Are you spoiler-safe for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and The Dark Knight? Did one or both of them make you angry with rage, even as you cooed and petted them? Did you notice how they're practically the same movie, except completely different?
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Wherein I compare the two at prodigious length )
Brief thoughts: I do agree with viertalla's first comment on The Dark Knight--think of LBJ using JFK's assassination to pass major civil rights legislation. Nobody was talking about JFK's flaws then, either. Sometimes, the truth *is* too much for people to bear (and yes, who are Batman & Gordon to be making that call in the first place...but I don't think it was necessarily a bad one.)
As for Dr. Horrible/Penny's death:
(SPOILER ALERT FOR BUFFY S2, BUFFY S6, ANGEL S5, SERENITY, BUFFY COMIC BOOK S8)
Joss Whedon likes to kill off his most innocent characters in often cruel ways to remind us that, unlike in other TV shows, no one is safe. Period. See Buffy, season 2 with Jenny Calendar, Buffy season 6 with Tara, Angel season 5 with Fred, Serenity with Shepherd Book and Wash, even the Buffy season 8 comic book (not saying who.) So Penny was pretty much doomed from the moment she walked onscreen. This may indeed muddle Dr. Horrible's anti-heroism/pro-reality message, but I agree with the commenter above who stated that Dr. Horrible was an imperfect messenger, at best. I don't think the writers got scared of their message--I think they were always going to screw with the tone.
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