Why do you think they made Anya a human again so quickly in season 7?

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garfan

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Was it to walk back season 6 some more? Was it to show character growth? To limit the Scoobies options against the bad guys?

In my personal opinion it was just because the only reason Anya had become a vengeance demon again was because the season finale needed the Scoobies to have someone with powers for a little while
 
Maybe with all those Potentials around, they were afraid Anya would be overwhelmed by their "I wish" statements? But seriously, I think they just got bored with that plot line, and just wanted Anya to hang around with the Scoobies.
 
1. She was too powerful to keep around as a regular character. They nerfed her teleportation almost immediately. She would have been too strong.

2. Season 7 had a lot going on. Like almost too much. Doing Sex and the Single Demon Gal wasn't really needed,

3. I think the story ran it's course. I mean, "Anya has second thoughts about vengeance." I mean, that was the only place it could go, and she wasn't coming back for season 8, so wrap up her storyline, and get on the spin off idea parade.
 
Technically, at least once human, any assassins that failed should've had grieving relatives or lovers or such willing to make a wish, and not only against Anya, but like "I wish all of Anya's friends were dead." (Though a comedic moment might be if that was done and no one dies.)

(Also technically, D'Hoffryn restricted Anya's ability to teleport in this season for poor performance, so he could take that ability away at any time, and probably others as well, as in by turning her human he lost direct power over her.)

But best not to linger at the Abyss of the abyssal writing of season 7.
 
I think the reason is they simply didn't have a clue what they were doing with the writing of seasons six and seven (which was certainly admitted for six) and were simply flailing wildly around, especially after season six made an absolute mess of everything.
 
Agreed, I think Joss was far too busy to care about season 6, other than a list of ideas and to occasionally bounce ideas off of, but Season 7, be he had a vested interest in making Season 7 successful, getting a Successor or spin off series sold, and setting up Chosen. Having a minor god on speed dial, probably would have interfered with that.

Regarding Anyanka's enemies. I suspect she has D'Hoffryn's version of the Mark of Cain on her, that she is under his protection, because her suffering isn't to get ripped apart by a vengeful victim, but to live as a woman and die.
 
AlphaFoxtrot said:
Agreed, I think Joss was far too busy to care about season 6, other than a list of ideas and to occasionally bounce ideas off of, but Season 7, be he had a vested interest in making Season 7 successful, getting a Successor or spin off series sold, and setting up Chosen. Having a minor god on speed dial, probably would have interfered with that.

Regarding Anyanka's enemies. I suspect she has D'Hoffryn's version of the Mark of Cain on her, that she is under his protection, because her suffering isn't to get ripped apart by a vengeful victim, but to live as a woman and die.
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Anya becoming a demon again was in the last act of S6, which is when he was back and doing things again. He rewrote the wedding scene with Buffy and Spike so we know he had involvement. Anya becoming a demon again is referenced in Restless, but this could be foreshadowing or storymining like the references to Restless in Tabula Rasa.

It's probably off topic for the thread but maybe we could amass a list of ideas that we know of or largely believe they were planning. We know they toyed with the idea of there being some kind of Spike-Cecily/Halfrek story. We know from Fury's comments that they didn't really have much of a plan for Buffy in the last act of S6. As each story comes and goes, it has to replace an idea that was there. I think they had an idea, but dropped it, for better or worse.

My own speculation based on absolutely nothing is that the original plan for Anya was to be more of a replacement Willow until she returned, which I think was meant to be later. Once they opted to get the gang back together by ep 3 of S7, Demon!Anya was redundant.
 
I think it's an exploration of Anya's character. Of course, she would revert to her old ways and try to seek revenge on Xander after being left at the alter, yet throughout the arc they show that her time with the Scoobies has mellowed her and reawakened her humanity. Then in season 7, they finish out the arc, because generally Buffy and the Scoobies haver to deal with her being a threat to people. If they had prolonged it, it would have cast bad light on Buffy and the gang in that they let a known threat walk around freely.
 
DagonSphere said:
Spike was neutered though. He had a chip in his head.
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That didn't stop him from plotting against the Scoobies, getting a whole bunch of people killed, showing he could work via intermediaries and believing he could kill Buffy even with the chip. And in S7, it was shown that even the chip could be circumvented. After S4, Spike had proven he was a threat, and had even told the Scoobies to their faces he could be - regarding Faith, he said there was nothing to stop him from pointing a loose cannon in their direction.
 
So I love Anya but mostly in a she’s funny kind of way. Her arc isn’t the strongest in my opinion. With that said unless they were going to make her evil her becoming human again is about all they can do with her.

I actually think one of the more interesting aspects of the episode is the debate between Buffy, Xander, and Willow about who determines who is worth saving versus slaying.
 
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