The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#22)

#22.

Hero: Andrew Wells (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7)

Andrew on the hero list? I have reasons. Trust me, I have reasons.

It’s somewhat difficult for me to see Andrew and Jonathan (whom you’ll see higher on the list) as villains. Sure, they’re members of the Trio and are often complicit with Warren’s malicious and misogynistic actions, but they are rarely, if ever, the ones actually scheming to commit moral wrongs. They’re clearly the unwitting products of a patriarchal society rather than intentional perpetuators of it. Moreover, unlike Warren, when Jonathan and Andrew are confronted with the moral depravity of their actions, they stop doing them (that said, it takes Andrew much longer to stop his evil actions, so he drops several spots on the list). We’ll definitely go into this subject more when we get to Jonathan’s spot, but I think the two would benefit most from analysis on the hero list rather than the villain list. Are Andrew and Jonathan good people? Certainly not. But a number of characters who would uncontroversially make the hero list aren’t exactly good people either: Willow, Wesley, Spike, Gunn are all much higher on the list, and their moral failings are arguably worse. All that aside, let’s get to Andrew’s analysis.

Andrew is the brother of Tucker Wells, a disgruntled high school student who once tried to have a small troop of demons eat everyone in the high school because he couldn’t get a prom date. Andrew isn’t nearly so sinister as his brother, but he unfortunately casts his lot with Warren Mears, a misogynistic nerd who is one of the Big Bads of Season Six. It’s important to remember that Andrew is one of the few LGBT characters in the Buffyverse, in addition to Tara and Willow; though his sexual orientation is expressed mostly through jokes (we’ll get to that in a bit), it does feature significantly into his character development during Season 6. Namely, Andrew falls for Warren’s dominant attitude and becomes his willing patsy, to an even greater extent than Jonathan; Warren is even aware of Andrew’s attraction to him and thus uses Andrew to an even greater extent than he would normally. Wells’s knowledge of the occult certainly assists Warren in his schemes, though it’s not enough to save him from getting flayed by Dark Willow.

Jonathan and Andrew go into hiding after Dark Willow goes on her rampage, but they return to Sunnydale in the beginning of Season Seven. Jonathan seeks to help the Scoobies as a favor for their second chance and for saving his life on goodness knows how many occasions. Andrew, however, has an encounter with the First Evil, the Big Bad of Season Seven; suckered in by the promise of godhood for himself and his friends, Andrew murders Jonathan and tries to use his blood to open the Seal of Danzalthar, setting free the First’s army of superpowered vampires. Andrew serves as the First’s henchman for a very brief period of time, but the Scoobies eventually capture him. Andrew quickly realizes the extent to which he has been used and helps the Scoobies in whatever way he can, from trying to spy on the First… to fixing their microwave.

Andrew’s shining moment occurs in “Storyteller,” an episode in which he films all of the members of the Scooby gang and starts narrating their lives for them, partly for comedic effect and partly to cover up for his tremendous guilt for killing Jonathan. At the episode’s finale, Buffy confronts Andrew about the murder and berates him for hiding from the consequences of his actions, the implicit suggestion being that he must die in order to close the Seal of Danzalthar and keep the First’s army from pouring out too quickly. It’s at this point that Andrew has an actual breakdown and professes his genuine guilt for his actions during the previous season. Aside from Spike and Angel, we’ve never witnessed a former villain express actual remorse for his actions, so it is refreshing to see a human character understand that some deeds cannot be forgiven. Much like Spike and Angel, Andrew will have to live with his misdeeds for the rest of his life, doing the best he can to atone for them. It’s Andrew’s ultimate admission that he is a horribly flawed human being deserving of punishment that makes him actually heroic, if only in a small way. “Storyteller” is one of Buffy Season Seven’s very best episodes, and Andrew’s complete conversion to the side of good is a key reason why.

