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Tara Maclay is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed by Amber Benson from the fourth to the sixth season until the character's death. Tara is a shy young woman with magical talents who falls in love with one of the core characters, Willow Rosenberg. Together, they help Buffy Summers, who has been given superhuman powers to defeat evil forces in the fictional town of Sunnydale.

Willow was a popular character when Tara was introduced, and the onset of their relationship was met with some resistance from fans. Tara grows from a reserved girl who is unsure of herself to being the moral center of Buffy's circle of friends, named the Scooby Gang. She is the most virtuous character in the series. Her relationship with Willow consistently positive, and the first depiction of a lesbian couple on U.S. television. Tara is killed by a stray gunshot toward the end of the sixth season, causing Willow to go on a rampage. Series writers and producers received an protests from angry fans when Tara was killed. They were accused of homophobia for writing Tara's death. Some fans stopped watching the show because of it. Whedon held that it was the necessary and right course to take to propel Willow's story arc further, and both the producers and Amber Benson deny that any malicious intent was the cause.

Introduction

Tara is introduced in the fourth season episode "Hush" as a college student who attends a Wicca meeting where Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) goes to find some like-minded people. Tara is hesitant to speak out during the meeting and has a pronounced stammer that returns throughout the series when she is upset. She notices Willow suggest discussing spellcasting, but both are drowned out by the rest of the group. Tara was created to be a friend with whom Willow could learn magic and develop her skills intended to appear for only a couple episodes. However, the actors had such chemistry that the relationship was written to be more intimate. In "Hush", Tara and Willow join hands to move a heavy object telekinetically. After it was completed and edited, Whedon and the producers found it a very sensual scene. Network executives also noticed the chemistry. After some discussion Whedon informed Benson and Hannigan that the characters would become lovers.

Willow was featured from the beginning of the series and already had a strong fanbase. Earlier in the fourth season, she had a boyfriend named Oz (Seth Green), who left after sleeping with another woman. Oz returns in the episode "New Moon Rising", determined to make up for leaving her. It is the first time Tara is introduced to the Scooby Gang as a whole, and Willow must choose between her and Oz. She favors Tara in the end, causing some of Willow and Oz's fans to react angrily on the fansite message boards, leaving homophobic remarks and characterizing Benson as fat and unattractive. Benson, who was referred to as "astoundingly non-Hollywood" by an Australian journalist, frequented the boards and read the comments, finding them hurtful and taking some of them personally. She responded, protesting that she was at 5 feet (1.5 m), 4 inches (10 cm) and 118 pounds (54 kg), not at all overweight, although she appears heavier than her more petite costars. She went on to write

You can judge me and Tara for being "fat", "gay", and "shy". I suppose that my being on TV gives you that right. But I DO NOT have to read what you say. I have enjoyed being a lurker. But my feelings just can't take the criticism. Those of you (you know who you are) with sensitivity will understand. Thank you for sticking up for us. Tara and I both appreciate it. I think that being a beautiful, heavy, lesbian witch rocks! Now matters what happens, I'm glad I get the chance to walk in Tara's shoes.

Network executives encouraged the lesbian element in the relationship, but put strict guidelines on what could be shown. For several episodes in the fourth season, Tara and Willow's friendship grows as they practice magic. To work within the censorship imposed on their relationship, writers used allusions to spells and witchcraft to symbolize their affection and growing sexuality. Willow does not tell her friends about Tara for several episodes, instead wishing to spend time alone with her in Tara's room, where she could have something just for herself. Tara is unwaveringly supportive and committed to Willow.

Progression

When Tara and Willow meet, their proficiency at magic is about the same although Tara reveals that she has been practicing magic for most of her life. Willow, however, is inherently talented and begins to progress much faster than Tara through the fifth season, including experimentions in dark magic. Tara struggles with understanding her place among the Scoobies with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the leader, Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), Willow's friend since childhood, and Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), their mentor. Tara's primary role throughout the series is that of Willow's partner. She feels somewhat useless until the fifth season episode "Family" when the entire Scooby Gang makes it clear that she is unquestioningly a part of them. The episode presents some of Tara's blood family: a cold, strident father who has lied to her all her life, telling her that her magical powers are a result of her being half-demon, an intimidating brother, and a judgmental cousin, all of whom Tara dismisses at the end of the episode. Tara later reveals in "The Body" that her mother died when she was 17. No more of her backstory is revealed in the series.

