Characters / Buffyverse: Willow Rosenberg

Buffyverse Character Index
Sunnydale: The Scooby Gang (Buffy Summers / Willow Rosenberg / Spike / Angel) | Big Bads | Sunnydale Residents | Sunnydale High | Vampires | Demons and Monsters | Watchers and Slayers (Faith Lehane) | Other Characters
Los Angeles: Angel Investigations (Angel / Wesley Wyndam-Pryce / Spike) | Wolfram and Hart | Recurring Los Angeles Residents | One-Shot Los Angeles Residents | Big Bads | Other Characters
Comics: The Twilight Group | Fray | Comic Characters | Boom! Studios

Willow Rosenberg

"Oh, I don't get wild. Wild on me equals spaz."

^{Click here} to see Dark Willow

Played By: Alyson Hannigan & Adam Busch

Appearances: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Angel

"You're the Slayer and we're, like, the Slayerettes!"

Wallflower and Buffy's best friend. Started out as the book-smart girl, but gradually became an extremely powerful witch, giving her newfound confidence — and hubris. Willow realized she was a lesbian after falling in love with another woman in Season 4, and is one of the most recognized lesbian characters in fiction.

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• Action Girl: Anyone who manages to inflict pain on a goddess deserves this title.
• Addictive Magic: A big part of her character arc in Season 6, where magic is treated as a very clear metaphor for drug abuse. This also a running pattern for her even before Season 6, where she will rely on magic as a solution to most of her problems with a tendency to assume her real issues is her spells misfiring and not that she shouldn't always resort to magic as a quick fix for whatever kind of pain she's in.
• Adrenaline Makeover: Started out nerdy, shy and fairly weak, but as the show went on, she gradually became more assertive, powerful and hot.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: After the Dark Willow fiasco at the end of Season 6, she spends most of Season 7 terrified of using her magic out of fear of losing control again.
• All Witches Have Cats: Miss Kitty Fantastico!, the adorable kitten she and Tara adopt. Although she was explicitly said to not be a familiar but a pet.
• Ambiguously Bi: She claims to be a lesbian, yet has shown authentic attraction to Oz, to the point where even in the episode that ended up with her getting her first girlfriend she claimed to love him (a claim that she never tried to deny at any point in the series). she also said that she had a crush on Giles after she came out, and that she did want to date Xander (who she also has shown genuine attraction towards, to the point of cheating on Oz with him) in the past. It is very possible that since bisexuality wasn't a vary well-known concept at the time, she just assumed that if she is interested in a woman, that must make her a lesbian.
• And Starring: Starting in Season 6.
• Artistic License – Religion: Is often referred to as a Wiccan as if the term is synonymous with witch, yet Oz notes that she doesn't keep track of the phases of the moon after he left. This might have something to do with the fact that Willow is shown to scorn an actual Wiccan group she encounters in college because they don't do any real magic.
• The Atoner: At the beginning of Season 7, she tries to make up for the bad stuff she did because of the Dark Willow thing.
• Badass Bookworm: Studying magic leads to beating up monsters that give the Slayer trouble.
• Bad Liar:
  • She got this role early on before basically passing it on to Anya.
    [Impersonating the Evil Twin] I'm a bloodsucking fiend. Look at my outfit!
  • In "Touched", when Spike returns after Buffy has been deposed, Willow tells him that she decided to take off. He doesn't buy it for a second.
    Uh huh. Being practicing that speech, have you?
• Best Woman: Xander picks Willow as his best "man". Of course, her being a woman does not stop her from flirting with one of the bridesmaids. She does try to use it as an excuse to get out of the horrible bridesmaid dresses selected by Anya, though.
  Willow: Duty-schmuty. I'm supposed to be best man. Shouldn't I be all Marlene Dietrich-y in a dashing tuxedo number?
  Buffy: No.
  Willow: Oh. [pouts]
  Buffy: That would be totally unfair. We must share equally in the cosmic joke that is bridesmaids-dom.
• Beware the Nice Ones: After Riley gets her to help court Buffy, she threatens to beat him to death with a shovel if he hurts her ("A vague disclaimer is no one's friend"). This was after she suggested ax-murdering Parker on Halloween in the spirit of the holiday after he hurt Buffy. When Glory messes with Tara, she tries her very best to kill the attacker. This culminates into becoming season 6's Big Bad after Tara's murder. Warren gets flayed after she did some Cold-Blooded Torture on him. This transformation is foreshadowed a number of times: in "Doppelgangland": the vampire version of Willow is sadistic; vampire personalities reflect the human's inner selves, with no soul.
• Big Bad Slippage: Willow's addiction to magic slowly increases as Season 6 goes on, and while she initially manages to recover from it she absolutely cracks after "Seeing Red", and decides to end the world in a fit of nihilistic grief.
• Big Blackout: Dark Willow fuses out lights wherever she goes.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The dark arts cause Willow's irises to turn black. It also darkens her hair, causing to complain that she can't get any work done without getting dark roots.
• Book Smart: The studious, bookish member of the Scoobies who excels at research.
• Break the Cutie: Over 7 seasons, Willow loses her first lover to the curse of lycanthropy, loses her new lover to a brainwipe, gets her lover back, watches her best friend die, loses her lover to her obsession with magic, gets her lover back, and just as they've finally reconciled loses her lover to a random gunshot that wasn't even intended for her. Bad Things ensue, and the primary focus of her arc in the next season is just putting her back together.
• Brought Down to Normal: Once by choice, once not: Season 7 has her refuse to use all but the most basic magic, as she knows that she could get Drunk with Power or corrupted by the First Evil if she taps into more than slight magic (although if she's away from the Hellmouth, she's seemingly able to function fairly well, as she combats Jasmine in magic just fine in Los Angeles). The comics have her brought to normal when Buffy destroys the Seed of Wonder, taking magic out of the world entirely. Willow strives to get it back and eventually succeeds with the help of Connor.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Tongue-tied about her crush on Xander in Season 1 just like how he does with Buffy.
• Celebrity Crush: Before her lesbian revelation, she had a fixation on John Cusack.
