When it came to Supernatural, we knew that character deaths would happen. Some of those deaths wouldn’t stick, but others would. And we were not okay with many.
There are plenty of characters that we mourn from the series, whether it’s saying goodbye to Bobby Singer, Ellen Harvelle, or even Crowley. However, while their deaths were sad, they were in an honorable way. There was one character death that definitely should not have happened, and I refuse to forgive the writers for their mistake.
Long live Charlie Bradbury
While I am a strong believer in Supernatural should have ended where Eric Kripke envisioned it ending, I admit that there were some excellent characters to come out of the later seasons. One of those was Charlie Bradbury, who was introduced in Supernatural season 7.
She quickly become the little sister the Winchesters never had, making it clear that she would fight the monsters, but also calling the brothers out when they did something wrong. We got to see some tremendous growth as we learned more about her, including her love for LARPing, her interest in women, and her overall geekiness.
For many of us, she became the character we could see ourselves in. There was a heart and warmth to this character, who didn’t let the darkness and goriness of the world get her down. At least, not too much.
Things did change when she returned from Oz, but there was still the Charlie we knew deep down. And she still remained loyal to the Winchesters. Sadly, that loyalty is what led to her demise.
Supernatural shouldn’t have killed Charlie off
In Supernatural season 10, Charlie did what she could to protect the world from the Stein family. She had spent time decoding Nadia’s Codex to translate the Book of the Damned, but as she realized Eldon Frankenstein was after her, she destroyed her tablet (although she did get the work she had done to Sam).
Charlie managed to call Dean to let him know where she was, but he got there too late. One of the worst things about Charlie’s death was that it happened off-screen, so we didn’t get to see the fight she put up to protect herself.
It was also an unnecessary death. Dean wanted Charlie to hand over the notes on the decryption. In fact, he never even wanted Charlie there in the first place, as she’d managed to get out of the hunter’s life for a while. It was Sam who had pulled her back in.
If Charlie really had to die, it should have been when she was first killed. Back in Supernatural season 9, the Wicked Witch was released in the Men of Letters bunker. Charlie jumped in front of the Witch’s powers when they were going to hit Dean, sacrificing her life for his. While it was a heartbreaking moment, seeing her make that choice to sacrifice herself for the love of a friend was exactly the way she deserved to go out — again, if she really had to.
By that point, we were used to losing members of the hunting family. It was the way Charlie died in season 10 that continues to anger many fans.