After recovering from a mental breakdown caused by Glory's kidnapping of Dawn, Buffy decides to attack Glory with everything she has: Willow's magic spell to restore Tara's sanity stolen by Glory, at the same time weakening Glory's mind ; the Dagon Sphere ( a weapon created by the monks that causes physical pain to Glory ); Buffy's robot double ( the " Buffybot ") originally Spike's sex toy ; Olaf, The Troll God's Hammer ( with which Buffy is able beat Glory in battle and severely weaken her albeit temporarily, due to the hammer being a weapon of the gods ); and eventually a wrecking ball, commandeered by Xander.

However, it still freaked Kennedy out and caused her to slow things down in her and Willow's relationship.

* It is revealed in the canonical Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic books that the effects of Willow's spell caused some Potentials-turned-Slayers other than Dana to use their newfound powers in violent and illegal ways.

* Willow Rosenberg — Willow's abilities as a witch make her one of the most powerful members of the Scooby Gang.

Tara is killed when Warren Mears accidentally shoots her, launching Willow's spiral into Dark Willow.

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.

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.

During the third season three episodes explore Willow's backstory and foreshadow her development.

In " Gingerbread ", her home life is made clearer: Sunnydale falls under the spell of a demon who throws the town's adults into a moral panic, and Willow's mother is portrayed as a career-obsessed academic who is unable to communicate with her daughter, eventually trying to burn Willow at the stake for being involved in witchcraft ; her father is never featured.

Willow's powers grow stronger ; she uses telepathy which her friends find intrusive, and she begins to cast spells to manipulate Tara.

Whedon divulged that recovering her magical abilities will become Willow's " personal obsession " in a miniseries where she will be the central character.

The story arc of Willow's growing dependence on magic was noted by Marti Noxon as the representation of " adult crossroads " and Willow's inability and unwillingness to be accountable for her own life.

She is capricious and aggressive, the opposite of Willow's usual nature ; her bad behavior so exaggerated that it does not instill fear into the viewer like other female vampires in the series, but indicates more about Willow's personality.

Both Dark Willow and even Willow herself state that Willow's sacrifices for her friends and lack of assertiveness are her undoing.

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.

Jessica Ford at PopMatters asserts that Willow's sexuality and her magical abilities are connected and represented by her relationships.

Only when she meets Tara do her magical abilities flourish ; to Ford, sexuality and magic are both empowering agents in Willow's story arc.

When they first kiss in the episode " The Killer in Me ", Willow's realization that she let Tara go reacts with a curse put upon her by another witch named Amy Madison ( Elizabeth Anne Allen ), turning Willow into Warren, Tara's murderer.

Willow's religion and sexuality have made her a role model for audiences.

Manda Scott in The Herald states that Willow's lack of panic or self-doubt when she realizes she is in love with Tara makes her " the best role model a teen could ask for ".

" Despite Whedon's intentions of not making Buffy about overcoming issues, he said Willow's exploration of her sexuality " turned out to be one of the most important things we've done on the show ".

As the season draws to a close, Buffy is forced to battle her best friend when Willow becomes psychotic with dark magics after the human, Warren ( Adam Busch ) shoots and kills Willow's girlfriend Tara ( Amber Benson ) and wounds Buffy in the process.

In Willow's dorm she frantically knocks on doors which no one will open ; The Gentlemen steadily pursue her.

Willow had, after three seasons, grown considerably more confident, having found her intellectual and emotional niche at college, and therefore was no longer evincing the terror she once had ; Tara, shy, unsure of herself, and unaccustomed to such experiences, served to fill the gap that Willow's maturing had created.

She did it because Willow murdered a man and remained beloved – crowning Amy's envy of Willow's relatively easy successes in magic.

* Although Buffy and Willow express surprise that Xander's family believed the claim that Anya's demon friends are merely circus performers, Sunnydale residents, such as the Harrises, have a long history of ignoring or explaining away supernatural occurrences, as Willow's mother did after " Gingerbread ".

As Buffy, Faith acknowledges Willow's hatred of Faith, first expressed in " Choices ," where Willow mocked Faith's troubled past and told her that, unlike Buffy and Angel, Willow did not think Faith could ever redeem herself.

* This is Oz's last appearance in person, though he will appear once again in Willow's dream in the season finale.

Willow's character demanded that she be shy and unsure of herself, and the casting department encountered some difficulty finding actors who could portray this effectively and still be likable.

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.

From the inception of Willow's character in the first season, she is presented with contradictions.

In Willow's dream, she moves from an intimate moment painting a love poem by Sappho on Tara's bare back, to attending the first day of drama class to learn that she is to be in a play performed immediately for which she does not know the lines or understand.

The transition from Willow into Dark Willow, precipitated by Tara's immediate death when she is shot through the heart, was ambiguously received by audiences, many of whom never foresaw Willow's psychic break.

Scholar Farah Mendlesohn asserts that Willow's realization that she is in love with Tara allows viewers to re-interpret Willow's relationship with Buffy ; in the first three seasons, Willow is often disappointed that she is not a higher priority to Buffy, and even after Willow enters a relationship with Tara, still desires to feel integral to Buffy's cause and the Scooby Gang.

In the final season, Dawn becomes more grown-up and a full-fledged member of the " Scooby Gang " as witnessed in the first few episodes as she aids Buffy and Xander during Willow's absence and is trained by Buffy in combat.

In the season finale " Becoming, Part Two ", Xander decides not to tell Buffy about Willow's plan to re-ensoul Angel — who has lost his soul and is going to bring about the apocalypse — so that she will not hesitate to kill him in order to save the world.

Willow's powers are significant enough that she is able to battle Glory more effectively than Buffy, if not completely successfully.

Tara becomes more outspoken during the sixth season about the ethics of Willow's use of magic, cautioning Willow that she depends too much on it.

He saw it as necessary to progress Willow's character ; she had to deal with her dark powers, but nothing short of Tara's death would allow them to come out so forcefully.

While Willow and Buffy talk, one of Willow's casual comments causes Amy to become human for a brief second, before another turns her back into a rat.

Various episodes highlight Xander's intense bravery ; for example, he faces down evil Angelus ( Boreanaz ) at Buffy's hospital door in the episode " Killed by Death ", and he offers his life in place of Willow's in " Inca Mummy Girl ".

Even Tara's writing down Willow's room number before going to her dorm communicates that she has been thinking of Willow and wishes to find her.

* " Weak " Xander brushes off Willow's attempts to calm him down by asking how she would deal with having an evil twin.