#12.
Hero: Tara Maclay (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 4-6)
To be honest, Tara didn’t leave that strong of an impression
on me the first time I watched Buffy the
Vampire Slayer all the way through. She’s not as funny as Oz and Spike, not
as developed and nuanced as Willow and Cordelia, and she doesn’t quite have the
heart of characters like Xander and Giles. Granted, she isn’t nearly as
annoying as Dawn or as frustrating as Riley, but she’s just kind of there for
most of Seasons Four, Five, and Six. Her personal arc is pretty much confined
to a single episode, “Family.” Granted, it’s a good one, but I’m not sure if
that’s enough to secure her a spot this high on the list. It’s only after a
re-watch that one realizes just how important and nuanced a character Tara Maclay
is, not to mention the fact that she’s a good deal more courageous than most of
the other Scoobies with the exceptions of Buffy, Angel and (maybe) Giles. She
might not be the most striking character or the most charismatic presence in
the series, but the impact she leaves is rather profound.
Tara’s coming out as a lesbian is the least of her troubles with her family. Her father and male siblings, terrified of the magical powers possessed
by the female descendants of the Maclay family and determined to subjugate the
female members of the clan, manage to convince Tara and her female relatives that any magical potential that they possess is the result of female members of
the family being part-demon. Emotionally and physically abused and frightened of her family’s wrath, Tara
flees to Sunnydale University and cuts her family out of her life entirely,
finding companionship in magic and the university’s only other bona fide witch,
Willow. Though Tara’s silence initially separates the two, the events of “Hush”
manage to bring them together as friends, and, eventually, as significant
others – one of the first significant lesbian relationships in the history of
television.
But the landmark nature of Tara and Willow’s relationship in
relation to television history is secondary to the actual merits of the
relationship itself, as it is a far more nuanced and developed relationship
than that of Willow and Oz. Willow and Oz are, for the most part, cute to one
another, but there are inherent flaws holding their bond back. Oz’s complete perfection
up until the end of the relationship creates a power differential between
himself and Willow that is ultimately unsustainable; at some point, Willow
would likely have become resentful towards his behavior and lashed out. Tara
and Willow have a far more balanced sense of give-and-take. Willow may take the
“leadership” role in the relationship, but there’s no denying that she leads in
order to gain Tara’s approval. Similarly, Tara may be a more mellow figure than
Oz, but she grounds Willow and holds her own when Willow occasionally acts
bullheaded. She’s self-motivated, but she’s intensely supportive of Willow.
Both have their own moments of personal failing and abdication of
responsibility, yet their devotion to one another and willingness to understand
the reasons behind each other’s improper actions keeps them going. They truly
are ideal for one another.
I’m also somewhat astonished by the lack of recognition for
Tara’s instinct for self-sacrifice amongst the Buffy fandom. Despite being
tortured by Glory – the single most powerful villain in the entire series –
Tara lets all of the bones in her hand be shattered and has her sanity sucked
out before she dares give up any information on her friends. Once Glory’s
escapades come to an end, Tara instantly agrees to help Willow raise Dawn in
Buffy and Joyce’s stead, and she’s more than happy to continue in the parental
role rather than have Willow raise Buffy from the dead. She also bears the
burden of most everyone in the Scooby Gang’s personal misfortunes, alternately
supplying advice, commiserating, and providing general support to characters
like Buffy, Spike, and Xander.
Perhaps the most fascinating and wonderful element of Tara’s
character, though, is her relationship with Buffy. Unlike the main members of
the Scooby gang, each of whom embodies a certain part of Buffy’s essence
(Xander – heart, Willow – spirit, Giles – mind), Tara is a being somewhat apart
from Buffy. There is definite distance between the two of them in Season Four,
as Tara feels as if somewhat of a third wheel in all of their interactions,
only ever interacting through Willow.
However, this distance is essential to
their relationship, as Tara’s existence as a unique individual from Buffy makes
her that much more trustworthy and reliable as a confidant. She's never becomes hurt or jealous whenever Buffy voices her concerns. It’s little
surprise, then, that as Buffy takes on more painful experiences in Seasons Five
and Six – losing a mother and having sex with a vampire without a soul – it is
Tara who ends up providing the most support and being the most generous to
Buffy’s feelings. As someone who has experienced genuine abuse at the hands of
her family, Tara is able to understand Buffy far better than even Willow and
Xander, her two best friends. In this way, Tara adds a presence to the Scooby
Gang that we’ve never seen before.
Tara is a lovely character who gets nearly everything right.
