"Баффиның қаһарманы Тара Маклей: Махаббат, құрбандық және өш"

Tara Maclay is a fictional character created for the action horror/fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed by Amber Benson. Tara is a shy young woman with magical talents who falls in love with Willow Rosenberg, one of the core characters. Together, they help Buffy Summers, who has been given superhuman powers to defeat evil forces in the fictional town of Sunnydale. Willow was a popular character when Tara was introduced, and the onset of their relationship was met with some resistance from fans. Tara grows from a reserved girl who is unsure of herself to being the moral center of Buffy's circle of friends, named the Scooby Gang. Her relationship with Willow is consistently positive, and the first recurring depiction of a lesbian couple on prime time network series television in the United States. Tara is killed by a stray gunshot toward the end of the sixth season, causing Willow to go on a rampage. Series writers and producers received angry protests from some fans when Tara was killed. Whedon upheld that it was the necessary course to take to propel Willow's story arc further; both the show's producers and Amber Benson deny that there was any malicious intent behind the decision. Tara was included in AfterEllen. com's Top 50 Lesbian and Bisexual Characters, ranking at No. 15.

Tara is introduced in the fourth season episode "Hush" as a college student who attends a Wicca meeting where Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) goes to find some like minded people. Tara is hesitant to speak out during the meeting and has a pronounced stammer that returns throughout the series when she is upset. She reacts positively during the meeting to Willow's suggestion that the Wiccan group discuss spellcasting, but the rest of the group scoff at the suggestion and silence Tara and Willow. Tara was created to appear in only a few episodes as a friend with whom Willow could learn magic and develop her skills. Amber Benson had known Hannigan previously but did not tell her she was up for the part. Benson almost missed a callback audition because she left town, but the casting department postponed the session so she could return and read. When she did, Hannigan found her on set and upon learning she was up for the role, told Whedon to hire Benson at the same moment Benson got the call from her agent that she had won the part. Benson and Hannigan had such chemistry that the relationship was written to be more intimate. In "Hush", Tara and Willow each individually attempt to use magic to move a heavy object, without success. They then join hands and easily fling the object across the room. Whedon and the producers found the scene to be very sensual. Network executives also noticed the chemistry between the actresses. After some discussion, Whedon informed Benson and Hannigan that the characters would become lovers. Willow was featured from the beginning of the series and already had a strong fanbase. Earlier in the fourth season, she had a boyfriend named Oz (Seth Green), who abruptly left town. Oz returns in the episode "New Moon Rising", determined to win Willow back. That episode marked the first time Tara is introduced to the Scooby Gang as a whole, and Willow is faced with choosing between Tara and Oz. She favors Tara in the end, causing some of the show's fans to react angrily on the fansite message boards, with some leaving homophobic remarks and characterizing Benson as overweight and unattractive. Benson, who was referred to as "astoundingly non Hollywood" by a Scottish journalist,

Network executives encouraged the lesbian element in the relationship, but put strict guidelines on what could be shown. Buffy scholar Jeffrey L. Pasley summarizes the planning behind the relationship:

Whedon chose to sidestep the "statement" opportunity presented by Willow's turn to homosexuality, even as Buffy the Vampire Slayer was celebrated in the gay and lesbian community for providing the first committed same sex relationship in the history of series television. Well aware that they were breaking new ground and being closely watched, the Buffy braintrust elected to depict the relationship honestly but unsensationally, avoiding the prurient ballyhoo that had accompanied fleeting homosexual encounters in other series like Ally McBeal and Party of Five. "It would start to get coy and, quite frankly, a little offensive, for two people that much in love to not have any physicality," Whedon explained [to The A. V. Club (5 Sept. 2001)]. "But the whole mission statement was, 'We'll put it where nobody expects it, and we'll never talk about it.'" Sex between Willow and her lover Tara was implied now and then from "New Moon Rising" on, and Willow's best friends Buffy and Xander were allowed to feel briefly uncomfortable with her switch in sexual preference (The Yoko Factor). Yet by design the relationship was treated matter of factly, with little comment made on its lesbian nature and little overt change in the characters' behavior. Love was love, whatever the partners' gender, and indeed for a long period from the end of season 4 to the middle of season 6, Willow and Tara were the Buffyverse's happiest and most stable couple. For several episodes in the fourth season, Tara and Willow's friendship grows as they practice magic. To work within the censorship imposed on their relationship, writers used allusions to spells and witchcraft to symbolize their affection and growing sexuality. Willow does not tell her friends about Tara for several episodes, instead just expressing the wish to spend time with Tara, where she can have something just for herself. Tara is unwaveringly supportive and committed to Willow.

