Pondering the survivals and deaths of S8

[ash48]

I was thinking about the characters who survived season 8 and who we have going into season 9. I thought about the fact that Naomi, Meg, Sarah and (probably) Mrs Tran were killed and yet Castiel, Crowley, Garth, Kevin and Metatron survived.

Charlie, Jody and Krissy were the surviving female characters, with Martin and Samandiriel being the only recurring male characters to die (jury still out on whether Benny is actually dead dead).

I've never really held the belief that show killed off more women than men (especially after crunching the numbers a while back), but I gotta say I'm feeling the imbalance going into S9. I think more so because the surviving male characters are so strong (notably the long term recurring characters of Cas and Crowley).

Charlie, and possibly Abaddon, are the only major females still around for S9. Of course we may see others (Jody, Krissy), but Charlie and Abaddon are the only two recurring female characters we had this season who are still alive.

Examining the deaths we can see that Sarah's death was a plot device - to advance the tablet story line and to up the angst stakes for our heroes going into the finale (which in itself can be seen as problematic), but the deaths of Meg, Naomi and Mrs Tran did...well, nothing much really. Did they? I'm puzzled by Mrs Tran's death because we didn't see it. It could be that she isn't actually dead I suppose. Meg seemed to be brought back in order to kill her off and I can only think that they killed Naomi because they can see no use for her next season (or maybe Amanda has another gig?). Her death might have been significant if she had been the big bad (as it looked like), but her character seemed to be just getting interesting - in a multi faceted kind of way, when she was killed. Mrs Tran's death would certainly have been significant if they showed it because of her connection with Kevin and I think she was liked by fans.

Am I complaining? I'm not really sure. I'm puzzled mostly. I've always accepted that a lot of people die on this show. It's been part of this universe since the beginning and I came to terms with it early on. It just seems that because we have Castiel being added as a regular (much like Bobby was) along with Crowley, Kevin, Garth and now Metatron as recurring secondary characters it seems even more male heavy than previously.

I've always accepted it's a male heavy show (especially with two male leads) but I'm not sure why they seem to have such trouble creating and keeping good female characters.

I know they have to tread a fine line with the mostly female fandom and female characters. History shows that more often than not they are greeted with anger and even hatred (man, I remember the fuss over Ellen, Jo, Ruby and Bela when they were introduced). Those characters warmed to many over time, so much so that there was anger when they were killed. Charlie and Jody seem to prove that they CAN introduce female characters that are loved. Amelia and Becky certainly had a frosty reaction (to put it mildly...;D), but that's pretty much due to creating unlikable characters (subjective opinion of course).

I know I haven't actually made a point with all this. I'm not feeling ranty about it, it's mostly an observation. I suppose I would really love them to stop feeling that they can't have solid women in the show - and keep them.

The tally going into S9:

Men:

2 leads: Dean, Sam
1 regular: Castiel
4 recurring* secondary characters: Crowley, Garth, Kevin, Metatron

Possible returning characters: Benny, alpha!Vamp, Ben, Lucifer, Adam (ha!), Aaron (from Hitler ep)?

Women:

2 recurring secondary characters: Charlie, Abaddon (assuming the demon will take a female vessel)

Possible returning characters: Jody, Krissy, Amelia, Becky, Lisa, Kate (from Bitten)?

*based on appearing in more than a couple episodes

Comments

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I usually don't keep tally of the male/female ratio of things, to be honest. First off, I prefer male protagonists and maaaaaaybe I find myself resenting 'pretty girls' a little more than I should.

The claims of misogyny lobbed at the writers of the show, I tend to shrug at and go "meh." A character is a character, be they male or female. I don't say to myself "Shit, why did another woman have to die?" I question "Why did they feel they had to kill that character? What point did it serve?" This, especially, with Meg.

Sometimes we, as a fandom, have only ourselves to blame. We have, in the past, wailed about any female character that dared come between us and the Winchesters. And now we're complaining that there aren't enough substantive female folks on the show?

Do we happen to know if the Gamble year produced more juicy female characters than seasons with male show-runners? (Sera will forever be my queen for producing Soulless Sam, just sayin'. :D)

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Do we happen to know if the Gamble year produced more juicy female characters than seasons with male show-runners?

I wouldn't particularly say so. She's largely responsible for bringing Lisa back, though, I think? And the show didn't kill Lisa, or Meg, when she was in charge. Does Gwen count as a juicy female character? Sort of. She died before we got much of her. Jody was brought back and made awesome, though (and not killed). And of course, Charlie first appeared in S7, but she was written by Dabb (and/or Loflin) IIRC. We got to see Tessa again, and she didn't die either.

...Actually, now that I look at that paragraph, I'm gonna have to say maybe things were better under Gamble. We got strong reappearing female characters who didn't die, and the ones we already had (Meg, Lisa, Jody) got much more to do and more interesting stories than they had before. Plus, Charlie was obviously a big fan hit. All things considered, that's pretty good.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I do mourn the death of Gwen. There was a story left in her, for sure.

For a piece, there, I thought Charlie was getting just a tad too Mary Sue-ish, but Felicia Day is so charismatic in the role, I can't help but like her.

After perusing your list of cool, reappearing female characters, maybe SPN isn't as she-hating as the rumors indicate, huh?

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

All I can say for sure is that Lisa, Jody, and Amelia should count their lucky stars, and stay as far away from the Winchesters as they can.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I want Jody to decide to take up hunting. I totally think she could do it. (Now, granted, hunting is no kind of life for anyone but supernatural critters just won't leave her alone. She's a magnet of weird. Why fight it?)

[abrakadabrah.livejournal.com]

Gwen was ridiculous. There she was, a perfectly interesting character, and Gamble killed her off for no reason -- seemingly because she forgot the reason she introduced her.

The thing is, Gamble killed off so many beloved returning male characters, often for no good reason, they basically had to create entirely new ones.

I hated the Gamble years. I think she was fine at individual episodes, but had no idea about creating a series arc.

[ash48.livejournal.com]

Hmmm..curious about Sera and less female character deaths. I'd love to have the time to crunch the numbers on S6&7 to see how they actually shape up again the other seasons...

Gwen was great and it's such a shame she had such little screen time or character development.

[ash48.livejournal.com]

First off, I prefer male protagonists and maaaaaaybe I find myself resenting 'pretty girls' a little more than I should.

I generally prefer male protagonists (especially in the "buddy" genre) but I also love good, strong female characters - like the women in White Collar and Game of Thrones (and Spartacus).

I'm not particularly worried by how many women or men die (and probably why I did a tally a couple of years ago - to prove that the same amount of women are killed as men) it just felt that by the end of this season there was more of an unbalance than usual. I have nothing to really back that up - I'd have to go back a couple of seasons to see who was still alive at the end of it.

Looks like Killa answered the question about Sera. That's actually interesting. I'd love to have the time to crunch some more numbers since the last set to see if Sera proved to be different in that area to the other show runners.