Your opinion on the show keeping Amy as a rat for so long?
I hate it. Amy had more than enough depth to become a major character, or at least a minor recurring one with more episodes than she got!
Now, narratively, I understand what was going on - Amy Madison was kind of accidental character, as I understand it. She was created to give a one shot role to Elizabeth Anne Allen, who tried out for the role of Buffy. (Cordelia Chase was created for Charisma Carpenter after she did the same, IIRC). I have no idea if EAA was available for more episodes or at all during most of Seasons 4 and 5 or whatever, which might be why she never showed up more often, it could be they just never needed/wanted her. I suspect her inclusions in Seasons 2 and 3 were mostly just because the writers needed a witchy character that wasn’t Willow and Amy already existed.
She wasn’t even meant to come back in Season 6, as I gather. What happened (supposedly) is that lots of people write to Joss and the writers afraid - apparently the common rat only lives about three years, so they were afraid that Amy was going to die soon, and the concern tickled Joss’s fancy enough that he decided to bring her back and use her as a vehicle for his Willow plans for the season. Amy was, like a lot of minor recurring characters in a lot of shows, a plot device to advance whatever story was relevant to hand.
Now, in story, I’m very salty at Willow for never even seeming to try to figure out how to change Amy back. She makes a reference to it in Season 3 (and managing to turn Amy’s fur pink instead) but in Season 4 we just get the reference in Something Blue of ‘being unable to fix Amy’ (or something like that) without any indication she’s even still trying, and I don’t think even trying to return Amy to human form is mentioned even in passing in Season 5.
It feels to me like Willow basically gave up on Amy at some point, either because she just didn’t care enough or just got discouraged and never tried again. I mean, she somehow managed to just magically conjure a spell to get the spell that de-rats Amy in 6x09… and she never tried that beforehand? It seems way too easy.
I don’t like it, and I think that’s a huge part of the massive resentment Amy has towards Willow in season 7, which is part of why she tries to take Willow ‘Down a peg’ with her perdition hex.
Ultimately, I think it was missed opportunity for the writers and also I’m unhappy with Willow about it.
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