When Tara and Willow meet, their proficiency at magic is about the same, but Tara's knowledge of the craft far exceeds Willow's. Tara reveals that she has been practicing magic for most of her life, as her deceased mother had also been a powerful witch. Throughout season 4, Tara acts as a partner and guide in Willow's witchcraft, teaching Willow spells and performing magic together. Willow, however, is inherently talented, despite being new to the craft, and begins to progress much faster than Tara in the fifth season, including experimentations in dark magic. Tara struggles with understanding her place among the Scoobies with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the leader, with whom she has a very friendly relationship; Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), Willow's friend since childhood; and Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), their mentor. Tara's primary role throughout the series is that of Willow's partner. She feels somewhat useless until the fifth season episode "Family" when the entire Scooby Gang (Spike included) makes it clear that she is unquestionably a part of them. The episode introduces some of Tara's blood family: a cold, authoritarian father who has lied to her all her life (telling her that her magical powers are a result of her being part demon on her mother's side); an overbearing brother; and a judgmental, repressed and repressive cousin; all of whom Tara dismisses at the end of the episode. Tara later reveals in "The Body" that her mother had died when she was 17. In the following episode, when Dawn is acting out, Tara confides to Buffy that she had to deal with her brother after her mother's death. No more of her backstory is revealed in the series. As Willow's character grows more self assured and powerful through the seasons, Tara takes over some of the role of being placed in peril and needing to be rescued. The fifth season's primary villain, or Big Bad, is Glory, a goddess too powerful for Buffy to fight alone. Glory tortures Tara in order to gain information on the Key, but Tara asserts willpower and resists Glory, resulting in Glory stealing her sanity, and prompting Willow to go searching for retribution. Glory states she feels "buzzed" after feeding on Tara's mind, indicating Tara's powerful intellect (and possibly suggesting her power as a witch). Buffy scholar Ian Shuttleworth writes that Benson was able to "admirably" portray the same range of emotions inherent in Tara although the character loses her identity. Willow's powers are significant enough that she is able to battle Glory more effectively than Buffy, if not completely successfully. In the final episode of season 5, Willow uses her magic to restore Tara's sanity, significantly weakening Glory in the process. Tara also becomes a guide of sorts, and a maternal figure. She appears to Buffy in a dream in the fourth season finale "Restless" to tell her about the arrival of Buffy's sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) and act as a translator for the voiceless First Slayer. Following the death of Joyce Summers and Buffy's sacrifice to save the world at the end of the fifth season, Tara and Willow move into the Summers house, taking Joyce's bedroom and becoming Dawn's surrogate parents.

Tara becomes more outspoken during the sixth season about the ethics of Willow's use of magic, cautioning Willow that she depends too much on it. The dynamics of their relationship suddenly turn during "Once More, with Feeling". Willow had cast a spell on Tara to alter her memory in the preceding episode and Tara finds out about it during "Once More, with Feeling", the musical episode of the series. Tara was given a prominent role in the musical due to the skill of Benson's voice: she sings a love ballad to Willow, a duet with Giles, and backup in two other songs. The musical nature of the episode compelled the characters to express what they had been feeling secretly, or had refused to admit to themselves. Tara's song is a fervent and explicit expression of love for Willow which she had not made clear to the audience until this point. Tara later sings with Giles that she will leave Willow if she does not change. Self conscious about her singing abilities, Hannigan requested not to be given a song and sings only a few lines in the episode. Critics saw this as Tara's personality becoming more forceful as Willow begins to show signs of weakness as she is overtaken by her addiction. Tara challenges Willow to go for a week without using any magic. Willow almost immediately breaks her promise, however, and Tara leaves her at the end of "Tabula Rasa". Tara remains a part of the group, spending time with Dawn, and non judgmentally acting as Buffy's confessor when Buffy divulges she has a painful and compulsive sexual relationship with Spike, a vampire whom she loathes. Shuttleworth notes that most Buffy characters go through a rite of transformation except for Tara. Among female characters she is the most virtuous. Like the other Buffy characters in the series whose names have symbolic interpretations, Tara's name resembles the Latin terra, meaning "earth." She is solidly grounded, with Willow attached to her, and Benson's body more naturally representative of women. Tara is wholly feminine both in dress and demeanor, as opposed to Buffy and (less) Willow mostly dressed with trousers and jackets, but never seeks male approval. She is clad in earthy, natural colors, long flowing skirts and clinging blouses, with an intent to comfort instead of arouse as other women on the show are dressed. Her admonishments to other characters are always made with love, with their best interests at heart. Tara has also appeared in The Long Way Home, Always Darkest, Retreat, and the one off Willow.

