Anya Jenkins

"For a thousand years I wielded the power of the wish. I brought ruin upon the heads of unfaithful men. I offered destruction and chaos for the pleasure of the Lower Beings. I was feared and worshiped across the mortal globe and now I'm stuck at Sunnydale High! A mortal! A child! And I'm flunking math."

- Anya

Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins was a member of the "Scooby Gang" and a former vengeance demon. Over a thousand years old, she was originally known as Aud and lived in Sweden. After cursing her unfaithful lover, Aud was approached by the demon D'Hoffryn with the offer of becoming an immortal demon and dedicating her life to vengeance. She accepted and was transformed into Anyanka, earning the title of Patron Saint Of Scorned Women as she spent a millennium granting dark wishes to the girlfriends and wives of men. However, Anyanka met her downfall in 1998 when she took the guise of Anya Emerson and came to grant a wish in Sunnydale. Stripped of her demonhood by an alternate version of Rupert Giles, she lost her powers and was forced to live the rest of her life as the human Anya Emerson. Then later on, she invented the name Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins which she used from then on as a mortal human. In an ironic twist, she even came to fall in love with Xander Harris, the man she was sent to destroy, and through him learned true happiness for the first time. In 2003, Anya was killed in the battle which destroyed the Sunnydale Hellmouth.

Anya was introduced in the third season of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a one-off villain. The writers kept bringing the character back and she eventually became a cast regular, remaining on the show until its final episode. As well as her canonical appearances, Anya has also featured in a number of expanded universe material such as comic books and novels.

Aud
"I don't talk to people much. I mean, I talk to them, but they don't talk to me. Except to say, "Your questions are irksome", and "Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river"."

- Aud



Aud was born in Sjornjost, Sweden in 860. She grew up raising rabbits and became the outsider of her village, whose inhabitants labeled her as "odd because she speaks her mind." By the age of twenty, Aud had fallen in love with a man named Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoyed hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. One night, Olaf drunkenly slept with a bar maid named Rannveig and a furious Aud resorted to magic to curse him with boils on his penis. She then turned him into a troll, and he was forced to flee from his fellow villagers, who did not believe his story.

Anyanka


The act of vengeance against her lover Olaf gained the attention of D'Hoffryn, a demon who offered to elevate Aud to the status of a vengeance demon. She became known as Anyanka, and earned the title of "Patron Saint Of Scorned Women." Her power source was an amulet with the power to grant dark wishes for the amusement of the pestilent gods. However, like all vengeance demons, Anyanka's interpretation of the wish expressed would often be rather loose and considerably more destructive than the wisher intended.

"Vengeance is what I do, Halfrek. I don't need anything else. Vengeance is what I am."

- Anyanka



In 1199, Anyanka traveled to the Kastka valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful shepherd and was caught in the middle of a sorcerer's Ascension to the form of the demon Lohesh. She managed to escape, but was shocked by the death and carnage which claimed almost the entire village. She met the famous vampire Dracula in 1579 and was present at the Salem witch trials in 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka became close friends with fellow vengeance demon Halfrek, who she shared a fierce rivalry with during The Crimean War. Despite their competition, Halfrek secretly admired Anyanka, and was impressed when a wish she granted sparked a revolution in St Petersburg, Russia in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka went to Chicago, Illinois to exact vengeance on a philanderer called Stewart Burns, transforming him into a grotesque demon and banishing him to a hell dimension for all eternity.

Anya Emerson


In 1998, Anyanka arrived to Sunnydale, California to punish teenager Xander Harris for cheating on his girlfriend Cordelia Chase with his best friend, Willow Rosenberg. Taking on the guise of Anya Emerson, she enrolled at Sunnydale High School and befriended Cordelia Chase in order to trick her into making a wish. Blaming the Slayer Buffy Summers for everything that was wrong in her life, Cordelia wished that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, and was transported to a grim alternate universe where the Master had risen and both Xander and Willow were vampires. Unfortunately for Anyanka, Buffy's Watcher Rupert Giles discovered what was going on and destroyed her amulet, undoing Cordelia's wish and rendering Anya mortal again. D'Hoffryn refused to restore her powers and Anya was forced to live out her life as a human as punishment for her failure.





