Willow and Tara: Seasons 4 - 6

[Ms Limon]

One of my favourite Willow and Tara moments is from New Moon Rising. Its when Willow goes to Tara's room after Tara has saw Oz at Willow's dorm. When Willow is talking about how she doesn't know what to do (and I yell pick Tara!) Tara touches Willow's face and tells her:



'Do what makes you h-happy'



Omg I just love that, tara loves Willow so much you know she'd let her go if she thought it would make Willow happy even though it'd break her heart all she cares about is Willow. And its the way Amber says it, stuttering on happy. It breaks my heart but at the same time you love it cos Tara's showing her love.



Aww *goes to watch it*

[johnluvswillandtara]

Thanks so much to those who responded to my question;you have totally convinced me that Tara was singing out of her LOVE for her beloved Willow,as i always hoped she was.The song still has the capacity to reduce me to tears but that has much to do with it being a beautiful piece of music & Amber's stunning singing voice.But then again,wouldn't we all like to be on the receiving end of a love song like that?

[serenity]

i like every thing between willow and tara. they have such a nice love. and they show it. tara´s osng says exactly what she feels for willow and i enjoy it so much. they are sooo sweet!

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by themagicpixie



Now as much as I love W/T I have only ever got to see some eps once (should've taped them, I know - I won't pay money to ME for the videos now). Can anyone who has more knowledge please answer these questions for me? I would search the Internet but I think I will get more reliable answers here...



1. Is there a Season 4 ep in which Tara and Willow talk about Tara's mother? Does she tell Willow that she has died? I also seem to remember T saying something about her brother.



2. Did anyone else get the impression from what is said in some episodes that Tara had a younger brother rather than an elder one? I got this impression before "Family" where Donny is clearly shown to be older than Tara, but I also thought it was suggested later when Tara says (in "Tough Love", I think), that she had to look after her brother after her mother died. I understand that this doesn't necessarily mean he was her kid brother, the line just came across that way. I guess she means she became the woman of the house - I can imagine her having to do most, scrub that, all of the chores.



3. In "The Body", Tara tells Buffy that her mother died when she was seventeen. Are there any eps that would conflict with that and in fact suggest Tara was younger? Because I had the impression, until "The Body" that Tara was very much a child when her mother died.



4. Are we ever told where Tara is from? Now I confess I don't know a huge amount about American accents. Could anyone tell me if Tara speaks with a noticeably different accent to the other Buffy characters, who (bar Spike and Giles) are presumably all supposed to hail from California? Donny Maclay seems to have an accent from the South US. Is Tara's accent on the show different to AB's in real life?



5. In which episode do we find out Tara's surname?



Um, guess that is enough for now!



Thanks Kitties. You guys ROCK.

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by DrG



1. During season 4 Tara only mentions her mother on screen in Hush:

Quote:

---

TARA

Always. I mean, since I was little...

My mom used to... she had a lot of

power. Like you

---

"used to" and "had", but it left room for speculation at the time about Tara's mother's fate.

In the I in Team Tara tries to give Willow her Doll's Eye Crystal:

Quote:

---

TARA

It was my grandma's, I think. Found

it a long time ago in my attic.

(then, shyly)

I... I want you to have it.

---

Other than this she does not mention her family on screen during season 4, we do not find out about her father and brother till Family. Though I am sure she and Willow shared many a talk in private in which she told her her mother had died. After all we did not get to see them kiss and do more than kiss either, and we KNOW they did.



2. I did not get the impression Tara has a younger brother or more than one. Donny is the older I believe judging from his words in Family:

Quote:

---

DONNY

What's the matter? Don't got a hug

for your big brother?

---

Though I guess he could be referring to his size rather than age, heh.



There has been debate about whether Tara has more than one brother but I think, cousin Beth bitching to Tara makes that assumption unlikely:

Quote:

---

BETH

You don't care the slightest bitty bit about your family, do you? Your dad's been worried sick about you every day you've been gone. There's a house needs taking care of, Donny and your dad having to do for themselves while you're down here living God knows what kind of lifestyle.

