VAMP WILLOW. BtVS Demon/Monster/Villain.
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Willow first appears as a vampire—also called “Evil Willow”—in the alternate world created by Cordelia’s revenge on Xander in “The Wish” that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, a wish granted by Anya the vengeance demon in her first appearance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. VampWillow at first seems to be the antithesis of the demure Willow: ravenously sexy in a black leather bustier, jeans, and high-heeled boots, vicious in pursuing her prey (“You love all the parts” says her comrade in this scenario, VampXander), sadistic as she tortures a chained Angel, and throughout conveying a jaded ennui summed up by Alyson Hannigan’s perfectly understated delivery of just two words: “Bored now.” In the alternate Sunnydale, vampires Willow and Xander are both devoted to The Master. In a horrifying reflection of the situation which drove Cordelia to vengeance, VampWillow and VampXander appear to be truly lovers (one may have sired the other, though this is never made explicit), not just tempted in that direction, and they now kill Cordelia physically, not just emotionally. As “The Wish” reaches its terrible climax, “white hat” Oz, who has no idea that in the “real” Sunnydale he and Willow love one another, dusts VampWillow.
The character is just too chillingly good to let go, however, and Anya’s desire to retrieve her vengeance demon status provides a means to bring VampWillow into the Sunnydale reality in episode 3016, “Doppelgängland” (not “Doppelgängerland,” as it is often mis-labeled, hammering in the obvious pun on VampWillow as Willow’s doppelgänger and losing the less obvious allusion to VampWillow’s attempt to make Sunnydale her own personal vampire “gangland”). In “Doppelgängland,” more elements of VampWillow’s character are revealed. She resembles the original Willow in preferring to be in control of a situation—she’s nonplussed at first to find herself in a Sunnydale that is not ruled by vampires, but almost immediately sets about remedying the situation, using intelligence one would expect of Willow, along with a creepy imitation of Willow’s meekness, and vampiric ruthlessness to convert the Mayor’s vampire goons:
EVIL WILLOW: [demurely] I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.
ALPHONSE: Then we won’t talk.
[Alfonse & partner vamp attack. Evil Willow wins.]EVIL WILLOW: [reprovingly] You made me cranky.
ALPHONSE: [panting] There’s been a mistake here. We were sent after a human.
EVIL WILLOW: [intrigued] Really? Who do you work for?
ALPHONSE: [hoarsely] I’m not telling you a thing.
[With a half-smile, she takes one of his fingers and bends it back sharply, breaking it. He screams in pain.]
EVIL WILLOW: [still smiling] Who do you work for?
ALPHONSE: [gives in] Wilkins. The Mayor.
[She takes another finger and breaks it, too. Again he cries out in pain.]
EVIL WILLOW: Who do you work for? [bats her eyes suggestively]
ALPHONSE: [gets it] You.
EVIL WILLOW: [commands] Get your friends. Bring them here. The world’s no fun anymore. [smiles evilly] We’re gonna make it the way it was. Starting with the Bronze.
VampWillow also turns out to be “kinda gay,” choosing a woman, “Sandy,” as her first victim in the Bronze:
EVIL WILLOW: [sweetly] What’s your name?
SANDY: Sandy.
[Evil Willow lightly brushes her hands along Sandy’s arm and takes her hand. She slowly pulls her onto the dance floor where everyone can see them.]
EVIL WILLOW: You don’t have to be afraid... [smiles disarmingly] just to please me. [to everyone] If you’re all good boys and girls, we’ll make you young and strong forever and ever.
[She turns Sandy around to face the stage and stands behind her, continuing to fondle Sandy’s shoulders and hair.]
EVIL WILLOW: [enticingly] We’ll have fun.
[Sandy flinches when Evil Willow grasps her hair and pulls it to the side, forcing Sandy to tilt her head, leaving her neck bare. Evil Willow lasciviously licks the girl’s neck.]
EVIL WILLOW: If you’re not…
[She looks around warningly, vamps out, smiles, licks her lips and roars as she bites Sandy savagely on the neck…]
(Although it appears that VampWillow kills Sandy, Sandy’s reappearance as a vampire who tempts Riley to experiment with the dark side in Season Five’s “Family” suggests that VampWillow found time to turn her before Buffy and the Scoobies rescued the rest of the Bronze clientele.) VampWillow also tries to entice her doppelgänger Willow to join her, licking her neck seductively in a way Willow shudderingly says “just couldn’t be more disturbing,” and giving her a farewell hug that begins with sisterly warmth—at least on Willow’s part—but ends with Willow jumping away with a warning cry of “Hands! hands!” At this point in the show, it has been established that Willow is deeply involved with Oz and if there is any possibility that she has lesbian or bi-sexual tendencies, as Xander once noted “she's playing it pretty close to the chest” (“Prophecy Girl”). Only the plot developments of seasons four and five (and possibly six) made the following exchange with Angel seem retrospectively foreshadowy:
WILLOW: [appalled] It’s horrible! That’s me as a vampire? [Angel closes the door to the cage] I’m so evil and… skanky. [aside to Buffy, worried] And I think I’m kinda gay.
BUFFY: [reassuringly] Willow, just remember, a vampire’s personality has nothing to do with the person it was.
ANGEL: [without thinking] Well, actually… [gets a look from Buffy] That’s a good point.
VampWillow is returned to the “Wishverse” just where she left it, in the midst of the climactic battle of “The Wish,” and just in time for Oz to heartlessly drive her back onto the broken board behind her, turning her pleased smile to a dusty “Aw, f—” and she’s gone forever.
In “Doppelgängland,” VampWillow may be read as simply embodying Willow’s anger and unhappiness—the two find another point of common ground in agreeing that “This world’s no fun”—for somewhat different reasons, one presumes. But for more comprehensive discussions of connections between “Evil Willow” and Willow, see James B. South “‘My God, It’s Like a Greek Tragedy’: Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality,” and Jes Battis, “‘She’s Not All Grown Yet’: Willow as Hybrid/Hero in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Works Cited
Battis, Jes. “‘She’s Not All Grown Yet’: Willow as Hybrid/Hero in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Slayage 8 (March 2003).
South, James B. “ ‘My God, It’s Like a Greek Tragedy’: Willow Rosenberg and Human Irrationality.” In Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale. Ed. James B. South. Chicago: Open Court, 2003.131-45.
Assigned to Peg Aloi.
Multiple assignments possible.