• Character Development: She changed the most out of all the characters, not just in terms of her personality, but in all aspects of her being. She transitioned from a dainty young girl with an affinity for computers, research, and academics into, probably, the most powerful witch on Earth, and with such a transition comes changes that affect Willow and those close to her.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Played with. She pines after Xander, but when she and he do get together, she decides she doesn't want him. Then, when she was in a rut with Oz, she discovered that she prefers Tara.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: After Tara was mindsucked, Willow got amped up on magic, attacked Glory and succeeded in hurting her... for a few seconds. Then she got her ass beat.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: Initially, she dressed like a little girl, and her mother still picked out her clothes for her. Cordelia cruelly stating, "Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears!" After Buffy encouraged Willow to "seize the moment", her fashion sense began to reflect the growing confidence that her friendship with the Slayer granted her.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: In "Villains", she does this to Warren, using the very same bullet he shot Buffy with and slowly driving it into his chest with telekinesis.
• Coming Of Age Queer Romance: While she is a little older than the norm for this trope (still a teen, but in her first year of college), this is essentially how her character arc plays out in Season 4. Willow, who had only shown interest in boys up to that point, befriends Tara Maclay after discovering they both practice magic. As they practice together, their magic becomes more sensual, hinting at their growing relationship. When Willow's high school boyfriend Oz returns hoping to get back together with Willow (having left earlier in the season to deal with some werewolf issues), she confesses to Buffy that while she still loves Oz, she also has romantic feelings for Tara, and isn't sure who to choose. After parting with Oz on bittersweet terms, Willow chooses Tara.
• Cooldown Hug: Xander gives her one after talking her down from destroying the world, while she reverts from Dark Willow to normal red-haired Willow.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Dark Magic addiction turned her evil and then filled her with angst.
• Covert Pervert: Occasional hints are given that Willow is one, like her "everyone's getting spanked but me" comment, and the accidental ogling of Dawn (the Dawn part was the accident, not the ogling) that one time.
  "Oh, right. Me and Oz play "Mistress Of Pain" every night"
  "Did anyone else go to a scary visual place?"
  • After catching Buffy in bed with Satsu, she grills Satsu on what Buffy was like in bed.
• Cradle of Loneliness: Does this with Tara's clothes when Tara breaks up with her in Season 6.
• Cute Bookworm: Willow spends much of her time in the library with Giles or on a computer. When Willow first appears, Cordelia mocks her clothes, joking about having seen the softer side of Sears. She tends to start saying something, then trail off as she realizes thinks that whatever she is saying is weird.
• Cute Witch: More so as the series goes on. Just don't make her angry. Parodied in a Halloween Episode where Willow is ranting about the Wicked Witch stereotype... until she sees a little girl dressed up as a witch and finds it adorable.
• The Cutie: Due to the "shy bookworm" thing she had going on in the earlier seasons.
• Depower: With the destruction of the Seed of Wonder, she can't use magic anymore.
• Defiant to the End: After getting her ass kicked by Glory during her ill-fated Roaring Rampage of Revenge, Willow defiantly spits in her face.
• Determinator: She's very determined to get things done that she feels are important. It's sometimes hard for people to change her mind, a sign of this being her "resolve face".
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Does a better job at this than even Buffy, having punched out several legitimate gods. Buffy punches out the invincible, Willow punches out gods.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Does this to Xander in "Prophecy Girl" when, after failing to successfully ask Buffy to the school dance, he tactlessly asks Willow to come as his backup.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: "Cibo Matto can clog dance!?"
• Easily Forgiven: For her rampage as Dark Willow, all she had to do for entry-level forgiveness was go to Magic Addiction Therapy. True, she was hopped up on Black Magic at the time, but Willow chose to absorb said Black Magic of her own volition to begin with. Amy even lampshades it in "The Killer in Me", claiming it's one of the reasons she chose to hex Willow:
  Amy: She almost destroyed the world! And everyone keeps on loving her?!!!
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Dark Willow because of the evil magic thing.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Dark Willow comes with She-Fu skills that she uses in her fight with Buffy.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: On a meta level - the writers quickly discovered that threatening her was one of the best ways to get the audience to react. An aphorism among the writing staff was "When in doubt, put Willow in danger".
• Evil Makeover:
  Xander: And can I just ask, what's with the Make-Over of the Damned?
• Evil Me Scares Me: The way Willow feels about the "Doppelgangland" Willow, and her own Dark Side in Season 7. It's to the point where she starts going dark again in the "Family Reunion" arc in Angel & Faith, she nearly freaks out, and Angel has to comfort her and calm her down:
  Willow: Angel, I can't! Please, I can't fight! Not now...
  Angel: It's going to be okay.
  Willow: No! You don't know me like this! It's never okay!
  Angel: Willow, it will be. I promise you. I need you to trust me. I know that's hard, after Twilight, after everything, but please, Willow. Can you trust me?
  Willow: I... I... yes. But I don't trust me.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Overlaps with Compelling Voice.
  Get Out!.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: She starts off sporting chest-length hair for the first two seasons. During Seasons 3-5, her hair gets gradually shorter and less straight as she grows more and more away from her original shy nerd girl persona and then gets longer and straighter again in Seasons 6-7 as she becomes more independent and comes into her true power as a witch. Dark Willow's hair becomes very dark, almost black, and changes back to her natural red when Xander brings her back from being evil. Conversely, Goddess Willow's hair is pure white.
• Expy: She's a redhead who dabbles in magic and overtime becomes a powerful witch. A Scarlet Witch, if you will.
• Face–Heel Turn: Towards the end of Season 6 she becomes Dark Willow and almost destroys the world in her grief over Tara's death. She gets better in the nick of time.
• Fallen Hero: Magic high leads to Dark!Willow. There was also an Alternate Universe book trilogy ("Wicked Willow") that explored what would have happened if she had stayed that way. The canonical Season 8 comic books state she is still this; specifically the "Time of Your Life" arc. In the Season 9 comics, we learn that while she is holding it together around Buffy, Willow is hell bent on bringing magic back, believing the world is going to end and she has to save it.