Is it true you've been doing magic?

---

She does not mention other brothers. If there had been she surely would have. Tara was the woman of the house before she left them, and in the Maclay family that meant having to take care of the men apparently. Hence their elaborate lies to try and bind Tara to them.



Tara's comment from TL which has led to the speculation of there being more than one brother was this one:

Quote:

---

TARA

(overlapping slightly)

I had to deal with my brother's

problems after, I mean -- you

really can't know what it's like to--

---

The reason the speculation started as I recall was the fact that Tara says "brother's" -single- which of course sounds the same as "brothers" -plural-. However, the shooting script says "brother's" and the after what happened and was said in Family, Tara only having one brother seems like the most likely option to me. This quote from TL does not point to Donny being either older or younger I think. The 'evidence' points to Tara having one older brother, or so it was before canon stopped being canon and consistent.



3. There is no conflicting info on that. In fact, until the Body aired it still wasn't clear whether Tara's mother was dead, despite Tara's use of words in Hush, there were interesting theories going around that were plausible in explaining her absence in Tara's life.



4. Can't answer that as I am Dutch, eventhough I like to pretend I know everything. Bummer.



5. Family.

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by themagicpixie



Thanks for the reply Dr. G!



I don't know why, and I know it's not canon, but I always got the impression Tara was from a fairly big family and had more than one brother. That's the way I see her as a character.

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by DrG



I am still having trouble imagining Tara's mother being married to Tara's father and having someone like Donny. Heh. I can see her being part of a big family as in her having dozens of cousins Beths being the proper little girls and her mother and herself being outcasts. I really can't imagine her having more siblings after Family, in this case the canon does make sense to me.

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by themagicpixie



I really enjoy all the Pens stories that deal with Tara's family and past life before arriving in Sunnydale, especially those that depict Tara's mother and the relationship she had with her daughter. They help to show how Tara was such a interesting character, and could have been so much more so. Bah.



I liked "Family" but I didn't think it was the only or entire answer to what Tara's family were like - I know that it didn't answer all my questions about her. I also wasn't sure about Tara's father - another question for the Kitties: do you think this is a man who is respected in his hometown, i.e. someone who gives an outward impression of being a decent person, if maybe a little stern, or do you think it's clear to all that he is basically an unpleasant individual and a bad father? I wonder if Tara's town would be on her side.



I have always thought those people who spoke quietly, and who commanded respect from those around them, are far more dangerous and threatening than those who shout and scream a lot and are outwardly unpleasant (Donny falls into the latter category, but I'm not sure about Mr. Maclay).

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by Katharyn



I actually wrote a fic that mentioned the "plural" brothers based on my own impression of the line from The Body. By the time that fic finished some months later I had come around to the fact it was just the one brother.



Anyone who knows me and how I write will realise just how much that ticked me off *S*



I think that the weight of evidence goes for just Donny - that said if you wanted to write a fic including more than one then you can point to other typo's in shooting scripts. Anything is possible on Pens... just so long as it is T/W and shows the right respect for their characters. *S*



Katharyn

-------------------------





If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.

Chance in Chance.





------------------------

[xita]

Tara's accent doesn't suggest anything other than california, in fact none of her family have any kind of accent. I always speculated central California as Tara's home.

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead

[themagicpixie]

Thanks Xita. I don't really know about US accents so had no idea...



Edited to add: I've remembered what it is that made me think Tara was a child when her mother died. In "Family", Tara's father says the women in "our" family are demons (er, did he marry a woman in his own family? Perhaps). Now I think he actually uses the word "was", which suggests Tara's mother has passed away - but it is the fact he claims she was a demon that made me think Tara could not have been very old when she died. Tara had her mother in her life until she was 17 - couldn't she have realised she wasn't a demon? Did old man Maclay have her mother believing she was a demon, too, or something?



