Cordelia Chase
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cordelia Chase | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Cordelia Chase (born December 1980 in Sunnydale, California, died in 2004 in Los Angeles) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The character is portrayed by Charisma Carpenter.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Sunnydale
Rich and beautiful, Cordelia Chase led her clique at Sunnydale High and enjoyed ridiculing those she saw as inferior, like nerds and outcasts. Cordelia first appears in the Buffy pilot, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", sharing a textbook with Buffy Summers on her first day at the school and showing her to the library. She soon reveals herself to be a mean, popular cheerleader as she mocks Willow Rosenberg ("Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears!"), much to Buffy's horror. That night, Buffy mistakes her for a vampire and almost impales her with a stake. Cordelia turns on Buffy and makes sure Buffy becomes a social outcast at the school. Cordelia keeps finding herself in life-threatening situations in the first season, but often comes out untouched — she is almost killed by The Master's Vessel, blinded by witchcraft and targeted by a psychotic girl she helped snub into invisibility. Cordelia is elected May Queen in her sophomore year.
Cordelia grows to accept the existence of dark forces in Sunnydale and becomes a full-fledged member of the Scooby Gang. A corresponding fall in her social status reaches a low with her publicized romance with Xander Harris. It ends in season three when she finds him kissing his childhood friend, Willow. Cordelia struggles to revive her popularity when her father's "little mistake on his taxes... for the last twelve years" costs her family everything, including their house and her car, cellphone and wardrobe. She takes a job at an expensive local boutique, April Fools, to pay for a prom dress on layaway. She does not earn enough in time, but Xander finds out and pays it off for her. Her brief, mutual infatuation with Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce ends with two bad kisses before graduation.
[edit] Los Angeles
Despite her intelligence and having been accepted to the likes of Columbia, Cordelia cannot afford college. She moves to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Meeting Angel at a Hollywood party, she pretends to be successful. In fact, she is nearly penniless, renting a dilapidated apartment and stealing food from such parties. Her agent is ignoring her calls and she has no family to turn to, having severed ties. Desperate, she meets with a producer who proves to be a vampire. Rescued by Angel and half-demon Allen Francis Doyle, Cordelia joins with them to form Angel Investigations, dedicated to helping people in trouble, usually located by visions sent to Doyle by the mysterious and semi-divine Powers That Be.
Cordelia soon becomes AI's office manager. She continues to pursue an acting career, but never breaks out of commercials and plays. She reaches a turning point mid-season when her budding romance with Doyle ends with his sudden death. Visibly devastated, Cordelia attempts to carry on. During an audition for a commercial, however, she receives her first vision, a gift transferred to her by Doyle during their last kiss. It gives her a powerful ability to help others, and over the course of the next few years, she comes to consider them her reason for being. As Angel's link to The Powers That Be ("TPTB"), Cordelia becomes an important member of the group.
Cordelia grows more sensitive to the feelings of others as she experiences those of the subjects of each vision. The visions become increasingly frequent and intense and begin to physically damage her brain. For months, Cordelia secretly takes powerful painkillers and undergoes CAT scans that indicate the slow deterioration of her brain tissues. Yet when presented with the opportunity to pass her visions to the heroic Groosalugg during a short trip to the alternate demonic dimension Pylea, she refuses, stating that the visions are a part of her and make her who she is, a hero. But as the visions are intended for demons only, Cordelia struggles to hide the effects from her friends. This continues until her 21st birthday, when she is rocked by a vision that sends her spirit into an astral plane. This opportunity is seized upon by Skip, a mercenary demon who sells his expertise to the highest bidder; in this case, a fallen member of The Powers That Be waiting to manifest on Earth.
Skip masquerades as Cordelia's guide from TPTBs. Through a series of manipulative events, such as selectively showing her excerpts of Angel calling her nothing but a rich girl from Sunnydale and giving her the "perfect" life as a successful actress that she has always wanted (knowing she would eventually look for a loophole), he transforms her into a part-demon. Cordelia can then harbor the visions without pain, but mystical side-effects come as well, including temporary physical manifestations of the subject and being able to re-enter the vision at a later point. Unbeknownst to everyone, it also sets in motion a major chain of events -- Cordelia's body becomes suitable for use by the forces of evil. Cordelia's transformation gives her the power, not entirely under her control, to cleanse evil influence with a white glowing light. In the third season finale, Skip reappears to Cordelia, who is on her way to meet with and declare her love for Angel. He tells her that she has done so much good on Earth, she is ready to ascend to a higher plane to do more good as a higher being there. It is a ruse to get her onto the fallen power's plane, in order for it to enter Cordelia.
Having been convinced by all she had seen and heard, Cordelia accepts the call to the higher plane, ascending into the sky surrounded by twinkling lights, eventually winking out of this dimension. Angel could not have met her anyway, having been sent to the bottom of the sea in his own troubles. During the four months she lives on the higher plane, Cordelia is bored. Unable to talk to her friends and not doing any good, she is unaware that the fallen power was violating her body.