As Willow's character is made more self-assured from earlier seasons, Tara takes over some of the role of being placed in peril and needing to be rescued. The fifth season's primary villain, or Big Bad, is Glory, a goddess too powerful for Buffy to fight alone. Glory assaults Tara, stealing her sanity, and prompting Willow to go searching for retribution. Buffy scholar Ian Shuttleworth writes that Benson was able to "admirably" portray the same range of emotions inherent in Tara although the character loses her identity. Willow's powers are significant enough that she is able to battle Glory more effectively than Buffy, if not completely successfully.

Tara also becomes a guide of sorts, and a maternal figure. She appears to Buffy in a dream in the fourth season finale "Restless" to tell her about the arrival of Buffy's sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) and act as a translator for the voiceless First Slayer. Following the death of Joyce Summers and Buffy's sacrifice to save the world at the end of the fifth season, Tara and Willow move into the Summers house, taking Joyce's bedroom and becoming Dawn's surrogate parents.

Tara becomes more outspoken during the sixth season about the ethics of Willow's use of magic, cautioning Willow that she depends too much on it. The dynamics of their relationship suddenly turn during "Once More, with Feeling". Willow casts a spell on Tara to alter her memory in the preceding episode and Tara finds out about it during "Once More, with Feeling", the musical episode of the series. Although Tara is presented with a timidity enough to silence her in the fourth season, Amber Benson was given a prominent song in the episode, singing strongly and fervently to Willow, again in a duet with Giles, and backup in two other songs. The musical nature of the show allows characters to express what they have been feeling secretly, or have refused to admit. Tara's song is an explicit expression of love which she had not made clear to the audience until this point. Tara later sings with Giles that she will leave Willow if she does not change. Self-conscious about her singing abilities, Alyson Hannigan requested not to be given a song and sings only a few lines in the episode. Critics saw this as Tara's personality becoming more forceful as Willow begins to show signs of weakness leading to her addiction. Tara challenges her to go for a week without using magic at all. Willow is unable to resist, however, and Tara leaves her at the end of "Tabula Rasa". Tara remains a part of the group, spending time with Dawn, and non-judgmentally acting as Buffy's confessor when Buffy divulges she has a painful and addictive sexual relationship with Spike, a vampire that she loathes.

Despite their separation, Tara remains devoted to Willow's recovery and supports her in her decision to abstain from using magic. She is, according to author Lorna Jowett, one of the few characters who never encounters the temptation of evil. Shuttleworth notes that most Buffy characters go through a rite of transformation except for Tara. Among female characters she is the most virtuous. Like the other Buffy characters in the series whose names have symbolic interpretations, Tara's is Latin for earth. She is solidly grounded, with Willow attached to her, and Benson's body more naturally representative of women. Tara is wholly feminine both in dress and demeanor, but never seeks male approval. Tara is clad in earthy, natural colors, long flowing skirts and clinging blouses, with an intent to comfort instead of arouse as other women on the show are dressed. Her admonishments to other characters are always made with love, with their best interests at heart. Even Tara's last words, commenting that Willow's shirt is stained (with her blood), indicate her preoccupation with the welfare of others.

Death and response

After tentatively courting each other in "Entropy", Tara returns to Willow, and they reconcile through the next episode, "Seeing Red". Throughout the season, Buffy is dogged by three techno-nerds calling themselves The Trio, who envision themselves supervillains. She continues to foil their plans, and during "Seeing Red", Warren Mears, one of the Trio, arrives at Buffy's house with a gun. He shoots several rounds, hitting Buffy, and the last stray shot hits Tara through the heart, killing her instantly as Willow looks on. Willow is taken over by a dark alter ego, going on a rampage, abandoning Tara's wishes, soaking up every dark magic text she can find and for the next three episodes, and becomes so powerful that none of her friends can stop her. She murders Warren and attempts to murder the other two members of the Trio, but is unsuccessful. To end her pain, she attempts to end the world and only Xander can make her face her grief.

During the fifth season Whedon informed Benson that Tara would be killed off. He saw it as necessary to progress Willow's character; she had to deal with her dark powers, but nothing short of Tara's death would allow them to come out so forcefully. Tara had become popular among fans, and Whedon and series writer David Fury decided that her emotional death would elicit a strong response, something that Whedon felt sure was the correct course to take. He was unprepared, however, for how forcefully viewers reacted to Tara's death. Fans were so upset that some stopped watching. He had previously killed off black characters, and viewers and critics accused him of being racist, homophobic, and misogynistic. Because the death came at the end of an episode where Willow and Tara were portrayed in bed between sexual encounters, critics accused Whedon of intoning that lesbian sex should be punishable by death. Producers were inundated with mail from people—women especially—who expressed their anger, sadness, and frustration with the writing team. Series writer and producer Marti Noxon was unable to read some of the mail because it was so distressing, but she counted the response as a natural indication that television simply had few strong female role models, and no lesbian representation.

