Oh, huge thanks, I couldn't wish for a better reply, you are amazing! (Imo, it's worth being published as a separate meta post.) The thing with First Slayer's voice never even occured to me. (Probably because I perceived her not as a separate character, but as a figment of Buffy's imagination. Like - it's not how First Slayer really looked\talked, but how Buffy visualised her. I found weird that Buffy gave her Tara's voice, and never really knew what to think of it...)
And I couldn't agree more about lack of POC in Sunnydale. Even from my corner of Europe it looked strange (considering that I watched Buffy after Veronica Mars). Yes, writers are not intentionally racist, and they don't killing non-white\non-straight characters out of direct prejudice. It's supernatural show, people get killed left and right as a genre requirement. The issue is that non-white\non-straight people don't recieve the roles, that would grant them solid chance to survive.
Re: Part 2 - please read part 1 first!
The thing with First Slayer's voice never even occured to me. (Probably because I perceived her not as a separate character, but as a figment of Buffy's imagination. Like - it's not how First Slayer really looked\talked, but how Buffy visualised her. I found weird that Buffy gave her Tara's voice, and never really knew what to think of it...)
And I couldn't agree more about lack of POC in Sunnydale. Even from my corner of Europe it looked strange (considering that I watched Buffy after Veronica Mars).
Yes, writers are not intentionally racist, and they don't killing non-white\non-straight characters out of direct prejudice. It's supernatural show, people get killed left and right as a genre requirement.
The issue is that non-white\non-straight people don't recieve the roles, that would grant them solid chance to survive.