Villainy, ah, villainy
As threatened, some ponderings on villains and which ones do and don't make me like or even love them. And, not always related: which kind of redemption stories, both in canon and fanfic, work for me and which one's don't. First, a disclaimer: I know some people declare they prefer the villains on general principle and declare the heroes to be
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Or if Willow had gone dark and stayed that way, and seasons 4 through 7 had had her as a villain, people...would have been upset.
Butting in to say that actually, that would have made me really happy. I feel that the writers chickened out with Willow, taking her darkside at the end of S6 and then smoothing it all over in S7 because she, you know, felt really bad, without her ever needing to acknowledge or deal with her fundamental inclination to abuse of power.
In fact, while I agree that writers do need to be really careful when they choose to take a character dark, I think the two most important things they need to consider is 1) whether they're willing to commit to following that darkness where it goes and not roll it back by fiat at a later date, and 2) how to do it in a way that is consistent with the character as already written. What I loved about Willow's arc until mid-S6 (and the magic addiction theme, which I felt was a derailment) was that everything we saw her doing followed so naturally from who she'd been shown to be since very early on, and certainly since the beginning of S4.
Now, certainly that argument doesn't work for all fans; lots of fans want their 'good' characters to stay good. If we're talking larger fandom trends, then I do think the factors you're talking about - initially presenting a character as sympathetic/neutral, for example - come into play a lot. Attractiveness and gender also are huge, I think, as well as, for lack of a better word, charisma. (Example: Stefan Salvatore vs. Damon Salvatore, if you're familiar with The Vampire Diaries at all. Stefan is the straight man, and Damon is the charming sleazy snarky comic relief.)
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Re: Evil!Willow, I do agree that they chickened out there. But if they'd really gone for that, I think my own personal reaction would've really depended on when it happened, and why. If she got vamped, that could've been great (although it conceivably would've deprived us of "The Wish" and "Dopplegangland" and that would've been tragic). If it was corruption-from-too-much-magic, that could also have been done well, but yeah, the overt magic-as-addiction metaphor was kind of clunky and a derailment of the point, which was much better illustrated by messing with, e.g., the curse on Oz and werewolf-girl or messing with Tara's mind. So I'm kind of fifty-fifty on how well I'd expect Joss et al. to handle such a plotline. If, however, the tipping point was Tara's death...I'm just not all that comfortable with the "Bury Your Gays," wrathful lesbian trope as it is, and I think that would just have made it all the more glaring.
But I do think that, however well it was handled, there would be people who would've been devastated, because Willow was a likeable character who a lot of people identified with. And I think that's legitimate, in its own way? Sure, there's a very childish aspect of "but I don't want my favorite character to be bad/unhappy!" which if taken to extremes of protesting any non-fluffy plot development can be super annoying. But, you know, if you're not going to emotionally invest in characters and their interactions, why are you watching a serial narrative instead of, IDK, playing pinball? And I think some showrunners have gotten into a bad habit in the last several years of trying to make shows more dramatic by pouring on angst and bumping off characters when they don't know where to take them next, which can be just as pointless as any other kind of lazy writing.
Attractiveness and gender also are huge, I think, as well as, for lack of a better word, charisma.
Oh, totally. Damon Salvatore is a great example because, even in the very early, cheesetastic episodes, Ian Somerhalder always seemed to be having so much fun as Damon that he was nearly impossible not to enjoy onscreen, and I think in a way that infectious batshit unpredictability was what the show became in all its plot-burning glory. Getting really lucky or unlucky with casting can really change the direction of a show: if you ever watched Veronica Mars, it's interesting to watch the divide between Duncan (the theoretically good boy, and the original love interest) and Logan (the bad boy, and eventual antihero/love interest), because for once they're both balanced: two goodlooking rich white boys with family drama. But the actor playing Logan was so good, and had such great chemistry with Veronica, that a character who was only supposed to appear once or twice became possibly the show's second star, and Duncan went from mildly boring to wildly unpopular before getting put on a bus out of town. (A rare case where a het ship got an interfering male character despised, justly or not.)
IMHO, the trouble comes when showrunners aren't willing to change their plans and make the most out of various characters' charisma. Even really excellent writing can't always make up for a mediocre or miscast actor, and an actor who's too compelling as a character you're not supposed to like can throw things out of whack as well.
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That is really interesting about Duncan and Logan. I've watched the first season, and I assumed that all that development of Logan's character was planned. You're right, Jason Dohring has some serious charisma, and Duncan's actor... didn't, so much. I never disliked Duncan, but I certainly was not inspired by the actor's performance.
I have to laugh, though, at your description of "A rare case where a het ship got an interfering male character despised, justly or not." It is practically a shipper requirement that all Buffy/Angel shippers hate Spike and all Buffy/Spike shippers hate Angel. Also, everyone in both groups hate Riley. (Poor Riley; he doesn't get any shippers at all. He's probably the best comparison I can think of to Duncan.)
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