I do take your point about a lot of people of all kinds dying to save the core characters in this season. But I also think the script-writers have more control than you're implying over how and why characters are killed off.
Regarding the daughter, I'd say that her aversion to the sunlight was an unexpected moment for her character, but not for the script-writers. An alternative situation in which the problem with the sunlight didn't arise, and she got to live, could easily have been written. The fact that it was could be read as revealing that she had now served her purpose as a living character, and could contribute more to the plot by dying in the canal. Similarly, a scenario could have been written in which the father blew up the vampires without killing himself as well.
I do recognise that this needs to be seen in the context of a theme of sacrifice-for-the-stars, as you say, and that the fact it is happening to black characters is partly a side-effect of the fact that they're in the story at all, which is certainly good. But I also think that there's an extent to which black characters and their fates actually need to be handled with slightly more sensitivity than ordinary white characters, because of the historical legacy of racist portrayals of such characters. To me, it isn't enough to just throw black characters into the mix and treat them exactly the same as white characters. I feel that, just as with queer, disabled, and female characters, the current social climate requires that they are treated in a more positive manner than (straight, able, male) white characters, as an active means of contributing to the gradual overcoming of prejudice in the wider world.
no subject
Regarding the daughter, I'd say that her aversion to the sunlight was an unexpected moment for her character, but not for the script-writers. An alternative situation in which the problem with the sunlight didn't arise, and she got to live, could easily have been written. The fact that it was could be read as revealing that she had now served her purpose as a living character, and could contribute more to the plot by dying in the canal. Similarly, a scenario could have been written in which the father blew up the vampires without killing himself as well.
I do recognise that this needs to be seen in the context of a theme of sacrifice-for-the-stars, as you say, and that the fact it is happening to black characters is partly a side-effect of the fact that they're in the story at all, which is certainly good. But I also think that there's an extent to which black characters and their fates actually need to be handled with slightly more sensitivity than ordinary white characters, because of the historical legacy of racist portrayals of such characters. To me, it isn't enough to just throw black characters into the mix and treat them exactly the same as white characters. I feel that, just as with queer, disabled, and female characters, the current social climate requires that they are treated in a more positive manner than (straight, able, male) white characters, as an active means of contributing to the gradual overcoming of prejudice in the wider world.