The Curious Case of Willow Rosenberg’s Lost Storyline.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that I hold near and dear to my heart. Not only does it have a near constant lingering feeling of comedy and ever present snarkiness and punnyness even in the darkest of times without it becoming ridiculous. But it also serves us seven seasons of interesting characters and interesting yet obvious ways of portraying some of the hardships a person can go through. Every season has several portrayals, and there’s always one that sticks out more than the others as a major one; the most memorable though — at least in my opinion — being depression of season six that not only deals with depression as a whole, but within it holds several different portrayals of depression. Willow’s addiction to magic, Anya being left at the alter (which is the prelude to her season seven arc), Buffy’s struggle with reality and feeling alive after being dead and the revived (again) where ‘Once More, with Feeling’ is a sort of comical way of telling that story together with the Spike/Buffy arc. All in all, I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I can’t see a future where I don’t love it though it has it’s flaws. That being said, if there’s one thing, or one person, I love more than Buffy the Vampire Slayer — as a show and as a character — it’s Willow Danielle Rosenberg.

Except for Buffy, Willow is the only character to appear on every episode of Buffy and she is in many ways just as much a main character as Buffy is. The friendship, and in many ways sisterhood, she has with Buffy proves to us that she is as important to Buffy the character as she is to Buffy the show, driving the story forward in many ways and being the main of many of the arcs, whereas characters such a Xander don’t get all that much more than being ‘The Zeppo’ of the Scoobies. To top that off, she’s undeniably one of the, if not the, most interesting characters on the show. At least that’s my opinion and you’re entitled to disagree with me on that all you want.

However, as a nerd for gender studies and LGBT rights, I can not deny that I find the portrayal of her coming out arc and realization story equally as interesting as I find it underdeveloped and as if it just became a thing and then they didn’t really bother to make it, in a sense, realistic. Which is probably contributed by the fact that Willow and Tara wasn’t actually planned at first to be a thing, but rather something decided later when Joss Whedon saw the on screen chemistry between Amber Benson (playing Tara) and Alyson Hannigan (playing Willow) and he decided that it was gay and he, thankfully, made it gay (though he has stated in interviews that he wanted ONE of the Scoobies to come out as something, not saying that it would be Willow). This isn’t necessarily a wrong way to go about deciding to write this kind of story which is obvious since the storylines Willow and Tara have together and separately delivered the most wholesome love story on Buffy.

In writing this, I hope to in a way vent all my feelings about how Willow’s sexuality was written, or in some cases about the lack of writing.

To being with, I should introduce you to Willow. Willow Danielle Rosenberg is introduced in the first episode of Buffy (‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’, 1.01) as a shy, type-A, geek who at first glance is the obvious bottom-of-the-social-ladder loser who the cool kid leaders — in this case Cordelia Chase — will pick on every damn episode for the petty types of things people pick on each other about in high school.

This isn’t who she stays for seven seasons, though many of the values she has from day one stay the same all the way through to ‘Chosen’ (7.22), the last episode. The most prominent ones being her loyalty to her close ones, and also her studiousness which ends up landing her the place as the most powerful character on the show in season six and seven, even in many ways more powerful than Buffy herself.

Throughout season one we see that Willow. The Willow that is small, and shy, and really smart, and very good with computers (by the standard of late 90’s). Willow seemingly has a drive and a need to be more than she is, probably contributed by the fact that a lot of the people she gets to know after befriending Buffy are supernatural in one way or another and Willow is, well, plain old Willow really. The insecurity of being plain old Willow is something that is a recurring theme for Willow all the way up to season four and five where it gets lessened the stronger she gets a witch.

The later part of season two begins to see a Willow that gets stronger and more confident. Given that this is just the beginning of that journey it takes her more than a few episodes to complete that journey, and even season seven sees a Willow that tries to repair what Dark!Willow ruined in the end of season six in terms of confidence and control.

