#rip kenny payne you would've loved not like us

[misterbenzadrine]

♡ day 7: kenny payne ♡

oh em gee chat one week ! so we're in the final stretch starting with kennyyyy i'm gonna try not to yap too much this time since i went so overboard with devon :,(

so much like devon, kenny has been very special to me since he was introduced.

something that could be said for the whole younger cast is that the writers definitely crammed too many characters into the show halfway through and got stuck with a dozen half-baked characters BUT that doesn't mean they're not still cool, that just means the fandom gets to create personalities for them !

so kenny BEFORE his brainwashing was so cutie, his dr. scribblebottoms cosplay was precious, 100% convinced lia would've loved it if it was really her and not anthony.

one thing i notice a lot with kenny is people comparing him to hawk, and i do think he's a lot like if eli didn't have demetri. hawk gets his villain arc either way but how much would he have been able to take had he not had demetri by his side? how much sooner would he have snapped? that's kind of the answer with kenny.

obviously they aren't perfect parallels, and i personally associate kenny with demetri more, but they work bc this was probably the writers' main intention.

with demetri, eli's kind of content to let him do the talking and at least has someone who he can call a friend. in all the time we saw kenny as a new kid, lia seemed to be the only person that was nice to him (which is meant to parallel daniel obvi but still). and TECHNICALLY, since the writers hate me, demetri and eli were never romantic (i call bullshit but i can pretend to not see chemistry for this purpose) so kenny's only friend is also his crush which makes things all the more complicated in trying to talk to her and spend time with her bc he's nervous ! and flustered ! so he doesn't have that same support system that eli did (what little he had anyway) so it's a lot easier for him to do that 180 instead of the gradual one we saw with hawk. (this is also me rationalizing the speed run of kenny's arc for the sake of getting him in that cobra kai headspace by the end of the season but i digress)

i hope the writers give us more soft kenny moments, like the scenes he had in s6 so far are so cute and i love them. he deserves to be happy, petition for more scenes with shawn, would love for his parents to make one last cameo at the all-valley/sekai taikai

also his relationship with robby is so important to me and i hope we get a moment in this last part where they talk one last time (like i'm hoping for with devon/tory) THE KEENRY KIDS NEED TO HAVE ONE LAST HEART TO HEART WITH THEIR PARENTS

also the fact that he's canonically one of the best fighters (i genuinely think with more time and training, he's going to be the best fighter, even better than the core four) and he wasn't even training that long.

AGAIN LIKE DEMETRI SAID cheap shot notwithstanding, but he's definitely fast and strong. and unlike demetri, he found a way to use his intelligence AND his speed to make him a really strong and incredible fighter that could for sure put up a good fight with any of the main six.

i personally don't love his dark era, it's really good from a character standpoint. like i stated before, he lacks that support system with his dad is serving, shawn is in juvie, his mom (if i remember correctly) is busy with work and obviously under a lot of stress without her oldest son and her husband. and he's the new kid at school that got ruthlessly picked on by anthony and his friends for pretty much no reason other than them being rich little jerks. and he's kind of a wimp, he's goofy, he likes spending his free time on dungeon lord, it made a lot of sense for terry to exploit that and for kenny to turn against robby in s5.

and his relationship with terry in general is so cool like i love that each sensei kind of has a favorite (kreese and silver through more...nefarious intentions) and i love that terry's is kenny bc like i said, the main intention with a lot of these characters is meant to parallel and emulate daniel and johnny. it's always brought back to daniel and johnny, that's like the number one rule of the ck writers room. TERRY exploits KENNY the same way he exploited DANIEL but instead of doing it for revenge on kenny, he does it for revenge on DANIEL. it's so perfect. it's the perfect full-circle moment. and it almost works too. terry, personally, is so truly evil and the fact that he molds kenny (and the other ck kids) into perfect child soldiers while ruining every aspect of daniel's life so he can target daniel and his kids is mind-blowingly wicked. tyring to elevate my hater game to terry silver level fr.

like i hate terry and kreese with a PASSION but lowkey terry did what kreese couldn't, and that deserves to be applauded bc yeah he had those kids not even really questioning things (mainly bc they're background extras) other than tory and devon. and he almost succeeded incredibly but he overlooked one tiny detail, the power of trauma-bonded gay teenagers (samtory, kiaz, and hawkmetri <3) if it weren't for the power of homosexuals the core six, daniel genuinely wouldn't have managed to overcome terry's mind games. johnny, chozen, and mike pushed him, sure, but that final kick at the flagship dojo wouldn't have happened without the kids breaking in and exposing silver. (i have a love-hate relationship with season five for this exact reason like why is it so complicated and evil but so basic? could i have written it better? probably not, but i can still criticize it)

but again personally i love his fighting and his softer moments, i hope we get like an epilogue of kenny and anthony being friends (lowkey ship kenthony too)

also the writers cooked SO HARD giving him the last name payne, they ate with that one little thing !!

