10 Most Depressingly Realistic Lessons From Buffy The Vampire Slayer

4. Sometimes People Die For No Good Reason

Episode: Season 6, Episode 19 - "Seeing Red" Everyone dies. That's a fact of life. Hopefully they die after a good long run, happy and content. That's the goal. However, as we all know, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes people die for no good reason. Hit by a drunk driver. Felled by an undetected heart condition. Killed in an accident on the job. A lot of times, they're gone too young. Too soon. That was the case in the nineteenth episode of season it of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a season full of missteps, and the beginning of the end for the series, as Joss Whedon became less hands on, and the show became driven by Marti Noxon. Whedon, however, accepted full responsibility for what would transpire at the end of the episode. Furious at his plans being foiled, evil geek Warren attempts to shoot Buffy, firing wildly. He misses - but a stray bullet catches Tara, girlfriend of Buffy's best friend and uber powerful witch Willow, killing her. She dies in Willow's arms by episode's end. The argument can be made that the death was necessary to turn Willow evil, turning her into the "big bad" for the season, which is where the show headed, but killing a major character, and one as important to the fan base as Tara, just to have the death serve as a plot device cheapened the character. And on screen, there was no season - it was just a stray bullet. As Tara and Willow were at the time one of the only positive lesbian couples on TV, fans were extremely upset, and rightfully so - but the lesson was most certainly there.