I don't think she'd take vengeance (not the rampage I envision) if he was still alive. She'd be with him until he was good again, and by then her rage would have cooled into something still terrifying but more focussed and with less collateral damage.

I like collateral damage.

What I'd never forgive?

Zoe: You're a champion, Mal. A champion.

Didn't "Take me sir. Take me hard." pretty much ensure that we'd never be subjected to this possibility? If nothing else, I'd hope that the torch bearing mobs convinced Joss that kyerumption is a road best left untread...

Ahem:

Cordelia: Oh, I'll you dead.

Remember? On the roof? She meant it, once upon a time. The bitch is back. But then, she went far, far away.

Hard to quiet the inner feminist who ticked off the bodycount: Cordy, dead; Fred, dead; Tara, dead; Anya, dead.

Although on Buffy there's a strong argument to be made that women die because women are the protagonists; the men in Buffy are either villains, sidekicks or love interests (or all three).

Although on Buffy there's a strong argument to be made that women die because women are the protagonists

Buffy is the protagonist, but Tara and Anya were just as much sidekicks/romantic partners as Riley and Oz. Tara and Anya died; Riley and Oz left town.

I don't think the shows or the writers are consciously sexist, but the pattern is a bit hinky if you just count off who died. I think Dru is the only female character who left the show and didn't die.

Men abandon, women die.

Doesn't make anyone look that good.

Well, not that men don't also die.

I think Dru is the only female character who left the show and didn't die.

Amy, though she was admittedly a fairly minor recurring character.

Would that Kennedy had taken the place of one of the women who ended up leaving via bodybag.

Or two.

Like Eve, I think I could have enjoyed her grizzly, fictional onscreen death on a permanent loop.

I don't think the shows or the writers are consciously sexist, but the pattern is a bit hinky if you just count off who died. I think Dru is the only female character who left the show and didn't die.

I look at it from the standpoint that the (good) women* go down fighting. Men run away from the fight because they're weak. Whether or not that's the impression the writers meant to make, it's the way I took it.

• Darla could be said to be a "good" woman, because she gave up her (un)life for her child. So, it still holds true.

I look at it from the standpoint that the (good) women* go down fighting.

Tara went down standing.