I like realism in my entertainment, or at least consistency if it’s fantasy or real far out sci-fi. There usually is a balance, I find, between nothing bad ever really happening and so much bad stuff happening it goes over the top. As long as that balance is kept my suspension of disbelief remains intact, too much either way and I get thrown out of the story.
For an example of the former, there’s mainstream American superhero comics. I can’t get involved in any of the stories any more since it’s pretty much a given that no-one will permanently die, bad or good.
For the latter, there’s Robin Hobbes’ Assassin trilogy:
By the end of the third book the main character has had so much shit thrown at him that when his childhood love gave up on him and married his father-figure I felt more like the author didn’t like her characters than any real pathos. I realise there’s no actual death here, but I think it’s the best example of going overboard with the bad stuff.
I’ve had a lot of grief in my life. Loved ones are dead. My husband is extremely ill. I’m surrounded by tragedy.
I’m tired of bad things happening, of unforeseen tragedy, of sudden loss. I get to experience those things all day, every day. I’m not a coward for not wanting to be entertained by death.
I think there’s a difference between choosing to avoid tragic works, and criticizing works for being tragic. I don’t want to watch Schindler’s List every day; sometimes I’d rather watch Looney Tunes. What the OP is talking about, it seems to me, is equivalent of watching Schindler’s List and then complaining it was too sad.
To me, Buffy was closer in spirit to Looney Tunes than to Schindler’s List.
With SL, people knew going in what was coming. They could make an informed choice. With Buffy, Tara’s death was a shock and a surprise. It was purposefully shocking. I don’t think it’s fair to say that people knew what they were getting into.
They didn’t know what they were getting into? I suppose so, if they’d somehow missed Joyce dying the season before, or Jenny Calender getting her neck snapped just when she and Giles were working things out in season two, or Buffy impaling her One True Love at the end of that story arc, or anything that had been happening over on Angel, or everything that had happened in that stunningly (even stultifyingly) depressing season up to that point, or the very first episode of the series, where he sets up that one kid as if he’s going to be a re-occuring character, then kills him forty-five minutes into the pilot, just to achieve his signature shock effect. They were calling him The Master of Pain well before he put a bullet in Tara, and with good reason. The timing and manner of her death may have come as a shock, but the fact that stuff like that happened all the time in the show shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone familiar with the show.
I really didn’t want to make this a discussion about BTVS or even Joss in general, but those are valid points, I don’t know why more people don’t realize how deadly the world Whedon’s characters inhabit is.
The obervation here that rings closest to what I was asking is this:
I guess a follow up question is – is the fan reaction just louder and more whiney among F&SF fandom than others?
I’d say that SF types (I include myself here) are just more vocal in general. More inclined to whine, more inclined to rhapsodize, more inclined to react, period, than the general populace. See the various “scary fandom” threads for the other half of this.
The quoted complaint in the OP has to be one of the silliest sustained whines I’ve read. Do people want tv shows (or series of books or movies) with inherently dangerous premises (e.g., constantly fighting supernatural forces of evil) in which nobody likeable ever dies? (And dismissing the character Inara in “Firefly” as merely a “hooker” shows that the writer had made a judgement based on igorance.)
If I ever make it as a writer . . . I can’t wait to kill off a popular character!
Brandow Jerwa toward the end of the Devil’s Due Press run of “GI Joe” started killing off characters left and right.
The series was a continuation of the classic Larry Hama written Marvel “GI Joe” series. During Hama’s run there had been only one instance of Joes getting killed in action. Iconic Joes like Quick Kick, Doc and Breaker (among others) were massacred by Cobra during a mission in the mid-East. This shocked a lot of the fans but was handled in a very serious and dramatic way so it was accepted.
The way Jerwa killed joes (culminating in the death of the Joes 2nd female Lady Jaye)was so childish and silly that a lot of fans simply refuse to consider any of the DDP run as Gi Joe canon.
I had heard a rumor that John D. Macdonald had a book written entitled A Black Border for MacGee in which he kills off Travis. He supposedly threatened to pull it out to kill off the series whenever his publisher got to be too much of a pain in the ass. Macdonald has been dead since 1986, and no one has found it in a trunk, so I guess it’s just an urban legend.
I’m another who admires when a writer isn’t afraid to kill off a main character and have them stay dead. Light hearted entertainment is great and all, but then Goku dies yet again and you just want something different.
All the human sidekicks die. OK, maybe Gunn survives, but let’s review: Doyle, Cordy, Lindsay, Lila,(more thorn in side than sidekick), Wesley , and Fred’s Mostly Dead. Connor makes it, but he has the turbo-vampire ass kicking DNA, so he’s not in the Merely Mortal camp. The survivors are either green or are Undead Americans.
Ian Fleming killed off James Bond at the end of the novel From Russia With Love. Rosa Kleb managed to nail him with her curare tipped shoe-spike. Apparently Fleming caught the same level of grief that Doyle got about killing off Holmes, because the next book starts with a discussion of how lucky Bond was that a doctor was nearby with experience in South American piosons, and recognized the symptoms of curare poisoning, etc.
I was really peeved when they killed Jadzia Dax. I hated it when Tasha Yar was killed, and in such a stupid fashion.
David Weber is another one who kills off major characters. For example, he killed off Prince Rastar in We Few, and I’ve heard an bunch of big names get killed in the upcoming Honor Harrington book At All Costs.
I was mostly peeved that the death was handled so badly. It was like the writers couldn’t decide whether to make it a purposefully pointless tension-ratcheting death (a la Whedon) or an emotional drawn-out death (a la Peter Jackson) and ended up blandifying it into neither. One of the low points of an otherwise excellent show.
Regarding the quotation in the OP, I disagree that the events in question “destroyed” the characters in any way, and I’m speaking as a fan of both Tara and Spike. But then, I’m one of those odd Buffy fans who considers season six to be among the show’s best, so what do I know?
Inara reduced to a “hooker with a heart of gold” is just plain incorrect.
[QUOTE=Tarrsk]
I was mostly peeved that the death was handled so badly. It was like the writers couldn’t decide whether to make it a purposefully pointless tension-ratcheting death (a la Whedon) or an emotional drawn-out death (a la Peter Jackson) and ended up blandifying it into neither. One of the low points of an otherwise excellent show.
[quote]
Whoops… I’m referring here to the death of Jadzia Dax. I never actually saw Yar’s death, although I’ve heard numerous horror stories about it.
It always peevs me when a character is killed off (in a tv series) and you get the impression that this wasn’t the writers idea, but the actor actress is moving on to pastures new. I know this is unavoidable as people will always change careers eventually, but it still peeves me. Jadzia was a case in point. Surely that was an actress motivated killing.
, and Fred’s Mostly Dead. Connor makes it, but he has the turbo-vampire ass kicking DNA, so he’s not in the Merely Mortal camp. The survivors are either green or are Undead Americans. 