scuse me while I rantily fangirl

[deird1]

So, Buzzfeed released a ranked list of Buffyverse characters, and put Kennedy dead-last.

Leading to this snippet of conversation:

Mez: "Quite apart from my rabid Kennedy fangirling - the worst character? Really? Worse than Sam Finn? Than Adam? Than Scott Hope? Than Forrest? REALLY?"
A friend: "Yes. Really. I have my own disagreements with the list but that one was spot on. No I didn't expect Willow to become a nun after Tara's death but Not. With. Her."

To which my only question is... why not?

Why not her? And, if not her, then who? Should Willow go out with a Tara clone? Should she reconnect with Oz? Or what? And what, precisely, is so thoroughly objectionable about Kennedy? What is the one thing that makes her so damn unsuitable a girlfriend that people are ranking her below The Anointed One, The Beast, Rack, and Parker Abrams? Why???



The more I think about it - yeah. I do think people expected Willow to become a nun after Tara's death. I think they wanted her to never move on, and were prepared to hate her next girlfriend purely because that girlfriend wasn't Tara and it was too soon. It could have been ten years later, and people still would have cried "too soon!" and "not Tara!" and hated whoever Willow finally made a life with.

(And yes, I agree that people are allowed to dislike whatever characters they choose. But the overall dislike of Kennedy is so pervasive that I think there's something else going on here. Also – this is a rant. Logic has no place in it.)

Comments

[deird1]

then boasts to Buffy that did you see me just call that girl a maggot

I pretty much put that in the same category as Willow interrogating Jonathan by desk lamp, complete with creepy questions, and Xander and Anya playing good-cop, bad-cop, and things like that. The Scoobies seem to get very excited about roleplaying.

[rebcake]

The intention and glee might have been similar, but the fact that "that girl" commits suicide almost immediately afterward makes it seem much less role-playful in retrospect. Also, the Scoobies were interrogating evil-doers, while Chloe was supposed to be on the same team. If we'd ever seen Kennedy feel badly for her part in the tragedy, it would have gone a long way toward making her more sympathetic as a character. It makes sense that she doesn't, because she's pretty tough-minded and knows that the First is trying to get to them and refuses to give it what it wants. That's my (perhaps too-generous) interpretation of her motivations and seeming coldness. This incident is probably behind a fair amount of Kennedy hate.