Essay -- And When The Sky Was Opened: The Passion of Cordelia Chase
And When The Sky Was Opened:
The Passion of Cordelia Chase
by eleusis_walks
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
~ Oscar Wilde
Oh, Cordelia. Where to begin.
I suppose with full disclosure: Cordelia Chase is my favorite television character of all time. I discovered Buffy the Vampire Slayer at sixteen, and as a catty, boisterous gay kid struggling with personal strength and norm violation in a privileged suburban high school setting, Cordelia was something of a shining beacon of possibility. Her journey indicated to me that I could transcend a materialistic, selfish way of living and become something incredible.
I believe that Cordelia Chase grows to become the bravest and most compelling hero in either BtVS or AtS.
What is this essay? It is an exploration of Cordelia Chase on a fundamental level. It is firstly a catalogue of her journey in three parts. It is simultaneously an analysis of her narrative arc and a defense of her much-maligned character. This is a textual analysis, which means that I am regarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hereafter BtVS or Buffy) and Angel: The Series (AtS or Angel) as two separate but interrelated narrative texts with their own vitality and authority not necessarily bound by artist's intent. This essay does not consider evidence from the Season Eight or After The Fall comic books, as in changing mediums the integrity of the text is compromised.
This is not an essay about the Cordelia/Angel relationship, though obviously their romance will play into this discussion by necessity. In the end, however, today is all about Cordy. Join me, won't you? But be wary: I am not going to be very gentle in my judgments of characters or plot developments. Tact is just not saying true stuff; I'll pass.
I. Genesis
It is impossible to analyze Cordelia fully without beginning -- as she begins -- with the first three seasons of BtVS. We first meet Cordelia along with the rest of the cast in the two part premiere, 1.01-1.02 "Welcome To The Hellmouth/The Harvest". Immediately she is recognizable as one of the stock characters that populate Buffy's first season: where Willow Rosenberg is the mousy nerd and Xander Harris is the hapless clown and Rupert Giles is the stodgy Englishman, Cordelia Chase is the rich bitch.
What is remarkable about Cordelia is that she is initially the most stock of all the characters. Willow and Xander and Giles are at least given motivations and quirks, while Cordelia and her partner in crime, Harmony Kendall, are rendered as entirely flat. The only distinction between them is that Cordelia is the sexually voracious brunette and Harmony is the dumb blonde, each a further stereotype. Cordelia Chase (her surname perhaps suggesting the famous Chase Manhattan Bank) is not so much a character at this stage as she is a cipher standing for a very specific type of agent in any sort of social drama: class privilege. In opposition to the impoverished Xander, the single mother-raised Buffy and the child of academics Willow, Cordelia alone has scads of money. This class privilege -- and complications regarding it -- will come to be one of Cordelia's most important character facets.
It is worth noting here that the character of Cordelia Chase was apparently first written as black; at the very least, she was conceived as race-neutral, as the initial actress cast for the part, Bianca Lawson (later appearing as the Slayer Kendra), is an African-American actress. While I adore Charisma Carpenter's performance as Cordelia, and can hardly imagine any other actress in the role, I do think it would have been very interesting for the character representing class privilege to be the single POC in the cast, because of the way race and class tend to intersect in greater society. But it was not to be; Lawson had prior commitments that precluded her acceptance of the role. Charisma Carpenter identifies as Latina (she is of Spanish-Mexican descent and spent part of her childhood in Mexico), but Cordelia as portrayed by Carpenter is decidedly an icon of white privilege in addition to class privilege. This will be important on AtS, but as BtVS is about a white cast in a largely white suburb it takes a while to be significant.
Finding The Road
Season One of BtVS lives up to its general reputation: it is cute, charming, and altogether pretty mediocre. Though she is the first character to try to befriend Buffy (and oh, how her excitement over the idea of Los Angeles is ironic in retrospect), in Season One Cordelia is relegated mostly to the background for one-liners and sight gags. Aside from her one spotlight episode (1.11 "Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight", in which she finally displays some true emotion and depth of character), her most memorable contribution to an episode's plot is in 1.03 "Witch", where she is cursed by Catherine Madison and goes blind during a Driver's Ed tutorial. This is the first time Cordelia's eyes are clouded over on-screen, and it certainly won't be the last. In any event, the scene of her abject terror as she's suddenly driving quite literally blind is both arresting in its stark imagery and, as is appropriate, pretty hilarious. We have no reason to empathize with Cordelia yet, and so her suffering is amusing. She is a nasty sixteen year-old and we have no problem watching her get her comeuppance.
