Willow Rosenberg

↳ Note: This article is about the character. For other uses, see Willow.

Willow Rosenberg
Name	Willow Danielle Rosenberg
Aliases	Will Red (used by Faith & Spike) Strawberry (used by Rack) Dark Willow The Black Hope The Madwoman willow@sunnynet.com
Status	Alive
Born	ca. 1981, Sunnydale
Classif.	Human Witch Ghost (formerly)
Affiliation	Scooby Gang Sunnydale High School We Hate Cordelia Club Class of '99 UC Sunnydale Daughters of Gaea Devon Coven Angel Investigations (ally) Slayer Organization Team Spike
Relatives	Ira Rosenberg (father) Sheila Rosenberg (mother)
Appearances
Debut	"Welcome to the Hellmouth"
Last seen	Finale
Portrayed by	Alyson Hannigan Riff Regan Adam Busch Natalie Lander

“The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off.”

―Willow Rosenberg

Willow Danielle Rosenberg was a witch native to Sunnydale, California, a founding member of the Scooby Gang, and the best friend and semi-official sidekick of the Slayer, Buffy Summers. Willow started out as a shy computer nerd, eventually developing her talents to become a powerful and assertive witch.

Willow was introduced to the forces of magic by attempting a complex spell to re-ensoul Angel. To her own surprise, Willow tapped into considerable power during this ritual and would come to practice witchcraft. Willow was quick to grasp basic spells and with support from her girlfriend Tara Maclay, her powers blossomed even more rapidly as did her self-confidence. Milestones in her magical career include the enjoining spell, taking on the hell-goddess Glory and surviving, resurrecting Buffy Summers, nearly ending the world, activating multiple Potential Slayers and, eventually, establishing herself as Earth's most powerful witch.

Biography

Early life

Willow Rosenberg was born to Sheila and Ira Rosenberg. Her mother was supercilious and distant, noticing Willow had cut her hair months after she actually had it cut. She had a "bad birthday party pony thing" when she was four, leaving her with a fear of ponies and horses. At some point, Willow also developed a fear of frogs and spiders. After watching "Snoopy on Ice", her dad took her backstage, but she was scared and threw up on Woodstock.

Willow became best friends with Alexander Harris at a young age and she attended school with him throughout all of her life. On the first day of kindergarten, Willow cried because she broke a yellow crayon. She and Xander also gained another friend, Jesse McNally. Willow was also very close friends with Amy Madison during junior high.

Sunnydale High

Wallflower

Willow meeting her future best friend, Buffy Summers, for the first time in her sophomore year of high school.

In her early years in high school, Willow was a shy, naive "nerd" with a light, risqué sense of humor. A member of the math, science, and computer clubs, she was the go-to person for tutoring help. Willow was ridiculed by her more popular classmates, including cheerleaders Cordelia Chase and Harmony Kendall. She had a hopeless crush on her lifelong friend Xander, who ignored her to pursue his equally hopeless crush on a new student and their eventual mutual best friend, Buffy Summers.

After witnessing Willow being insulted by Cordelia, Buffy quickly approached Willow as a friend despite Willow responding in fear as she saw her with Cordelia. The two met at the Bronze and Buffy encouraged Willow to seize her day, so she went out with a boy she had just met, Thomas, actually a vampire. Willow soon became Buffy's best friend after the Slayer saved her, leading Willow along with Xander to learn about Buffy's secret identity. This revelation led Willow to dedicate herself to aiding her friend in the battle against evil. Willow's assistance to the Scooby Gang was mostly through her computing and hacking skills as well as helping the school librarian and Buffy's Watcher Rupert Giles on researching about demons.

Willow uses her computing skills to assist the Scooby Gang.

By the end of her sophomore year, Willow's interest in computers got her almost killed by the demon Moloch the Corruptor, who pretended to be a teenage boy talking to her on the net. Willow initially ignored her friends' warnings but came to realize his true nature when he revealed himself in his new robotic form. After Buffy killed him, Willow felt bad for falling for a demon, thinking something was wrong with her. Buffy and Xander cheered her up by reminding her of the times they fell for someone out of the norm.

She also witnessed the death of several students at the hands of the Order of Aurelius, affecting her emotionally. This experience gave Buffy the push to confront the Order's leader, the Master who was prophesied to kill her. Learning this, Willow met up with Giles, Xander and Jennifer Calendar, her computer science teacher and technopagan she admired. They believed that a swarm of the Master's vampire minions would assemble at the Bronze where the school's prom was currently being held. Willow accompanied Jenny to her car where they discovered that the vampires were actually going to the school where they were. Luckily, Cordelia arrived and rescued them with her car, having been helped the gang prior. Returning to the library, Willow fought off both vampires and a tentacle monster that spawned from the Hellmouth, awakened by the Master after he bit Buffy and left her to drown. Buffy, however, was revived by CPR and came to their need and killed the Master.

Character development

The following year, just as Buffy returned, Willow was kidnapped along with Giles, Jenny, and Cordelia by the Order's remaining members and almost killed in the ritual to resurrect the Master, since they were at close proximity to him as he died. Even though it was Buffy's emotional irrationality that put them in danger, Willow along with the others did not express any anger to her afterward.

Willow as a ghost.

In her junior year, Willow began to have huge advances to her persona. During Halloween when everyone literally became what their costumes were from Ethan Rayne's Costume Shop, Buffy and Xander were given different mind-sets, leaving the ghostly Willow to take initiative and assign for Giles' help while wearing skimpy outfit that Buffy before hence encouraged her to put on to impress Xander, though she kept it hidden a ghost costume that she abandoned while becoming a ghost. Also, when Buffy lied to Giles so she could hold off her slayer duties to attend a college frat party, Willow burst out in a fit of guilt yet also judging Giles for not allowing Buffy to have time for herself and Angel for not bothering to make time for her.

After discovering Xander's relationship with Cordelia when she caught them kissing, a heartbroken Willow angrily expressed her shock and disgust that Xander would involve himself with someone like Cordelia before her, further strengthening her assertiveness and pride.

She then quickly decided to move on, starting a romantic relationship with Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, a guitarist in the local band Dingoes Ate My Baby. The two began talking after they were selected by the "world's leading software concern" during the Careers Fair. She later invited him to Buffy's birthday where he witnessed his first vampire being staked. Even after the revelation that he was a werewolf and almost getting killed by him, Willow still continued to date him, even confidently kissing him at her own accord.

Willow's first spell: the Ritual of Restoration to re-ensoul Angelus.

When Jenny Calendar was murdered by Buffy's newly soulless boyfriend Angel, Willow agreed to teach her classes for the rest of the year. During this time, she went through her former teacher's belongings, dabbling in magic. She eventually discovered a floppy disk containing the translated text of the lost Ritual of Restoration, the curse that originally had been used to ensoul Angelus decades before. Willow took it upon herself to perform the spell if Buffy couldn’t kill him, as she claimed it would be the last resort.

Willow first attempted the ritual in the school library, but failed when Angelus' vampire minions attacked and a bookcase was dropped on her. Recovering at the hospital, Willow performed the Ritual of Restoration with Cordelia and Oz at her side. She told Xander to inform Buffy of this, who instead just told Buffy to kill him. At the exact climax of the ritual, a powerful burst of magic surged through her, ensouling Angel just before Buffy stabbed and sent him to hell to close Acathla's portal.

Learning magic

“I mean, you've been fighting evil here for three years, and I've helped some, and now we're supposed to decide what we want to do with our lives. And I just realized that that's what I want to do. Fight evil, help people. I mean, I think it's worth doing. And I don't think you do it because you have to. It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in.”

―Willow chooses her path in life.

While Buffy was away in Los Angeles, Willow continued to practice witchcraft — first starting simple through a number of pagan blessings and also once used a glamour to conceal a pimple. She even took a frightening turn when she attempted to contact the spirit world while not being ready, having found the experience to have "pulled her apart inside," as well as blowing out the power for the whole street block. Willow also took charge of the Scooby Gang through their series of unsuccessful vampire hunts.

Willow improving her magic skills.

She joined a coven with fellow magic-users Amy Madison and Michael Czajak, who became the victims of a witch-hunt led by Buffy's mother Joyce Summers and a group called Mothers Opposed to the Occult (MOO). However, they were actually under the influence of a demon who impersonated two witch-victims; with Willow, Buffy and Amy being nearly burned at the stake before Giles revealed the demon which Buffy then slew, breaking the spell. Willow also then kept Amy as a pet after she turned herself into a rat to escape, Willow not possessing Amy's powers of transmogrification at that time.

Though she showed initial shock at Buffy's secret relationship with Angel who had just returned, the heads of the gang were turned when Angel saved her from being killed by corrupt ex-watcher Gwendolyn Post.

Willow and Xander discovered a growing attraction for each other, despite the fact that they were each in relationships with other people. While being held hostage by Spike, Willow and Xander shared a kiss, believing that they were going to be killed. To their dismay, they were caught in the act by Oz and Cordelia, who had come to rescue them. Although Cordelia broke up with Xander for good, Oz and Willow eventually managed to work things out after some weeks.

Willow fakes being her vampiric counterpart.

Tired of being "old reliable," Willow aided former vengeance demon Anya Jenkins in a spell, unwittingly releasing her own vampire counterpart from an alternate universe., wanting to return to her dimension, rounded up a gang of vampire minions originally employed by Mayor Richard Wilkins to kill Willow. She then used them to hold the Bronze patrons hostage in hopes of forcing Willow to send her back. After a fortunate encounter, Willow managed to trap her and was then forced to pretend to be her so the gang could kill each vampire one by one. In the ordeal, she was shocked to discover that her vampire counterpart exhibited homosexual tendencies, a foreshadowing to her very own lesbian relationships. One positive from the whole event was the encounter between vampire Willow and Percy West, a lazy, self-involved jock who Willow was forced to tutor but left Willow to do his own unfinished assignments. After meeting her vampire counterpart, a fearful Percy decided to do the work required and he started to respect her as she tutored him.

Despite being accepted by several colleges, including Harvard, Yale, and Oxford, Willow decided to attend University of California, Sunnydale so that she could continue fighting the "good fight" with Buffy after being held hostage by Mayor Richard Wilkins and rogue Slayer Faith Lehane, where the Scooby Gang traded a key component of the Mayor's Ascension for Willow. Fearing she would die not having experienced new depths in her relationship with Oz, she lost her virginity to him the night before graduation when the Mayor would ascend into the Old One Olvikan. During the fight against the Mayor and his vampire minions, Willow and a number of other students wielded spear guns, though this did little damage to the Mayor. Willow then survived the battle.

College

“It’s just in high school, knowledge was pretty much frowned upon. You really had to work to learn anything. But here, the energy, the collective intelligence, it’s like this force, this penetrating force”

―Willow

Willow and Buffy start attending college.

In her first year of college, Willow initially enjoyed being in an environment that appreciated her intellect and further excelled in her magical abilities. Moving across town to UC Sunnydale, Willow and Buffy become roommates at room 214 in Stevenson Hall after the expulsion of Buffy's previous demonic roommate, Kathy Newman. Though her skills in magic got better, Willow did struggle in some areas in terms of control. During Halloween, the Scoobies became trapped in a frat house that was being magically altered by the demon Gachnar. Willow wanted to prove herself by locating endangered party-goers with magic despite her friends' opposition because of concerns for her safety. She ignored them and the spell she performed ending up attacking her.

Willow soon reached a stage of emotional heartbreak. Oz left town after cheating on Willow with another werewolf called Veruca. Around this time Willow attempted to curse them both with magic, though stopped when Veruca arrived to kill her only to be killed by Oz who then left her out of fear of endangering her. Willow then waited but was left with a bitter attitude, writing letters to Oz but not knowing where to post them. A devastated Willow cast a spell to have "My Will Be Done", accidentally endangering her friends' lives in the process when she called Xander a "demon magnet," thus attracting real hostile demons to his location. This also made her eligible to become a vengeance demon, but she declined the offer and undid the spell.

