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Willow one-shot: “Goddesses and Monsters”

by Jo Chen

The nitty-gritty of it: It’s a quick foray that details some of what happened during Willow’s magical walkabout, pre-S8. More specifically, it details the choices made that led Willow into the scaly embrace of one Saga Vasuki, more familiarly known as Aluwyn.

Art: Karl Moline continues with his quirky linework. Which of course means that physical likenesses are somewhat of an afterthought here. That’s not to say that he never succeeds in getting the faces right (the main panel of Tara is a pretty good likeness and some of the close-up panels of Willow are ridiculously good). Willow generally looks caricature-ish, but he does nail her essence. The same can be said about Moline’s Kennedy, who does bear some resemblance to Iyari Limon, but it’s her mannerisms that he nails. Moline’s strength lies in his ability to convey a dynamic scene, and he excels at it here. There are no stagnant panels, from the faux-Harry Potter-esue opening right until the little back and forth between Willow and Aluwyn. That’s the good. The bad. Well, Moline is notoriously uneven with even the main characters. Willow goes from looking like a Peanuts character to a Betty Boop caricature of Summer Glau in the space of one panel. And that closing panel of Willow was just strangely not Moline-ish at all. Moline’s style is also a lot less subtle than what I’d generally prefer, with his expressions generally appearing rather exaggerated, instead of nuanced.

Writing: It’s been too long since Joss had a turn at his own creation. And it’s a welcome return. Once again, Joss infuses a tale about a character’s hubris with whimsy, drama, and tragedy. This isn’t a guided tour of Willow’s walkabout insofar as it details the choices, desires, and emotions of Willow, leading to her literal entanglement with Aluwyn. In short, the journey is not spatial per se, but rather, “within”. On the surface, it may seem that the issue just simply raises more questions than it actually answers. However, it answers the most important question of all: Why did Willow get entangled with Aluwyn? The answer is of course simple: She does it because she’s Willow. She will walk the path less traveled and chart her own path. Her pride and intellect are her best traits, but in the trope of all tragic heroes, they’re also her tragic flaw.

In a poignant moment, Willow dashes the hopes of Tillow shippers by finally saying a goodbye of sorts. She admits the truth; that she had lied about her actual motivations for the walkabout. It wasn’t just about understanding her power, or learning her fate. Underneath it all, she “wanted” and “hoped” for Tara. But seeing Tara, Willow realizes that Tara “was [her] journey”, but that part was completed. She now has to move forward, and that new journey involves Kennedy. Perhaps it’s also telling that the number of Elementals gets pared down as Willow comes closer to her truth. When Willow first meets them, at least twelve are visible: evanescence (gas), fate (mysterious, with the book), agelessness (the tree), beauty (the double-faced floral), the wild (the furry lady), logic (math), passion (fire), mutability (water), justice (blind-folded with the scales), destruction (the Kali-esque goddess figure), perception (the Picasso-esque one), and energy (the lightning bolt). In the end, only three feature prominently. The wild, logic, and water (incidentally the most mutable element; it’s found in all three phases, solid, liquid, and gas) are probably the most descriptive of Willow as it speaks of her raw potential, the control she exercises over her power, as well as the fury that she can unleash.

More subtly, the mutability of water (its ability to cycle between phases) is a nod towards the ouroboros, the serpent that consumes itself. This is what Willow refers to Aluwyn as at one point (“That you run in circles, the snake that eats its tail”). What is interesting is that the ouroboros is a symbol of cyclicality, self-renewal, unity, and in a way, immortality. The duality of existence that Aluwyn refers to – how “order” and “chaos” are “intertwined like lovers. As if the universes don’t depend on both.” – reflects the unity represented by the ouroboros. The subject of Willow’s immortality is front and center in this tale, mentioned at least twice in the text (“’Cause you’re a goddess” and “See about re: goddess”) and once in the solicitation for the issue. It’s perhaps no coincidence then, that mortality/immortality was brought up in an issue in which the concept of the ouroboros is brought up several times, both explicitly and implicitly. The solicitation itself brings up the number of times that Willow has reinvented herself, changing, maturing, and renewing herself. Through Aluwyn, Willow seeks to grow again, to learn about her power, perhaps learn more. Immortality is about persistence, and in nature, things that persist are often things that adapt well to their surroundings. Thus, mutability allows one to survive the test of time.

Aluwyn's comment about how "chaos" and "order" are intertwined is also an oblique reference to the title of this one-shot. There is no order unless there is chaos, and so there can be no gods (or goddesses) without monsters. However, there are no clear lines dividing the monsters from goddesses here. As is the case for many deities, goddesses can have monstrous facets. The protector of one is the demon destroyer of another. Willow seems to recognize this false dichotomy when she says: "And for truth, I choose the trickster."

In a way, the writing of this issue is satirical, in that Willow’s want to get to the core of the matter (the “story”, specifically) is foiled by the “loop”. The adult-contemporary pop iPod rotation, the old tropes, the games. It’s all to get her to tread the expected path (fan expectation). Instead, Willow (and Joss) does the opposite, by renouncing the false premises, and braves the path “where none’s beaten”.

Overall: A (the writing definitely pushed the grade up)

~Xi