Cordelia Chase
Encyclopedia
Cordelia Chase is a fictional character
created by Joss Whedon
for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off
series Angel
. Portrayed by Charisma Carpenter
, the character appears as a series regular in the first three seasons of Buffy, before exiting the show and becoming a series regular during the first four seasons of Angel. The character made her last television appearance in 2004, appearing as a special guest star in Angel' s one hundredth episode. Cordelia also appears in apocryphal
Buffy and Angel material such as comic book
s and novel
s.
Cordelia is introduced in "Welcome to the Hellmouth
" as one of Sunnydale High's popular cheerleaders, attending school alongside vampire slayer Buffy Summers
. Through her interactions with Buffy and her friends, she comes to accept the existence of supernatural forces and helps Buffy fight against them. In the television series Angel, Cordelia joins Angel, a heroic vampire with a soul, in forming a detective agency dedicated to stopping supernatural forces and helping the helpless. After Cordelia acquires the ability to see visions of those in need, she becomes a more compassionate and heroic character. In the middle of the third season, she becomes a love interest of the main protagonist Angel. In the fourth season of Angel, she appears to take on a villainous role before it is revealed that she is possessed by a malevolent deity; this storyline eventually leads to her death and subsequent exit from the series. The character makes further canonical
appearances in the comic books Buffy Season Eight
and Angel: After the Fall
, in a dream flashback
and as a spirit guide
.
Created as a foil
for Buffy' s titular heroine, Cordelia was initially characterized as "shallow", "vain" and "self-centered", and was used in the series to create conflict for the other characters. The character went through changes as she gradually redeemed herself throughout the course of Buffy and Angel, and has received attention in academic texts related to gender studies
and social status
.
". Introduced as a potential friend for Sunnydale High's newest student, Buffy Summers
(Sarah Michelle Gellar
), Cordelia reveals her true colors by cruelly mocking Willow
(Alyson Hannigan
), whom Buffy befriends instead. Ignorant of the supernatural, Cordelia shows up regularly throughout the first season of Buffy to insult and ridicule the other characters. She plays a larger role in the episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight
", in which she falls victim to a social outcast who wants revenge on popular students for ignoring her so much that she turned invisible. In the season finale, Cordelia helps Buffy and her friends battle vampires, finally coming to terms with the existence of supernatural forces. In season two, Cordelia becomes a more active ally to the "Scooby Gang" and begins a romantic relationship with Xander Harris
(Nicholas Brendon
). In "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", dating someone of Xander's social status causes Cordelia to become ostracised from her popular peers and she reluctantly breaks up with him. However, when Xander performs a love spell to pay her back for hurting him, Cordelia realises how much he cares about her and takes him back, rejecting her superficial friends in the process. In season three's "Lovers Walk
", Cordelia suffers heartbreak when Xander cheats on her with Willow, which ends their relationship. By the season three episode "The Wish", Cordelia slips back into her antagonistic persona from the first season, disassociating herself from the Scooby Gang altogether. In the episode "The Prom", she reveals that her family's wealth has been seized for tax fraud. Cordelia later attempts an unsuccessful relationship with Wesley
(Alexis Denisof
) and makes peace with Xander at the prom
. In the season three finale, she rallies alongside Buffy and her friends at graduation against the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener
), where Cordelia slays her first vampire.
After three seasons on Buffy, Cordelia moved over to star in Angel, a spin-off series focusing on Buffy's vampire ex-lover Angel (David Boreanaz
). The first season of Angel sees Cordelia move to Los Angeles
, in the hopes of escaping her new-found poverty by becoming an actress. After Angel saves her life in the series pilot, Cordelia helps him found the supernatural detective agency Angel Investigations
, working in an administrative position. She also becomes close to half-demon co-worker Doyle
(Glenn Quinn
), but their budding romance is ended by his death nine episodes into the series. Before dying in the episode "Hero", Doyle passes his ability to see people in distress
over to Cordelia when he kisses her. Although she initially views the visions as a curse, in the season one finale, a demon causes Cordelia's visions to overwhelm her—causing her to experience worldwide pain—and upon her recovery she vows to help those in need. In season two's "Reunion", Cordelia and the other staff at Angel Investigations are fired by Angel, who is becoming increasingly obsessed with bringing down the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart
. Cordelia joins Wesley and Charles Gunn
(J. August Richards
) in re-forming the agency on their own. Angel and Cordelia eventually reconcile in the episode "Epiphany". As her acting career continues to flounder, Cordelia is sucked into and made princess of a medieval hell dimension called Pylea
in the season two episode "Over the Rainbow". When presented with the opportunity to pass her visions over to a champion named the Groosalugg
(Mark Lutz
), Cordelia refuses and returns to L.A. with her friends in the season two finale.
In season three's "Birthday", Cordelia learns from the demon Skip (David Denman
) that her visions are slowly killing her because human beings are not strong enough to control them. To save her life, Cordelia accepts Skip's offer to alter history so that she never met Angel in L.A., instead landing her big break as an actress. However, even in this alternate timeline, Cordelia feels compelled to help others and eventually crosses paths with Angel again, who received the visions in her place and is now insane. Unable to let her friend suffer, Cordelia has Skip return the timeline to normal, and agrees to become half-demon, with new powers, in order to harbor the visions safely. This season also sees Angel become a father, with Cordelia stepping in to mother the infant Connor until he is kidnapped into a hell dimension in the episode "Sleep Tight", only to emerge as a disturbed teenager (Vincent Kartheiser
) in "The Price". In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", Angel realizes he has romantic feelings for Cordelia, but is prevented from voicing them by the return of Groosalugg. Cordelia dates Groosalugg for the remainder of the season, but Groo notices she loves Angel instead and decides to leave. In the season finale, Cordelia arranges to meet Angel to confess her feelings, but is prevented from doing so by Skip, who informs her that she has become a higher being. Cordelia accepts her duty, and leaves Earth for another dimension. In season four, Cordelia feels trapped in her position as a higher being, and so in the episode "The House Always Wins" she returns to Earth in an amnesiac state. In "Spin the Bottle", her memories are returned via a spell, along with a vision of a mysterious Beast (Vladimir Kulich
). Afterward, she admits to Angel the feelings she once had for him. As L.A. succumbs to the apocalypse in season four's "Apocalypse, Nowish", Cordelia begins to behave out-of-character; she seduces Connor, murders Lilah
(Stephanie Romanov
) in the episode "Calvary", commands the Beast in "Salvage", and magically battles former friend Willow to keep Angel from his soul in the episode "Orpheus". In season four's "Players", the team realize that the now pregnant Cordelia is possessed, so Cordelia takes the unstable Connor on the run with her so they may give birth to their supernatural offspring, Jasmine (Gina Torres
). In "Inside Out", Skip explains that Jasmine is his master, and a higher being who possessed Cordelia before her returning to Earth, manipulating events to be born in a new body of her own.
Cordelia falls into a post-natal coma
for the remainder of season four. Following an eleven-episode absence, Cordelia returns to Angel in season five, in the 100th episode "You're Welcome
". Having apparently awoken from her coma, Cordelia reunites with Angel Investigations, who she discovers have taken over Wolfram & Hart since their defeat of Jasmine. She chastises Angel for accepting W&H's "deal with the devil
", and reminds him of his true mission and higher calling. Together, they face and defeat their old enemy Lindsey McDonald
(Christian Kane
), who had been impersonating Doyle in an attempt to destroy Angel. In the episode's closing moments, Cordelia reiterates to Angel that she loves him and kisses him, shortly before he receives a phone call reporting that Cordelia died that morning. When Angel turns around, Cordelia is gone. It is later revealed that this encounter—the Powers That Be repaying their debt to Cordelia—allowed Cordelia to pass one last vision over to Angel, giving him the knowledge he needs to bring down the Circle of the Black Thorn.
