'Potential? I could wipe the floor with you right now!'

[dolorosa_12]

Day Twenty-One: Favourite female character screwed over by canon

Kendra (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

The thing that frustrates me most about Kendra is that of all the show's wonderful recurring tertiary characters, she's the only one who feels as if she was just written to give Buffy character development and feelings. Buffy is generally excellent in terms of recurring characters - even if they only appear in three or four episodes, they feel fully human, with understandable motives, fears and developed personalities.

But Kendra is something of a blank slate. She has only two obvious personality traits: her fondness for the rules, and her lack of social ties. In other words, she is only remarkable in the ways in which she differs from rule-bending, social butterfly Buffy, and she serves to illustrate that Buffy is right in her choices. Kendra's rule-following makes Buffy look intelligently flexible and adaptable, while Kendra's apparent disconnection from other human beings makes Buffy look warm and protected by the support of her friends and boyfriend.

Now, Buffy is the protagonist, so other characters are always going to be used to move her plot forward and help her develop as a character, but Kendra is the only character who gives the impression that that's her sole purpose. And there's no reason why she had to be written in this way. Faith, the slayer who follows Kendra, is also written as a foil to Buffy, but the show also manages to show us why she is the way she is, and why she makes the choices she does.

As it is, Kendra shows up for a couple of episodes, makes Buffy feel inadequate before reinforcing the rightness of Buffy's choices, and then dies in order to illustrate the seriousness of what Buffy faces in the season finale. It's a profoundly unsatisfactory character arc - if arc is even the right word - and I can't help but feel that the character was a wasted opportunity.


Day Twenty-Two: Favourite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favourite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favourite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favourite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favourite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favourite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you’d like!

Also, I have been thoroughly enjoying the late autumn weather here in Cambridge, so have a few photos of yesterday's frost.




Frost-covered ivy and rosehips in my garden.



More frost-covered shrubbery.



The view across the park as I walked to work.



Winter trees.

Comments

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

. And there's no reason why she had to be written in this way. Faith, the slayer who follows Kendra, is also written as a foil to Buffy, but the show also manages to show us why she is the way she is, and why she makes the choices she does.


I wonder if - perhaps unintentionally - Faith wasn't a bit of a second try for a foil? There's actually a few subtle similarities - I can totally see Faith having knocked out a pilot (it was a pilot, right?) to get where she needed to go, and I think had Kendra accidentally killed someone, she would have stubbornly pretended not to care, although I doubt she would've been taken in by the Mayor. But they gave Faith more personality, and a larger role.

You're right that Kendra seemed to exist almost to emphasize Buffy, whereas Faith was a better foil. Because Faith also provided Buffy with a certain comfort too - hypothetically, Buffy could have turned with Faith. Had she just gone along with Faith and pretended it never happened and snubbed the Scoobies, they may have been rogue slayers together. So Faith's more interesting that way as well.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think Faith was definitely a second try at a foil. She's almost the anti-Kendra, but both are the anti-Buffy in different ways. Buffy is meant to be a different kind of Slayer because she has friends and other connections who help her in her fight against evil, and because she bends the rules. Kendra works alone, and follows all the rules to the point of inflexibility. Faith works alone, and breaks every rule she can. The difference is we find out why Faith works alone — she's a damaged person and only trusts herself — whereas why never find out why Kendra is the way she is. At the same time, Faith offers Buffy a very real alternative way to be a Slayer, and Buffy is tempted at times to follow her down that path. Kendra never offers Buffy a serious alternative. We're meant to approve of Buffy's choices, but Kendra seems to exist solely to represent such a choice, whereas Faith is a human being as well. And this was a failure on the part of the writers. We could have had Kendra's backstory, we could have found out why her community treated her Slayer calling so seriously, and why they felt she needed to be isolated and trained from childhood to be a Slayer, but we're never given the opportunity to do so.

Does that make any kind of sense? (Also, sorry for taking so long to reply to your comment.)

Sorry to take so long to reply