Willow combining forces with another witch, Tara.

Afterward, she joined the campus Wicca group Daughters of Gaea, a disappointing experience when she found out none of the other members were actually real witches with the exception of the presence of timid, serious witch Tara Maclay. After discovering each other's magic during an encounter with the Gentlemen, they became friends, meeting each other on a regular basis to practice spells weeks before Tara was introduced to Willow's friends. From this, they eventually formed a close bond and fell in love with each other, though both remained discreet about it.

Later, Oz returned, believing he had gained control over his wolf-side, with hopes of continuing his relationship with Willow. This put Willow in a tough position, having to choose between her long-term boyfriend or a new and exciting relationship with a woman. After some serious consideration, and coming out to Buffy about her feelings for Tara, Willow chose Tara over Oz, who left Sunnydale once more, having been unable to control his condition.

Spike, in league with Adam, attempted to split the Scoobies apart. He used Willow's relationship with Tara as one of the catalysts, and her sexuality came out to everyone at this time. She later joined with the fellow essences of Buffy, Xander, and Giles to form a super being to defeat Adam. Willow acted as the "spirit" of the ensemble, using her magic skills to disarm Adam's technological advantages.

Willow advances further in the dark magicks.

Willow's power increased at a dramatic rate. Her relationship with Tara was strengthened when she discovered how Tara rose above her family's abusive lies. However, they argued when Tara voiced her concerns at how much magic Willow had been using over the past few months. Shortly afterward, Tara was "brain-sucked" by the hell-goddess Glory, and was left in an insane, babbling state. Enraged and grief-stricken, Willow ignored Buffy's warnings and attacked Glory full force in her own home, but was ultimately defeated; however, to Willow's credit, she did manage to actually injure Glory and weaken her significantly. Willow almost got herself killed after spitting directly in Glory's face in a show of pure spite, but Buffy arrived just in time to save her.

When Buffy later went into a catatonic state, Willow magically entered her mind and freed her, assuring her that they would find a way to defeat Glory. In the final fight against Glory, Willow managed to slow her down by restoring Tara's mind, and disorientating the hell-god, as Willow reunited with her lover. However, Buffy was forced to sacrifice herself to save the life of her sister, Dawn. Following the battle, a devastated Willow departed to Los Angeles and visited the Hyperion Hotel to inform Angel that Buffy had died.

Addiction to magic and "Dark Willow"

“The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!”

―Giles condemns Willow over her growing misuse of magic.

Willow resurrects Buffy.

Following Buffy's death, Willow assumed leadership of the Scoobies (at Xander's insistence) and used her magic in patrols to help keep the vampire population in check while looking after Dawn in Buffy's absence. Willow's magical skills peaked when she led Tara, Xander, and Anya in resurrecting Buffy. This had major concerns; both Tara and Xander briefly opposed the idea while Giles branded her as a "rank arrogant amateur" for delving into such deep, consequential magic.

Willow developed an addiction to magic and began to use it excessively, and briefly got into an argument with Tara over it; she subsequently used magic to erase all memory of the fight from Tara's mind. After Sweet's musical spell lead to Buffy revealing that she had been in Heaven and not Hell as they originally believed, Willow became guilt-ridden over costing her best friend eternal happiness and suggested using magic to erase Buffy's memories of Heaven, leading to another argument with Tara; not wanting to lose Tara, Willow vowed not to use magic for a week to prove that she was not dependent on it, but almost immediately went back on her word and cast a spell to make Buffy and Tara forget about the negative aspects of what her spells did, only for it to backfire and gave the entire Scooby Gang, including herself, total amnesia, rendering them vulnerable when the Magic Box was attacked by Bro'os, a demonic loan shark trying to collect Spike's gambling debt. When the spell was broken, Tara promptly broke up with Willow.

Willow's addiction spirals out of control.

Without Tara's presence, Willow's addiction spiraled completely out of control; she finally managed to transform Amy back from a rat back into a human, and Amy began taking her to Rack, a dark magic dealer, with her more liberal use of magic contrasting with the Scoobies' attempts to encourage responsibility. Later, while attempting to take Dawn to the movies, Willow dropped by Rack's place again and left Dawn alone and unprotected in the waiting room for two hours, disregarding Dawn's fears and complaints when she emerged. Following this, they were attacked by Mandraz, a demon unwillingly summoned by Willow during her high. Willow commandeered a car using magic to escape, and the two suffered a car accident; while Willow emerged relatively unscathed, Dawn suffered a broken arm, and the two were saved from the demon by the timely arrival of Buffy and Spike shortly afterward. Faced with this, Willow was finally forced to face the consequences of her actions and cut off her contact with Rack and Amy, renouncing the use of her powers and choosing to help the Scoobies with her technical skills. 

Sometime later, Willow and Tara reconciled, prompting them to spend several hours in bed "catching up". Suddenly, Tara was murdered by a stray bullet from Warren Mears' attempt to kill Buffy. A grief-stricken Willow, having failed to bring Tara back, unleashed her dark side once more, absorbing every bit of dark magic from the texts in the Magic Box, causing both her hair and her eyes to become solid black, with veins protruding on her face as a result of draining Rack's life force to replenish her magic. Willow left her friends, her old self, and her morality behind, and her vengeance reached a climax when she used magic to flay Warren alive.

Willow goes against her friends as "Dark Willow".

Willow absorbed the magic and life force from Rack as she pursued Jonathan Levinson and Andrew Wells, Warren's accomplices, despite the fact that they had no involvement in Tara's death, turning against her friends in the process. Andrew Wells compared her to Dark Phoenix and later referred to her as "Dark Willow".

Willow then battled her best friend Buffy, infusing herself with super-strength, declaring: "I'm the Slayer, now." After having heavily beaten and nearly defeated Buffy, Willow was attacked by Giles, who abruptly returned with borrowed power of the Devon Coven. Despite Giles' attempts to stop her, Willow absorbed his power as well, pushing her so far that she was overcome by all the pain she sensed in the world. She attempted to trigger the apocalypse to end it all but was thwarted by Xander who, out of love, refused to leave her alone, regardless of what she had done or was doing. The power that she had absorbed from Giles put her back in touch with her true emotions and feelings, so Xander's act eventually caused Willow to break down over her actions.

Rehabilitation

“In every generation, one Slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined.”

―Buffy trusts Willow to activate the Potential Slayers.

In England, Willow weans herself from Dark Magic and places her power in nature.

After her attempt at destroying the world, Giles took Willow to his home in England where she was forced to deal with her actions, her connection to magic, and her place in the universe. Under the teachings of the Devon Coven, Willow regained control of her magic, though was hesitant and careful about how much she used, fearing that she might revert to her "dark" self. At the time, she met his great-aunts Lavinia and Sophronia Fairweather.

Upon her return to Sunnydale, Willow was nervous about how her friends would react when they saw her again and accidentally cast a spell that made her invisible to them and vice versa which ended in disastrous results as it caused her to fall victim to the demon Gnarl before the spell was ended, at which point she was reunited with the other Scoobies.

When the First Evil began its campaign against the Scooby Gang, Willow reluctantly began a relationship with the Potential Slayer Kennedy. After their first kiss, however, Willow was transformed into Warren, the result of the hex Penance Malediction, placed on her by a vengeful and jealous Amy. Kennedy saved Willow from fully becoming him by helping her to finally come to terms with Tara's death and move on as she attempted to continue Warren's murderous path with a gun.

Willow was still reluctant to use her full power, especially after the First took control of her during a minor spell. However, Willow was called to Los Angeles by Winifred Burkle to re-ensoul Angel once again. While there, Willow did battle with a higher power later known as Jasmine, who had possessed Cordelia, and came out victorious. She then returned to Sunnydale with newly reformed Slayer Faith who was insisted to break out of prison to fight Angelus.

Willow activates Slayers all around the world.

With the final battle with the First drawing nearer, Buffy entrusted Willow with a very big and important task that Willow was very reluctant to perform. Despite this, Willow tapped into the essence of the Slayer weapon Mʔ (both by her computer and witchcraft prowess), and activated multiple Potential Slayers around the globe, briefly turning her hair white in the process before Kennedy deified her as a goddess. Willow then fell to the floor mumbling "that was nifty." She escaped Sunnydale before its subsequent destruction.

Slayer Organization

“I said I wanted to understand my power and I do. But under that, I wanted to know my fate. Darkness? Enlightenment? Was I a good witch or a bad witch? I feel the pull of both of each. That was my secret motive… but it’s not. Under the under, I just wanted her. She was my light. She was my order. She was my journey. Completed. But either she's an illusion… or Tara is at peace. And either way, no thanks.”

―Willow beginning her training to understand her true nature

Following the destruction of Sunnydale, Willow and Kennedy spent some time in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Willow also visited the Himalayas but was unable to aid Fred Burkle with her mystical illness because she was performing astral projection to another plane at the time.

Willow was given an opportunity to have Tara be her guide while she enhanced her magical prowess but realized that Tara would only be given to her as an illusion or that she would be ripped from her afterlife. Willow decided to study under Aluwyn, a mysterious snake-like woman. Along the way, Willow also began a sexual relationship with Vasuki. During this time, her contact with Buffy and the Scooby Gang diminished.

Willow magically assists the Slayer Organization.

When Kennedy died a mystical death, Willow resurrected her a month later and they began to take their relationship more slowly. Willow also confessed that she was keeping Kennedy away from Buffy because she didn't want to lose her, believing that if she hadn't resurrected Buffy, Tara would still be alive.

Over a year after the Hellmouth battle, Willow appeared at Buffy and Xander's Scotland base, battling Amy and her army of the undead. Willow was kidnapped by a skinless Warren Mears, who revealed that Amy had revived him moments after Willow killed him. The pair had been conspiring against her ever since and were responsible for her transformation into Warren in 2003. Warren lobotomized Willow, who took refuge in a mental plane before being rescued by Buffy, unharmed.

Sometime after joining Buffy, Xander, and Dawn in Scotland, Willow traveled to Las Vegas to assist Spike, who had been resurrected in Los Angeles after the destruction of Sunnydale, during his investigation into Hart. When Spike's soul was extracted by the homicidal sociopath John, who had been brought there along with Drusilla by Wolfram & Hart and apparently lost his own soul when Spike regained his, Spike directed his soul into Drusilla to give her a chance at redemption, but ultimately had Willow transfer his soul back into himself when the guilt of a restored conscience only drove Drusilla even more insane. Willow told Spike that Buffy already knew about his resurrection, but agreed to keep their team-up a secret from Buffy. She then committing Drusilla to the Mosaic Wellness Center.

Willow began to settle in Scotland with Buffy and Xander and attempted to aid Dawn who had transformed into a giant. When Buffy and Willow went on a mission to find out about more about the Scoobies' newest enemy, Twilight, the demon Sephrilian revealed the friends' secrets to each other, including the reason why Willow was keeping Kennedy away from Buffy, leaving their friendship strained.

While fighting a group of vampires in Tokyo, Willow met and battled a fellow student of Saga Vasuki, the witch Kumiko. The vision she received during this fight with Kumiko would later lead her to investigate a possible ripple in time in New York City. When Buffy was kidnapped into the future, Willow contacted Vasuki for help during sex with an oblivious Kennedy. Saga Vasuki warned Willow not to look forward into the future when she rescued Buffy from it; Willow complied and successfully returned Buffy to the present.

Willow and Buffy suppressing their magic.