Between 2001 and 2004, Joss Whedon and Jeph Loeb
developed a 4-minute pilot episode for Buffy the Animated Series
, which was set during the show's first season. Had the series been picked up by a network, it would have featured Cordelia (voiced by Charisma Carpenter) in more high-school adventures. Following a 2008 leak
of the pilot to YouTube
, Loeb expressed some hope that the series may be resurrected in some form.
s and novels based on the Buffy and Angel television series. The Cordelia Collection, Vol. 1 by Nancy Krulik is a novelization
of the Buffy episodes "Out of Mind, Out of Sight
", "Some Assembly Required" and "Homecoming". These episodes tell specific incidents in which Cordelia becomes targeted: by a scorned classmate, to become a zombie
's bride and by hunters
in a case of mistaken identity. She appears in numerous Angel novels as a member of Angel Investigations, but some feature Cordelia more prominently; in Not Forgotten
she uncovers exploitation of child immigrants, while in Haunted
she appears as a contestant on a supernatural-themed reality television
show when she has a vision about another applicant. Cordelia appears in the majority of Angel comics, published by Dark Horse Comics
during 2000–2002 and set between episodes of the television series. She appears less frequently in those by IDW Publishing
between 2005 and 2011, mainly in stories set in and after the fifth season. Cordelia typically plays a minimal role in the Dark Horse Angel comics. However, issue seventeen was a "Cordelia Special", in which demonic items are stashed in Cordelia's apartment. In the Dark Horse Presents
story "Lovely dark and deep", Cordelia lands a role as the star of a demonic movie. Cordelia appears in the IDW Publishing comic mini-series Angel: The Curse
, set after season five, in flashback scenes. She subsequently reappears in the mini-series Angel: Old Friends
, which sees Angel battle evil clones of his friends. Cordelia claims to be the genuine article, having returned from the dead, but Angel is unconvinced and kills her; his suspicions prove correct when her body immediately disintegrates like the other clones.
Angel: After the Fall
, a canonical comic book continuation of the television series plotted by Joss Whedon and written by Brian Lynch, features the characters of Angel and all of Los Angeles condemned to Hell after the events of the series finale "Not Fade Away". Cordelia does not appear until the twelfth issue, in which she acts as a guide to Angel in his dying moments; it is revealed she serves in some capacity as a higher power now. The character departs in issue thirteen. Cordelia also appears in a dream sequence within the twentieth issue of Buffys canonical continuation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
, titled "After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back!
". Buffy dreams of when she was in her first year at Sunnydale High; Cordelia's physical appearance is based on the art style of Loeb and Whedon's unproduced Buffy animated series.
, as played by Kristy Swanson
, had grown more mature and open-minded. Buffy now identified with the social outcasts, such as Willow and Xander. As a result, Cordelia Chase was created to embody the traits of that shallower Buffy. Despite portraying a shallow, valley girl
stock character
, actress Charisma Carpenter felt that Cordelia in early seasons was not "one-dimensional", nor was she "as superficial as people thought". At the same time, Carpenter was critical of her frequent role as the damsel in distress
. Angel co-creator and executive producer
David Greenwalt
describes Cordelia in her Buffy years as "a somewhat shallow, somewhat vain, somewhat self-centered but [a] lively and honest character who spoke her mind".
Charisma Carpenter had originally planned to read for the role of Buffy, but was late for her audition and instead tried out for Cordelia. Carpenter, who had dressed casually for the role of Buffy—who she believed "could really be herself"—felt unprepared to read for Cordelia because she "was definitely a character to dress for". Although she had only fifteen minutes to prepare for the character, the producers were "really responsive" to Carpenter's audition, and she left feeling confident she had got the part. After Carpenter's audition, actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, who had been offered the role of Cordelia before Carpenter, was asked to come back and audition for the part of Buffy. Bianca Lawson
originally won the role of Cordelia Chase, but turned it down due to other contractual obligations. Lawson would later be cast as vampire slayer Kendra in the show's second season. Carpenter, proud of her own character's growth across the two series, did not envy Gellar for winning the role of Buffy over her.
, such as "Praising Cordelia: Aggression and Adaptation Among Adolescent Girls", or Sex and the Slayer. In the latter, Dr. Lorna Jowett of the University of Northampton describes Cordelia's initial place in the series where "At first glance, Cordelia seems to have the 'normal life' Buffy often longs for. She is a familiar character from the teen drama: popular, a cheerleader, the center of cliques (power as status). Furthermore, Cordelia's exceptionalism is based on 'real' material privilege rather than supernatural power. She represents in more exaggerated form the unnamed white
middle-class
heterosexual
qualities (read privilege) of the other characters (to the point that it becomes visible)." Elizabeth Rambo notes how Cordelia's status is highlighted by her nickname, "Queen C", and Harmony's remark to her, "Cordy, you reign." Cordelia functions recognizably as the typical female victim of horror, often screaming and running away, and this makes her a perfect contrast for other female characters."
"Praising Cordelia" argues that both Buffy and Cordelia are representations of assertive and competitive young women, who "represent two kinds of aggressive adolescent girls". The article focuses on the competitive relationship between the characters. Buffy's initial friendship with Cordelia is compromised once Cordelia sees the attractive, socially competent Buffy as a threat to her. Even after Cordelia joins the Scooby Gang and becomes Buffy's friend, theirs is not a friendship of "mutual support, warmth and intimacy" but rather one of "mutual antipathy". The authors opine that Cordelia, unlike Buffy, is a "representation of the archetypal 'feminine type'", one who conforms to the "pervasive stereotypes of femininity while, at the same time, dominating the other girls in the school" and commanding the attention of the boys. Describing her character arc in Buffy, Mary Alice Money views Cordelia as one of many transformed or redeemed Buffy characters, one who "reveals a previously unexpected vulnerability that nullifies some of their less attractive traits." Jowett argues that Cordelia's assimilation within the main group is due largely to her relationship with main character Xander, and she is rendered sympathetic to the audience once they witness her rebuff the peer pressure
from her old friends. She is further endeared to the viewer when Xander betrays her, because the scenes showing her pain are shown only to the viewer. After Cordelia is cheated on by Xander with Willow she chooses not to go back to him, and instead retains her autonomy.
Others such as Susanne Kord and Elisabeth Krimer note how Cordelia is also a subversive representation of feminine stereotypes, describing "Although superficially, Cordelia conforms to the stereotype of the insensitive bitch", what she actually does is "offers her viewers the clandestine pleasures of female self-assertion". One of Cordelia's strongest traits, her honesty, is also highlighted in "Earshot", where Buffy temporarily develops telepathic
powers and can hear the thoughts of her friends, who avoid her to hide these thoughts. For Cordelia however, "her thought processes and actual utterances are completely identical" and because of this she embodies an "antithesis of female self-sacrifice" in these years but also "the opposite of the kind of hypocrisy that is typically attributed to women". Writer Jennifer Crusie
interprets this as Cordelia's "lack of depth" becoming "her strength". She does not mean to argue that Cordelia is stupid however, pointing out "Cordy's solipsism
could easily be mistaken for stupidity, but it comes coupled with a keen intelligence and a fixity of purpose that makes her almost invincible." Jowett feels Cordelia's confidence is based in her wealth. Despite becoming more sympathetic as the series progressed, "bitchiness enhances Cordelia's comic appeal", as it offers viewers an opportunity to relish in its honest truth-telling.
In early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia was often used both as comic relief
and occasionally for the damsel in distress plot device
, which would require series' heroine Buffy to save her. Any concerns that she was simply one-dimensional were alleviated for the actress when writers developed the character through her relationships with Xander and later Wesley, which led Carpenter to become more convinced of her potential. In an article about the psychology of characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven C. Schlozman writes about how "Cordelia is wealthy and, at first glance, superficial, appearing to care most about her own popularity. However, as the show progresses, we learn that her mother suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome
and her father was prosecuted for income tax evasion
. She is a reluctant participant, baffled at her own loyal feelings and bewildered at her attraction to the unpopular Xander." He goes on to describe how Cordelia, and "all the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are particularly compelling for their depictions of important adolescent themes."
