Kennedy Appreciation Post

[thenewbuzwuzz]

thewiggins tagged me to say some sincere nice things about my least favorite BtVS character, following the example of Barb C.'s Andrew post and Wiggins' Riley post and others. Thanks, Wiggins! This was really fun.


It took me a while to pick the character. I disqualified all villains and considered which of the remaining characters make me go "That Bastard" and "Just Go Away", instead of only the occasional (or near-constant) "Come on, don't do that... oh no, you did that". The closest ones I could come up with are Kennedy and Forrest, & I think Kennedy has more screen time.

Next time someone asks about my least favorite BtVS character, I'm going to have to pick Forrest, because I now like Kennedy much better than I did before writing the post.

Here's what I like and appreciate about her, in no particular order.

* She's really fit.

* She's kind to Willow! She makes Willow take some time off and often reassures and encourages her. The kitestring thing is super sweet.

* She encouraged and helped W with the spell to activate the Potentials, which was critical in the final battle of s7, so K had an important role in saving the world.

* The first things she did after getting her Slayer powers were compliment Willow and give the Scythe to Buffy: lifting up someone else and sharing power. I think that's remarkable.

* The first time she says something hurtful in "Empty Places", she apologizes twice - or, practically apologizes, it's good enough for me. "I didn't— that was stupid. I don't know why I said that." and "I really didn't mean—"

* She stands up to armed police officers who attack Faith. She doesn't have superpowers at this point. "You're gonna have to shoot us all to stop us." That's brave and good.

* She helped make welcome-home decorations for Xander when he returned from the hospital (?) after losing his eye (?), and I think she cared whether he liked it. "We didn't have time to do more. You have to pretend there's a big party here."

* She trained the other Potentials best as she knew how. I'm sure this helped in the final battle and may even have saved someone's life in earlier skirmishes. It also lessened the workload of Buffy and Giles.

* She's self-aware enough to say she's "kind of a brat" and "always sort of gotten [her] way". I respect that.

I'm going through the Buffy Wiki, because it's been a while since I watched season 7:

* "An open lesbian, Kennedy claimed she knew about her sexuality since the age of five, after watching Gone with the Wind and wanting to “sweep Scarlett off her feet.”"
That's just cute

* "She had also established to have been in theater class."
I find that attractive, okay

* "had been trained to use weapons since the age of eight"
the competence, man

* She founded what in the comics? "Deepscan was a company founded by Kennedy, where members of the rich elite hired Slayers as bodyguards..." See, I knew she had leadership potential. Slayers have got to eat, and that sure is one solution. Plus, they helped people. They protected someone against Wolfram & Hart and found some people who were lost in the jungle. Kennedy helped that happen.

* Based on the transcript of "Potential", K seems to deflect attention from herself and encourage Amanda to speak up and feel included. That's really thoughtful of her.
"MOLLY (to Kennedy) When you staked him, seriously, the rush was like—
KENNEDY (to Amanda) So you took one out solo?
MOLLY Yeah, what was that like?
AMANDA I don't know. I mean, when I saw the vampire, vamp—
KENNEDY Vampire's good too.
AMANDA Cool. Yeah, when that vampire attacked me, I felt this kind of charge, you know?"
(Transcript source: http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=122&t=8440. The other dialogue quotes are from the same site.)

* Also, she has a tongue piercing, so there's that, I guess.


So, mainly I like that Kennedy is competent and helpful. I was surprised to notice that she's way more considerate than I ever gave her credit for.


If anyone would like to continue the meme, I would love to see that. For people who aren't primarily into Buffy, maybe you'd like to do this for another fandom?

Comments

[author_by_night]

Huh, you raise some good points.

Maybe Kennedy would've been more bearable if we'd seen more of her? She comes in the middle of season seven, and there isn't that much time to build her personality. So the nice moments are overshadowed by her meaner ones, and we don't really... see much growth. Whereas with other unpleasant characters, we were able to see both the softer and harsher sides more often. I mean, looked at a certain way, you could argue that Kennedy is a combination of Cordelia and pre-accidental murder Faith.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"She comes in the middle of season seven, and there isn't that much time to build her personality."
Absolutely! I think all the Potentials suffer from this. Also, I feel like the timing of her relationship with Willow was unfortunate - it's kind of like the story uses Kennedy to push Willow to move on and get over things at a bit of a rough pace? *shrug*

I love the similarity to Cordelia and Faith that you pointed out. Yeah, Cordy and Faith both had years to mellow out and prove themselves.

[beer_good_foamy]

I've always thought that Kennedy is to Buffy what s1 Buffy was to s1 Giles (if much more hastily developed). Which of course is pretty much what s3 Faith was to s3 Buffy&Giles, too.

By s7, Buffy is the authority; she needs to be challenged even when she may or may not be right about things. There would have been something seriously wrong if all the potentials had just taken her word as gospel and her as the natural leader.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"Which of course is pretty much what s3 Faith was to s3 Buffy&Giles, too."
Oh. Oh? That's an interesting thought. :))

[roselightfairy]

This is awesome and made me feel so fond. I may have to do some pondering!

...can we agree that Warren is exempt though? (or is that a total contrast to what this is supposed to be about?)

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Wheee! :)

I ignored Warren on the grounds that he's a villain and I'm not *supposed* to like him. If we strongly dislike Warren, that means the character is working as intended, right?

But it could be a challenging exercise in empathy for sure. Hard mode, if you will. :)

[nyctanthes]

You found a lot to appreciate!

[thenewbuzwuzz]

I got kind of carried away. :D

[beer_good_foamy]

Congratulations. I hereby officially present you with the membership plaque of the most august organisation.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Heeee, thank you!

[deird1]

Hee! Glad someone did, otherwise I’d have to go hunt down the badges...

[thenewbuzwuzz]

:)

(ooh, nice icon)

[cornerofmadness]

You made some good points

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Thanks! :)