Jenny Calendar - did she have witch powers?

[Hero]

This is what I think about at work when I'm supposed to be helping customers...

Jenny technically classifies herself as a "techno-pagan" although we do know she has some sort of magical abilities. She comes from a long line of Romanian witches/pagans; and assisted Giles in binding Molock back into the book and planned to resoul Angel herself.

My question is... Did she have any offensive/defensive magical powers as did Willow, Tara, Amy, etc? Even Willow being a low level witch in season 3 was still able to levitate small objects and conjure elements. I would asume Jenny was at least at the same level.

Had this been explored, could you imagine Jenny's confrontation with Angel going differently? Imagine all the possibilities if she had been able to fend him off as did Tara in season four in the Jonathan episode. How would the character of Giles progressed and how would Jenny living longer impacted the series?

Lots of questions and I'm assuming even more assumptions and theories.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I think Jenny, coming from a long line of Gypsies, had to have at least some sort of magical ability. I think in the Buffyverse magical ability is more like a muscle anyway, and it gets stronger the more it's exercised, you know? Some are born more naturally stronger than others, obviously, but I do think if Jenny had been kept around longer it would have been really interesting to see her relationship with Willow grow, as a mentor.

 

[SlayerOfVampyrs]

I always thought it odd that Jenny had no explored magical ability. Obviously, for the reasons you posted above, it seemed as though she should. So much of Jenny, far TOO much, was left completely unexplored. It seemed far too obvious was a to me that she was a complex and rich character, and I, at least, ended up feeling cheated when we didn't learn much about her.

If any abilities of hers had been explored, absolutely yes to your question. If they had given her the treatment she deserved, it's entirely possible that she would have escaped Angelus. It's likely though that, as with so many other things with Jenny, they simply hadn't thought about her abilities much. They knew they were going to kill her off, so they probably assumed that there'd be little point in exploring what she could do.

Jenny having lived would have impacted the series greatly. I could have seen her becoming a mentor to Willow for a time, and Willow inevitably surpassing her early on could have been an interesting plot point to touch on.
It would have been a great benefit for the kids to see a healthy relationship between two adults. It may have helped Xander deal with his issues earlier on, thus avoiding what happened with Anya.
Seeing Giles have two women in his life in very different roles would have changed the character drastically. I would have been very interested to see how he would have dealt with living up to his responsibilities as a Watcher to Buffy and a boyfriend/fiance/husband to Jenny. Her presence there very well may have lead to them, at the very least, toying with the idea of leaving Sunnydale and moving to England in the fourth season.

....No, I haven't thought about this AT ALL. 😛

I feel Jenny is the most cheated character we've seen in any of Joss' movies or TV shows. There was too much of her left completely unexplored.

 

[Icarium]

Well, Jenny said "I don't have that kind of power" when asked if she were a witch, so she would be more of an amateur compared to a pro but she did have some skills in the magic department. But did we even see anyone do offensive type of magic in S1-2 except for Amy's evil Mum? In S1-2 magic was almost always ritualistic and casting was a slow process.

I feel Jenny is the most cheated character we've seen in any of Joss' movies or TV shows. There was too much of her left completely unexplored.

Amen! And that's sadly true for fanfiction too.

 

[Ripper666]

I think it she had this powers like Giles had them. She knew about rituals and magic even if she couldn't controll them in a way a real witch like Willow can. Anyway she was able to create little spells and banns, just like Giles. Because of the knowledge she had. So no I don't think she had superpowers.

 

[Valjavertjinn]

As [MENTION=8821]Icarium[/MENTION] mentioned, Jenny did say that she didn't have much power. But I've always thought that she would have ended up teaching Willow about magic, and maybe would have helped her to prevent her "magic addiction" in Season Six.

 

[Jodast]

Stealing a bit of everyone else's stuff in this thread, I'd say not so much a witch as a font of magic knowledge.

 

[scoobygang]

I think it she had this powers like Giles had them. She knew about rituals and magic even if she couldn't controll them in a way a real witch like Willow can. Anyway she was able to create little spells and banns, just like Giles. Because of the knowledge she had. So no I don't think she had superpowers.

i think twice things:

the first i think she was like giles some powers but she not a real withches

and the second, perhaps, she was in an other time, she was dark jenny and decided to stoped definitively the magical!
Perhaps she was affraid by her capacities and stoped for ever magical!

we won't never know it or maybe in the comics! 🙄 this is not a spoiler i don't know if one day in the comics we will meet again jenny!

 

[Grey Ghost]

She appeared to know about magic, yes and even helped Giles but I getthe feeling she couldn't actually use magic only on the basic level. She comes across more of a 'Watcher', watching Angel. Which does not work as we discover to her own bad luckl.

 

[Skytteflickan88]

I agree with "She was probably skilled in spellcating, but had no unusual powers".

I always assumed that people in the Buffyverse could have different levels of powers, but that anyone could use magic on a certain level, with the right incantation and/or magical objects. So I think it would have been shown if Jenny had more abilities than the average person. Definitly if she had enough power to make things float, like Willow in season 3. Maybe she had more than the average person, but like I said, I think that would have been shown.

And as mentioned above, Jenny said she had no powers. Of course, there is the possibility, that she was hiding her power, so that Giles or someone else wouldn't have asked "Do you think your abilities run in your family?" and done some research into her past.