Where BtVS begins to get its legs is in 1.12 "Prophecy Girl", the Season One finale and the first episode to show the true promise of the series. There are two sequences in "Prophecy Girl" that are the most important for BtVS in terms of the heroic journey motif and future character development: these are, respectively, Buffy's classical trip to the underworld (here The Master's sunken church) where she is reborn fully as the Slayer, and Willow's traumatic realization (upon her and Cordelia's discovery of several bodies -- including that of Kevin, Cordelia's boyfriend of the moment -- in the high school rec room) that the forces of darkness plan to make her world spiral out of control -- this drive for agency over "our world" is what precipitates Willow's devotion to the mystic and essentially her entire character arc.
There is another sequence, however, that is the most important for BtVS on a metatextual level: it is the moment when Ms. Calendar and Willow are surrounded by vampires in the Sunnydale High School parking lot. Despairing, they resign themselves to death, only to be rescued as Cordelia pulls up in her car -- the same car from "Witch", perhaps, only now she sees with perfect clarity. "Get in," she orders them, and the three women speed off together to help Giles at the entrance to the Hellmouth.
What this moment accomplishes, more than anything else, is to lay Mutant Enemy's cards on the table and make a bold statement about the mission of this series: BtVS is not just another teen dramedy with static characters and an episode-ending reset button. No, this is a series where the characters grow and change, where fictional people have very real narrative arcs. Cordelia, initially the most hollow stock character, has suddenly become a dynamic and real presence.
At the advent of BtVS Season Two, Cordelia is clearly part of the group. In 2.01 "When She Was Bad" she is the one to ironically offer Buffy critical advice on empathy. By 2.03 "School Hard" she is whittling stakes in the library with everyone else, and come 2.08 "The Dark Age" she is openly expressing her affection for Giles. In 2.09-2.10 "What's My Line" she fights her first demon and begins a relationship with Xander that cements her status as part of the team. In 2.16 "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", she sacrifices a certain degree of her social privilege, repudiating Harmony and the other Cordettes in favor of continuing her relationship with Xander.
It is toward the end of the season that Cordelia's character begins to settle. Her car -- that signifier of irreversible momentum for the series in "Prophecy Girl" -- recurs at the next point of no return, in 2.17 "Passion". At first it is played for a laugh: Cordelia's fear that Angelus can enter her car without invitation is ridiculous and used as an example of her privileged materialism. But it is Cordelia who drives the Scoobies -- in that car -- to Giles's apartment to examine the crime scene after Angelus murders Jenny Calendar. If "Prophecy Girl" sets the stage for BtVS as we now know it, it is "Passion" that presages the major action; truly, it is after Jenny's death that childhood innocence is over and the kids are never again the same.
By 2.18 "Killed By Death", Cordelia has become not only useful -- for it is she, and not Giles, who first discovers the identity of the monster Der Kindestod -- but genre-savvy. At Buffy’s reports of a monster in the hospital, she asks: "So, this isn't about you being afraid of hospitals 'cause your friend died and you wanna conjure up a monster that you can fight so you can save everybody and not feel so helpless?" In the immediate aftermath of Ms. Calendar's death, it is a telling statement, and Cordelia is quick to defend speaking this sort of bald truth: "tact is just not saying true stuff," she tells Giles. "I'll pass." Indeed, this is perhaps where Cordelia gets her name: from the virtuous daughter of Shakespeare's "King Lear", who could not lie to her father even if it meant her death. The idea of Cordelia as the brutal voice of honesty is later underlined by 3.18 "Earshot", in which (presumably as a non-literal joke) it is portrayed as though she literally speaks every word she thinks.
Season Two's finale 2.21-2.22 "Becoming" signals another shift in Cordelia's character: Kendra is murdered by Drusilla, and Cordelia "[runs]... I think I made it through three counties before I realized nobody was chasing me. Not too brave." The idea of Season One's Cordelia even thinking such a thing, much less saying it, is faintly ridiculous. But clearly this is a young woman who takes moral lessons seriously and who grows up fast. Cordelia is also portrayed in this episode as a caring girlfriend, offering to run errands for Xander while he watches over Willow's bedside -- this of course means that she does not witness him confess his love (platonic? romantic?) to his comatose friend.
By the time Season Three rolls along, Cordelia seems like a tried-and-true member of the gang. She's part of the group that picks up the slack while Buffy is off being "Anne" in Los Angeles, and notably when Buffy returns she is the only one of the kids willing to defend the Slayer's actions as reasonable, even calling out Xander in 3.02 "Dead Man's Party" when he steps out of line in his criticism. Given her general disdain for Buffy as a person, this is a pretty telling moment insofar as her growing empathy for other people. When she goes through SlayerFest with Buffy in 3.05 "Homecoming", the episode's central comedy may derive from the fact that Cordelia is mistaken for a Slayer, but in reality what it manages to prove is that she would make a perfectly serviceable heroine; as a totally normal girl forced to bluff or die, she expresses a degree of self-assurance and personal gravitas sufficient to cow a vampire mass murderer.