I know that the Maclays have control over Tara and could have told her what to think, but I guess I just don't buy that Tara wouldn't have know the truth about her mother at that age. I also don't buy that after Tara's mother's death, old man Maclay could have said: "Stop pining over your mother, she was a demon all along!", that being the first suggestion she was a demon, and Tara would have bought it.



It just seemed much more plausible to me that Maclay could have quite literally "demonized" Tara's mother had she been younger when her mother died and so not remembered her as as well.



Oh well. Far be it from me to suggest maybe the Buffyverse canon might have a few flaws in it...

Edited by: themagicpixie at: 1/15/03 5:44:28 am

[urnofosiris]

Who knows what lenghts Mr Maclay went through to bind both Tara's mother and Tara to him? He obviously had Tara convinced she would turn into a demon, but he did not have her convinced she would become evil. Despite his apparent disgust at magic, he still married a witch and it would not surprise me if he enlisted some not so nice magic to influence or control Tara and her mother. I don't feel that his choice of words in Family points to Tara being younger than she said when her mother died. He claims he could control the demon in Tara, like he supposedly did with her mother, she was supposedly a demon but thanks to dear old dad she wasn't anymore. There are a great many questions that have been left unanswered after Family, but Tara said in The Body that her mother died when she was 17, and though I have no problem dismissing recent canon of that show, I have not seen anything to make me question what Tara said, though that too raised more questions, such as the how and why and what happened before. Plenty to speculate about.

[xita]

there is also the implication that the women in the family always get this and they've been doing this for generation, but which women?



Tara's mother's line, or the maclay line? If I think about this a bit longer than maybe Tara's mother was not thought to be a demon cause she isn't maclay blood.

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead

[urnofosiris]

Yeah that is something I've wondered about, it isn't very clear. He tells Tara the magic is evil and that it comes from the demon in her. Her mother was a witch and I always supposed according to him a demon as well, or at least I always felt it meant that the women on Tara's mother's side of the family are. Why would he say our family then? That points to his own side, meaning his own blood. It could be that the Maclay men have been linked to Tara's mother's family for quite a while. Maybe they were using them and there abilities for their own reason's. They could even be related by blood, though not too close, that would be too yuck and Jerry Springer, but some families are so interwoven they almost become one, or at least feel like one, not because everyone has the same blood but because they are so closely linked through marriage or a mutual forefather/mother.



I do believe Mr Maclay meant the women on Tara's maternal side of the family and I believe the Maclay men picked them for their powers, to use and control for their own personal gain. Though I guess he could also mean the women in his own family, like his own mother or sisters if he has them. That could make sense if his father chose his wife because she was a witch, so he could use her, and like him, Tara's father chose Tara's mother because she was one as well. Maybe they somehow forced each woman into believing that at 20 they'd turn into a demon. In order for them to believe that they must have used some sort of mind control and not just to make them believe that. I mean just look at that man, bleh, turning into a demon does not seem half as bad as being married to him, there probably was more to the control he had over her mother than just controlling 'the demon' in her.



*edited for crappy spelling, longwindedness and to remove the recap of Jerry Springer's "I'm in love with my Dutch cousin/uncle/aunt/brother/sister" show

Edited by: DrG at: 1/16/03 12:35:14 am

[xita]

I don't know that sounds nasty and incestual, like 2 families linked like that for generations would start looking pretty nasty and not produce lovely children like Tara.



I think it's another one of those ME , we didn't even think about it for more than 2 seconds type of thing. It didn't make sense, still doesn't.

