Am I the only Buffista who had mixed reactions to Anya's fruit punch speech? On one level, I was touched, but on another (even the first time I saw the episode), I felt manipulated, and it felt like a conscious attempt on Joss's part to capture the this-side-of-the-mortal-coil feel of Emily's Goodbye to clocks ticking speech from Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

By the by, I don't mean to disrespect The Body. Like a few other episodes of BtVS, it holds a perennial spot on my great TV list. I know I have some Anya issues, and many of them involve the writers' (what I saw as) over-reliance on the I-am-recently-human facet the character, so my reaction to that speech will never be all that pure.

If Our Town had never existed, would it still bother you? I mean, are you affected by the conscious attempt to capture a feel already captured in fiction, or just the attempt to capture that emotion?

If the former, do you know that's what he was trying to do, and if the latter, what's so special about that emotion? Or is it the conscious part?

I'm not familiar with Our Town t /heathen so I don't really have a frame of reference. But I agree that in general they relied too much on Anya's ex-demon status for a go-to on her character. True, she was a demon for a thousand years, but she was human for 20-some before that, and should be no stranger to basic human emotion. The 20th/21st century, sure.

While I have problems with Anya's depictions and her alien-ness (who's to say, though, how much you forget in a thousand years? How much does 2% of your experience count for in the end?), I think I prefer in-character to a properly created character. Intermittently displaying too much humanity when she's framed as distant and not understanding would get up my nose way more.

True, she was a demon for a thousand years, but she was human for 20-some before that, and should be no stranger to basic human emotion.

well, it's canon that she was a freak when she was human.

I've been human for 27 years, and a demon never, and Anya was always the character I most identified with.

(For reference, the full speech)

"But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why. (She puts her hand over her face, crying.)"

I didn't have any issues with it, mostly because I can relate to the feeling of not comprehending the finality of it all (whether it be life or relationships, and hello to my issues), and wondering why the hell it can't be fixed and trying to cope with others' grieving as well. I mean, I know all about those things intellectually, but I have a very hard time grokking it emotionally, and that's where I live. It is stupid, all of these endings are stupid, and they're part of the human condition, but it doesn't make them suck any less.

My problem with Anya's speech(and this is something that came up after thinking about it a bit) is that she comes off as being 4 years old emotionally. Makes her relationship with Xander just a little more squicky to me.(Your Issues May Vary)

Cindy, you're not alone. The fruit-punch speech always rang a little hollow to me.

Anya's speech was the only part of "The Body" that I found affecting. But even the first time it aired I thought, "But...Anya should be the most familiar with death. And the least familiar with Joyce. No part of this makes sense."

But then, I do mean great disrespect to "The Body."

I never liked the way they wrote Anya as more and more of a Star-Trek alien over the years, given that she seemed pretty familiar with human customs back when she was a demon. But since she was at least funny, I can understand how it happened.