What was the deal with Anya and her intense fear/hatred of bunnies in BtVS?
I’ve seen most of the episodes of the series but I think I did miss a few. Is it ever explained why Anya is this way? I remember a flashback episode where she was a peasant and it seems like it had bunnies in it. Can someone help enlighten me?
I’ve never seen Buffy, so I can’t answer your question. But I wanted to welcome you to the Straight Dope. Enjoy your stay.
In the flashback episode, she loved bunnies. She bred them, raised them, and gave them to her neighbours. I don’t think we ever got told, though, why she hated them so much. Maybe she soured on them because they reminded her of her philandering boyfriend Olaf, whom she eventually turned into a troll after discovering him with the nicely racked barmaid.
That’s enough reason for me.
I’m not sure it’s ever explained outright but I do knw that the origion episode in S6 or S7 had her and her husband raising rabbits when she was a peasant however many hundreds of years ago. I’m guessing it was her transferring her bitterness from that time to whatever she could and since bunnies would remind her of time spent with her unfaithful husband, they’re just the unfortunate victims.
And a bit of trivia: Anya’s last word in the series finale before being killed was “bunnies”
…or what **Morgyn ** said. I was searching TVtome.com to see if her phobia was explained and evidently took longer than I thought in looking. Preview is your friend.
I am sorta guessing also that Anya transferred her bitterness that she had towards her husband. But it’s still a less than satisfying answer. How could she blame her husbands infidelity on rabbits? What sense would that make without some sort of direct connection?
Did Anya acquire this phobia sometime before she became a vengence demon or after? Could it be that part of becoming a vengence demon is coming to fear what you loved as a human? Or do bunnies have some sort of means of easily dispatching vengence demons?
Wait, I’ve got a better idea. Perhaps bunnies are creatures that have absolutely no desire for vengence in them, as such a vengence demon is powerless against them. Bunnies would then seem very alien and frightening to them, far beyond what any vengency demon could comprehend, making them very suspcious of bunnies. Anyone ever known of a vengeful bunny? Anyone know if other vengence demons are afraid of bunnies or other similiar ‘innocent’ creature also?
And then once Anya becomes human, the fear remains with her.
It’s been a while since I saw the episode but I think it had to do something with the Halloween episode where all of the Scoobies turned into their alter-ego Halloween identity. Zander turned into a soldier (thus his later military knowledge that for some reason stayed with him after he turned back to his normal personality) and Buffy was a Southern Belle (Damsel in distress). Willow was a ghost (No one could see her). Anya dressed up as a bunny.
You’re mixing seasons. Everything up to Anya was from one year; the next year, Willow was Joan of Arc, Oz was God, Zander was James Bond, I don’t remember what Buffy was, and (because she was told to dress up as something scary), Anya dressed up as a bunny.
Ethilrist wrote:
Sorry about that. Like I said it’s been a while… :smack:
The quality for which bunnies are most renowned is their promiscuity/fecundity. Sounds like enough of a connection to me.
Stupid trivia: in the season 4 Halloween episode (the one with Anya’s bunny outfit), Buffy went as Little Red Riding Hood.
I think Anya’s bunny phobia has always been one of those weird unexplained mysteries (like the disappearance of Xander’s skateboard) left up to the viewer’s imagination.
My personal theory is that one of her clients in the early 80’s was a woman whose boyfriend ignored her for Monty Python movies. After transporting him to the Dimension of British Humour, she had a bad run-in with the vorpal bunny.
Fun thread title, but it’s not going to attract the readership you want.
I’ll change it for you, ehhhrm?
– Uke, CS mod
Whew…
When I saw the title for this thread, I thought - how strange, what’s the chances of having two anya/bunny questions in one day. Naturally, I clicked on this new and exciting link to see what’s up. Then I saw my old post and thought, isn’t that strange, someone’s already quoting me.
Of course a few seconds later I realized that the title of my original post must had been changed. :smack: What a let down, I really thought another thread on the same topic got started and maybe someone knew something else to further enlighten the discussion.
Next time, I’ll be a little more descriptive with my post title 
Now I may be misremembering things completely, so take this with a grain of salt.
Did Anya fall into the bunny hutch or something like that? Where she’s swarmed by the bunnies and just completely freaks out? It’s something very similar to the Indiana Jones moment in Last Crusade when River Phoenix fell into the snake box.
Again, I could be completely wrong, but I’m distinctly remembering something like that. Perhaps it’s a scene from one of the comic books.
Gah.
In the audio commentary for “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” JW explains that Xander’s skateboard disappears because it’s a total bitch trying to film shots of someone riding a skateboard.
If this happened in the series, it is in one of the episodes I missed and may go a long ways to answering the question.
I didn’t even know there was a BtVS comic. Are they still making them since the series ended?
If I were writing for the series, I’d have had her discover that fact in the above spoiler at some point in her life, from a psychic or prophesy or whatever, which would be the cause of the phobia.What was the whole last sentence, BTW?
From Chosen:
[spoiler]ANDREW: I think they’re coming.
ANYA: Oh, god. I’m terrified. I didn’t think— I mean, I just figured you’d be terrified and I would be sarcastic about it.
ANDREW: Picture happy things! A lake, candy canes, bunnies…
ANYA: (suddenly confident and determined) Bunnies. Floppy… hoppy… bunnies.
She’s killed 5-10 minutes later.[/spoiler]
There was no scene in the series involving Anya falling into a bunny hutch. The closest we see to anything like that is in “Tabula Rasa” when an amnesiac Anya accidentally conjures first one, then dozens of bunnies but this is well after her bunny phobia (which apparently has no clinical name) is established. The only times Anya is seen with a live bunny is in “Tabula Rasa” and in the flashback in “Selfless” when she’s raising them. Other bunny appearances are her Halloween costume and a stuffed bunny she stumbles across in “The Gift.”