After Harmony Kendall unwittingly brought about a new pro-vampire, anti-Slayer world order, Willow was needed more than ever to protect the Slayers from humans and demons alike. Along with a small team of Slayers who were also witches, Willow cast a series of powerful force fields and glamours to protect and conceal the Scottish base. Demons still attacked and defenses fell. Willow teleported out and discovered from Saga Vasuki that Twilight was tracking them by magic. Buffy decided, after sharing concerns with Giles that Willow was heading down a dark path once again, that the group should learn from Oz how to suppress their mystical powers and natures. Buffy had Willow do one last big spell, sending everyone to Oz's retreat in Tibet. In Tibet, Willow was unhappy with the suppression of her powers which she felt were intrinsic to her identity. Furthermore, she was jealous of Oz for having a normal life, settling down with his wife Bayarmaa, and having a son, Kelden. Oz assured her she could have a normal life and learn to suppress her powers too, and also showed his trust in her by letting her watch Kelden for him. Later, Buffy admitted to Willow that she killed her in the future where she had once again gone "dark," but Willow was nonplussed and opined that the future was not fixed.

The suppression of their powers left Buffy and her friends defenseless when Amy tracked them down and Twilight unleashed his military might on the powerless Slayers and Monroe's small band of werewolves, leading to heavy casualties. When Bayarmaa explained that their method of magical suppression worked by sacrificing one's magic to the wrathful goddesses of Tibet; Remati, Vajrayogini and Ekajati; for protection, Buffy and Willow performed a ritual to summon them. The Goddesses appeared and began to kill indiscriminately. While collecting the injured from the bloody battlefield, Buffy was dropped by Remati from an incredible height. As Twilight was capturing members of Buffy's group, Buffy awakened to discover she had new superhuman abilities, including flight. Not long after, Willow's powers returned to her very suddenly; she identified it as a "ripple effect" of a cataclysmic magical event in the near future. Back at the camp, Buffy instructed Willow not to fight the goddesses head-on but to dig a large hole for them instead. Buffy easily manhandled the goddesses and put them in the pit, which Willow magically sealed up.

Willow later realized that Faith, Giles, and Andrew were captured by Twilight. She teleported around the world in search of them, finding dead Slayers at several locations due to Twilight conducting simultaneous coordinated attacks around the world, leading them to theorize Buffy's new powers have come from the dead Slayers. Amy defected to the Slayers' side and revealed Twilight's HQ was located three seconds in the future. With this knowledge they were able to uncloak it, leading to Buffy's confrontation with Twilight, who revealed himself to be Angel. Willow and the others soon followed to Twilight's HQ. After Buffy and Angel fought in the air and in space, they fell under the influence of external power, had sex and created a new universe, which in turn caused extradimensional demons to flood their dimension ahead of its impending destruction. Willow was one of several battling these. Buffy and Angel returned to their senses and tried to help their friends and save the universe. Suddenly, Spike's ship arrived — which Willow alone recognizes from their adventure together in Vegas.

Spike informed the group that acquiring the Seed of Wonder was vital to the plans of the universe known as Twilight to incarnate itself. The Seed, which was located in Sunnydale's ruins, was the source of all magic in this dimension. While they were being transported to Sunnydale aboard Spike's ship, Willow was summoned to a spiritual dimension by Aluwyn who explained she must protect the Seed or magic will be lost from the universe, and that the walls between worlds will become closed forever. Arriving in Sunnydale's ruins, Willow was able to connect herself to the Seed and experienced unity with the universe. Using more power than ever before, she easily handled thousands of enormous demons. Meanwhile, below, Angel was possessed fully by Twilight and killed Giles, leading Buffy to destroy the Seed; Willow was very suddenly and dramatically cut off from all of her power. In the aftermath of the crisis, she possessed no magic whatsoever. Willow broke up with Kennedy soon afterward, believing that Kennedy was drawn to her in part because she had superpowers, and also realizing that she was really in love with someone else. Living in San Francisco like Buffy, Xander, and Dawn, Willow vowed that she would somehow restore magic to the world.

World without magic

“It’s been months since magic left the world. And everything’s changed. Apparently, only I cared. I first realized after a big rain when I saw the rainbow… with two colors. Music, poetry — everything is going bad. This isn’t just me not liking new trends. No one can hit a note. Everyone’s auto-tuned. Coke doesn’t taste right anymore. I see examples everywhere. It’s not just that there suddenly aren’t witches and the occult around now. Suicide rates are moving up every day. It’s the inspiration, the dreams. All the things that make life so wonderful. It’s just not quite… there like it used to be. So I’m setting out to do something about it. To bring magic back.”

―Willow realizes the negative effects of the Seed's destruction

A few months after the Seed was destroyed, living in San Francisco along with the other Scoobies, Willow began dating Aura and started working as a computer technician. Willow attempted to warn Buffy of the consequences of destroying the Earth's "spark," and appeared to have grown to resent her best friend for destroying the Seed, her irritation only growing when Buffy repeatedly dismissed her concerns, insisting that she did what she had to do. However, after Buffy and Spike were nearly drained of their powers by Severin, Willow admitted that she was never angry with Buffy, and Buffy promised Willow that they would find a way to bring magic back to the world. Months later, Willow took the Scythe and left, believing it was the key to restoring magic due to advice given to her by a vision of Sineya, the first Slayer.

She subsequently arrived in London, making contact with Angel and Faith in Giles's apartment. Willow quickly deduced Angel's plan to resurrect Giles using the Tooth of Ammuk and fragments of his soul derived from magic items linked to key moments of his life, and coldly told Angel that he was selfish, stupid, reckless, and delusional to think that his attempts would not end in disaster, particularly after all of the pain and suffering she put Buffy and the rest of the gang through after Buffy's own resurrection. However, despite her misgivings, Willow decided to help Angel with his plans because she herself needed him, stating that she needed Connor to bring magic back to Earth; in order to regain her magic, she needed to travel to another dimension where magic still existed and "soak up" the energy from there, but the only dimension that could still be accessed from this world was Quor'toth as there were never any portals to Quor'toth in the first place. Having discovered a ritual that might allow her to access Quor'toth using the residual energy in the Scythe as a "battery," Willow needed something from the target dimension to access it in the first place, requiring Connor due to the time he had spent in that world. Angel was unsurprisingly furious with Willow for wanting to involve his son in her plans, at which point Willow snapped and blasted him for comparing her to him before breaking down in tears and insisting that the Earth was dying without magic and she needed to save it. Seeing Willow's inner turmoil, Angel was more sympathetic and agreed to take her to Connor and talk to him, but made it clear to Willow that it was Connor's choice to go along with her plan.

Despite Angel's misgivings, Connor agreed to the plan, with Willow carving various signs on him with the scythe and opening a rift to Quor'toth. Having recharged her magic in Quor'toth — although it took longer than expected due to the nature of this realm's magic — Willow opened another portal to travel to the world without shrimp, a world with magic sufficiently similar to that once possessed by Earth, although Connor remained to help a cult that had been formed based on his legend. During the quest, Willow and the gang come across the Old One Quor'toth and attempted to fight against him with magic, only to fail at first. Due to Angel's encouragement, Willow fought back again successfully. Despite this seemingly good thing, it becomes clear that things are now much more difficult as Willow stared at them with the ominous words of "We got a problem," her eyes now black due to absorbing too much dark magic.

Willow was seen to go in a panic over the dark energies taking over, insisting that she could not stay in Quor'toth any longer. Angel comforted and tried to calm the distraught witch, pleading with her to trust him and protect them from the advancing Old One. Hesitantly, Willow decided to obey and fought with the magical forces against the demon, only to shortly afterward attack Connor, the dark forces proving too much for her. Completely consumed and fully Dark Willow now, she won against Quor'toth by dropping a mountain on him and expressed a desire to rule over the dimension. Angel, however, hurled up and bit her. This caused Willow to faint and the influence of the magic to fade. When Angel himself gets taken over by blood lust, Willow awoke and stopped Faith from killing him as well as him trying to get her to kill him. Once he recovered, she thanked Angel in gratitude for helping but firmly said she had not forgiven him yet though understood his reasons. Insisting that she did not hate him, Willow hesitantly hugged Angel and allowed him to take whatever was left of Giles' soul out of the Scythe. She entered the portal to the World Without Shrimp, continuing her solo quest to bring magic back.

She traveled throughout the dimension, recalling all of the effects she recognized due to the destruction of the Seed. Willow, after fighting some odd demon here and there, soon met up with a man calling himself Marrak. He claimed to her that he was from Earth but trapped in this current dimension with no way back due to loss of magic and that due to the effects of the dark magic, was transformed into a demon. Ever compassionate and trusting, Willow decided to work together with him. Eventually, after some wandering, they meet a large caterpillar-like demon who seemed to want to help, only to be charged by some monster from the woods.

Willow eventually defeated the monster (revealed to be called Hybberax) with the Zen Caterpillar and Marrak. They soon after get attacked by demonic bird-type demons, causing some hallucinations of faceless people in her mind; Willow deduced this was the missing dreams of people that had been unable to pass through. Looking for the Deeper Well of Wonderland, she ran into an old friend: Aluwyn. Immediately, Willow was ecstatic and kissed her in her joy of having finally found her (much to the shock of Marrak). One of the witches with Aluwyn named Vulcana repaired Buffy's scythe and Willow finally reached the Wellspring, this dimension's Deeper Well. She opened up a rift to Earth, seeing Buffy, Xander, and Dawn discussing the vampire problems but it quickly closed. However, it allowed her to witness Dawn being faceless, shocking Willow. Aluwyn then explained afterward that portals could only open and stay open unless there was magic on both sides.

Aluwyn and her "super-coven" convinced Willow to live with them in their paradise dimension and to give up on her plans to save Earth. Willow also began to doubt if her mission was really just for the world rather than herself or even if her friends were in danger.

Willow confronts and accepts her dark side.

However, Marrak reminded her of her mission. Aluwyn attempted to persuade her to stay, but the pair separates. Willow had a strong epiphany at that point and realized for the first time that there was no such thing as "Dark Willow" and "Light Willow," only Willow. Traveling with Marrak again, however, she became aware of his lust for dark magic and realized he was in fact Rack, her former magick dealer.

Rack did intend to restore magic to Earth, but also to hoard it all for himself. Rack and Willow battled over alternate universes until he was overcome by the antibodies of a sentient universe; their battle further helped Willow to overcome her inner doubts about "going dark" again by accepting responsibility for setting herself down the path of addiction long before meeting Rack. The sentient universe explained to Willow as Aluwyn did that it will be impossible to return magic to the world as she had planned, but also that magic was not completely lost as many beings (such as Slayers) use magic that came from within. Though the Seed — the "heart" of Earth's magic — had been destroyed, she would be able to draw power from her own heart now, a power for the world to share. Willow awakened in space, high above Earth, and descended to San Francisco with the intention of returning to her friends.

Willow arrived back in San Francisco with the newly fixed scythe just in time to aid Buffy with Dawn's worsening condition. She was happy to be reunited with her best friend but reminded Buffy that though she had her magic back, it was limited and the Earth was still suffering from a loss of magic. She proceeded to heal a scar on her friend's forehead from a previous battle by a mystical knife as Buffy began to inform her what had happened during her absence.

Fully filled on what was happening while she was away, Willow proceeded to furiously work herself to help save Dawn. Eventually, after much effort, she managed to stabilize her enough so that she could be awake and functioning. However, she made sure to firmly remind everyone that she was not powerful enough to save her life at that point and the most she was able to do was give her a few more days. Acknowledging this, Buffy and the others worked up a game plan. It was decided that the most plausible option they had going for them was traveling to the Deeper Well. It was an extremely magical place and held enough power to seal Old Ones. Willow was identified as the "battery" that would absorb enough magical energy there that would enable them to completely save Dawn's fading essence. Willing to help in any way she could, Willow, Buffy, and Xander all used Kennedy's jet to England where they would face the council and deal with the guards.

