Tara Maclay's History
Early life
Tara Maclay was born on October 16, 1980, and was roughly the same age as the rest of the Scoobies. Both her brother Donald "Donny" Maclay and her father were psychologically abusive toward her. She had few friends before meeting the Scooby Gang. At a young age, her father told her that she was part demon as, they alleged, all the women of her family had been, an aspect that would began to manifest on her 20th birthday.
This did not stop Tara from developing her skills in the magical arts, although she attempted to hide that fact from her father.She lost her mother when she was 17, at which point she went through a rebellious period of lying to her father and staying out all night. She came out as a lesbian before her freshman year in college.
College
Tara in her freshman year in college.
While a member of UC Sunnydale's Wicca group Daughters of Gaea, she met Willow, herself a practicing witch. Since the Wicca group did not consist of real witches, Tara took notice of Willow when she spoke out about actually performing spells. Tara attempted to speak out in support of the idea, only to be silenced by another group member's taunting. When the demons known as the Gentlemen stole the voices of everyone in Sunnydale, Tara took it upon herself to meet Willow, thinking they could try to restore everyone's speech, as she had a book of spells about sound and vocalizations. However, when making her way over to Willow's dorm at Stevenson Hall, Tara was chased by the Gentlemen and their footmen. Willow then joined her when she stepped out of her dorm in response to Tara knocking on doors for help. Together, the two witches used their combined powers of telekinesis to fling a vending machine across the room to block a door.
Willow and Tara levitate a rose.
After this, Willow and Tara began regularly seeing each other, meeting up at Tara's dorm room to practice spells together. Through this, Willow got over her grief after her boyfriend Daniel Osbourne had left her. Willow nonetheless kept her meetings with Tara secret, claiming she enjoyed the idea of having something that was just hers, to which Tara responded that she was happy to be Willow's. During one of these visits, Tara secretly sabotaged a spell used to detect demonic activity through contacting the goddess Thespia, in order to hide her supposed demon heritage from Willow.
In many ways, the shy and quiet Tara was reminiscent of the way Willow was in years past. As Willow's romantic relationship with Oz had caused her to begin to bloom, it was through Tara that Willow became a more powerful witch, and through Willow that Tara's confidence grew. Willow and Tara started to grow affectionate to each other, and Willow then felt safe to introduce Tara to her friend Buffy Summers, the Slayer. However, as Tara soon discovered, it was actually Faith Lehane, another Slayer, in Buffy's body. Tara was able to determine this because she sensed something wrong with Buffy's aura. Faith, in Buffy's body, made comments to the two which suggested she knew they were attracted to each other. Once Tara expressed her concern to Willow that Buffy was not herself, the two performed a spell to confirm this. Tara and Willow then conjured a Draconian Katra to reverse what Faith had done, putting the real Buffy back into her body.
Tara then became acquainted with the rest of Willow's friends including Alexander Harris, Rupert Giles, and Anya Jenkins but her growing feelings for Willow and vice versa remained unnoticed. She began attending meetings with the supernatural fighting group, dubbed the "Scooby Gang," and the two became involved to the point that they planned on getting a pet kitten.
Things were going well for them until Oz returned, believing he had found a way to stop his werewolf transformations. Tara instantly backed off as Willow and Oz started to renew their relationship, though Willow found it hard as she started to realize that she was quickly falling in love with Tara. This left Willow with the choice between her ex-boyfriend and her new girlfriend. Tara tried to avoid Oz but eventually crossed paths with him on campus where he noticed that she was wearing Willow's clothes, unearthing Willow and Tara's involvement. Because his lycanthropy was only able to be controlled by keeping his emotions in check, this upsetting discovery caused Oz to turn right at that moment and attack Tara. She was then saved by the Initiative, who seized Oz without letting her explain that he was actually a person. After Oz was released from the Initiative compound and left Sunnydale, Willow revealed that she wanted to be with the person she loved, which was Tara.