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead

[urnofosiris]

No I don't mean that they have been closely related for generations, just closely linked. I added to my above post a bit, because that certianly isn't an explanation I'd want to give for his use of the word ours. I'm sure that the writers didn't think about it very deeply when they make Mr Maclay say "our family" which implies his blood kin, when the magic appears to be on Tara's maternal side of the family. I'm trying to make sense of his use of the word ours and the fact that it apparently has been that way for generations. I meant that maybe Tara's mother's family is linked to his by different marriages such as his brother might have married Tara's mother's cousin or sister or whatever (like your everyday soap scenario, or like my family ). That does not make them close bloodkin, but it could make them close enough for him to consider Tara's maternal side of family as "theirs". Or maybe the Maclay men just scoured the lands for witches to be used, to be "theirs", none of these women have to be related either to each other or to the Maclays. They just fell victim to the same lies or manipulation. Magic comes from a demon within and here they are to control it and them, and so it has been for generations in 'their family, because they made sure it happened that way, for whatever reason.

Edited by: DrG at: 1/15/03 8:28:38 am

[willow4tara2gether4eva]

the lovely look Tara gave Willow after escaping from The Gentlemen in "Hush" after the candy machine via magic was use to block the door.



the entire "cat in the hat" scene from the episode whose name I forget at the moment (can anybody remember?)



I laughed out loud at that. Heck I even downloaded the soundbite 'cause I enjoyed it so much.

[urnofosiris]

That was from Triangle (E11S5) when they are in the Magic shop with Anya. There was some vintage Willow in that episode.

Edited by: DrG at: 1/16/03 3:29:11 am

[themagicpixie]

Hmm... well I think maybe when he said "our" it was meant in the sense of the very close family - two parents and their children - the women out of that are just Tara and her mother. Now while that is quite a narrow interpretation of the family, I think it was done because this is a man who likes to talk about "family" and what it means - "Family" is the episode title too, and I think the writer probably wanted to make another reference to it. I think Tara's father wanted to try to stress that Tara belonged to him, rather than to her friends. So he says something that really you might take to mean as involving a wider group of people, but basically he just wants to say that Tara is his, and also to slightly build up to mentioning Tara's mother and this is one way of doing it. I think saying "our family" also emphasises how he feels it's not the Scoobies' business. He strikes me as the kind of man who wouldn't like outside interference in "his" family - in his marriage, or his relationships with his children. Plus if Tara and her mother are the only "demons", then he is the man with the control.



(course you got Cousin Beth there... I think she just gets a look-in because she's willing to go along with what Old Man Maclay says. I'm sure Tara's dad likes having a woman around who will take orders from him and think he's great).



Oh. I'm not sure that makes any sense. I'm sure I should be worrying about my exams instead!



Edited to add: Yes Dr G., I did mistype "dad" as "dead". I am still grieving that those bastards killed her! Thank you for pointing out the typo!

Edited by: themagicpixie at: 1/17/03 4:08:04 am

[urnofosiris]

Well it makes sense to me, which isn't necessarily a good thing. (and I think you meant Tara's dad without the e. )

[Firefoot]

Has anyone wondered if Willow ever told her mother about Tara? Based on "Gingerbread," I would be inclined to think not, since it seemed as though 1) Willow deliberately kept much of her activities secret from her mother, and 2) her mother didn't realize Willow'd had her hair cut for months and couldn't even remember the name of Willow's best friend. She seemed pretty clueless/ oblivious when it came to Willow's life in general.



However, following Joyce's death, Willow did mention spending more time with her mother, and I wonder if she might have told Sheila about Tara then.



Her father seems to be completely out of the picture, and I doubt if he even knows the first thing about his daughter's life, apart from maybe the name of the college she's attending.



So, what do people think? I'd be interested to hear some theories on this.



Firefoot

[themagicpixie]

Well, from what we see in Seasons 4-6 there isn't really anything to suggest Willow has told her mother about Tara, as far as I remember...



I can picture Willow trying to tell her mother about Tara, and her mom not really paying attention enough to get what Willow was saying, or else not really making the connection, you know?



On the other hand after the way Mrs R. reacted re the witch stuff, maybe Willow wouldn't bother trying to tell Mom at all!

[chilled monkey]

I agree that there isn't any real 'evidence' of Willow telling her mom about Tara, but I still think that she has. I mean, it's not as if Willow were trying to hide her relationship or something. And given the scene in "Forever", I think we are meant to assume that she has told her.

