Werewolves and Witches and Identities, Oh My
I think, strange as it may seem, that I almost could have liked Veruca if she hadn’t been introduced for the sole purpose of breaking up Oz and Willow. Oz and Willow were an amazing couple and they were so adorable together, even though Willow/Tara is pretty much my favourite pairing in the Buffyverse.
Ultimately, Willow and Oz needed to break up so that Willow and Tara could get together so that Tara could be a part of the series. And it needed to happen without making Tara break them up or be the bad guy because she’s Tara- the sweetest, shyest most adorable witch in the whole wide world.
And I’m glad that Willow didn’t break up with Oz to be with Tara. Tara wouldn’t have put herself in a position of taking someone else’s girlfriend, it’s just not in her character and I would have been rather upset if the Willow/Oz relationship had ended with Willow going, “But-but I think I like girls, so I’m leaving you for this one.”
It’s overused and it’s an attempt to lessen the impact of what going on by hiding behind sexuality. What it would be is that Willow met someone else and dumped Oz because she liked them better. It doesn’t matter what their sexes are.
Even though Oz doesn’t really go for Veruca, never mind the crazy werewolf sex thing, it’s not all that cool eyeing another woman, even for completely understandable reasons. The same thing applies here.
Had Willow dumped Oz for Tara, it would have stained their relationship for me. Sure, people do things like that all the time, but I think that, even though Tara’s my second favourite Whedon character ever, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive her for causing that to happen.
But, back to Veruca. Her obsession with Oz is decidedly not cool, man. Pursuing someone else’s significant is a no-no, as I’ve already said, and the way she’s filmed and acts on stage is just weird for me. It’s overly sexualized. But, being a Whedon character, she has some awesome dialogue. I think her idea of being the wolf and having the human as just something she turns into could have been a very interesting idea to look at, especially since up until that point, everyone had been going around talking about how much of a human Oz still was. I think it would have been neat to look at humanity and werewolf-ity as identities and focus on the idea of not having everything be black and white.
"You're a wolf all the time and this human face is just a disguise."
Veruca's mentality and own, personalized morality could have been drawn out for much longer and created a very interesting plot. But, instead, Veruca was just a crazy slutty bitch who tried to kill Willow.
Now, Spike and Angel do to an extent reflect Veruca's and Oz's visions of the wolf. Spike sees his species as helpful, powerful, and as an essential part of himself while Angel sees being a vampire as being a burden, a cross to bear. However, since the wolf forms and human forms draw a clearer line, I think I would have liked to see how the line was interpreted more, even though I of course love the opposing views of Spike and Angel.
Had Willow and Oz simply broken up for their own internal reasons, I think I could have gotten behind Oz/Veruca.
I still love the Oz/Willow ship and really, the main reason I love Willow/Tara more is that Oz would have been included no matter what the result was, while if the show had continued on with Oz/Willow, would Tara have been as significant a character as she was? Probably not.
I have found a total of one story that had Oz/Willow as the pairing and kept Tara as a primary character. That was a really good story, too. But usually you have to pick, and it’s easier to bring in Oz after Tara and Willow get together than it is to have it the other way around.