Despite all this, her efforts to be part of the group are ultimately nil; when Xander cheats on her with Willow, and she dumps him (3.08 "Lovers Walk"), it becomes clear that the other Scoobies have always thought of her not as their friend, but as Xander’s girlfriend: Willow is busy being ashamed of her own actions, Oz only really cares about Willow, and Giles has never had much use for Cordelia at all. Despite the fact that she is impaled, nobody but Xander seems to take much of an interest, and even he is quick to regard her as the "enemy" when she refuses to accept his immediate apology. Only Buffy makes some kind of effort to reach out, presumably due to the mutual respect developed in "Homecoming", but an ill-timed vampire attack prevents the girls from making a feasible connection and brings their past resentments to the fore again.
Stinging from Xander's rejection and probably on some level resenting Buffy's privilege as the hero -- for in becoming one of Buffy's sidekicks, Cordelia has surrendered all of the social status in the high school that she so enjoyed -- she is easy prey for the "patron saint" Anyanka in 3.09 "The Wish". And yet it is in "The Wish" that Cordelia truly displays how much she has learned about moral responsibility in the short time she has questioned herself: the moment she sees the destruction she has caused by wishing Buffy away, she wants to change it back. Even as she lies wounded and reeling from the experience of meeting vampires Xander and Willow, her only desire is to communicate the gravity of the situation to Giles in the hopes that together they can fix what happened. Of course, nobody remembers any of the events of "The Wish" besides Anyanka herself, but it is a telling window into Cordelia’s character growth regardless.
You Can Never Go Home Again
After "The Wish", Cordelia is essentially relegated to the role of background character. This is something of a necessity: without a connection to Buffy’s team, she is a character who no longer 'fits' the framework of BtVS, which is at its most basic level about a group of friends and their adult mentor. No matter what she says to Xander, she is the Zeppo; not in the sense that she 'isn't funny' (i.e. can't contribute) but in the sense that while Buffy and company continue on in their journey, she can't be a part of it. She doesn't fit. So what to do with her now? She no longer functions as a thankless Buffy substitute -- I mean girlfriend -- for Xander, and Buffy's characterization has moved beyond needing to bounce off Cordelia as a foil. In any case, Cordelia’s characterization has moved beyond being a simple cipher for class privilege, necessitating the advent of Harmony (previously a barely credited co-star) as her replacement in that functional role.
The most obvious thing to do, of course, is to begin deconstructing the character entirely. If the most basic building block of Cordelia's initial characterization is privilege, then the sensible thing to do once she hits a dead end is to take most of that privilege away. So by 3.20 "The Prom" it is revealed that despite a stellar academic record (in Angel 2.04 "Untouched" it's remarked that she was in the top 10% of the graduating class) and selection by several top colleges, Cordelia doesn't have the money for a higher education.
Instead, she goes to work at a dress shop, trying to buy herself a stunning gown for prom. Some might interpret this as shallowness, but Cordelia has spent her entire life believing that power is about a) how you look and b) what fine costume you are wearing. It's a signifier of privilege, and she needs that gown in order to feel like she has accomplished something on her own -- it's a sort of 'becoming', in the Season Two sense. This preoccupation with the power of appearances factors into her cosmetic shifts on AtS over time, and is interestingly not all that different from Willow's obsessive dream in Buffy 4.22 "Restless".
When Xander buys the dress for Cordelia it is a touching gesture, but only makes it that much more vital that she leave Sunnydale in order to really strike out on her own and win her own battles. It is, at least, in "The Prom" that Cordelia makes her next step toward detective work, accurately identifying that Tucker Wells's hellhounds are attacking people dressed in formal wear while the others miss this clue. Her focus on the material proves an asset in this sense, and this deepening understanding of the masks and guises people wear is central to the character going forward.
In any event, daddy has ruined everything, and Cordy goes from riches to rags. One of the most important points here is that unlike the generally supportive Joyce Summers or Xander's abusive parents or Willow's mother -- a dreadful woman who logs one memorable appearance in Buffy 3.11 "Gingerbread" -- Cordelia's parents are entirely unseen characters. A blurry photo of them appears briefly in Angel 4.05 "Supersymmetry", but all it really tells us is that Cordy's mother is blonde. Otherwise, all we is know that Mr. Chase committed twelve years of tax fraud and the IRS has repossessed everything. Perhaps at the risk of overplaying this motif, I note that Cordelia here loses her car, that symbol of forward momentum. Indeed, she will not be portrayed as owning a vehicle again until, appropriately enough, Angel 3.22 "Tomorrow" (and more on that later, naturally).
