Like its wide roster of vampires and other supernatural creatures, there’s just no keeping Buffy the Vampire Slayer down. It may have been seventeen years since the final episode was first shown, but the show lives on. There have been many like it since (and many like it before), but through official comic book continuations and beyond, fans have remained committed to the world Joss Whedon created.
As such, discussions of the iconic core cast—and the relationships between them—will never end. Today, we’re going to reflect on Buffy and Tara’s friendship…or perhaps the lack thereof. Here are some reasons why they may not have been true friends after all.
She Came Along Very Late
As fans will know, the early seasons of the show revolve around Buffy’s struggle to assemble an inner sanctum of loyal allies around her. Not only friends she can trust with her whole yes, I hunt vampires in dusty crypts at night while trying my darndest to prevent the apocalypse secret, but those who can actually help her with this enormous burden.
Needless to say, this isn’t easy for her, as people like this are hard to come by in Sunnydale High and Buffy isn’t the open to making friends. By the time Tara Maclay enters the scene (she first appears in Season 4’s “Hush”), the Scooby Gang is well-established for the most part and the newcomer finds its ranks (and Buffy herself) difficult to penetrate.
Buffy’s Very Unsure About Magic
Through the course of the show, one thing’s made very clear: Buffy is the very last word in stakings, punchings and The Matrix-esque slow-mo head-kickings. In matters of magic, however, she’s entirely out of her depth.
At the time Tara is introduced, Willow Rosenberg’s magical ability is just starting to develop. That’s the reason she attended the Wikka group in the first place, to learn more, to understand what she can do and what she may later be able to do. As convenient as Willow’s magic is for the Scoobies at times (one of them could barely go to the bathroom without Willow being asked to perform yet another ‘locator spell’), it was always an aspect of her personality that Buffy was wary of, even before the you-know-what hit the fan with Dark Willow later. This went twice for Tara.
Buffy Couldn’t Quite Trust Her
By the latter part of Season 4, Buffy had certainly placed her trust in the wrong people several times and been burnt for it. The super secretive, incredibly dangerous and vital nature of her work means that as few people as possible could be kept in the loop as to the Hellmouth’s latest horrific spewings.
Trust, then, is hard to come by for our heroine. It would be a thorny issue at the best of times, but as Willow’s magical talents blossomed as she spent more and more time with Tara, Buffy was sure to be wary of the latter, not knowing how the young witch may be influencing her trusted friend.
Tara Isn’t Proactive In Battle
There seems to be one key prerequisite to becoming a member of the Scooby Gang: you’ve got to be willing to get your hands dirty/bloody/vampire-dusty every once in a while. Of course, some members of the group had formidable powers of their own and some didn’t, but they all took up weapons to fight alongside Buffy when the situation called for it. Even Cordelia.
Tara is a bit of an exception to this rule. A much more experienced witch than Willow herself when the pair met, her abilities were soon outstripped by Willow’s own. Even so, she had talent and would have been a valuable ally if she’d been more open to fighting. We didn’t really get to see very much of what she could do.
Tara Didn’t Support Willow Enough During Her Recovery
As Buffy frequently laments, the life of a Slayer is a difficult, lonely and very dangerous one. Her social life is rendered essentially non-existent by her calling, the very fact she rebels against so often.
Still, she does form key friendships over the course of the show, most notably with Best Friend™ Willow. When Tara and Willow’s relationship began to crumble, Tara issued an ultimatum about her partner’s excessive use of magic. The trouble was, perhaps she didn’t help her overcome her addiction to the extent she should have, and there was really only one side Buffy could have taken here.
Tara Hurt Willow Even More By Leaving
As we know, Tara’s fear over Willow’s burgeoning magical power and pursuit of darker arts was what ultimately drove the couple apart. As it was, the intoxicated witch just couldn’t prevent herself from using magic for long and we would eventually see just how far she was willing to go, when Dark Willow emerged after Tara’s killing in “Seeing Red.”
Again, though, while Buffy wasn’t too outwardly anti-Tara after throughout their breakup, she surely harbored some resentment towards her for devastating Willow by breaking up with her as she did.
Tara Became The Mother Figure For Dawn That Buffy Sometimes Wished She Was
Now, the much-maligned Dawn Summers may be one of the least popular members of the cast, but there’s no doubt that she performed a crucial role in the series: she was Buffy’s biggest ‘real-life’ responsibility, outside of the world of slaying, death and snarling monsters. Her anchor to a (relatively) normal life. She also actually turned out to be a ball of magical energy, but that last part doesn’t really help the point we’re making here.
One of the Slayer’s biggest failings, in her own mind, was that she couldn’t always do what was best for her younger sister, or be the mother figure she needed after Joyce’s tragic death. Later in the series, Tara and Willow lived in the Summers house, taking that role out of Buffy’s hands in a way. This was tough for the Slayer to take, especially in Tara’s case.
The Two Of Them Share A Different Kind Of Relationship
Throughout the ups and downs of Willow and Tara’s relationship, the latter still made herself available when Buffy and/or Dawn needed her. While this ties into our last point, it also highlights another interesting element: maybe Buffy and Tara weren’t true friends because they share something different than that.
Because Tara is something of an outsider in the group, Buffy seems to feel ‘safer’ talking to her about certain issues. The Slayer’s ongoing trysts with Spike, for instance, were discussed only with Tara, at a time Buffy didn’t feel able to tell anybody else. At times, the two of them seemed to be close, but in a very different kind of way.
She Doesn’t Really Seem To ‘Fit’ The Group
On the face of it, Buffy and her Scoobies make for quite the rough-around-the-edges group. Werewolves, vampires, witches, a stuffy British librarian and a vengeance demon all counted themselves among the group’s ranks at one time or another. As we’ve mentioned, though, this strange assortment of people all had one major trait in common: the ability to put morality aside and commit some truly shocking acts in the name of fighting evil.
It’s almost impossible to imagine Tara tainting herself in this way. Over her time on the show, she proved herself virtuous, demure and essentially incorruptible. At times, though, it would have been great to see her ditch the long, flowing dresses, throw on some jeans and bust some vamps with the rest.
There Was A Lot Of Tension Between Them
Even with all these things in mind, Buffy and Tara did share some powerful, emotional moments. Tara did her bit to help Buffy through her grief on losing her mother, confiding in her that she had also experienced the same devastating loss.
At the same time, though, things were tense between the pair as a result of Tara’s own troubled relationship with Willow, complicated by various other factors. Buffy kept Tara at a distance, which was partly what made her so invaluable as a ‘confessor.’