Willow handled her evil twin fine!

Xander: Hey, wait till you have an evil twin. See how you handle it.

Willow: I handled it fine.

---- "The Replacement"

Several posts ago, Abby argued that in "Doppelganger" Willow did not change in response to encountering Vamp Willow.

“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.”

Au contraire, ma soeur! (On the contrary, my sister!) I’d argue instead that Willow did change due to her encounter with Vamp Willow, and that those changes may have in the end resulted in Willow turning into Dark Willow.

I’ve always interpreted the closing scene of “Doppelgangland” as providing a glimpse of Willow’s first realization that being assertive and possessing power can have positive effects. Willow was initially going to stay home, floss, do her homework, die a virgin and not go out with Buffy that night because she’d seen where the path of evil lead to in Vamp Willow who ruined everything she touched, but after Percy acts so obsequiously towards Willow and gives her the book report outlines, Willow instantly changes her mind and wants to go out that night at 9. Vamp Willow’s intimidation got results and Willow’s life is made easier and more enjoyable because of it. Willow couldn’t help but see the possible implications of this event.

In the next episode, Willow talks about how the “Ascension” was mentioned in a book Giles hid from her but that she read anyway- and she says this in front of Giles. This is the same girl who in the episode before did everything Giles asked her without complaint or delay. If he said jump, her response would be to ask how high. But now she’s willing to incur his wrath in her pursuit of magical knowledge and abilities, which even then with her fledgling power was a major source of self-esteem for Willow that gave her a greater sense of agency.

Two episodes later, Willow goes on a black-ops mission that results in Faith kidnapping her on behalf of the Mayor. Willow kills her captor vampire (with magic), sneaks around City Hall, and snoops through the evil Mayor’s stuff until she finds key documents that she filches. Faith discovers Willow in the Mayor’s office and threatens her with a knife, but Willow doesn’t even flinch. After a tense hostage exchange, Willow is reunited with Buffy and the Scoobies and is able to provide them with the invaluable information in the documents she stole. The old Willow, pre-encounter with her vampire self, might not have had the self-confidence to attempt these feats if it were not for seeing her “evil twin” show strength, courage, and leadership qualities that gave Vamp Willow power and control. It’s possible that old Willow would have taken the route Faith at the time called sensible- fleeing the building as fast as possible and not dilly-dallying in City Hall trying to find useful information while vampires might be looking for her. The information Willow acquired proves helpful to the gang as they battle the mayor. Being aggressive and not meek once again gets Willow results.

Several episodes later, Willow bursts through another one of the self-imposed barriers she considered after encountering Vamp Willow but before seeing the results her evil doppelganger got with Percy. Yes, that’s right, Willow loses her virginity to Oz. And they are all lovey-dovey afterwards. Would old Willow have done this? Maybe, maybe not, but clearly the new Willow did and is happier for it. Percy shows up once in the next season and calls Willow a nerd when he doesn’t realize Willow is listening in, a statement which puts Willow’s back up as she points out the ways she is not the nerd-like character she used to be. Willow has dramatically changed since high school, and she wants people to recognize that fact.

Through the next few seasons, Willow grows enormously in magical power, self-confidence, and
assertiveness so that by the end of the season five she is able to go head-to-head with a god for a short period of time. In season six she raises Buffy from the grave and scares away the very powerful demon Sweet. Her wardrobe changes accordingly. But at the same time, the unique mixture of her magical power and desire to control things and make them better leaders her to tamper with Tara’s memory, poison that relationship, and then stumble through many of the stages of addiction (to magic). Things are just starting to look up for Willow by the end of the sixth season, when (spoiler alert) Tara is shot by Warren and Willow tries but fails to bring back Tara from the dead with magic. As a result Willow turns into Darth Willow and flays Warren alive, hurts her friends, and tries to end the world. Sounds like something Vamp Willow might do if she could, right?

I’d argue that this chain of events shows that Willow saw the positive results that come from being more like Vamp Willow, internalized those lessons and applied them to her life, became more self-confident and assertive, but then eventually went too far and turned into a being 100x worse than Vamp Willow. Willow’s encounter with her doppelganger initiated a slow but dramatic transformation in her character, mostly for the better (other than when she was addicted to magic and depressed due to Tara’s death). But in season 5 and 7, just before and after her darkest period, Willow is mystically more powerful than Buffy, capable of holding down serious relationships, and serves as the leader of the White Hats/Scooby Gang/Potential Slayers in Buffy’s absence.