[xita]

So, I was looking through the lesbian pulp novels because of that pic I posted in the vegas thread. I remembered how Tara had decorated her room with those postcards that have the pulp novel covers and how we had talked about that on the board. I was explaining that to a friend and she didn't know it, so I thought maybe others didn't know either and I'd post it. You can see it in the Family episode. Can't see it really clear cause the caps are crap hee.



nautipuss - original



nautipuss on Tara's wall.



more covers

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead

[atse28]

Hey Xita, thanks for pointing out the postcards Tara had up in her room, I hadn't a clue actually about them at all!

---

Unofficially, I have no idea what you are talking about.....

[WilTaraFan]

Website: deviousone2002.tripod.com

Email: letsrocket_1998@yahoo.com



When I first saw that episode with that line, I wasn't a very big Willow/Tara fan. I had just really started watching Buffy. And when I heard and saw that conversation between our girls, I kinda thought they were writing Tara to be a bad person, one of the next villains.



Not only am I glad I was wrong, but I've enjoyed the many other moments we've seen from them. Yay Willow and Tara!



Kudos!!!

[kpmuse]

MY GOD! I just watched the near kiss between Willow and Tara in the tunnel in Tabula Rasa and I just about fainted right on the floor! The chemistry between them takes my breath away!



I think I might have to change my vote AGAIN on the Best Willow and Tara kiss ever. Is that allowed Dr G?



At that moment, these two had never met each other and this would have been their first kiss. Talk about a real moment between the lovers. Tender, hot, romantic and natural! Doesn't get any better than that!



Just prior to the near kiss was the heavy panting moment Will and Tara shared in the tunnel. Remember? They were hiding from the vamp and were face to face in a small space. Heavy breathing, quick glances, brief smiles! Oh my! Lotsa heat! I get lost in these moments every time I watch them



Thanks Amber and Allyson! I know you had fun doing these for us! and forever

[xita]

Tabula Rasa has all the chemistry 2 people could ever hope for on screen a tribute to true love, forever in my heart and many others I know. Great Couples don't come that often.

-----------------
Baby you make my love come down

Oh you make my love come down

Make it come all the way down -
Evelyn Champagne King

[The Rose24]

YES!!!! I just rewatched TR last night.



I can never help being amazed at how these girls are pulled together by a powerful magnetic force without any memories of each other. This has to be one of my favorite eps of all time despite the heart-wrenching ending. I have to overlook the fact it is season sux. The season that destroyed Buffy in more ways than one, literally and figuratively.

Tara: My heart doesn't stutter.


Tara: Willow, I got so lost.

Willow: I found you. I will always find you.

Edited by: BytrSuite at: 2/5/03 11:03:55 pm

[Cipher]

The clues we have about Tara's mother are that she died when Tara was 17, and supposedly turned "demon" (according to Tara's father) when she (the mom) was 20. In Family Mr. Maclay told Tara she had to come home before she turned 20 because, "that was how old your mother was when she..." (he doesn't say when what, but it's implied to be the same as he suggests will happen to her). We also have Tara's statement to Willow in Hush that her mother "had a lot of power" and a few other references in other episodes.



Obviously Tara could not have been anywhere near 17 when her mother was 20, so there must have been a number of years in which her mother was supposedly "a demon" before she died. I don't think we have any information whether Tara was born before or after her mother was 20, but I'll assume it was before (he seems the type to have married her young, and it's much harder to explain things if her mom was supposed to be "a demon" even before Tara was born). I also approach this from a sense that Mr. Maclay wasn't necessarily acting from malicious intentions but simply from a misogynistic concept of marriage and family (which is bad enough).