Along with Buffy, Willow fought against the council demons, using her magic to beat them back. After grueling fighting, the arrivals of allies Illyria and Eldre Koh, and rescuing Xander from a demon, Willow and Buffy came up with a dangerous plan together to proceed further in the Deeper Well. Unexpectedly, Xander panicked and told them they didn't have to do it, proceeding to inform the group of his pact with Severin and Simone Doffler to restore magic and consequently save Dawn's life as a result. Willow was shocked and bewildered at Xander's supposed betrayal, but they nonetheless united together to stop Severin since his plan would undoubtedly create reality tears in the universe.

With Buffy, Willow ventured deeper into the core of the Deeper Well. It eventually became clear that both Buffy and Willow were beginning to forget Dawn, but they still managed to put her as their top priority. As they drew closer, Willow suddenly sensed a very powerful source of magic, so much so that she began to emit a reddish glow. Willow was shocked at this, explaining to Buffy that it could not only be the key to saving Dawn but the entire world as well. Willow and Buffy had a minor fight when she asked her to go help the council with an Old One rather than save Dawn, but they eventually reached an agreement when she pleaded to Buffy that she would not let her down this time and that she needed to trust her.

As she drew closer to the power source, the glow in her chest intensified to the point it began seriously affecting her. It became apparent that her level of power was so enormous, a small object reminiscent of the Seed of Wonder emerged from her chest. Willow realized she had created the new seed, but the act left her powerless. She found a spot in the Deeper Well for it to reside for while it would save the world, it'd take a millennium for it to mature. Willow then proceeded to use Severin (who had sided with them due to Illyria) as a possible source to save Dawn's life.

However, Willow, Xander, D'Hoffryn and Koh witnessed Buffy's "defeat" at the hands of Simone. Willow threatened to kill Doffler while the latter just shrugged it off. Soon, Willow discovers a way to escape the Deeper Well before Severin exploded, which was a staff left behind by one of the Council members, and took the opportunity to retrieve it with Xander helping her out. She then activated the staff's powers and transported herself and all of her remaining allies out of the Well, only to witness Buffy being dragged away by Doffler. Willow worried for Buffy's safety but she welcomed her back when she got out of the well, telling her best friend that magic was back. Immediately returning to San Francisco, Willow already started casting the spell to bring Dawn back but she acknowledged that there was something missing. Fortunately, through Spike's inadvertent comment, she figured out that Buffy's blood was the key to making the spell work and, soon enough, Dawn was returned to her original state. Willow was overjoyed to see Dawn again and apologized for getting so caught up in her quest to bring magic back. She also obliged to check if every part of Dawn's body was in order. Buffy and Willow soon discovered that the Vampyr book was blank, with the former wondering what they had done in the Well and the latter in shock from the recent development.

A new world

Since magic had returned, Willow had been working with the Scooby Gang to help rid the zompire threat the suburbs of Santa Rosita. Willow arrived with two civilians so that Buffy and the others could take them to safety. On the way there, Willow aided Buffy and Spike in their attempts to keep the rescue van safe from harm. Arriving at the rendezvous point where Xander, Billy, Devon, and Anaheed were waiting, Willow and the rest of the Scoobies fought against the remaining zompires, only to find themselves facing a group of more powerful vampires that had risen since magic had returned. Willow and the others were on the defensive until Faith, Kennedy, Holly, Leah, and Giles came to their rescue. With the Scooby Gang reunited, they faced the threat together confidently. Fortunately, their combined forces nearly overwhelmed the vampires, who retreated to regroup and increase their numbers. Willow hugged Giles tightly once she got the chance. They all rode Kennedy's jet back to San Francisco. While onboard, she realized the very reason why she couldn't control her magic: the Seed of Wonder was still maturing despite the fact it had been completely restored. She convened with the rest of the reconstituted Scooby Gang to talk about how much the vampires had changed. She wanted to cast the Tirer La Couverture on one of the enhanced vampires to better understand the new threat they face.

Willow was among the members of the Scooby Gang who aided Dracula while he assessed the powers the new vampires have acquired. Once they returned to Xander's apartment, she demonstrated how the laws of magic had changed by conjuring a couple of flowers out of thin air unaided by any incantation. She then agreed to find a new vampire to study alongside Buffy. Arriving at the destination, they found no one there, remembering that new vampires had no need to hide from the sun. They soon left in search of a potential subject and bonded over how they distanced themselves from the people they loved and how their whole gang had been reunited. They also worried about the state of Xander and Dawn's relationship. They arrived later that evening with their captured vampire, only to find Xander's apartment in shambles and Dawn in tears, shocked by what beheld them.

Willow and Buffy were briefed of the situation, with the former being irked at how Andrew described Xander's turn as "going Dark Willow." She then sat by Giles's side as he tried to do a divination spell and calmed him down after his efforts were unsuccessful. After failing another attempt, Willow comforted Giles as he genuinely feared the consequences of recent events. Figuring out how to reach Dracula, Willow went with the rest of the Scoobies to the vampire's hideaway. Fighting off the vampire hordes subservient to Dracula, Dawn showed concern for Spike, hoping he wouldn't go "Dark Willow," again irritating the witch. Finally, as Willow and Giles worked together to get to Dracula's room, Willow inadvertently used the "going Dark Willow" term herself, annoying her again. Willow and the others witnessed Dracula's transformation and she was swatted by the vampire and knocked out for a couple of moments. She came to and tried to subdue Dracula until it was revealed that he was turning into Maloker through Xander's connection to the vampire, thinking that Maloker was permanently dead. Willow then witnessed Maloker's return as he set his sights on the Scoobies with great hunger.

Willow and the others tried their best to take Maloker down, but any and all attempts were for naught. Upon learning that Maloker's weaknesses were no different from those of an ordinary vampire's from Giles, Willow magically increased Dawn's size and set out to find a priest to bless the Redwood Investment Building to use it against Maloker. Once she did so, she reversed the spell she cast on Dawn and let the priest leave the scene unharmed. She witnesses Dracula's departure from San Francisco once Xander reversed the damage done to his old Master through the Vampyr Book. Willow gathered with the rest of the Scoobies to discuss who would take care of the book, stating that she was unqualified due to her history with abusing magic. However, when D'Hoffryn arrived to take that responsibility from them, Willow stood by Buffy as she made it clear that they would take care of the book together. Afterward, she was seen playing video games with Giles.

Willow met with Giles to help him monitor his digital trail with Dowling and discuss the possibility of losing their home in San Francisco due to their difficulty of finding employment. Willow had been looking into re-aging Giles, but he decided against it, with Willow agreeing that it would make things worse if they tried. Dowling gave them a job that let them to a building where children had been disappearing for years. When Willow and Xander got no word from those who arrived to handle the job, they set out to investigate. Having done research on the case prior and determined the commonalities among the abducted children, Willow began to detect strange energies in the site but were taken by a mysterious entity along with Xander. They were trapped in a false reality where they were who they were in their earlier years and where Willow couldn't remember any spells. However, Willow and Xander managed to release themselves from its hold and the former identified it as the Hamelin demon that targeted children who were on the verge of losing their childhood. Though Buffy lashed out at them, they were able to snap her out of it. Finding Dawn and Spike, they were swarmed by the missing children led by Giles, who didn't want to escape. However Buffy snapped him out of it and all of them were released from the hold of the Hamelin demon. The children were returned to their surviving family and D'Hoffryn came to warn them to be wise and take special care with the changing times.

Willow was then seen having secured her shared apartment with Buffy and Dawn and just came from job interviews.

Willow and the Scoobies were shocked to learn that the Vampyr book was missing and Xander and Spike were quick to blame each other when Buffy asked who was responsible for neglecting to keep it safe. However, they soon learned that Andrew was missing as well. Putting two and two together, Buffy was angry that Willow made Andrew an authorized user but was quick to apologize when she brought the discussion to Tara. However, Willow and Giles placed a tracking sigil on the book and used a locator spell to track Andrew's movements, learning that he was heading to Sunnydale. Buffy, Willow, and Spike set out to find Andrew, leaving Giles, Dawn, and Xander behind. Having arrived at a Halloween party celebrated in the Hellmouth, Willow and the others set out but lost her hold on the book when Andrew hid it in a special case. Finding where Andrew kept their DNA samples and considering the possibility that Andrew was going to resurrect Warren, they were ambushed by the Soul Glutton. Willow tried to use her goddess magic against it but it drew power from her magic instead. She then used her dark magic against it, which worked to a fault, as it got up almost immediately after. The demon retreated to regain strength and Willow held back the debris as they left the collapsing cave. Willow and the others regrouped and split up, where Buffy and Spike looked for the demon while Willow looked for Andrew. Willow arrived in front of Warren's grave where she deduced that Andrew had no intention of resurrecting Warren, unaware of the fact that Andrew plans on resurrecting Tara.

When Willow deduced that Andrew was going to bring back Tara, she found him attempting it. Willow tried to convince Andrew to stop, as she had thought about doing the same thing more than once but didn't do it anyway, but Andrew didn't waver. She tried using force but the book was protected from her magic. Andrew tried to convince Willow that things were different and that they could do it if they wanted to because of the new rules of magic, but Willow told Andrew that he'd be cheating Tara out of a peaceful afterlife. Willow asserted herself and tried her best to use her powers to stop Andrew. Finally, when Willow understood Andrew's motivations for attempting to bring Tara back, Willow apologized to Andrew for making him feel alone and told him that he wouldn't be able to fix things this way. Willow and Andrew hugged it out and left the cave together as the former saved Buffy and Spike from the collapsing caves. Willow then parted with Andrew on good terms as he left for Oakland.

Possible future

“History is all romantic adventure stories. Until you live it. Until you live long enough to be a part of it.”

―Willow Rosenberg

Future Dark Willow.

In the 23rd century, Willow was located in Haddyn (formerly Manhattan); she had remained youthful for centuries and eventually resumed her dark appearance, but could only wield a small amount of magic. She had allied herself with Harth Fray, who considered Willow a "madwoman", but chose to believe her claims that Buffy's presence in the future would cause that future to exist. However, unbeknownst to Harth, Willow had also manipulated his sister into believing the opposite, an outcome the Slayer Melaka Fray intended to prevent. Joining forces with her older sister, Erin, the Fray sisters had managed to successfully capture and detain Buffy, attempting to keep her at bay until the temporal rift had closed. Later, Harth had arrived at Mel's apartment in order to confront Willow about her manipulations, and she admitted to lying to one of the twins but did not reveal which one.

During the ensuing chaos, Buffy managed to escape confinement, with a little help from the demon Gates and fought her way across Haddyn in order to get to the rift in time. When Buffy arrived at the rift, Willow stood in her way and, after a brief dialogue in which still Willow did reveal her true agenda, Buffy stabbed her in the heart with the Scythe. At that point, present Willow, blindfolded so as to avoid seeing the future, grabbed Buffy and pulled her back into the current timeline. Traumatized by her recent encounter, Buffy began to express concern over how much she relied on Willow's powers, fearing that she may eventually go overboard again if she was pushed too far.

During the Reckoning, the future Harmony Kendall revealed that during the historical battle, Buffy had Dawn open a portal to a hell dimension to banish the demon hordes, upon which Willow threw them through, and Buffy was forced to follow them in to keep them from returning. Willow stood guard over the portals for the next two centuries and had in fact called Buffy to the future specifically to kill her, a choice made in repentance for her guilt for leaving her friend in a hell dimension.

Personality

“You know Willow. She’s very level-headed.”

