I think the audience deserves the best story the author is capable of telling under the circumstance, but that's about it. What kind of story it is is up to the author.
However, that view was very prevalent in fandom in S5. I remember seeing tons of disgruntled posts about it on the Usenet newsgroup at the time, bemoaning Buffy's sentimentality, and complaining that by making the portal close for her death as well as Dawn's, Joss was cheating and taking the easy way out by allowing Buffy to avoid the difficult but correct decision to kill her sister. Considering the tack Joss took in Cabin In the Woods, though, I think that if Buffy sacrificing herself hadn't worked, Joss's opinion would be that the world deserved to burn.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2016-08-14 05:28 am (UTC)However, that view was very prevalent in fandom in S5. I remember seeing tons of disgruntled posts about it on the Usenet newsgroup at the time, bemoaning Buffy's sentimentality, and complaining that by making the portal close for her death as well as Dawn's, Joss was cheating and taking the easy way out by allowing Buffy to avoid the difficult but correct decision to kill her sister. Considering the tack Joss took in Cabin In the Woods, though, I think that if Buffy sacrificing herself hadn't worked, Joss's opinion would be that the world deserved to burn.