User blog comment:Jyggalag Daedric Prince of Order/Season 9 A Bust?/@comment-124.188.177.145-20130530131854/@comment-50.89.225.132-20130531143404

I wonder if the main reason isn't just shipping--not just playful, light-hearted shipping, but the really dedicated, "I watch it for this and they had better end up together or I'm done" sort. I say that because I'm a woman and I adore Anna (and all the other female characters, apart from Becky and Mrs. Tran) but I really don't care about which character kisses which (unless there's a character I really like involved, in which case I'm rooting for them) so I don't have to worry about that. I've seen a lot of hate for certain possible love interests from hardcore shippers and these same love interests are more or less accepted by fans who either value the characters themselves over relationships or are laidback shippers. Honestly, I blame a lot of the hate for certain female characters on the way the show was set up--there was no real threat of a long-term love interest ever (the wife and girlfriend both killed in the pilot, most of the other LIs were one-shot deals, the first attempt at a recurring LI--Jo--backfired horribly and made them skittish of introducing any others) and the show really emphasized bromance in place of romance, so fans started shipping the guys together, got invested in it, lashed out whenever they sensed a threat to their ship, the show pandered to them by removing potential love interests and reinforcing the bromance, and shippers felt validated in doing it over and over again. (Sorry for that big ol' paragraph you didn't ask for--shippers just really get on my nerves because of the way they treat characters I like but they don't.)

"As for Gabriel, I also caught wind of that rumor, but seriously, that is a dumb move (as I've explained in an earlier post)--just as dumb as Anna returning." I totally agree. My doubts about whether God would/should bring him back aside, Gabriel got a good, poignant send-off and bringing him back would take away the power of it as well as the drama we feel over characters' fates--if people keep randomly getting resurrected, there's no point in worrying about them or feeling the impact of their deaths. (Besides, no matter what they use to justify it in-universe, it'd feel a lot like pandering to the fans if they brought Gabriel back, and I really, really loathe pandering like that.)