Yeah, I definitely meant good as in "on the side of the hero(es)" -- because damn if I can find more than one or two characters in all the Jossverse who weren't good in the "fun/pleasurable/deliciously wicked to watch" sense.

And I still hesitate to add Flutie to the list of good men bumped off; he was just so minor. A sweet, well-intentioned, clearly-on-Buffy's-side minor character, but just hopelessly minor. Nothing like Giles's season-and-a-half-long passionate, sparky antagonist/love interest; or Buffy's mother who curled on the couch with her stroking her hair and watching the candle on her little birthday cupcake burn down; or the woman who opened Willow's heart again after Oz left her in order to save her from himself; or Anya with her played-for-laughs but deadly serious immortal to human to immortal arc, her need for Xander and terror of that need, her fruit punch speech.

Does the quote carried over from Other Media contain spoilers for the Buffy comic? I haven't read it yet.

And I really hesitate to post any of this, because it all feels like third-rate rehashes of stuff that Plei and many, many whip-smart folks on her flist have been talking about in LJ (more WRT Supernatural, but very similar issues). But, yeah:

it seems like saying that...over 7 years and more than 100 episodes...the imbalance 'just happened' is sort of like saying that it is okay to buy a fur coat because it is 'dead already.'

In each individual instance the choice makes perfect narrative sense, but at some point, after 7 years and 100 episodes, someone on the writing staff might have stepped back and said, "Huh. Good individual choices each time, and yet they're adding up to a pattern that we should possibly be not quite so thrilled with."

And now I'm almost talking myself into wishing they had gone ahead and killed Giles. I need to go lie down.

It is disturbing as a pattern, but they did sort of back themselves into a "more female characters" area by having Willow, Xander, AND Giles all date women, by Buffy's father being absent, and by Buffy's SO's being semi-Immortal

Perhaps they should have created a little brother for Buffy instead of a little sister and then they could have killed him off.

No P-C, the discussion had veered, far, far from the comic and JZ rightly commented (twice) that we should move the discussion...so I did.

Joss has said that if Oz had stayed, it was his death that would've sent Willow to the dark side. That's how he planned it.

Yeah, but Joss says a lot of things I don't believe to be factually accurate.

Perhaps I'm too keyed up from the discussion in Natter, but it seems like saying that...over 7 years and more than 100 episodes...the imbalance 'just happened' is sort of like saying that it is okay to buy a fur coat because it is 'dead already.'

I tend to agree.

A lot of things that form disturbing trends in media seem fine divorced from the trend, but the problem is, the trend's still there.

There are many times when killing Spike would have made narrative sense after he became a sympathetic character, but they fell prey to what Hec said about Oz:

And I think they wanted to get some more episodes with that character. They loved writing for him.

Which just isn't an excuse or a good reason for doing things.

It never twigged me as any sort of pattern. Completely off-hand and non-scientifically, it seems like more female characters were "good" and more male characters were "bad". Which would make it seem like a lot of girls were killed disproportionately, but that's maybe not where the disproportionality really is.

(This thought came to me when I thought y'all were just discussing "Chosen", where it seemd obvious that most of the deaths would be female, because you had a giant army of proto-Slayers. But briefly applying it to the series as a whole, it doesn't seem to fall apart.)

A little brother would have been cute!

He could have had a crush on Willow -- he and Willow would have played computer games when Willow and Tara babysat for him.

Okay -- somebody write me "Key" fic where the Key is a boy instead of a girl.