Season three also deals with Willows confidence storyline, and with season three we are handed one of the greatest Willow episodes in the mainly comical genre. That episode is of course ‘Doppelgangland’ (3.16). Without having to actually give you the whole synopsis of the episode it is basically a whole episode dedicated to this story of Willow’s confidence as a person and as a witch. When Anya asks for help with magic that might be a little darker than Willow is normally meddling with Willow is on board right away. Whatever happens, it gets out of control and we all get our beloved vamp-Willow. This episode is what hands us the line “I think I’m kind of gay”. This line is spoken by Willow when she’s talking about this alternative universe vamp-Willow who is agreeably very gay. Contiuned by Buffy reminding Willow that this isn’t, necessarily, who she is and it’s some other person and Angel saying something like “Well, actually”. However, the first dilemma about how Willow’s sexuality is written is born here.

The first being that some like to believe that vamp-Willow isn’t necessarily a look at what Willow might have been or is in the Wishverse, but a look at what Willow can be in the regular universe. The second problem in turn being the line “I think I’m kind of gay” being seen as foreshadowing to Willow’s later revelation that she is gay.

Edwina Bertlem writes in ‘Coming Out on the Hell Mouth’ that “Vampire Willow is not simply Willow’s externalized other, rather she appears to be a reflection of a different aspect of Willow’s character…implying that Willow has the potential to be queer, seductive, powerful and evil”. Jessica Ford comments this in ‘Coming Out of the Broom Closet’ (2012) as it being a type of foreshadowing that is common for Buffy, but that it also shows the strong connection between sexual agency and the supernatural. Now, if it weren’t for the fact that, again, Willow and Tara was a later idea and constructed after Tara was introduced and that Willow’s sexuality is never explicitly discussed before ‘Doppelgangland’ or even after if it’s not in relation to Tara, I might actually believe that vamp-Willow is a reflection of what Willow could be. However, that is not the case, and vamp-Willow feels more like a succeeded attempt at polarizing Willow in a funny way to make a great episode. The many polarized characters of the wishverse don’t necessarily feel like a reflection of what could or can be, rather what it is but in a different universe where the character has gone through a different experience than their regular character. Only really proving that Whedon (who wrote the episode) can write comedy and not in any way proving some deeper meaning per se.

Secondly, in relation to that, “I think I’m kind of gay” doesn’t feel like foreshadowing when you look at it this way. The line too is humour and written for the laughs and in a way possible queerbaiting in hope that Willow might one day actually be gay (in which, great job you were right). All of this because Willow’s sexuality is as said not explicitly discussed before or after ‘Doppelgangland’ if it isn’t in relation to Tara or after Tara.

When talking about Willow and sexuality, you usually have to look at Willow and empowerment and her relationships parallel to her growth as a witch. So, in terms of season two to season four, she is with Oz and still very much navigating the world of wicca, taking wrong turns here and there (see: ‘Doppelgangland’ (3.16) and ‘Somthing Blue’ (4.09)), but nonetheless already being a very powerful witch. Jessica Ford, and others, mean that Willow’s growth as a witch is parallelled to her empowerment and also her sexuality due to magic being a metaphor for sexuality, much like the monsters and demons of Buffy being a metaphor for the terrors of high school and life itself. An example of this is in ‘The Yoko Factor’ (4.20) when Spike weakens the Scoobies by turning them against each other, and his plan to weaken the bond between Buffy and Willow is by saying that Buffy feels like “the whole wicca thing” is a phase that Willow is going through. Of course we all know that Buffy has never said this and that Willow instantly thinks that this is Buffy saying that Willow being very much in love with Tara is a phase. This is an obvious metaphor, and isn’t as subtle as the picking of petals from flowers with magic in ‘A New Man’ (4.12). Willow’s sexuality is closely related to the magic of the show and her growth as a wicca, something that probably becomes clearer the more we see her with Tara. The stronger she gets as a witch, the more confident she gets and in turn the clearer her sexuality gets.

The relationship between Oz and Willow might at first glance be a pretty good one and I wouldn’t disagree all that much unless you start looking deeper and closer. If you do that the underlying story is a power dynamic where Willow is mostly the weaker part and Oz is the one with the power that he can’t actually control. This sounds like a metaphor for an abusive relationship to me, or at least what has the possibility to be an abusive relationship. The actual canon of their relationship isn’t abusive and I’m only left with my opinions and speculations on that.