That said, Andrew’s placement on this list must be relatively low. While his impact on the plot is more sizable than previous heroes, and his character is reasonably complex, it pales in comparison to the heroes higher on the list. Furthermore, his truly despicable actions are a huge limitation on his overall virtue. Worst of all, though, is the show’s portrayal of his bisexuality. Andrew’s sexual orientation is played more for laughs than anything else; while this does produce a genuinely humorous scene with Andrew and Spike sharing a motorcycle, with Spike being utterly oblivious to Andrew’s flirtations, it’s somewhat irritating to think that Andrew’s romantic life has been reduced to a series of jokes. The most charitable explanation I can offer is that Andrew’s unhealthy approach to relationships is a foil to Willow’s… but that’s a stretch given that Willow is dating Kennedy during Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s seventh season. The frustration behind Andrew’s portrayal is enough to cement Andrew in the lower tier of Buffyverse heroes, even if he is somewhat of a fan favorite. Both the character and the audience deserve better.

Villain: Anyanka (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3/Season 7 - "The Wish"/"Selfless")

Though her role as an antagonist on Buffy the Vampire Slayer is undeniably limited (rest assured, she ranks much higher on the heroes list), Anya’s role as a vengeance demon dedicated to bringing misery unto ungrateful men opened up an entirely new breed of evil into the Buffyverse. Not only is Anya an entirely effective antagonist during the events of “The Wish,” but she also introduces the concept of vengeance demons into the show – monsters whose sole purpose is completing tasks of vengeance on behalf of others. They’re the hired guns of the demon realm, with their own code of honor and set of rules. They thus provide meaningful insight into the dangerous nature of revenge and the impact it has on the individual soul.

We’re first introduced to Anya during the events of “The Wish.” It is Anya who takes Cordelia’s wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale and turns it into reality, creating a hell dimension on Earth with the Master and his goons running rampant. The only people able to adequately confront the Master are a highly-traumatized Giles and Oz. Willow and Xander have both been turned into monstrous vampires, and they themselves have captured and tortured Angel for funsies. When Buffy finally does make it to Sunnydale, she’s a shell of her original self, having had no friends to assist her in the role as Slayer and share the burdens of a torturous existence. During the events of the episode, we witness every single one of our favorite characters die a miserable, painful death, all except for Giles - the only one who refuses to lose hope that life can be made better through human action, one willing to sacrifice his entire way of life in order to better those of others. This stands in stark contrast to Cordelia, who, when making the wish tries to improve her own life by virtue of ruining those of others. It’s this spirit of self-sacrifice that ultimately destroys Anya’s pendant and turns her human.

Throughout the next three seasons of the series, Anya more or less turns into a hero without many growing pains. She doesn’t even act as an anti-hero in the manner of Spike or Faith: she shifts right to the side of good once she realizes that she actually has attachments to others. Her relationship with Xander is quite possibly the most consistently delightful across Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, even if it isn’t the healthiest. We’ll talk more about these elements when we get to Anya’s place on the hero list… but it’s when these beautiful elements are taken away that we realize just how dangerous Anya can be.

During the Season Seven episode, “Selfless,” a romantically and sexually distraught Anya, abandoned at the altar by the one man she ever learned to truly love, decides to make a deal with her old boss, D’Hoffryn, to get her powers back. And what does she do with her old powers? She summons a spider demon to murder a bunch of college students who sexually abused a girl, going above and beyond the call of the initial wish. Anya’s Medean brand of revenge – the kind that inflicts pain beyond all else – perfectly illustrates the horrors of the woman scorned, both as a real-life entity and as a stereotype. For the main battle in “Selfless” is not the conflict between Buffy and Anya, but the battle between Anya and herself: it’s only after she’s performed her most monstrous action in the entire show that Anya must face the reality that her transactional, retributional, demonic side is a threat to others and isn’t moral. In order to set things right, however, she must deal with a retributional punishment of her own, with D’Hoffryn both stripping Anya of her powers and murdering Anya’s friend, Halfrek, to illustrate the pain of losing a friend.

Insofar as she is villainous, Anya is the most substantive metaphor in the series for the impact that revenge plays in our lives. She definitely falls stronger on the good side than the evil, but the impact of her villainous actions on the philosophy of the series is undeniable. Her evil actions also push Buffy and Xander to some of their most passionate extremes, showing us deeper dimensions of both characters. All things considered, Anya could have probably landed a higher spot on this list were it not for her overwhelmingly good qualities that dominate her character. Her hero and villain moments are so clearly bifurcated that it’s hard to see her as anything but a hero with a few villainous moments rather than a “reformed villain.” But there’s no denying her importance as a villain when those moments do arise.