It’s implied that Cordelia does not keep in touch with her parents after graduation -- forcing her to grow up much faster than the other Scoobies -- though her mother calls in Angel 1.06 "Sense And Sensitivity"; whether Cordy calls her back is left unstated. The complete lack of an on-screen home life serves two purposes: it makes us imagine Cordelia's privileged upbringing in however grandiose a manner we like, and it makes her feel uniquely alone among the kids, all of whom are otherwise seen in their homes and in a family context; we never even see where Cordy lives in Sunnydale. She is a solitary and mobile character, and therefore easy to uproot and replant in Los Angeles. She gets to stake a vampire on her way out, a nice statement on her growing agency, and the show largely fills her role as 'brutally honest rational voice' with double duty on the part of Spike and Anya.
The last major point of discussion with regard to Cordelia's time on BtVS is her aborted romantic relationship with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in Season Three. With hindsight, the fact that such a notion was ever entertained seems almost unbelievable. In the end, though, it is absolutely vital to the success of Angel: Wesley is of course the other character who no longer fits in the BtVS framework, as Buffy has "graduated" from the Watchers' Council and he does not share a personal relationship with the group as Giles does. By trying -- and failing -- to find a romantic connection on Buffy, both of these misfit characters can move to Angel without a hint of sexual tension complicating the proceedings. And indeed, Cordy and Wes have the most platonic relationship of the entire AtS core cast. It's old news and there's no need to bother with it, enabling the sort of aromantic male/female friendship so rare on an action series.
II. Exodus
Cordelia Chase does not appear until well into Angel 1.01 "City Of...", the pilot episode of Angel: The Series. As the first episode of the new show, it is far more concerned with introducing Angel's mission as warrior for the enigmatic Powers-That-Be -- a premise immediately defining this series as one steeped in religious salvation and atonement as opposed to Buffy's secular humanism -- and establishing the male friendship between Angel and the working-class, loutish Allen Francis Doyle. Make no mistake, however; Cordelia's role in this series is hardly an afterthought. Doyle explains her place in the mix quite clearly by the end of the episode: if Angel is to maintain a connection to the living world, he needs someone to bring that element to him. He's certainly not going to go out and look for it, and Doyle can only be so pushy.
Cordelia, the heart of the show? It seems almost ridiculous at first glance. But the young woman whom both men quickly come to regard with affection as 'Cordy' (a nickname used sparingly on BtVS, but almost a universal constant on AtS) is a very different person from the posh and callous villainess of "Welcome To The Hellmouth". Her sarcastic condescension, seen when Angel meets up with her by chance at Margo's house party, is now little more than a mask, bravado she wears to disguise her shame at failure. She has been humbled, as is heartbreakingly displayed when she shame-facedly asks Russell Winters what he "want[s her] to do," knowing full well that he is essentially asking her to be his prostitute. She is savvy in the ways of the supernatural, as she displays to a surprised Winters, who takes her for a docile victim.
She has lost everything, and at first she thinks the way to go on is to strike out on her own -- to cast off her parents and her Sunnydale baggage and make her way in the world as the star of her own story; not Buffy's sidekick, but the protagonist of Cordy! It's not to be, though. It's harder than it looks, and she is a pampered child of privilege in way over her head. At the same time, this financial desperation drives her to push for the idea of Angel charging his clients; her pragmatism and self-preservation instinct have not been dulled by the loss of her fortune, just depleted of their earlier venom. So while she is the show’s 'heart' from the get-go, she is no blushing innocent.
This leads me to an important point, which is Cordy's age. Ostensibly, during the first season of AtS, Cordelia is 18-19 years old (the timing of 3.11 "Birthday" in the Season Three arc denotes her as a Capricorn, like Buffy Summers). Now, the BtVS cast was never a very convincing group of teenagers, but by the taping of "City Of..." Charisma Carpenter was 29 years old, and she looked it. An absolutely stunning 29, but 29 nonetheless. This is stretching it even by television standards, and was presumably the source of the joke about Cordelia's age in Season Three of BtVS (wherein Wesley assumes she is a teacher).
It is probably also the core reason why AtS never, ever discusses her age. Barney the empath demon gauges her at "about twenty" in 1.10 "Parting Gifts", but otherwise nobody talks about it. In 1.02 "Lonely Hearts" she has no problem entering the nightclub D'Oblique (which could be 18+, but doesn’t look like the type of place to be so). 1.03 "In The Dark" implies that she and Doyle often hit the pub, and in 1.08 "I Will Remember You" we see them there. By Season Two she is drinking with the guys at Caritas all the time, and while Caritas may not follow state liquor laws -- and the other places may just be letting in a pretty girl, ID or no ID -- it is still something that goes pointedly unmentioned.
