I think I'd met Amber Benson at a signing after only seeing two or three of her episodes- and possibly not even that much- but she was such a warm and chatty person that I was predisposed in Tara's favour. With Tara I get the impression that the production team knew that this character was coming along and put just an extra bit of fine detail into the way she was written and directed so as to be able to hold her own on screen with the established characters played by actors who'd been doing it for 3-4 years.
Although there's a very definite character development arc for Tara- and a very subtle and dry sense of humour too- I do think that after two years there wasn't really anywhere else for her to go after she'd come out of her shell and become more like a normal person. Tara is the price Willow pays for bringing Buffy back from the dead, and her death pushes the ongoing story forward in a way that she never could as a living character.
Although there's a very definite character development arc for Tara- and a very subtle and dry sense of humour too- I do think that after two years there wasn't really anywhere else for her to go after she'd come out of her shell and become more like a normal person. Tara is the price Willow pays for bringing Buffy back from the dead, and her death pushes the ongoing story forward in a way that she never could as a living character.
