Could Buffy have killed Anya?

Was he jealous of Angel - Quite jealous - Angel was the suave cooler older guy that Buffy was in love with - I acknowledge the jealousy yet I don't actually think Xander had a true animosity towards Angel - Until he become Angelus and was actively attempting to hurt both Buffy and the gang...

If feelings entered into the LIE I don't think they were feelings of envy or jealousy at all but feelings of anger or HATE because of what ANGELUS had done to them... - So yes an animosity - But when examined - Quite a justifiable emotion. After all Angel(us) and killed and tortured by that point. So I'm not surprised at how Xander was feeling in regards to him...

So though I acknowledge the jealousy I don't think it's what motivated the lie at all - I also think at that point Xander's animosity of Angel was pretty understandable.

Xander felt that Angelus was in the wrong ( was WRONG ) and needed to be stopped / Just as Buffy felt that with Ayna - Something evil or bad that needed to be stopped...

Any discussion about Xander's feelings or (bias) against Spike of course has to take into account Xander's knowledge of Spikes attack on Buffy , and also Xander's knowledge of the tryst between Spike and Ayna - in the latter then no doubt his actions were mostly motivated by jealousy, but also a rage in the moment ( a crime of passion so to speak )

I liked Spike as a character but in many ways I thought the writing for Spuffy was kind of disjointed - in it's whole arc - including everyone's reaction to them - just my take of course... - Also maybe that was the writers intent all along I don't know...
 
Sorry - got side tracked by sort of seeing Xander ( from Becoming ) and Buffy ( Selfless ) being in a very similar mind set

Back on topic to the episode at hand now 🙂
 
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
No, it's an interesting parallel and I do think you should start a thread about it. It's just not about could Buffy kill Anya :)
My answer is probably. The build up of Buffy's character arc has culminated, at that point, to her forming a code of ethics she has to adhere to when doing her Slayer duties; From past events you can kind of get the gist of what it is that Buffy thinks the title of Slayer means.

1. The Slayer must do what is necessary, even if the act conflicts with her personal goals. This includes self-sacrifice, the necessary killing of loved ones, and protection of those unable to protect themselves. Examples being Buffy's deaths in seasons 1 and 5, sacrificing Angel in season 2, and finally both Dawn as well as The Potentials.
2. The Slayer must let the laws of man govern men.
3. The Slayer is the only form of law-enforcement in within the mystical community.

So say Willow didn't do... Whatever it is that she did, and Anya didn't get to revert the murders she caused, Buffy, by her own Slayer code, is the law-enforcement. Since Anya isn't human, she cannot be held to the standards of human law. Anya has now crossed the line from mischievous to malevolent, and which means that for the good of mankind, it's necessary to slay Anya.

While I don't think Buffy entirely wants to kill Anya, I think she definitely can, and probably would. She did drive a sword through Angel and left him stuck in a hell dimension. She did also sacrifice herself at the tender age of 15. She did also choose to die in her sister's place. Buffy absolutely could do this but if Anya chose to return to her status as a vengeance demon, and if that is the arbiter of whether or not a person cannot be brought back from the brink, then by these rules Buffy should also have killed Willow, who chose dark magic over dealing with her own grief and then skinned a person alive.

Now, obviously Buffy wasn't going to kill her best friend, as hypocritical as that may be. I think there's something very human about how duty and personal interest sometimes violently clash and sometimes it feels objectively more moral to act in our own personal interest. But Buffy did come pretty close to ending Anya, so here's what I think that means;

The rules are different for core Scoobies, and secondary Scoobies.

Oz, Tara, and Anya are more secondary members. They are auxillary characters, and thus more expendable. Buffy herself is also not very close friends with any of them. Without the same close personal attachment that she has Xander, Willow or Giles, Buffy can act more according to her role as the Slayer in regards with them, than she can as Buffy Summers, a person with empathy and a desire to reform rather than kill. There's always a power struggle between the two, and neither is 100% correct, and a lot of Buffy's character can be deduced from how and when she chooses to act as a Slayer, and when she chooses to bend that moral code in order to reach a better outcome.

While Buffy didn't especially want to kill Anya, I do think they lacked the personal connection to drive Buffy into a serious moral dilemma. Buffy's sense of duty overcame her sense of personal interest which meant that Buffy, albeit very reluctantly, would have eventually killed Anya.