The way I imagine it is that Tara's mother (perhaps pushed too-young into a marriage to Mr. Maclay by her own father) might have gotten into dangerous magicks (some similarity to Willow was suggested, though that was before Willow's problems), perhaps as a way of rebelling against a controlling husband. Perhaps more likely, her initial "rebellion" was to use innocuous magick and possibly begin teaching Tara (her first daughter and therefore first heir to her magick heritage; perhaps Tara's birth was even the spark). Mr. Maclay would probably have taken such "improper" behavior as an affront to his "rightful place" as head of the household and would label her continued defiance as "demonic" and "evil" simply because she didn't meekly follow his view of a woman's "place". He's a misogynistic pig, but he may not have known what he was getting into when he married her; someone like that would have wanted a woman he could control, not someone with the power and will to resist him and develop her own independence. He backed down without a fight in the face of apparent civilians (granted, a whole united bunch of them who seemed pretty certain of themselves), so he doesn't strike me as wanting to control a witch's power for his own use so much as to keep "his" women from accessing such power (which he would find threatening).



I imagine this would have led to a power struggle with him trying to control her and stop her from practicing magick (and certainly prevent her from teaching Tara, though I think Tara must have picked up enough of the important principles of Wicca from her mother and/or grandmother even if she didn't have the chance to be taught much of the magick and thus was still mostly a beginner at spells when she met Willow). That could have spiraled into the use of powerful spells and darker magick which perhaps ultimately doomed her mother much as it consumed Catherine (Amy's mom, The Witch), is consuming Amy (spent 3 years as a rat from a backfired spell), and nearly consumed Willow. Of course, she probably would have escaped Mr. Maclay's control at some point if a dark-magick spiral is what happened to her. (Imagine him telling Tara, "see what happens when the demon isn't kept under control; it's for her own good.") I think Tara must have had some first-hand experience with seeing what using dark magick can do to someone, explaining why she was so worried to see it happening to Willow. (But was it her mother who had the problem or someone else?)



This would also fit with Tara's answer in The Body to Buffy's question if her mother's death was sudden: "No ...and yes." "No," because there was reason to expect it for some time beforehand, and "yes" because the death itself was sudden ("because it's always sudden") when it finally happened (consider Catherine's sudden demise; though technically she's trapped not dead, no one (in the Buffyverse) knows what actually happened to her). Of course, a lingering terminal illness would also fit with that line, so this is only one speculative explanation, not implied specifically by that line.



I imagine the lengths Mr. Maclay would have gone to to control Tara's mother and the efforts she might have made to resist or escape that control might well have been enough for Tara to believe his assertion that her mother was part-demon and that it came out when she was 20 (give-or-take Tara's recollection at a young age of what her mother was like). Consider how an innocent (and sane) person thrown in an insane asylum would behave, locked up, physically restrained, and all for what they know is a bogus or malicious reason; they'd likely fight to get free, and in the end could act very much insane and appear to justify the confinement. ("Terminator 2" comes to mind.) If Tara were too young to remember how it started, it's entirely plausible that she would have believed her father's claims about her mother based on her own observations (controlled by her father and guided in interpretation by his own claims).



Another consideration is that the dark-magick experience I'm speculating Tara had seen wouldn't necessarily have been her mother. It could have been another witch in the extended family (grandmother, aunt, cousin, etc) who got into dark magick and was destroyed by it--further fueling the "women in our family have demon in them" belief. Perhaps her mother managed to avoid the trap of dark magick despite the provocation to which Mr. Maclay must have subjected her over the years (from when Tara's mother was 20 to when Tara was 17), because you'd think with the use of dark magick she would have been hard to contain if he doesn't do magick himself. He'd have to be a sorcerer, perhaps disdaining wicca and female power to explain his attitude towards Tara's pursuits; but we saw no evidence that he had any power to take Tara by force against the will of the scoobies, so it's very unlikely. So it wasn't necessarily dark magick that killed her mother but perhaps merely the sheer neglect and abuse of being considered an evil demon to be "controlled" for what must have been years.



Anyway, those are some rambling thoughts about the possible story of Tara's mother based on the clues we've been given and some extrapolation from other Buffyverse themes.

Edited by: Warduke at: 2/8/03 4:20:36 pm