lateseasonlove | character study: Anya, life and death of (Reply)

This is the character study of Anya. I believe it has a place in this community because it started for me with the realization that Anya did in fact had a well-realized character arc in season 7, and an interesting and meaningful character story throughout the series (also the moderator told me I can do it). Anya’s story was uniquely hers, yet relevant to the series themes and mirroring Buffy’s story – What does it mean to be a human?

I wrote it more than a year ago and posted it in my Lj where you might have seen it long ago. This is slightly edited version.

I was tired of Anya being presented as an innocent victim of Scoobies abuse. Yes, they weren’t especially nice to her. But was she nice? Let’s not forget that she was a murderous demon, who probably caused more death and destruction than Spike and Angel together: after all, any vampire can only kill one victim at the time, whereas a vengeance demon don’t have this kind of limitation. A well-developed wish can empty a country.

Anya’s story seems to pretty consistent – even it its most frustrating parts. Most of her quirks are not attributed to her demon powers, but to her personality – that stays the same throughout the ages.

I think it is worth remembering that Anya was a dangerous demon who for the most time didn’t feel bad about causing death to humans for the duration of twelve centuries, and it will do her character, and her development more justice than white-washing. She doesn’t deserve the white-washing, she doesn’t deserve our pity. She could hold her own, she had a powerful character arc, and I love her a lot.

Anya: the meaning of being human

Once upon a time in Scandinavian village there was a young woman long ago whose name was Aud. She was quick and smart, sweet and loving, thrifty and practical; she loved her merry and loud husband, Olaf; she bred rabbits.

Aud had a strange way of talking and an unconventional sense of humour. People in the village didn’t understand or like her. She didn’t understand or like other people. There was nothing particularly unusual in it. Aud wasn’t bothered much by it either. As long as she had love of her husband Olaf, she was happy.

Apparently, Aud and Olaf understood love differently. Olaf didn’t see anything wrong about getting it on with a plump bar maiden. Aud did.

Magic wasn’t a forbidden knowledge then and there. Vengeance was a respectable custom, and sometimes an obligation. Aud had turned Olaf into a troll, having proved a significant talent and ingenuity with magic.

Her work didn’t go unnoticed. She was offered a new – job, life, self. She became Anyanka. She became vengeance. She slid across centuries, happy with her demonic powers, her demon world – where she actually felt belonging, where everything made sense to her. Her powers had not only made her an accepted member of the demon society, they allowed her to play whatever role she had to in the human one: highlands, high society, and high school – she looked at place everywhere. She picked up information, languages, and ideas along the way and made them hers, but all this was just trifles between exacted vengeance in the scorned women’s name.

And, oh, was she good at it! She could bring the darkest wish out of every woman, and then embellish it some more. She was respected, feared, and confident in herself.

On the hindsight, she shouldn’t have come to Sunnydale. But she never hid away from a difficult case, the girl, her potential client was hurt and furious, and Anyanka couldn’t leave her unattended.

It began quite well, and then, somehow, went horribly wrong. She was posing as a new girl at school, she and her client had a good rapport, as usual, they chatted, she commiserated – and seeing the perpetrator around, laughing with two girls, she could not but appreciate the taste of her client. It was very stupid of her not to recognize the slayer at once, of course. She must have been distracted by the perpetrator, Xander, a very nice-looking boy. Pity, he was due to die horribly from the granted wish.

When the wish was declared – neither the perpetrator, nor his abettor was mentioned. But much to Anyanka’s surprise and delight, the strange wish produced incredible results – a brand new world.

She had a dim recollection of this world, and what happened later, because world returned to the previous state as she lost her amulet, her source of power. She became human, a teenage girl in an American high school on the Hellmouth.

She was stripped of all her powers; even her name - she couldn’t use her demon name in all its glory; she didn’t fit anywhere again. The demon world is a nice place for a demon, but toward a human, even formerly demon, it is merciless. She didn’t like being a human; she sucked at it the first time around. The demon life was easy and glorious, the human – lonely, pathetic, and weak. At least she still had her material assets, but that was the only thing that worked for her.