This is what I think about at work when I'm supposed to be helping customers...

Jenny technically classifies herself as a "techno-pagan" although we do know she has some sort of magical abilities. She comes from a long line of Romanian witches/pagans; and assisted Giles in binding Molock back into the book and planned to resoul Angel herself.

Not sure why Romans would have more powers than others, thus making Jenny more likely to have powers. It's never said on the show.

Sidenote; did anyone else get the feeling Wesley was able to work magic better than Giles? As in having a greater natural ability? I can't point out why I think this; probably how he created a magic ball in Not Fade Away, seemingly without any preparation. But then again, that seems unlikely. Unless he learned it recently. Maybe he had prepared something, or used a magical object.

 

[Skytteflickan88]

Hero agrees: that part of my post wasnt so much about ethnicities having more powers than others so much as it was a comment about her "tribe" as a whole

Ok, but why would tgat tribe be more apt at magic than others? We only know of one roman that used magic, and I can't recall there being said that one had more power than the next person, maybe just knowledge enough to do powerful spells, like the re-ensouling one.

 

[Oshawott]

Personally, I don't think she was a witch like Willow/Tara/Amy etc. She's got the knowledge (like Giles - he could perform the ritual in Witch) but her powers are textbook based. While Willow, Tara, and well any other witch on the show could remember certain spells to use during battle (aka Amy's spell to rat-ify someone), Jenny, she knew of the magicks (like the soul restoring ritual) and could perform them if she needed to, but it was more of a techno pagan thing. Did I explain that well? Basically any character on the show could perform a spell if needed - Giles in Witch, Willow in Becomming[/i], heck, Anya can read out of a spell book and summon bunnies (lol). But Jenny's just a human with knowledge of magicks. She didn't do it as her "thing" like Willow or Tara.

 

[BlessedLunatic]

Though I don't think it's ever specifically mentioned, I always thought that magical ability was something natural - as in, some people had it, some people didn't.

Or maybe that some people were more able to tap into it...kind of like the Force in Star Wars. Actually, now that I think about it, that's a pretty good analogy. A lot of people no longer believe it exists, some even laugh at it, but many know that it's an energy field capable of being used if one can focus and use it. But not everyone can. It can be learned, to a certain extent, but the instinct and skill is an inborn trait. Magic!

Willow became powerful because she had a lot of natural ability, and she was interested in learning more. She just took on too much too fast. Tara, on the other hand, had the ability as well, but knew how to keep calm and grounded to control the power.

I got the impression that Giles had natural ability, but that he'd spent years learning how to suppress the urge due to going too far and becoming addicted to the power in his younger years. After Randall, I assume he weaned himself off of magic and avoided it for the most part. Only using it when he had to.

Jenny said she didn't have that kind of power, but she was probably able to do small spells and things. She was in tune with spiritual things, since she talked about casting bones and what not (or was she kidding about that? Virtual bones, maybe? heh)

 

[ILLYRIAN]

I agree with most of what BlessedLunatics says, but not about Tara. She believed the crap her family told her, about her powers being demonic in origin. Did she think she was a wiccan? Obviously not. Up until then Tara thought her powers came from a demon, not from nature.
Jenny may have known about witchcraft, believed it, thought she couldn't do it even, but did. I mean, really, a techno pagan? witchcraft in a series of 1's and 0's. Many folk say magic, witchcraft is a natural thing. So, what is natural about using the W.W.W.?
Did the gypsies (Romani's) have magical power? They did live closer to nature, so in theory there is a greater likelyhood. But then you have people who live in a house, having a far greater ability than all of them combined, for arguments sake, Willow.
As for the belief if Jenny had lived she'd have been a mentor or friend to Willow? Considering what Jenny did to Buffy (Willow's best friend) and Angel. Can you see Willow accepting her, ever?

 

[BlessedLunatic]

I agree with most of what BlessedLunatics says, but not about Tara. She believed the crap her family told her, about her powers being demonic in origin. Did she think she was a wiccan? Obviously not. Up until then Tara thought her powers came from a demon, not from nature.

Well, I meant, after that, when she and Willow are doing spells together and learning more, after she knows that she's not a demon. She recognizes that Willow is doing too much too soon, and that she's not giving the magic the amount of respect it deserves. She knows that it's not right to abuse it, that it's not something to play with, and that it's not about controlling power, but about not letting it control you. Willow wanted to do more and more because she could, Tara recognized that just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Maybe that greater respect came from years of thinking it was something evil within her that she had to suppress. Maybe that made her more able to control it. But she understood, where Willow didn't, that it's not about using magic for every little thing just because you can. She was more aware that there could be consequences.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Um, yeah, sort of.
For arguments sake, let's say Tara's knowledge of magic, and her capabilities of magic were at level 4. And going with the same criteria, Willow is at level 8.
Tara seemed to behave as a little miss know-it-all, even though she didn't know it all. Willow knew that it was perfectly ok to have fun with her ability to do magic, and she wanted Tara to accept that. But Tara's thoughts came from a place of religion, (Wicca) she put her concepts, her beliefs, onto Willow. Had Willow not allowed such a controlling, dominating influence on her life, she would have been able to accept Tara's death and not gone all veiny, scary Willow.
As for Jenny, she knew the magic was there, knew it could be worked, but that was it.