First forming in the Season One episode " The Harvest " to prevent The Master from opening a portal to hell, the line-up of the group varied from year to year, but the core that remained intact throughout the series ' run was Buffy herself and her best friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, as well as her Watcher, Rupert Giles.

Due to the show's strong themes of female empowerment, the most powerful members of the team are often female ( Buffy and Willow ), while the men play passive roles such as that of father-figure ( Giles ) and supportive best friend ( Xander ).

* Sunnydale High School library Until Buffy, Willow and Xander's Graduation

Willow Danielle Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer ( 1997 – 2003 ).

Willow plays an integral role within the inner circle of friends — called the Scooby Gang — who support Buffy Summers, a teenager gifted with superhuman powers to defeat vampires, demons, and other evil in the fictional town of Sunnydale.

The series begins as Buffy, Willow, and their friend Xander are in 10th grade and Willow is a shy and nerdy girl with little confidence.

Willow appears in every Buffy episode ( making her the only character besides Buffy herself to do so ), is featured in three episodes of the spinoff Angel, an animated series and video game — both of which use Hannigan's voice, and the comic Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight ( 2007 – 2011 ), which uses Hannigan's likeness and continues Willow's storyline following the television series.

In the second season when the characters are in 11th grade, Willow becomes more sure of herself, standing up to the conceited Cordelia Chase ( Charisma Carpenter ), and approaching Xander, on whom she has had a crush for years, although it is unrequited as Xander is in love with Buffy.

Willow was noted to be the spirit of the Scooby Gang, and Hannigan attributed Willow's popularity with viewers ( she had by May 1998 seven websites devoted to her ) to being an underdog who develops confidence and is accepted by Buffy, a strong, popular person in school.

Willow chooses to attend college with Buffy in Sunnydale although she is accepted to prestigious schools elsewhere.

Willow becomes much more confident in college, finally finding a place that respects her intellect, while Buffy has difficulty in classes and Xander does not attend school.

Willow subsequently appears in the season finale of Buffy spin-off Angel to deliver the sad news to her ex-boyfriend, Angel.

Fearing that Buffy is in hell, Willow suggests at the beginning of the sixth season that she be raised from the dead.

In a dark ceremony in which she expels a snake from her mouth, Willow performs the magic necessary to bring Buffy back.

Willow goes for months without any magic, helping Buffy track three geeks called The Trio who grandiosely aspire to be supervillains.

In the final episode of the series, " Chosen ", Buffy calls upon Willow to perform the most powerful spell she has ever attempted.

Willow is able to escape with Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Kennedy as Sunnydale is destroyed.

Through the gamut of changes Willow endures in the series, Buffy studies scholar Ian Shuttleworth states that Alyson Hannigan's performances are the reason for Willow's popularity: " Hannigan can play on audience heartstrings like a concert harpist ... As an actress she is a perfect interpreter in particular of the bare emotional directness which is the specialty of writer Marti Noxon on form.

Unfettered by the bounds cast by a television budget for special effects, the comic series continuation for the Buffy canon explores more fantastic storylines, characters, and abilities for Willow.

Willow appears to Buffy and Xander, who are in charge of thousands of Slayers, a year after the destruction of Sunnydale.

At the conclusion of the season, Buffy destroys an object, a seed, that is the source of the magic in the world, leaving Willow powerless.

Willow is malleable, in continuous transition more so than any other Buffy character.

In April 2003, Nerf Herder appeared as the musical guest in the final-season Buffy episode " Empty Places " – the very last band to play at The Bronze.

After — revealed to be Angel — and Buffy play their part in an age-old prophecy and bring about the birth of a new universe, extra-dimensional demons begin flooding the current one.

This factor comes into play when Buffy and Angel have sex in " Innocence " as in the intimacy of that experience he feels happiness deep enough to trigger the loss of his soul.

However after accepting the role of Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head was unable to play Adam Klaus in later episodes leaving the way clear for Stuart Milligan to take over the role until the present.

) Estabrook approached Benson at the party to tell her how much she liked Benson on Buffy and Benson asked if Estabrook would play her mother in a movie that she had written.

* In the beginning of this episode, when Buffy stumbles across Xander, she warns not to play with stakes, for he could lose an eye-possibly a foreshadow to Season Seven when Xander is blinded in one eye.

