I think that Jenny Calendar hit me the hardest. It was so unexpected, and so cruel. I think that it was really the first time that the death that surrounded them really touched them.

Wesley's was the saddest, I think.

I watched Angel long after broadcast. When Doyle died I went on imdb to see what Glenn Quinn was up to lately. Finding out the actor was dead too left me feeling hollow for days. I still get choked up when I see him on Roseanne reruns.

Wesley's death was the saddest to me, because of the futility. Gutting.

The most initially shocking was Jenny Calendar's, for the reasons Vortex listed. It was the first time a character we'd come to care about really *died*, and the image of Angel carelessly, offhandedly, cheerfully doing the deed lingers in the mind's eye.

Joyce was next. We'd lost people before, but this time it affected everyone more deeply than Jenny's death. This was *mom*, the loss struck closer to the heart, and the reverberations were felt longer by everybody.

Tara, for those who loved or liked her, was between shocking and saddest. A character who sought only to help, who was kind and funny and had slid sideways into the affections of most of us and made a place there, ripped untimely from Willow and from us, without warning or justification. Whedon at his life-simulating best, the bastard.

Buffy's was shocking, but not a surprise. The networks-switching was a worry, it was easy to give in to the thought that maybe SMG was tired and wanted out of her contract, or that the show on the new network would be structured without Buffy. It was such a group-minded thing, I know the board here was in a glum and apprehensive mood for awhile, trying to process the knowledge that "Buffy's dead. "She saved the world. A lot."

Wash's death scene shocked me completely out of the movie, out of the narrative, out of the 'verse. I've come to accept that this is how Whedon wanted the story to go. I still don't believe Wash is gone. I haven't rewatched Serenity on dvd more than once to make sure the disc was okay. I rewatch Firefly 2-3 times a year. I'm sure Firefly would have reached the same conclusion as Serenity, but it would have been organic and believeable, at least for me. There are many things to like about the movie and more to appreciate. Loss of character agency for most of the cast and Wash's death overbalance those positive things for me. I can't deal with that character death in context, because it never feels earned to me.

Of course, Whedon is a master at the completely unexpected whappiness of fate, so.

You know what? Even though I was totally spoiled for Angel's death, When I finally saw it, I still sat there thinking, "I can't believe they motherfucking did it!" But it excited me, that Joss would go there.

I think I was most emotionally affected by Joyce's, which surprised me, because I never really liked the character. Also Doyle, because he was such a great character, and the show was so new, even though I knew there was meta reasons for killing the charcter off. Doyle was the first kill that gave Tim his rep for killing off beloved characters.

Honestly - the death that shocked me the most? Was the woman Angel randomly killed after sleeping with Buffy. And then I spent the entire next episode waiting for them to find the solution to him losing his soul. And they didn't. That's when I knew I was in a whole other world than your average TV (though DS9 and Twin Peaks had pulled stuff similar enough that it wasn't a totally unprecedented type of plot twist).

I think Tara was the most shocking to me. Somehow, since Tara had already been mind-sucked in season 5, I sort of felt like she should get a pass on anything else happening to her. She'd passed the immunity challenge, ya know? So, yeah, shocking to me.

Sad, was Joyce. Too personally resonant as I saw it right before my mother passed away, while she was in chemo. So, it kinda felt like an omen and I could barely watch it. I think I nearly threw up when Buffy did.

When Doyle died I went on imdb to see what Glenn Quinn was up to lately. Finding out the actor was dead too left me feeling hollow for days. I still get choked up when I see him on Roseanne reruns.

This. I saw it earlier, but never thought to look him up until I had the DVDs. I was hoping to find the DVDs for his British series, but no such luck. Quinn was just brilliant, and I'm still saddened that he's no longer with us.

Of the TV deaths, I think that most hit me hard. Joss and company are good at that. I was more saddened, perhaps, by some of the others, but Joyce's felt the most real. For the others, I was transported to the verse, and saddened there. For Joyce's, I could well imagine that was my mom, and I was saddened here, at home.

I'm Cass, though I have to say Buffy's death becomes more and more chocking for me as the time passes and my hating for the character is dying and fading away. In that hating, I must say, there was a lot of misunderstanding and secret love.

Of TV deaths I've watched, I think the one affected me the most was Nate in Six Feet Under. The episode later, where they deal with the consequences - I was crying through half of it so much that I had to rerun it because I couldn't see anything through the screen of tears.

a) Tara - saddest because it was random and senseless, and so not the way they should die. It's like she was cheated from dying a "good" kind of death. Like a heroes' death in battle. Or a natural death. They were all soldiers who could have died a bunch of times in battle. And when Glory brain-sucked her, well at least she was the target and it was understandable that she suffered because Willow loved her. But to die from Warren's stupid stray bullet, and she wasn't even in the fight, or participating in anything at that moment except having a happy moment with Willow, and then...it's just so random and sad.

b) Joyce - hit hardest because we spent time with the gang as they dealt with the death. Hit hardest because we were there for all of it. The death. The paramedics. The funeral. The mourning. The processing, and dealing, and trying to understand, and not understanding. We were with Buffy when she told Dawn, and we were with Dawn when she was painting and happy and then...Hit hardest because they (the writers) made us stay.

Of all the people in the Jossverse who've died, whose death would you say

a) was the saddest and/or

b) hit you the hardest?

a) Buffy/Tara. I have to have a tie as they both made me cry and cry. That music they play when Buffy dives off that tower gets me every time. It occasionally comes up when I shuffle and I practically tear up. Tara's was just horrible. She was sweet and good and taken way too soon. Poor Tara and poor Willow.

b) Joyce. That was a gut-punch of an ep and Buffy and Dawn both had me in tears at different points of the ep. Even the follow up ep had me teary at the end when Buffy and Dawn just hold each other and drop to the ground, sobbing. Sniff.