Template:Infobox Buffyverse Character
Kendra is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and introduced by Marti Noxon for the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Bianca Lawson. Eight years after the character's creation, Whedon granted her the surname Young for a role-playing game and subsequent material.
Kendra is a Slayer: a young girl endowed with supernatural abilities and destined to battle evil creatures such as vampires and demons.
Born outside of the United States (the country is never identified, but implied to be somewhere in the West Indies; see "Accent" below), her people apparently know about Slayers and consider them highly important, so much so that her parents gave her up for Slayer training at a very early age when she was a potential, which is implied in the show's seventh season to be a highly irregular practice. Kendra Young did not know her own surname as she studied under her Watcher, Sam Zabuto. She is called when Buffy Summers dies at the hands of The Master in 1997; though Xander manages to revive her, Buffy's death nevertheless activates a second Slayer, causing two to exist. Kendra is fully versed in the Slayer Handbook and fighting techniques. Her appearance is the first time the Watchers' Council has been shown to identify potential Slayers ("What's My Line, Part One").
In her first year as the Slayer, Zabuto sends Kendra to Sunnydale after signs indicate that a very dark power is about to rise there. Kendra sees Angel kissing Buffy with his vampire face, and assumes that she too is a vampire. Kendra imprisons Angel in a cage to kill him by sunrise and surprises Buffy as she wakes up from a night on Angel's bed. After a physical confrontation, they learn that they are both Slayers (at the time, Spike and Drusilla had hired an organization of assassins to kill Buffy; it was thus intended to be a surprise when both Buffy and the viewer discover she is not an assassin). Rupert Giles tells them that two Slayers existing at the same time is unprecedented.
Meanwhile, Angel is taken unconscious by Willy the Snitch and sold to Spike and Drusilla. Severely weakened by sunlight, he as Drusilla's sire is to be used to return her to health. The Scooby Gang arrive to free Angel, and Kendra returns to her home country with a keepsake from Buffy.
Kendra returns in 1998 when her Watcher informs her that Acathla will open its mouth and suck the world into Hell. Zabuto gave Kendra a sword, which Kendra passes on to Buffy after surprising her as she patrols. Kendra helps the Scooby Gang protect Willow Rosenberg while she performs the Ritual of Restoration. Drusilla and her vampire lackeys arrive in the library to stop the attempt to restore Angel's soul and after a brief fight, Drusilla hypnotizes Kendra and slits her throat with her fingernail, killing her ("Becoming, Part One"). Following Kendra's death, Faith is called as a Slayer in Boston.
According to writer/producer Marti Noxon in the "What's My Line, Part 1" DVD Commentary, Kendra was never intended to have an accent. The addition of the Jamaican accent to the character was a last minute decision, and a dialect coach was brought in to work with Lawson. However, Noxon goes on to explain that the accent he coached her in was supposedly from a very specific, obscure region of Jamaica, and while the accent may have sounded authentic to that region, to the rest of the cast and crew (and the majority of the viewing audience) it simply sounded like a very bad impersonation of a common Jamaican accent.[1]
J.P. Williams states that from the perspective of the Watchers' Council, Kendra is the "practically perfect Slayer: solemn, respectful, and efficient." She has mastered the use of every weapon reliant on muscle power, such as swords, knives and axes, and although she lacks field experience, she possesses more textbook knowledge about slaying than Buffy (from her Watcher and the Slayer's Handbook - a book that Giles felt was pointless to give to Buffy). Unlike Buffy, Kendra wields her power "exactly as her superiors instruct."[2] However, Kendra's tendency to unhesitatingly follow orders means she lacks moral autonomy[3] and is easily hypnotized by Drusilla; Jana Riess argues that Kendra's death occurred because "she always obeyed without question and has not strengthened her mind and spirit by discovering her own unique path."[4] Ironically, Kendra's initial reaction to Buffy's insistence of doing things her own way instead of following orders was to retort, "No wonder you died." ("What's My Line, Part Two")
Kendra's brief display of individuality was her naming her favorite stake "Mr. Pointy". Buffy later admits that she had it bronzed.
Kendra has also appeared in Buffy expanded universe material. She has appeared in the comic Ring of Fire in 2000, and the novel The Book of Fours in 2001.