updated: 03/02/2005
Everyone has their favourite Scooby: mine has to be the sometime vengeance demon Anyanka (Emma Caulfield). Anyanka was born as the early-Medieval peasant Aud but her particular talents were recognised by D’Hoffryn and she became Anyanka the vengeance demon who caused havoc in the episodes ‘The Wish’ and ‘Doppellgangland’. She retired from the vengeance demon business to settle in Sunnydale as the socially-less-than-competent human Anya. Rejected by Xander on their wedding day she returned briefly to her old profession but was tormented by guilt: she became human again in ‘Selfless’ (at the cost of Halfrek’s life and soul – more guilt) to die heroically in the final episode.
In the episode ‘Hell’s Bells’ it is Anya and Xander’s wedding day but Xander disappears. A former victim of Anyanka persuades Xander that he is really the aged Xander and gives Xander some glimpses of how his life will turn out if he goes ahead with the wedding: hence the progressive older Anya. The demon is revealed and Xander realises both that is not his future which he has seen and that he believed that in that future only because of his own unresolved issues about the wedding: at the moment when Anya believes everything is okay Xander announces that he needs more time and calls off the wedding.