic to replace Angel's soul, but though her intentions were noble, she inadvertently returned Angel's soul too late, and Buffy was forced to send a souled Angel to hell in order to close Acathla's vortex. Furthermore, during the incantation in the hospital, Willow almost fainted but something seemed to slip into her and complete the incanation. We're never told if that something was demonic for from the elusive, good Powers That Be.

The following season Willow admitted to attempting to communicate with the spirit world, which resulted in blowing out the power of a city block. Later on, Anya asked Willow to help her with a spell that would reunite Anya with her demonic power center. Willow jumped at the chance, saying she enjoyed toying with the "dark forces." Admittedly, Anya didn't tell Willow that she was helping a vengeance demon. The spell introduced a vampire version of Willow into the world from an alternate reality. When Willow was faced with the opportunity to kill an evil version of herself, she couldn't get past the fact that it was like looking in the mirror. Vampire Willow was evil, but Normal Willow insisted they send her back alive instead. This was a portent; a harbinger of what was to come. It is interesting to note that the two personality qualities of Vampire Willow that seemed to be accentuated by the demonic influence were carelessness and impatience. "Bored now."

Vamp Will: "This world is no fun."

Norm Will: "You've noticed that too?"

Impatience and carelessness are the same two qualities that Normal Willow battles: her inner demons. They seem uniquely innocent issues in early seasons. They're certainly not any of "The Seven Deadly Sins" of pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony or sloth. By the end of the sixth season, carelessness and impatience threaten to consume Willow. The innocent appearance of these quirks in Willow’s personality causes people to gloss over them. How can someone this innocent and sweet and lovable possibly turn into a power-mad nihilist? Willow does have a taste of the seven deadlies too though: anger, pride, envy. Giles has never seemed to appreciate Willow in a way that Willow would actually take as being appreciated. She's jealous of Buffy and wants to be seen as more than her sidekick, which is where pride comes in. Xander chose Cordelia over her, which Willow may have never fully gotten over even though she’s now gay. Her impatience can also be seen as a byproduct of sloth. She'd rather use magic to get things easily, rather than work at life to get things to naturally work her way.

She is proud of her accomplishments, but life doesn’t reward her properly. Principal Snyder saddled Willow up with a brainless athlete in the third season. For a while it seemed she was going to have to do her homework AND his, because he was sorely motivated. Then Willow's vamp twin showed up and scared the athlete into doing his homework. It is ironic that punishment got the guy to do his thesis, and Normal Willow reaped the benefits of the badness of her doppelganger. Over time Willow has been conditioned subtly to believe that good doesn't pay, but evil does. There's a major slant with modern American parenting to reward bad by punishing it, and this also happens in the scholastic arena. If the kid wants attention, but only gets attention when he does wrong, then he's going to subconsciously learn to do wrong in order to get attention. I'm not saying this is exactly what is happening to Willow, but she walked the straight and narrow all the way through high school, and she never got properly rewarded for her efforts. If anything she got more work.

Willow attempted to conjure a guiding light in the episode "Fear, Itself" but like many of Willow's attempts with magic, it backfired. A few of the guiding lights even managed to make their way down her throat like lightning bugs. This is carelessness. She attempted this spell even though others cautioned her that she wasn't ready. This is impatience. It's a constant thread and running theme through many of her actions and decisions.

She almost cursed Oz for being unfaithful, even though his intentions were good. Oz saved Veruca's life that night, only to have to kill her later in order to protect Willow. Oz tried to explain the truth to her but she flew off the handle before he could. Impatience. Willow conjured a selfish "I will it so" spell in the episode "Something Blue" which only worked when her darker emotions ran high. Carelessness. This spell backfired by causing random wishes Willow uttered to come true when what she should have done was work through her emotions and reasons for wanting to conjure the spell in the first place. She didn't want to experience the pain she felt in her heart over Oz's exit from her life. Rather than deal with her grief naturally, she wanted to make the pain just go away. Impatience.

