Willow Rosenberg
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Willow Rosenberg |
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Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was played by Alyson Hannigan, and made a couple of special appearances on the Buffy spin-off Angel.
Character arc (and spoilers)
Willow was a meek, nerdy, studious teenage girl who had more success academically than socially, until she became friends with Buffy Summers and started fighting evil alongside her, proving to be courageous and resourceful. At first, her most significant talent in the fight against evil were her computer skills, but progressively Willow gained power as a witch through her study of magic, until she became arguably the most powerful member of the Scooby Gang.
The series initially portrayed Willow as a straight character with an unrequited crush on her childhood friend Xander Harris. As a junior and senior in high school, she developed a relationship with guitarist-and-werewolf Daniel "Oz" Osbourne. In college, she fell in love with a woman, Tara Maclay, over the course of the fourth season. After Tara was murdered at the end of season 6, Willow used dark magic to avenge her death, nearly destroying the world. (See the dead/evil lesbian cliché.) During season 7, Willow established a relationship with another woman, Kennedy. Although Willow's lesbianism was foreshadowed in season 3, her identity as a lesbian, coming out, facing homophobia, and other gay issues were addressed minimally or not at all in the series. This followed Joss Whedon's approach to push boundaries quietly, a strategy that has been both critiqued and lauded.