In the main, this is totally genius. It saves us from the constant problem of suspending our disbelief with regard to the performer's age (a major issue for Xander over on BtVS, as Nicholas Brendon is even older than Carpenter) while also making Cordelia's potential romance with Doyle (who is in his mid-twenties, at the youngest) more palatable. Most importantly, it removes Cordy from the context of BtVS entirely: Buffy is a show about the adolescent experience, and by not bothering to portray Cordy as an adolescent AtS allows her to have a different kind of heroic journey.
Now, this approach isn't without its problems. It works almost too well, to the point where in Season Four, when we are supposed to regard Cordelia as a reasonable love interest for a boy aged 17-18, many viewers cringe about the age differential. They forget that the character herself is only 21 circa 4.07 "Apocalypse, Nowish", and while 18-21 are significant years she is hardly an 'older woman'. In fact, the age difference between Fred and Gunn may be more significant: Gunn was 17 in early 1995 (3.18 "Double Or Nothing"), while Fred left Texas in 1996 at a presumed age of about 22-23, as she was beginning graduate school (5.15 "A Hole In The World"). This is putting aside the other issues surrounding the Season Four Connor situation (and oh, there are many, which we will address later); I just think it interesting to note that the age issue is overblown, especially in a series where the main character is over 200.
But I digress. The major point is that in her transition from BtVS to AtS Cordelia becomes coded essentially as 'younger than Angel and Doyle', as opposed to being a teenager, and this combined with Carpenter's more mature appearance (curvaceous and brunette as opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar's slender, youthful blonde) makes it easy for her to fit into the context of the mid-to-late-20s 'adult' world of AtS. Certainly it seems impossible to fathom the idea that the Cordelia of 5.12 "You're Welcome" is only 23 years old, or even the vague idea that Cordy is substantially younger than Fred and Gunn, so the show tends to ignore this point whenever possible. As part of this, in AtS Season One we begin to see Charisma Carpenter's real life tattoos (most notably the sun on her lower back) and Cordy's fashion sense starts to err more toward the adult, with backless halter tops and a lot of midriff. Cordelia is also the only member of the initial Buffy cast whose virginity and first sexual experiences are left unaddressed.
His Girl Friday
The first season of AtS is an odd beast; the show spends some time figuring out what, exactly, it wants to be, and there are a lot of anthology stories like one might find on a more standard detective show: random client shows up with problem, Angel solves problem, client is never seen again. Cordelia's role is as something of a plucky secretary, the Miss Moneypenny of the establishment: she makes quips and provides comic relief while Angel and Doyle do the heavy lifting. Along the way she copes with a growing attraction to Doyle and learns a valuable lesson about demons not always being evil. Her most important episode is 1.05 "Rm w/a Vu", in which she admits that she too, like Angel and Doyle, feels some need to atone for the way she has behaved in her life... but also realizes -- while battling a spectral representation of the privileged WASP helicopter parent -- that her acid wit and steely-eyed pragmatism, those things which make her an independent "bitch" and not a "cryBuffy", are among her best qualities.
Much of the fan criticism of Cordelia's character in later seasons comes from a perception that she 'devolves' from pragmatic virago into gentle altruist, but I would posit that she simply becomes less cruel, a natural part of growing up and leaving behind childhood. The core traits of her personality as evidenced in "Rm w/a Vu" -- an astute yet judgmental nature, an uncompromising drive to succeed, and a ruthless practicality tempered only by her affection for others -- remain constant throughout her tenure on AtS, and I will touch on this point again when I get to Season Three. In any case, even after "Rm w/a Vu" Cordelia remains something of a backdrop element, the lovable thorn in Angel's side who is occasionally helpful. It's not a terribly empowered position and it's not a great situation for a female lead.
Thankfully, things change. Halfway through the season, in 1.09 "Hero", Doyle sacrifices himself for a goofy one-off plot about the evils of allegorical demon racism and Cordelia inherits his visions. This is an absolutely necessary development for a variety of reasons: the first is that Doyle, bless him, is not all that dynamic a character. Certainly he has potential, but being 'the other brooding demon with a soul seeking atonement' in a cast of only three people makes Angel Investigations very much a sad demon bro club with Cordy on the outside looking inward. The addition of awkward intellectual Wesley to the proceedings makes for a much more varied cast. More importantly, it is the transfer of the visions, not simply the transition from BtVS to AtS, that truly heralds Cordelia's transformation from bit player into leading lady. Tim Minear has outright said that he feels this turn of events "made Cordelia's character much more interesting," and I'm not inclined to disagree.
1.10 "Parting Gifts" is the first major recontextualization of the series, and like others to follow it (most notably 2.11 "Redefinition" and 3.07 "Offspring") Cordelia is the axis of momentum. The episode is primarily concerned with introducing Wesley to the series and, more importantly, exploring Cordelia's initial feelings about the visions: her selection as visionary is ironic both because she is the most self-centered character and because in 1.02 "Lonely Hearts" she dismisses Doyle's gift, claiming that if it were her gift, she would return it. Now, she quickly realizes that she has no choice in the matter.
