Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 10 Reasons Why Buffy & Anya Aren’t Real Friends

As any fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will tell you, the Slayer certainly does have an ‘interesting’ circle of friends. Like any high school student, she has close buddies, more casual acquaintances, and an enemy or two (several characters hopped between these groups as the series progressed), but only the very closest make it into her inner sanctum: the Scooby Gang.

Of the unlikely and questionable friendships that make up this group, the relationship between Buffy and Anya is one of the most difficult to understand. With everything we know about these two conflicting personalities, how can they really be considered friends at all? Here are just some of the issues that make their relationship so complicated.

10 Anya’s A Vengeance Demon (Well, Not Always)

That’s right. Let’s get the huge, blatantly obvious, polka-dot elephant in the room out of the way first. The Anya that we know is actually only one facet of this fascinating being’s past, present and future. In some circles, she is better known as Anyanka, a deadly vengeance demon.

For the uninitiated, vengeance demons are ferocious beings who have the power to grant wishes. Not any old cutesy wish, mind you, but the bloodthirsty and vicious wishes of women who have been scorned or otherwise crossed by men. You know, generally wishes that have results more hideous and bloodier than your average Mortal Kombat fatality. As a result, yes, Anya is more than a little difficult to get close to.

9 Buffy Hunts Demons

There’s the rub, then. Buffy Summers’ entire calling in life is to seek and eradicate the many supernatural threats that plague the planet. Whether through stake, The Matrix-esque fight sequences or research in Giles’ dusty library (usually a combination of all three), she can’t stop until all of these menaces are gone. Which they never are.

With all of that in mind, cosying up with such a powerful and volatile being as Anya doesn’t make the slightest sense. Yes, it’s perfectly in keeping with Buffy and her behavior (she’s dated two different vampires, after all), but that doesn’t make it right. What kind of foundation for a friendship can these two really have?

8 They’ve Viciously Fought Before

Now, granted, there’s nothing particularly unusual about this one on the surface. After all, haven’t we all fought with our friends at one point or another? If the relationship hasn’t been tested, if you haven’t come back out on the other side stronger, you might not be all that close after all.

In Buffy, though, things are a little more serious than the time you and your BFF fell out over that person in your class that you both liked. Later in the series (Season 7’s “Selfless”), Anya returns to her demonic ways and slaughters a college fraternity. Buffy resigns herself to killing her, and the two engage in a brief but relentless battle. The killings are reversed and Anya stripped of her powers, but this event shows how fraught the relationship is between the two women.

7 She’s Really Only There Because Of Xander

As we’ve mentioned, Buffy isn’t a show that was ever afraid of complicated character arcs. In the Buffyverse, a given character can be a hated villain in one episode and a beloved ally a season or two later. A surprising amount of that happened over the course of the show’s run.

Anya and her spider demon rampage in the frat house is just one example. First she tormented our heroes, then she became a member of the Scoobies, then she was out there tearing out hearts left and right. It’s tough to keep up. Through it all, though, she ingratiated herself with the group only through Xander and his relationship with her. Is she really a friend, or is she a friend by necessity?

6 Anya Doesn’t Play Well With Others

As the viewer spends more time with Anya and she establishes herself as a core member of the group, we learn a little more about why she is the way she is. As Aud, she was shunned by the people of her hometown (other than her unfaithful partner), and never quite learned the ins and outs of social interactions.

Anya’s awkwardness and confusion are often played for laughs on the show, but they raise some serious questions about her relationship with the rest of the Scoobies. She finds it so very difficult to share with others and forge social bonds (often considering her own needs far more important than anybody else’s). Is it any wonder that Buffy isn’t as close to her as she is with other characters?

5 Buffy Doesn’t Play Well With Others Either

As we know, the role of the Slayer centers around one thing: it’s the destiny of one young woman, and one young woman alone. Only she is imbued with the strength to do it, and operates alone to that end.

Of course, that rule is subverted in all kinds of ways over the show’s run, but that’s the gist of it. In some instances, Buffy makes it clear that she’d prefer it that way, as she goes against the Scoobies’ wishes and ‘overrules’ them on several decisions that she disagrees with. Between her own stubborn ways and Anya’s, it’s tough to see how a true friendship could have blossomed.

4 Anya And Spike Shared A Moment At The Magic Box

Over the show’s seven seasons, relationships between the major players are complicated by all kinds of curveballs. A major one takes place in “Entropy,” late in Season 6: Anya and Spike share a brief moment of passion in the Magic Box, unaware that everyone caught the whole show (owing to a secret camera installed by the Trio to track Buffy).

Buffy’s relationship with Spike is complicated to say the very least, and this business just added a further layer of awkwardness to everything. Of course, we can’t forget Xander and Anya’s tumultuous relationship either. Spike and Anya found momentary solace in each other, but they really threw everyone else for six in the process.

3 They’re Just So Different

So, yes. When one of you is an ex-demon and the other is a dedicated killer of everything and anything demonic, claw-y and/or toothy (at least, that’s the theory), you’re bound to have trouble forging a close friendship. We’ve covered all of that already.

Putting this huge issue aside, though, Anya and Buffy just don’t have very much in common. They’re not similar people at all. Anya is super organised and practical (just watch her doing the accounts at the Magic Box, it’s a thing of beauty), while that sort of thing is really Buffy’s worst nightmare. If they weren’t Scoobies by circumstance (neither of them really had any say in the matter), where would they be?

2 Anya Has ‘Relapsed’ With Fatal Consequences

As Anya became closer to Xander and offered her services to the Scoobies, she gradually became a part of the inner circle. Somewhere in the back of everyone’s minds, though, there must have been alarm bells ringing. Once a vengeance demon, always a vengeance demon.

A harmless mortal for so long (well, more or less), Anya reverted to her old self after Xander left her at the altar. All of this eventually gave rise to Buffy’s resolve to kill her, after the incident at the college. How do you come back from that? It was quite a road.

1 Buffy Can’t Trust Her

Being a Slayer is, needless to say, thankless, exhausting, endless work. The big plus for Buffy is that (contrary to Slayers before her) she doesn’t have to do it all alone. She has friends and even a romantic life, even if her duties do take a tremendous toll on both.

Because of the nature of her work, she needs companions she can trust utterly. Yes, she’s had other super dangerous beings in her ranks, such as Willow’s ex-boyfriend Oz and Willow herself (you won’t like her when she’s angry), but there weren’t really contingency plans in place where Anya was concerned. Buffy was never sure where she stood with her.