Discussing Cordelia's relationship with Xander, Carpenter says, "A lot of Cordy's conflict, and a lot of who she is, comes out around Xander. Because she is in love with him in spite of herself, or in spite of him. I have my best moments with [Nicholas Brendon]." However, her character's growing involvement with Buffy and her friends caused the actress some concern; "I wasn't sure how I felt about it, because I didn't want to lose my edge. I didn't want her to be nice; I didn't want her to change because that's who she is." Carpenter's challenge was to find a balance between the good and bad sides of Cordelia, and she explains, "That's why I enjoy playing her so much. She's got to be somewhat tolerable or why would they hang out with her? But I [try] not to lose her edge, her honesty." Carpenter claims that Cordelia's "rough edges" made for difficult experiences with fans, who expected her to be snobby like her character. Charisma continually pleaded to get to slay a vampire, which the writers let her do in her final Buffy appearance, "Graduation Day, Part Two".
Over the course of her appearances in Angel, Cordelia would develop enormously as a character. Describing this evolution, Carpenter comments, "When I first started playing Cordelia, she wasn't nice. She has really deepened and has a stronger sense of responsibility. She's a team player, which was not the case in the beginning." Carpenter cherishes what playing a multi-faceted character like Cordelia meant for her as an actress, describing "The road Cordelia has travelled, the journey she has taken up to now has been such a joy to play as an actress, because there have been so many chances to do so many different emotions. Heroic, vulnerable, just angry, possessed, funny - I get to be all those different things rolled into one. Getting this role, in hindsight... God I made a good decision, or they did." Cultural critic Jennifer Crusie points out how Cordelia was initially perfect for the transition to "selfish, superficial Los Angeles", which turned out to be her "trial by fire".
Executive producer David Greenwalt was very keen to acquire the character of Cordelia for the spin-off series, commenting, "I desperately wanted her to come to Angel because Angel being dark and broody, we need a big bright smile." At the same time, Whedon felt her presence was sorely missed in the fourth season of Buffy where "All of our characters got to the point where they were loving and hugging, and it was sort of like, where's Cordelia?", leading him to introduce Spike (James Marsters
) to the cast to accommodate her absence. Kelly A. Manners describes Cordelia as a "rich gal whose family ended up losing everything to the IRS. So in episode one of Angel, Cordelia showed up in LA trying to start a career as an actress because her family was in jail, actually." Crusie states that in mourning for Doyle Cordelia also begins "finding within herself a new level of humanity".
Greenwalt discusses how Cordelia "is sort of forced to become a deeper character" when she starts to receive the visions of the suffering and helpless, "She's sort of living with one foot in the world of 'I want to be an actress' and with another foot in the world of 'I want to save and help people, and I have a deeper purpose and mission.'" Greenwalt felt that this development allowed Cordelia to develop from a "vainglorious high schooler to someone who's almost like a superhero"; this also provided Carpenter with the opportunity to stretch her potential as an actress. From the tenth episode, "Parting Gifts", Cordelia begins to actively function as a supernatural character in the series while the introduction of Wesley also contributes some added comic relief to the series. It is from this episode Cordelia is also forced to mature as she mourns the death of Doyle, whose visions serve as a painful reminder of him. The first season finale saw Cordelia's visions inflict all the suffering of the human world upon her, and to effectively act this, Carpenter's acting coach showed her pictures of real human pain as motivation. The scene took over eight hours to film, and Carpenter was relieved when it was over. The experience saw Cordelia further resolve to help those in need, stating "I saw the world and there's so much pain. We have to help them." Carpenter explains, "Through the suffering of the world, and through her own experiences, she discovers what's important in life."
Carpenter pleaded to the producers to let her cut her hair in the second season of Angel, but they were dissatisfied with the darker tone and cut which created a "dark edge of Cordelia" which wasn't as "warm and effervescent as she usually is", so for the third season they wanted her to "go shorter and blonder". Angels third season demonstrates Cordelia's development into a fully-fledged heroine. The episode "Birthday" saw her being offered the chance to live a life where she never met Angel, but her inner desire to help others sees her sacrifice this life and her humanity to become a half-demon who can better withstand the visions she carries. In "Billy", Cordelia begins to train alongside Angel to become a better fighter and learns quickly. Carpenter began to train extensively with the show's stunt co-ordinators both to learn how to fight and to handle weaponry. In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", both Angel and Lorne remark on what a fine woman Cordelia has finally become, with Cordelia noting she is more like a superhero than she ever expected to be growing up in Sunnydale. Also in this episode, she and Angel both realize they have fallen for one another, but their love goes unconsummated. Critically, Jennifer Crusie considers Cordelia's ascension to the heavens at the end of season three to be the "point that the Mutant Enemy Productions
writers evidently lost their minds". She goes on to describe how Cordelia's compliance with Skip seems entirely out of character. Jes Battis also argues that a paradox is created when "the character who embraces her privilege (Cordelia) gets to become a higher being and exit Angel, and as an overwhelmingly positive force" where later Fred
(Amy Acker
), "the character who is conflicted about her privilege" in season five "ends up being possessed by a millennia-old demon".
Angel season four played with audience's expectations of the now heroic Cordelia by revealing her to be the season's Big Bad
; it was later established that Cordelia was possessed by a manipulative deity called Jasmine. The storyline was controversial with fans, and Carpenter has admitted hating how a possessed Cordelia seduced Angel's teenage son. Carpenter has said, "I'm in denial about that whole storyline. It was creepy." However, director Terrence O'Hara
comments that Carpenter had "a lot of fun" with playing a manipulative Cordelia in the episode "Orpheus" because she enjoyed coming up with Cordelia's new "schizophrenic
madwoman" characterization. The episode "Inside Out" saw the height of this inversion of Cordelia's character, where she is seen urging Connor to murder an innocent girl in order to expedite the birth of the child they conceived together. In an effort to stop Connor, the Powers That Be send the spirit of Connor's mother Darla (Julie Benz
) to convince him not to go through with it. The episode sees Carpenter dressed in black, while Benz appears in heavenly white as she becomes the voice of reason and morality. Steven S. DeKnight
, who wrote and directed the episode, felt this was a brilliant role-reversal for both actresses as Carpenter is accustomed to playing the benevolent Cordelia where Darla is normally seen as a sinister vampire. Much of season four's storyline had to be adjusted due to Carpenter's real-life pregnancy; after Cordelia gives birth to Jasmine in the episode "Inside Out" she is left in a coma for the remainder of the fourth season. Crusie discusses what she felt were the flaws in the execution of the fourth season, "It's that she betrays the man she trusts above all others and who trusts her absolutely; it's that she seduces a boy she once diapered; it's that she dresses like a drag queen and talks like a Dynasty
reject. It's that she's not Cordy, and what might have been fun to watch had we been let into the secret before the Beastmaster seduced Connor becomes the extended rape and death of a much-beloved character."
Matt Hills and Rebecca Williams also discuss the treatment of Cordelia (and Darla) in "Angels Monstrous Mothers and Vampires with Soul: Investigating the Abject in 'Television Horror'", from Reading Angel: The TV Spin-off With a Soul
by Stacey Abbot. They see the send-offs of Cordelia, Fred and other characters as part of a pattern of highly gendered "elaborated abjection" seen in Angel. They also see Cordelia's possession in season four as part of a recurring pattern: "More so than other characters in [Buffy] and Angel, Cordelia has suffered or been threatened with bodily invasion and rape, either symbolically or literally" and recounts the demon impregnation in "Expecting", and similarly in "Epiphany", where she develops a gestating demon in her head and then told she must mate with the Groosalugg in "Through the Looking Glass". Cordelia even remarks on this, as Hills and Williams quote her as she remarks on her "status as a violated and devalued character"; Cordelia states, "If you ever figure out how to get us out of here, I want you to find me a dimension where some demon doesn't want to impregnate me with his spawn!" They liken the horror motif in these examples, and in "Inside Out", to what Barbara Creed
called the 'monstrous womb' in her book The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Jes Battis also comments how, in comparison with the Fred-Illyria season five storyline, Cordelia's storyline is not as positive as Fred's rebirth, because Fred got to "'live on' through Illyria, whereas Cordelia is taken right out of the show and receives no interesting blue-haired reincarnation". Continuing, they say that in fact, there is no meaningful connection between the "real" Cordelia and Jasmine, as the Cordelia who did those bad things is killed the moment Jasmine is, "and the 'true' Cordy wakes up from her coma". Further illustrating the comparisons, "Fred/Illyria become a joined mother/daughter subjectivity, a dual being whose constituent essences are inseparable; Cordelia is never so intimately connected with her evil child and is remembered as the healthy, vibrant Cordy that everyone knew." Pointing out symbolic parallels in the subtexts of these gestations, Battis notes "Cordelia, a vocal advocate of her own privilege, creates a fully formed supernatural being, Jasmine, who attempts (shockingly) to control the world. Fred, on the other hand, who internalizes her own privilege and cannot express it except in terms of insecurity and awkwardness, has her body devoured from the inside by the demon Illyria."