!! headcanons !!

bc my fav characters are all the nerds, kenny's gotten a lot of overlap already between demetri, hawk, devon, and anthony; so for more hc, defo go check those lists out !! :3

kenny was obviously really close with his brother growing up; even when shawn made fun of his dorky stuff, he still knew all about it because kenny loved it

kenny doesn't know and never entirely will but a lot (if not all) of his presents when he was little were either bought or informed by shawn, since he knew him the best (robby like kind of knows about this but obviously never tells kenny)

daniel and johnny don't interact much with kenny at first, even after the sekai taikai, but amanda, robby, devon, and hawk keep pushing for him to get more acquainted with the rest of miyagi-do/the senseis and he eventually becomes just as cared for as everyone else

speaking of, amanda has basically adopted him and tory as her pseudo-children. (daniel has sam and robby, johnny has miguel and devon, chozen has hawk, amanda has tory and kenny)

while amanda isn't as big of a presence for kenny as she is for tory (since he still has his parents and his brother), she does frequently check in on him and invite his family to various events (which means so much to kenny's mom) (amanda and kenny's mom being besties, iktr)

he gets a few good months of bonding with hawk before he leaves for college (either he's moving away or he just takes time from the dojo because he's busy) and they both unintentionally help each other work through their complicated relationships with anthony and demetri (the unmentioned understanding of someone being your worst enemy and one of the people you care about most, mhmm)

there is one moment where they're joking around about nerdy stuff and hawk just stops like "dude you're so much like demetri, this is crazy" (meaning they have a lot of the same opinions and ideas on nerd crap) and kenny is personally so offended (hawk and demetri think this is the most hilarious thing ever)

while kenny never really talks to demetri one-on-one (mainly BECAUSE he's embarrassed he was compared to him), the few moments he does get alone with him are spent with demetri unintentionally showing him why mercy and pacifism are a better technique and strategy than force and violence. (these unintentional teachings are due to demetri's constant references to his favorite comics and game characters)

SPEAKING OF DEMETRI, while kenny doesn't seek him out, demetri (likely due to him being neurodivergent) doesn't seem fazed by this and often recommends different comics and games that remind him of kenny (he does this with everyone in the dojo but it makes kenny feel more comfortable in miyagi-do)

robby maintains a normal brotherly type of relationship with kenny and still sometimes talks to shawn (idk as of RIGHT NOW what the writers are gonna have robby do post-grad but whatever he's doing, he's keeping up with the paynes)

honestly, robby is second to shawn who kenny trusts the most. as he gets older, anthony and devon make their way behind robby.

he does develop a good friendship with anthony, hawk, and demetri through their dungeon lord obsession but is a little hesitant for a bit, since he's still a little embarrassed and uncomfortable being that vulnerable and nerdy again. after a while, he notices how dorky demetri is and how anthony and hawk don't judge him for it so he slowly opens up again.

he stays surprisingly close with anthony post-grad (either trauma-bonding, similar interests, or the fact that their moms are friends) and he'd probably even call anthony his best friend once they get to their 20s

gets along with miguel and hawk primarily bc of their music taste (do i mean kendrick lamar? obviously i mean kendrick lamar. but everything else too) (just hc all my favs as kendrick lamar fans bc i can)

PERSONALLY i think he'd win the next all-valley and anthony, like demetri, would be one of the semi-finalists (hawkmetri parallels~)

final thoughts: kenny my beloved, you really should be higher on this list if it weren't for my current obsession with other characters that have more screen time than you. if i'd made this last year, you'd be number three or four bookie. you deserve the world. 10000/10 valid crashout, you have done no wrong (shhh no wrong), and i'm glad you're FINALLY getting the recognition you deserve in miyagi-do, joining the team for one day and immediately propelling them out of elimination, you are the karate king ever. i wish we could get a spin-off of you and see how your skills progress the same way we saw the older kids but alas, this journey has been a long one together and i'm nevertheless proud of where you're signing off 🫡