This Buffy the Vampire Slayer Character Deserved Better (Despite Season 1)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about the exploits of Buffy Summers, but the series is more of an ensemble, following the rest of the Scooby Gang as well. Over the seven seasons, the characters were challenged, growing from teenagers into young adults. They experienced love, loss, and more than one apocalypse.
One character, in particular, deserved better despite her more obvious character defects in season one. Cordelia Chase began the show as a self-centered and frivolous mean girl, but she evolved significantly over the three years on Buffy. Cordelia was generally dismissed and taken for granted by the Slayer and the gang, but she had some of the best character development in the series.
Cordelia was Unapologetically Cordelia
“Don’t You Have an Elsewhere to Be?”
The first time audiences meet Cordelia in “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” she immediately offers to share her textbook with Buffy. Cordy doesn’t stop there, she befriends Buffy, giving her the lay of the land and taking Buffy under her wings. The nice Cordelia vanishes pretty quickly once they run into Willow. Cordelia insults Willow’s clothes and disparages her for being single. Buffy watches in silent disapproval as Cordelia reveals herself to be a shallow bully. When Buffy chooses to hang out with Willow, Xander, and Jesse, Cordelia doesn’t immediately shun her. It wasn’t until Buffy accidentally attacked Cordelia with a stake at the Bronze that she turned her mean-girl energy on Buffy.
You wanna fit in here, the first rule is “know your losers”. Once you can identify them all by sight, they’re a lot easier to avoid.
Cordelia didn’t develop much, despite getting attacked by Luke and rescued by Buffy. In the third episode, she’s not much better. An evil witch blinds Cordelia to bump her off the cheerleading squad. While she was rightfully terrified, Cordelia’s venom returned with her eyesight. For the rest of season one, Cordelia remains a self-centered bully, but in “Out of Mind, Out of Sight,” viewers and Buffy get to see the softer side of Queen C. In a now-forgotten storyline, an invisible girl targets people around Cordelia as a preamble to an attack on the May Queen herself, Cordelia seeks out Buffy’s help. The Scoobies don’t go easy on Cordy, making her eat some crow before they agree to help her.
During Buffy’s bodyguard duties, Cordelia opens up to Buffy about being lonely and the emptiness of popularity. She even makes an effort to understand Buffy in her own tactless Cordelia way before she’s yanked into the ceiling. After Buffy manges to thwart Marcie’s plans to mutilate Cordelia’s face, Cordelia goes to humbly thank the Scooby Gang for their help, saying, “You really helped me out, and you didn’t have to. So thanks.” When her other popular friends witness the conversation, they ask her incredulously if she’s hanging out with “these losers” now. Cordy replied with lies and insulted Buffy and company twice before leaving.
You think I’m never lonely, just ’cause I’m so cute and popular? I can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. It’s not like any of them really know me. I don’t even know if they really like me half the time. People just want to be in the popular zone. Sometimes when I talk, everyone’s so busy agreeing with me, they don’t hear a word I say.
Despite Cordelia keep up appearances, her moments of vulnerability humanized her and provided the first step in her character growth and evolution. In the season one finale, “Prophecy Girl,” Cordelia can no longer deny the truth that they live on top of a Hellmouth. When her boyfriend and others are brutally slain in the days leading up to the season’s main villain, the Master, walking the Earth, Cordelia hs to face the facts. During the climax of the episode, Willow and Jenny are cornered by a horde of vampires heading to the library in preparation for the Hellmouth opening. Cordelia speeds up in her car and saves the pair without a second thought. She proceeds to drive through the school and helps the Scooby Gang hold off the vampires and the apocalypse until Buffy can kill the Master.
By the end of season one, she wasn’t necessarily nicer, but she also couldn’t turn her back on what was really happening in Sunnydale. It was a small but significant step for Cordelia, and it showed viewers that she was more than just a mean girl. She’s brave and confident, and while her image is important to her, she’s not too proud to ask for help and show gratitude to those she may have deemed beneath her.
Cordelia Softens in Season Two When She Dates Xander
“Tact is just Not Saying True Stuff. I’ll Pass”
In season two, Cordelia is a reluctant ally to the Scooby Gang and the only one who calls Buffy out for her questionable behaviour in “When She Was Bad.” While Cordelia doesn’t spend time with the Scooby Gang socially, she helps them out whenever they need it. Whether it’s sharpening stakes for an impending battle or helping hold off a demon army of children, Cordelia’s better nature is revealed. She may not like Buffy and her friends, but Cordelia isn’t willing to bury her head in the sand and sit on the sidelines when it comes to fighting the forces of darkness.