"Parting Gifts" is largely about coming to terms with her new role as Angel's connection to the Powers-That-Be. It is only after being completely objectified -- rendered as an item up on the auction block -- that she comes to realize the role of seer can be merely part of her human identity, not some new pedestal the world has insisted she stand upon. Alongside Wesley, she starts taking a more active role in investigation, and the two work in brilliant concert together to free Angel in 1.16 "The Ring", with Cordelia sacrificing one of her last tokens of her former wealth, a horsehair belonging to her repossessed pony Keanu.
In these episodes she comes to relate to Angel on a more personal level; they are not simply co-workers or friends, but rather warriors in the same trenches. Cordelia has just seen death up close and personal for the first time, and is changed by the experience. She helps Angel with his grief in 1.14 "I’ve Got You Under My Skin", dragging into the open Angel’s unspoken fear that taking on another 'sidekick' in Wesley is dishonoring Doyle's memory or, worse, consigning Wesley to the same fate. When she is attacked in 1.22 "To Shanshu in L.A." it is during a visit to the street fair to buy Angel a gift that might assuage his depressive tendencies. Cordelia isn't just Angel's personal assistant anymore; she's his guide, even if it's the blind leading the blind most of the time, and she takes to the job without question.
That isn't to say that the process is easy. As Angel's direct connection to the Powers, Cordy becomes part of the momentous destiny surrounding him. She jokes in "To Shanshu in L.A." that she wants to know what the prophetic Scroll of Aberjian says about her, but after she is hospitalized by the demon Vocah it becomes clear that she actually is referenced in the prophecy: the Words of Anatole contained within the scroll appear, when read aloud by Wesley, to be a prophetic declaration specifically about Cordelia; we must therefore assume that Cordelia has a definite role to play in the apocalypse, or, given the AtS emphasis on choice, at least a 'destined' role she may or may not succeed in filling.
Vocah's attack in "To Shanshu in L.A." is the second time in the first season that Cordelia is profoundly violated on a physical and mental level: the first is in 1.12 "Expecting", wherein a parasitic demon impregnates her via a surrogate and psychically controls her. That adventure is the one that truly brings together Angel, Cordy and Wes as a strong family unit, and it is Cordelia who smashes the demon's frozen corpse to reclaim agency over her sexuality and body.
While "Expecting" is a vital event in Cordelia's development, especially in light of the motif of mystical pregnancy that will become so important to understanding her arc, it is the assault in "To Shanshu" that is the most major turning point in her development thus far. When Vocah "opens her mind" to the vast possibility of the world's suffering, she is forever changed. The seer who sees too much is an ancient archetype, with the Trojan princess Cassandra operating as the primary example in myth but plenty of occultists-gone-mad popping up in even contemporary literature. It is the nature of a visionary to see beyond, and what is beyond human understanding is generally unpleasant for the human brain to behold.
While "To Shanshu" is a dramatic example of this phenomenon, the change it provokes in Cordelia should not be seen -- as many viewers seem to feel, and as Cordelia herself implies with the phrases "new me" and "old me" -- as instantaneous. It is merely the climactic moment that pushes Cordy forward a few steps on a path that, as we have seen, she is already walking.
What is especially telling about Cordelia's shift in perspective in "To Shanshu" is the visions themselves, or what we can discern from the quick cuts and flashing lights. We know from stories like 1.13 "She" that Cordelia personally experiences all the sensations and emotions of the people in her visions. This is not just a gruesome filmstrip before her eyes that she can't turn off; it is a piece of sympathetic magic allowing her the unique and terrible privilege to step inside the mind and body of hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of Los Angeles's most desperate residents as they suffer unspeakable pain. She feels every blow. Her skin chars like theirs in the fire.
No privileged person has ever had the opportunity Cordelia is here afforded: to actually know how the other half lives. Her visions in "To Shanshu" seem to largely concern the urban poor; for a rich white heiress from the suburbs, this is a far more revelatory experience than having visions of monstrous hatchlings or demonic possession.
What AtS does very cleverly is avoid the easy place to take this narrative: savior white woman descends to the downtrodden people of color and lifts them up with her pure goodness. Certainly that is a risk they run, here, and Cordelia could have gone directly from "To Shanshu" into Gayatri Spivak's nightmares. Instead, AtS openly challenges Cordelia's right to intercede in the affairs of those less privileged than she, with new Angel Investigations member Charles Gunn making explicit reference to class disparity and white privilege (both generalized in society and specifically Cordelia's own) in 2.03 "First Impressions", a story in which it becomes clear that while Cordy has the visions and the insight, she doesn't always know best and she certainly can't do it alone, without the guidance of people who actually know that world.
