A Lesson Before Doppelganging

Much like Guido, Willow does not change after she encounters her doppelganger, VampWill. Although VampWill presents her with the opportunity to see herself externally, she does not fully embrace these observations to amend her internal self-suppression. The fact that she turns into DarkWillow later in the series illustrates this lack of internalization. In my opinion, the reason she does not learn from VampWill is because Willow views her as separate from herself rather than the manifestation of her evil side. Willow makes this delusional assessment in spite of Xander and Buffy’s assertions that VampWill is Willow:

WILLOW
This is creepy. I don't like the
thought that there's some vampire
out there that looks like me.

XANDER
Not looks like -- is.

BUFFY
It was you, Willow, in every detail.

Instead, Willow continually struggles with this idea that she and VampWill are one in the same. At first her rejection of this unity manifests itself subtly in her language. For example, Willow says, “What are we gonna do with…me? Other me.” This quotation illustrates how Willow modifies her speech to reflect her own disagreement regarding their relatedness by linguistically removing VampWill from herself. However, by the end of the episode Willow strongly and intentionally declares that VampWill is a separate entity from herself: “I mean, she’s not me – we have a big nothing in common.” This statement contradicts other elements of the text that point to the opposite conclusion, such as the fact the VampWill is gay and later Willow turns out to be gay.

This outright denial of VampWill as her alter ego confounds Willow’s ability to actually learn from this doppelganger encounter. Even though Willow seems to potentially gain some knowledge of herself from this experience, but she does not actually follow through with the lesson. When impersonating VampWill she says of herself, “She’s so weak and accommodating. It’s pathetic – she lets everyone walk all over her and then she gets cranky at her friends for no reason.” This quotation appears to be evidence of a progression in her self-comprehension, but perhaps Willow is merely imagining VampWill’s opinion of her rather than expressing an understanding of her own flaws in light of interacting with her doppelganger. Her meeting with Percy at the end of the episode provides evidence for this hypothesis because she reverts back to her goody-goody ways by attempting to apologize for not having his paper written. Thus, either she briefly learns something about herself from VampWill and promptly forgets or she never gains any self-comprehension in the first place.

As a result of this misguided conception of her connection to VampWill, Willow is fated to become DarkWillow in the future. She does not actually learn how to be more assertive or aggressive because she does not recognize that the moral of the story is the moral of her story. At very best, Willow comes to acknowledge that there are other avenues to success besides virtue. For her initial statement, “I see now where the path of vice leads. [VampWill] messed up everything she touched. I don’t ever wanna be like that,” proves to be wrong when Percy behaves. However, she hardly adopts this badass lifestyle as a replacement to her doormat disposition. The concluding scene of “Doppelgangland” gives the impression that Willow views Percy’s compliancy as a fortunate coincidental byproduct of VampWill’s actions that she is happy to take advantage of in the moment. The episode does not intimate that she grasps the importance of expressing her darker side on a regular basis in order to avoid becoming evil. Fortunately, from Guido and Willow’s failures, we learn the significance of holistic self-expression and the benefits of living a balanced life through moderation. Thus, the lessons from the presence of the dwarf and VampWill render the need for our own doppelganger encounters unnecessary.