'True Blood' Writer Pitched Killing Off Sookie Stackhouse in Season 5
Credit: HBO
If True Blood writer Raelle Tucker had her way, the show would have been short a Stackhouse!
Tucker revealed in an interview the Rio Film Festival that she'd pitched to have series lead Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) killed off in Season 5!
The writer rationalized her choice at the time by saying she pitched the idea "because I think nobody should be safe."
“It’s a good feeling if the audience is feeling upset when a character dies, that means we have done our job right,” Tucker said. She would go on to explain that there is a certain amount of death necessary to keep people on the edge of their seats when their characters are in danger of being killed. If authors don’t kill somebody, Tucker reasons, "there is no point."
But despite the seemingly grim nature of Tucker's approach to TV characterization, the writer exclaimed that television “has never been so exciting”, particularly thanks to the addition of new platforms like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu: "It feels that the only limitation on television is what you can imagine, there is no boundaries of what you can say, what you can do."
Ultimately, I really can't argue with Tucker's logic here, as the "nobody is safe" approach is what has kept viewers right on the edge of their seats during each episode of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, just to name a few. Virtually every character is fair game, and it's that ideology that keeps the shows dangerous and unpredictable. Of course, shows shouldn't be on the other end of the extreme either, killing off characters recklessly. But offing a character can enhance the emotional impact of a series if it's done at the right time, and for the right storyline reasons.
So, agree or disagree, Tucker definitely knows what she's talking about.