Determined to get her powers back, Anya tricked Willow, who was a witch, into helping her retrieve her amulet from the alternate universe. Instead, they accidentally pulled out the vampire version of Willow, who proceeded to cause mayhem in Sunnydale. When Anya realised her mistake, she allied herself with the vampire Willow, but they were both captured by Buffy and the Scooby Gang, who forced her to send the vampire Willow back to her own reality. Anya continued to live her life as a high school student and, despite her abhorrence of all men, she yearned to have a date for the prom. She asked Xander to the dance because she knew he had no other date and he reluctantly accepted for the same reason. After the prom, Anya began to develop feelings for Xander and asked him out again shortly before graduation. However, these plans were put on hold when he told her that the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins, was planning to ascend to true demon form on Graduation Day and eat all the students. Although she offered some advice to the Scoobies regarding the Ascension she witnessed in 1199, Anya was too afraid to help them fight the Mayor and decided to leave town. Xander refused to abandon his friends, so she left without him.

Relationship with Xander


Anya returned to Sunnydale several months later, still infatuated with Xander. She persuaded him to sleep with her in the hopes of getting him out of her system, but it didn't work and instead they began dating. Xander invited her to a Halloween party and she decided to wear a bunny suit as her scary costume, revealing her trademark fear of rabbits. When the demon Gachnar attacked the party, Anya saved Xander and his friends by going to Giles for help. Worried that Xander did not really care about her, Anya was moved when he mistakenly believed that she had been killed by Spike and proceeded to beat the vampire up. The couple began to argue over where their relationship was going, but when a party they were attending was attacked by a poltergeist, Anya risked her life and braved painful injuries to rescue Xander from being drowned. Anya's lack of social skills soon made her unpopular with the rest of the Scooby Gang, particularly Willow, who had little trust for the ex-demon. However, Anya continued to help them for Xander's sake, and was eventually accepted as an official member. Anya supported Xander during the brief period when Spike's manipulations created a rift between the Scoobies. Soon after Giles took over The Magic Box, a local occult store, Anya was hired as an employee because of her interest and talent for finances.

When Giles briefly left Sunnydale, he reluctantly left Anya in charge of the shop. During an argument, she and Willow accidentally released Olaf the troll from a crystal. It was revealed that Willow and Anya's mutual dislike stemmed from the fear of each that the other would hurt Xander. When Xander protected both women equally from Olaf, they finally came to an understanding and worked together to banish Olaf to the Land of the Trolls. As the Scoobies prepared to confront the hellgod Glorificus, Anya provided crucial advice by suggesting that they use the Dagon Sphere and Olaf's hammer in the fight. During the battle with Glory, Anya heroically saved Xander from falling rubble and was knocked unconscious, while Buffy sacrificed her life saving Dawn and the world from a dimensional rift; Anya later played a part in the spell to resurrect her.

Engagement to Xander
"I mean, mortal life being so short, we gotta cram in as much marital bliss as we can before we wither and die."

- Anya



Shortly before the battle against Glory, Xander asked Anya to marry him if they survived, and she agreed.

Anya began to feel frustrated when Xander refused to announce their engagement so soon after Buffy's death, but he finally did on Halloween. Later, during Buffy's birthday party, when all of the attendants ended up trapped within Buffy's house, Anya, desperate to escape, attempted to use peer pressure on Willow, who was just recovering from her addiction to dark magic, hoping to force her to use magic to escape, and only backed off when Tara harshly ordered her to do so. Later, Anya became convinced that Dawn had something to do with it, and ended up barging into Dawn's bedroom and digging through her stuff, discovering the sizable amount of artifacts that Dawn had stolen from the Magic Box in the process. As it turned out, Dawn was, in a way, responsible: she had unwittingly wished to Anya's old friend Halfrek that no one would leave her.



On her wedding day, Anya's former victim Stewart Burns showed up and tried to manipulate Xander by showing him false visions of an unhappy future with Anya. Buffy defeated the demonic Burns, but Xander decided to call off the wedding anyway, the vision Burns had shown him of the future reawakening his old fears at turning out like his parents, and left Anya heartbroken at the altar. Hurt and angry, Anya accepted D'Hoffryn's offer to become a vengeance demon again.