―Buffy

Willow was a consistently sweet, trusting, gentle, intelligent, caring person. She was a somewhat naive, painfully shy nerd who was stuck with a hopeless crush on her best friend Xander. She was socially awkward on more than one occasion but had a very kind heart. She became much more confident and strong-willed, capably leading the Scooby Gang twice during Buffy's absences. When Buffy died, Willow took care of Dawn to whom she represented a maternal figure. She was very friendly and understanding, even with Spike, though she was not afraid to be tough. While still having an easily nervous nature, she grew more outspoken and confident.

Willow was also incredibly loyal and supportive to her friends, especially Buffy and Xander as she almost never openly criticized their decisions with hostility even when she disagreed, a factor in her understanding nature. She normally did not display fits of extreme anger toward those who done her wrong, even if they were her close friends, retaining a calm and receptive demeanor. She also often spoke in strange speeches and phrases, something she shared with her best friend Buffy, which could often confuse those around her who weren't used to it. She was also greatly emotional and prone to senseless babble when nervous (which was another similarity to Buffy).

Willow was also very determined to get things done that she feels are important. It was sometimes hard for people to change her mind, a sign of this being her "resolve face". Willow often did not hold grudges against people. In fact, she was usually one of the first to forgive people for their mistakes, even if large ones, being incredibly forgiving. Another notable trait of Willow was her remarkable ability to put aside grudges and personal feelings to get an important task done which she had done on numerous occasions, most notably with Faith and much later, with Angel. She didn't often let personal feelings cloud her judgment, being very responsible and level-headed.

Willow also had an amazing gift with computers and cracking codes, which was seen many times throughout the years, which is likely because of her intelligence. During her high school and college days, she seemed to be the only one out of the Scooby Gang that actually enjoyed going to school and doing homework as well as tutoring, much to the confusion of Buffy and Xander. She had a great interest in science and technology, seen with her fascination with the Buffybot.

Despite her many good qualities, she could also display an addictive, somehow selfish, personality (which Buffy once pointed out). This was seen when Willow became addicted to magic, as it was then that she felt useful and needed, which slowly but surely spiraled out of control to the point where it even hurt her loved ones. Willow, however, had since claimed that she had grown up since then and was not that same "little girl" she was then, showing emotional maturity and growth. Willow also was very stubborn in her beliefs and not easily swayed from them, shown in her insistence that the world needed magic and determination to bring it back to the world.

However, on several occasions, Willow gave into fits of vengeance, especially if it involved someone she loved such as Oz or Tara. The incident with Tara made her personality, for a brief time, change drastically. She became consumed with pain, grief and anger, which culminated in lashing out at the Trio, who she believed was the cause of her suffering. Willow became cold and uncaring, with little regard for her friends and no remorse over her actions. She also showed deep self-loathing, stressing how she was mocked and ridiculed in her past years and how she is branded as a "junkie" for her addiction to magic. In spite of all these, Willow, at her worst, still acknowledges the love and appreciation she has received from Tara, who she could no longer be with. After gaining the power to feel the emotions of all the people of the world, she became hellbent on saving it from any more suffering by ending it herself. However, Willow returned to her former self thanks to Xander.

Since returning from her brief trip to England to restore herself, Willow has become more reluctant to use her powers, as she was afraid to go dark once more. This reluctance to use magic became stronger when the First Evil worked through her while she was doing a locator spell. However, after restoring Angel's soul and defeating the "The Beast's Master," she became a bit less apprehensive of her powers. When Willow was asked by Buffy to do one of the most powerful spells she'll do in her entire life, Willow was still very lukewarm to the idea, even when Buffy acknowledged her as one of the strongest people she knew. However, when she did her preparations to center herself and cast the spell, she was overwhelmed with the good magic she could channel, even being deified by Kennedy. The spell changed the landscape for everyone and since then, Willow desired to delve deeper into the high witching arts, allowing her to become more powerful than she already is.

During the point in her life when her powers were at its strongest, Willow has become more open to casting complex spells consecutively without worrying if the magic will corrupt her once again. Though there came a point when she went dark for a moment, it didn't do much to make her falter. She has since become more confident in her magic and her capacity to control her overwhelming power. Despite this newfound awareness of her strength, Willow remains as the person she always was. However, the moment magic was cut off on Earth, Willow burst out in a fit of extreme anguish and despair, knowing that she does not have powers anymore. This point in her life showed a side of vulnerability and dependence that the witch does not normally show.

Following the recent end of magic, Willow became obsessed with finding a way to bring it back; though it initially appeared that she simply wanted her powers back, she later revealed that, with the loss of the Seed, people were losing hope and that suicide rates are spiking all over the world; thus, her motivations to restore magic were to save the world and undo the damage caused by the Twilight crisis. Though she was not furious with Buffy for her part at the end of magic, she admitted to treating her best friend poorly. Since returning from her brief mission, Willow has learned to no longer fear her powers and reassured Buffy that if it weren't for everything that happened and for the choices that she made, she wouldn't have had such a realization. This is evident during the battle at the entrance to the Deeper Well in England when Willow did not hesitate to unleash her full powers to destroy the opposition and cover Buffy.

Perhaps, among all the members of the Scooby Gang, Willow is the one that has changed the most, not just in terms of her personality, but in all aspects of her being. She transitioned from a dainty young girl with an affinity for computers, research, and academics into, probably, the most powerful witch on Earth, and with such a transition comes changes that affect Willow and those close to her. Despite all these changes, Willow, in the deepest aspects of her being, remains as sweet, kind and understanding as she always was. Even in her present state, Willow does not veer too far from who she was, as seen from still having books on mathematics on her shelves despite the multitude of spellbooks surrounding it and working as a computer technician after the end of magic.

Willow was a big fan of Elvis Presley. Before her lesbian revelation, she had a fixation on the actor John Cusack. According to Kennedy, she always turned off the Moulin Rouge DVD at chapter 32 so it has a happy ending.

Powers and abilities

• Willow levitates a pencil
• Willow says a spell
• a large fire is created
• Levitation
• Electrokinesis
• The spell, shatter
• A bag of knives
• A spell, thicken
• Shielding
• Potion making
• Willow prepares the ritual to bring the Slayer, and best friend, to life
• Willow bringing Buffy back to life
• energy blast
• Storm-based flight
• Willows First Spell
• Willow's Computer Skills

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“Willow always had all the power. Even before she knew what to do with it. It came so easy for her. The rest of us, we had to work twice as hard to be half as good”

―Amy Madison commenting on Willow's power

Early witchcraft

At first, Willow's major "powers" were her intelligence and computer skills, as well as a marked snarkiness. She aided Giles when he researched information to aid Buffy in overcoming various challenges. Willow also aided in the preparation of magical materials, making her first potion to detect a witch and performing the ritual to revoke Angelus' invitation to Buffy's house, but did not seriously begin practicing magic until the death of Jenny Calendar, one of her teachers. She was asked to take over teaching the class because of her high aptitude, and one day came across a floppy disk holding the Ritual of Restoration that Jenny had successfully translated to English. Though for months she believed that the ritual didn't work, Willow learned that the Ritual of Restoration was successful and performing it initiated her interest in magic.

Advancing

Willow's first major spell involved re-cursing Angel with a soul, a feat she later repeated years later. She learned to levitate a pencil early in her senior year, using it to stake a vampire through his heart, and her powers continued to develop until she was casting powerful spells first independently and then with the help of Tara Maclay. Soon she surpassed Tara, a more experienced witch, in skill and was able to draw enough power to even hurt the powerful hell god, Glory. 

Willow demonstrated the ability to bring Buffy back to life, leaving her drained but she regained her magic in a few hours. Her friend Amy introduced her to a warlock, Rack, who gave her the ability to last longer and cast spells of more power which led Willow further down the path to the dark side of magic. Eventually, after Tara died, the magic consumed Willow and she nearly destroyed the world. At the time, Anya assumed Willow was the most powerful Wicca in the Western Hemisphere.

Willow becomes enamored in dark magicks.

"Dark Willow"

Willow was capable of flying, absorbing life and magic from others, teleportation, being impervious to physical damage, healing herself and others instantly at will, unleashing powerful energy blasts, locating people and objects at a distance (even when theoretically protected from such spells), emitting high-pitched shrieks in frequencies harmful to human ears, and exerting powerful levels of telekinesis and telepathic mind control. This mind control even extended to Anya, despite Anya's statement that vengeance demons were immune to mind-controlling magic. Additionally, she proved more than capable of going head-to-head against Buffy in a physical fight after casting a strength-enhancing spell on herself, able to show impressive strength as well as fighting skills though it should be noted that Buffy was holding back and before a decisive outcome could come about, Willow used magic. It is also interesting to note that even before she went dark, the immense amount of grief she dealt with affected her powers immensely, as seen with how she banished the deity Osiris with just a scream filled with anguish. Willow also caused most of the light bulbs in the Magic Box to short circuit and paralyzed Anya, who recently regained her powers, with a simple command. Finally, she was able to cast extremely powerful spells, as she single-handedly almost brought upon an apocalypse by attempting to channel the power of the Earth and focusing it on Proserpexa's effigy to burn the world to a cinder, which was only averted by the timely intervention of Xander.

Return of Dark Willow

During her time in Quor'toth with Angel, Faith, and Connor, Willow once again went dark, her veins protruding, her eyes gone black and the power inside her was made manifest in the form of dark energies circling around her in flight. At first, she was reluctant in using her powers, but once she let her dark side take over, she unleashed massive blasts of immense magical power towards the Old One, Quor'toth. Her own power easily matches that of the primordial demon. To defeat the monster, albeit temporarily, she used her powers to telekinetically lift a mountain from the surrounding area and drop it on the Old One. Before she could do any more lasting damage, Angel intervened, reverting the witch to her stable state.

Post-darkness

Her willingness to use magic was greatly diminished after her experience as Dark Willow. Willow spent time at a coven in England with Giles where she developed a better understanding of magic, balance, etc. At that point, she was so powerful her very feelings and thoughts could cause some sort of effect. Amy commented that other practitioners worked "twice as hard to be half as good" as Willow. Despite this, Willow was largely prevented from accessing more than slight magic by the First Evil, who attempted to corrupt her at each spell. Examples of the controlled usage of her power were her use of telekinesis to practice self-restraint, conjuring force fields, extensive telepathic conversations, opening a portal, and exerting hypnotic control. Willow also commented that she absorbed power from the things around her, one time-draining some of Kennedy's life-force. When Willow came to the aid of Angel Investigations, she displayed a great capacity for casting powerful spells, such as the Ritual of Restoration and Delothrian's Arrow, consecutively without any strain. She was also able to defeat "Cordelia" (possessed by Jasmine at the time) who was trying to stop her from restoring Angel's soul, casting "Cordelia" out of her mind and defending herself effectively. Willow cast a spell that imbued multiple Potential Slayers on Earth with Slayer powers (formerly reserved for only one girl in every generation), temporarily turning Willow's hair crystal white in the process. Kennedy remarked on it by calling her "a goddess".

