By Chris Snellgrove | Published
While Buffy the Vampire Slayer is filled with so many shocking deaths, none as emotionally wrenching as the murder of Willow’s girlfriend Tara near the end of Season 6. That death inspired Willow to become the Big Bad. It also added salt to the wounds of fans who were reeling from a season that featured the iconic actress talking about everything from being cast out of heaven to almost being raped by her vampire co-star, Spike. As it turns out, showrunner Joss Whedon actually wanted to resurrect the fan-favorite character in Season 7 but avoided doing so because actress Amber Benson didn’t want it to happen.
How Would Buffy Get Tara Back
If you need less Buffy Tara died at the hands of Warren, a murderous thug who didn’t even aim at her when he fired a gun at Buffy’s house. He died and could not be resurrected, causing his girlfriend Willow (who was more or less addicted to creating dark magic) to transform into a dark-eyed villain who skinned Warren alive. Later, he put the world in danger before being talked over the edge by his childhood friend Xander.
Buffy fans were outraged by Tara’s death because it was senseless and because she was an LGBTQ+ icon. Although Benson later confirmed that Whedon did not want to insult the gay community, he also confirmed that he refused his request to resurrect his character. So, how did the showrunner intend to resurrect a character who couldn’t be brought back to life by magical means? In short, there was an aborted plot for Season 7 where Buffy could get a chance to be granted any wish, and after mulling over her options, she would bring Tara back to please Willow.
Amber Benson Had a Trust Issue
on paper, BuffyThe audience would be very happy to see the return of Tara, so why didn’t this happen? According to Amber Benson’s interview in the book In Every Generation A Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Won Our Heartsone reason was his own work: to return to Buffy even briefly would have kept him from directing the 2003 television miniseries Ghosts of Albion: Legacy. What’s even more interesting, however, is that he also didn’t want to return because he didn’t trust how Joss Whedon would handle his return.
In the same interview where he confirmed that Buffy The showrunner never “intended to hurt the LGBTQ+ community,” said the Tara actress, “I really didn’t trust what would happen to the actress.” He says he talked to other actors whose characters were resurrected by Whedon and they told him “Yeah, I’m back … and he did what he wanted.” Elaborating further, Benson said these unnamed actors confided in him that “Even though he told me he wouldn’t kill me this way, he killed me that way.
Because of this news, dear Buffy the star “just didn’t feel very confident about the situation” and refused to return as Tara. Elsewhere in the interview, he also revealed that he previously had “issues with someone on the show” and that “it became a problem as I was getting ready to leave.” He didn’t name names, but it sounds like he was worried about dealing with drama from both the producer and the main cast of the show.
Because Buffy fans, these revelations add to the complexity of Tara’s problematic death…for all the accusations Joss Whedon received for killing her, he seemed eager to bring her back and refrained from doing so because Amber Benson refused to return. But despite his thoughts on Whedon’s motives, there are still suspicions that he wanted to bring the actor back to silence the biggest critics of Tara’s death. Unfortunately for Whedon, fan grudges are almost like vampires: they refuse to die and keep coming back.
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