The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#4)

#4.

Hero: Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel Season 4)

"Don't worry. I won't do anything that could be interpreted as brave." -- Willow Rosenberg, "Doppelgangland"

I’ve seen a lot of Buffyverse character countdowns ranking Willow as the very best character in the series. After all, she’s the Buffyverse character who has the largest range of roles – nerdy sidekick, secondary protagonist, romantic lead, arch-villain, and dea ex machina – and executes them all nigh flawlessly. I would argue, however, that ranking Willow so high in the Buffyverse character canon comes from a place of emotional reasoning as opposed to critical reasoning. Due to the anti-power fantasy nature of the Buffyverse narrative, the average audience member is more likely to place her or himself in the role of the secondary protagonist as opposed to the protagonist in order to remove themselves from the direct pain of the standard avatar of the main protagonist. Additionally, given that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a fantasy text with a popular/“mainstream” protagonist, many naturally feel more inclined towards the nerdy sidekick than the more charismatic main heroine. None of these factors should serve to slight Willow, of course; she is a phenomenal secondary protagonist and one of the most complex in the Buffyverse. However, if I am to rank her character arc next to those of the top three, I do have to put her at the bottom, since there are a few cracks and sour spots in it. That said, she has a wealth of excellent qualities, all stemming from origins we don’t quite fully see.

Back when I discussed Dark Willow’s motivations, I claimed that Willow was a very lonely character. It’s a claim I stand by, for, while this point is never quite put explicitly into the text, we do see little bits of it emerging throughout her character arc. Willow is a member of a very repressive and demanding household, one whose stringency is hinted at throughout the series but is rarely ever explored. Throughout the high school seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she is extremely uncomfortable when left on her lonesome. In “Earshot,” we learn that her thoughts nearly always revolve around wanting to impress her friends and being liked by them. It’s of little surprise, then, that Willow clings to her friends for emotional support. She’s more than willing to offer kindness and support in return, but she is extremely cautious about spending time alone. It is heavily suggested that Willow thinks herself completely and utterly inadequate – sexually, socially, intellectually, spiritually. In the high school seasons, she thus tends to latch onto everyone around her in order to not feel adequate, forming crushes upon Xander, Giles, and Oz whilst unloading nearly all of her social problems upon Buffy. She definitely suffers from an inferiority complex, hiding her fears of both abandonment and inferiority in lighthearted jokes, nerdspeak, and fuzzy sweater-overall combos.

Willow’s psychological fears are all the more lamentable given how genuinely wonderful a person she is. Her friendliness might emerge from a place of fear, but it is absolutely genuine and kind-hearted. Just as Buffy is a rock for Willow's difficulties, Willow becomes the Slayer’s primary confidant in the early seasons of the show. She also has the self-respect to not put up with Cordelia and Xander’s crap, often calling them both out on inappropriate behavior. She also manages to demonstrate her intellect before her friends in a manner that is neither condescending nor sheepish: her confidence in her mind earns others’ respect. More important, though, is her outsized kindness. Though Willow is by no means a pushover who will allow others to stomp over her generosity, her conscientiousness of others’ needs and her willingness to forgive are models for nearly everyone else in the series. It’s of little surprise, then, that she takes trauma such as the death of Jenny the hardest, as she’s the one who forges the strongest emotional connections. Willow is representative of both Buffy’s Freudian ego and her mystical spirit: she’s the model for balance and kindness in the early seasons.

The first four seasons are more or less a constant growing experience for Willow. In “Halloween,” Willow proves to be the only member of the Scoobies affected by the costume curse who is able to effectively function, wielding the “sexier” side of her personality with a confidence that finally brings Oz closer to her as a dating partner. In “Doppelgangland,” Willow's adoption of her edgier traits allows her to take on the full role of hero, defeating the forces of her vampire self and freeing herself up to become a more powerful witch. Most important of all are her actions in “Becoming, Part 2,” in which she opens a magical door that can never again be closed, exposing herself to truly dark magic for the first time in order to save Angel’s soul. Her willingness to perform an action that will eventually come to destroy her life emerges from a place of pure-hearted selflessness.

Yet Willow’s early season growth is not without its negatives. In Season Three, she succumbs to her lustful pull towards Xander such that it ends up destroying both his relationship with Cordelia and her relationship with Oz. Though she is able to work things out with Oz, the power balance in their relationship is forever tarnished, as Oz now holds the “moral high ground.” Willow gets closer and closer to Oz, even losing her virginity to him in the events of “Graduation Day.” In “Fear Her,” we see just how emotionally dependent Willow has become, as the fear that dominates her most is not losing control of her powers, but instead having Oz leave her. These fears are realized in “Wild at Heart,” in which she very nearly kills Veruca in retaliation for her sleeping with Oz and finally witnesses true romantic loss. In “Something Blue,” her internal trauma spreads out to her friends; while the results are hilarious, Willow very nearly becomes a vengeance demon as a result of her reckless spellcasting. Willow is able to put a stopper on her emotional outbreaks by dating Tara, but this action does little more than put a Band-Aid over more serious problems. Willow’s inadequacy has gradually grown to the point where she no longer loves herself. Her willingness to throw her life away against Glory in “Tough Love” shows both her commitment to revenge and the depth of her self-loathing; after all, she’s abdicating her responsibility for taking care of Tara by attacking Glory in the first place.

