Anya

Cordelia Chase*

Spiley anyone?!
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Ok...What was the point of Willow saving Anya if they were just going to kill her off? I mean they went through alll that trouble to save her and then poof! Dead!!
 
I'm sure the characters themselves didn't know she was going to die - only the writers would have. o.0 Unless you're talking about something I can't quite recall...
 
I don't think Willow saving Anya and the writers killing her off at the end have anything at all to do with each other.

Willow saving Anya was not just about Anya...it said a lot about Willow as a character too. We saw that Willow could relate to Anya because she herself had been there too.

I also don't think that you can just write off Anya's contribution to the entire season as unimportant because the writers killed her at the end.
 
Pretty much what everyone else has said.

In life, you don't just not save somebody from dying simply because there is the possibility that they may die later on! You try to save then no matter what. Willow saved Anya because she could and because it was the right thing to do. I'm sure she would have saved her again in Chosen, given half a chance.
 
The writers people!!! They knew they were going to kill Anya off, so why extend it??? And I love Anya! She died bravely so just cut this thread someone........
 
Well, even ignoring the obvious point that there were still stories to tell regarding Anya, including making her peace with Xander, not to mention the fact that she was a popular character and her fans wanted her around until the finale, Emma was contracted for a full season, so that is one hell of a good reason why they didn't kill Anya off in episode five! 😉

The fact is that all the characters were potentially going to be never seen again after Chosen. There is still no guarantee we will ever see a Buffyverse adventure onscreen again, so you could say why didn't they let Dawn die in Potential when her life was in danger, or why not let Xander die in First Date, or Giles, or Kennedy, or ...

But you get my point? All the characters were in a life threatening position at some point in the final season prior to the end and all of them were potentially going to never be seen again after Chosen. Joss wanted all his Scoobies there to fight and, in some cases, die at the end. That is the only real answer to your question.
 
The writers people!!! They knew they were going to kill Anya off, so why extend it??? And I love Anya! She died bravely so just cut this thread someone........

Because I don't think the point of putting Anya in that life or death situation in the beginning of the season was based solely around her character. Like I said before....the writers were trying to show many different things through this situation with Anya.

They were trying to show how seriously Buffy took her slayer duties.

They were trying to show the parallel between Anya and Willow (because we had just seen Willow in a similar situation in season 6).

Among other things.

The writers had a deeper point they were trying to make with this situation....so it wasn't just about trying to kill her and then deciding to keep her around because the whole thing just wasn't that simple to begin with. :bootyshak
 
Like The Watcher said, the characters get saved by eachother all the time, that's the way this show works. And personally I am very glad that Anya was saved and could be there until the almost-end, since she's an awesome character.. Plus she deserved to be in the "final battle". And those stories (around saving Anya, Anya and killing Anya) were some great episodes.
 
And also, in the Buffyverse, no one is necessarily permanently gone. Buffy for example. She just keeps coming back. So killing her at the end doesnt mean (providing Buffy had carried on, or there was another spin-off) she wouldnt come back.

So Willow saved her and she died anyway. Means nothing. The scoobies saved Buffy a lot. She died anyway. Get my point?
 
IMO, Willow saving Anya fit well into Anya's story over the season.

"Selfless" is a really good episode, a showcase for Emma Caulfield's talents. I loved the story of Anya's original life as a human, in dark age Scandanavia and Csarist Russia, and the echo of OMWF in her song "I'm the Mrs". It's my theory that when Anya fights Buffy, she's so conflicted that she fights her with a subconscious death wish-because she doesn't how to continue her demon existence that involves inflicting hideous acts of vengeance.

I also believe that afterwards, when D'Hoffryn had released her from his fold, that Anya knows she's living on borrowed time. After all he'd put out a contract on her life! She stays with the Scoobies for protection but underneath, in the remaining episodes I thought she was fatalistic about what would eventually happen to her. In "End of Days" she has her conversation with Andrew in the hospital (those two were great together!) where she tells him that usually when there's an apolcalypse she skedaddles, but she's made her decision to stand with the humans this time to fight-in spite of her contempt for their existence. The way I read it was yes, her feelings toward humans had evolved, but she'd also decided that it wasn't worth it to run away anymore.
 
Emma specifically asked to be killed off in the Final fight. And Willow saving her, that doesnt really matter. Thats what they do. They save each other from death and stuff. I dont think Willow would have let Anya die if she knew she could save her no matter how much she hated her!
 
Firstly, "the writers" probably didn't know who they were going to kill off in the finale - it was Joss who wrote the finale, not "the writers". Secondly, what's the point in anything if you're going to be like that? It's a silly statement. Anya still needed to develop as a character, and as a result of her "living", so did numerous other characters - such as Buffy, Xander and Willow. On top of that, she was a popular character.

There was practically a whole season between "Selfless" and "Chosen" - would you really want to see the rest of it without Anya? I know I wouldn't.
 
I don't really know why the exactly tried to save her, but I read in an article why Anya died. It was because she requested to Joss, to kill her off in the finale. The reason for it was that she didn't want to come back if they made a buffy movie.
 
personally im glad they didnt kill Anya in the beginning of the season and kept her till the end because i liked her,plus i think her character deserved to stay until the end,although i do think Xander should have been more upset about her death.i think another reason they didnt kill her earlier in the season is because in that episode it was also a significant episode for the other characters as Willow was trying to get back to her normal life and not use magic all the time,it showed Buffy was serious about her slayer duties and wasnt willing to let anything to get in the way of her doing her job especially when they knew something bad was going to happen.it also showed that Xander was willing to die for Anya and still had some feelings for her.plus she turned human again which meant she couldnt fight for herself when the First arrived,and also in that episode she learnt a lot about herself and the type of person she was turning into and she didnt like that.
 
i have a lot of comments about this topic but i wont say all of them. 'selfless' was one of my favorite episodes of the season, and im glad they didnt kill her in it. it would have just been upsetting. i think there should have been more episodes about her though. after 'selfless', she didnt get to do quite that much. maybe she (emma) wanted that, or the writers did, or maybe there were just too many characters for her to get that much to do. i dont know but i didnt like it. if she had to die, we should have gotten even more into her character. i wanted to see more episodes about her and what she was doing. she did get some cool scenes, but it seemed like no one cared anymore what was going on with her. the audience sure did!

though i would've liked to see her and xander hook up again or something, im not sure if wouldve been a realistic wish or not, but it still is my wish in some form. i always liked them together.

and i think if she had to die, it shouldnt have been so quick that it seemed almost meaningless. and i wish xander couldve shown a bigger reaction to her death. he loves her so much. then she's dead and he's just kind of upset for a few seconds.

i think that these things have all been brought up before, and probably are a big ramble a lot of you dont care about, but those are my opinions on all of it. very cool episode though! i would say why, but you guys already covered it and so i think i should just shut up now...
 
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