Willow accidentally released Olaf, an ex-boyfriend of Anya's whom she turned into a troll, in the episode "Triangle." Carelessness. Later that season, when she vengefully attacked Glory in an attempt to return Tara's sanity, she put herself in jeopardy and would have become Glory's next victim had Buffy not intervened. Carelessness. In season six, Willow de-ratted Amy, who had turned herself into a rat two years previously as a desperate attempt to avoid being burned at the stake, and the two of them went off on a partying magic spree at the expense of many unwary victims. Carelessness. As I said, it's a running theme.

Tara also once asked Willow, "Why use magic when you can do something naturally?" Why? Because Willow's impatient. She sees no reason to take the time to respect where the power comes from. She treats magic as she would walking into a room and flicking on the lights. Magic energy stems from the force of the universe as a whole. Whether a practitioner calls upon the moon, the earth, or some demon or godlike entity, all matter in the universe is made up of one form of energy or another. It comes from some place. When a practitioner of magic utilizes that energy, even the simplest spells in appearance can have grand repercussions, because the energy that causes that spell has to come from somewhere. The energy has to go somewhere. The origins of those energies rarely coincide with the intentions of the practitioner. Like an idiot strafing a backyard with bullets from a gun, foolish use of magic can cause undo damage to innocents.

The use of magic should be saved for times when one cannot do something naturally: only as a last resort. Despite constant warnings of this nature, Willow repeatedly used her magic frivolously. Often she would claim to be using it selflessly for the benefit of others, but her true intentions either became clear or were implied. In the season five episode "Out Of My Mind," she tinkered with a spell she called The Tinkerbell Spell, which was supposed to illuminate a room with mystically-inclined artificial sunlight. Willow claimed she did it to help out Buffy, but then she showed it off to Tara narcissistically. She didn't make the spell for Buffy's sake, but for her own.

Willow hinted to Dawn how she could raise her mother from the dead, rather than let Dawn mourn and accept her loss naturally. Willow thought she was doing Dawn a favor on the surface, but actually she was showing off to Dawn that it was indeed possible, without contemplating or giving reverence to the obvious adverse side effects.

When Tara threatened to leave her because of Willow's misuse of magic, Willow responded by using forget spells, twice, rather than try to resolve her problems sensibly. She could have taken the time to sort things out, but she chose not to out of impatience. Later when the second forget spell failed miserably putting all her friends in jeopardy, Willow vowed to go "cold turkey" and never use magic again. This was an attempt at doing the right thing, which she succeeded at until Tara's death. At that point all bets were off. Willow felt cheated by the world. She did what she was told to be the right thing, and the world paid her back by taking her love away from her. If you tell a child to do something, then the child does it and you reward them by punishing them in some way, the child will not learn the lesson. Willow is basically a child to magic, and the Powers That Be are not training her properly, so it's only "natural" that she would turn to the dark arts. To her, in the moment of anger, they made more sense.

Another way of looking at Willow is regarding her nonmagic actions and words. At the start of season three, Buffy returns after having run away from home. She'd just sent her lover to hell, she was expelled from school, her mother had all but said life would be better without her daughter, and some people at a welcome home party thought Buffy had been in a drug rehab clinic. Buffy was going through a tough time. Willow's reaction to seeing her best friend leaving again was to make it all about her. Sure, Buffy'd had a bad day. Willow's response was: "This isn't easy, Buffy! I know you're going through stuff, but so am I... ...I mean, my life! You know? I'm having all sorts of... 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." (Dead Man's Party) Objectively, comparing Buffy's life to Willow's life and trying to see who's got the short end of the stick? Buffy wins.

However, oftentimes Willow turns issues around with a subtext that redirects attention to herself. She caught Xander & Cordelia kissing, and even though Xander had made it clear before that he and Willow were just friends, Willow got jealous and took it personally. As if Xander kissing Cordelia had anything to do with her, "It just means that you'd rather be with someone you hate than be with me." (Innocence) On more than one occasion she's turned on Buffy verbally. "I'm not your sidekick" she's insisted. She's also taken offense to being called "old reliable." She doesn't want to be a rock that others depend on so they can shine. She wants to be the star.

Early in season six she downright threatened Giles, because he didn't congratulate her on using incredibly dangerous dark magicks to bring Buffy back from the dead.

