The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#27)

#27

Hero: Kendra Young (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2)

For some, Kendra’s low placement on this list is a disservice to her character. She is one of the most important characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s second season – a season considered by many to be the very peak of the show. She’s also the second ever Slayer we meet outside of Buffy herself, so she’s got novelty in her favor as well. Unfortunately, Kendra’s actual character sheet is remarkably thin. Much like the Potentials and Connor, Kendra reeks of missed opportunity rather than richly textured characterization, characterization Kendra’s successor has in spades. At her best, Kendra feels underdeveloped; at her worst, Kendra feels like a plot device.

Kendra is a Slayer whose powers are activated when Buffy is briefly killed during the events of “Prophecy Girl.” As opposed to Buffy, Kendra has been training to become the Slayer over the course of her entire life, willfully obeying the demands of the Watchers’ Council and destroying anyone who gets in her way. When she enters Season 2 during the episode, “What’s My Line,” she tries to kill Angel and even Buffy when the OG Slayer gets in her way. Only once Buffy and Kendra come to an understanding and ally against a far more sinister threat – that of Spike and Drusilla – are they able to form a meaningful and effective partnership. However, in Kendra’s very next appearance, in “Becoming – Part 1,” Drusilla kills her in one of the most chilling death sequences in the series. It's an abrupt end to a character arc that really never gets a chance to develop.

While Kendra expands the Slayer mythology and is an excellent piece of world-building, she’s a remarkably shallow character. The stone cold warrior who learns to embrace the values of friendship is one of the most tired tropes in all of fantasy; though this trope is a good one, if the character doesn’t have a meaningful backstory, the presentation feels somewhat tired. Unfortunately, Kendra has no substantial backstory to speak of. She might have the delightful quirk of naming her favorite stake, “Mr. Pointy,” but that’s the only insight we get into her past. She’s little more than a tool for the Watchers’ Council, and her death is emblematic of her limited character. Joss Whedon, Marni Noxon, and the other Buffy writers have indicated that characters who do good deeds without making the truly active choice to do so will ultimately succumb to moral failings or other adversity; that’s Kendra’s ultimate fate. Should one throw in the utterly unnecessary Jamaican accent that the character has, and one gets an underwhelming hero.

Fortunately for Buffy’s second season as a whole, Kendra’s purpose within the plot is that of a device to highlight our actual heroine’s virtue, rather than developing a new character. While learning more about Kendra would have given her death a bit more of a punch, the death is shocking enough insofar as it highlights the strengths of the villains and pushes Buffy to become that much more independent. Kendra might not be the best foil to Buffy, but she’s certainly an effective one. Unfortunately, that’s not the name of the game on this list.

Villain: Jasmine (Angel Season 4)

Hoo boy… this lady. Time for a tricky entry, indeed.

Along with Adam and the Initiative, Jasmine is the most reviled villain – if not the most reviled character – in the entire Buffyverse. The character assassinations she performs throughout Angel’s fourth season are practically unforgivable; she drags the plot into the uncanny valley far too many times; her henchman is the most embarrassing and worst villain in the entire series (don’t expect to see the Beast anywhere on this list); she brings about more groan-inducing scenes than any other villain. Yet, for all of these terrible elements, she has, arguably, the most substantial impact on the diegesis of any villain in the entire Buffyverse. She’s an endlessly frustrating villain, for, had her arc been handled in a more tasteful fashion, she could have easily cemented a spot in the top five of this list.

Jasmine is a former member of the Powers That Be who determines that the only way to save humanity from the forces of evil is to entirely remove the free will of the species. Disgraced amongst her fellow Powers, Jasmine schemes to acquire a physical body and create her own version of heaven on Earth. She thus possesses Cordelia’s body, sets the Beast free, has sex with Connor, and uses Cordelia’s pregnancy to give herself a new body. Once re-embodied, Jasmine quickly turns all of LA into an army of peace-loving, hippie zombies. She must feed upon her people in order to maintain her strength, but, hey, aren’t a few hundred people’s lives a small sacrifice in the name of world peace? Not to mention, she also performs the single most devious action in the entire franchise: inducing Angel and Connor to sing Barry Manilow (that fiend!). The only way Angel and company are able to defeat Jasmine is by exposing themselves to her blood and then revealing Jasmine’s true name to the entire world.

On face, Jasmine’s character has some intrigue: she’s about as close as the Buffyverse has ever come to facing an Antichrist figure. She’s a false prophet and devious deity who does manage to take over all of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, her archetype has been played out to death: with so many superior Satanic figures in fiction, there’s nothing new that makes Jasmine’s character stand out. Her personality is remarkably flat in spite of her interesting backstory, producing a blandness that mires the entire arc. It’s only in her very last episode that she demonstrates the berserker qualities that could have made her a more substantial threat, but Connor proceeds to kill her before she gets a chance to shine.

The bigger problems with Jasmine, though, emerge from her lollygagging throughout the first half of Angel’s fourth season. Jasmine’s possession of Cordelia forces one of our favorite characters to perform several dozen actions out of character in a manner that makes the audience feel unpleasant, including… having sex with Connor. Let’s not beat around the bush here: this is an act of rape. Not only is Connor waaaay too young for Cordelia, making the act statutory rape at minimum, but the subjection of Cordelia’s body to this act is most definitely rape. Moreover, this disgusting plot element isn't even new! Jasmine’s process of giving birth to herself is eerily reminiscent of Avengers #200, widely considered to be one of the worst, if not THE worst, comic books ever written. Jasmine also sets the Beast free, leading to the murder of thousands of people and to the most irritating pacing issue in the entire Buffyverse. She even makes the arc that much less enjoyable to watch by murdering Lilah, the only villain whose presence remotely salvaged Angel’s fourth season. Every single character who encounters Jasmine is, in some way, made worse by virtue of interacting with her. Granted, this does have the effect of making Jasmine despicable... but not in a good way.

In more capable hands, Jasmine could have been an interesting opponent: a truly Satanic figure whose manipulations made it truly difficult for Angel Investigations to take her down. Instead, we got a monster who let loose a hulking mass and destroyed everything we liked about the main cast. It’s only due to her outsized influence on the entire series that Jasmine gets as high as she does, and, even then, I’m not sure if I’m overrating her.