I’m watching season 5 of Buffy right now, and I recently got to the episode in which Tara’s family reveals that She isn’t a demon.Since in the past, I remember Tara hiding a handful of magic powder when she was meant to be casting a spell, and in this episode she casts a spell to hide demons, I was wondering if she hid the powder before to conceal herselfor if there was something more to it?
If there is something more to it, please box the explanation, and I’ll come back and read this thread after I’ve watched enough.
The spell in which Tara ditched the powder was to detect evil. She sabotaged the spell because she feared that it would reveal her to be part demon. The only time we saw a spell to conceal herself (specifically, to blind her friends to her supposed demonic nature, which ended up blinding them to all demons) was the one with her family.
Up until the episode you mentioned, Tara really did believe that she was part demon, and that that side of her was eeevil. That’s why she ruined the demon-tracking spell. Once Buffy’s friends heard this story, they became a little skeptical, (having a bit more experience with demons of assorted kinds than Tara did, especially when she was first told this over and over,) and Spike’s chip settled the issue for good – she isn’t a demon. Still not quite sure if that convinced her folks, but it did convince Tara.
It wouldn’t have convinced her folks. People like that are True Believers. They probably told themselves that Tara was either an aberration, or that the Scoobies had cast a spell over her to convince her she wasn’t a demon. Either way, the folks still held on to The Truth.
Actually I thought that her cousin was the angriest at Tara for not returning home (she called Tara a selfish bitch) because it meant that she (the cousin) would have to wait on and clean up after the father and brother - Spike was right - not that they were Believers so much, if they were at all, but it was meant to “keep the women in line”)
On the Buffy newsgroup at the time, a few people speculated
that there might be some incest subtext to what was going on as well–that Tara might be expected to service her brother. He was extremely insistent that she come home to do her duty, and the notion of the women in their family always being demonic seemed to imply, to some, that their family tree did not fork.
I always took reading it that way as anti-Southern prejudice, but what do you guys think?