After Aluwyn

Willow's powers greatly expanded since she returned from her time being mentored by the Saga Vasuki in the high witching arts. Even before she underwent her tutelage, she has shown great prowess with her magic, defeating Gnog, one of Aluwyn's cohorts, in a blinding burst of magical energies without hurting him significantly. Since returning from her time with Aluwyn, she could fly by force of will and regained control of her powers, and although her roots continued to go dark whenever she tapped into more power, this didn't faze her. She has acquired the ability to absorb an opponent's magic in order to decode it. It was at this period where she would typically, but not frequently, use binding spells as offensive magics have her tap into more power, which was something she was still generally apprehensive about at the time. During her battle with Amy, she referred to Willow as a "big all-powerful earth mother witch goddess." Xander has once called her Elphaba, the name of the Wicked Witch of the West in the novel and musical Wicked. She can also cast powerful summoning spells. She was able to project vast amounts of energy from her fingertips and cast aside powerful spells. She was able to heal herself rapidly from extreme injuries, at least including partial lobotomy. She was also able to heal injuries in others, though having a lack in power could only do so much in that case. She was also able to cast complex spells consecutively without showing any considerable strain, which is best demonstrated when she tried to pinpoint the location of Giles, Andrew, and Faith and teleported to three different locations in such a short amount of time without experiencing any form of physical fatigue or loss of control. She became capable of casting powerful teleportation spells that bypass enchantments preventing such spells from being cast and can even take others with her, dispelling possessions and powerful enough to knock back multiple demons with sheer telekinetic force. On two occasions she demonstrated the ability to channel part of her power through Buffy; once to help her overcome Amy and rescue Willow and again to tag-team the demon Sephrilian.

When Willow connected with the Seed of Wonder, she became so powerful that she was able to fight a whole array of demons from different dimensions, conjuring massive tree roots with little effort that impale airborne targets and consuming multiple opponents in fires she conjured with willpower alone. However, Buffy destroyed the Seed, disconnecting this world from magic, preventing Willow from fighting any longer. Willow was rendered powerless, unable to perform any magic. 

Traversing the multiverse

Willow grew frustrated and worried for the world without magic and theorized she would have access to her powers again if she could travel to another dimension. She was able to channel the residual magic in Buffy's scythe in conjunction with Angel's son Connor to access the hell dimension Quor'toth. While there, the magical power drastically changed but enabled her to cast bolts of energy and various enchantments though of considerably lesser appeal than her previous Earth magic. Despite what she went through to get used to the magic in Quor'toth, she was capable of releasing bolts of electricity, blasting demons with streams of powerful magic, break open sealed doors and erect powerful barriers that can even withstand Quor'toth's power. She was even able to subdue the Old One temporarily by unleashing bolts of immense magical power fueled by her intense longing for power. When she went dark in the hell dimension, she was able to match the power of the Old One Quor'toth with extremely powerful magic and temporarily defeat it by dropping a mountain on it. She was also initially speculated to be immune to the corrupting effects of Quor'toth, though it was revealed that it was not the case, as Willow herself said that the hell dimension is affecting her, pulling her further into the darkness she was so afraid of.

After arriving in Wonderland she showcased her true power completely, detailing an intricate and elaborate understanding of magic and witchcraft. She was able to cast powerful magic such as the Prey Inversion spell and the Visigoth Pyre spell, without showing excessive strain despite casting them consecutively. Upon meeting Aluwyn's coven, she was praised as the most powerful witch of the Earth dimension, and by Saga Vasuki herself as a battle witch. When combining her power with Saga Vasuki, she was made capable of even more powerful magic, similar to how she once united with Tara to perform spells. She was able to banish a large sea creature alongside Aluwyn without hurting it.

After overcoming her fear of her powers, Willow began to perform spells of immense power, molding the sand around the Liminals in her own image to attack for her, easily going toe-to-toe with the dark warlock Rack before he obtained the Scythe, near split-second teleportation, casting aside offensive magics thrown at her, and releasing explosions capable of leveling large mounds of land. Following interaction with a sentient universe that represents magic, she regained her powers, also allowing her to restore the "magic" in other Earth-bound beings just by approaching them. Dark Willow was the most powerful Big Bad in the Buffyverse

Powers restored

After returning to Earth, she was able to easily heal a scar on Buffy's forehead. However, her magic was revealed to have become limited due to her drawing on her internal energies instead of the external powers. Though still capable of elaborate and complex spells of significant power, such as awakening a comatose Dawn and giving her more lifeforce to last longer in a magicless world, she has a limit to what she can muster up, and exceeding such a limit results in an explosion of magical energy. However, this seems to only apply with regards to the magic she can give to others, as she is seen to still be able to cast extremely destructive spells without being drained. During the battle of the Deeper Well, she displayed a great capacity for magical combat yet again and was able to go toe to toe with multiple God-class Demons and Mystics who remained in the Dimension. She was able to fly to great heights, survive a fall from a substantial distance in the sky, ward mystical blasts away with magical will alone, blow apart multiple demons with blasts of powerful magical energies and cause single, larger demons to combust. Her willingness to tap into her Dark Magic has also increased, her going dark in an instant without hesitation. 

Willow's new magical abilities were apparently lost when she birthed to a new Seed of Wonder in the Deeper Well, her magic manifesting a new Seed that would save Earth from its immediate fate and eventually restore magic to Earth full-time, the creation of the Seed apparently depriving Willow of all of her pre-existing powers.

Despite having no powers, Willow was still capable of using a magician's staff to escape the Deeper Well before it exploded in an immense burst of magical power. However, once Severin and Illyria restored the Seed of Wonder, Willow's magic came back at full strength. The first spell she attempted since regaining her magic was to fully restore Dawn's body, a feat that she was able to achieve success.

New rules

Despite the fact that Willow regained her powers, she still has a difficult time using them to their fullest potential without consequences. She cannot traverse long distances within a barrier she conjured using powerful magic without causing the barrier itself to go down. She is capable of teleportation, unaided flight, projecting blasts of energy powerful enough to vanquish vampires in one hit, force field projection, and releasing pulses of telekinetic power. Apparently, the reason why Willow could not use her powers to fullest is that the Seed of Wonder is still in the process of maturing, as the process for it to take root was rushed by a surge of immense power that came from the Deeper Well and the energies that the Siphon absorbed. Despite this setback, she is still an effective combatant. However, it has been shown that because the laws of magic have been changed, Willow seems to have no need to recite any incantation to cast a spell. She was able to transform holy water into mist and conjure a couple of flowers without chanting an incantation, and even speaking gibberish on the latter. Willow was not powerful enough to take on Maloker by herself (a stark contrast to how she fared against Quor'toth, though the circumstances were clearly different), but despite the instability of Earth's magic, she managed to enlarge Dawn to gigantic proportions which played a big part in taking the primordial demon down. It is also interesting to note that Willow has truly overcome her dark side and can now willingly go "Dark Willow" whenever the good magics she normally utilizes do not seem to work, as she temporarily took down a vengeful demon with a grudge against the Slayer with dark, unbridled energies. 

Distant future

When Buffy traveled nearly two hundred years into the future, she discovered that Willow was alive and youthful hundreds of years into the future, and had once again gone "dark," though she was unable to cast spells of much power.

Overview

As addressed by the likes of Aluwyn and the Elemental Goddesses, Willow is the most powerful witch of the Earth dimension, being able to easily hold her own against the Old Ones and Higher Beings, and even giving birth to the new Seed of Wonder (the source of all magic in the world). Examples of powers Willow had demonstrated are:

• Spell-casting: In her earliest years of practicing witchcraft, the first fundamental magical skill that Willow mastered was the ability to cast spells and perform rituals, and as she grew as a witch, she demonstrated an extraordinary proficiency in this ability. Throughout the seven years of Buffy's being established in Sunnydale, Willow successfully cast a vast range of powerful spells to help her best friend in the fight against evil — the Ritual of Restoration, Sumerian transmogrification spells, teleportation spells, the thick air spell, force field spells, resurrection spells, and even the Slayer Activation spell.
• Telekinesis: As Willow's skills developed, she manifested the power of telekinesis, which enabled her to move objects as well as individuals with her mind. In the beginning, she used this ability to levitate objects like pencils to stake vampires, and she had to combine her strength with Tara's to perform greater feats,such as levitating individuals and blasting crowds apart. However, as she progressed into a goddess-level witch, Willow was able to use her telekinesis to send her opponents flying great distances with dramatic impacts, and could even lift a mountain to drop it on the Old One Quor'toth.
• Electrokinesis: In a state fueled by vengeance and dark magic, Willow was able to access the power of electrokinesis, which enabled her to create and project electricity and lightning. She possessed this ability to a highly advanced degree — when she singlehandedly took on Glory to avenge Tara's injuries, her lightning bolts caused the Hell-Goddess such pain that she actually screamed (something that not even Buffy managed to achieve).
• Voice manipulation: Willow had the power to manipulate her own voice, increasing or decreasing its tone in accordance with her emotions; when Osiris denied her request to have Tara resurrected, Willow banished the god with a powerful scream, and when she discovered how Buffy had helped Jonathan and Andrew to escape, she emitted a similar screech.
• Knowledge absorption: Willow had the power to absorb knowledge from objects such as books, and not only store the taken knowledge within her own mind but also to utilize that knowledge to enhance her own magic. Upon Tara's death and Buffy's admittance into the hospital, Willow went to the Magic Box and utterly absorbed all the magical knowledge from the books of dark magic, completing her transition into a Dark witch, as her hair and eyes turned black with her absorption.
• Teleportation: When Willow was completely consumed by dark magic after Tara's death, she demonstrated the power to instantly transport herself and others from one location to another without having to physically travel through space, which is another testament to how potent her powers had become, for the previous instance where she demonstrated this ability was through a taxing spell.
• Flight: Willow could float and fly by sheer force of will, able to take anybody with her as well even while transmogrified.
• Invisibility: Willow had the power to make herself invisible, as she once had unintentional selective invisibility, but this ability could include others, like when she cloaked herself and the Vice President of the United States from his bodyguards.
• Energy projection: Willow had the power to shoot powerful green, blue, or red energy blasts from her hands as well as body. Her power matched the power of the Old One Quor'toth, as well as god-like demons and higher beings.
• Pyrokinesis: Willow has the power to shoot powerful fireballs from her hands she tried to use this power on Kerberon but it didn't affect him.
• Force field: Willow had the power to conjure powerful force fields whether by sheer force of will or through spells.
• Healing: Willow had the power to heal herself or others, even from mortal wounds, by sheer force of will.
• Transmogrification: Willow had the power to transform herself and others by sheer force of will, like when she transformed her self into seagull and Buffy into a fish.
• Glamouring: Willow has the power to glamour to cast an illusion around a being to make them look like another.
• Geokinesis: When willow connected with the first Seed of Wonder in order to fight the god-like demons she conjured a gigantic root from the earth itself to impale them. While fighting Rack, Willow demonstrated the ability to manipulate the earth's sand as well, creating a gigantic form of herself to subdue him.
• Astral projection: Willow was able to perform an astral project in another plane, although this caused her to be unreachable when Angel sought her help.
• Gigantism: In order to help defeat Maloker, Willow transformed Dawn into a gigantic form of her self by sheer force of will.
• Telepathy: In addition to the power to magically communicate with others, Willow was able to perform telepathic mind control, as an example when she made Anya freed her from Giles's containment spell.
• Empathy: After she sucked the power out of Giles, Willow seemed to have been connected with every person on the planet, the feeling where too much for that she wanted to end all suffering by destroying the world.
• Conjuration: Willow had the power to conjure objects out of thin air. After her duel with Amy, she conjured a powerful binding cage to magically trap and confine her. She conjured a magical net with Giles as well in order to rescue survivors of Shenlong's attack in San Francisco.
• Photokinesis: Willow had the power to conjure balls of light in order to illuminate her way in the dark.