• Fanservice Pack: She's introduced with awful taste in clothes that her mother picked out for her and then has a tendency for childish sweaters and the like. Executive Meddling told Joss Whedon that Willow had to look "more hip" like Buffy, thus giving us episodes where she dresses as a hot goth for Halloween and has a vampire alter ego in a Spy Catsuit. By the fourth season, her clothes became more figure flattering and fashionable - also reflecting her Character Development from shy nerd to powerful witch.
• Final Boss: In Season 6 as Dark Willow
• From Nobody to Nightmare: See Beware the Nice Ones. Jonathan, having known her almost as long as Buffy and Xander, can hardly believe she's the same person by the end of Season 6.
• Functional Addict: In Season 6, she becomes addicted to magic, and during the second-to-last episode, after killing Warren and going after his cohorts in prison, Buffy explicitly mentions this:
  Buffy: Willow's got an addictive personality. She just tasted blood.
• Gay Best Friend: To Buffy, although she didn't come out until season four.
• Gay Romantic Phase: Utterly averted, as she explains to Tara when the latter assumes that Willow is just going through a phase and will go back to being straight at some point.
  Tara: I trust you. I just... [looks down] I don't know where I'm gonna fit in... in your life when...
  Willow: When... I change back? Yeah, this is a college thing, just a, a little experimentation before I get over the thrill and head back to boys' town. [pause] You think that?
  Tara: Should I?
  Willow: I'm really sorry that I didn't establish my lesbo street cred before I got into this relationship. You're the only woman I've ever fallen in love with, so... how on Earth could you ever take me seriously?
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: "Why else would she be acting like a B-I-T-C-H?"
• Grew a Spine: She started out as a shy, dorky wallflower. Being best friends with Buffy helped her come out of her shell and find her confidence and before she became a powerful witch, she was confident enough to take charge on occasion.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Amy's motivation for hating uber-witch Willow by the seventh season is that Willow became an uber-witch easily while she herself had to "work twice as hard to be half as good".
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Buffy, even after coming out as a lesbian. In Season 6, Buffy makes it clear to her social worker that she and Willow are not a couple.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Dark Willow reappears in the Time of Your Life arc of Season 8.
• Hollywood Hacking: Before becoming a witch, Willow's ability with computers was a great asset to the team. She could hack into computer systems, secret government files, and eventually even city power grids. For a short time when she was afraid to use magic, she returned to using her computer hacking to help out the team. At one point, she even combined her magic powers and computer hacking in order to tap into the Internet, being able to locate information faster since she could see it in her mind.
• Hot for Teacher: It's mentioned that Willow developed a crush on Giles during series one, even having a photo of him in her locker.
• Hot Witch: Both she and Tara were undeniably attractive witches. For the most part, they avoided the stripperific outfits common to the trope and both tended to be quiet and shy, especially Tara. Exceptions were a dream sequence of Xander's where both wore revealing dresses.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: At the beginning, she was as nerdy and bookish as it gets and was rewarded with a heaping help of scorn from the cool kids. You can imagine what it meant to her when Buffy came into her life.
• Informed Judaism: She mentions celebrating Hanukkah, and outright calls herself Jewish on multiple occasions, in addition to practicing the Jewish tradition of laying stones on a loved one's grave (in her case, Tara's). Her actress is also half-Jewish.
• Invincible Villain: As Dark Willow, there is little that is a direct threat to her and Giles outright tells Anya to tell Buffy that she can't be stopped by the Slayer or any other magic or supernatural force. Ultimately, Xander had to talk/hug her down.
• Is This What Anger Feels Like?: Which hilariously carried over to her vampire counterpart. "I don't like you!"
• Jerkass Has a Point: While Dark Willow's Breaking Speech to Buffy in "Two to Go" is harsh, there's no denying that she makes a valid point in said speech, since Buffy herself admitted that she was happier when dead and finds it so difficult to be alive again.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: As Dark Willow during the final few episodes of Season 6. She goes from killing Warren for shooting Tara, to trying to kill the other members of the Trio who had nothing to do with it, to hurting/trying to hurt Buffy, Dawn, Giles, and Anya, the last of whom actually sympathized with her before then, to trying to destroy the world to "end all pain". All of this is within the span a couple of episodes that, together, take place over less than a single day.
• Kick the Morality Pet:
  • In Season 6, her downward spiral into magic addiction ultimately leads to her crashing her car with Dawn in the passenger seat; Dawn suffers a broken arm as a result and is so pissed at Willow for her actions that she responds to Willow's tearful apology with a slap. The sheer guilt of this incident is what convinces Willow to quit magic completely.
  • Later, as Dark Willow, she's so far gone that she actively attacks the other Scoobies simply for trying to stop her from killing Andrew and Jonathan, even threatening to turn Dawn back into an Energy Ball simply to put an end to her constant whining.
    Buffy: You're attacking the people who love you now?
    Willow: Only the ones in my way.
• Knight of Cerebus: Surprisingly, Dark Willow is this. She is by far the most powerful being in the entire franchise, and comes insanely close to destroying the entire world. She flayed Warren alive, threatened to turn Dawn back into the energy from which she came, and was the only non-Giles Scooby to murder an innocent. The only one who could bring her back was Xander, and after that, Willow could still turn into her evil counterpart should she practice powerful magic.
• Knight Templar: She was arguably developing into one of these with "Bargaining", where her absolute devotion to Buffy takes a dark and scary turn, as she proves willing to cross any line to bring Buffy back from the dead and considers even possibly evil means to be trivial compared to the life of her best friend, although bringing Buffy back was clearly a good end. It's not good for humanity for the only living Slayer to be one in jail. At the end of Season 6, Willow's desire to kill Warren for killing Tara is closer to this trope, in a probably justified way. The worst problem was the effect on Willow, which caused her to go after less heinous targets in a short, temporary Face–Heel Turn.

