Kendra the Vampire Slayer

[shadowscast]

Having just recently re-watched "What's My Line?" parts 1 and 2 ... I've been thinking about Kendra.

I think Kendra may seriously be the least popular re-occurring character in the whole Buffyverse. Not that I've ever met anyone who has a big hate on for her—it's just that most people (including me) don't think about her much at all. I've never seen a fic in which she occurred even as a minor character. I have to keep pinching myself to remember that there was another Slayer in the line between Buffy and Faith.

Okay, sure, she was only in a few episodes—but Ethan Rayne, for instance, appeared just as seldom and yet made a much bigger impression on us all. He sure shows up in fic.

Kendra was important. She was a frikkin' Vampire Slayer! Just like Buffy and Faith! And it's funny to watch how Buffy's conflicts with Faith are kind of foreshadowed with Kendra; as the ultimate by-the-book girl, Kendra is totally the opposite of Faith, and yet like Faith she fights with Buffy over Angel (okay, for a different reason) and raises the 'but I'm supposed to be the only one!' Slayer-envy issues.

I feel like the ME writers failed Kendra. She's interesting in theory, but they failed to make her interesting in practice. Her character comes out strangely cardboard. And where the hell is she supposed to be from?

So what I'm wondering now is, has anyone adopted Kendra and written fanfic about her and made it good, and made her into a real person I can care about?

Comments

[that_mireille]

She's interesting in theory, but they failed to make her interesting in practice.

And that's the big thing, I think. I find the *idea* of Kendra interesting, but... she's just not. And she has such a brief lifespan as Slayer, too, unfortunately for her.

What I'd like to see, honestly--and I'd never thought of this until you made this post, but now I'd genuinely like to see it--is Kendra after she gets home after her first visit to Sunnydale. It has to have made an impression on her. Does it change her at all? Does she start questioning her Watcher, even a little bit? Does she start wondering whether she can be a little more like Buffy and still do her duty as she's been taught to see it? If she'd lived longer, what would she have become as a result?

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

See, now, somebody has to write that.

Only first they'd have to get a handle on her accent.

I can't remember if she shows any evidence of change when she comes to Sunnydale the second time. My friend and I are watching the season in sequence, so I should get to that ep in a few weeks.

[that_mireille]

If any, not a lot, I don't think. That doesn't mean there couldn't be some small amount of internal change, but it wasn't profound.

Then again, she didn't have that many scenes when she came back, either.

I could not write it, because I could not do her accent. Even if I forswore trying to write words as she pronounces them (which I would), I doubt I could get the cadences right.