Notable spells and incidents

• Ghostly physiology: A spell cast by Ethan Rayne on a ghost costume that Willow bought caused her to transform into an immaterial specter; however, while all others were literally transformed into her costume, Willow's soul and physical body were seemingly separated completely. She returned to normal immediately after Giles broke the spell.
• Spiritual restoration: Willow cast the Ritual of Restoration twice, all to restore Angel's soul when the need arose.
• Reality warping: Willow cast a spell to have her will done in an attempt to get over the pain of Oz's departure, but the exact wording she used caused anything she said to come true, though only when she did so inadvertently. With this ability, she rendered Giles completely blind, made Xander a literal demon magnet, and caused Buffy and Spike to become engaged. Upon discovering what she had done, Willow immediately reversed the spell.
• Unbinding: Willow attempted to create a ball of sunshine in order to allow Buffy to slay vampires easily, but Anya's inability to keep quiet during the ritual instead caused the release of Olaf the troll from the crystal in which he was trapped.
• True resurrection: Willow resurrected Buffy Summers shortly after her death.
• Memory erasure: Willow tried to cast a memory spell to wipe Buffy and Tara's memories clean of all the negative aspects of what her spells did to them, but she was rushed to do so and carelessly left an entire package of Lethe's Bramble, a crucial spell ingredient, right next to Buffy's fireplace, which caught fire and gave the entire Scooby Gang, including herself, total amnesia. The spell was broken when Willow unwittingly dropped a crystal she used in the spell-casting and Xander stepped on it.
• Advanced telekinesis: After inflicting significant physical and mental suffering on Warren Mears, Willow flayed him alive with sheer telekinetic force.
• Cataclysm inducement: Willow, in an attempt to end the world's suffering, cast a spell to funnel the energy of the Earth into Prosepexa's effigy which will cause the planet to burn to a cinder if it was cast successfully.
• Gender transformation: Willow attempted to transform R.J Brooks into a woman because his enchanted jacket made Willow (along with any other girl) fall in love with him.
• Slayer activation: Willow channeled the essence of the Scythe in order to activate multiple Potential Slayers in the world.
• Binding: Cast "Carolina's Grasp" To imprison a vampire capable of transmogrification.
• Curse reversal: Cast the reversal spell for Augustine's Curse on the giant lens built by Toru and his minions, thereby making all enhanced vampires within the immediate vicinity to lose their unique powers, including Dracula.
• Power augmentation: Willow connected to the Seed of Wonder to amass immense power to fight multiple interdimensional demons during the battle before the end of magic.
• Interdimensional travel: Tore open reality to make a gate to Quor'toth using a ritual she found all while in a world with no magic.
• Mystical power bestowal: After an interdimensional journey, she became inherently magical and returned to a magicless Earth as the only empowered witch in the whole world, capable of restoring magic to anyone who lost it by just being near her.
• Restoration: Performed magic to awaken Dawn, the Key, from her deep slumber caused by the loss of magic to Earth. Willow also restored a matter of days to Dawn's increasingly drastic condition. Restored Dawn to her original state through a spell from the scrolls of the Order of Dagon when magic on Earth has been fully restored.
• Mystical artifact creation: Created the new Seed of Wonder several months after the end of magic.

Appearance

1/39

“Good to know you’ve seen the softer side of Sears.”

―Cordelia to Willow

Willow's appearance changed drastically over the years, which reflected her growing level of confidence and power. In her first year of high school, her red straight hair was long down to her chest. Initially, she dressed like a little girl, and her mother still picked out her clothes for her. Cordelia cruelly stating, "Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears!" After Buffy encouraged Willow to "seize the moment," her fashion sense began to reflect the growing confidence that her friendship with the Slayer granted her. She often wore dresses or sometimes a hat. In the summer of 1997, she cut her hair just below her shoulders before she entered grade 11.

Willow blossomed through her relationship with Oz, and her appearance reflected this. She cut her hair again shoulder-length in August 1998 before she entered grade 12; (it took her mother several months to notice this) and developed a penchant for fluffy sweaters and peculiar hats. One of her memorable outfits was her pink sweater. Feeling undervalued by her friends, Willow threatened to change her look, shortly before the arrival of the alternate universe vampiric Willow, dressed in her iconic leather outfit. Upon seeing Vamp Willow, Percy West asked her if she was "trick-or-treating," while Buffy described her as a dominatrix. Upon seeing her human alter-ego's pink sweater, vamp Willow pointed this out to her by saying, "Well, look at me. I'm all fuzzy." When she later woke up dressed in the sweater, Vamp Willow said, "Oh, this is like a nightmare." Spike admitted that he found Willow's "fuzzy pink number with the lilac underneath" to be arousing.

Before college in the summer of 1999 Willow cut her hair to an even shorter layered cut to her chin, and starting on her first day of college began to wear long skirts and high shoes, which made her appear significantly taller and more confident than in her shy, wallflower years in high school. However, it was revealed through a dream that Willow felt she was only hiding her true geeky nature, with Buffy and Riley describing her normal clothes as a "costume". She found herself back in a high school classroom, where Buffy ripped off her "costume", leaving her dressed in her "softer side of Sears" outfit shortly before being attacked by Sineya. In the summer of 2000, she curled her hair at the ends which it stayed throughout the year.

Willow focused her grief over the death of Buffy's mother Joyce Summers on what clothes to wear while visiting Buffy at the hospital. She described her clothes as having "stupid things on them" and asked why she couldn't dress "like a grown-up." After Buffy's resurrection, her hair was straight and shoulder-length again.

When Willow was consumed by black magic, she took on a goth look. Dark Willow, as Andrew Wells referred to her, could be identified by her black hair, black eyes, and numerous veins over her face. Xander described Dark Willow's appearance as the "makeover of the damned," but later assured her that he loved "scary, veiny Willow" just as much as "crayon breaky Willow." Willow's hair and eyes reverted to their natural color following Xander's heroic speech, but she sometimes resumed this appearance when her powers were pushed to their limits or when angered, such as battling the Grimslaw demon, and Amy.

Willow's hair later grew slightly longer and she dressed more maturely. While performing the spell to activate multiple Potential Slayers, her hair briefly turned white, contrasting the benevolent intent behind this spell against the black magic performed by Dark Willow.

Willow later dressed in clothing reminiscent of Tara, normally wearing long-sleeved shirts or long skirts with matching boots, and her hair was shoulder-length again.

After the Seed was destroyed and magic was taken away from this dimension, Willow bobbed her hair with one half slightly shorter than the other. She seemed to have also stopped wearing dresses reminiscent to Tara and took on more of a modern style of clothing. Since arriving in the Wellspring, she wore a long, light blue dress held together with a corset, with dark blue high-heeled boots. During their mission to the Deeper Well, Willow has on a long-sleeved, form-fitting, green shirt, a green skirt which has a length that reaches the mid-thigh, dark-green leggings, and boots. Her new outfits seem to give Willow an air of femininity that wasn't really evident in her previous clothing choices. Even in her regular clothes, this newfound femininity is evident. She was most recently seen wearing a long-sleeved, olive green shirt underneath a loose-fitting top that is long enough to reach above her knees, dark leggings and a pair of brown boots.

Her future counterpart was dressed in clothing that combined elements of her alternative universe vampiric counterpart and Drusilla. Her future self, much like Dark Willow, has black hair, black eyes, and veins over her face. While magic left Willow ageless, her power was all but depleted and she relied on Harth's power to bring Buffy to their present time.

Religion

Willow was identified, ethnically and culturally, as Jewish. She referred to herself on a number of occasions as Jewish and appeared to come from a religious family, noting that she has to go to Xander's house to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year. Also, when doing the spell to un-invite Angel from her house, she hid the crosses she nailed to the wall behind a curtain, noting that her father would have a fit if he saw them. Willow also said that the egg given to her to take care of in her junior year of high school was Jewish. She mentioned multiple times that she celebrated Hanukkah and not Christmas. She also mentioned that she was "like Santa Claus, only thinner and Jewish" when she brought presents to Joyce in the hospital. Willow did not keep Kosher, although this was true of many Jews. Willow mentioned that she had a Bat Mitzvah. Willow placed stones on Tara's headstone, a Jewish tradition to honor the dead.

Combining her magical inclination, Willow described herself as a Jewish Wiccan.

Sexuality

Following Oz's departure, Willow secretly performed spells with fellow Wicca Tara, but there were hints that they were more than just friends. Shortly afterward, their relationship did become more intimate, and Willow would identify as a lesbian. More specifically, Willow explicitly declared herself as gay. For then on, Willow only had female romantic and sexual partners as well.

Her sexuality was notable when, after losing her memory, she quickly noted: "I think I'm kinda gay". As one of the many women under R.J. Brooks' love spell, she sought to transform him into a woman. Also in Buffy's strange 1997-centric dream, she had been reminded that Willow still had a crush on Xander at that time, said incoherently, "Oh. That's right. You like… and you're not… Well, you probably are… but not—," referring to Willow later coming out as a lesbian; as Willow described having realized her sexuality since then. While at the beginning of a magical journey, Muffitt noted the symbolic presence of opening petals, instead of thrusting trees, representing Willow's sexual interest in women. She was uncertain of the use "dyke" in reference to herself, not knowing if it was "offensive" of "empowering", and preferring the use of "friend of Sappho".

Gallery

The Willow Rosenberg article has a Photo Gallery.

Behind the scenes

• She was first portrayed by actress Riff Regan in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot, before getting recast and portrayed by the actress Alyson Hannigan. She was also portrayed by Adam Busch in the episode "The Killer in Me" and dubbed by Natalie Lander in Season Eight Motion Comic.
• Joss Whedon briefly described Willow in the shooting script for "Welcome to the Hellmouth": "WILLOW. She is shy, bookish, and very possibly dressed by her mother. The intelligence in her eyes and the sweetness of her smile belie a genuine charm that is lost on the unsubtle high school mind. It's certainly lost on Xander, though he brightens considerably to see her. The new face forgotten, at least for now."
• Willow's middle name "Danielle" was given in an early draft of the episode "Bad Girls".
• Willow was a regular character for all seven seasons. She and Buffy are the only characters to appear in all 144 episodes of the series, Xander appearing in 143 as he was not in "Conversations with Dead People".
• With 147 television appearances, Willow is second only to Angel (who appears in 167 episodes) as the most prolific character.
• Along with Buffy, Giles, Xander, and Angel, she is one of only five characters to appear in both the pilot and series finale of Buffy: "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "Chosen."
• The character was not originally supposed to be a redhead; in 2011, Alyson Hannigan stated in an interview that Joss Whedon "had us all over his house. Charisma and Sarah and I all had brown hair at the time. Joss said, 'All of your hair is kind of the same shade. Does anyone want to be red?'. I went for it. Eventually, Sarah got more and more blond, but it was because we all had a brownish, auburn mane."^{[citation needed]}