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• Lady of War: As she grows more confident and able to fight with her magic, she ditches her more casual attire in favour of a longer, flowing wardrobe, complete with growing her hair out. By the time the war against Twilight's forces come about, she looks positively elegant.◊
• Light Is Good: Bright white-haired Willow from the last episode of Season 7, in context to Dark Willow from the previous season.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: By the TV show's finale, Willow is considerably more powerful than Buffy (the traditional fighter class here), and is one of the most powerful witches on earth.
• Lipstick Lesbian: From Season 4 onwards. "I'm not good with the butch".
• Literal-Minded: "KISS Rocks? Why would anyone want to kiss— oh."
• Love Makes You Evil: Her Season 6 addiction to magic planted the seeds, but it was Warren murdering Tara that pushed her over the edge into Dark Willow. She's later brought back to normal thanks to The Power of Friendship.
• Magic Misfire: Several times:
  • In "Doppelgangland", she accidentally sets her vampiric counterpart from the Wishverse loose in Sunnydale.
  • In "Something Blue", every unheeding, angry comment Willow makes throughout this episode sparks one of these. The original spell could be branded a misfire itself, since it didn't do what she'd hoped (get rid of her pain over Oz's loss) and worked in a way she hadn't wanted or expected.
  • In "Triangle", she tries to make magical sunlight to help Buffy kill vampires, but a resulting argument with Anya instead frees Olaf the Troll.
  • In "Tabula Rasa", she tries to cast a memory-wiping spell to make Buffy and Tara forget the negative effects of the spells she used on them. Instead, the spell ends up completely mind-wiping the entire Scooby Gang, including Willow herself.
• Misplaced Retribution: In Season 6. After exacting her revenge on Warren, Willow promptly decided to try to kill his accomplices Jonathan and Andrew, who were in prison at the time and had absolutely nothing to do with it. While the Scoobies (sans Buffy) were so disgusted and furious with Warren that they rallied behind Willow en masse with her intent to kill, they all agree that Jonathan and Andrew don't deserve Willow's wrath.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: Regular Willow and Vampire Willow, when impersonating each other in "Doppelgangerland", do so poorly.
• Motive Rant: In the "Family Reunion" arc of Angel & Faith, when Angel calls her out on wanting to involve Connor in her plans to restore magic, Willow loses it, bitch-slaps him, and calls him out on his ways before breaking down about how Earth is becoming a Crapsack World without magic:
  "Don't you dare. Don't you dare try to say I'm like you! This is all your fault! Thinking you can fix things! Running blindly down any road that might lead to redemption! And you're doing it again! Never worrying about the consequences until it's too late! You've ruined everything, Angel!!" (Beat) "Can't you see what we're missing? How empty the world is? There hasn't been a decent song, movie or book, since we lost the Seed! Suicide rates are spiking! All over the world people are losing hope! It's just starting! It only gets worse from here! The world's dying and nobody will admit it! I need to save it. There's nothing more important. Why doesn't anyone understand...?"
• The Mourning After: After Tara's death, she continues to hold a torch for her despite her efforts to move on, even during her relationships with Kennedy, Saga Vasuki, and Lake Stevens. In the Season 10 comics, she admits to Andrew that every time she comes across a new artifact or spell, her first thought is to use it to bring Tara back... but Tara is dead and at peace, and that's the way it should be.
• Mundane Utility: In Season 6, she gets so addicted to using magic that she starts using it for everything, including simply getting dressed.
• Murder Is the Best Solution:
  • After going Dark Willow in the final few episodes of Season 6, she is adamant that Warren needs to die for shooting Tara despite Buffy repeatedly insisting that they don't kill humans and there are other options. On top of it all, Xander and Dawn are so disgusted and furious with Warren that they declare him to be just as bad as any vampire or demon Buffy's slain and fully support Willow's intent to kill... at least until the minute she actually goes through with it.
  • Furthermore, when she gets a power boost and hears "the suffering of all mankind" in an attempt to bring her back to her senses (in a "You Are Not Alone, people have to weather loved ones dying constantly" way), she instead decides that destroying the world to end all of humanity's pain is a better course of action.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Her reaction in Season 6, upon discovering that rather than saving Buffy from Hell when she resurrected her, she actually pulled her out of Heaven.
  Willow: We took her away from that. We wrecked it for her.
  Xander: We didn't wreck. We didn't know.
  Willow: We didn't want to know. We were so selfish. I was so selfish.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Ooh! Ooh! Study Party!
  Xander: You need a life in the worst way.
• Nice Girl: A consistently sweet, trusting, gentle, intelligent, caring person, she's socially awkward on more than one occasion but has a very kind heart.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Willow's decision to resurrect Buffy in Season 6 disrupted the magic protecting the Slayer line, which allowed the First Evil to embark on its infamous Slayer/Potential Slayer genocide in Season 7.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Any time she loses her temper and begins to basically force her bickering teammates to cooperate by chewing them out, typically opening up with a shout of HEYYYYY!
• Of Corsets Sexy: Vamp Willow.
  Willow: It's a little binding. I guess vampires really don't have to breathe. Gosh look at those.
• Oh, My Gods!: For the love of Hecate!
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Has displayed advanced knowledge in a wide array of fields, such as: Robotics, Medicine/Anatomy, Chemistry, Programming/Hacking, History, Philosophy and obscure Literary References.
