Willow of Sunnydale, California

By Liss Webster

Willow Rosenberg could write a book about her relationship with magic. Not one of those epic small-town girl discovers mysterious magical power and sets off on epic quest to slay demons and defeat trolls and recapture the wonderful light of the universe where it was kept by an evil wizard up a mountain kinda books. Don't get her wrong, she is totally in favour of those, and there's sort of a possibility that she might have started writing something similar when she was thirteen (ooh, it was so much fun and had this heroine called Rowan who met a guy Alex and they went on these adventures and... so, yeah. In retrospect kinda lame). Whatever; she's fine with fantasy.

But that was before magic.

Now the book would be a Bildungsroman. As they learnt in Lit 101, that's a book that focuses on a character's growth, psychologically and morally. Well, Willow already knew that. Buffy learnt it in Lit 101, and didn't look it up for a while so thought it had something to do with Romans and toilets. Anne of Green Gables is a Bildungsroman. Willow loves that book. Um, so, anyway, drifting from the point.

The point: the story of Willow and magic is more about Willow's psychological and moral growth than it is about magic (though magic is beautiful and bright and deserves a thousand books when each is more lavish than the last). Magic is a tool, she gets that. (Magic is alive.) She can't let it control her; it's for her to control it. (You get swept along, and together they're so powerful, like being alive in a million dimensions all at once when everyone else is in Flatland.) Magic is dangerous. (Magic is everything in the world.)

Um. Heh.

The story of Willow and magic is more about Willow's psychological and moral growth.

It's a work in progress.