Totally. And again, you can see how she got there, and not entirely unreasonably. Willow has spent her entire life hewing to rules that exist just because to avoid getting into trouble. I think it's more of what beer_good_foamy is talking about below with not knowing how to be good. She is a smart, disciplined girl in an American high school, every rule that she lives under is pointless and unnecessary to her. Finding magic, which does excite and challenge her, throws that whole framework out the window. Which would actually have been good for her, if she'd had a mentor.
Yes. And Willow has no way to distinguish which rules are actually important and which are frivolous. At the beginning, she tries to follow all of them (though she's already let some moral cracks in by accidentally decrypting city plans...). Her rebellion in season three still consists of eating a banana not at lunchtime. But no one is there to explain the difference between the reasons for "Don't talk with your mouth full" [it's perceived as rude] and "Look both ways before you cross the street" [because motorists don't always see pedestrians and it's dangerous!].
I love the observations about the way authority figures are so thoroughly trashed in seasons three and four! You can argue that this really affects all the Scoobies; in season five they have now found an apparently stable equilibrium where they are all Mature Adults Who Are Adult and Mature, but it's, um, actually not that stable as we find out in season six.... (Xander thinks he's Confident Xander instead of Scruffy Xander by the end of the season, but, no, not there yet.)
He really does, in retrospect. And I'm not entirely without sympathy for him, Buffy is the only one who's his job and she's more than enough, but he's (deliberately?) obtuse as to how important he is to the others. I just hurt for the others (especially Willow) when he starts trying to bail in the later seasons.
Oh absolutely. So much is made of how Giles left Buffy when she needed him the most. But what of Willow, who was becoming a genuine danger to herself and others? But I do sympathize with him tremendously. He has it deeply ingrained that people should be able to grow stronger by working through things themselves. And he didn't choose the Sunnydale life he ends up with, or even to be a Watcher. It's understandable that he'd want to wash his hands of it. But the Scoobies need him so much. (I can't say why, but it's Anya in "Grave" who breaks my heart the most.)
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Date: 2010-09-19 03:46 am (UTC)Yes. And Willow has no way to distinguish which rules are actually important and which are frivolous. At the beginning, she tries to follow all of them (though she's already let some moral cracks in by accidentally decrypting city plans...). Her rebellion in season three still consists of eating a banana not at lunchtime. But no one is there to explain the difference between the reasons for "Don't talk with your mouth full" [it's perceived as rude] and "Look both ways before you cross the street" [because motorists don't always see pedestrians and it's dangerous!].
I love the observations about the way authority figures are so thoroughly trashed in seasons three and four! You can argue that this really affects all the Scoobies; in season five they have now found an apparently stable equilibrium where they are all Mature Adults Who Are Adult and Mature, but it's, um, actually not that stable as we find out in season six.... (Xander thinks he's Confident Xander instead of Scruffy Xander by the end of the season, but, no, not there yet.)
He really does, in retrospect. And I'm not entirely without sympathy for him, Buffy is the only one who's his job and she's more than enough, but he's (deliberately?) obtuse as to how important he is to the others. I just hurt for the others (especially Willow) when he starts trying to bail in the later seasons.
Oh absolutely. So much is made of how Giles left Buffy when she needed him the most. But what of Willow, who was becoming a genuine danger to herself and others? But I do sympathize with him tremendously. He has it deeply ingrained that people should be able to grow stronger by working through things themselves. And he didn't choose the Sunnydale life he ends up with, or even to be a Watcher. It's understandable that he'd want to wash his hands of it. But the Scoobies need him so much. (I can't say why, but it's Anya in "Grave" who breaks my heart the most.)