A controversial death on Orphan Black last season has provoked anger even beyond the Space series’ fervent devotees.

Spoilers, obviously, follow: in the third season finale, Évelyne Brochu’s beloved scientist Delphine, the on-again, off-again love of Tatiana Maslany’s genius clone Cosima, was shot by an off-screen assailant and is presumed dead.

Beyond the fact that Delphine’s abrupt departure extinguished any hope of a happy ending for the show’s most popular couple, the storyline has been criticized for furthering a pattern in which lesbian or bisexual characters suffer grisly fates.

According to the activist group LGBT Fans Deserve Better, 2016 has already seen the death of 11 lesbian or bisexual characters on shows including The Vampire Diaries, Empire, The Walking Dead and Jane the Virgin. The organization calls it the “Lesbian Death Trope.”

But Orphan Black star and producer Maslany doesn’t think it’s fair to view Delphine’s apparent death through that lens.

“There’s a bizarre focus on the fact that she’s bisexual or a lesbian and has been killed off, and that really reduces her to one thing in representing something, as opposed to being an individual,” Maslany said. “I find that to be a problematic complaint.

“She’s so much more than her sexuality and to make it about, ‘well, we killed off a lesbian character,’ that’s really reductive.”

Maslany is certainly sympathetic to the cause, but simply thinks that Orphan Black needed to tell its story without compromise.

“I understand because there’s such a lack of representation and 3D representation and you’re protective of those characters. There’s a trope too, a predictable storyline, which is that the LGBTQ characters get victimized somehow.

“But Delphine is only a victim because she made herself a hero. She was ultimately doing right by people.”

Putting aside the larger issue, the show’s co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett have received no end of prickly feedback from fans angry over the loss of a beloved character.

“We knew that it was going to provoke a reaction, for sure. I think it was still a little surprising the intensity of the reaction,” Fawcett said.

“From the very beginning, we said we would constantly pull the rug out from people,” Manson continued. “If there’s a backlash, we earned it.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“If you did everything that the fans wanted, it wouldn’t be a drama anymore,” he added. “There would be no mystery to it. Delphine and Cosima would just be naked in bed and that would be the show. We’d just keep cutting to them over and over and everyone would be happy, right?”

Maslany says the reaction is a “huge testament” to Brochu’s portrayal. And she welcomes the conversations that have ensued.

“It’s really complicated territory but I think that it’s important to talk about it for sure. I’m glad people are talking about it.”