Tara Maclay is Willow's girlfriend, and has slowly become integrated into the gang. Tara's mother, who died when Tara was 17, and Tara seemingly inherited her power. The Maclay family, an odd and old-fashioned bunch, have a family legend designed to keep the womenfolk in line. It was that the female members turn into demons around the age of 20 and due to the constant repression, she developed a stutter. Thanks to Spike, Tara found out that this was a lie. Tara is shy and nervous around new people and tends to stutter when talking with them. She has helped the gang many times when they've been fighting demons and she has helped Willow to further her witchy power. Willow has started to outstrip Tara in magical powers, which has led to some tension between them, culminating in their first argument. When Willow stormed off, leaving Tara alone, Glory showed up and sucked out her sanity. Fortunately, Willow was eventually able to restore Tara's mind during the final fight with Glory. But as Willow became more and more powerful, Tara began to worry. Tara's worries were right when Willow used magic on Tara to erase the memory of an argument they had. When Tara found out, she broke it off with Willow, realizing that Willow would have to deal with her problem alone. They eventually got back together after Willow had worked very hard to control her reliance on magic, but shortly afterward, Tara was hit by a stray bullet tragically ending her life.