For Angel' s fifth season, as with Buffy' s fourth, Spike steps in to replace Cordelia as a source of comedic dialogue within the series. It is also noted by critics that, in the fifth season, "it doesn't take long for Illyria to become a version of Cordelia, giving everyone the cold and honest truth whether they want it or not". Concerning Cordelia's last appearance in Angels fifth and final season, Joss Whedon says he used the 100th episode to reinforce the "mission statement" of the show, as well as assess where the characters are now compared to how they began. Whedon explains this episode presents an ideal opportunity to—through Cordelia, who was "there at the beginning"—ask of Angel, "Where are you now? Where were you when you started and where are you now and how do you feel about that?" The return to the show's "original concerns" is echoed by the flashback to Doyle's first season advertisement; Sara Upstone points out aerial images of Los Angeles
reappear at the same time Cordelia tells Angel "You forgot who you are," bringing back the show's link to the city. Buffy Summers was originally intended to appear in the 100th episode to get Angel 'back on track', but Sarah Michelle Gellar had other obligations. Writer/director David Fury
explains that since "we couldn't get Sarah" the episode was instead written for Cordelia. He adds, "This turned out to be a Godsend because Charisma was fantastic." In the original script, Fury wrote a conversation between Wesley and Angel while driving to the hospital that set up Cordelia as a possible vegetable. The scene was never shot because "the shock of seeing her up and around after a 9-month coma was enough. We just didn't want to tip it too soon," says Fury.
s. Carpenter earned back-to-back nominations in 2000 and 2001 for Best Genre TV Supporting Actress and Best Actress on Television, respectively. The actress did not receive any nominations in 2002, but again obtained two back-to-back nominations in 2003 and 2004 for Best Actress in a Television Series and Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series, respectively.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
created by Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
series Angel
Angel (TV series)
Angel is an American television series, a spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffys creator, Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt, and first aired on October 5, 1999...
. Portrayed by Charisma Carpenter
Charisma Carpenter
Charisma Lee Carpenter is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Cordelia Chase in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, for which she was nominated for four Saturn Awards. In her most recent film she starred opposite Sylvester Stallone and Jason...
, the character appears as a series regular in the first three seasons of Buffy, before exiting the show and becoming a series regular during the first four seasons of Angel. The character made her last television appearance in 2004, appearing as a special guest star in Angel
Apocrypha (fiction)
In the context of fiction, apocrypha includes those fictional stories that do not belong within a fictional universe's canon, yet still have some authority relating to that fictional universe...
Buffy and Angel material such as comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s.
Cordelia is introduced in "Welcome to the Hellmouth
Welcome to the Hellmouth
"Welcome to the Hellmouth" is the series premiere of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This episode and "The Harvest" were originally aired as a two-part series premiere on The WB Television Network...
" as one of Sunnydale High's popular cheerleaders, attending school alongside vampire slayer Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
. Through her interactions with Buffy and her friends, she comes to accept the existence of supernatural forces and helps Buffy fight against them. In the television series Angel, Cordelia joins Angel, a heroic vampire with a soul, in forming a detective agency dedicated to stopping supernatural forces and helping the helpless. After Cordelia acquires the ability to see visions of those in need, she becomes a more compassionate and heroic character. In the middle of the third season, she becomes a love interest of the main protagonist Angel. In the fourth season of Angel, she appears to take on a villainous role before it is revealed that she is possessed by a malevolent deity; this storyline eventually leads to her death and subsequent exit from the series. The character makes further canonical
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
appearances in the comic books Buffy Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series serves as a canonical continuation of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and follows the events of that show's final televised season. It is produced by Joss Whedon, who wrote the...
and Angel: After the Fall
Angel: After the Fall
Angel: After the Fall is a comic book published by IDW Publishing. Written by Brian Lynch and plotted with Joss Whedon, the series is a canonical continuation of the Angel television series, and follows the events of that show's final televised season...
, in a dream flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
and as a spirit guide
Spirit guide
"Spirit guide" is a term used by the Western tradition of Spiritualist Churches, mediums, and psychics to describe an entity that remains a disincarnate spirit in order to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being....
.
Created as a foil
Foil (literature)
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
for Buffy
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
and social status
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
.
Television
Cordelia Chase first appears in the premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, titled "Welcome to the HellmouthWelcome to the Hellmouth
"Welcome to the Hellmouth" is the series premiere of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This episode and "The Harvest" were originally aired as a two-part series premiere on The WB Television Network...
". Introduced as a potential friend for Sunnydale High's newest student, Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
(Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
), Cordelia reveals her true colors by cruelly mocking Willow
Willow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan...
(Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Lee Hannigan is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg in the cult classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films, and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Hannigan was born in...
), whom Buffy befriends instead. Ignorant of the supernatural, Cordelia shows up regularly throughout the first season of Buffy to insult and ridicule the other characters. She plays a larger role in the episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight
Out of Mind, Out of Sight
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight", also known as "Invisible Girl", is the 11th episode of season one of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer....
", in which she falls victim to a social outcast who wants revenge on popular students for ignoring her so much that she turned invisible. In the season finale, Cordelia helps Buffy and her friends battle vampires, finally coming to terms with the existence of supernatural forces. In season two, Cordelia becomes a more active ally to the "Scooby Gang" and begins a romantic relationship with Xander Harris
Xander Harris
Alexander LaVelle "Xander" Harris is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as in numerous items in the series Expanded Universe, such as comic books, tie-in novels and video games...
(Nicholas Brendon
Nicholas Brendon
Nicholas Brendon , is an actor best known for his character Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:...
). In "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", dating someone of Xander's social status causes Cordelia to become ostracised from her popular peers and she reluctantly breaks up with him. However, when Xander performs a love spell to pay her back for hurting him, Cordelia realises how much he cares about her and takes him back, rejecting her superficial friends in the process. In season three's "Lovers Walk
Lovers Walk
"Lovers Walk" is episode 8 of season 3 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing in a Series.- Plot synopsis :...
", Cordelia suffers heartbreak when Xander cheats on her with Willow, which ends their relationship. By the season three episode "The Wish", Cordelia slips back into her antagonistic persona from the first season, disassociating herself from the Scooby Gang altogether. In the episode "The Prom", she reveals that her family's wealth has been seized for tax fraud. Cordelia later attempts an unsuccessful relationship with Wesley
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel...
(Alexis Denisof
Alexis Denisof
Alexis Denisof is an American actor who is known for playing Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel.-Early life:...
) and makes peace with Xander at the prom
Prom
In the United States and Canada, a prom, short for promenade, is a formal dance, or gathering of high school students. It is typically held near the end of the senior year. It figures greatly in popular culture and is a major event among high school students...
. In the season three finale, she rallies alongside Buffy and her friends at graduation against the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener
Harry Groener
Harry Groener is a German-born American actor and dancer, perhaps best known for playing Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:...
), where Cordelia slays her first vampire.
After three seasons on Buffy, Cordelia moved over to star in Angel, a spin-off series focusing on Buffy's vampire ex-lover Angel (David Boreanaz
David Boreanaz
David Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director, known for his role as Angel on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and as Special Agent Seeley Booth on the television crime drama Bones....
). The first season of Angel sees Cordelia move to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, in the hopes of escaping her new-found poverty by becoming an actress. After Angel saves her life in the series pilot, Cordelia helps him found the supernatural detective agency Angel Investigations
Angel Investigations
Angel Investigations is a fictional detective agency run by the title character Angel previously on the WB television series Angel . It is sometimes abbreviated as AI...
, working in an administrative position. She also becomes close to half-demon co-worker Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle
Allen Francis Doyle is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television series, Angel. The character was portrayed by Glenn Quinn.-Character history:Doyle was born to a human mother and a Brachen demon father...
