When the final season of the hit HBO show True Blood came to its unsatisfying close, there was no love lost for Sookie’s former toxic vampire lover, Bill Compton. Instead, his character took a hard left turn going from someone the audience rooted for to someone the audience wished died seasons earlier than he did. While fans agree Bill’s ending left much to be desired, it’s the weirdly out-of-character road he took to bring him there that frustrated Truebies the most.
By its finale, True Blood saw the once Southern gentleman turned wayward villainous jerk meet his “true death” when he asked Sookie to kill him. After refusing to drink the cure for his rapidly progressing Hep-V infection, Bill chose to die to free Sookie from her undying love for him. While this is how he literally bids farewell in the show, fans knew that he figuratively died somewhere between Seasons 3 and 5. His character underwent a sudden and significant personality shift that he never recovered from, narratively speaking.
In Season 3, a weakened Bill in need of immediate life-saving sustenance almost killed Sookie when he fed on her arm, lost control and nearly drained all her blood. However, his betrayal didn’t stop there. Not only did Bill cheat on Sookie with his maker, Lorena, but he allowed the Rattrays to beat her close to death in the series’ premiere episode so that he could trick her into ingesting his blood, forcing them to bond under false pretenses.
As it turned out, Bill was following orders from the Queen of Louisiana, Sophie Anne, to commit these crimes. Moreover, he orchestrated their meeting to bring Sookie to the Queen and gain access to her faerie blood, which grants vampires special powers like temporarily walking in the light of day without getting burned.
During Season 5, Bill joined the extremist Sanguinista Movement that worshiped the first known vampire, Lilith, as a god. The group believed humans solely exist for the benefit of vampires, so Bill ordered the bombing of Tru Blood factories to force vampires to feed on humans when their synthetic blood alternative disappeared. Bill, now a full-blown terrorist, also participated in a massacre by killing many innocent humans in New Orleans, a drastic change in character from the peaceful mainstreamer he was in True Blood‘s previous seasons.
By the time Season 7 rolled around, True Blood fans couldn’t even remember why they liked Bill in the first place. Bill underwent an unfortunate transformation from a loving protector seeking redemption to a possessive perpetrator of violence not worthy of forgiveness. After all the heartache and danger Bill put Sookie through, he opted to traumatize her further by having her be the one to kill him. Not only did Bill selfishly ask her to use her fae powers to end his life, but in doing so, she would lose her magic forever. Ultimately, Sookie decided to hold on to what made her different and drove a stake through Bill’s heart instead, putting an end to his life and their problematic relationship once and for all.
Watching the slow and painful destruction of Bill’s character over several seasons was frustrating. However, the vampire’s demise didn’t redeem him from his horrible past actions, nor did it feel like an ending the character deserved. After serving as an integral part of True Blood‘s run — being only one of four characters to appear in every episode — a central player like Bill should have gone out with a bang, not a whimper. The writers may have thought Bill asking Sookie to help him end his life at the expense of her mental and physical well-being was somehow heroic, but to many True Blood fans, it was yet another slap to the face that will not be forgotten.
About The Author