Nobody paid any attention to her, and she didn’t connect to anybody at school, even to her former client – as soon as the initial reason for their interactions was gone, none could find a topic to talk about. Humans were stupid and pathetic; Anya was bored at school, but couldn’t get anywhere else. She didn’t know where to go, what to do, so she just stuck around.

Later Anya tried to use Willow to make a spell to bring her amulet back. To Anya’s chagrin, she lost not only her demon powers, but also that little magic power that she used to have as a human. She needed help to do a simple spell. And, of course, the spell went wrong. Everything in her life went wrong recently.

Then there was an apocalypse pending, and, being a clever and sensible person, she left the town.

Only… she kept thinking about it – about Sunnydale, and the Slayer and her friends, and nicely-shaped Xander, who didn’t back away from her at that silly dance event, who didn’t back away from the apocalypse and stayed with his friends, even though she explained to him how tiny their chances were and offered to leave the town with her.

So she found herself heading back to Sunnydale.

Over the next years her life became Xander-shaped.

The following year she spent not here not there. She wasn’t working, she wasn’t studying, she was tagging along Xander, and the Slayer, and all the human world. Sometimes she was snarky about humans, but she wasn’t hostile either. Mostly she didn’t care one way or another that much (well, may be about Xander, because he was nice to her, handsome and seemed to actually care whether she was alive), she’d given up the idea of getting her powers back, and mostly just tries to exist somehow.

Being demon was much easier – and much more pleasant. She had had a purpose, a will, a power, she wasn’t alone but in the community where everything was clear. Now nothing was. She used to be a human a long time ago, but she didn’t remember how it had been. Probably hadn’t been much fun either, as she never regretted being a demon.

She thought she needed to learn to live in the human world again, but the world didn’t make it any easier. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Sometimes her knowledge of the demon world and magic were useful, and she felt useful and in the right place, and she loved this feeling. The next day they would look at her as at an intruding stranger, like she was a leper they cannot throw away (because they were good), but could not accept as their equal either. But she needed them, because she didn’t have anyone else, and sometimes they need her, and there is Xander, so it was okay.

The next year things seemingly started working out for her – she started to fit in, she was learning to live as a human, every week brought something new. She started working at the Magic shop and getting paid, and being useful, because Giles was hopeless in the important stuff, and for her retail turned to be easy. The money was the palpable, material sign of the human world and that she was fitting in there.

The broken arm drove home that she wasn’t invincible any longer, that she could be injured, sick, and would eventually get old as well. This discovery both scared her and added the impetus to her desire to have a proper human life she didn’t have much time to settle into it. Xander was moving in the right direction with the job and the admission of his love to her, the Scoobies more or less let her in, and her talent with money assured her that she was right on her way to have a decent human life.

Joyce’s death hit inexplicably hard. Anya saw many deaths. She caused many more of them, but it was the death of the Slayer’s mother that made her actually feel the loss. Very human. It also returned the old feeling of connection of death, life, and sex. She knew it long ago, but in the demon world sex means physical pleasures, death belongs to humans, and life doesn’t have much meaning at all.

The new apocalypse was coming to the Sunnydale. She caught herself thinking about means to fight Glory and was very surprised – she really should have been moving out, far from Hellmouth, but she knew that Xander wouldn’t have agreed, and she couldn’t leave him, so she put her energies into staying alive there.

And she was rewarded by the universe. Well, the Slayer died, but the end of the world was averted. And Xander proposed (before it was clear that they were going to live long enough to get married, but still, it was nice).

She felt herself being a full member of the Scoobies, and she was part of the human world, soon to be married, and it was a good feeling. It would be much better if Xander actually told anyone about their engagement, but they were all grieving about Buffy, and she was trying to be supportive and understanding. So, instead she found herself plotting the resurrection. She thought to tell them that it rarely ends well, but she knew Willow was not going to listen to her anyway, and probably Xander, too, and Tara wouldn’t be able to influence anyone. Besides, she liked to be a part of the group.

