"Post Season 3 Leadership of the Charmed Ones"
”POST SEASON 3 LEADERSHIP OF THE CHARMED ONES”
I am probably going to get bashed for this. I have never thought it was a good thing for the writers to automatically allow Piper Halliwell to become the new leader of the Charmed Ones in Season Four, based upon the fact that she had become the oldest sister upon Prue Halliwell’s death.
I am sorry, but I do not think that Piper ever had the personality to be a real leader. And I found her "growth" as a character and a leader rather hard to believe. Even by the seventh or eighth seasons. Her idea of leadership seemed to require her to be curt and bitchy a lot. I suspect that this attitude sprung from her dislike of her abilities as a witch.
Since Season One, Piper has complained about being a witch. In my opinion, if she never wanted to be a witch, she should have rid herself and her children of powers and try to live the life she wanted. Unfortunately, fear prevented Piper from considering this option.
More than anything, I never understood Kern's decision to turn Piper into this Uber Bitch or a second-rate Prue, because she became the new leader. It really seemed to go against her established personality. I had no problem with Piper becoming a stronger character. But I did have a problem with Kern's decision to make her the new leader, because of her age. All Kern did was end up transforming Piper into this negative aspect of a strong leader.
Phoebe Halliwell probably would have made a slightly better leader . . . if she had not become so self-absorbed and maintained her immaturity over the years. And half-sister Paige Matthews would have made an even better leader, despite her inexperience in Season Four. Unfortunately for Paige, Kern and his writers had decided to slap the "youngest sister" cliché upon her character and transform her into an irresponsible flake sometime between mid-Season Five and the series finale.
What really made Piper unsuited as a leader of the Charmed Ones to me was the number of mistakes that she and her sisters made, following Prue’s death. After all, the Halliwells made some really bad decisions during Piper’s tenure as "leader":
*Cole's death in (4.20) "Long Live the Queen" - the sisters never bothered to learn how Cole became the Source and they ended up killing an innocent victim of demonic possession.
*Piper's decision to allow her husband and former whitelighter/Elder Leo Wyatt to change her personality in (5.23) "Oh Goddess!, Part II"
*Phoebe and Paige's theft of their friend, Inspector Darryl Morris' soul in (6.01-6.02) "Valhalley of the Dolls" for personal reasons
*Paige convinced her boyfriend, fellow witch Richard Montana, to strip away his powers, instead of making him realize that he needed help to discover the true reason behind his abuse of magic
*Phoebe and Paige arranged the murder of the former's high school classmate Rick Gettridge by demons in (6.17) "Hyde School Reunion"
*The Halliwell sisters and Leo form a deal with the Avatars in (7.12) "Extreme Makeover: World Edition" to make the world conflict free via a mind rape spell.
Prue was not perfect. She had made some mistakes during her time as a Charmed One. But aside from the spell she and Phoebe had cast to save Piper in Season Two’s (2.12) "Awakened", Prue never made mistakes on the same level as her younger sisters. I cannot help but wonder if she would have been appalled by some of the actions of the other three - especially their deal with the Avatars.
Do not get me wrong. I like Piper. But unlike Prue, she never really knew how to think matters through. I am not saying that Prue always did. There were times when she jumped to conclusions or made assumptions. But she never did so on the scale in which Piper, Phoebe and Paige eventually did. After her encounter with the Angel of Death and the Seekers in (3.16) "Death Takes a Halliwell", Prue learned to face her shortcomings. This is something that Piper, Phoebe and Paige never experienced. Which would explain why they never really developed as characters . . . or why Piper never really became a good leader.