• Parental Neglect: To the point of not noticing a new haircut for four months. The extent of their neglect verges on Fridge Logic when you consider that the episode establishing their neglectfulness came about a half-season after a bookcase had fallen on her and briefly landed her in a wheelchair. You'd think if anything would make them pay attention...
• Parental Substitute: To Dawn; in Season 8, Dawn outright declares that Willow is "like a mom" to her.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Her murder of Warren, which consisted of her telekinetically driving a bullet into his chest and ultimately skinning him alive while he begged for mercy; while Buffy simply can't condone killing a human for any reason, considering the fact that Warren was a blatant Straw Misogynist who fatally shot Tara, tried to kill Buffy herself more than once, and already killed his ex-girlfriend before then, Anya, Xander, and Dawn are all so disgusted with him that they rally behind Willow's decision to do so; Buffy was the only one preaching Thou Shalt Not Kill, and even then, it's largely just because she didn't want Willow to become a murderer. Xander sums it up best:
  Xander: Warren was a cold-blooded killer of women just warming up. You ask me, that bastard had it coming to him.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Is so stricken by grief, she decides to bring about the Apocalypse and end the world's pain.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Xander, for the first three seasons. They've known each other their whole lives (or at least since kindergarten), and are so close that Xander is even able to save the world at the end of Season 6 by telling Willow how much he loves her. They "dated" as children, Willow had a mostly unrequited adolescent crush on Xander, and have a brief fling as teenagers, but are basically friends throughout.
• Power-Strain Blackout: She often collapses after overdoing the spellcasting, or experiences a Psychic Nosebleed.
• Progressively Prettier: She became steadily more attractive as the show proceeded. Word of God said that the executives wanted her to look more hip and less nerdy. She started wearing clothes that were more 'adorably cute' than nerdy - with plenty of fuzzy sweaters and eccentric t-shirts. In the college seasons, her hairstyles started becoming more fashionable. By Season 6 she was about as fashionably dressed as the other females on the show. In this case, the clothing change is used to show Willow becoming more confident and powerful.
• Promotion to Parent: She's Dawn's favorite person; Dawn treats her and Tara like parents, and in the Season 8 comics, Dawn says "Will is like a Mom to me".
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: What her arc in Season 6 leads up to, culminating in Dark Willow. In fact, hints are given throughout the series of a darker side to Willow's Shrinking Violet nature — her taste for revenge, her childlike petulance, her anger at being an Extreme Doormat or mere Sidekick leading to a desire for power through magic coupled with a total irresponsibility in its use.
• Reality Warper: In "Something Borrowed", she cast a spell to have her will done in an attempt to get over the pain of Oz's departure, but the exact wording she used caused anything she said to come true, though only when she did so inadvertently. With this ability, she rendered Giles completely blind, made Xander a literal demon magnet, and caused Buffy and Spike to become engaged. Upon discovering what she had done, Willow immediately reversed the spell.
  • She eventually reaches this level naturally. By the time of season 6, all she has to do is speak a command aloud and the universe complies.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Along with the Motive Rant above, she gives out one to Faith in Season 3, especially since Faith was more prepared for an "it's not too late to turn back" speech:
  Willow: Faith, wait. I wanna talk to you.
  Faith: Oh yeah? Give me the speech again, please. "Faith, we're still your friends. We can help you. It's not too late."
  Willow: It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well, boo hoo. Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than some people. I mean, you had friends like Buffy. Now you have no one. You were a Slayer and now you're nothing. You're just a big, selfish, worthless waste.
• Recovered Addict: Willow's storyline in Season 6 involves her becoming addicted to magic, using it excessively and for mundane tasks like getting dressed. It reaches a head in "Wrecked", where her addiction nearly kills Dawn, and she swears off its use. She spends several episodes recovering... until Warren shoots Buffy and Tara, resulting in Willow going Off the Wagon and absorbing massive amounts of Black Magic, becoming Dark Willow and nearly destroying the world. After that fiasco, Willow spends the Time Skip between seasons and the early part of Season 7 on a rehab course with the Devon Coven in England, and when she returns, she spends most of the season terrified of using magic again.
• Redheads Are Uncool: She is presented as a bookish nerd with considerable computer skills, dowdily dressed and easily intimidated by more popular girls in school. Willow becomes much more confident in college, finally finding a place that respects her intellect, and to show that, she has embraced the redness of her hair by having dyed it a brighter red.
• Red Is Heroic: She has red hair, and is one of the Scoobies protecting the world from the nasties in a Hellmouth.
• The Reliable One: Buffy explicitly calls her this at one point. Which is part of why her behavior in Season 6 was so shocking.
• The Resenter: "Six years as a side man, now I get to be The Slayer."
• Revenge Before Reason: In Season 5, she goes after Glory in a rage after Glory Mind Rapes Tara, ignoring Buffy's warnings and reminders that Glory is a Physical God and she stands no chance against her. While Willow does manage to cause Glory pain and weaken her somewhat, she ultimately goes down and is only saved from certain death when Buffy shows up Just in Time.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Two.