In 1992, they had another No. 1 Dance / Club play hit with the song " Keep It Comin '" ( Dance Till You Can't Dance No More ); with emcee Q-Unique and lead and background vocalist Deborah Cooper that was recorded for the soundtrack and opening cheerleading routine from the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

From there, he went on to play harmonica for other acts, Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kris Kristofferson, Paul Simon, Ringo Starr, Barefoot Jerry, " Gene Summers In Nashville " LP and Ween.

At Riley's dorm room, Buffy tries to play basketball, but she is too uncomfortable around him to let him get close.

At the Bronze, while the Dingoes play on stage, Willow and Buffy talk while Buffy secretively watches Parker play pool.

* Buffy learns Spike has a soul which will play a major part in the show's series finale.

* Cyrano De Bergerac: Giles makes a reference to the famous Edmond Rostand ' 1897 French play, by saying to Buffy, " Well, thank you, Cyrano.

The next day, Buffy and Riley play around at the beach, until Willow magically ignites the barbecue, and a sudden storm forces them all to seek shelter from the rain.

Buffy and Giles are openly surprised ; Willow tries to play down her reaction but ends up crying alone in the bathroom.

* Buffy says of Faith " She makes Godot look punctual ," a reference to the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot, in which the characters wait for a mysterious person who never arrives.

In 2001, UPN acquired Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell for their final seasons from The WB in a public bidding war between the two with producing studio 20th Century Fox Television.

In the beginning, Buffy often had to protect her friends from monsters, but over the course of the series most of them gained superpowers and fighting skills of their own, with Xander the only notable member with no mystical abilities or connection to the supernatural, though he does acquire extensive military knowledge thanks to a spell.

Her relationships with Buffy and Xander become strained as they try to find their place following high school.

Willow's earliest and most consistent relationships are with Buffy and Xander, both of whom she refers to as her best friends although they have their conflicts.

In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly ranked Buffy as number 3 of their " 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine, Buffy continues slaying vampires in San Francisco but discovers a new threat: creatures dubbed " zompires " by Xander: feral and nearly mindless vampires created when vampires sire people after the destruction of the Seed, as demons can no longer enter this dimension to fully possess their bodies.

" Jason Middleton feels that Buffy avoids the " final girl " character trope seen in horror films, where the androgynous and celibate heroine gets to outlive her friends and exact revenge on their killer ; in Middleton's words, " she ... gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster ".

He kidnaps Willow and Xander, and forces Willow to conduct a love spell for him to make Drusilla love him again, even coercing Buffy and Angel to help him in exchange for the safe return of their friends.

He also tells Buffy and Angel that they can never be friends because of their love for one another.

When Buffy rejects his advances, Spike attempts to prove his love by kidnapping her so that she can witness him killing Drusilla for her, to little avail ; in her disgust, Buffy un-invites him from her house ( something she had not bothered to do in the almost three years since their alliance against Angelus ) and alienates him from the group.

Spike displays unabashed grief after Buffy dies in the showdown with Glory, Spike honors her memory by remaining loyal to the Scoobies, fighting at their side and serving the role of baby-sitter / older brother / protector to Dawn, helping Willow and Tara to raise her in Buffy's absence.

" After a demon's spell makes them express their emotions in song, and Buffy sings " I want the fire back ", Buffy and Spike begin a physical relationship, consummated two episodes later.

Buffy threatens to kill Spike if he ever tells anyone about their relationship.

In " As You Were ", Buffy tells Spike she is using him and ends their relationship.

In the follow-up series Season Nine ( 2011-present ), Spike bases himself out of his ship in San Francisco to be near Buffy, but eventually leaves due to the complications of their relationship, with a spin-off miniseries to come.

He explains to Buffy he was able to defeat two Slayers because he sensed and exploited their secret desires to be free of their burden.

Although it is debated whether fanfiction about canon lesbians such as Willow and Tara of Buffy the Vampire Slayer counts as " slash ", their relationship storylines are more coy than heterosexual ones, which entices Willow / Tara femslash authors to fill in the gaps in the known relationship storyline.

Their credit, rights and royalties for the whole Buffy franchise, which includes spin-off Angel, relate to their funding, producing and directing of the original movie version of Buffy.

One-hit artists who possess a significant legacy of music outside of the singles world ( e. g. Buffy Sainte-Marie with Illuminations ) may however distance themselves severely from their hit single (" Mister Can't You See ") as they are likely to feel their hit in no way represents what they stand for.