After tentatively courting each other in "Entropy", Tara returns to Willow, and they reconcile through the next episode, "Seeing Red". Throughout the season, Buffy is dogged by three techno nerds calling themselves The Trio, who envision themselves to be supervillains, with Buffy their nemesis. She continues to foil their plans, and during "Seeing Red", Warren Mears, one of the Trio, arrives at Buffy's house with a gun. He shoots several rounds, hitting Buffy, and the last stray shot hits Tara through the heart, killing her as Willow looks on. Willow is taken over by a dark alter ego, going on a rampage, torturing Warren and skinning him alive. She then attempts to murder the other two members of the Trio, but is unsuccessful. To end her pain, she attempts to end the world. Xander stops her by forcing her to deal with her grief in a healthy, non violent way. During the fifth season, Whedon informed Benson that Tara would be killed off. He saw it as necessary to further Willow's character; she had to deal with her dark powers, but nothing short of Tara's death would allow them to come out so forcefully. Tara had become popular among fans, and Whedon and series writer David Fury decided that her death would elicit a strong response, something that Whedon felt sure was the correct course to take. He was unprepared, however, for how forcefully viewers reacted to Tara's death. Fans were so upset that some stopped watching. Because the death came at the end of an episode where Willow and Tara were portrayed in bed between sexual encounters, critics accused Whedon of implying that lesbian sex should be punishable by death, a familiar trope in film. Producers were inundated with mail from people—women especially—who expressed their anger, sadness, and frustration with the writing team. Series writer and producer Marti Noxon was unable to read some of the mail because it was so distressing, but she counted the response as a natural indication that television simply had few strong female role models, and no lesbian representation. Benson defended Whedon in 2007, saying he "is 100 percent behind the LGBT community. I know this for a fact." Author Rhonda Wilcox writes that Tara's death is made more poignant by her earthy naturalness representing the "fragility of the physical". Kaveney concurs with the opinion that the series avoided playing a cliché, "proving that it is possible for a queer character to die in popular culture without that death being the surrogate vengeance of the straight world". Previously depicted lesbian relationships had not shown characters as sexual beings, or even touching each other. Despite this, Tara and Willow's relationship was not heralded with any specific fanfare on the show; they are treated as other couples. Their relationship was frequently the subject of storylines, but no specific focus was on their identity as lesbians or the coming out process. Limited to what could be shown by the network, Tara and Willow are shown as consistently affectionate but not overly sexual. Manda Scott in The Herald wrote in 2002 that the lack of realistic displays of touching or kissing between Willow and Tara made their relationship implausible, but because no other portrayals of lesbian relationships were on television, its importance is undeniable. Whedon also considered bringing Tara back in a storyline where Buffy would be given one wish to be granted, but the possibility did not come to fruition. Writer Peg Aloi calls the backlash at Whedon "staggering", and summarizes Tara's effect with Willow, stating that they were a single unit the moment they met: "Willow's need for approval and Tara's need for unconditional love allowed their supernova trajectory its singular, incendiary thrust toward its triumphant but tragic end; like all witches who burn, martyred by flames, they move on to a place where their gods are the right ones."