  • After Glory "brain-sucks" Tara in Season 5, Willow is so pissed off that she attacks Glory in her own home, and manages to both cause Glory pain and weaken her somewhat before getting curb-stomped; if Buffy hadn't shown up when she did, Willow would've been toast.
  • On a much bigger scale in Season 6; when Warren flips out and shoots Buffy and Tara (the latter accidentally), killing the latter, Willow, still recovering from her addiction to dark magic, suffers a relapse, personally hunts him down, and skins him alive, and all the Scoobies except Buffy herself back her up because they're so disgusted with Warren. However, Willow then proceeds to go after Jonathan and Andrew, who were in prison at the time and had nothing to do with it, which eventually spirals into a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum that Xander just barely manages to talk her down from.
• Rough Overalls: In the first few seasons, shy, naive, geeky teen Willow wears overalls multiple times and has them in multiple colors. This starts to change when she goes to college and gets more into magic, changing her look. It also helps that it was The '90s, but it's significant that she's the only girl in the cast to wear them.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Especially in earlier seasons, which she herself lampshades.
  Xander: Oh, hey, did you guys hear that Cibo Matto's gonna be at the Bronze tonight?
  Willow: Cibo Matto? They're playing?
  Xander: No, Willow, they're gonna be clog dancing.
  Willow: Cibo Matto can clog dance? [gets a look from Xander] Oh, sarcasm, right.
• Science Wizard: Willow is the most academically successful of the Scooby Gang. Before becoming the team's primary magic expert, she was very good with computers and helped Giles with research.
• Screw Yourself: In "Doppelgangland", Vamp Willow openly flirts with her human counterpart and even gropes her.
• Secretly Selfish: During the Season 9 comics, she becomes obsessed with finding a way to restore magic to Earth, convinced that the world is dying without magic and needs it to survive. Over the course of the Willow: Wonderland miniseries, Willow eventually realizes and confesses that she actually just wanted magic back so she could feel powerful again.
  Willow: ...Maybe just a couple of sads. My friends need me. At least, I keep telling myself they need me. The truth is... when I think about now, they seemed to be doing fine. I'm the one who was falling apart. Without magic, I'm back to being part hacker, part hostage, while my superpeeps kick evil's butt. I was so convinced the world needed magic. That life on Earth is fundamentally missing something. But maybe... maybe it was just me.
• Sex Is Cool: Responds with an awed "Wow!" when Buffy decides she's going to have sex with Angel, and is eager to start smoochies with Oz, given she's a socially-outcast nerd who never had a boyfriend before.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Much like Buffy she's at least a head shorter than the actress playing her mother.
• Shrinking Violet: In the first few seasons because of a lack of self-confidence and inability to spit it out to Xander.
• Soapbox Sadie: Originally protested Thanksgiving because it was all about death. Also, in the Season 6 Halloween episode, goes off on a tirade on a customer wearing a witch costume, although in that case, being a real witch herself, she had more legitimate grievances.
• Squishy Wizard: She is easily the most powerful member of the Scooby Gang and one of the most powerful human beings on the planet, as even people like Buffy and Angel (neither of whom are slouches in power themselves) will attest to. However, if she loses her magic or an opponent can overpower it, she doesn't last long in a fight.
• Stepford Smiler: By the series' end, she could wipe out the human race with a snap of her finger, which she sometimes makes light of. Realizing the threat she poses to her loved ones, she hammers on the moe mask and wears it to the end — but she's clearly not the same person we knew.
• Stupid Sexy Friend: Willow finally gets together with Xander, the innunedos start. It's when they're both with other people.
• Super-Strength: After casting a spell on herself, she's able to take on Buffy hand-to-hand and win.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: When Giles tricks her into absorbing magic from him that puts her in touch with all of humanity's pain, Willow, either because the world just sucks so much or because she's in no mood to think of the positives, decides to destroy the world to end all of said pain. Fortunately, Xander shows up Just in Time and talks her down from it.
• Superpowered Evil Side: During early Season 7, especially the scene in "Selfless" where she reverts to her evil personality for a few seconds while fending off a spider demon.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Her attitude towards the chipped Spike in Season 4, to the extent that she refuses to let him stake himself in "Doomed". This is especially noticeable compared to Buffy and Xander, who not only have No Sympathy for Spike, but actively enjoy taunting him.
• Teen Genius: Has enough book smarts to keep up with Giles and she's a computer wizard on top of that.
• Tempting Fate: A Running Gag with her.
  • "Dead Man's Party": Talking about it isn't helping. We might as well try some violence. (zombies crash into the house) I was being sarcastic!
  • "Beer Bad": Men haven't changed since the beginning of time. (cavemen burst in)
  • "Triangle": I wish Buffy were here. (Buffy enters)
  • "Two to Go": There's no one on in the world who has the power to stop me now. (Giles blasts her with a fireball)
