Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Witch – Willow

The Muse tends to build the bonds between the main characters quickly and in the early episodes. Take Xena: Warrior Princess 2.0; Gabrielle has her moment in the sun right off the bat, in My Friend Part One and Two. This pattern follows with Willow, Xander, and Giles and they are quickly integrated, but not as extensively. Those three and Buffy form the core group that will carry the show.
I would consider The Witch a Willow episode, focusing on her, yet staying with the ensemble and giving Xander and Giles the floor as well. Can you guess who is next by the title of fourth episode, The Xander That Cried Wolf? Yes, there are ideas for future episodes, some dialogue, and a few scenes. I can’t turn it off and ask Muse to go do something else. I have long given up on predicting what project is on the table and just go with it.
The MAN sure knows what buttons to push on Willow. Willow has found a place and a person she belongs with. Fate handed her a membership on the Slayer team and she intends to keep it. There are the typical teenager insecurities that plague her plus the growing awareness of her body and its needs. Willow does have the drive and the brains to achieve her goals, having funneled her energy into academic pursuits with great success. She finds that is no longer enough and wants more. She does not want just be part of the gang; she want to be the big cheese.
It is all in what we apply ourselves towards. I hold that Willow is very ambitious and under the veneer of the bookish and socially awkward woman hides a different sort of person. Witchcraft is her ticket to power and being an equal partner to Buffy and all it takes is study and dedication, things she excels at. That it can also lead to relationship is important – Buffy is definitely not inclined that way but Willow does not think of it as an insurmountable obstacle.
I believe Willow was going thru life without knowing what she wanted, checking off the boxes, bending to the whims of her strict, religious parents. She was young and it is normal to be lost at that age. She chose the academic track and let the social one expire. Everything changed the moment she saw Buffy and that is why she was so skittish in their first two encounters – the new feelings that awoke were overwhelming. Once she settled, it dawned on her what an opportunity this was and there was no going back. The dream was real and the object of her heart in reach. Now she just has to win the girl. Discuss in FORUMS.