Appearances

Canonical

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1
"Welcome to the Hellmouth" Appears	"The Harvest" Appears	"Witch" Appears	"Teacher's Pet" Appears	"Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" Appears	"The Pack" Appears	"Angel" Appears	"I Robot, You Jane" Appears	"The Puppet Show" Appears	"Nightmares" Appears	"Out of Mind, Out of Sight" Appears	"Prophecy Girl" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2
"When She Was Bad" Appears	"Some Assembly Required" Appears	"School Hard" Appears	"Inca Mummy Girl" Appears	"Reptile Boy" Appears	"Halloween" Appears	"Lie to Me" Appears	"The Dark Age" Appears	"What's My Line? Part One" Appears	"What's My Line? Part Two" Appears	"Ted" Appears
"Bad Eggs" Appears	"Surprise" Appears	"Innocence" Appears	"Phases" Appears	"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" Appears	"Passion" Appears	"Killed by Death" Appears	"I Only Have Eyes for You" Appears	"Go Fish" Appears	"Becoming, Part One" Appears	"Becoming, Part Two" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3
"Anne" Appears	"Dead Man's Party" Appears	"Faith, Hope & Trick" Appears	"Beauty and the Beasts" Appears	"Homecoming" Appears	"Band Candy" Appears	"Revelations" Appears	"Lovers Walk" Appears	"The Wish" Appears	"Amends" Appears	"Gingerbread" Appears
"Helpless" Appears	"The Zeppo" Appears	"Bad Girls" Appears	"Consequences" Appears	"Doppelgängland" Appears	"Enemies" Appears	"Earshot" Appears	"Choices" Appears	"The Prom" Appears	"Graduation Day, Part One" Appears	"Graduation Day, Part Two" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 4
"The Freshman" Appears	"Living Conditions" Appears	"The Harsh Light of Day" Appears	"Fear, Itself" Appears	"Beer Bad" Appears	"Wild at Heart" Appears	"The Initiative" Appears	"Pangs" Appears	"Something Blue" Appears	"Hush" Appears	"Doomed" Appears
"A New Man" Appears	"The I in Team" Appears	"Goodbye Iowa" Appears	"This Year's Girl" Appears	"Who Are You?" Appears	"Superstar" Appears	"Where the Wild Things Are" Appears	"New Moon Rising" Appears	"The Yoko Factor" Appears	"Primeval" Appears	"Restless" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5
"Buffy vs. Dracula" Appears	"Real Me" Appears	"The Replacement" Appears	"Out of My Mind" Appears	"No Place Like Home" Appears	"Family" Appears	"Fool for Love" Appears	"Shadow" Appears	"Listening to Fear" Appears	"Into the Woods" Appears	"Triangle" Appears
"Checkpoint" Appears	"Blood Ties" Appears	"Crush" Appears	"I Was Made to Love You" Appears	"The Body" Appears	"Forever" Appears	"Intervention" Appears	"Tough Love" Appears	"Spiral" Appears	"The Weight of the World" Appears	"The Gift" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6
"Bargaining, Part One" Appears	"Bargaining, Part Two" Appears	"After Life" Appears	"Flooded" Appears	"Life Serial" Appears	"All the Way" Appears	"Once More, with Feeling" Appears	"Tabula Rasa" Appears	"Smashed" Appears	"Wrecked" Appears	"Gone" Appears
"Doublemeat Palace" Appears	"Dead Things" Appears	"Older and Far Away" Appears	"As You Were" Appears	"Hell's Bells" Appears	"Normal Again" Appears	"Entropy" Appears	"Seeing Red" Appears	"Villains" Appears	"Two to Go" Appears	"Grave" Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7
"Lessons" Appears	"Beneath You" Appears	"Same Time, Same Place" Appears	"Help" Appears	"Selfless" Appears	"Him" Appears	"Conversations with Dead People" Appears	"Sleeper" Appears	"Never Leave Me" Appears	"Bring on the Night" Appears	"Showtime" Appears
"Potential" Appears	"The Killer in Me" Appears	"First Date" Appears	"Get It Done" Appears	"Storyteller" Appears	"Lies My Parents Told Me" Appears	"Dirty Girls" Appears	"Empty Places" Appears	"Touched" Appears	"End of Days" Appears	"Chosen" Appears

Tales
"Prologue" Absent	"Righteous" Absent	"The Innocent" Absent	"Presumption" Absent	"The Glittering World" Absent	"Sonnenblume" Absent	"Nikki Goes Down!" Absent	"Tales" Absent
Broken Bottle of Djinn Appears	Tales of the Vampires Absent		"Father" Absent	"Spot the Vampire" Absent	"Dust Bowl" Absent	"Jack" Absent	"Stacy" Absent
"Some Like It Hot" Absent	"The Problem with Vampires" Absent	"Taking Care of Business" Absent	"Dames" Absent	"Antique" Absent	"Numb" Absent	The Thrill Absent	"Carpe Noctem" Absent

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Origin
The Origin, Part 1 Absent	The Origin, Part 2 Absent	The Origin, Part 3 Appears

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8
The Long Way Home, Part 1 Mention	The Long Way Home, Part 2 Appears	The Long Way Home, Part 3 Appears	The Long Way Home, Part 4 Appears	The Chain Absent	No Future for You, Part 1 Absent	No Future for You, Part 2 Appears	No Future for You, Part 3 Appears	No Future for You, Part 4 Appears	Anywhere but Here Appears
A Beautiful Sunset Flashback	Wolves at the Gate, Part 1 Appears	Wolves at the Gate, Part 2 Appears	Wolves at the Gate, Part 3 Appears	Wolves at the Gate, Part 4 Appears	Time of Your Life, Part 1 Appears	Time of Your Life, Part 2 Appears	Time of Your Life, Part 3 Appears	Time of Your Life, Part 4 Appears	After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back! Appears
Harmonic Divergence Appears	Swell Absent	Predators and Prey Appears	Safe Absent	Living Doll Appears	Retreat, Part 1 Appears	Retreat, Part 2 Appears	Retreat, Part 3 Appears	Retreat, Part 4 Appears	Retreat, Part 5 Appears
Turbulence Appears	Twilight, Part 1 Appears	Twilight, Part 2 Appears	Twilight, Part 3 Appears	Twilight, Part 4 Appears	Last Gleaming, Part 1 Appears	Last Gleaming, Part 2 Appears	Last Gleaming, Part 3 Appears	Last Gleaming, Part 4 Appears	Last Gleaming, Part 5 Appears
"HARM" Absent	"Harmony Bites" Absent	"Vampy Cat Play Friend" Absent	"Always Darkest" Absent	"Harmony Comes to the Nation" Absent		Willow: Goddesses and Monsters Appears		Riley: Commitment Through Distance, Virtue Through Sin Absent

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9
"Magical Mystery Tour, Featuring the Beetles" Absent	Freefall, Part 1 Appears	Freefall, Part 2 Appears	Freefall, Part 3 Appears	Freefall, Part 4 Appears	Slayer, Interrupted Appears	On Your Own, Part 1 Mention	On Your Own, Part 2 Absent	Apart (of Me), Part 1 Absent	Apart (of Me), Part 2 Absent	Apart (of Me), Part 3 Absent
"In Space No One Can Hear You Slay" Absent	Guarded, Part 1 Mention	Guarded, Part 2 Mention	Guarded, Part 3 Mention	Billy the Vampire Slayer, Part 1 Absent	Billy the Vampire Slayer, Part 2 Absent	Wonderland, Part 1 Appears	Wonderland, Part 2 Appears	Wonderland, Part 3 Appears	Wonderland, Part 4 Appears	Wonderland, Part 5 Appears
Welcome to the Team, Part 1 Absent	Welcome to the Team, Part 2 Absent	Welcome to the Team, Part 3 Absent	Welcome to the Team, Part 4 Absent	The Watcher Appears	The Core, Part 1 Appears	The Core, Part 2 Appears	The Core, Part 3 Appears	The Core, Part 4 Appears	The Core, Part 5 Appears	Love vs. Life Absent

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 10
New Rules, Part 1 Appears	New Rules, Part 2 Appears	New Rules, Part 3 Appears	New Rules, Part 4 Appears	New Rules, Part 5 Appears	I Wish, Part 1 Appears	I Wish, Part 2 Appears	Return to Sunnydale, Part 1 Appears	Return to Sunnydale, Part 2 Appears	Day Off (or Harmony in My Head) Appears
Love Dares You, Part 1 Appears	Love Dares You, Part 2 Appears	Love Dares You, Part 3 Appears	Relationship Status: Complicated, Part 1 Appears	Relationship Status: Complicated, Part 2 Appears	Old Demons, Part 1 Appears	Old Demons, Part 2 Appears	Old Demons, Part 3 Appears	Freaky Giles Day Appears	Triggers Appears
In Pieces on the Ground, Part 1 Absent	In Pieces on the Ground, Part 2 Appears	In Pieces on the Ground, Part 3 Appears	In Pieces on the Ground, Part 4 Appears	In Pieces on the Ground, Part 5 Appears	Own It, Part 1 Appears	Own It, Part 2 Appears	Own It, Part 3 Appears	Own It, Part 4 Appears	Own It, Part 5 Appears
"Where Are They Now?" Absent

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 11
The Spread of Their Evil Appears	In Time of Crisis Appears	A House Divided Appears	Desperate Times Appears	Desperate Measures Appears	Back to the Wall Appears	Disempowered Appears	Ordinary People Appears
The Great Escape Appears	Crimes Against Nature Appears	Revelations Appears	One Girl in All the World Appears	Girl Blue, Part 1 Mention	Girl Blue, Part 2 Absent	Girl Blue, Part 3 Absent	Girl Blue, Part 4 Absent

Angel

Angel: Season 1
"City Of" Absent	"Lonely Heart" Absent	"In the Dark" Absent	"I Fall to Pieces" Absent	"Rm w/a Vu" Absent	"Sense & Sensitivity" Absent	"The Bachelor Party" Absent	"I Will Remember You" Absent	"Hero" Absent	"Parting Gifts" Absent	"Somnambulist" Absent
"Expecting" Absent	"She" Absent	"I've Got You Under My Skin" Absent	"The Prodigal" Absent	"The Ring" Absent	"Eternity" Absent	"Five by Five" Absent	"Sanctuary" Absent	"War Zone" Absent	"Blind Date" Mention	"To Shanshu in L.A." Absent

Angel: Season 2
"Judgment" Absent	"Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" Absent	"First Impressions" Absent	"Untouched" Absent	"Dear Boy" Absent	"Guise Will Be Guise" Absent	"Darla" Absent	"The Shroud of Rahmon" Absent	"The Trial" Absent	"Reunion" Absent	"Redefinition" Absent
"Blood Money" Absent	"Happy Anniversary" Absent	"The Thin Dead Line" Absent	"Reprise" Absent	"Epiphany" Absent	"Disharmony" Appears	"Dead End" Absent	"Belonging" Absent	"Over the Rainbow" Absent	"Through the Looking Glass" Absent	"There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" Appears

Angel: Season 3
"Heartthrob" Absent	"That Vision- Thing" Absent	"That Old Gang of Mine" Absent	"Carpe Noctem" Mention	"Fredless" Absent	"Billy" Absent	"Offspring" Absent	"Quickening" Absent	"Lullaby" Absent	"Dad" Absent	"Birthday" Absent
"Provider" Absent	"Waiting in the Wings" Absent	"Couplet" Absent	"Loyalty" Absent	"Sleep Tight" Absent	"Forgiving" Absent	"Double or Nothing" Absent	"The Price" Absent	"A New World" Absent	"Benediction" Absent	"Tomorrow" Absent

Angel: Season 4
"Deep Down" Absent	"Ground State" Absent	"The House Always Wins" Absent	"Slouching Toward Bethlehem" Absent	"Supersymmetry" Absent	"Spin the Bottle" Absent	"Apocalypse, Nowish" Absent	"Habeas Corpses" Absent	"Long Day's Journey" Absent	"Awakening" Absent	"Soulless" Absent
"Calvary" Absent	"Salvage" Absent	"Release" Absent	"Orpheus" Appears	"Players" Mention	"Inside Out" Absent	"Shiny Happy People" Absent	"The Magic Bullet" Absent	"Sacrifice" Absent	"Peace Out" Absent	"Home" Absent

Angel: Season 5
"Conviction" Absent	"Just Rewards" Absent	"Unleashed" Absent	"Hell Bound" Absent	"Life of the Party" Absent	"The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" Absent	"Lineage" Absent	"Destiny" Absent	"Harm's Way" Absent	"Soul Purpose" Absent	"Damage" Mention
"You're Welcome" Absent	"Why We Fight" Absent	"Smile Time" Absent	"A Hole in the World" Absent	"Shells" Mention	"Underneath" Absent	"Origin" Absent	"Time Bomb" Absent	"The Girl in Question" Absent	"Power Play" Absent	"Not Fade Away" Absent

Other

As one of the main characters in the franchise, Willow has also appeared in the majority of Buffy expanded universe material of unknown canonicity, including comic books, novels, and video games.