(Glenn Quinn
Glenn Quinn
Glenn Martin Christopher Francis Quinn was an Irish actor in television and film, known for playing Mark Healy in the American sitcom Roseanne, and Doyle, a half-demon, on the 1999–2004 television series Angel, a spin-off series of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.-Early life:Quinn...
), but their budding romance is ended by his death nine episodes into the series. Before dying in the episode "Hero", Doyle passes his ability to see people in distress
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
over to Cordelia when he kisses her. Although she initially views the visions as a curse, in the season one finale, a demon causes Cordelia's visions to overwhelm her—causing her to experience worldwide pain—and upon her recovery she vows to help those in need. In season two's "Reunion", Cordelia and the other staff at Angel Investigations are fired by Angel, who is becoming increasingly obsessed with bringing down the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart
Wolfram & Hart − Attorneys at Law is a fictional international, and interdimensional law firm featured in the television series Angel, as well as other extended materials in Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.-Fictional history:...
. Cordelia joins Wesley and Charles Gunn
Charles Gunn
Charles Gunn is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series, Angel. The character is portrayed by J. August Richards, and was named by Whedon after filmmaker James Gunn and actor Sean Gunn, both of whom had worked with Whedon...
(J. August Richards
J. August Richards
Jaime Augusto Richards III is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of vampire hunter Charles Gunn on the WB cult television series Angel.-Early life and education:...
) in re-forming the agency on their own. Angel and Cordelia eventually reconcile in the episode "Epiphany". As her acting career continues to flounder, Cordelia is sucked into and made princess of a medieval hell dimension called Pylea
Pylea
In the fictional universe established by the television series Angel, Pylea is a world in an alternate dimension where demons are the dominant life form and humans are treated as animals to be used as beasts of burden or even food...
in the season two episode "Over the Rainbow". When presented with the opportunity to pass her visions over to a champion named the Groosalugg
Groosalugg
The Groosalugg, nicknamed Groo, is a fictional character on the WB network's series Angel. He appeared in seasons 2 and 3, and is portrayed by Mark Lutz.-History:...
(Mark Lutz
Mark Lutz (actor)
Mark Douglas Lutz is a Canadian actor, who is best known for playing Groosalugg in the television series Angel and for writing and starring in the two-hour movie on the life and death of Victor Davis....
), Cordelia refuses and returns to L.A. with her friends in the season two finale.
In season three's "Birthday", Cordelia learns from the demon Skip (David Denman
David Denman
David Denman is an American film and television actor.-Education:After graduating from Fountain Valley High School, Denman attended the summer training congress at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco before receiving his B.F.A. from Juilliard.-Career:He made his film debut with Keanu...
) that her visions are slowly killing her because human beings are not strong enough to control them. To save her life, Cordelia accepts Skip's offer to alter history so that she never met Angel in L.A., instead landing her big break as an actress. However, even in this alternate timeline, Cordelia feels compelled to help others and eventually crosses paths with Angel again, who received the visions in her place and is now insane. Unable to let her friend suffer, Cordelia has Skip return the timeline to normal, and agrees to become half-demon, with new powers, in order to harbor the visions safely. This season also sees Angel become a father, with Cordelia stepping in to mother the infant Connor until he is kidnapped into a hell dimension in the episode "Sleep Tight", only to emerge as a disturbed teenager (Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Paul Kartheiser is an American actor known for playing Connor in Angel and Pete Campbell in Mad Men.-Early life:Kartheiser was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Janet Marie and James Ralph Kartheiser...
) in "The Price". In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", Angel realizes he has romantic feelings for Cordelia, but is prevented from voicing them by the return of Groosalugg. Cordelia dates Groosalugg for the remainder of the season, but Groo notices she loves Angel instead and decides to leave. In the season finale, Cordelia arranges to meet Angel to confess her feelings, but is prevented from doing so by Skip, who informs her that she has become a higher being. Cordelia accepts her duty, and leaves Earth for another dimension. In season four, Cordelia feels trapped in her position as a higher being, and so in the episode "The House Always Wins" she returns to Earth in an amnesiac state. In "Spin the Bottle", her memories are returned via a spell, along with a vision of a mysterious Beast (Vladimir Kulich
Vladimir Kulich
Vladimir Kulich is a Czech-Canadian actor.He is best known for his roles as Buliwyf in the film The 13th Warrior and as The Beast in the television series Angel. In 1995 he appeared as Olafsson in the X-Files episode "Død Kalm."...
). Afterward, she admits to Angel the feelings she once had for him. As L.A. succumbs to the apocalypse in season four's "Apocalypse, Nowish", Cordelia begins to behave out-of-character; she seduces Connor, murders Lilah
Lilah Morgan
Lilah Morgan is a fictional character from the television series Angel, played by Stephanie Romanov. She is first introduced in the episode "The Ring," and appears in the show's first and second seasons. After Lindsey McDonald leaves Los Angeles, Lilah becomes the primary face of Wolfram & Hart,...
(Stephanie Romanov
Stephanie Romanov
Stephanie A. Romanov is an American model and actress, best known for playing Lilah Morgan on Angel.-Career:She first began modeling in Europe and was discovered at 15 by Elite Model Management founder, John Casablancas. Her first professional modeling job was in Europe, shooting fashion layouts...
) in the episode "Calvary", commands the Beast in "Salvage", and magically battles former friend Willow to keep Angel from his soul in the episode "Orpheus". In season four's "Players", the team realize that the now pregnant Cordelia is possessed, so Cordelia takes the unstable Connor on the run with her so they may give birth to their supernatural offspring, Jasmine (Gina Torres
Gina Torres
Gina Torres is an American television and movie actress. She is known for her roles in science fiction and fantasy. She has appeared in many television series, including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys , Xena: Warrior Princess , the short-lived Cleopatra 2525, as well as Alias , Firefly Gina...
). In "Inside Out", Skip explains that Jasmine is his master, and a higher being who possessed Cordelia before her returning to Earth, manipulating events to be born in a new body of her own.
Cordelia falls into a post-natal coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
for the remainder of season four. Following an eleven-episode absence, Cordelia returns to Angel in season five, in the 100th episode "You're Welcome
You're Welcome (Angel episode)
"You're Welcome" is the twelfth episode of season five of the television show Angel. Written and directed by David Fury, it is the 100th episode of the series, and originally broadcast on February 4, 2004 on the WB network. In "You're Welcome", former series regular Charisma Carpenter returns as a...
". Having apparently awoken from her coma, Cordelia reunites with Angel Investigations, who she discovers have taken over Wolfram & Hart since their defeat of Jasmine. She chastises Angel for accepting W&H's "deal with the devil
Deal with the Devil
Deal With The Devil is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Lizzy Borden released in 2000 .A return to form, featuring a cover by Todd McFarlane.2 covers were recorded...
", and reminds him of his true mission and higher calling. Together, they face and defeat their old enemy Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald
Lindsey McDonald is a fictional character from the television series Angel. He first appeared in the series' first episode, "City of," and featured prominently in the story arcs of seasons one, two, and five. Lindsey is the only character besides Angel himself to appear in both the first and last...
(Christian Kane
Christian Kane
Christian Kane is an American actor and singer/songwriter of Native American descent. He currently stars as Eliot Spencer on the TNT series Leverage. He is best known for his roles in the television shows Angel and Into the West, and the movies Just Married and Secondhand Lions.He is the lead...
), who had been impersonating Doyle in an attempt to destroy Angel. In the episode's closing moments, Cordelia reiterates to Angel that she loves him and kisses him, shortly before he receives a phone call reporting that Cordelia died that morning. When Angel turns around, Cordelia is gone. It is later revealed that this encounter—the Powers That Be repaying their debt to Cordelia—allowed Cordelia to pass one last vision over to Angel, giving him the knowledge he needs to bring down the Circle of the Black Thorn.
Between 2001 and 2004, Joss Whedon and Jeph Loeb
Jeph Loeb
Joseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost, writer for the films Commando and Teen Wolf and was a writer and Co-Executive Producer on the NBC TV show Heroes from its...
developed a 4-minute pilot episode for Buffy the Animated Series
Buffy the Animated Series
Buffy the Animated Series is an animated television series concept based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon. Initially greenlit by 20th Century Fox in 2002, it went ultimately unproduced and unaired when no network was willing to buy the series...
