Anya Jenkins's History
Aud
Aud was born in 860. She grew up raising rabbits and became the outsider of her village in Sjornjost, Sweden, whose inhabitants labeled her as "odd because she [spoke] her mind." By the age of twenty, Aud had fallen in love with a man named Olaf, a Viking warrior who enjoyed hunting trolls and drinking at the bar. One night, Olaf drunkenly slept with a bar maid named Rannveig and a furious Aud resorted to magic to curse him with simple vengeance spells like boils on his penis. She then used the Thornton's Hope spell to turn him into a troll and he was forced to flee from his fellow villagers, who did not believe his story.
Anyanka
The act of vengeance against her lover Olaf gained the attention of D'Hoffryn, a demon who offered to elevate Aud to the status of a vengeance demon. She became known as Anyanka and earned the title of "Patron Saint of Scorned Women." Her power source was the Symbol of Anyanka, an amulet with the power to grant dark wishes for the amusement of the pestilent deities. However, like all vengeance demons, Anyanka's interpretation of the wish expressed would often be rather loose and considerably more destructive than the wisher intended.
In 1199, Anyanka traveled to the Kastka valleys above the Urals to curse an unfaithful shepherd and was caught in the middle of a sorcerer's Ascension to the form of the demon Lohesh. She managed to escape, but was shocked by the death and carnage which claimed almost the entire village. In the 16th century, Anyanka came to know the French sorcerer Cloutier who, despite inventing a spell hated by demons, Tirer la Couverture, she thought he was cute.
She met the famous vampire Dracula in 1579 who left a positive impression on her by congratulating her on having made a man incredibly fat and was present at the Salem witch trials in 1692. In the 19th century, Anyanka became close friends with fellow vengeance demon Halfrek, who she shared a fierce rivalry with during the Crimean War. Despite their competition, Halfrek secretly admired Anyanka and was impressed when a wish she granted sparked a revolution in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1905. In 1914, Anyanka went to Chicago, Illinois to exact vengeance on a philanderer called Stewart Burns, transforming him into a grotesque demon and banishing him to a hell dimension for all eternity. At a certain point, she was friends with Gnarl.
Anya Jenkins
In 1998, Anyanka arrived in Sunnydale, California to punish teenager Xander Harris for cheating on his girlfriend Cordelia Chase with his best friend, Willow Rosenberg. Taking on the guise of Anya, she enrolled herself at Sunnydale High School and befriended Cordelia Chase in order to trick her into making a wish. Blaming the Slayer Buffy Summers for everything that was wrong in her life, Cordelia wished that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, which transported her to a grim alternate universe where the Master had risen and both Xander and Willow were vampires. Unfortunately for Anyanka, the Watcher Rupert Giles discovered what was going on and destroyed her amulet, undoing Cordelia's wish and rendering Anya powerless and mortal.
As punishment for her failure, D'Hoffryn refused to restore her powers, so Anya was forced to live out her life as a mortal and powerless human. Determined to get her powers back, Anya managed to trick Willow, who was a witch, into helping her retrieve her amulet from the alternate universe. Instead, they accidentally pulled out the vampire version of Willow, who proceeded to cause mayhem in Sunnydale. When Anya realized her mistake, she allied herself with the vampire Willow, but they were both captured by Buffy and the Scooby Gang, who forced her to send the vampire Willow back to her own reality.
Anya continued to live her life as a high school student and, despite her abhorrence of all men, she yearned to have a date for the prom. She asked Xander to the dance because she knew he had no other date and he reluctantly accepted for the same reason. After the prom, Anya began to develop feelings for Xander and asked him out again shortly before graduation. However, these plans were put on hold when he told her that the Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins, was planning to ascend to an Old One form on graduation day and massacre the town. Although she offered some advice to the Scoobies regarding the Ascension she witnessed in 1199, Anya was too afraid to help them fight the Mayor and decided to leave town. Xander refused to abandon his friends, so she left without him.
Relationship with Xander
Anya returned to Sunnydale several months later, still infatuated with Xander. She persuaded him to sleep with her in the hopes of getting him out of her system, but it didn't work and instead they began dating. Xander invited her to a Halloween party and she decided to wear a bunny suit as her scary costume, revealing her trademark fear of rabbits. When the demon Gachnar attacked the party, Anya saved Xander and his friends by going to Giles for help. Worried that Xander did not really care about her, Anya was moved when he mistakenly believed that she had been killed by Spike and proceeded to beat the vampire up.
The couple began to argue over where their relationship was going, but when a party they were attending was attacked by a poltergeist, Anya risked her life and braved painful injuries to rescue Xander from being drowned. Anya's lack of social skills soon made her unpopular with the rest of the Scooby Gang, particularly Willow, who had little trust for the ex-demon. However, Anya continued to help them for Xander's sake and was eventually accepted as an official member. Anya supported Xander during the brief period when Spike's manipulations created a rift between the Scoobies. Soon after Giles took over the Magic Box, a local occult store, Anya was hired as an employee because of her interest and talent for finances.