Unable to wish vengeance on Xander herself, she attempted to get Spike drunk so that he would make the wish for her. Instead, she found comfort with Spike and the two had sex with each other in the Magic Box, much to Xander's disgust. When Tara was murdered, Anya was able to sense Willow's thirst for vengeance but was unable to stop her from being consumed by dark magic and turning evil. During this time, Anya revealed to the other Scoobies that she was a vengeance demon again, but nevertheless aided them until Xander managed to get through to Willow and restore her humanity.

Finding Herself
"When it's something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons for fighting but they do. They never... they never quit. So, I guess I will keep fighting too."

- Anya



As she continued being a vengeance demon, Anya discovered she no longer enjoyed her work. She spent a summer granting half-hearted wishes and soon gained a reputation as "soft serve" among her fellow demons. To gain her colleagues' respect, she turned a man whose girlfriend wished he were a worm into a Sluggoth Demon. However, Xander convinced her to reverse the wish and D'Hoffryn punished her by removing her ability to teleport. Encouraged down a darker path by Halfrek, Anya massacred a group of fraternity boys by summoning a Grimslaw Demon to rip their hearts out. She was later horrified by what she had done and, after an even battle with Buffy, begged D'Hoffryn to reverse the wish. D'Hoffryn agreed, but at the cost of a vengeance demon's soul, and Anya was willing to sacrifice herself for the boys. Instead, D'Hoffryn murdered Halfrek and turned Anya human once again so she would have to live with the pain of what she had done. Realizing she had always been dependent on others in life, Anya resolved to find a purpose for herself. However, when D'Hoffryn sent assassins to kill her, she sought safety at Buffy's house and re-joined the Scooby Gang. Anya and Xander finally made peace with each other, though had several flings together. Anya admitted to Andrew Wells that she secretly admired how determined humans could be in times of crisis, and in the final battle against the First Evil, she died when she was nearly sliced in half brutally from behind by a Bringer's sword. Her death was avenged by Andrew who kills the Bringer with his own sword. The last we see of Anya is her body, blood dribbling from her mouth as Xander called for her, and she was left in the high school as the entire town of Sunnydale was consumed by the Hellmouth, therefore swallowing her up as well. Andrew comforted Xander by telling him that Anya died saving his life, to which Xander tearfully replied, "That's my girl. Always doing the stupid thing."

Personality
"Anya, I have faith in you. There is no-one that you cannot piss off."

- Willow

When Anya had her arm broken defending Buffy's younger sister Dawn from a vampire, she was reminded of her own mortality and began to feel depressed about her inevitable death. She continues to have a characteristic inability to react to things like a normal human, and is frequently frustrated by her lack of powers. She also has a distinctive way of speaking, which is ironically best described by her own description of April: "She speaks with a strange evenness and selects her words a shade too precisely." She has also shown some knowledge of pop culture, possibly due to her relationship with Xander, and was described by Andrew Wells as "the perfect woman" (she responds to this with "I've often thought so"). When rejected sexually, Anya typically questions the effectiveness of her hair.

One of Anya's most defining personality traits was her lack of tact, brutal honesty, and poor social skills. For example, in "Hush," she refers to Olivia as Giles' "orgasm friend;" in "Blood Ties," upon discovering that Dawn was the Key, she openly remarked "You make a lovely little girl!" to Dawn's face; in "The Body," she repeatedly asked inappropriate questions about what the doctors were going to do with Joyce Summers' body in an attempt to understand how the concept of death works, which deeply disgusted and upset Willow, though Anya responded by breaking down over her inability to understand it; in "After Life," she repeatedly mentioned to Buffy that she had been in Hell, earning multiple reprimands from Xander and the gang; and in "Touched" and "End of Days," she kept remarking right in front of the Potential Slayers that they were all going to die one way or another. Most notably, she also tended to treat Dawn as though she were much younger than she actually was; the most defining example of this was in "Older and Far Away," in which she spoke to Dawn as if she were a five-year-old child and not a fifteen-year-old teenager. However Anya's treatment of Dawn may, at least in part, be due to Anya possessing some fondness towards Dawn, who she often babysits with Xander and has risked her life for on various occasions.

