Kennedy

"This might have escaped your keen notice but I'm kind of a brat. I've always sort of gotten my own way... so you're going to make it through this no matter how dark it gets. Because now, you're my way."

- Kennedy to Willow Rosenberg

Kennedy is one of the New Slayers and ally of the Scooby Gang. Activated in 2003, she fought at the Sunnydale Hellmouth during the battle against the First Evil and afterwards continued to work for Watchers Council. Kennedy is in a romantic relationship with Willow Rosenberg, having helped her move on from the death of her previous girlfriend, Tara Maclay.

Kennedy first appeared in the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer played by Iyari Limon, and continues to appear in the comic book Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight.

Early life
Kennedy came from a wealthy New York family with a summer home in the Hamptons and has one sibling, a half-sister. An out-of-the-closet lesbian, Kennedy claimed she knew about her sexuality since the age of five after watching Gone with the Wind and wanting to "sweep Scarlet off her feet". At some point in her life, Kennedy was identified as a Potential Slayer.

Sunnydale
In 2002, the entity known as the First Evil began tracking down and killing Potential Slayers in an effort to destroy the Slayer line. Kennedy was one of the first three Potential Slayers to arrive in Sunnydale seeking protection with the current Slayer, Buffy Summers. She met and began aggressively pursuing a relationship with Buffy's friend Willow Rosenberg, whose longtime lover Tara Maclay had only recently been murdered. Willow was reluctant to enter into a new relationship, and upon her and Kennedy's first kiss, her guilt manifested physically when she transformed into Tara's killer, Warren Mears, whom Willow had murdered in vengeance. Kennedy helped Willow overcome her guilt of betraying Tara's memory by helping her move on and break the hex. Kennedy and Willow became lovers, with Kennedy acting as an anchor to keep Willow sane when doing powerful magic. However, she did not take Willow's statements about the dangers of magic seriously until "Get It Done", when Willow drains a significant portion of her life force in order to reopen a portal, which briefly puts a strain on their relationship.. Kennedy fought alongside Buffy and the other Potentials in the final battle against the First's army of Turok-Han. In this battle, Willow activates every Potential around the world, including Kennedy, causing her to become a Slayer. "I could get used to this."

- Kennedy after being activated as a Slayer

As a Slayer
Following the battle with the First, Andrew Wells claimed that Kennedy and Willow continued to be a couple and were then living in Brazil together. At some point, Kennedy suffered a month-long mystical death and she and Willow started taking their relationship more slowly ("The Long Way Home"). She confessed to Willow her concerns that Willow was keeping her away from her friends due to shame, which prompted Willow to reveal that she blamed herself for Tara's death by keeping her close to Buffy and therefore danger. Willow then states that she refuses to let that happen to Kennedy ("Anywhere But Here"). She and Willow were later reunited in New York, where she expressed protectiveness of Willow to Buffy having heard of Buffy's lesbian encounter with Satsu ("Time of Your Life"). Though she was aware of Willow training under the demon Saga Vasuki, she remained unaware of the sexual aspects of their relationship.

Kennedy later traveled to Tokyo to give new squad leader Satsu a performance evaluation. Satsu, a lesbian, had recently shared a one-night-stand with Buffy, who was straight. Kennedy wished to support Satsu on her situation and help her to move on from Buffy.

Personality
Outspoken, confident, and never one to shy away from confrontation, Kennedy made her presence known by both aggressively pursuing her attraction to Willow, and coming to verbal blows with Buffy several times. Continually disagreeing with Buffy's choices, she played an instrumental part in the argument which ended with Buffy's brief ejection from the Summers' residence and the Scooby Gang in the episode "Empty Places." In the next episode, she attempted to continue to push an argument with Faith, but was ultimately forced to give in when Faith informed her that she was the leader now and she would have to get used to it.

Unlike the other Potential Slayers, Kennedy sometimes became involved with actions and events of core Scoobies (most notably in the episode "Get It Done"). In the same episode, Kennedy is seen serving as a martial arts instructor to other Potentials, showing and enjoying a "drill sergeant" attitude, echoing Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of Full Metal Jacket and Sergeant Foley of An Officer and a Gentleman: like them, she concurred in causing the suicide of the weakest of the "recruits" (in this case, Chloe, who was called "maggot") when the First Evil manipulated the feelings of weakness Kennedy caused. Kennedy also chose to dismiss her other responsibilities in the episode "The Killer in Me," opting to feign illness to avoid joining Vi, Rona, and several other potentials on a vision quest to converse with the spirit of the First Slayer, instead choosing to take the opportunity to further pursue her relationship with Willow.

Show creator Joss Whedon describes the character by saying that, "Kennedy is, as she herself said, a bit of a brat. What I wanted was an anti-Tara. I wanted somebody who was as different from Tara as possible. Tara was very reticent, and she was somebody that Willow caused to blossom. What I wanted was somebody who was further on down in dealing with her sexuality than Willow ever was. Somebody who was totally confident, who was totally not earthy-crunchy, who was a completely different person."

Notes and trivia

 * According to the shooting script for Bring on the Night, Kennedy is nineteen, and the oldest of the potentials to arrive at that time, though this informaton is never given on-screen, Kennedy does reference herself as being the oldest of the potentials.
 * Online critic Amy Amatangelo's readers gave Kennedy the "Can We Vote Them Off the TV Island?" award for the "Most Annoying Character" in the 2002-2003 television season, narrowly beating Connor from the Angel series. Phi-Phenomenon, a site that provides statistical analysis of online Buffyverse opinion, has demonstrated that the number of lines of Kennedy dialogue is a statistical predictor of an episode's unpopularity, both among committed Buffy fans and among those who by this time were disenchanted with the show.

Appearances
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Buffy Season 7

 * Bring on the Night
 * Showtime
 * Potential
 * The Killer in Me
 * First Date
 * Get It Done
 * Storyteller
 * Lies My Parents Told Me
 * Dirty Girls
 * Empty Places
 * Touched
 * End of Days
 * Chosen

Buffy Season 8
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 * Anywhere but Here
 * Time of Your Life
 * Swell
 * Retreat
 * Twilight