Willow/Tara and arguing

[itsnotmymind]

When I first watched the last few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I was not a big fan of Willow/Tara. Partly this was because I was not Tara’s biggest fan when she first appeared. I adore Oz, and was a major Willow/Oz shipper, and I was sad about Oz leaving. Also, I wished Tara had more of a backbone.

My other problem with Willow/Tara—which was not a problem, per se, but contributed to my lack of interest—was the part where they don’t fight. Also, I really love it when fictional characters fight. Relationships with no fighting? Bo-ring. And yeah, my Buffy and Spike really overdid it and had to work hard to learn to communicate in a way that involved a bit less violence and nasty remarks, but hey, it makes them fun to watch. Tara and Willow? Almost never fought, and when they did, they both obviously HATED it, which makes it less fun.

But after looking back over the show and doing some analysis, I had a change of heart. If you analyze Willow/Tara over the long haul, it becomes very interesting. Tara increasingly gaining confidence in the relationship as Willow becomes more and more scared of the consequences of losing Tara. The way their anxiety about fighting is not portrayed as a good thing, and leads to Willow committing a terrible violation, and Tara putting up with more than she should. It’s interesting. It’s complicated. Much as I love Oz and Willow/Oz, I think Willow/Tara is probably more interesting.

I love how you see it develop: They have their very first fight in Tough Love in season five, after having been together for over a year. In this fight, Tara is the one who wants to end the argument, and Willow won’t drop it, although she deflects the topic from Tara’s fear of Willow’s increasing power to Tara’s anxieties about Willow’s sexuality. Willow ends up storming out. Tara goes to the World’s Culture Fair they were going to attend together on her own, and is mind-sucked by Glory, and Willow has to use magic to return her to herself.

After this incident, Willow comes to view fights with Tara as, well, the end of the world, and the only way she knows how to fix it is with magic. In S4, Tara has no self-confidence and will take whatever she get from Willow with no complaints. In S6, when Tara is concerned about Willow’s use of magic, she still hates the fighting (and Dawn, who overheard the fight and has been living in the same house as Willow and for the entire summer, says it’s the only fight she’s ever witnessed them having), but she doesn’t back down. She loves Willow, and knows they need to have this fight. When Willow suggests that she just shut up, Tara retorts, “If I didn't love you so damn much I would!” Ironically, it is the strength her relationship with Willow has given her that allows her to stand up to Willow. Later, Tara refuses to accept Willow’s apology, because “It’s not the simple.” Willow decides to make it simple—and uses magic to erase Tara’s memory of the fight. The build-up is consistent, and interesting, and sad.

And of course it is in character for Tara to leave Willow, and a devastated Dawn, and of course she comes back. Tara openly acknowledges that it takes more than just going out for coffee to fix so deep a violation of trust, but she wants to consider it forgotten, anyway. Tara’s new-found strength has its limits.

I want to point out a little moment from the season 1 episode “Nightmares”: Buffy and Willow are discussing Buffy’s parents’ divorce. Willow says, “My parents don't even bicker. Sometimes they glare.”

This is the first mention I recall of Willow’s parents. Her mother appears onscreen once in S3 in “Gingerbread”. I don’t think we ever meet her father. The first time her parents are mentioned, and what do we learn? They don’t fight. Willow has no parental role models for how to handle open conflict.

That’s not the only mention in the first season of Willow seeing open disagreement as a negative in a relationship. In BtVS 1x8, “I Robot, You Jane”, Willow says of her online boyfriend (whom she does not yet know is an evil robot): “We talked all night, it was amazing. He's so smart, Buffy, and, and he's romantic, and we agree about everything!”

This is Willow’s idea of a perfect boyfriend, folks.

Comments

[kikimay]

Very, very interesting.
I've always been more focused on Buffy and Xander's parental disfunctions, I never thought about Willow in this terms. Really interesting. Personally, I also kinda liked her relationship with Kennedy: maybe their love isn't the love of a lifetime, but Kennedy is bossy enough to face Willow even in unpleasant circumstances. Which could also lead to a premature breakup, I know.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I agree about Kennedy. I don't see her and Willow as being the love of a lifetime, but Kennedy seems good for her in the short run.

I think we get more of a sense of Xander and Buffy's parental dysfunction: Buffy's the star of the show, after all, and even though we don't meet Xander's parents until S6, they are sort of a running joke. Willow's parents are quieter.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

All very true, though I would also add Willow has the anti model of couple fights next door: presumably she must have witnessed some of Xander's parents' interactions? (Xander can't have always gone to her place during all the years of their friendship.) And thus she's seen couple fights that didn't lead to resolution but to constant emotional abusiveness (Xander's parents), or no fights at all (her parents).

In that connection, there is an additional subtext to the degree in which Xander's romance with Cordelia, with whom he argued all the time, upset her.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that's a good point about Xander. And I think in one episode she mentions that she used to go to Xander's to watch Christmas-themed TV (Snoopy, or something?), so she was definitely over there. That would have influenced her view of adult relationships. And she was upset about Xander and Cordy, so maybe the fact that they argued so much was part of that.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

I am taking a break from my hiatus (I am bad at these things). I hope you don't mind me commenting.