Anya frequently reminisces about her life as a vengeance demon, describing graphic punishments and murders she had inflicted in over a millennium, often for misdeeds that most people would not consider to warrant death. She often appears strangely wistful when think of her past deeds as a vengeance demon, and even appears to miss that stage of her life sometimes. Oddly, no one on the series seemed to find this particularly distasteful, even though Anya's position is analogous to that of Spike's after receiving his microchip: she was a murderer who, although incapable of repeating her crimes, was thoroughly unrepentant for them.

Although often, she was considered a crazy emotionless excuse for a brand new human, towards the end of the series no one recognized how the character had grew. From her unconscionably out loud thoughts, which often put other characters off, as a woman and human she was more considerable and although stated humans were lame morons, fought with them. She grew also as a character which often stated the truth and hurt peoples feelings without care, in serious situations she often crack jokes and comical stunts. Season 7 showed how her character shone and when Buffy's recklessness startled the operation of The First's destruction, stood up to Buffy quoting:

Anya: You really do think you're better than we are. Buffy: No, I... Anya: But we don't know. We don't know if you're actually better. I mean, you came into the world with certain advantages, sure. I mean, that's the legacy. Buffy: I... Anya: But you didn't earn it. You didn't work for it. You've never had anybody come up to you and say that you deserve these things more than anyone else. They were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us. It makes you luckier than us. This stood the character as a strong willed and very free-spirited as well as a tough, loving person who is not a ditsy little ex-demon emotionless bitch. But instead a strong willed-double sided character with a legacy who shall hopefully go on.

Phobias


"That’s your scary costume?" "Bunnies frighten me."

- Xander and Anya

Anya's irrational fear of rabbits is established for the first time in "Fear, Itself," and becomes a running joke for the remainder of the series.

Anya, or Aud, as she was then known, bred rabbits before becoming the demon Anyanka. She suggested to her lover Olaf that they should give the rabbits to people, "not for goods or services, but for goodwill and the sense of accomplishment that comes with selflessly giving of yourself to others." Aud's generosity, as well as her comfort around her rabbits, would be a marked contrast to her later persona as Anya.



For Halloween 1999, the newly human Anya dressed up as a bunny in response to Xander's advice that she wear something scary. Later, while the Scoobies and discussing a reptile worshiping cult, Xander jokes he wishes they could fight bunny worshipers ever now and again, for which Anya berrates him, stating she will have nightmares. Shortly before battling Glory, Anya believed that a stuffed bunny she found was an omen that they were all going to die. When Sunnydale was turned into a living musical, Anya decided to blame bunnies for the incident, singing "Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes. They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses, and what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?" After losing her memory, Anya accidentally used magic to conjure dozens of bunnies, much to her terror. In the battle against the First Evil, comrade Andrew Wells advised Anya to think about happy things to ease her nerves, like "a lake. Candy canes. Bunnies." The thought of bunnies filled Anya with a grim determination, and she slaughtered several Turok-Han as a result.

A bunny demon makes an appearance in the comic "Reunion" by Jane Espenson as the villain concocted for a story Anya is telling about Buffy and Angel.

It seems that Anya also has a slight fear of getting old, as it was something she never had to consider when she was a vengeance demon. Her previous demon life also left her with the impression that to die is "mortal and stupid."

Monkey Love
Although she has a phobia towards bunnies, she seems to love monkeys. In the episode "Into the Woods," she tries to convince Dawn and Xander to go and see a movie about a monkey who plays ice hockey. Furthermore, in "Once More, With Feeling," Anya says that she and Xander were watching "Monkey Trouble" when they started singing.

