I can be pragmatic about a lot of stuff. Julie Benz was only ever recurring so she was always only around for a limited number of episodes so I wasn't all that bothered by the character being written out that way. After all, once the pregnancy was entered into, there were only a limited number of outcomes. She could do something horrible to the baby, which, I think would be an even more negative stigma to hang on the female character. She could abandon the baby, which again, would hardly come across as a positive. She could passively die in childbirth. Or she could make an active choice for the dead to bring forth life. Of the options available once the story had begun, I think it was perhaps the most proactive female option available that wasn't loaded with even momre female negative messages.

On the other hand, I was greatly bothered by the way that Cordy was destroyed because that made no sense and was totally unecessary destruction of a character. She was passive (hell comatose) bringing forth an evil (female) child that then hoodwinked teh menz. So with Cordy we have evidence of how Darla's story could have been much more destructive with her being much more passive (am still pissed on Cordy's behalf).

I'm okay with Darla feeling something for her child. It's a pretty primal instinct. If baby had a soul, she had created it, so that's something too. I totally understand your criticism and can't really argue against the criticism. It just didn't bother me all that much.

If I'm looking at AtS's poor treatment of women, the first character I point too is the needless destruction of Cordy, and the second character would be Lilah, because I never, ever, ever understood what they did to Lilah. Why, show, why? I'd even put Fred a bit higher on the list (though I've always suspected that Fred wasn't killed just to give Wesley man pain but because Joss thought Illyria was really, really cool. Still the whole "her soul was incinerated" as an afterthought of the show hacked me off). Darla, I thought, had a pretty good arc, significantly better handled than her having been offed with no thought whatsoever and no hesitation so that Angel could impress Buffy back on BtVS. The only female character on the show that I thought got a better arc was Faith, and again, I prefer Faith's arc and think she was treated more fairly in her arc on AtS than either of her stints on Buffy.

Cordy was screwed though. Boy she was massively, inexcusably screwed.

Edited at 2010-07-30 04:45 am (UTC)