What does Willow see when she is "tripping" at Rack's (Ep. 10 "Wrecked")

[TomatoLover97]

Another little tidbit coming through in a rewatch...I'm grateful to have a place to ask questions / share theories like this!

I've always watched with some interest the section where Willow is, for lack of a better term, "tripping" on the ceiling at Rack's, the first time she visits. She appears to be experiencing a sort of euphoric, visionary state that looks like it might be beautiful, visually, sort of like other psychedelic states, until she spots the figure dragging a woman's body into the bushes.

For me, it's sort of obvious that it's a reminder and/or sign that "dark magic" is involved. That no experience so powerful comes without a very scary underbelly and in fact is probably "sourced" from that dark place. If that's all it is, fine. But I'm prone to a bit of overthinking and overanalysis.

Does this "vision" mean anything more than just "Warning: Dark Magic Afoot" to any of you? Is there any more of a story or mythical tie-in, etc. (either within the Buffyverse or in magickal / mythological lore)?

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Well, fridging Tara was one of the long term goals of the season, they may have not a set plan for how exactly she would die yet, so it could have been significant.

 

[thetopher]

One could argue that the creature seen in Willow's 'magick-trip' is a manifestation of something within her, brought about by the spell/vision thing, rather than something she is seeing externally.

I always thought the 'it was a demon accidentally brought forth somehow' was rather lame. But if it was a manifestation of something dark within Willow, some self-hating aspect brought about by her continuing lack of control/complete spiraling, that would be interesting character commentary on Willow's S6 journey and neat foreshadowing to where things were eventually headed.

It's a distinct possibility, but this is Season 6 we're talking about so its probably 'random monster go boo!' or whatever.