The Inner Eye
Before I go any further, I'll address the metaphysics of the visions themselves, as they're a point of contention both within the series and in viewer interpretations. Both Cordelia and the empath demon Barney assume in "Parting Gifts" that Doyle passes his visions on intentionally, and this idea goes unchallenged (even by such occult luminaries as Wesley) for years. In 3.11 "Birthday", the demon Skip suggests that this transfer was subconscious and related to Doyle's true love for Cordelia acting as a mystical catalyst, rather than a product of Doyle's active choice; he further asserts that Cordelia was never meant to have the visions in the first place. Skip has every reason to be lying about this, however -- he is later revealed in 4.17 "Inside Out" to be an agent of a rogue Power -- eventually known as Jasmine -- who has been manipulating events around Cordelia for years. Skip claims in "Inside Out" that Jasmine herself facilitated the vision transfer.
The premise that a lot of viewers seem to take from these retcons -- especially viewers attempting to dismiss Cordelia's agency and value as a hero -- is that Cordy's acquisition of the visions is a 'mistake' (perpetrated by Doyle's subconscious, by accident) or a simple machination of Jasmine's; either way, the implication is that Cordelia never deserved the visions, and was not actually chosen by the Powers to act as visionary.
Now, it is clear from stories such as "Birthday" and 2.18 "Dead End" that the human body is indeed not well-equipped to bear the physical burden of the visions. Certainly by imposing the visions on a human being rather than a demon, the Powers are making an apparently foolhardy or at least impractical choice. However, "Birthday" also indicates that Cordelia continues to function normally long after she should have been brain-dead, which implies that the Powers are somehow making sure the visionary stays alive. Her brief coma in that episode is not necessarily related to the visions at all, as anything related to her quest with Skip must in hindsight be regarded with suspicion.
The idea that the Powers are simply doing their best with the hand they have been dealt, and that they would like to get the visions out of Cordelia's head (this is sometimes posited as an explanation for Cordelia's accidental journey to Pylea: the Powers want her to com-shuk with the Groosalugg and lose the visions) does not really gel with what little we know about the visions.
First of all, there's no reason to think the Powers couldn't just take the visions away if they so chose: Doyle receives them out of nowhere (per flashbacks in "Hero"), so the idea that they are some sort of viral phage that passes from host to host is not supported by the text aside from the exceptional cases of Doyle's transfer to Cordelia, the unique and prophesied catch to sex with Groo (which doesn't seem true of sex with anyone else), and the alternate timeline transfer from Doyle to Angel to Cordy in "Birthday" (which is entirely a fantasy created by Skip). Cordelia's final vision for Angel (5.21 "Power Play") is not a transmission of the talent, merely a psychic message of sorts.
If the Powers didn't want Cordelia to be Angel's visionary, she wouldn't be Angel's visionary. Full stop. Cordy happens to be Angel's only remaining friend, but the Powers sent him Doyle with no prior acquaintance, and could simply do so again. As if to underline this point, the Oracles (as close as we ever get to direct contact with the non-Jasmine Powers) clearly refer to Cordy in "Parting Gifts" when they say that with Doyle's death "one door closes [and] another opens." It certainly doesn't sound like this is some colossal cosmic oops. The Conduit (a similar entity) in "Birthday" also declares that Cordelia's "path is chosen," and refuses to agree with Angel's premise that Cordelia's visions are a negative. In fact, all three 'origin stories' for Cordelia's tenure as the visionary actually fit together nicely: Doyle gives Cordelia the visions -- either on purpose or subconsciously due to his love for her -- and the Powers facilitate the transfer. Doyle's love is what allows the transfer to take place, but the Powers assume an active role in choosing Cordelia as the visionary.
What about Jasmine, you say? Jasmine is one of the Powers. Until Season Four, there is no indication that the other Powers have any idea Jasmine has gone rogue. It's entirely possible that she doesn't break ranks openly until after Cordelia's ascension in "Tomorrow", and therefore her claim that she facilitated Cordelia's vision transfer totally jives with the initial premise that the Powers select (or confirm, like a political appointment on Doyle's part) Cordy as visionary. The two are not mutually exclusive, and just because Jasmine has an ulterior motive does not mean that the other Powers do not deem Cordelia worthy of the burden and privilege of the visions.