So, Buffy was back. And, apparently, they screw it up, and she wasn’t happy being back at all. With it, Anya could relate. This world was nothing special, especially for someone who saw other universes. But Anya’d gotten over it, and Buffy should have been, too. A regular job and money would have helped as they had helped her, but Buffy’s one day in retail was a complete disaster, and Anya swore she wasn’t going to let Buffy to the other side of a cash register, all Scoobies be damned with their disapproval.

Her memories of her time as a demon became somewhat of a previous job – a very good job. Anya was still slightly nostalgic, but she was settling in the human world marvelously, even though sometimes doubts about her incredible luck and her human life visited her, she put all doubts to the darkest corner of her mind. She was determined to make her human life a happy one. She knew what the chances are, and she was taking them all. Xander was her lucky lottery ticket, he loved her, she loved him, and becoming Mrs. Harris would seal her success at being a human. She hadn’t seen any happy marriage she could remember, but this is she and her Xander, and everything would be different this time. Her wedding – as her future human life was supposed to be just right.

But then it didn’t happen. She wasn’t furious, she was empty. She accepted the demon powers again, she didn’t really want to be a demon, but she needed to fill the void inside that she felt since her lonely walk to the altar, and her demon days seemed a time when everything in her life made sense.

She wanted to hurt her Xander, but she couldn’t anymore, and even seeing him hurt didn’t make her feel any better. What was strange though, she tried to throw herself back into the vengeance, but she couldn’t do it also; vengeance wasn’t sweet for her any longer, leaving Anya alone and confused. Her life as a vengeance demon was emptier than before, she didn’t fit in the demon world as well in the human. She stayed in Sunnydale, with Scoobies, even though she didn’t know what for, but she stayed, and helped when her help was needed.

Her becoming a demon again was discovered when Willow was on her own vengeance binge, when Anya joined Xander and Buffy to help her, even if helping Willow meant stopping her – the thing she wouldn’t have done in her thousand years before Sunnydale.

Over the summer she tried to pick up the remnants of her life, and put it into the unbroken whole. But as the broken Magic Box, her life just wasn’t coming back. She felt no taste in the demon existence, and the vengeance didn’t fill her up. She didn’t feel herself powerful, she wasn’t sure she had power and not the other way around. She looked at Willow, coming back from her anti-evil therapy in England, scared the shit out of herself, and suddenly she realized she felt the same. Only Willow had friends who loved her no matter what. And what did Anya have? Halfrek?

Something was brewing and everyone was talking about choosing the side. She did choose, didn’t she? She was a demon. Why couldn’t she just let everything go, and be as before? But she couldn’t. Anya took no pleasure in her victims pain (well-deserved pain!), and didn’t notice it until Halfrek had pointed it out.

So she really had to choose. And she answered the call from the fraternity house: it was the work at her best standard of old times. Anya knew D’Hoffrin would be happy, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t happy and she couldn’t hide it from herself. Again and again she tried to justify the death of those stupid boys to herself, and to Willow, but in both cases it didn’t work.

And suddenly she didn’t care. She wanted to change something, but wasn’t sure what exactly. She knew with the painful certainty that she made all the wrong choices, and she couldn’t take them back. All centuries of happy mayhem she had never felt bad about laid an unbearable burden on her soul and she – in the first time – felt them for what they were: murders and pain. One thousand two hundred plus years of murders and pain she inflicted. She felt very tired and old.

Anya returned to the frat house looking at the dead boys, silly dead boys, who probably deserved some good spanking, but not the horrible death she subjected them to.

When Buffy appeared, in her full Slayer mode, Anya was almost happy. She fought desperately, to save her face, but it was the fight she didn’t want to win.

Anya chose being human again. She didn’t expect it – she didn’t expect her to live and Halfrek to die, but she chose the lives of the stupid frat boys over her life and power. And she knew she had made the right choice.

Big moments come and go, and what is important is what one is doing after. Anya didn’t know what to do. She tried to find herself again, but had no idea where to look.

She accepted Buffy’s invitation to help with the apocalypse, but it was easier to say than do, because the apocalypse in question was looming and laughing at them, but never appeared.

She kept the household running – which was almost an impossible thing to do considering the ever increasing number of Slayer-wannabes - but nobody noticed it. Her demon knowledge and contacts weren’t much of a help any longer, and the attempts to assert herself as a sexually desirable woman wasn’t working.