GILES: "The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand,

and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!"

WILLOW: "You're right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such

a good idea for you to piss me off."

This is by the way not the first time Giles & Willow have butted heads. They've argued on occasion about Willow's use of magic, as far back as the season three episode “Faith Hope and Trick.”

WILLOW: “Mm, sage. I love that smell. (reaches into a jar) And marnox root. You know, a smidge of this 
mixed with a virgin's saliva... (gets a look from Giles) Does something I know nothing about.”
GILES: “These forces are not something that one plays around with, Willow. What have you been conjuring?” 
WILLOW: “Nothing... much. Well, you know, I tried this spell to cure Angel, and I guess that was a bust. 
But since then, you know, small stuff: floating feather, fire out of ice, which next time I won't do on the 
bedspread. Are you mad at me?”
GILES: No, of course not, no. If I were, I’d be making a strange clucking sound with my tongue. 

Willow's often been self-conscious about how people see her, thinking she stopped being geeky Willow when she started dating Oz; "a guy in the band." That's just a little shallow, isn't it? In the episode "Restless" much of her dream had to do with shallow impressions, lies, masks and costumes. What she wore as a wiccan lesbian college student was costuming for the geeky Willow she was three or four years before. Willow lacks cohesion because she wears titles like some wear clothes. In a way she's just as shallow as Cordelia was in the early seasons of "BtVS" but Cordelia was simply more open and honest about it. Willow hides her faults from herself.

These are all simple failings. Carelessness. Frivolity. Impatience. Shallowness. Narcisism. Jealousy. The displeasure that life doesn't go one's way and the knowledge that one has the power to twist reality to your own ends. Magic in the Buffy Universe is a force that can be used for good or bad, but when used in a self-centered manner without interest in the consequences, consistently, repeatedly, this taints the magic darkly and also taints the practitioner.

Wiccans believe "an it harm none so mote it be" but Willow's use of magic did harm people often, either purposefully or accidentally. The Wiccan tenet doesn't say, "If it was an accident it's okay" because even if it was an accident, it's not okay. Ignorance is not a defense. Magic doesn't preclude accidents. It's like using gas to wash your car and then claiming it was an accident when the gas station exploded. Oops! One could avoid the accident if they concern themselves with consequences before taking the actions, but Willow didn't have time for that. She was too impatient. So she became careless. This is what led her to turning evil.

There are individuals, and rightly so, who are upset with the writers of the BtVS series for killing Tara in a way that appears thoughtless. They believe this caters to a cliché about lesbians in modern storytelling. There are very few lesbians in modern mainstream television and most who are in such stories end up in a bad way. It is like Hollywood is saying no lesbian love affair ever ends well - that they are somehow doomed to fail - that society still deems gay relationships evil and so therefore all storylines must adhere to some tired cliché. They see this cliché reflected in the season six finale of Buffy. In Joss Whedon's world of Buffy however, the course of true love never does run smooth, for anyone, regardless of his or her sexual proclivity.

The death of Tara, and Willow's turn to the dark side in vengeance for Tara's death, appears on the surface to be a "lesbian" thing. In fact, it was insinuated that only moments before Tara died, Willow & Tara had been committing an act of lovemaking. Again some argue that this is a backhanded insult at lesbians - like the writers are saying gay sex must be punished - but the truth is even harder for some gay activists to swallow.

Willow's story has nothing to do with homosexuality. It had nothing to do with Tara, any more than it had to do with Oz. Tara was just THERE. The lesbian love affair had nothing to do with Willow's depth into evil. In fact for a time Tara's love was the only thing that kept Willow from a path towards evil, which she had inadvertently taken long before. Before Tara, Willow was ready to turn evil and had been ready for a long time. The only thing at that point that kept her from being evil was Tara. The writers removed Tara in order to continue Willow's story: her descent into her own self-designed hell.