Money
"Money! Did you hurt the money? Money Good? She endangered the Money!" "Of course, that's what she cares about: 'I like money better than people. People can so rarely be exchanged for goods and services'"

- Anya and Willow

Shortly after she became human, Anya discovered she had a love for money and capitalism, and her budding retail skills encouraged Giles to hire her as a cashier in his occult shop, the Magic Box. Her love of money grows to become a fixation and a defining charcter trait: the 'Buffy Bot' lists 'loves money' as her key information, and uses this in conversation with her. Anya displays an innate flair for business. She practically runs The Magic Box and is able to triple the money she made working for Giles through online trading. Anya's love of money even transfers to fictional money; she regularly cheats at cards even when playing for pennies, and while playing 'The Game of Life' with Xander and Dawn she attempts to trade her children for more fake cash. Eventually, Dawn refused to play games with Anya because she 'always wins', and so Anya attempts to convince her to 'raise to stakes' and play 'The Game of Life' for real money.

In sharp contrast to this attitude, as Aud, Anya bred rabbits hoping to give them away as pets in exchange for the goodwill of her fellow villagers rather than money, and as a vengeance demon, she expressed sympathy with Communist ideas.

Powers and Abilities
"You wish it, I dish it. I thought we were clear on that."

- Anya

Anyanka possessed the ability to grant wishes of vengeance and had a frightening demonic form in which her face appeared to be skinless with exposed veins. She was much stronger than some demons and vampires (knocking Spike across the room while lying down in "Beneath You") in addition to holding her own against Buffy in "Selfless," surviving being run through with a sword. She could teleport, use telekinesis, and heal quickly. Anyanka also had a psychic sense of a woman's desire for vengeance and could tell if a vampire has a soul. Anya could also manipulate some energies to knock over an opponent.

With over a thousand years of experience as a former vengeance demon, Anya's knowledge of demonology was immense. Although Anya's native language is Old Norse, she spoke fluent, if sometimes stilted, English as well as some French and Latin.

Thanks to her countless years of experience, Anya also exhibits some basic knowledge of magic. She is seen numerous times commenting on Willow's spell-casting and interest in magic with a reasonable degree of insight, and has occasionally participated in the casting of spells herself ("Doppelgangland"). When she was a human, Anya's experience and practice of combat from her times as a demon allowed her to be an effective fighter, as seen in the series finale.

Romantic

 * Olaf — The two dated when Anya was Aud. Together they shared a very affectionate relationship as Olaf appreciated Anya's tendency to speak her mind and the fact her "hips are narrow, like a Baltic woman from a slightly more arid region" while Anya claimed she couldn't live without him. After cheating on her, Anya was so enraged she performed a complex curse that turned him into a troll, and she later trapped him inside a small gem stone form which he wasn't released for hundreds of years. Her exeme actions caught the attention of D'Hoffryn and lead to her becoming a Vengeance Demon.
 * Torg — Anya once had a fling with the demon Torg when at a massacre during her demon days. Despite it being only one night, they seemed to have shared somewhat of a connection especially Torg as he remembered she wore pink at the event, those they were actually entrails. When trying to get Torg to open the portal to the Beljoxa's Eye as a human, Anya was willing to slept with him for him to do it but he rejected the offer as he was put off by her human appearance.
 * Xander Harris — Anya approached Xander asking to be her date at the Sunnydale High Prom because they both had no one to go with at that point and she knew he found her attractive as he caught looking at her breasts. At the prom, the date itself was not comfortable as she talked about the men she slaughtered as a demon. Despite this, Anya developed feelings for him and tried to gain his interest by saying she was willing to talk about sports, though this didn't work. Afraid for his and her own life, she offered Xander the chance to leave town with her because the thought of him dying made her want to throw-up. Returning to Sunnydale, she continued to date him after she seduced him with the hopes off getting him out of her mind. Their relationship did have constant strains due to her blunt honesty but sustained as Anya made him feel like a man while he made her feel like a human. Anya felt great excitement over her wedding while he had doubts and was deeply saddened when left at the altar. Though they end their relationship finally ends after Anya lost her powers they managed to patch things together and had several flings in the process. In the finale, Xander still greatly cared as he yelled for her during the destruction of Sunnydale.
 * Spike — After her wedding with Xander was called off, Spike and Anya drunkenly bonded over the fact they were often put outcasts to the Scooby Gang and ended up having a one-night stand while unknowingly being watched by one of the Trio's hidden cameras in the Magic Box.