In season four, Cordelia returns to Earth from the higher plane. The descent wipes out her personal memories and forces the fallen power into hibernation. Angel hides the truth from Cordelia, fearing it would be too much for her to handle. Confused and suspicious of Angel Investigations and those who work there, Cordelia seeks the truth and is horrified by what she discovers. After being attacked by a violent demon and several Wolfram and Hart operatives, Cordelia is rescued by Connor, Angel's teenage human son and, feeling safe with him, decides to live in his loft. She appreciates Connor's honesty about the supernatural. During her stay, Cordelia feels lost and alone, becoming frustrated with her inability to remember her past. She realizes that she needs to learn to defend herself again. As his father did a year earlier, Connor offers to train her in combat. Cordelia's natural athleticism and warrior's heart make her a natural fighter, and during one session, a jubilant victory hug from Cordelia to Connor becomes a stolen kiss. To Connor's dismay, Cordelia cannot let anything happen until she knows who she really was.
Cordelia's memories are finally restored through a spell by Lorne in "Spin the Bottle", but the spell awakes the fallen power, too. The entity later known as Jasmine had merged itself with every cell and fiber in her body; now it completely submerges her consciousness. Cordelia's behavior becomes increasingly erratic as Jasmine takes hold. It manipulates her sympathy for Connor and terror at the impending apocalypse to make her sleep with him. Cordelia becomes pregnant, creating a separate body for Jasmine, who is basically giving birth to itself. While pregnant and under Jasmine's possession, Cordelia butchers the last sun totem Manjet, Lilah and the Svear family to serve Jasmine's plans. She convinces the team to bring back Angelus to distract them and to keep her plans secret. She steals his soul so Angel cannot return. She continually tells Connor that they are special and deceives him into believing that the rest of the group hate them and would kill their baby.
Eventually, Cordelia is discovered and Angel's team interrogate Skip, who reveals Jasmine's plan. He says that all the events of the last eight years had been carefully nudged into place. Jasmine may have simply seized on Cordelia's knock from her body, but whether that was the case will never be known. Skip also says that Jasmine cannot be removed from Cordelia without killing her or putting her into a permanent, vegetative state. Before Angel can kill the woman he loves, Cordelia performs a ritual with Connor's help to bring Jasmine out and manifest on this plane at last. Afterwards, Cordelia falls into a coma, her life force having been drained.
After Angel joins Wolfram & Hart, Cordelia is transferred to their hospital in an effort to revive her. Cordelia makes a triumphant return in the fifth season episode "You're Welcome", helping a disillusioned Angel get back on track. Alas, it is simply an astral projection facilitated by The Powers that Be, who owed her a favor for all the hell she had been through. After tenderly kissing Angel and giving him a vision that pointed him in the direction of the real players in the upcoming apocalypse, it is discovered that Cordelia had died in her sleep, never having woken.
Like many characters in the Buffyverse, Cordelia evolved dramatically throughout the two series. She changed from an egocentric fashion plate to a person whose life was increasingly dedicated to helping others. The Cordelia introduced in the first episodes of Buffy felt no burning desire to become a better person. Cordelia suffered rejection and mockery from her original friends as she outgrew their shallowness. She died with a grounded confidence and compassion for those in need, which replaced the arrogance and vanity of her adolescent self. Because of these virtues she appropriately earned the title of champion.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Originally a normal human, Cordelia began receiving prophetic visions from The Powers That Be in the first season episode, "Parting Gifts". The visions usually consist of ambiguous imagery of forthcoming attacks on innocents or various demonic disasters. Cordelia used this imagery to help Angel prevent them from happening.
In the episode "Billy", Cordelia claims that as a cheerleader she need only be shown a move once before being able to mimic it.
To combat the pain and trauma the visions give her (which would eventually kill a human), she became part-demon in Season 3's "Birthday", giving her resistance to their harmful effects and other powers including levitation and the ability to purify the souls of those affected by demons. Her visions were now less ambigious and more surreal. Because of this action of accepting demonhood, she was deemed a higher being and ascended to a Higher Realm. There she was able to wage the war on evil in a new way as a higher being in paradise with The Powers that Be, as seen in "Tomorrow".
Unaware when Angel pulled her out of this higher plane, there was a hitchiker that came along. This came in the form of Jasmine, a former higher being that would possess Cordelia early on in season 4. At first only slight irrational differences were seen in Cordelia, such as sleeping with Angel's son Connor ("Apocalypse, Nowish"). Eventually this night of passion between the two would result in a new body formed for Jasmine after an incubating period. Cordelia also could cast spells while possessed by Jasmine.
Cordelia was the mother of a brood of Haxil Beast spawn in Season 1's "Expecting". When pregnant with them, she gained a telepathic connection with the children and their father, who used it to control her. In season two's "Epiphany", Cordelia was forced to be the host of an unborn Skilosh demon, which grants her a working third eye in the back of her skull.
In the final season, she apparently creates a solid astral projection of herself to help Angel in the episode "You're Welcome". This was likely aided by the Powers That Be.
[edit] Romantic relationships
- Donnie Wray: A boy in Cordelia's ninth grade remedial Spanish class who developed a crush on her and even wrote an embarrassing song for her: "Oh Cordelia, how I long to feel ya."
