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.

Vampire-Dopplegangers.... next thing you'll be telling me about mole-rats or violincellos... oh wait...

One of the things that I struggled with the first time that I watched Buffy was the nature of the vampire in the show. Sometimes it seemed to change, by some unknown rules – I knew Whedon planned everything, for the most part, but I couldn’t figure out how the vampire, one of the most intrinsic parts of the show (the others being Buffy and Slayer), worked. Why were some vampires so dull, listless and easy to kill, while others were emotional and near human, stronger and full of personality? I didn’t want to accept the idea that – well, it is a TV show after all, it needs devices, so vampires important to the story get personality and are uber-hard to kill (like Angel, Spike, and The Master [remember him from “Nightmares”?), and normal vamps are mere things for Buffy to chase and dust.

Naturally, that is going to be partly true. But after talking about doppelgangers in class, I’ve thought of a new way out, a set of rules to describe how vampires work in Whedon’s universe. Vamp Willow held the key for me (not talking about Dawn here). Each vampire can be seen as an alter-ego of the human it used to be. Let’s face it: “normal” people in Buffy tend to be parodies of normal people in the real world, a little bit dull and uninteresting  and not-entirely-three-or-even-two-dimensional – and there are only so many ways to re-emphasize those qualities, so the “normal” vamps are also a bit dull, and easy to kill. Over the course of the series, we get to know more about pre-vamp Angel and Spike, and their vamp-selves certainly work as an alter-egos, either by emphasizing characteristics that conflicted with and were therefore hidden in their “human” personality, or by exaggerating and worsening character traits (in a way, a reverse Guido…). I don’t want to spoil things (mostly about Spike) for those of you who haven’t seen the show. Ask me if you want my less cryptic analysis….

So the vampires can be viewed like the dwarf in “Transformations”: they’re both technically demons, but also a rearrangement/re-emphasis of their human “doppleganger’s” personality.

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

After reading Amelia’s post, I began thinking about the differences between Guido in Mary Shelley's Transformation and Willow in "Doppelgangland" in terms of their respective transformations. We discussed a lot in class how Guido doesn’t really seem to undergo a major change because he doesn’t even recognize the dwarf as his doppelganger. He is so blinded to the horrible aspects of his own personality that he is unable to see himself reflected in the monster in front of him. He thinks the dwarf is hideously ugly and evil; however, these are actually his own characteristics mirrored in the dwarf. He grows jealous of the dwarf's selfish attentions to his lover, and feels tricked; however, he spent his fortune seeking selfish pleasure, and, like the dwarf, used trickery to create a false facade that he still had money. The things he hates the most in the dwarf are his very worst faults. I think this stems from the fact that people hate that most which they reject or refuse to see within themselves. The main realization Guido has while embodying (literally) the dwarf is that his physical form is beautiful. Thus, although we are lead to assume he has experienced an emotional as well as a physical transformation at the conclusion of the story, Guido really only changes and learns to appreciate physical appearance. He is unwilling to put in the difficult work to transform himself into a better human being. Like I mentioned in class on Wednesday, he was able to make the grand gesture of killing himself and the dwarf for the girl; however, he was previously unable to change his life for her, to live for her. It’s much easier to die for someone than to life for him/her, in my opinion.

Unlike Guido, Willow recognizes the darker aspects of her personality after meeting her doppelganger, and seeks both completion and redemption at the end of the episode. At the beginning of the episode, she wants to be more badass and seeks to bring out those characteristics within herself that she had previously suppressed. When faced with her doppelganger, she realizes that she has the ability to stand up for herself while also still being the same, reliable Willow that does homework and helps with Scooby Gang research. Being faced with her alter ego allows her to see herself more clearly and to grow because of it. In the scene where she pretends to be her doppelganger, she speaks about herself and realizes that most of her frustration and desire to be dangerous came internal judgment and assumptions rather than actual, external feedback from her friends. By refusing to kill her doppelganger and physically embracing her at the end of the episode, Willow embraces her darker self while also accepting and appreciating the nicer aspects of her personality. At the end of the episode, she jokingly says that she wants to enter a convent to atone for the sins of her dark doppelganger. This demonstrates that she has truly experienced a transformation. She faced her darker self and learned from the encounter, rather than rejecting or killing a different part of herself.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Love-Hate Relationship With Yourself Much, Willow?

One of my favorite moments in "Doppelgangland" is when Vamp Willow tries to convince Good Willow to become a vampire and join her. Beyond the literal sort of self-eroticism when Vamp Willow licks Good Willow's neck, this shows Vamp Willow recognizing herself in Good Willow and liking what she recognizes. Of course, Good Willow rejects her(self?), and animosity immediately forms. Later on, Vamp Willow gets to the point of attempting to kill Good Willow, but when Buffy goes to kill V.W. in order to save G.W. (I'm using initials from now on, guys), G. W. prevents this. G. W. (with the help of the rest of the Scoobies) goes on to send V.W. back to the world where she belongs, which if you think about it is really nice considering that this is V.W.'s ultimate goal and that she just tried to kill G.W. Before V.W. is sent back, the two Willows hug.

I think this whole love-hate relationship between doppelgangers is a really cool external representation of someone's internal struggles with his or herself. This also happens in Transformation, as Guido hates everything about his doppelganger the misshapen dwarf from his hideous voice to his appearance. In the end, however, the dwarf's actions help Guido get what he wants. I can't linearly compare this to the two Willows' relationship because it's hard to tell in Transformation how truly evil the dwarf is - granted, stealing someone's body doesn't seem particularly rosy-scented, but he acts far better than Guido would have done had his body not been stolen. Regardless, however, Guido's hate for the outward appearance of the dwarf represents his realization of his hatred for the bad qualities in himself, just as Willow's hatred but also acceptance of her vampire doppelganger represents her struggle with her identity.