, which was set during the show's first season. Had the series been picked up by a network, it would have featured Cordelia (voiced by Charisma Carpenter) in more high-school adventures. Following a 2008 leak
Internet leak
An Internet leak occurs when a party's confidential information is released to the public on the Internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such...
of the pilot to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Loeb expressed some hope that the series may be resurrected in some form.
Literature
Cordelia also appears in comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s and novels based on the Buffy and Angel television series. The Cordelia Collection, Vol. 1 by Nancy Krulik is a novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the Buffy episodes "Out of Mind, Out of Sight
Out of Mind, Out of Sight
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight", also known as "Invisible Girl", is the 11th episode of season one of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer....
", "Some Assembly Required" and "Homecoming". These episodes tell specific incidents in which Cordelia becomes targeted: by a scorned classmate, to become a zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
's bride and by hunters
The Most Dangerous Game
"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in Collier's Weekly on January 19, 1924....
in a case of mistaken identity. She appears in numerous Angel novels as a member of Angel Investigations, but some feature Cordelia more prominently; in Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten (Angel novel)
Not Forgotten is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Angel.-Plot summary:Los Angeles is being struck by a crime wave. There seems to be no link between the victims and their cause of death - burning from the inside out. Supernatural powers seem to be involved.Angel investigates...
she uncovers exploitation of child immigrants, while in Haunted
Haunted (Angel novel)
Haunted is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Angel. Tagline: "Reality television is taken one step too far." Characters include: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, Lilah Morgan and the Host.-Plot summary:...
she appears as a contestant on a supernatural-themed reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
show when she has a vision about another applicant. Cordelia appears in the majority of Angel comics, published by Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
during 2000–2002 and set between episodes of the television series. She appears less frequently in those by IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
between 2005 and 2011, mainly in stories set in and after the fifth season. Cordelia typically plays a minimal role in the Dark Horse Angel comics. However, issue seventeen was a "Cordelia Special", in which demonic items are stashed in Cordelia's apartment. In the Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
story "Lovely dark and deep", Cordelia lands a role as the star of a demonic movie. Cordelia appears in the IDW Publishing comic mini-series Angel: The Curse
The Curse (Angel comic)
The Curse is a trade paperback collecting comic stories based on the Angel television series.-General synopsis:Having survived the battle of "Not Fade Away", we find Angel in Romania. He has traveled there in the hope he can find the Kalderesh clan, the Gypsies who cursed him with a soul...
, set after season five, in flashback scenes. She subsequently reappears in the mini-series Angel: Old Friends
Old Friends (Angel comic)
Old Friends is a trade paperback collecting comic stories based on the Angel television series.-Angel: Old Friends #1:A vampiric figure seems to be causing a string of deaths in LA, so Angel must return to the city to investigate with Gunn...
, which sees Angel battle evil clones of his friends. Cordelia claims to be the genuine article, having returned from the dead, but Angel is unconvinced and kills her; his suspicions prove correct when her body immediately disintegrates like the other clones.
Angel: After the Fall
Angel: After the Fall
Angel: After the Fall is a comic book published by IDW Publishing. Written by Brian Lynch and plotted with Joss Whedon, the series is a canonical continuation of the Angel television series, and follows the events of that show's final televised season...
, a canonical comic book continuation of the television series plotted by Joss Whedon and written by Brian Lynch, features the characters of Angel and all of Los Angeles condemned to Hell after the events of the series finale "Not Fade Away". Cordelia does not appear until the twelfth issue, in which she acts as a guide to Angel in his dying moments; it is revealed she serves in some capacity as a higher power now. The character departs in issue thirteen. Cordelia also appears in a dream sequence within the twentieth issue of Buffys canonical continuation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series serves as a canonical continuation of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and follows the events of that show's final televised season. It is produced by Joss Whedon, who wrote the...
, titled "After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back!
After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back!
"After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back!" is the twentieth issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, a continuation of the television series of the same name...
". Buffy dreams of when she was in her first year at Sunnydale High; Cordelia's physical appearance is based on the art style of Loeb and Whedon's unproduced Buffy animated series.
Conception and casting
Cordelia was originally intended to serve as a dramatic foil to the series' main character Buffy Summers. Adapting the concept of the movie into a television series, Whedon decided to reinvent the character of Buffy. The shallow cheerleader of the 1992 Buffy filmBuffy the Vampire Slayer (film)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a 1992 American action/comedy/horror film about a Valley girl cheerleader named Buffy who learns that it is her fate to hunt vampires. The original script for the film was written by Joss Whedon, who later created the darker and more acclaimed TV series of the same name...
, as played by Kristy Swanson
Kristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
, had grown more mature and open-minded. Buffy now identified with the social outcasts, such as Willow and Xander. As a result, Cordelia Chase was created to embody the traits of that shallower Buffy. Despite portraying a shallow, valley girl
Valley girl
Valley Girl is a stereotype leveled at a socio-economic and ethnic class of American women who can be described as colloquial English-speaking and materialistic...
stock character
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
, actress Charisma Carpenter felt that Cordelia in early seasons was not "one-dimensional", nor was she "as superficial as people thought". At the same time, Carpenter was critical of her frequent role as the damsel in distress
Damsel in distress
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction,...
. Angel co-creator and executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
David Greenwalt
David Greenwalt
David Greenwalt is an American screenwriter, director and producer.He was the co-executive producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and co-creator of its spinoff, Angel. He is also co-creator of the short-lived cult television show Profit...
describes Cordelia in her Buffy years as "a somewhat shallow, somewhat vain, somewhat self-centered but [a] lively and honest character who spoke her mind".
Charisma Carpenter had originally planned to read for the role of Buffy, but was late for her audition and instead tried out for Cordelia. Carpenter, who had dressed casually for the role of Buffy—who she believed "could really be herself"—felt unprepared to read for Cordelia because she "was definitely a character to dress for". Although she had only fifteen minutes to prepare for the character, the producers were "really responsive" to Carpenter's audition, and she left feeling confident she had got the part. After Carpenter's audition, actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, who had been offered the role of Cordelia before Carpenter, was asked to come back and audition for the part of Buffy. Bianca Lawson
Bianca Lawson
Bianca Jasmine Lawson is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Lawson was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Denise and actor Richard Lawson. Bianca is also the great niece of Motown founder Berry Gordy...
originally won the role of Cordelia Chase, but turned it down due to other contractual obligations. Lawson would later be cast as vampire slayer Kendra in the show's second season. Carpenter, proud of her own character's growth across the two series, did not envy Gellar for winning the role of Buffy over her.
Characteristics and analysis
Cordelia's representation of an assertive modern woman and her character arc in Buffy has been commented on in several academic texts, particularly in gender studiesGender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
, such as "Praising Cordelia: Aggression and Adaptation Among Adolescent Girls", or Sex and the Slayer. In the latter, Dr. Lorna Jowett of the University of Northampton describes Cordelia's initial place in the series where "At first glance, Cordelia seems to have the 'normal life' Buffy often longs for. She is a familiar character from the teen drama: popular, a cheerleader, the center of cliques (power as status). Furthermore, Cordelia's exceptionalism is based on 'real' material privilege rather than supernatural power. She represents in more exaggerated form the unnamed white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
middle-class
American middle class
The American middle class is a social class in the United States. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use, contemporary social scientists have put forward several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class...
heterosexual
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
qualities (read privilege) of the other characters (to the point that it becomes visible)." Elizabeth Rambo notes how Cordelia's status is highlighted by her nickname, "Queen C", and Harmony's remark to her, "Cordy, you reign." Cordelia functions recognizably as the typical female victim of horror, often screaming and running away, and this makes her a perfect contrast for other female characters."