- Daryl Epps: Cordelia, like many junior high school cheerleaders, had an unrequited love for this former all-state champion football star before he died in a rock-climbing incident. Daryl chose Cordelia's head for his Bride Of Frankenstein in Season 2's "Some Assembly Required".
- Jesse McNally: Xander's best friend in the first two Buffy episodes, Jesse got the dance with Cordelia he had always wanted after becoming a vampire. He didn't get to drink her, though.
- Owen Thurman: Cordelia chased this shy and good-looking boy in "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date", but he asked Buffy out instead.
- Angel: Cordelia noticed Angel before she found out he was a vampire (her exact words on seeing him were, "Hello, salty goodness!"), but he was interested in Buffy then. After moving to Los Angeles she saw what a kind, good-hearted man he was, that would fight for good no matter what, and fell in love with him.
- Mitch Fargo: Cordelia's popular boyfriend in Season 1's "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" was to reign beside Cordelia as May King before he suffered a brutal beating from the invisible and psychotic Marcie Ross.
- Kevin Benedict: Unlike many of her conquests, Cordelia seemed to genuinely adore this popular boyfriend in Season 1's "Prophecy Girl".
- Richard Anderson: A rich ("Anderson Farms, Anderson Aeronautics and Anderson Cosmetics!") member of Delta Zeta Kappa, a fraternity cult at Cresswood College that sacrificed girls to the demon Machida in exchange for worldly success. Cordelia dated him briefly in season two's "Reptile Boy" (where she believed that fake laughter would sustain the relationship) before he attempted to offer her as a sacrifice.
- Jonathan Levinson: Cordelia favored the geeky Jonathan with her presence at the end of "Reptile Boy" even though he forgot the extra foam on her complicated cappuccino.
- Devon MacLeish: The charismatic lead singer of Oz's band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, was unhappily dating Cordelia in Season 2's "Halloween".
- Xander Harris: After repeatedly being thrown into life-or-death situations together, Cordelia and Xander began a physical relationship that eventually became a real romantic attachment. Cordelia briefly broke up with him in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" because of the negative effect that their relationship was having on her social standing, but after he showed how much he cared about her, she agreed to date him again. Their relationship was permanently ended roughly a year after it began, when she caught him kissing Willow Rosenberg.
- Guy Matthews.
- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce: Cordelia found him very attractive even though the rest of the Scooby Gang thought he was a hopeless twit. It was clear that he felt the same way for her, but he tried to hold back because she was a student, and because of the difference in their ages. At the end of her senior year, they finally gave into temptation and shared a kiss, but it was... awkward. After two failed attempts to ignite some passion, they wished each other well and went back to being neutral. When they both became members of Angel Investigations, they moved on to being very good friends, and felt as close as if they were family.
- Pierce: A self-absorbed, handsome businessman with whom Cordelia went on a date with in Angel Season 1's "Bachelor Party". Having little in common with him, a jaded Cordelia politely asked Pierce to drive her home, where she was attacked by a biker vampire. Pierce ran for his life and sped off in his expensive car, leaving Cordelia for dead.
- Allan Francis Doyle: Cordelia first dismissed him as a (badly-dressed) loser, but as they spent more time together, she began to consider the possibility of a relationship. They kissed shortly before his death, which gave her his visions from TPTB.
- Barney: A seemingly harmless yet manipulative demon who Cordelia briefly kissed when trying to pass her visions off in Season 1's "Parting Gifts".
- Wilson Christopher: The trendy L.A. photographer impregnated Cordelia with demon spawn in Season 1's "Expecting".
- The Groosalugg: He met Cordelia in the alternate dimension Pylea when she was made a Princess because of her visions. "Groo" (as she affectionately called him) was meant to mate with her and receive her visions, but Cordelia refused, because she didn't want to lose the visions and risk being useless to Angel Investigations. They fell for one another and when the government in Pylea collapsed, Groo found a portal to Los Angeles and sought his Princess out again. They carried on their relationship and were able to become intimate once Cordelia bought a "mystical prophylactic" from a demon bordello that prevented her from losing the visions with intercourse. At first it seemed as if this really could be happily ever after, but Groo chivalrously stepped aside and left town when he realized that Cordelia's heart lay with Angel.
- Connor: Under the possession of Jasmine, Cordelia seduced Connor.
[edit] Appearances
Cordelia has appeared in:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- A series regular for the first three seasons, Cordelia did not appear in "The Pack" and "I, Robot... You, Jane". She appeared in 54 episodes in all.
- Angel
- A series regular for the first four seasons, Cordelia did not appear in "Loyalty", "Sleep Tight" and "Forgiving". She appeared as a guest in the 5th Season episode "You're Welcome". She appeared in 86 episodes in all.
[edit] See also
Categories: Angel (series) characters | Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters | Fictional people from California | Fictional cheerleaders | Fictional heroines | Fictional queens | Fictional hybrids | Fictional magicians | Fictional possessed | Fictional avatars | Fictional characters with precognition | Buffyverse demons | Fictional interdimensional travelers