When Giles briefly left Sunnydale, he reluctantly left Anya in charge of the shop. During an argument, she and Willow accidentally released Olaf the troll from a crystal. It was revealed that Willow and Anya's mutual dislike stemmed from the fear of each that the other would hurt Xander. When Xander protected both women equally from Olaf, they finally came to an understanding and worked together to banish Olaf to the Land of the Trolls. During an inspection from the Watchers Council on Buffy's associates, Anya identified herself as Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, born on July 4th, 1980. She told them she grew up being called "our little patriot" due to her birth date and had a pet dachshund that died from chocking on a wiener when she was seven.
As the Scoobies prepared to confront Glorificus, Anya provided crucial advice by suggesting that they use the Dagon Sphere and Olaf's hammer in the fight. During the battle against the hellgod, Anya saved Xander from falling rubble and was knocked unconscious, while Buffy sacrificed her life saving Dawn and the world from a dimensional rift; Anya later played a part in the spell to resurrect her.
Engagement to Xander
Shortly before the battle against Glory, Xander asked Anya to marry him if they survived, which she agreed. Although, Anya began to feel frustrated when Xander refused to announce their engagement so soon after Buffy's death, but he finally did on Halloween.
On her wedding day, Anya's former victim Stewart Burns showed up and tried to manipulate Xander by showing him false visions of an unhappy future with Anya. Buffy defeated the demonic Burns, but Xander decided to call off the wedding anyway, as the vision Burns had shown him of the future reawakened his old fears at turning out like his parents. He left Anya heartbroken at the altar. Hurt and angry, Anya accepted D'Hoffryn's offer to become a vengeance demon again.
Unable to wish vengeance on Xander herself, she attempted to get Spike drunk so that he would make the wish for her. Instead, she found comfort with Spike and the two had sex in the Magic Box, unknowing they were being filmed by the Trio. Xander saw them and went there to confront, his display of disgust hurting Anya. While Spike nearly did make a vengeance wish, Anya stopped him herself.
When Tara was murdered, Anya was able to sense Willow's thirst for vengeance but was unable to stop her from being consumed by dark magic and turning evil. During this time, Anya revealed to the other Scoobies that she was a vengeance demon again, but nevertheless aided them until Xander managed to get through to Willow and restore her humanity.
Finding herself
As she continued being a vengeance demon, Anya discovered she no longer enjoyed her work. She spent a summer granting half-hearted wishes and soon gained a reputation as "soft serve" among her fellow demons. To gain her colleagues' respect, she turned a man whose girlfriend wished he were a worm into a Sluggoth demon. However, Xander convinced her to reverse the wish and D'Hoffryn punished her by removing her ability to teleport. Encouraged down a darker path by Halfrek, Anya massacred a group of fraternity boys by summoning a Grimslaw demon to rip their hearts out.
She was later horrified by what she had done and, after a battle with Buffy, begged D'Hoffryn to reverse the wish. D'Hoffryn agreed, but at the cost of a vengeance demon's soul, so Anya was willing to sacrifice herself for the boys. Instead, D'Hoffryn murdered Halfrek and turned Anya human once again so she would have to live with the pain of what she had done. D'Hoffryn also foreshadowed Anya's death by telling her 'From beneath you, it devours. Be patient. All good things in time', when she told him he should've killed her. Realizing she had always been dependent on others in life, Anya resolved to find a purpose for herself. However, when D'Hoffryn sent assassins to kill her, she sought safety at Buffy's house and re-joined the Scooby Gang.
Anya and Xander finally made peace with each other, though had several flings together. Anya admitted to Andrew that she secretly admired how determined humans could be in times of crisis. In the final battle against the First Evil, Anya was killed when one of the Harbingers of Death sliced her from behind. Her death was avenged by Andrew who killed the Bringer with his own sword.
As the school began to tremble and those in the battle running away, Xander searched and called for her, while her body laid hidden in the building. She was left in the high school as the entire town of Sunnydale was consumed by the closing Hellmouth. Later, Andrew comforted Xander by telling him that Anya died saving his life, to which Xander replied: "That's my girl. Always doing the stupid thing."
"Ghost Anya"
Soon after the new Seed of Wonder was created and magic was returned to earth, a spirit with Anya's memories and appearance started haunting Xander. The nature of Anya was initially unknown: if she was real, if she was the original Anya, why she was here; and they both often discussed about Anya and Xander's past relationship, more specifically his guilt of abandoning her. When Xander discovered she was real, but not the original Anya herself, he decided to distance from her. It was then revealed that she was D'Hoffryn's creation as a revenge plan against the Scoobies, who he blamed of having "robbing" her from him.
Resentful of Xander, she was turned into a corporeal vengeance demon, then followed D'Hoffryn in an attack against the Scoobies. Buffy pointed that D'Hoffryn only viewed both Anyas as possessions: he didn't love Anya any more he did Halfrek, having discarded and killed her just to torture Anya herself, and was actually hurt by her independence. Then, at mercy of Anya's attack, Xander said he was sorry for what he did to both Anyas; despite not regretting giving up their wedding nor distancing himself from Anya's copy. He recognized he handed the situations badly, abandoning them when they needed him the most.
She then turned against D'Hoffryn, which was decisive for the Scoobies' victory. The move cost her life, as he was able to set her on fire. At her final moments, Anya said D'Hoffryn made her and that only he could end her, during this she willed herself real. She told Xander that he was a good man, that she forgave him, and that the original Anya would forgive him, too. Her ashes were placed inside an urn, kept at the living room of Spike and Xander's shared apartment, with the inscription "Anya — She owned her life."