I agree with this post quite a bit. I think that Willow's background adds a lot to this; in "Gingerbread," we learn both that Willow has never really had a rebellion against her mother (and is afraid of her), but when she does speak out against her, even a little bit, she first gets sent to her room and then is nearly burned at the stake. While Buffy and Joyce eventually get some modicum of reconciliation for what happens between them (albeit indirectly, in Graduation Day when Joyce accepts Buffy's judgment that she should leave town). But I don't think she ever really believes that conflict is possible. We can add to the list that she feels she can't express emotional distress, because when she let herself be crabby for a few days in Something Blue, the gang were from Willow's POV fairly unsupportive and judgmental. It's not just her relationship with Tara, in other words, though it's most prominent with Tara. Even in Flooded, when she threatens Giles, she then goes into "I don't want to fight" mode. She does, when she is either reasonably sure she's right because of a moral issue (i.e. the Chumach in "Pangs", or when going up against Faith in "Choices," or some of the things she says to Anya), or when she is at her wit's end emotionally, go into fight mode, but she avoids it pretty strongly most of the time. I think that Willow sees conflict as a sign that someone is wrong, and thinks that she shouldn't really express anger. (I'm reminded of her self-flagellation in "Consequences" when Buffy starts crying. "I don't know my own strength!")

I also do think that a big part of the subtext of Willow/Tara, which I want to talk about in a post sometime hopefully if I can marshal the resources, actually is the fact that they have a gay relationship. On some level, this is actually genuinely socially isolating. Willow does have some insecurities about it, as evinced by her bringing it up in Tough Love; and she on some level doesn't really believe that Buffy and Xander are fully supportive of their relationship, with Buffy being freaked in New Moon Rising and Willow mostly imagining Xander as perving out over their relationship (c.f. Restless dream), or expecting that he makes Tara uncomfortable. I think that the pressure for her relationship with Tara to seem perfect is partly because while her friends are kind of supportive, they also really don't get the relationship, and I think that any relationship that is socially unacceptable/unusual carries with it a sense that the relationship has to be Perfect to avoid potential criticism that there is something fundamentally wrong with them (as a queer relationship). The fact that Willow is uncertain about her identity, and clings to Tara especially hard because of that, is I think implied in The Killer in Me when she tells Kennedy that she didn't love women, but merely woman; I think that she felt somewhat genuinely that whatever her feelings for Tara were, they might never happen again, and that made her panicked.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

The relationship is very strongly associated with silence: they get together in "Hush," after all. And there are secrets and lies that underpin their whole foundations. Tara wasn't really a demon, but she lied about what she thought was her demon-ness for months, and did a spell on the gang that nearly got them killed in "Family." Willow didn't really seem to think this was unusual when it was revealed -- she only cares that Tara still loves her. Both Willow and Tara are really, really terrified of ever doing anything wrong, and hide evidence of their dark sides constantly. In Tara's case, the revelation in Family that there is nothing wrong with her, along with Willow's and the gang's support for her, sets her free and allows her to grow in confidence. Willow doesn't really have that. There are parallels between Family and what Willow does in early season six (Tara does a spell on the gang to hide her shameful secret which nearly get them killed by demons; Willow does a spell on first Tara, then Tara & Buffy and the gang which nearly lead them to be killed by demons in TR), and the parallels suggest to me that guilt about her role in the argument is a lot of what motivates Willow -- that she fears there is something really, genuinely wrong about her [Willow], and she needs to erase the argument in order to assure herself that that side to her doesn't really exist. But of course the truth outs.

I do think that Tara's return to Willow is not at all meant to be seen as a Good Thing -- at best we should be ambivalent, and at worst it is actually the wrong thing. As you say, Tara says she's not sure she should do this. I forget who first pointed it out, but either Willow's or Tara's dress from OMWF hangs on the door, as well (can't get screen captures right now) -- suggesting both the beautiful romance they had and the dark layer underneath. The fact that Tara indicates that trust needs to be rebuilt on both sides hints, also, that she recognizes that Willow doesn't really trust Tara not to leave her again, and I think that guilt that she has violated Tara and never really re-earned Tara's trust and never will be able to make it up to her is a big part of what drives her self-loathing, which gets projected onto Warren initially.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be talking a fandom break, myself, but I don't mind replying to this.

That's a really good point about feeling like they need to have a perfect relationship because of being gay. And I do recall in "Family" that Xander and Buffy were uncomfortable with Willow and Tara being gay--they want to be supportive, but are weirded out by it, and that probably really added to Willow's stress, and feeling like she needed to have the perfect relationship

and the parallels suggest to me that guilt about her role in the argument is a lot of what motivates Willow -- that she fears there is something really, genuinely wrong about her [Willow], and she needs to erase the argument in order to assure herself that that side to her doesn't really exist.

That seems like it's probably true.

I do think that Tara's return to Willow is not at all meant to be seen as a Good Thing -- at best we should be ambivalent, and at worst it is actually the wrong thing.

I agree. I do wish there had been some sort of follow-up to the whole thing, but I guess it was hard for the writers to address the issue directly with Tara dead. And Willow is certainly not the only character to have insufficient follow-up to her bad behavior.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Glad you could write back!

I do think that Willow also kind of knew that Buffy and Xander were trying to be supportive but were a bit reluctant; I think that she could pick up on that, or, also likely, imagined an even greater reluctance than actually existed.

I agree with the wish for follow-up. For me, I think that Willow's Tara issues get nicely folded in with her attack on Warren -- both because it goes against what Tara would have wanted, and she even uses Tara's blood to do it! -- and because by punishing Warren, she is subconsciously punishing herself imho. That makes the story work for me, but I also think it's fair to say that there isn't much that the story can do in season seven to have Willow make up for her actions to Tara -- you know, her being dead. She can only try to avoid falling into the same traps with Kennedy and the other people in her life, and she seems to be on a good track there, I think.