I think Willow starts off mostly believing that her parental/peer group rejection is her own fault. In The Pack when Xander starts acting weird, she immediately starts asking, is it me? Did I do something? But Buffy starts her thinking she doesn't *have* to be a wallflower. And Willow takes Buffy's strength and transforms it into aggressiveness. Buffy is capable of being just. Willow learns only two modes - passive and aggressive, anger turned on herself and anger turned outward. Buffy trying to bring Willow to assertive frequently pushes/inspires Willow all the way to aggressive. When Willow finds Oz with Veruca, she nearly walks into traffic, thinks it's about Willow. Then Buffy tells her not to hurt herself, to put the blame where it belongs - and Willow almost curses Oz and Veruca before backing down. Buffy accidentally flipped Willow from hurting herself, to hurting Oz - and then she stops short because she can't go through with it, at which point Veruca enters and mocks her mercy as weakness before attempting to kill her, at which point Oz has to save her, and then Buffy has to save Willow from Oz. Willow as we know from Something Blue, views her failure as one of being too weak to go through with the revenge spell - which I think is partly that Veruca (and Faith and Cordelia and Angelus and hyena Xander before her) basically outright said that Willow's meekness makes her deserve to be hurt. I think she internalizes their judgments of her and is angry that her restraining herself is not properly recognized as good rather than weakness.
As she grows in confidence she thinks she escapes this by 'becoming' a new and powerful person. She thinks this is what Tara wants her for and it's not inconceivable why she would think that. Basically the first thing Tara says to her is that Willow has a lot of power, like Tara's beloved mother. They bond over magic and Willow would never have met Tara without it. And so when Tara starts objecting to and even fearing Willow's magic use, she freaks out - because she must somehow both do magic and not at the same time!? She also, I think, views herself as responsible for Glory's attack on Tara - she says she's sorry when she reaches Tara, the reason Willow wasn't there with her is because of their fight about magic, AND Willow couldn't think of the right spell to clear the crowd so she could get to Glory in time. Again, I think the reason Willow freaks out so much is that she is torn between contradictory beliefs - knowing that they fought because Tara is scared at how powerful Willow is and that's why she was alone; Willow not being powerful enough is why she couldn't stop Glory in time. Willow goes after Glory on a possibly suicidal mission even when Tara is still around - because, I think, Willow can't deal with feeling responsible, and needs an external target.
I think by s6, Willow basically believes that if she does not maintain full power at all times, disaster will strike - and also believes that her power makes her dirty and evil somehow, and she blows out eventually because she can't resolve the contradiction. If Willow had been using magic when Warren came by the house, would Willow have been able to stop the bullet in time to save her? I think Willow is not so much interested in approval as a) love, as I said earlier, and b) security - and when really, really angry, c) revenge. Security and love combine - because by s6 she doesn't really trust anyone either to keep them safe, or to treat her fairly, and it's only in nearly killing Dawn that Willow really recognizes that she is a bigger danger than, like, the world in general. I think in sore of being a person who thinks often, Willow respond to crises emotionally - and basically doesn't actually fully recover from the huge threats from Glory, Buffy's death, the resurrection, the difficulty running the gang in Buffy's absence, the demon bikers etc. until near the end of s6, at which point Tara's death reactivated her extreme emotional, rage-grief default to power - even though it was now too late to use that power to protect Tara. I think she only barely is ready to recover from this by Chosen - and I suspect she'll still be screwed up for many years to come, though hopefully she'll be able to stave off angry rage.
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As she grows in confidence she thinks she escapes this by 'becoming' a new and powerful person. She thinks this is what Tara wants her for and it's not inconceivable why she would think that. Basically the first thing Tara says to her is that Willow has a lot of power, like Tara's beloved mother. They bond over magic and Willow would never have met Tara without it. And so when Tara starts objecting to and even fearing Willow's magic use, she freaks out - because she must somehow both do magic and not at the same time!? She also, I think, views herself as responsible for Glory's attack on Tara - she says she's sorry when she reaches Tara, the reason Willow wasn't there with her is because of their fight about magic, AND Willow couldn't think of the right spell to clear the crowd so she could get to Glory in time. Again, I think the reason Willow freaks out so much is that she is torn between contradictory beliefs - knowing that they fought because Tara is scared at how powerful Willow is and that's why she was alone; Willow not being powerful enough is why she couldn't stop Glory in time. Willow goes after Glory on a possibly suicidal mission even when Tara is still around - because, I think, Willow can't deal with feeling responsible, and needs an external target.
I think by s6, Willow basically believes that if she does not maintain full power at all times, disaster will strike - and also believes that her power makes her dirty and evil somehow, and she blows out eventually because she can't resolve the contradiction. If Willow had been using magic when Warren came by the house, would Willow have been able to stop the bullet in time to save her? I think Willow is not so much interested in approval as a) love, as I said earlier, and b) security - and when really, really angry, c) revenge. Security and love combine - because by s6 she doesn't really trust anyone either to keep them safe, or to treat her fairly, and it's only in nearly killing Dawn that Willow really recognizes that she is a bigger danger than, like, the world in general. I think in sore of being a person who thinks often, Willow respond to crises emotionally - and basically doesn't actually fully recover from the huge threats from Glory, Buffy's death, the resurrection, the difficulty running the gang in Buffy's absence, the demon bikers etc. until near the end of s6, at which point Tara's death reactivated her extreme emotional, rage-grief default to power - even though it was now too late to use that power to protect Tara. I think she only barely is ready to recover from this by Chosen - and I suspect she'll still be screwed up for many years to come, though hopefully she'll be able to stave off angry rage.