This, of course, leads to the events of Season Six and the emergence of Dark Willow. Willow’s willingness to tear her friends out of heaven, mind-wipe her girlfriend, and use her magic with impunity are all massive strikes against her overall virtue. Yet Tara eventually forces Willow to confront herself. Their relationship might be good for Willow, but Willow is not yet good for herself. Their mid-season break-up actually does offer some hope for Willow, as she gradually gets a better handle on her magic. She even offers to hold out on having a relationship with Tara immediately so that she might fully free herself from magical influence. Tara’s death and Willow’s resulting rampage reveal that she most definitely does not wait long enough.

Most shows would have stopped Willow’s development after her going to magical rehabilitation between Seasons Six and Seven. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though, doesn’t skimp out. In the episode, “The Killer in Me,” Willow has to face the heart of her insecurity head on. After yet another hex from Amy, Willow starts to turn gradually into Warren at various points throughout the episode, nearly replicating his murder of Tara on Kennedy (Editor’s note: you know, maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.) Kennedy manages to talk Willow down, but it’s really Willow herself who manages to put the Warren side of her to rest. Willow undeniably feels guilty for Tara’s death – not being able to restore her from the dead, not being supportive enough to her when she was alive, and most importantly, not being the kind of person who could have properly protected her girlfriend. By transforming into Warren and replicating her murders, she nearly chooses to let herself become the monster she thinks herself to be. It’s only by developing respect for herself and recognizing that she deserves to love herself and move on from Tara’s passing that she is able to save herself. She then actualizes this internal growth into magical ability in “Chosen,” acting as a conduit for good magic such that she’s able to activate every single potential Slayer in the world. Granted, I consider this an infuriating development for plot reasons, but, as a character building moment for Willow, it’s pretty extraordinary.

Within the lore of the series, Willow is meant to represent both Buffy’s spirit and her ego: her internal sense of purpose and willingness to go on, as well as her center of decision-making and personal self. Just as Buffy rises to become the best hero she can be, so too does Willow. Certainly, she dips and dives throughout the series, as does Buffy, but her final act in “Chosen” reveals just how far she has come. Rarely, if ever, does Willow’s arc feel contrived and forced. Sure, some of her one-off episodes are awful (“I Robot, You Jane,” anyone?) and the Dark Willow saga is somewhat uneven, but the heights of her character are practically unrivalled within Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Moreover, unlike Giles and Xander, at no point does Willow ever feel like she’s merely an extrapolation of Buffy’s identity: her character-centric episodes well and truly feel like hers and no one else’s. She is unquestionably one of the characters the fandom loves the most, as most of us tend to feel like Willows more than we feel like Buffys. And I must say: if the world were to have a few more Willows in it, it might be a little bit better of a place.

Villain: Angelus (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2, Angel Season 4)

"I want to torture you. I used to love it, and it's been a long time. I mean, the last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even have chainsaws." -- Angelus, "Becoming, Part 2"

Were determining the best Buffyverse antagonist left to television critics and historians, Angelus would rank as #1. After all, he is the one villain in the series who regularly shows up on lists of the best television villains of all time. On some level, I understand such opinion. In terms of emotional impact and the sheer gut punch of agony, few Buffyverse villains even comes close to Angelus's standard. He’s a character able to inflict exquisite pain upon everyone around him. He’s the most psychotic vampire in the Buffyverse lore, a being so soulless and heartless that not even the Judge, a being who can annihilate any being that isn’t 100% pure evil with a mere touch, can harm him. Oh, and let’s not forget that he emotionally traumatizes our heroes to a greater degree than any other villain in the series. Personally, though, he’s somewhat underdeveloped as opposed to the top three villains. However, if one is looking for an example of a pure “watch the world burn”-type villain, it’s hard to come up with one better than Angelus.

Before Angel, before Angelus, there was a pathetic shell of a man named Liam. Liam was a nothing of a human being: a layabout unable to form connections with anyone who contented himself with nothing but drink. It is this hollow personality and soul that draws Darla in for a feeding, as she can harness the power of a particularly evil demon within this body. And what a demon she creates: the newly sired Angelus goes on to become the single most violent vampire in recorded history, dwarfing both Darla and even her sire, the Master, in terms of body count. Yet Angelus is not concerned with the quantity of suffering alone; far more interesting are the flavors of pain he can inflict. From killing everyone in Holtz’s family and turning his daughter, to murdering entire abbies’ worth of nuns, to his crowning achievement of evil – the siring of Drusilla – Angelus makes himself stand out as the most depraved vampire in the entire Buffyverse. The monster is only put to a stop when a tribe of Roma known as the Kalderash “curse” him with the restoration of his soul, transforming him into Angel. Yet Angelus can return so long as Angel experiences a moment of true happiness. Apparently, lying in bed content after having sex with one’s girlfriend counts.