"Praising Cordelia" argues that both Buffy and Cordelia are representations of assertive and competitive young women, who "represent two kinds of aggressive adolescent girls". The article focuses on the competitive relationship between the characters. Buffy's initial friendship with Cordelia is compromised once Cordelia sees the attractive, socially competent Buffy as a threat to her. Even after Cordelia joins the Scooby Gang and becomes Buffy's friend, theirs is not a friendship of "mutual support, warmth and intimacy" but rather one of "mutual antipathy". The authors opine that Cordelia, unlike Buffy, is a "representation of the archetypal 'feminine type'", one who conforms to the "pervasive stereotypes of femininity while, at the same time, dominating the other girls in the school" and commanding the attention of the boys. Describing her character arc in Buffy, Mary Alice Money views Cordelia as one of many transformed or redeemed Buffy characters, one who "reveals a previously unexpected vulnerability that nullifies some of their less attractive traits." Jowett argues that Cordelia's assimilation within the main group is due largely to her relationship with main character Xander, and she is rendered sympathetic to the audience once they witness her rebuff the peer pressure
Peer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
from her old friends. She is further endeared to the viewer when Xander betrays her, because the scenes showing her pain are shown only to the viewer. After Cordelia is cheated on by Xander with Willow she chooses not to go back to him, and instead retains her autonomy.
Others such as Susanne Kord and Elisabeth Krimer note how Cordelia is also a subversive representation of feminine stereotypes, describing "Although superficially, Cordelia conforms to the stereotype of the insensitive bitch", what she actually does is "offers her viewers the clandestine pleasures of female self-assertion". One of Cordelia's strongest traits, her honesty, is also highlighted in "Earshot", where Buffy temporarily develops telepathic
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
powers and can hear the thoughts of her friends, who avoid her to hide these thoughts. For Cordelia however, "her thought processes and actual utterances are completely identical" and because of this she embodies an "antithesis of female self-sacrifice" in these years but also "the opposite of the kind of hypocrisy that is typically attributed to women". Writer Jennifer Crusie
Jennifer Crusie
Jennifer Crusie is a pseudonym for Jennifer Smith, a bestselling and award winning author of contemporary romance novels. She has written over 15 novels, which have been published in 20 countries.-Biography:...
interprets this as Cordelia's "lack of depth" becoming "her strength". She does not mean to argue that Cordelia is stupid however, pointing out "Cordy's solipsism
Solipsism
Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from Latin solus and ipse . Solipsism as an epistemological position holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not...
could easily be mistaken for stupidity, but it comes coupled with a keen intelligence and a fixity of purpose that makes her almost invincible." Jowett feels Cordelia's confidence is based in her wealth. Despite becoming more sympathetic as the series progressed, "bitchiness enhances Cordelia's comic appeal", as it offers viewers an opportunity to relish in its honest truth-telling.
Development
| "I provide conflict, and that's what good drama needs." |
| — Charisma Carpenter on her role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. |
In early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia was often used both as comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...
and occasionally for the damsel in distress plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
, which would require series' heroine Buffy to save her. Any concerns that she was simply one-dimensional were alleviated for the actress when writers developed the character through her relationships with Xander and later Wesley, which led Carpenter to become more convinced of her potential. In an article about the psychology of characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Steven C. Schlozman writes about how "Cordelia is wealthy and, at first glance, superficial, appearing to care most about her own popularity. However, as the show progresses, we learn that her mother suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome is the most common name used to designate a significantly debilitating medical disorder or group of disorders generally defined by persistent fatigue accompanied by other specific symptoms for a minimum of six months, not due to ongoing exertion, not substantially...
and her father was prosecuted for income tax evasion
Tax avoidance and tax evasion
Tax noncompliance describes a range of activities that are unfavorable to a state's tax system. These include tax avoidance, which refers to reducing taxes by legal means, and tax evasion which refers to the criminal non-payment of tax liabilities....
. She is a reluctant participant, baffled at her own loyal feelings and bewildered at her attraction to the unpopular Xander." He goes on to describe how Cordelia, and "all the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are particularly compelling for their depictions of important adolescent themes."
Discussing Cordelia's relationship with Xander, Carpenter says, "A lot of Cordy's conflict, and a lot of who she is, comes out around Xander. Because she is in love with him in spite of herself, or in spite of him. I have my best moments with [Nicholas Brendon]." However, her character's growing involvement with Buffy and her friends caused the actress some concern; "I wasn't sure how I felt about it, because I didn't want to lose my edge. I didn't want her to be nice; I didn't want her to change because that's who she is." Carpenter's challenge was to find a balance between the good and bad sides of Cordelia, and she explains, "That's why I enjoy playing her so much. She's got to be somewhat tolerable or why would they hang out with her? But I [try] not to lose her edge, her honesty." Carpenter claims that Cordelia's "rough edges" made for difficult experiences with fans, who expected her to be snobby like her character. Charisma continually pleaded to get to slay a vampire, which the writers let her do in her final Buffy appearance, "Graduation Day, Part Two".
Over the course of her appearances in Angel, Cordelia would develop enormously as a character. Describing this evolution, Carpenter comments, "When I first started playing Cordelia, she wasn't nice. She has really deepened and has a stronger sense of responsibility. She's a team player, which was not the case in the beginning." Carpenter cherishes what playing a multi-faceted character like Cordelia meant for her as an actress, describing "The road Cordelia has travelled, the journey she has taken up to now has been such a joy to play as an actress, because there have been so many chances to do so many different emotions. Heroic, vulnerable, just angry, possessed, funny - I get to be all those different things rolled into one. Getting this role, in hindsight... God I made a good decision, or they did." Cultural critic Jennifer Crusie points out how Cordelia was initially perfect for the transition to "selfish, superficial Los Angeles", which turned out to be her "trial by fire".
Executive producer David Greenwalt was very keen to acquire the character of Cordelia for the spin-off series, commenting, "I desperately wanted her to come to Angel because Angel being dark and broody, we need a big bright smile." At the same time, Whedon felt her presence was sorely missed in the fourth season of Buffy where "All of our characters got to the point where they were loving and hugging, and it was sort of like, where's Cordelia?", leading him to introduce Spike (James Marsters
James Marsters
James Wesley Marsters is an American actor and musician. Marsters first came to the attention of the general public playing the popular character Spike, a platinum-blond yobbish English vampire in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series, Angel from 1997 to 2004...
) to the cast to accommodate her absence. Kelly A. Manners describes Cordelia as a "rich gal whose family ended up losing everything to the IRS. So in episode one of Angel, Cordelia showed up in LA trying to start a career as an actress because her family was in jail, actually." Crusie states that in mourning for Doyle Cordelia also begins "finding within herself a new level of humanity".
| "Time and time again, [Cordelia] realize[s] what [her] calling truly is ... when [Cordelia] gets the pain of the world and the suffering that's out there, ... [she] realize[s] just how important it is that [she] stay[s] doing this mission alongside Angel." |
| — Charisma Carpenter on Cordelia's development in Angel. |
Greenwalt discusses how Cordelia "is sort of forced to become a deeper character" when she starts to receive the visions of the suffering and helpless, "She's sort of living with one foot in the world of 'I want to be an actress' and with another foot in the world of 'I want to save and help people, and I have a deeper purpose and mission.'" Greenwalt felt that this development allowed Cordelia to develop from a "vainglorious high schooler to someone who's almost like a superhero"; this also provided Carpenter with the opportunity to stretch her potential as an actress. From the tenth episode, "Parting Gifts", Cordelia begins to actively function as a supernatural character in the series while the introduction of Wesley also contributes some added comic relief to the series. It is from this episode Cordelia is also forced to mature as she mourns the death of Doyle, whose visions serve as a painful reminder of him. The first season finale saw Cordelia's visions inflict all the suffering of the human world upon her, and to effectively act this, Carpenter's acting coach showed her pictures of real human pain as motivation. The scene took over eight hours to film, and Carpenter was relieved when it was over. The experience saw Cordelia further resolve to help those in need, stating "I saw the world and there's so much pain. We have to help them." Carpenter explains, "Through the suffering of the world, and through her own experiences, she discovers what's important in life."