Her heroism might not be the most overt in the series, as she never ends up
truly saving the day in any one crisis, but her demeanor and emotional strength
are entirely compelling in a way Oz’s traits are not. Throughout Seasons Five
and Six, she functions as a central piece of heart for the series, and she’s a
delight to have on screen. She has a few drawbacks – Amber Benson isn’t exactly
a powerhouse actress and she only gets one character-centric episode – but
these are minor quibbles with a character who does so much with so little. With
such potential for character-centric episodes, one would think that Season
Seven would be a rich source of development for her. But…
Warren shoots and kills Tara in “Seeing Red,” one of the
most painful and arbitrary deaths in the entire series, sending Willow into a
hellhole from despair from which the world barely escapes. Speaking of which…
Villain: Dark Willow (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6)
At this point on the villains list, we come to a sharp
divide. While nearly all of the previous antagonists on the list had a fair
amount of criticism mixed in with the positive elements, pretty much every
entry going forward on this list, including this one, consists mostly of my
gushing about how effective these villains are. Heck, once we get into the top
four, I do not exaggerate when I say that the villains are some of the best in
all of television, let alone the Buffyverse itself. That said, this puts entry
number 12 – Dark Willow – in a tricky position. She is an excellent Big Bad,
quite possibly the most emotionally compelling in the entire series, but there
are undeniable problems with the way her character develops. It’s also key to
note that Dark Willow hurts the audience in a way that no other character does,
as we see one of our most beloved heroes doing terrible, terrible things of her own accord. Worse still, I’m not just
talking about the “dark, veiny Willow” that Xander faces down in the Season Six
finale… I’m talking about the Willow who rips her best friend out of heaven in
the first episode of the season.
I cannot stress this enough: Willow’s first evil action in
Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might
just be the single worst thing she does in the entire series… and that’s
including her murders and her attempt to destroy the world. If we are to
assume, as is orthodox for most religions both real and fictional, that the heaven of
the Buffyverse is infinitely good – a place of peace in which nothing can be
harmful – that life on Earth is only finitely good, and that to remove someone
from a good is a wrong equal in weight to the magnitude of the good stolen,
then Willow technically commits an infinitely
evil act by stealing Buffy away from heaven. Granted, Willow believes Buffy
to have been trapped in a hell dimension, but her motivations in bringing Buffy
back are far from purely altruistic. She's horrified of being left on her own, without her best friend to help her. While
her fears that Buffy is trapped in Hell are touching, it’s also crucial to
note that Willow immediately turns to magic to solve the problem in the most
immediate and reckless way possible. She doesn’t consult spirits to find out
where Buffy is and what she is doing. She doesn’t do any research into the
nature of the specific dimension Buffy might be trapped in. No, her immediate
impulse is to resurrect her best friend, sacrificing a baby deer, keeping
secrets from Giles and Dawn, and making her friends complicit in her actions
along the way. Moreover, her magic-infused ego leads her to conveniently pass
over any of the potential negative consequences of her action. When Willow is
entrusted to be the responsible member of her peers, she blows it cosmically.
To the writers’ credit, we’ve seen signs of Willow’s dark
side all the way back in Buffy the
Vampire Slayer’s high school seasons, and it nearly always relates to her
inability to cope with trauma. Be it trying to cast an anti-love spell on
Xander without his consent in "Lovers Walk" or threatening to attack Veruca in "Wild at Heart," Willow
has been shown to increasingly rely on magic to resolve her problems rather
than face any emotional anguish directly. Pretty much every tragedy that has
occurred in Willow’s life has affected her only indirectly, even Jenny
and Joyce’s deaths. Thus, when Buffy, Willow’s absolute best friend, dies,
rather than face the reality of her pain, Willow chooses to overstep her
boundaries and violate the basic rules of magical ethics in order to get what
she wants. Throughout Season Six, Willow’s magical addiction gets increasingly
worse. When Tara starts to realize Willow’s dangerous habit is taking a toll,
she tries to put a stop to it, only for Willow to cast an amnesia spell on her.
She and Amy even embark upon a rampage of magical ecstasy, loading up on spells
far more intoxicating than either of them can handle. Her friends’ intervention
manage to put a moratorium on her magical mayhem, but Tara’s death at Warren’s
hands unleashes all of her wrath at once.