Angelus’s rebirth in "Innocence" gives us one of the most stylish villains in the series up to this point. In his very first scene, he drains a victim of so much blood that he ends up inhaling her cigarette smoke in addition to his normal cocktail. He then proceeds to eclipse both Drusilla and Spike as the Big Bad of the season, hijacking their schemes for world domination and sexually shaming Spike at every turn. Worst of all is what he does to Buffy herself. In order to gain the maximum amount of pain from Buffy before killing her, Angelus feigns his identity as Angel in order to sexually shame and emotionally scar the Slayer, making her think it is entirely her fault that Angel is dead. He tortures each and every one of Buffy’s friends slowly and painfully: assaulting Xander in “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” skewering Willow’s goldfish in “Passion,” and torturing Giles with knives and scalding irons in “Becoming, Part 2.” And that’s not mentioning his most nefarious act in the entire series.

While I discussed Jenny’s death in some detail during her own entry, much of the credit for its grim execution falls upon Angelus. Prior to Jenny’s death, the audience had little evidence to illustrate that Angelus was any more effective than Spike or Drusilla. However, his murder of Jenny not only shows that he can he back up his threats, but he can do so with the menace of a slasher villain. Angelus chases a defenseless Jenny through the halls of Sunnydale High like a psychopath gone giddy with his knives, chuckling as he dodges obstacles and smashes through the barriers Jenny puts in front of him. He even “gets off” to the sound of snapping Jenny’s neck. But the morbid fun has not even begun for Angelus. He then places Jenny’s body delicately onto Giles’s bed, leaving behind a trail of seductive rose petals and Puccini’s La Boheme playing in the background – a scene set to scar Giles for life. I’d go so far as to call this the single most disturbing event of Buffy the Vampire Slayer prior to Season Five. And yet, there is a poetry to this menace, a twisted logic only a truly evil mind could engineer. Angelus is an artist of evil, one who relishes each flourish of his fangs.

That said, as fun as Angelus is as an antagonist in his own right, he’s far more important when considered from a symbolic angle. Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, by and large, about the consequences of all-consuming relationships. When sex becomes more important than duty, love, and self-respect, monsters are unleashed. Angelus is Buffy’s boyfriend were he to turn emotionally abusive: he is Angel without his soul. By the end of the season, he is an abstraction of Buffy’s inability to accept the full responsibility of the Slayer calling: first, by having sex with Angel in the first place, second, by not killing Angelus when she first had the chance. Angelus is a brilliant manifestation of the ripple effects of sexual violence and emotional abuse, as we see that these dangerous phenomena are often emotionally crippling and can even prove fatal.

Angelus is a being who consumes: after all, this is why he chooses to unleash the power of the demon Acafla, who once swallowed the world, in the season finale, “Becoming, Part Two.” To put a stop to his schemes, Buffy must end the consumption by killing her own love, a blow made all the more difficult by her having to kill him once his soul is restored. There is no more emotional battle in the entire series. Sure, Buffy’s sacrifice in “The Gift” is heartbreaking, and the final fight in “Graduation Day” is arguably more exciting and cathartic, but there is no feeling of anguish equal to the moment when Buffy impales Angel right after kissing him: he must pay the price for Angelus’s transgressions. It’s a stunning scene that we see coming, but it’s no less affecting when we see it.

However, like any good supervillain, Angelus finds a way to come back. In Season Four’s Beast arc (ugh), Angel discovers that the only way to beat his impervious foe is to summon back Angelus, who once encountered the Beast while on a killing spree. While the return of Angelus adds yet another layer to the convoluted, unsatisfying plot of the season, it is at least somewhat of a palate cleanser considering the utterly brain-rotting villainous presence of the Beast himself. At least Angelus tries to have fun while killing people. It’s honestly cathartic to see Angelus finally take down the Beast and end the boring as hell plot line; it’s almost as satisfying as getting to see Faith punch Connor in the face. Willow and Faith manage to re-ensoul the vampire, but not before Angelus wreaks his own swath of havoc upon Los Angeles. It’s a short run, but it’s a fun one.

Angelus set a gold standard for Buffy Big Bads to follow. He might be evil for evil’s sake, but, within the context of Season Two, it’s a decent enough motivation. He’s also the first Big Bad in the series to go after the heroes himself on a regular basis: Spike may have broken the barrier, but Angelus was the one willing to prey upon the heroes himself without needing to rely on henchmen in every single major appearance. From “Killed By Death,” to “Innocence,” to “I Only Have Eyes for You,” to “Passion,” Angelus is both the muscle and the mastermind of his operation, relishing every opportunity to get his hands dirty. David Boreanaz’s performance as Angelus also might just be the best he’s ever done, even upstaging his role as Angel himself. All of these factors produce the perfect villain we love to hate. Only three Buffyverse villains managed to top him on this list, but, in the hearts of many, he’s the top of the top for Big Bads.