This was Willow's story: a story that dates back at least as far as when Willow used magic to resoul the cursed Angel. Perhaps farther back than that. Willow's reckless disregard for the power of magic has been her downfall, and it has taken five seasons for her karma to come back to her. If Tara died because of anything, it wasn't for loving Willow in a homosexual way. One can argue that Tara died because of another Wiccan tenet: the power of three. Whatever one's actions, they will be visited upon one three fold. Do something good for someone, you'll get three times the good treatment back someday. Do something bad, you'll get punished three times as bad. She inadvertently sent a souled vampire to hell. She's done a number of other things wrong, some more terrible than others.

The loss of Tara wasn't a lesbian thing. It was karmic payback. If you ask me, she got off easy.

The character of Willow is as potentially powerful and potentially fragile as any other human character. She had as much potential to be a force for good in the universe as a force for evil. She didn't wake up one day and choose to be evil. It was a gradual thing, and that's the story Joss Whedon and the writers at Mutant Enemy wanted to convey.

In the season six finale, Xander stands there on King Man's Bluff. He stands between the temple spire of a long buried church to Proserpexa and a tool of destruction in the form of someone he's come to hold dear. Xander is staring in the face of evil. It's a face he's known all his life.

XANDER: "The first day at kindergarten, you cried because you broke the yellow crayon, and you were too afraid to tell

anyone. You've come pretty far. Ending the world not a terrific notion..."

Xander argues with Willow not just to save the world, but he argues in Willow's favor to save herself from herself.

She refuses to forgive herself. One can argue this is her worst sin. As far as Willow has gotten from that tear-faced little girl staring at a broken yellow crayon, she hasn't come very far at all. Imagine a little girl holding a broken yellow crayon in her hand. A crayon she broke due to carelessness. She's apologetic in her heart but she can't undo this; she can't make the crayon whole again anymore than she could turn the sun blue. A little thing? Not to a five year old girl. The yellow crayon is something that's not hers: something given to her by the school. She had no right to break it and she knows this. She fears she'll get in trouble if anyone finds out she broke the yellow crayon. We know she won't, but we're not the little girl staring at the broken yellow crayon, still new to the environment of a public school and the world in general.

So what does crayon breaky Willow do? She tries to fix it alone because she can't trust anyone. She's afraid they'll tattle on her. She finds that she can't fix it alone. Her impatience grows. She starts crying. Helpless. She didn't have the power of witchcraft to make it all go away. So years later she gets that power and she still can't make it all go away, because the story being told here is that power doesn't make bad things go away. Love is what makes bad things go away. Not selfish love, but selfless love. Unconditional love. Love like Xander's.

XANDER: "...But the thing is? Yeah! I love you," continues Xander, "I love crayon breaky Willow and I love scary veiny

Willow. So if I'm goin' out. It's here! If you wanna kill the world? Well then start with me. I've earned that."

Xander's willing sacrifice here is something that could fill a whole other essay. The writings of Joseph Campbell, who studied the myths of many cultures throughout the world, reveal this sacrifice through unconditional love to be a key element in practically every mythology, the sacrifice of Jesus in Christian mythology being only one obvious example. Xander stands there, knowing what Willow has done, knowing what she's capable of doing, knowing what she's about to do, and he doesn't CARE. He honestly doesn't care. If the world's going to end by her hand, he wants to be the first one she takes out. Facing that, Willow couldn't continue on. In the face of unconditional love, evil is powerless.

When did Willow turn bad? The same time we all did. Each and every one of us has the potential to do good or evil in this world. It all boils down to our day-to-day choices, and they all add up over a period of time. It doesn't make us good or evil. It means our choices were right or wrong. Willow has always had the potential for evil just as she's always had the potential for good. One can choose to use whatever resources one has at their disposal to love or to hate. It's simply a matter of choices. Just as Angel can lose his soul and get it back again, so too can Willow gain redemption, but it's not going to be an easy path. It never is. Giles once told Buffy that forgiveness is not something that is earned. It's something that is granted, because the person needs it, not because they deserve it. However, first Willow is going to have to forgive herself, or else the entire world forgiving her is not going to matter. Something tells me she still hasn't forgiven herself for the yellow crayon. Perhaps that's the real reason why she went down the wrong path. She has been unable until now to forgive herself.

Hopefully in season seven, we'll witness her learn to do just that. Hopefully she will learn to forgive herself for the yellow crayon.

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