The one time I saw a truly horrific backlash was when Joss killed off Tara on BtVS. A young, postive, healthy lesbian with boundaries, who stood up for herself and was strong and compassionate, gorgeously (and realistically) and intelligently feminine, and he killed her.
Afterwards he said, this was something he'd planned all along, this was the way the story needed to go, but he issued an apology afterwards in several interviews, after getting letters and emails from closeted high school and college girls. These young women had watched Tara through her growth and into strength and a relationship, and she was theirs, and he took her away.
I recall in one interview that he regretted the 'anguish', which really does capture the level of grief, and maybe it doesn't matter that we're discussing a fictional character. And that is what I mean by the fact that if an author taps into some kind of archetype, some massive cultural vacuum... if you break that promise, then, yeah. They're gonna hate you.
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Date: 5 Jan 2007 04:51 am (UTC)Afterwards he said, this was something he'd planned all along, this was the way the story needed to go, but he issued an apology afterwards in several interviews, after getting letters and emails from closeted high school and college girls. These young women had watched Tara through her growth and into strength and a relationship, and she was theirs, and he took her away.
I recall in one interview that he regretted the 'anguish', which really does capture the level of grief, and maybe it doesn't matter that we're discussing a fictional character. And that is what I mean by the fact that if an author taps into some kind of archetype, some massive cultural vacuum... if you break that promise, then, yeah. They're gonna hate you.