#I don't know if I got the purpose of Joss's death right

[variousqueerthings]

EDIT:

yeah, I forgot that Cordelia actually gets impregnated three times, my bad

2. opinions on Fred or Jenny are very very valid

3. Tara is considered one of the most famous examples of "bury your gays" on TV, because Joss Whedon patted himself on the back for including lesbian narrative at a time when that was veryvery scarce, only to kill Tara in front of Willow right as they were getting back together/happy (and right after adding amber benson to the opening credits). yes, people do die on Buffy because Whedon doesn't believe in happy relationships, but when you take a grand total of two lesbians, and make that one in the most painful way possible, at a time when there were practically no queers onscreen to speak of... that is bury your gays. the fact that it originated from morality tales, doesn't mean that every version of it has been a morality tale specifically (many of them are about taking the sweetest, most innocent character and killing that character for most pain). It was narratively a deliberately meaningless death that summarised her ultimate character purpose as "dead lesbian girlfriend."

the fact that she specifically got shot by a stray bullet, is also kind of a specific version of the trope, which I don't know if originated with her, but certainly is, again, one of the most famous versions of it

however, the fact that there's dispute on this in my tags, makes me feel like we're maybe at a point where we're seeing queerness differently - that is, more characters, the idea of death is no longer equated with immediate "alright, now we've got one less character" feelings, one doesn't see a queer character and go "is this one going to be tragically killed off" or indeed, only have one or two (if they're a couple) to choose from across all of TV in a given year in the first place

kendra: introduced as the single black female recurring heroic character, given a tragic backstory, and then killed without exploring it in service to white pain

buffy: consistently put through intensely bad experiences and then getting yelled at/judged by her friends and family for emoting about it in any way

tara: one of the most prominent examples of bury your gays in tv history

cordelia: framed as deserving of constant poor treatment because she used to be mean, forcibly supernatural impregnated twice, the second time fridgeing her

harmony: consistently treated in casually misogynistic ways for being "ditzy," existing almost solely for this purpose throughout

darla: brought back from the dead to have a "destiny" pregnancy storyline that culminates in her being killed for the weirdest written character in either of the shows to be born

[root--is--alive]

rewatching season 3

I’m having a lot of thoughts and emotions right now, and I’m gonna try to express them here in this post. (If you think I misunderstood anything I’m writing about, please let me know, I’m happy to hear other’s opionions and POV). 

I’ve rewatched s3 ep01 to s3 ep09 today. 

s3 ep08 Endgame and s3 ep09 The Crossing were the only Poi episodes where I got teary eyes. Now, rewatching them for the third time, I’m still so touched. The soundtrack, the acting, how scenes blend into each other - it gets to me, gets under my skin, and I love it.

However, I don’t know if the episodes are written well. For instance, my family suggested that Joss and John simply could have called the FBI while they were on the run with Alonzo Quinn. After all, the FBI also took care when the people of HR were about to take out Peter Yogorov’s people. And then - and this got me thinking - my family said that Joss wouldn’t have had to die, the episode could have ended with Quinn being arrested and Carter not dying.

I’ve been thinking of the purpose of Joss’s death. And I think the purpose was to make Harold change his mind, considering not trusting Root and with this, not trusting The Machine. Joss didn’t die because of what she did, she didn’t die because she took down HR almost by herself; she died because Harold refused Root as The Machine’s analog interface. It’s a punishment for Harold; The Machine’s call ringing through the street while Joss dies; ringing and screaming at Harold. The Machine gave out John’s number at first, Harold did everything possible to protect John on his own, only to hurt John terribly with Joss’s death, which causes John to leave Harold temporarily. 

The thing about Joss’s death is that she is a woman of color, and that people of color are not treated like white people, and that women are not treated like men. They are treated worse, in real life, and sometimes in fiction. 

Now someone could say “but this is like real life, people die, people of color do, women do, everyone dies”. However, this is fiction. This was a conscious decision. Be it because the ones who made this decision were not aware of the harmful message it sends, be it because they were not aware of how much impact it actually has, be it for any reason. It doesn’t matter. It’s not good enough. One should do extended research on the topic they are going to display, and research the topics the maintopic might effect, as well. And no one can say a TV show is not interesting or thrilling without characters dying. I usually begin watching TV shows and keep watching them not because I want to see characters die, but because I’m interested in the topics and feel represented by the characters. 

Joss is the real hero of Person of Interest. She has got no ASI to back her up or tell her what do to (like Harold and Root). She has got no special forces training, onnly the military (like John and Shaw). She took HR down mostly by herself. 

Joss’s life being the price for Harold’s stubbornness and fear might seem like a good story line. But not when it comes to a woman of color. Lionel could have died, John could have died, Bear could have died, many innocents could have died. Of course, the fans of a character will always be upset when their favorite characters die. But the struggle for women and women of color in real life is actually real. Why not send good vibes into their direction and support them with fiction?

Joss being a strong woman of color, only to die to further the plot is not good enough. It’s nothing. It’s invalid. 

A death of someone close can’t be the only thing to make Harold realize he needs to start trusting Root and The Machine. It’s extremely painful for him, considering he lost Nathan because of this, too; and it’s extremely painful for John and Lionel, as well. 

But this is not about “how to make your characters suffer the most” or “how to tragically further the plot”. 