She found herself in the state of some working neutrality with everyone else, including Xander. She would be disappointed at another time, but they were not talking much to each other either, so she was a part of their mutual malady.

She was irritated and angry: with Xander not feeling guilty about leaving her at the altar, and not admitting that it would have been better if they had married; with Willow, because Willow was useless, but forgiven nevertheless; with Spike for not wanting her, with potentials, for never putting dishes in the dishwasher, with Andrew, for being generally annoying, with Giles for being an ass and causing them worries, and with Buffy for being a bitch, and doing a lousy job with the apocalypse, and for dragging her into this mess in the first place. All that meant that she was irritated and angry with herself.

Anya drifted along with the Scoobies, and the potentials, and Andrew, waiting for something to happen, festering and annoying each other in the small universe of the house on Revello drive.

She picked the role of a housekeeper: making sure that food and the first aid supplies are there, that somebody cleans the house, that somebody does the laundry, cooking, and nobody (especially Andrew) occupies the bathroom for too long. It kept her busy, but it didn’t keep her satisfied. The resentment was boiling just below the surface. And when Buffy pulled out her “Everyone sucks, but me” speech, Anya voiced her resentment. But on Buffy justified question what she was doing there in that case, Anya couldn’t find an answer – she was asking the same questions herself, she knew it wasn’t because she scared too much to be somewhere else, but she had no idea why else.

So she was there, helping to get Buffy back, helping to do this and to do that, and searching for the information on Turok-Khan and The First Evil…

The unexpected sex with Xander, sweet, hot, forgiving felt like a goodbye, but wasn’t their first sex supposed to be a goodbye, too? She was at peace with Xander now – not expecting anything to happen, letting things go. They still seemed to love each other, only they were different, and Anya didn’t know where she wanted things to move.

It irked her how Spike was easily forgiven. Was he better that her? He was a vampire, she was human – now. He got himself a soul, she chose to be a human. Everyone was fussing around Spike, not around her. “Forgiveness makes us human.” - Those who are forgiven, or those who forgive? She didn’t know. She was human now. Was she forgiven?

Then Buffy was planning another suicidal mission, and this was the last straw for Anya.

She let all the bitterness of the last year out. Half-aware that it wasn’t really fair – not all of it – but also that she had to tell it became otherwise she would burst.

Buffy was out of touch with reality. Someone had to point it out for her. Anya didn’t mind Buffy killing her, but she resented Buffy telling her what to do. But on the next day Buffy was back, and the house was chock-full of injured and dying girls.

It wasn’t just Buffy, all of them were running on the reckless suicidal missions. Most of the time they were lucky and didn’t die, that’s all.

The medical supplies were over, and Anya went for a plundering mission into deserted Sunnydale Hospital with Andrew.

Andrew. The pathetic ex-super-villain, the boy, who didn’t know he had to grow up, the geek who lived in the constructed fantasy world, not caring that hurt real people, the man who killed his best friend for no good reason, the human who would glue himself to whatever strong force came along.

He was everything she hated in humans. Everything she used to hate. She was surprised by the realization. She couldn’t pinpoint when the change happened. But it was true. She liked humans, she liked to be a human. Even if it meant to stay and fight. Especially when it meant to stay and fight.

Only humans could engage in the ridiculous and pointless wheelchair battle. On the brink of the apocalypse, no less. And she was happy about it. The life suddenly had a taste. A bittersweet taste of never quitting.

The overblown household was preparing for the battle, the real one. She knew that, for once, she was going to fight because it was the right thing to do, and she was at peace with the world and herself.

And then they all went to the battle. And it was scary and nasty, as battles were. Anya fought with all the skill of her twelve hundreds years of being a demon, and with the determination of a human. She fought amazingly well. She missed only one blow.

BUFFY:You're all gonna die. But you knew that already. 'Cause that's the cool
reward for being human. Big dessert at the end of the meal. Don't kid
yourselves, you guys. This whole thing is all about death.

BtVS, Episode 7.12, Potential

Here it is - in no way a comprehensive study, of course.