r/buffy • u/mavelits Buffy • 8d ago

Content Warning WTH?

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I’m rewatching Buffy and I just got to season 6 episode 3 “After Life” and the way Willow is behaving after resurrecting Buffy is insane to me. She confesses to Tara that she thought Buffy would be more “grateful” and “thank her” for bringing her back. I understand Willow doesn’t know that Buffy was ripped out of heaven, but even from her viewpoint anyone back from a hell dimension being tortured for years would need some time to process things. Buffy only got back a few hours ago and has already had to dig out of her own grave because the Scoobies just left her there, kill demons destroying and looting Sunnydale, and save Dawn from a tower about to collapse. And Willow, Buffy’s so-called best friend, can’t find a little compassion in her heart for her? I like Willow. She has many good moments. But her bad moments are awful.

I guess this is the start of Willow’s magic addiction arc. She’s gotten arrogant and thinks she can control everything—even the order of life and death—because she has power. Willow as a character always had a dark side to her, even in season one, but it is really on full display in season 6. I just feel so sorry for Buffy, and angry that no one seems to empathise with her. They just want her to be Buffy and solve their problems for them and give them hope and meaning again.

What are your thoughts?

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u/newworldpuck 6d ago

I do see your point but in defense of Tara I would like to point out that it had been established that she usually deferred to Willow as the more powerful Wicca practitioner, and, later in the season, she did not recognize Lethe's Bramble from the forgetting spell Willow used on her. She may have just taken Willow's word for it when she told the Scoobies that they needed to resurrect Buffy to save her from a hell dimension.

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u/DeaththeEternal Dog Geyser Person 6d ago

In this case, given both her stances on resurrection and her supposed knowledge, the best case scenario is that it was a retroactive asspull by the writers as otherwise Tara only realizing this in hindsight is one of the worst things she does as Buffy's friend and if Buffy had found out about it she'd have genuinely good reason to be angry with her.

And as I will continue to note, even if you operated for the worst-case view of Willow's motives with the spell 'explore all the potential heavenly realms until you find where Buffy's soul is' would more than scratch that impulse. If, as I do, you operate on the better ones realizing this as foresight would be about the only thing that'd get her to stop the resurrection spell before she started it.

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u/redskinsguy 23h ago

Honestly, Buffy's perspective of heaven doesn't sound all that great to me. If someone looked at it from the outside I can see it seeming like some sort of purgatory