On Root and the BYG Trope
While there has been decent discussion about whether or not Root’s death fits in this trope, I feel like we’ve been talking about it wrongly. Because while I think it’s true and that Root’s death seems to fall into this trope almost to the letter, that doesn’t mean that it reduces her character or all that she was into the singular fact that she was gay. So I’m going to discuss here why I think it fits (for now) and why I feel like she deserved better than this.
Now let me say upfront: I am so grateful that Root existed and I am not angry that Root died. I’ve had a few days to process, and it’s not her death that upsets me so much. I partially expected it (though I do think it’s the lazier and more stereotypical of the two possible endings for the show, especially given that I know the spoiler). What bothers me is how she died and the circumstances surrounding it.
The writers have gone on for quite a while about how this show instead embodies the “Anyone Can Die” trope. And if many or all the other main characters die this season, then Root’s death cannot fit into the BYG trope because it will sit squarely in the ACD trope instead. However, to start this trope off with what appears to be a hastily and sloppily written (though still fairly in-character) death of their gay main character doesn’t give me high hopes for the rest of the season. Some of you may point out that Elias died first. This is true, but Elias was not a main character. The actor playing him is listed as a guest star, he hasn’t really been around as much as the others, and he is not a part of Team Machine. For these reasons, his death is disqualified from being included here (though it was still heart-wrenching).
The “Bury Your Gays” trope, as I understand it for modern pop culture is described as such: The gay (and most frequently, female queer) characters are killed off at a disproportionate rate to the straight characters, usually after finally achieving happiness with their partner or within themselves, and often including some form of shock value.
To me, this describes Root’s death. She and Shaw suffered for nearly a season’s worth of episodes before finally finding one another again. Then, in the very next episode, Root is killed off. We are robbed of seeing her actual death, and the scene in the morgue was unnecessarily jarring. All it really does is drive home the fact that Root died alone, and it should not have been included. For a show that pays such attention to realism, this was a horrifying oversight, her eyes should not and would not have been open. It seems to have been added simply to make the viewer cringe, because if she died in a hospital and not immediately, her eyes would have been closed (she would have been passed out from blood loss first). Or they would have closed her eyes. I get that her sacrifice should have been noble, and I get that they did this so that The Machine could take her voice and that Dark!Harold would come out, but it doesn’t sit right with me.
The fact that we were robbed of seeing her actual death makes it feel more like “oops she’s gone now back to Harold!” than “this character heroically sacrificed her life for the good of her newfound family”. The sloppiness of the scene doesn’t make matters any better. And there are three things that really bother me about it:
All Root’s talk about living on in The Machine would have been a lot more convincing if it hadn’t all been squished into a single episode. Especially since, at the beginning of said episode, Root talks about how if they die, The Machine dies. Which makes her point irrelevant and more of a “try to convince Harold that I’m right” than a “this is what I truly believe” kind of speech. If this had really always been the plan for Root, why didn’t she bring it up when Carter died? Why didn’t they make that more of a desire of hers? Because until this episode, it wasn’t. She distinctly speaks about The Machine like a human, and this sudden turn of events bothered me because it didn’t really feel like it fit. Bringing up her speech to Shaw also doesn’t fit the “firmly held belief” paradigm they seemed to be attempting to set up. Her speech to Shaw wasn’t about sharing beliefs she held, it was about sharing a metaphysical theory (one she may or may not believe in, it’s never stated) that might help Shaw to cope with her shaky grasp on her reality.
That Blackwell guy. Why was he the sniper? How the hell did he have such good aim? The guy spent several years in prison for manslaughter resulting from a drunk driving incident. Nowhere in any of that is any form of firearm knowledge required. It takes months to master a weapon like that. Especially when your target is moving so quickly. Even with Samaritan in his ear, he would have had to have been practicing with that gun since they hired him. Which we know isn’t true because he didn’t become a fully integrated asset until after his hospital mission. And I don’t recall ever actually seeing him with any kind of firearm at all, let along a high powered sniper rifle.
Root’s swerving into the bullet. Root has demonstrated that she is a brilliantly capable driver, especially when it comes to evasive maneuvers. When we see through Blackwell’s scope, he’s focusing on the center of Finch’s chest, which is slightly closer to the door of the car than to Root. So why did Root swerve into him instead of away? Just to get the shot? Because she would know better. The Machine would have told her better. If Root had enough time to put herself directly into the path of that bullet then she had more than enough time to swerve away and gun it down the street. Which would have saved both of them.
This, to me, is why this death fits into the trope (as the season stands so far). It was probably one of the least well done things I’ve seen from this show in its five year run. It felt sloppy and a little bit rushed, we were robbed of her actual death (which would have made it more about her and less about Finch), we were shocked into seeing her glassy, dead-eye stare in the morgue, and all this happened right after her reunion with Shaw.
To me, fitting this death into the trope at this point in the season isn’t reducing Root to being a wlw, it’s instead pointing out how she deserved so much better than this. Her death should have been as grandiose and vibrant as she was. And it shouldn’t have been first. This death, this sacrifice, this thing that pushes Harold over the edge? Honestly? That honor should have belonged to John. But that’s a different essay entirely.