Pondering the survivals and deaths of S8
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