Carpenter pleaded to the producers to let her cut her hair in the second season of Angel, but they were dissatisfied with the darker tone and cut which created a "dark edge of Cordelia" which wasn't as "warm and effervescent as she usually is", so for the third season they wanted her to "go shorter and blonder". Angels third season demonstrates Cordelia's development into a fully-fledged heroine. The episode "Birthday" saw her being offered the chance to live a life where she never met Angel, but her inner desire to help others sees her sacrifice this life and her humanity to become a half-demon who can better withstand the visions she carries. In "Billy", Cordelia begins to train alongside Angel to become a better fighter and learns quickly. Carpenter began to train extensively with the show's stunt co-ordinators both to learn how to fight and to handle weaponry. In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", both Angel and Lorne remark on what a fine woman Cordelia has finally become, with Cordelia noting she is more like a superhero than she ever expected to be growing up in Sunnydale. Also in this episode, she and Angel both realize they have fallen for one another, but their love goes unconsummated. Critically, Jennifer Crusie considers Cordelia's ascension to the heavens at the end of season three to be the "point that the Mutant Enemy Productions
Mutant Enemy Productions
Mutant Enemy Productions is the production company created in 1997 by Joss Whedon to produce Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The company also produced the Buffy spin-off, Angel, and his two short-lived science fiction series, the space western Firefly and his high-concept Dollhouse, produced by 20th...
writers evidently lost their minds". She goes on to describe how Cordelia's compliance with Skip seems entirely out of character. Jes Battis also argues that a paradox is created when "the character who embraces her privilege (Cordelia) gets to become a higher being and exit Angel, and as an overwhelmingly positive force" where later Fred
Winifred Burkle
Winifred "Fred" Burkle is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and introduced by Shawn Ryan and Mere Smith on the television series Angel. The character is portrayed by Amy Acker.-Character history:...
(Amy Acker
Amy Acker
Amy Louise Acker is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on the television series Angel as Winifred Burkle and Illyria and on Alias as Kelly Peyton. She is also known for her role as Dr. Claire Saunders/Whiskey on Dollhouse.-Early life:Acker was born and raised in Dallas, where she...
), "the character who is conflicted about her privilege" in season five "ends up being possessed by a millennia-old demon".
Angel season four played with audience's expectations of the now heroic Cordelia by revealing her to be the season's Big Bad
Big Bad
Big Bad is a term originally used by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series to describe a major recurring adversary, usually the chief villain or antagonist in a particular broadcast season...
; it was later established that Cordelia was possessed by a manipulative deity called Jasmine. The storyline was controversial with fans, and Carpenter has admitted hating how a possessed Cordelia seduced Angel's teenage son. Carpenter has said, "I'm in denial about that whole storyline. It was creepy." However, director Terrence O'Hara
Terrence O'Hara
Terrence O'Hara is an American director and actor. He has worked on Smallville, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Voyagers! as well as many other programs.-Director:* Dollhouse ** The Unit * Sons Of Anarchy...
comments that Carpenter had "a lot of fun" with playing a manipulative Cordelia in the episode "Orpheus" because she enjoyed coming up with Cordelia's new "schizophrenic
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
madwoman" characterization. The episode "Inside Out" saw the height of this inversion of Cordelia's character, where she is seen urging Connor to murder an innocent girl in order to expedite the birth of the child they conceived together. In an effort to stop Connor, the Powers That Be send the spirit of Connor's mother Darla (Julie Benz
Julie Benz
Julie M. Benz is an American actress, best known for her roles as Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and as Rita Bennett on Dexter, for which she won the 2006 Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television...
) to convince him not to go through with it. The episode sees Carpenter dressed in black, while Benz appears in heavenly white as she becomes the voice of reason and morality. Steven S. DeKnight
Steven S. DeKnight
Steven S. DeKnight is an American television screenwriter, producer, and director. He is best known for working on Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. He has also written "Swell", a story in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season eight comic series, and served as a consulting producer...
, who wrote and directed the episode, felt this was a brilliant role-reversal for both actresses as Carpenter is accustomed to playing the benevolent Cordelia where Darla is normally seen as a sinister vampire. Much of season four's storyline had to be adjusted due to Carpenter's real-life pregnancy; after Cordelia gives birth to Jasmine in the episode "Inside Out" she is left in a coma for the remainder of the fourth season. Crusie discusses what she felt were the flaws in the execution of the fourth season, "It's that she betrays the man she trusts above all others and who trusts her absolutely; it's that she seduces a boy she once diapered; it's that she dresses like a drag queen and talks like a Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
reject. It's that she's not Cordy, and what might have been fun to watch had we been let into the secret before the Beastmaster seduced Connor becomes the extended rape and death of a much-beloved character."
Matt Hills and Rebecca Williams also discuss the treatment of Cordelia (and Darla) in "Angels Monstrous Mothers and Vampires with Soul: Investigating the Abject in 'Television Horror'", from Reading Angel: The TV Spin-off With a Soul
Reading Angel: The TV Spin-off With a Soul
Reading Angel: The TV Spin-off With a Soul is an academic publication relating to the fictional Buffyverse established by TV series, Buffy and Angel.-Book description and contents:...
by Stacey Abbot. They see the send-offs of Cordelia, Fred and other characters as part of a pattern of highly gendered "elaborated abjection" seen in Angel. They also see Cordelia's possession in season four as part of a recurring pattern: "More so than other characters in [Buffy] and Angel, Cordelia has suffered or been threatened with bodily invasion and rape, either symbolically or literally" and recounts the demon impregnation in "Expecting", and similarly in "Epiphany", where she develops a gestating demon in her head and then told she must mate with the Groosalugg in "Through the Looking Glass". Cordelia even remarks on this, as Hills and Williams quote her as she remarks on her "status as a violated and devalued character"; Cordelia states, "If you ever figure out how to get us out of here, I want you to find me a dimension where some demon doesn't want to impregnate me with his spawn!" They liken the horror motif in these examples, and in "Inside Out", to what Barbara Creed
Barbara Creed
Barbara Creed is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne known for her cultural criticism....
called the 'monstrous womb' in her book The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Jes Battis also comments how, in comparison with the Fred-Illyria season five storyline, Cordelia's storyline is not as positive as Fred's rebirth, because Fred got to "'live on' through Illyria, whereas Cordelia is taken right out of the show and receives no interesting blue-haired reincarnation". Continuing, they say that in fact, there is no meaningful connection between the "real" Cordelia and Jasmine, as the Cordelia who did those bad things is killed the moment Jasmine is, "and the 'true' Cordy wakes up from her coma". Further illustrating the comparisons, "Fred/Illyria become a joined mother/daughter subjectivity, a dual being whose constituent essences are inseparable; Cordelia is never so intimately connected with her evil child and is remembered as the healthy, vibrant Cordy that everyone knew." Pointing out symbolic parallels in the subtexts of these gestations, Battis notes "Cordelia, a vocal advocate of her own privilege, creates a fully formed supernatural being, Jasmine, who attempts (shockingly) to control the world. Fred, on the other hand, who internalizes her own privilege and cannot express it except in terms of insecurity and awkwardness, has her body devoured from the inside by the demon Illyria."
For Angel
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
reappear at the same time Cordelia tells Angel "You forgot who you are," bringing back the show's link to the city. Buffy Summers was originally intended to appear in the 100th episode to get Angel 'back on track', but Sarah Michelle Gellar had other obligations. Writer/director David Fury
David Fury
David Fury is an American television Screenwriter and Producer, best known for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Lost, 24, and Fringe.Fury was a Co-executive producer and Writer for the first season of Lost...
explains that since "we couldn't get Sarah" the episode was instead written for Cordelia. He adds, "This turned out to be a Godsend because Charisma was fantastic." In the original script, Fury wrote a conversation between Wesley and Angel while driving to the hospital that set up Cordelia as a possible vegetable. The scene was never shot because "the shock of seeing her up and around after a 9-month coma was enough. We just didn't want to tip it too soon," says Fury.
Reception
For her role as Cordelia Chase, as she appeared in the television series Angel, Charisma Carpenter has been nominated four times by the Saturn AwardSaturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s. Carpenter earned back-to-back nominations in 2000 and 2001 for Best Genre TV Supporting Actress and Best Actress on Television, respectively. The actress did not receive any nominations in 2002, but again obtained two back-to-back nominations in 2003 and 2004 for Best Actress in a Television Series and Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series, respectively.
External links
- Cordelia Chase at the Buffyverse WikiWikiaWikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...