And I do love Tara - although that didn't personally happen for me until S6, as I've said before; and then I started reevaluating her esp in terms of how she fits Buffy's narrative arc and not just as willow's other half. I really wish Joss had been willing to reconsider his end goal in terms of that character because she was evolving into a fabulous woman. (Which meant of course she HAD to die. *sigh*)
(as in nearly totally saintly)
Have you read clockwork_hart1's "Talk to Me (That's What Friends are For)" ? http://clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com/11852.html She wrote it after I asked for a fic that DID NOT portray Tara as an all-knowing perfect saint. Because I feel she gets reduced to that a lot, first of all by the show's writers because they weren't as interested in exploring her character. The faults are there you just have to look pretty hard, and they seem so small compared to everyone else's (so "saintly" by comparison.)
Clockwork also wrote another fix, Shadows and Light, exploring Tara's thoughts while Glory is torturing her in Tough Love, http://clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com/13845.html after we had a conversation about how Tara's sacrifice on behalf of the Summers sisters in that episode is so terribly overlooked, at least in the parts of fandom I'm familiar with, esp in comparison to Spike's in Intervention. And I think that the perception that Tara is just a "good person" (and female) contributes to that: women are supposed to sacrifice themselves to protect loved ones, esp children, and the assumption is that Tara is just INHERENTLY good so no one questions what she was thinking, or assumes that there may have been a moment when she would have been tempted to give up Dawn just to free herself of the crushing pain.
And that I think is a huge, huge mistake. Buffy GETS what Tara did even though there's no "sexy wounds", no kisses of gratitude; all she can do is hug Tara in the hospital and try to stop Willow from killing herself.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-02-24 06:33 pm (UTC)And I do love Tara - although that didn't personally happen for me until S6, as I've said before; and then I started reevaluating her esp in terms of how she fits Buffy's narrative arc and not just as willow's other half. I really wish Joss had been willing to reconsider his end goal in terms of that character because she was evolving into a fabulous woman. (Which meant of course she HAD to die. *sigh*)
(as in nearly totally saintly)
Have you read
Clockwork also wrote another fix, Shadows and Light, exploring Tara's thoughts while Glory is torturing her in Tough Love,
http://clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com/13845.html
after we had a conversation about how Tara's sacrifice on behalf of the Summers sisters in that episode is so terribly overlooked, at least in the parts of fandom I'm familiar with, esp in comparison to Spike's in Intervention. And I think that the perception that Tara is just a "good person" (and female) contributes to that: women are supposed to sacrifice themselves to protect loved ones, esp children, and the assumption is that Tara is just INHERENTLY good so no one questions what she was thinking, or assumes that there may have been a moment when she would have been tempted to give up Dawn just to free herself of the crushing pain.
And that I think is a huge, huge mistake. Buffy GETS what Tara did even though there's no "sexy wounds", no kisses of gratitude; all she can do is hug Tara in the hospital and try to stop Willow from killing herself.