Willow and Tara then became open girlfriends and adopted a pet kitten, which they named Miss Kitty Fantastico. When the first Slayer, Sineya, attacked Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles in their dreams, Tara appeared in Willow's dream and acted as the voice for the first Slayer in Buffy's.
Member of the Scoobies
Months later, Tara had become a constant member of the Scooby Gang and Buffy's circle of friends. Her main function was her skills in magic, as she would perform spells alongside Willow, such as revoke invitation rituals for de-inviting vampires like Dracula, Harmony Kendall, and Spike. She occasionally looked after Buffy's kid sister Dawn Summers, who admired Tara along with Willow.
Furthermore on her twentieth birthday, her father, brother, and cousin Beth came to return her to their home, claiming that like her mother, she would then became a half-demon. Afraid of what her new friends would think, she cast a spell causing them to perceive all demons invisible. Ending badly, she broke the spell after an attack from a group of Lei-Ach demons at the Magic Box shop. Tara's family arrived just after and demanded that she come home. But, by disclosing errors in their logic, and confirming she wasn't actually a demon when Spike hit her, as his chip was triggered, which would only happen with a human, the Scooby Gang managed to convince the family to leave. This gave Tara a new found confidence, as she had stood up to them, and she got to celebrate her birthday with those she truly loved as a result. She celebrated at the Bronze with the gang, and slow danced with Willow while magically levitating.
When Buffy's mother, Joyce Summers, died, Tara sympathized with Buffy as she had lost her own mother. Although, she did exclaim that she was "nuts" when hearing from Xander and Anya that she was having sex with Spike (in reality, the robotic duplicate Buffybot that Spike used to substitute his desire for Buffy).
Willow and Tara's relationship started to develop problems when they fought about each other's development as witches, Willow acknowledging that Tara had far more experience while Tara noticed Willow's growing power. After the fight, Tara attended a cultural fair alone. She had planned on going to this with Willow, but didn't due to their dispute. Whilst there, she encountered the evil hell-goddess Glorificus, who came to her thinking she was the mystical energy known as the Key. Upon learning she was not, Glory threatened to kill a large amount of people at the fair if Tara didn't tell her who the Key was, while crushing her hand. Glory then threatened to remove her sanity by energy absorption, thus Tara would become one of Glory's ever growing number of victims. These were people who became insane because she fed on their mental energies to sustain herself. Tara refused to reveal Dawn was the Key, so Glory absorbed her sanity, leaving her in a babbling state. This angered Willow, who then nearly got killed taking on Glory by herself.
Tara, unable to look after herself, was left in Willow's care. Even though she could be controlled most of the time, Tara was prone to random violent spasms and required to be tied down during her sleep. She also, as with every other of Glory's "brain sucked" victims, noticed Dawn was the Key. This made her blurt out that fact in front of Glory, who soon was able to take Dawn from Buffy to ready her for the ritual to open the walls between all dimensions. The Scooby Gang used Tara to lead them to the site of Glory's "Big Day," where her insane victims had been drawn to, in order to build Glory a tower. Glory instantly noticed Tara just before Willow was able to transfer some of Tara's brain energy back into Tara, which restored her sanity, as well as weakening Glory enough to be eventually defeated.
Leaving Willow
Anya, Xander and Tara witness Willow's trials to resurrect Buffy.
The following year, Tara and Willow became surrogate parent figures to Dawn Summers after Buffy' death, living in the Summer's house and sharing Joyce's room. Willow and Tara considered simply taking Dawn and moving out of Sunnydale to start their own family together. When Willow revealed that she planned to resurrect Buffy, Tara was at first hesitant, as it was breaking the laws of nature, though eventually she went through with it. Tara was supportive and understanding of Willow's efforts to deal with the pressure of and struggle with her leadership over the Scooby Gang, reminding her that their bedroom was "the room where [she] don't have to be brave."
