Character of the Day: Tara Maclay

 Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a good day, and, if not, here's a virtual hug.

As most of you probably know by now, I'm a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are plenty of problematic elements to it, but I still enjoy it a lot, and I think it's a good show overall. 

One of my favorite elements of Buffy is its great characters. There are so many layered, interesting characters, and I have so many favorites. Giles, Anya, Spike, Buffy, all of them are so interesting. I even like Dawn, but I've already made a post on that. 

Today I'm going to be talking about Tara a little bit. 

In case you haven't seen the show, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about Tara. 

Oh! And spoilers for Seasons 4-6. If you don't want to see spoilers, maybe skip this post. 

Tara Maclay is first introduced in Season Four as Willow's friend, later girlfriend, who's also a witch----and a very talented one at that. She was on the show for three seasons, and was played by Amber Benson. 

First of all, I think that Tara develops a lot during the seasons she was in. At the beginning of the show she's very timid, shy and afraid of speaking up. By season six, she's much more assertive and confident, whilst staying compassionate. You can even see some of that through the way she dresses. When she first appears, she wears very loose, baggy clothing that covers her up a lot. In the later seasons, she wears brighter. more noticeable clothes. Like her corset dress in ''Once More, With Feeling''. 

[By the way, I'm not saying that everyone who wears baggy clothes is inherently shy or insecure. I'm just saying that clothes can often be a way to signal to the audience something about the character to the audience]. 

I also think that her character progression felt very natural. It took a long time for her to become more confident. I also feel like she and Anya were both in the 'love interest' role for quite some time, but Tara managed to be interesting even when she was still just ''Willow's girlfriend''. 

There's so much about her as a character that I just adore. I love her compassion for other people, and how loving and non-judgmental she is. Like, when Buffy tells her that she's been sleeping with Spike, and Tara doesn't judge her or anything. She just hugs Buffy and lets her cry. She's also so kind towards Dawn. I mean, most of them are nice to Dawn, but Tara actively tries to include her more than the others.

I also love how she is eventually able to stand up for herself when necessary. Like when she finally worked up the courage to tell her abusive family to leave. Or when she eventually breaks up with Willow after Willow starts relying on magic too heavily. Or that one time where she refuses to betray her friends, even though the person threatening her is an actual God. She's never rude about it, but she definitely has a breaking point. Tara has a huge amount of quiet, inner strength [although she definitely had some physical strength, too. It's kind of a necessity when you're part of the Scooby Gang]. She's gentle, but she stands firm in what she thinks is right. 

Tara is also a pretty good example of a well-written lesbian character.

While displaying the hardships of queer relationships and just being queer is important, sometimes it's nice for queer characters to be allowed to just....exist, without anyone making a big deal about it. Tara's relationship with Willow felt very normal, and they weren't treated any differently because they're both girls. I'm not going to say that the relationship is perfect or that the LGBTQ+ representation in Buffy is perfect, because it definitely isn't. But there are also a lot of great moments between them, and, for a show that ran from the late '90s to the early '00s, I'm impressed with how a lot of it was written, and I'm sure it had a big impact on a lot of people.

On a more shallow note, I love that Tara loves cats, and I like the way she dresses, and she has a gorgeous singing voice and [in my opinion] the best song in ''Once More, With Feeling.''

All in all, I think that Tara's great and we should talk about her more.