Now this is where things get interesting. After the break up between Oz and Willow, she meets Tara at a college group for wicca. This group is more about the bake sales than the actual magic, apart from Willow and, as we later find out, Tara.

Their early relationship, only portrayed as friendship, still holds a lot of metaphors for coming out and understanding a persons sexuality. Tara seems to already have this figured out and the one having to have their eureka moment is Willow. Only we never get that eureka moment. We get a beautiful moment in the last scene of ‘New Moon Rising’ (4.19) where Willow chooses Tara instead of Oz who is back in town (only to leave in the end), and earlier in the same episode we get Buffy’s moment of understanding that Willow isn’t straight, though this still isn’t exactly discussed further than that Buffy gets weird for a second and they have a cute little moment of friendship before the show once again brushes the topic of Willow’s sexulity off. Same goes for in ‘The Yoko Factor’ (4.20) when Spike has more or less succeeded to weaken and break the friendship within the Scoobies and their big argument happens and Xander finds out that Tara is Willow’s girlfriend, has a moment, and then they move on.

After this, the topic of Willow’s sexuality is continued on as having a bond with her growth of confidence and empowerment as a person, and she really only mentions it or calls herself gay in a few moments. I’m not saying that LGBT people talk about what or who they are all the time, but a character such as Willow seems to me to be the kind of character who would talk about it from time to time; and when I say talk about it from time to time I don’t mean backhanded mentions.

Willow’s sexuality is, as I’ve stated a lot of times by now, directly linked to her empowerment, her confidence, and magic. As Jessica Ford states “It is no coincidence that as Willow’s relationship with Kennedy develops, so does her magical control” (2012). While this is in a way an understandable metaphor that works, it’s problematic to leave the sexuality of a gay woman in the shadows of magic. The sexuality of Buffy has too often been seen in metaphors but her love and sex life is still seen on screen multiple times, and Xander too has a very open love and sex life on the show; this leaving Willow left. When she’s been with men, primarily Oz, sex hasn’t been an issue. This surely has a lot to do with the network and Whedon not being allowed to show it until we actually do see it; most memorably in ‘Seeing Red’ (6.19). However, if they were able to show it in ‘Seeing Red’ the metaphor for sex during ‘Under Your Spell’ in ‘Once More, With Feeling’ (6.07), that aired in the same seasons just weeks before that, was completely unnecessary in a way.

The writing of Willow’s sexuality, especially in terms of her being gay, is lazy. I’m not saying they weren’t allowed to take the opportunity to “make” Willow gay just because they hadn’t talked about it before, just that it’s obvious that it wasn’t something they actually intended on and that the so-called foreshadowing isn’t real. It’s just comedy. Furthermore, when they were agreed on this, “this” being Willow’s sexuality and Tara, they technically had all the time they wanted to make this an incredibly character story and just not an incredible love story. They just decided that this was how they wanted to write it to give time to other stories too even if it might or might not be an equal situation and importance.

I’m not saying that Willow’s sexuality and the journey she goes through has to be discussed prior to Tara, nor does she have to admit to having been confused or doubtful about her sexuality prior Tara, for it to be a valid storyline and a valid sexuality. Not everyone has a vocal journey, but a character like Willow should’ve.

However, the lack of discussion about it prior to Tara — aside from vamp-Willow — leaves a bitter after taste that if it weren’t for Tara, or for Amber and Alyson’s natural on screen chemistry, Willow’s sexuality wouldn’t have “developed” this way on the show, since it hasn’t been explicitly discussed in any way prior to Tara, or really after either.

All in all, Willow is still the love of my life and I still obviously love the show. I’m just sad that Willow is left in the shadows although she’s one of the most powerful and meaningful characters of the show and that her sexuality is mostly left in the shadow of magic instead of the show in a way taking advantage of this great storyline to not only develope the most wholesome love story on Buffy but also the greatest character development on TV (at the time).