TEEN WITCH. BtVS Intertext/Allusion.
There
are several references to witches and witchcraft in various Buffy episodes. The
following is in reference to the episode entitled "The Witch."
In The Witch (Season 1) Buffy, in an attempt to bring some normalcy into her complicated life, decides to try out for cheerleader. When she goes to the big tryout, she meets a quiet girl named Amy. As one girl auditions, she gets more and more into her routine, and suddenly her hands begin to smoke. Buffy knocks her to the ground and puts the girl's smoking hands out. Amy tells Buffy that her mother was a cheerleading star and she feels pressure to make the squad. When Amy leaves, Willow says it's a lot more than pressure — she thinks Amy's mom is a tyrant. Neither Amy nor Buffy is chosen as part of the regular squad — both are alternates. Amy is distraught when she is only chosen to be third alternate — with Buffy as first alternate.
In a spooky attic with a cauldron, someone is casting spells with dolls. The next day, snooty Cordelia Chase, who has made cheerleader, is temporarily blinded while taking her driving test. Giles thinks Amy's a witch, but the only way to prove it is to form a potion and pour it on her — if her skin turns blue, she is a witch.
The witch in this episode is not a modern witch, a practitioner of Wicca or other Earth-magic religions, nor is it the Wicked Witch of the West. No, Catherine Madison is a Chaos-worshiping, agent-of-Satan witch of the sort seen in Arthur Miller's The Crucible or John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick.
The following dialogue is taken from the Buffy Dialogue Database:
Giles: Witchcraft. Blinding your enemy to disorient and disable them is, it's classic!
Xander: First vampires, now witches. No wonder you can still afford a house in Sunnydale.
Giles: Why should someone want to harm Cordelia?
Willow: Maybe because they met her? Did I say that?
Giles: And setting Amber ablaze?
GILES: Um, thinking about your affliction and, uh, your newfound discovery that you can fight only demons; it occurs to me that (chuckling) I realize this is completely against your nature but I-I-I-- Has it occurred to you that there may be a higher purpose--
SPIKE: Ugh! You made me lose count. What are you still doing here?
GILES: Talking to myself, apparently.
SPIKE: Well piss off, then. This bit of business wraps up any I got with you and your Slayerettes. From here on I want nothing to do with the lot of you.
GILES: Your choosing to remain in Sunnydale might make that a little difficult.
SPIKE: Well you and yours will just have to show a little restraint is all. Get out. And I don't want you crawling back here knocking on my door pleading for help the second Teen Witch's magic goes all wonky or little Xander cuts a new tooth. We're through. You got it? (callously) Honeymoon is over.
"Witch" definitions:
1. "A woman believed to have supernatural powers and practice sorcery.
2. A follower of a pagan nature religion having its roots in pre-Christian Europe.
3. A hag."
Witchcraft on the Web