This is about killing off women, this is about killing off women of color. It doesn’t matter if this seems like the best plot, or if you got the idea and thought “oh my god this is so good”, or if you couldn’t think of any other way to built up the story in this moment. It doesn’t matter when the majority of the people who are killed off, are treated as less in real life; and see this represented on TV, too. 

[firemanwhenthefloodsrollback]

side character deaths in buffy

I've been thinking a lot recently about death in buffy, mainly inspired by Help and everything that has to say to us about avoiding, accepting and understanding death

obviously the main characters' deaths are heartbreaking, because they're written to be heartbreaking and break our relationships with characters we love and know well. buffy (twice), angel, spike, joyce, tara, anya, and all the many alternate universe and dream vision deaths that kill the main characters rip my heart out of my chest for obvious reasons. but today I've been thinking more about the deaths of people we didn't know that well and whose deaths we watch without knowing them well. so I'm gonna talk about some of those cause it's my blog and you can't stop me.

(for the purposes of this post I'm counting main characters as anyone who was in the credits, with the addition of joyce because come on)

Deputy Mayor Allan Finch/Warren in Bad Girls and Villains

These two deaths both make you gasp for the same reason - they're sudden, physically icky (warren has the edge here with the flaying but the dark blood and death rattle for allan is also horrible to watch) and while we don't have a lot of positive feelings for the victim, we gasp because of what it means for the murderers and how we suddenly realised this season is going to get darker than we thought. faith and willow both spend the rest of their time on the show dealing with the consequences of these deaths and the audience knows in the moment they happen what it has to mean for the main characters. we want to save faith and willow from the consequences of having done this. just like faith, we're confused in the dark when a figure comes towards the slayers and we don't realise what's happening immediately, and with willow we've been watching her friends approach through the forest the whole time she's giving her evil speech thinking they have to be in time to stop her because no way would the writers let willow torture a man to death on screen. If warren or the deputy mayor had died because of a demon or accident we probably wouldn't have noticed (in the deputy mayor's case) or we'd have actively applauded (I rly wanted to watch warren die).

Jesse in The Harvest

I'm guilty of forgetting about Jesse (and so is the buffy writers room when they fail to mention him for seven years) but killing off a character who looked all set to become a scooby in the pilot and then making his best friend dust him as a vampire was both shocking and showed us a lot of the issues the show would go on to consider in miniature, right at the start. we've had campy vampires running around and wisecracking, we've had vampires being cool and edgy, the master being a total ham, but then we suddenly have to watch xander grapple with the idea that vampires are more than strangers in graveyards, they're the people you knew with yellow eyes and no soul, they can talk to you with all their childhood memories of you intact. season one might do a lot of floppy cardboard monsters but Jesse's death tells us they fully intend to Go There with the horrifying psychological implications of what vampires can do to you.

Jenny Calendar and Kendra Young in Passion and Becoming

I think of these deaths together because they were both characters that we half-knew and thought we'd get to know more. they were both characters who we felt could have gone on to be in the credits, have their own plots, and had a lot left to explore on the show. having two slayers in town could have been interesting (and would go on to be interesting in season three) and as well as her love story with Giles, we'd just had the veil pulled back about Jenny's heritage and reason for coming to Sunnydale - so both of these deaths were in the horrible sweet spot of having got to know the characters more than someone like Jesse, but not feeling 'done' with them yet. they were both killed by vampires who didn't even feed on them, by neck injuries that weren't bites by 'big bad' vampires who were really after someone else. after their deaths they both set more in motion and had long thematic afterlives - we think about Kendra when faith is called, and when we meet the potentials, and Jenny gives us the soul curse and gets willow started casting spells. Kendra definitely deserved more remembering than she got, and in a world where Joss Whedon had more time for Black characters I like to think we'd have got more of her and Mr Pointy.

the normal teens buffy couldn't save

before I started writing this post, I knew this was where we were going to end up.

(Jonathan maybe doesn't totally count here but I did because his final lines made me so sad)

characters who chose to join a battle between good and evil and died as part of that fight break my heart, but at least with Jenny and Kendra they knew at least partly what they were signing up for. Larry and Harmony we knew enough to have compassion for, and even when they were mean they were mean in regular school kid ways rather than big bad evil ways. I went to school with all of these people and probably so did everyone else.

Larry and Harmony died on graduation day when they were meant to be becoming adults under posters that said 'the future is ours' - Larry was newly out as gay and Harmony was about to get out from under the popular girls and maybe become a person who could stand on her own two feet, and Buffy could have helped them if there'd been less murder and death going on everywhere around them. harmony as a screaming blonde teen was exactly the type of victim buffy saves ten times an episode in alleys outside the bronze. Jonathan had more of an arc but at the end, back in high school after making an optimistic, bittersweet speech about coming to terms with high school and being optimistic about the rest of his life, leaving behind Andrew and Warren's bitter obsessive revenge of the nerds fantasies.

and Cassie, my heartbreaking queen, the one that gets me more than anyone that I wrote about a lot yesterday, knew what was coming and that no one could save her, and all the things she listed that she knew she'd miss were teenage coming of age things. she wanted to go backpacking, attend college, go to a dance with a boy, and fall in love one day. the whole of Help, she's considering the rites of passage she won't get to do, and in her therapy sessions Buffy tries to inspire her to want to go to college or join the french foreign legion. for buffy, saving Cassie means giving her a future. we haven't met the potentials or heard the word potential yet in Help but this episode is all about potential, and Buffy's attempts to save a life meaning safeguarding someone's potential and right to grow up.