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.

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.

This was a huge beef for me. I just watched The Wish yesterday, and it's striking how comfortable and not-stiff Anya is with the other kids.

That said, the fruit punch speech hit me hard. I think it would have been affecting to me no matter who said it, truthfully, but in Anya's case I think it worked because they *had* made her so distant from human emotion, and EC's delivery really drove home the element of being caught by surprise.

It seemeed to me that Joss was the only person who could write Anya. Everybody else made her a one-note wonder; Joss made you think there was an actual character there. This was frequently true of Dawn as well.

"But...Anya should be the most familiar with death. And the least familiar with Joyce. No part of this makes sense."

This is true, but the death that she was familiar with was never anyone she cared about. It was all work-related, whereas she's probably developed at least a passing affection for Joyce.

This was a huge beef for me. I just watched The Wish yesterday, and it's striking how comfortable and not-stiff Anya is with the other kids.

My theory on Anya is that she was not necessarily intended to be later inserted into Cordelia's tactless truth-teller slot for s.4, and so her characterization was retarded from s.3.

she's probably developed at least a passing affection for Joyce.

Like I said, I don't believe that, either, but the first half of the speech is about not comprehending death, period. It would make marginally more sense if she was saying something like "I knew it hurt to die, but I didn't know it hurt to lose someone, too." I could have bought that, and the point would have been the same.

What Amy said, really -- I think it would have been affecting from anyone, but having a normally stoic character break down made it more so. But the emotion comes at the expense of the character.

See - I see the first half of the speech as not comprehending natural death, death that wasn't a direct result of a bad thing the deceased did. The death she dealt was by her hand and was justified (in her mind) - it wasn't random and awful in that randomosity.

YFruitPunchSpeechMV, however.

And again, I think she gets it intellectually. It's the emotional reaction that's blindsiding her - she always acts rationally, she expects others to do the same, and here she is feeling irrational and watching others be the same.

I always interpreted it as Anya, to some extent, coming to terms with her own mortality. Just like the whole "I could have as little as 50 years left!" line to Xander in... that other episode. This fits with the circumstances of the death, too, as Anya was definitely familiar with the danger of violent death, especially in Sunnydale, but considering how often Buffy kills demons, I'd guess that was ALWAYS a risk. The speech is a moment of her realizing that, like Joyce, she could just up and die one day, no killing necessary.

Hmm. I'm gonna try analyzing the speech point-by-point from this perspective:

But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens! How we go through this!

I think she means mourning, here. As far as I know, Anya's never mourned for a person before, and she doesn't know what to do. This idea makes sense in context, as she was just asking what she was supposed to be doing.

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!

Maybe without some sort of physical evidence, Anya has issues accepting the permanence of the death. I could see that - her vengeance never struck me as the subtle variety, so my guess is any people she killed had very obvious things poking out of them, or body parts removed, or something. But more importantly, as a demon I'm pretty sure it would have taken pretty severe physical violence to kill her, and so this is just evidence of her issue understanding the idea of a natural death.

It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid!

This one is the big line that gives me my interpretation, actually. Natural death shouldn't happen. It's 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.

I actually think there's a BIG hint from the first line for Anya's motivation for this emotion. She didn't ever care much for Joyce, I'd be willing to agree, but she cares about Xander, and he's grieving pretty hardcore. When somebody I love grieves, it makes me sad as hell, even when I don't even know the dead person, and when it's a death as unforeseen and untimely as Joyce's, I definitely become conscious of my own mortality. The rest of the speech has nothing to do with Joyce, specifically, but about Anya's magnified terror of her own eventual death. Her emotion is not entirely or even mostly because Joyce is dead - it's because Joyce's death has made her own mortality so obvious.

And when she says it, our mortality is obvious, which is part of why it hits us so hard.

At least, that's my 2¢.

I'm with Gris on a lot of what he said

"But...Anya should be the most familiar with death. And the least familiar with Joyce. No part of this makes sense."

anya is the most familiar with death itself, but not the aftermath. She gloats over the bodies, then poofs away and isn't affected by what happened. In The Body, I think that she was more affected by the way that people were acting than Joyce's death itself. if you've ever been to a funeral where you didn't really know the deceased, but may be close to one of the family members, you are affected by their grief, even though you may not grieve yourself.