I was expecting carnage in the last episode of Buffy. Tara's death took me completely by surprise.

You raise some very valid points but I'll have to disagree when you say that Anya's death was played down. Yes, it did occur at the very end of the series but the audience was led to believe that there would be more to Anya's story due to "Selfless." A truly wonderful ep that portended so much.

But next-to-nobody got any more story for a long time, so it was less of a loss. I would also be tempted to say that fandom was mourning the show as a whole, and so Anya's death was overshadowed by that.

Three other points:

• Also, I think the "Dead Lesbian" thing was, in fandom, a big factor.
• And that Anya was, for a lot of people, a lot more problematic, as a character, than Tara.
• While her story could easily have been continued, her story was, in some way, resolved. Even her death was organic to her own story (whereas Tara's was much more about other people's stories).

Anya's death was kind of an off note, not needed by the narrative except to say, look! People we knew who had names and were not slayers have also died!

Back when I was still a bit of a spoiler hound, the meta on Anya's death was that Emma Caufield volunteered to be kicked off if they wanted as she had no interest in continuing on in the Buffyverse in any manner. I don't think there were any plans before that, so, yeah, her death was kind of shoe-horned in. It wasn't played down, but it definitely didn't have the impact if would have if they'd had her die in Selfless or at some other point where there could have been some fallout from it.

Also, Anya really died in a moment of triumph, whereas Tara was collateral "sucks to be you!" damage.

And at that point, Tara was pretty much the moral center of the show with everyone else taking turns hitting rock bottom around her. Anya, not so much, though she did manage to go through some personal redemption in that final season.

Anya ... did manage to go through some personal redemption in that final season.

What I have to ask is, why did she need so much in the way of personal redemption? She didn't leave anyone at the alter, she didn't subject anyone else to constant scorn. There were no irreversible deaths on her conscience lately, at least a whole lot less recently than Willow I can tell you that.

I guess what I find problematic is that-while acknowledging SailAweigh's insight into the show's inner workings-I think that it is a lot easier to mourn saints than those more problematic characters that make a good storytelling in general and Buffy in particular so compelling.

why did she need so much in the way of personal redemption

Over 1,000 years as a vengance demon.

Yeah, off the top of my head I'd say the tens or hundreds of thousands of people she gleefully brought suffering and death to might merit just a bit more in the way of amends than jilting someone at the altar.

Up until "Selfless" she showed almost no remorse about all the carnage she'd wrought. Even if D'Hoffryn did undo those particular deaths in the frat house, it doesn't whitewash the fact that she engineered them in the first place.

And unless I'm completely misremembering, Anya was pretty handy with the constant scorn right up until her death scene.

There was also the way vengeance demons worked. If you felt you had been wronged and wished, the demon would grant your wish. Regardless of whether any objective person would believe you really had been wronged. So that, say, someone with a jealous nature might wish for vengeance on a "cheating" SO when any cheating had been only in the wisher's imagination.

I remember a little (but only a little) discussion of this. Anya (maybe in a conversation with Halfrek?) said something about, the third or fourth time she granted a wish from the same woman, thinking that maybe the woman should think of herself as the problem. Not that it stopped Anya from granting the wish.

A couple other possible reasons for gliding over Anya's death vs. Tara's death. Anya's death was one incident in a very crowded episode. Spike disappeared, at least one of the Potentials died, huge battle against the minions of the First, disappearance of Sunnydale -- you could almost have missed Anya's death if you looked away from the screen at the wrong moment. By contrast, Tara's death was the focus of that moment. The Trio had been defeated. Spike had gone away. When Warren showed up, Xander and Buffy were quietly resolving their differences. So, big difference in emotional impact.

Also, Tara's death triggered the Big Bad of the season. There was also a certain amount of "what happens next?" surrounding her death. While Anya died in the last episode. Nothing happened next, at least not officially.