Other

 * Rupert Giles — Giles was often irritated by Anya ever since she bluntly told him to go away at his own apartment when she wanted to talk to Xander alone. After seeing her effectiveness behind the counter, Giles hired her to work at the Magic Box though they still continued with arguments. After Buffy's death, Anya became impatient with Giles as she wanted ownership over the Magic Box which Giles eventually gave to her. When losing their memories, they deduced that they were both engaged with each other despite their physical age difference. In that time, they argued over what book to use to recollect their memory until they undid all of the spells Anya had cast, causing them to reunite and share a kiss, which they denied after regaining their memory.
 * Willow Rosenberg — Like most Willow could not stand Anya while Anya took badly to her sarcasm. Their conflict resulting in them summoning Anya's ex-boyfriend Olaf who they then worked togther to send away, Willow performing the spell to do it and Anya briefly distracting him with her insults as Willow claimed there is "no-one you [Anya] can't piss off". When Willow returned to Sunnydale, Anya helped Willow locate the demon Gnarl when Buffy, Xander and Dawn couldn't see her.
 * Andrew Wells — Even though at first finding Andrew annoying as with everyone else, Anya and Andrew developed a common understanding for each other due to their unique and imcomparable view of life. Anya quickly took to him filming her and the rest of the Scooby Gang when he claimed his account to the fight against needed "balance" which she felt obligated and privledged to provide. Andrew helped her sort things out with Xander and both Anya and Andrew had a "wheel chair fight" while savaging for medical supplies at an abandoned hospital. They fought together at the battle at the Hellmouth where his method of overcoming fear led her to fighting ferociously.

Gallery
See Anya Jenkins/Gallery 

Behind the Scenes

 * She was portrayed by Emma Caulfield.


 * The "Anya Emerson" alias comes from the Sunnydale High Yearbook, which reveals the surnames of a number of characters throughout the show's first three seasons.


 * Anyanka's appearance while in her vengeance demon form changes in seasons 6 and 7 compared to that in season 3. Her makeup becomes more like that of Halfrek. Instead of veiny and pale, Anyanka's skin is covered in exposed veins with red sores.


 * Joss Whedon joked at the Noctural convention in 2001 that Anya was originally supposed to die during the Season 5 finale, "The Gift". However, he had to keep her alive because Emma Caulfield kept moving as Xander was carrying Anya.


 * Anya was originally in the episode "Help", but her scenes were cut.


 * In an interview with Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel magazine #93, Emma Caulfield revealed that she was very pleased with her character's abrupt death, stating, "She didn't get a big, maudlin send-off, it was very quick and to the point - very Anya in that respect."


 * Whedon stated early on that Anya was likely to appear in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, although not necessarily alive. Whedon also joked "it's all about Anya" and that there would be a memorable appearance of bunnies. Scott Allie later confirmed in a Letters page that Anya was not to appear.
 * This makes Anya the only main character from Buffy not to appear in Season Eight.


 * In 2005, Diamond Select Toys (DST) produced several action figures in the likeness of Emma Caulfield for their "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" line. Each figure featured a "real-scan" likeness of Emma, and episode/character specific outfit. Figures produced: "Season 5 Anya" in red top and black skirt, "Hell's Bells Anya" in wedding dress, "Once More, With Feeling Anya" in butterfly top and green skirt, "Anyanka" in demon dress, and "Bunny Suit Anya" in removable bunny suit. A repaint of "Bunny Suit Anya" was featured in the Vengeance Book boxset.
 * Anya's one out of only two Buffy main characters (Tara was only a recurring character), that never appeared or was mentioned on Angel.

Appearances
Anya has appeared in 81 total episodes of Buffy. She ranks 6th on Buffy appearances behind only Buffy, Willow (144 each), Xander (143), Giles (121), and Spike (96), and she ranks 10th on total appearances from Buffy and Angel, behind Angel (167), Willow (147), Buffy (146), Xander (143), Cordelia (140), Giles (121), Spike (120), Wesley (109), and Gunn (91).