• That Man Is Dead: Dark Willow talks about Standard Willow as if she were a different person.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In Season 3, Faith expects Willow to give her a speech about how it's not too late to turn back and how they can still be friends. Instead, Willow tells Faith point-blank that it is too late for her, and that she's beyond redemption after everything she's done. Ironically, Willow becomes one of the few people who actually could later understand what Faith was going through, having gone evil and killed someone only to be brought back by someone showing caring and kindness when she didn't deserve it.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil: Due to magic being used as a Fantastic Drug metaphor, and this happening to be Dark Magic, all the worst parts of her personality came to the fore.
• Took a Level in Badass: From being the show's main Damsel in Distress to the most powerful character of the group. For almost two seasons, other characters had discussed how powerful Willow was becoming as a witch. Then she goes and becomes the first character in the series to cause Glory pain.
• Trademark Favorite Drink: Mocha coffee.
• Tragic Bromance: Her refusal to lose Buffy pushes her to take more risks with magic than ever before. The resurrection leaves her so high off success that she responds to Giles' concern with threats, setting most of her Season 6 arc into motion. In Season 8, she admits that she believes that had she not brought Buffy back, Tara wouldn't have died; nonetheless, in Angel & Faith, she insists to Angel that despite everything that happened as a result, she has never regretted bringing Buffy back.
• Training the Gift of Magic: After Season 6 and for the first few episodes of Season 7, she undergoes a 'recovery course' with the Devon Coven in England at Giles' behest. Though a slightly odd version of this trope, given that Willow was already a powerful and capable magician, it's strongly implied that by embracing the Coven's philosophy on magic (a more Zen-ish, earth-based approach, in contrast to her previous reliance on raw power) she comes back a much better, or at least much more mature, witch.
• Tranquil Fury: In the case of hunting down The Trio. Although very enraged, she almost never raised her voice beyond a venomous half-whisper and aside from a few occasions was The Stoic for the whole ordeal. The most noticeable bit was her torturing and flaying alive a begging Warren without breaking her calm demeanor, even going so far as to say "Bored now" before killing him.
• Turn the Other Cheek: She often doesn't hold grudges against people. In fact, she's usually one of the first to forgive people for their mistakes, even if large ones, being incredibly forgiving. She also has a remarkable ability to put aside grudges and personal feelings to get an important task done which she had done on numerous occasions, most notably with Faith and much later, with Angel.
• The Unchosen One: By all appearances has no particularly special destiny laid out, and is just a particularly talented and powerful witch. Yet Willow is the one to restore her reality’s Seed of Wonder, restoring magic and rewriting its rules.
• Unstable Powered Woman: Willow Rosenberg's power as a witch increases over the seasons, and her arc in the last two seasons is chiefly devoted to this. She becomes increasingly reckless and arrogant in her use of magic in the early part of the sixth season, and briefly becomes involved with a form of black magic which acts directly as an addictive drug. As a result, she impulsively swears off magic completely, but when her lover is murdered she "falls off the wagon", tries to kill the man responsible, attacks her friends when they try to take her down, and ends up trying to destroy the entire planet out of depression. The final season has her continuing to struggle to get on an even keel, constantly worrying that using magic to any powerful degree will drive her insane again.
• Unstoppable Rage: Willow goes into one when Glory sucks Tara's mind, and again when Warren shoots and kills Tara.
• Vigilante Woman: Kills Warren (whom everyone figures deserves it) and tries to kill Andrew and Jonathan, even though they're only guilty by association.
• Viler New Villain: Season 6's Big Bads, the Trio, are three wannabe supervillains who aren't very effective at it, and at least one of them is more of a nuisance than actually evil. Then Warren kills Tara, and Willow goes mad with grief before tapping into dark magic, first seeking revenge against the Trio for Tara's murder and then spiraling into wanting to destroy the world.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Willow wears one naturally. It becomes this once she morphs into Dark Willow.
• Villain Teleportation: Dark Willow demonstrated the power to instantly transport herself and others from one location to another without having to physically travel through space, which is another testament to how potent her powers had become, for the previous instance where she demonstrated this ability was through a taxing spell.
• Wicked Witch: As Dark Willow, because of the magic addiction and power madness. Anya calls her the most powerful Wicca in the Western Hemisphere, which of course would make her the Wicked Witch of the West.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In Season 6, Dawn slaps her after almost killing her in a car crash and Tara leaves her after she screwed with Tara's head and broke her promise to avoid magic for a week when she couldn't last a day.
  • During Angel and Faith's "Family Reunion" arc, Willow and Angel give one to each other. She wants him to use his son to bring magic back. He's not willing to take such a risk:
    Angel: You want me to find the son I've never been there for and ruin the life he's built. Ask him to go back to the hell he grew up in because of me. For some wild goose chase. Something that's not even possible. Here I was ashamed to see you.
  • In general, she's incredibly reckless with magic, until the events of Season 6. First Tara calls her on it, then her nearly destroying the world forces her to treat magic with a lot more caution.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Suffers from Ranidaphobia.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In Season 6, after Tara's death and her murder of Warren, Willow decides to destroy the world to end her own pain and everyone else's. She's thankfully stopped from that.
• You Are in Command Now: Took charge of the Scoobies when Buffy was absent or incapacitated such as between Seasons 2-3 and 5-6.