Amber Benson defended Whedon in 2007, saying he "is 100 percent behind the LGBT community. I know this for a fact." Author Rhonda Wilcox writes that Tara's death is made more poignant by her earthy naturalness representing the "fragility of the physical". Roz Kaveney comments that Tara's murder is "one of the most upsetting moments of the show's seven seasons", and Nikki Stafford states that the episode in which Tara dies is possibly the most controversial of the series, causing divisions about whether it was necessary, or assertions that Tara was created only to be killed. In response to fans and critics who accused the writers of being motivated by homophobia, Stafford comments, "they seem to forget that it was those same writers who created such an amazing, gentle, and realistic portrait in the first place; that Tara is certainly not the first character to be killed off on the show; and Tara was a lot more than just 'the lesbian', and her character deserves better than that." Kaveney concurs with the opinion that the series avoided playing a cliché, "proving that it is possible for a queer character to die in popular culture without that death being the surrogate vengeance of the straight world".

Cultural impact

Tara and Willow's relationship was not heralded with any specific fanfare on the show; they are treated as other couples. Their relationship was frequently the subject of storylines, but no specific focus was on their identity as lesbians or the coming out process. Limited to what could be shown by the network, Tara and Willow are shown as consistently affectionate but not overly sexual. Manda Scott in The Herald wrote in 2002 that the lack of realistic affection between Willow and Tara made their relationship implausible, but because no other portrayal of lesbian relationships were on television, its importance was undeniable. Tara and Willow did not kiss until the fifth season episode "The Body", which focused on the death of Joyce Summers. Not until Buffy moved from the WB to UPN in 2001 were Tara and Willow shown in sexual situations. Benson later recalled the issues of working with censors:

There was a big kerfuffle—they didn’t want us kissing on the show, and Alyson and I were both like, “Hey, this is bull[shit]. We should be able to kiss." And it was only after one of the crew members, who was gay, took us aside and said, ‘Hey, just the fact that the characters are having this positive relationship and they’re being portrayed as normal human beings—who just happen to be two women in love—that what’s important, not the physical stuff.” So, it was really just about saying hey we are two people and we are in this relationship and we are functioning like normal people. Just having a normal relationship, I think, that’s the biggest thing that we did.

Like Whedon, Benson was surprised at the strength of the reaction to Tara's death. It indicated to her what kind of impact the characters had:

I thought I was on some science fiction show. I had no clue I was going to have some sort of impact on a whole group of people... Alyson and I would get letters, and you don't realize the impact you're making until you really start thinking about it. When kids come up and say, 'I didn't kill myself because of Buffy and your relationship,' it blows your mind. It wasn't about two women making out. It was about two women who fell in love with each other and happened, just happened, to have the same genitalia.

The Big Bad of the seventh season is the First Evil, who taunts Buffy and her friends appearing as loved ones who previously died. Whedon asked Benson to appear as Tara to Willow in "Conversations with Dead People", but Benson turned down the role, concerned what fans of the show would think about an evil Tara. Instead, the producers used Cassie, a character who dies early in the seventh season and speaks for Tara, telling Willow to kill herself.

Writer Peg Aloi calls the blacklash at Whedon "staggering", and summarizes Tara's effect with Willow, stating that they were a single unit the moment they met: "Willow's need for approval and Tara's need for unconditional love allowed their supernova trajectory its singular, incendiary thrust toward its triumphant but tragic end; like all witches who burn, martyred by flames, they move on to a place where their gods are the right ones."

Bibliography

• Jowett, Lorna (2005). Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan, Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 9780819567581
• Kaveney, Roz (ed.) (2004). Reading the Vampire Slayer: The New, Updated, Unofficial Guide to Buffy and Angel, Tauris Parke Paperbacks. ISBN 1417521929
• Ruditis, Paul (2004). Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher's Guide, Volume 3, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 068986984
• Stafford, Nikki (2007). Bite Me! The Unofficial Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ECW Press. ISBN 9781550228076
• Wilcox, Rhonda (2005). Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1845110293
• Yeffeth, Glenn (ed.) (2003). Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show, Benbella Books. ISBN 1932100083