And considering Buffy's resume up to this point, Buffy could fight at 25% her capability and still beat Anya. It's not a question of would Buffy, it's a question of how long until Buffy finally overpowered Anya and was put in a position where she had to make a conscious choice between killing or sparing Anya.

Buffy probably would kill Anya. Although I am offering room here because while Buffy might not be very close to Anya, Xander is. And if Xander can talk Willow down from ending all life on earth, he might also be able to talk Buffy out of slaying Anya.
 
T
thrasherpix
Spike was killing & turning people and she eventually let him roam free even with a trigger, screw duty and everyone else. Not that I think the real Buffy would've done that.
Buffy did plunge a sword into Anya during their fight, so it appears obvious that she is not averse to the idea of killing Anya although it certainly would never be easy because she was impervious to what would have been fatal for people: a sword through the heart. Willow is a different story - she killed Warren because he would have gotten away with his crimes by letting the Warrenbot go to prison or using magic on the court that tries him and therefore seems to be acting with the same immunity to the laws of man that supernatural beings exhibit. The slayer is not the only law enforcement among mystical community - Angel Investigations takes on similar jobs without a slayer with the exception of The Beast where Faith did a lot of the work under the supervision of Angel.
 
When it comes down to it, Buffy could have killed her. Anya will always be a vengeance demon no matter how much she has thinks she redeemed herself. The particular episode where she and Buffy fought proved how expendable she was. I don't believe things were ever the same when Anya tried to be part of the Scoobies. She was never really accepted, if you wanna count Xander, OK, but he left her at the alter, that changes a lot. I don't think she fit into the team and Buffy could have killed her because she was never human in my eyes. Anya did a lot of shady things to the group, slept with Spike, lied about it, hid things from the people she claimed were her friends. She always acted like a demon, Faith had more humanity than Anya. She should have died sooner than Season 7.
 
As to 'ability' the answer would be a whole heartedly YES.
As to 'would she' I guess answers aren't in the easy compartment.

Anya knew -and- accepted the consequences in relation to her vengeance demonship and Buffy's Slayeridge. Both she and Buffy made that pretty much clear to Xander.
As to the fight it seemed clear that Buffy didn't go for the quickest kill. The stabbing through the chest was a welcome pause in the fight and the fact that Buffy just stood there and waited...knowing the wound wasn't lethal...showed her reluctance to kill Anya. (mind you, Buffy had stated before that she accepted the choices of her friends in relationships, even against her better judgement.......a bit of protectionism on her part, considering her choices of partners?)
The only one -not- accepting the rules of engagement was Xander.
It's hard for me to imagine that Buffy remembered Willow's open invitation of D'Hoffryn or that Willow would go for that, but it did seem obvious she wasn't keen on ending the fight in the most permanent way.
Buffy seemed to stall the finishing blow to give Anya a chance to do something, anything, to avert the outcome. If Anya would have fled I doubt Buffy would go to lengths to chase after her. All because of.........the big what if.

What if Buffy would have killed the vengeance demon Anyanka?
Hard to picture it as most of the season was hard to read.
Willow? She knew what Buffy would have to do and accepted the consequences.
Giles? Haven't got a clue as to who that guy was in season 7, but they did cast the same actor and gave him the same name.
Dawn? She'd be devastated, but I do think she matured and would, given time, accept that her big sis had to do what she had to do.
Buffy? Well, she got more isolated from the start, so guess this intermezzo would only have sped that up a little....and meaning that....a little.

Xander? Hehe, there's the crux to the whole episode, right? The 'heart' of the Slayeridge. Got to admit...he does have 'heart' , but only -his- heart. His heart tells him he still loves Anya, and Anyanka is just a silly side-thing..deep down it's still his Anya. His heart loved Dark Willow because that was Willow with a crispy outer layer.
The only two women he ever loved go before anything or anyone. Those two are everything to him. And receive auto-forgiveness, so to speak.
To me it seems likely that Xander would walk out. He would blame Buffy 1)for being wrong, 2)for killing his true love without a moment's thought about what Anya meant to him, 3)for being self-righteous and acting superior and likely 4)for not knowing what true love felt like.

And that is all, of course, because by now he probably knows that he won't stand a chance of killing Buffy in a fight. (otherwise he probably would go for it)
 
It was my understanding that Anyanka was a higher order of demon than the common ones we see. Buffy could probably kill her, but it wouldn't be her native prey in the same way vampires or or the demon orcs are. I would say, 5/10, advantage to Anya, only because we don't know the full extent of her powers.
 
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