Whatever’s causing the Joan Collins ‘tude, deal with it, embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet but get over it, ’cause pretty soon you won’t even have the loser friends you’ve got now.
On one such occasion, Cordelia is dragged out of bed to give Xander a ride to Buffy’s house. While there, Cordelia and Xander are attacked by a demonic assassin, who disassembles into hundreds of worms. The pair retreat to the basement where they share an intense, hate-fueled kiss. Their mutual attraction leads to many more secret rendevous before their friends find out. Before they knew what had happened, they’d both caught feelings and started dating properly. In a moment of weakness, Cordelia succumbs to peer pressure and breaks up with Xander. By the end of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” Cordelia tells the Cordettes off and gets back together with Xander. Putting someone else’s popularity above her own was a pivotal moment for Cordelia.
All you ever do is what everyone else does, so you can say you did it first. And here I am scrambling for your approval, when I’m way cooler than you are, because I’m not a sheep! I do what I want, I wear what I want, and you know what? I’ll date whoever I want to date, not matter how lame he is!
Dating Xander, Cordelia became a full-fledged member of the Scooby Gang, helping with research, attending all the group meetings, and helping with the monster hunts and spells. Cordelia still had some skewed priorities in the face of demons and monsters, like fashion and maintaining her popularity, but she stepped up to the higher calling of helping people. It wasn’t much of a choice for her, either, because despite her outward selfishness, she had a beautiful heart. Cordelia also genuinely cared for Xander and was willing to keep dating him, even if he became a sea monster.
Cordelia Left Buffy at the End of Season Three
“Oh God, is the World Ending? I Have To Research a Paper on Bosnia for Tomorrow, but If the World’s Ending, I’m Not Gonna Bother.”
Cordelia goes through a lot of growth in season three despite being seriously underutilized. The season opens with Buffy still MIA and the Scooby Gang taking over patrols. Willow, Xander, and Oz have been patrolling every night for vampires while Buffy is gone. When Cordelia returns from summer vacation, the recruit her to help them lure and fight the newly risen undead with varying degrees of success.
While most often used as comic relief, Cordelia was present for all the Scooby meetings and hunts at the beginning of season three. The Scoobies even helped her when she was running for Homecoming Queen. Of course, this turns into a bitter rivalry between Cordy and Buffy, splitting everyone’s loyalties and leading the Scoobies to shut them in a limo to work out their issues. The night turns deadly when Cordelia is mistaken for Faith and gets caught up in a plot to kill the Slayers.
See, in the end, Buffy’s good, but she’s just the runner-up. I’m the Queen. If I get mad, what do you think I’m gonna do to you?
Cordelia may complain and whine for a lot of the night, but she and Buffy have some quality time to talk, and as someone very similar to Buffy, Cordy understands her in ways the other Scoobies don’t. She also steps up when Buffy is knocked out, bravely intimidating a vampire to run away. Cordelia also admits that she’s in love with Xander during the harrowing experience. Unfortunately, she and Xander wouldn’t last much longer. In “Lovers Walk,” Cordelia and Oz find Xander and Willow lip-locked when they rescue the pair from Spike. Cordelia spends the next few episodes popping up in a scene or two to take shots at Xander.
Cordelia’s next big challenge after heartbreak is to learn who she is without money. When Cordelia’s father loses all their money right before graduation, she’s left with a pile of acceptance letters to colleges she can’t afford. Cordelia gets a job at a local boutique to try save up enough money for a prom dress. Xander ends up buying the dress for her, and she goes to prom, a little bit more humble. In the epic season three finale, Cordelia shows up to all the Scooby meetings and helps enact Buffy’s plan to turn the student body into an army. Cordy even stakes her first vampire during the big showdown.
I came over to tell Buffy to stop this craziness, and I found you all unconscious again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times you’re gonna wake up in a coma.
With her impressive character growth over her three seasons of Buffy and even more meaningful growth in Angel, Cordelia became an empathetic, selfless, and kind force for good in the world. She deserved so much better than being taken for granted and underutilized on Buffy, not to mention her character assassination in Angel. With one of the best and most well-rounded character arcs, Cordelia was a fan favorite, and the writers did her dirty on Angel. From making choices contrary to her established character to getting possessed and sleeping with her “son” before she was unceremoniously killed off the show.
Since Charisma Carpenter went public regarding the abuse she underwent behind the scenes on Angel, some of these moments have taken on a darker meaning, meant to embarrass the actress in petty revenge for her daring to have a life and family outside the show.
Original article at CBR