Vampire Willow

Vampire Willow

"Bored now."

Played By: Alyson Hannigan

"In my world, there are people in chains and we can ride them like ponies."

In the Wishverse, Willow Rosenberg was at some point turned into a vampire. After the apparent deaths of Luke and Darla, she became one of the most powerful and feared members of the Order of Aurelius and, alongside her lover Xander, one of the leading acolytes of The Master.

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• Catchphrase: "Bored now."
• Co-Dragons: She and Vampire Xander are this to their version of the Master, replacing the conspicuously absent Darla and Luke.
• Curse Cut Short: Her last words are "Oh, fu—"
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: Undead, technically.
• Depraved Bisexual: She straddles a captive Angel in a sexual manner, and hits on her own counterpart while offering to turn her into a vampire.
• Dominatrix: "It was you. Except for the part about being a dominatrix". Thanks Buffy.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Vampire Xander. When she runs into the real deal and mistakes him for her world's version, she hugs him and jubilantly exclaims, "Xander! You're alive!"
• Evil Redhead: As the Evil Twin of the famously Redheaded Heroine Willow, this is a given.
• Evil Twin: To Willow.
• Faux Affably Evil: She keeps up a soft, gentle tone as she tortures, kills, and coerces people.
• Fetishized Abuser: "That's right, puppy, Willow's going to make you bark..."
• Foreshadowing: Of Willow's future sexual preferences. Also of the dark side of Willow that comes out fully at the end of Season 6.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: To actual Willow, no less. Willow is extremely disturbed.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Twice.
• Lesbian Vampire: She's basically normal Willow (Lesbian) plus a vampire's lack of morals and boundaries.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: See the creepy line about making her 'puppy' (Wishverse Angel) 'bark'.
• Mirror Match: Inevitably.
• Monster of the Week: Two weeks.
• Ms. Fanservice: Struts around in tight leather and a corset.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Vampires really don't have to breathe.
• Prince and Pauper: As part of a plan to masquerade as her twin, Willow is obliged to swap her fuzzy sweater for leather bondage attire.
  Willow: I guess vampires really don't have to breathe." [glances down] "Gosh, look at those."
• Screw Yourself: Does some Lecherous Licking of Willow, which the latter finds Sick and Wrong. "Does this mean we'd have to...snuggle?".
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: She takes Willow's soft voice and turns it into an expression of cold-blooded cruelty.
• Torture Technician: As practised and demonstrated on Wishverse Angel.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Vampire Xander.

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