General Hospital's Valentin takes us back to Willow's roots

Valentin Cassadine is back on the General Hospital scene, but do we remember that he was one of the first characters to help usher Willow Tait onto the Port Charles scene? James Partrick Stuart did and reminded us of those moments recently.

The General Hospital schoolteacher

Nina (then played by Michelle Stafford) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) had decided to send Charlotte to her very first public school so she could learn how to associate with other children and live a "normal" life, despite her luxury lifestyle at Wyndemere. However, Charlotte was not accustomed to being around other kids and truly thought she was superior to them.

Willow became concerned when Charlotte began bullying Aiden Webber (then played by Jason David) and called her parents to discuss Charlotte's behavior. Stuart harkened back to those days with a tweet, which demonstrated how the whole Nina and Willow rivalry began.

"Back in 2017, giving then newcomer @katey_macmullen the evil eye," Stuart tweeted, along with a photo of himself, Michelle Stafford's Nina, and Katelyn MacMullen as Willow on the classroom set.

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While Stuart got the year wrong (Willow was not actually introduced until 2018), we remember those school days moments well.

Nina made an enemy of Willow

Nina and Willow's relationship was contentious from the start on General Hospital | Image: JPI

Despite Valentin giving Willow the "evil eye" in the above photo, even he was willing to listen to Willow and consider the fact that his daughter could be have been a problem child. But Nina would barely hear of it. After thinking she would never have her own child in her life, Nina poured every ounce of herself into her stepdaughter and refused to believe that Charlotte was anything but perfect.

That led to the Willow-Nina rivalry that has been off and on ever since. In fact, Willow and Nina hated one another so much that fans predicted back in 2018 that Willow would turn out to be Nina's long-lost daughter.

It took until 2023 for that truth to be revealed, with Nina believing she only had one child, Nelle. Later, we learned that Nina had twins while comatose for 20 years. (Impressive!) However, if Willow was never Charlotte's third-grade teacher and Charlotte was never a bully, then maybe both Nina and Willow would be in a different place today...

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