Despite Tara's trust in Willow, their relationship began to decay as Tara complained about Willow's overuse of magic, having a fight at the Bronze when Willow suggested using inter-dimensional magic simply to find Dawn in a crowd of people. Willow, hoping to repair things, used Lethe's Bramble to make Tara forget the incident. Tara eventually found out what Willow did and was so appalled she compared it to when Glory had sucked her sanity. Willow promised to take a week off magic so Tara wouldn't end things; however, she secretly attempted to make Tara forget this discussion as well, which unintentionally caused the whole gang to lose their memories and become vulnerable during a vampire attack. After the memories were restored, Tara broke up with Willow and left the Summer's house. This eventually motivated Willow to cut down on her magic use.
Tara still remained close to Dawn and was the first person who Buffy confided about her affair with Spike. She helped Buffy to understand that she was still human after the resurrection, even though Spike could harm her without triggering the chip.
When Halfrek, a vengeance demon, used Dawn to make the gang along with several attendees at Buffy's birthday be mystical trapped in the Summer's house, Anya pressured Willow to use magic to set them free who didn't want to on account of her desire to stay away from magic. Tara stood up to her, which was the first in several steps where they reunited in their relationship, taking slow steps such as attending Anya and Xander's wedding together as bridesmaids and reminiscing about times when they were separated. Though Willow was unsure about approaching a serious relationship too quickly, Tara went out and asked at the end of a speech: "Can you just be kissing me now?" before the two witches made love.
Death and legacy
Tara was killed on May 7, 2002, by a stray bullet to the heart shot by Warren Mears intended for Buffy. In that moment, her blood splattered on Willow's top. Tara's last words were "Your shirt?" before she collapsed to the floor, dead.
This consumed Willow with grief and rage. She immediately called upon Osiris to bring Tara back to life. However, he refused because her death was at the hands of a non-magical human, thus barring demonic or supernatural intervention or concern. Willow then set out to murder the Trio, a group of troublesome nerds led by Warren. She managed to attack Warren before aiming at his previous teammates Andrew Wells and Jonathan Levinson.
The Scooby Gang tried to protect them, while Giles, having heard of Tara's death from a coven in Devon, tried to contain Willow with the powers given to him by the coven. He was unsuccessful and Willow drained him of the power which propelled her into a destructive and nihilistic rampage that attempted to destroy the world. Ultimately, Xander was able to persuade Willow to not destroy the earth, and Willow was sent to England with Giles to learn how to control her powers more efficiently. Additionally, the trauma of Tara's death and Willow's subsequent rampage finally forced Buffy, who had developed several self-destructive habits and severe depression after her resurrection, to finally snap out of it and realize that life was worth living at the same time.
Willow was offered to have Tara be her guide on her journey towards improving her understanding of her powers. However, Willow surmised this would either be robbing Tara of her afterlife or an illusion, and instead chose Aluwyn. Willow eventually explained to Kennedy, her girlfriend at the time, that she was keeping Kennedy and herself away from Buffy because she felt guilty for her decision to resurrect Buffy; returning to the life of increased danger associated with slaying which ultimately cost Tara her life, rather than taking the opportunity of Buffy's death to be with Tara in a safer environment, and she did not want to repeat this mistake with Kennedy.
In a dream, Buffy was marrying skinless Warren and Tara was by her side saying "I still blame you for my death." A drowsy Buffy concluded: "Everybody die always." When she realized Xander owned a gun, Buffy stated: "I don't like them. They keep killing my friends," in reference to Tara's death.
After the creation of the new Seed of Wonder, Andrew returned to the ruins of Sunnydale, hoping to use the new rules of magic to his advantage to resurrect Tara and a copy of Jonathan to atone for his past sins; however, his efforts attracted the Soul Glutton. After the creature was dealt with, Buffy and Willow convinced Andrew not to go through with it.
When cornered by the Scoobies, D'Hoffryn tried to bargain for his life by offering to grant them each one wish; in Willow's case, he offered to bring Tara back for her. The Scoobies ultimately refused, knowing there would always be a catch
