#and lexa's death is fairly pivotal. it's not like she isn't given importance. idk im not sure about that one

[bloomfish]

My controversial and long-winded Willow/Tara thoughts

I honestly don't mind, narratively speaking, that Tara was killed. Obviously I love Tara with all my heart and was devastated when she died but I keep trying to see another way forward for Willow's arc and... I can't? Honestly I think this would have been Oz's fate had he not been written off because Seth Green had to leave.

I also think that nowadays we're very conscious of the "bury your gays" trope and there's obviously a lot to criticise about this when it's gratuitous. But especially given what Willow and Tara represented at the time... It was a different world in terms of LGBT representation. It's common knowledge that they had to fight for the onscreen kiss in The Body, the fact that a main character was even portrayed in a lesbian relationship at all on a show like Buffy was groundbreaking. All that being said, I personally don't think Tara's death was gratuitous.

The only other permadeath of a Scooby love interest until the finale is Jenny Calendar, and you can definitely make a case here for the "killing off a female love interest for manpain" trope but where would S2 be without Jenny's death? Like it just doesn't make sense without it. Passions is the moment where the stakes of the series as a whole suddenly explode into astronomical new levels. Sure, Giles could have been a woman and Jenny a man, but that also undercuts many of the themes and ideas behind the Giles+Buffy relationship and the Watchers in general.

Similarly, from the moment Willow's use of magic was introduced, EVERYTHING in her arc was leading up to Dark Willow. We got a taste of it in S5 but if the show had ended there it would never have actually reached a true conclusion. She's not punished for her Dark Moment, she's rewarded. It would have gone unresolved, and the looming threat of Willow turning to the dark side would have been hanging over the heads of the surviving Scoobies forever. Tara being mind sucked by Glory feels like a sort of... idk hasty first attempt at killing her thematically (an idea that was obviously in the works) except that her death in S5 would undercut those of Joyce and Buffy. So it's natural to resolve this in S6.

The reason I think Tara had to die for Dark Willow to emerge is that we're shown that Willow needs a grounding presence to keep her from losing control. Her 'darkest moments' almost all occur when she feels abandoned. When Oz cheats on her in S4 she tries to curse him and Veronica, when he leaves Something Blue ensues. When Tara is mind-sucked she goes apeshit on Glory. When Buffy dies she does the resurrection spell. When she and Tara fight in S6 she uses magic to make her forget, the subsequent breakup causes her to spiral. Like this is a HUGE pattern for Willow.

Oz and Tara function fairly similarly in that they are stabilising presences that pull Willow back from the brink, and so nothing short of the complete, permanent removal of Tara could force her to completely go over the edge. She couldn't have "just left" because that leaves the glimmer of hope that, like Oz, she will return. She had to die and Willow had to try and fail to bring her back.

Obviously it's not a pleasant thing. But it's just... Idk, it's narratively cohesive for me. It's so far from being even close to the worst moral failing of the writers in that single episode, let alone the series as a whole. The reason it stings so much is because Tara's death wasn't just shock value, she was a character that made a lasting impact on the show and had visible effects on characters outside of Willow (mostly Dawn and Buffy but still) so even though she was doomed from the start I don't think it's a case of a lesbian character being gratuitously killed off for angst. I get that it's a touchy subject but I also don't think it's accurate to paint every single instance of a gay character dying as 'bury your gays' when it's not necessarily so.

Anyway. There's a lot to criticise about Buffy but this isn't a personal gripe of mine- even as someone for whom Tara and her relationship with Willow was deeply and personally important at the time.