Dark Willow’s rampage in Season Six is one of the most
frightening sequences in the entire Buffyverse. Torturing Warren with a bullet
and ripping the flesh off of his skin is the least of her crimes. She then
proceeds on a magical binge, siphoning all of the dark magic out of the Magic
Box and even her drug dealer, Rack’s, body. She tries to murder both Jonathan
and Andrew, both of whom were entirely innocent of Tara’s murder, and begins to
take out her anger on her friends when they get in her way. Eventually, she
consumes so much magic that she decides that it is better to trigger the
apocalypse and end all suffering in the world rather than have people live
without love. To this end, she is nigh unstoppable. Her fights with both Buffy
and Giles are over before they even begin; even if Buffy manages to get a few
good hits on her best friend, we quickly realize that Dark Willow can simply
overwhelm her if she so chooses. It ultimately falls to the most unlikely of
the Scoobies – her former crush, Xander – to end up saving the good Willow from
the bad through an act of unconditional love.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s
sixth season’s greatest strength is exposing the insecurities of our heroes and
deconstructing them. Willow’s hamartia,
though, is one of the more interesting in the series: she’s the loneliest character in the series. Dark
Willow excoriates herself for being “weak” and “mousy” prior to absorbing all
of her dark magic, but both the audience and Willow herself recognize that
she’s far from weak. She’s proven herself time and again to be dependable,
brave, reliable, and compassionate in a way few other characters are: all
incredibly strong characteristics.
What Willow truly lacks is a sense of self-worth that isn’t contingent upon
others. The only time she ever claims to feel validated is when people like Oz
and Tara are loving her, implicitly implying that she herself can never – and,
worse still, should never – love
herself. Whenever those lifelines are taken away, she turns to violence and
magic as an outlet of deliberate self-destruction. When Oz leaves her in “Wild
at Heart,” Willow has a truly serious breakdown. Tara’s death is that same hurt
highlighted to the extreme, given that Tara was taken from her without any
perceived sense of personal fault. Willow is forced to face the reality that no
one – not Oz, not Buffy, not Tara – will be with her forever, and this
revelation nearly destroys her. Rather than face the crisis of her own
mortality and insecurity head on, Willow merely decides to end it all and bring
the world crashing around her.
Why, then, does Xander’s act of kindness save Willow from
her self-destruction? After all, it’s not as if his selfless hugging her in the
finale offers her any sense of her own self-worth. I think a few factors tie
into the answer. First, Xander’s hug doesn’t truly kill Dark Willow; only after a full year of rehabilitation does
Willow get anywhere close to exorcising the evil from her spirit. More
importantly, Xander’s sacrificial gesture reveals to her that identities as
complex as those of Xander – the friend she knows the longest and arguably
loves the most – recognize her in all of her forms and identities; her
existence and her grief are validated. No matter one’s level of sympathy towards Willow after the events of Season Six
– levels that most assuredly vary from viewer to viewer – one cannot deny her
right to grieve. And grief is the one thing Dark Willow’s insecurities prevent
her from grappling with directly; if she can’t address the fact that she does
feel pain, she can’t admit her loneliness and come to accept her own identity. Finally,
Xander’s act of kindness illustrates that Willow’s perceived sense of her
loneliness isn’t equivalent to her genuine experience of it: she does have
other people who truly do care about her. Plus, Xander doesn’t try to turn on
her or incapacitate her in the same way all of the other Scoobies do. It’s thus
really touching that he’s the one who saves Willow when Buffy and Giles, two
figures who pride themselves on keeping everything under control, can’t.
Given how rich and complex Dark Willow’s characterization
is, one would think she would make it into the top ten, if not the top five of
this list. In terms of her excellent villainous qualities, there’s certainly a
case to be made for that. My issues, though, come from the way we get to Dark Willow. Maybe it’s just me,
but I have a passionate dislike of any and all storylines that use drugs and
drug surrogates as a mechanic of producing evil, as the drugs themselves are
nearly always presented as causing all of a character’s problems as opposed to
exacerbating them; the narrative becomes one of demonizing the drug as opposed
to one of exploring the character. Season Six of Buffy doesn’t quite fall into this trap, but there are many moments
in which the show ends up preaching about the use of dark magic as opposed to
exploring Willow’s power trips in depth. The worst example of this is Rack, a
floppy caricature of a drug dealer who ends up taking up a good quarter of Willow’s storyline within Season Six. He’s absurdly sleazy and scummy to the
point where it’s practically unbelievable that Willow is seeing him to supply
her fix, and he lacks any sense of menace. Their interactions look ludicrous,
and it’s an honest drain on the story. Dark Willow’s arc is also one of the
biggest casualties of the uneven pacing and narrative of Season Six, in which
storylines rise and fall without any heed to which storyline is most important
at each specific time. It’s hard to keep up on Dark Willow while trying to
understand the Trio’ schemes, or Buffy’s having sex with Spike, or Dawn’s
kleptomania, or Xander and Anya’s wedding fiasco, or Buffy’s getting a job at a
fast food place. (Speaking of which, Willow’s involvement in the unspeakably
bad “Doublemeat Palace” isn’t becoming in the slightest).
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments posted on this blog should be framed in a civil manner. Constructive criticism is more than welcome (feel free to mock a typo here, a misreading there, a lack of understanding there). But, for sake of the written word, do try to use proper grammar.