Quote:
Originally posted by Indygo
Sounds like a wonderful premise to explore on Pens! But I agree with your interpretation of Tara's character. In my own fiction I have always stopped short of Tara using anything dark. I too believe she would consider it and reject its use, knowing what she seems to know about what it can do.
I finally got to read part 2 this weekend. The dark-eyes was not as complete as in the show (no whites left usually, whereas the comic seemed to have enlarged black irises but still had the whites), though given that they used colored irises at other times and they were black in the close-up when casting, I think they did intend it to be dark-eyes for both of them.
The other thing I thought was similarly a bit off was Tara's angry expression in one or two of her castings. I don't remember Tara ever casting a spell in anger on the show (am I forgetting something?). I would have gone more along the lines of "resolute" or "fearful/protective" (if saving Willow or Dawn), doing what needs to be done, not because she's mad. Of course, I'm not sure how that would look in a drawing as opposed to acting, so maybe that's what they were actually going for or it was easier to make her look angry. (Again it could have been an artist elaboration with less familiarity with her character and history on the show.) But all in all these factors didn't ruin it for me.

There also seemed to be at least one occurrence where Tara pulled out of a darker spell Willow cast (reminding me of
Afterlife), or am I imagining things?
Willow seemed to be casting the forget spell on all the loggers so they wouldn't remember Greenjack and their battle with him (can't have so many ordinary folks witnessing their use of magick, especially outside of self-deluding Sunnydale

).
Quote:
Originally posted by Garner
I also tend to think Tara may have used the darker magic once, figured out what it was and then stopped. She should know better than to go too far down that road. I've always thought that she should know enough light magic to end up with an effect that turns her eyes all white instead of black. That is something I was working towards in one of my fics that I haven't gotten back to in a while.
I came up with an image like that a while back, except I imagined her eyes glowing blue-white (sorta the color of a blue lightsaber) from her inner power (as opposed to drawing in external power) after invoking Gaia in a very big-deal spell that (temporarily) would raise her ability to channel magick (her own power, channeled through the goddess) to Willow's level (dark-magick power, channeled through Willow). But she could only cast white-magick spells (not even some of the borderline stuff Tara has done at times like the blindness spell in
Family), all strongly balanced.
I'm not sure about Tara herself ever using dark magick (in the sense of drawing on it with the dark-eyes and all) in the past and giving it up. In the theory I've woven to explain Buffyverse magick as a structure for using magick in RPs and fiction, drawing on dark magick has the side-effect of feeding your soul with darkness which gradually colors your attitude (as it seemed to color Willow's more and more in early season 6) such that you'd be less likely to avoid it than before you used it the first time. I'm thinking that Tara would have learned the dangers of that path before ever doing such things herself (in part because she presumably had good guidance from her mother and/or grandmother before that as well). The darkness is a path that impatient or self-centered witches like Catherine (evilly self-centered), Amy (self-centered), and Willow (mostly impatient, not self-centered) fall for, and the power seems unlikely to lure Tara even a short way down that path.
Of course, we know she's occasionally used a darker spell (eg. blindness spell in
Family, not strictly "dark magick"), and she might possibly have tapped dark magick on certain prior occasions without falling into the deeper corruption (perhaps using it for a noble purpose but then realizing that using it is dangerous and wrong--even for a "good cause"--and avoiding it from then on). But we also have to consider how little magick Tara seemed to have done before meeting Willow; she certainly didn't seem to have been out being heroic and all in her past (which would seem a necessary situation for Tara to have needed dark magick--without falling down the path of darkness like Amy did) or else she would have been a lot more confident in season 4.
But I could be wrong, since I'm just making these rules up based on what they've shown us on the show and applying my own philosophy about such themes.
Quote:
Originally posted by Blue Pariah
So these one-shots probably deal with Willow's stay in England and the only way Tara could be in those is as a ghost or a halucination.
Most likely she'll condemn Willow's actions first, and then tell her to move on with her life.
I don't know how they'd write it on the show or in a comic, but I really don't think Tara would react that way. I think Tara would be sad but understanding of Willow's reaction to her death and even of her trying to destroy the world.
Tara was upset when Willow was
choosing to use magick frivolously and with less-and-less regard for others (eg. wanting to find Dawn by shifting the Bronze patrons to another dimension), and she was probably concerned at the dark path Willow seemed to be headed down, but I think she'd understand a powerful emotional reaction to something as traumatic as a lover's senseless death. There's a big difference between doing something for the heck of it or because it's easier, and doing something you were pushed into, however wrong that something might be.
Given that Tara didn't condemn Buffy for sleeping with Spike and given that
none of the scoobies condemned Willow for what she was trying to do (just condemned what she was trying to do) any more than they condemned Buffy for trying to kill them in
Normal Again, I don't think the show would write any condemnation coming from Tara's ghost (though coming from an imposter such as the shape-shifter in
Lessons and/or the First Evil from
Amends--or maybe even a dream from Willow's own subconscious--would be a possibility). I also think Tara would be very proud of Willow for ceasing the destruction and letting go of the darkness--as I believe Giles to be. I don't think Tara would want Willow to just "move on" nor to continue to dwell on her--either one would be self-centered of Tara, and she just isn't that way. Rather she would want Willow to do what Willow needed to do to cope with the loss and move on at her own pace. The woman who would have understood Willow going back to Oz (though it saddened Tara greatly) in
New Moon Rising would not make Willow's future path about what Tara wants her to do; she's wiser than that, and I think she would let Willow figure out what she needs to do, not tell her what to do. This is why I can't see them having Tara's real ghost on the show (doesn't seem to be anything she could tell Willow to help her--unless it was in an ongoing scoobie information-assistance type way or a "phantom-Dennis" way, either of which would seem kinda tacky--and Tara doesn't seem the type not to move on to the afterlife herself), though I could imagine an evil imposter trying to mess with Willow.
That's how I see her, anyway.