The other remote possibility, of course, is the more conspiracy-minded view that every interaction Angel Investigations has with "the Powers" in the first three seasons actually owes purely to contact with Jasmine, indeed the only Power who ever cared enough to intercede on Earth. This seems unlikely, however, in that the other Powers care enough to dispatch Darla's spirit (or a simulacrum) in "Inside Out" and to reawaken Cordy in "You're Welcome", not to mention that Cordelia's vision in 2.10 "Reunion" seems tailored specifically to keep Angel away from Darla, which would be the opposite of Jasmine's desire. So while 'only Jasmine ever listened' is an appealing dystopian reading of the series, it just doesn't hold water under prolonged analysis. We must operate under the assumption that even if Jasmine tips the balance in favor of it happening, the Powers as a general force take interest in the world, and they choose Cordelia as Angel's connection to them.
I'll Be With You
Early Season Two of AtS shows Cordelia secure, in control of her own destiny, and acting as the centerpiece of the team. In the absence of a localized headquarters, Angel Investigations spends two episodes (and presumably the summer hiatus) operating out of her apartment in Silverlake. Even after they relocate to the Hyperion Hotel, Cordy's visions are what generally provoke the group to action, and the series builds on her characterization as the person closest to Angel: they alone share the history of not only Doyle's death, but also Angel's BtVS Season Two rampage as Angelus.
The early part of the season stresses again and again that Cordelia is the character who understands Angel in a way his other friends do not. She understands his frustration in 2.01 "Judgment" over the promise of the shanshu, and assures him not only that he is worthy, but that she will be with him until he meets his destiny. In 2.04 "Untouched" her characteristic astute judgment of others enables her to read the sexual drama at the core of of teen telekinetic Bethany Chaulk's personality, and her knowledge of Angel allows her to foresee the threat Bethany poses to his trusting, chivalrous heroism. Despite the fact that Bethany has proven herself capable of squashing men into paste with heavy objects, Cordelia firmly confronts her on Angel's behalf. She is the guide, the link to the Powers; she is responsible for Angel's destiny, and she will not allow a child to swing into town and to deter Angel from his path.
This is why the reappearance of Darla is such a threat not only to Angel, but to Cordy: nobody in Los Angeles knows Angel better than Cordelia... except for Darla. Darla appeals to every one of Angel's baser instincts, and there is no way Cordy can claim to know Angel's thought processes when the woman responsible for his vampiric existence is crawling into the Hyperion at night and invading his dreams. The Darla arc is full of emotional gut-punches, but perhaps no single moment creates a pit in my stomach like a specific one in 2.07 "Darla": Cordelia's shocked reply when Angel says that Darla may not have to go through ensoulment alone, like him. "You're not alone," Cordy says, quietly, expression on her face almost like she's been slapped. Angel looks faintly apologetic, but says nothing. He leaves.
And as the Darla affair becomes more and more dire, Angel leaves again and again and again. Cordy finds herself unable to reach him, looking to Wesley for help but still unable to compete with the closeness of vampire and sire. And how could she? She's only human, and a human friendship is not the same thing as the kind of bond Darla and Angel share. Whatever feelings Darla and Angel actually have for one another, they are linked in blood and bound together in damnation. Cordy can't fathom that. Darla becomes Angel's guide, and leads him to a place of despair and darkness that he cannot allow his human friends to witness. He cuts them off, and Cordelia is left in a state of shock.
Still, this is a woman who gets up again when knocked to the floor. In 2.11 "Redefinition" she, Gunn and Wesley individually approach The Host at Caritas for advice. In their drunken stupor, the three reaffirm their friendship and await The Host's counsel only to be interrupted by a vision from the Powers. Cordelia directs them to action, and all three charge to the defense of a girl at a demon's mercy. Entirely sans Angel, without any superpowers to speak of, the three human members of Angel Investigations rescue the girl and kill the demon. Gunn and Wesley express some dismay at how much the demon managed to hurt them, but Cordelia counters: "Which one of us is the dead one?"
The next few months of Cordelia's journey are critical ones. As her visions begin to get worse and worse, she devotes herself entirely to her calling. A common complaint leveled at Cordy is that much of her do-goodery is on Angel's behalf, or meant to secure herself in his good graces, and to that I say: watch "Redefinition" through 2.16 "Epiphany" if you honestly feel that way, because that is a load of bunk.
Angel himself seems to think this way, dismissing Cordelia as a party girl when he finally reunites with Wesley in "Epiphany", and Wes makes it clear that Angel has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Angel has the luxury to walk away from his calling; he can earn the shanshu or not earn the shanshu, can chase Darla all he likes, can squander the potential the Powers see in him. Cordelia has no such luxury. She is a conduit for the pain of mankind, and that is not something you can just turn off.
While Angel has been slaking his bloodlust and playing his game of cat-and-mouse with Darla, Cordelia has been working twice as hard to do his job without his help. When he tries to act as though all is forgiven, she sets him straight: "We're not friends." Because why should they be? In "Birthday" we learn that by this point Cordelia is already on serious prescription medications to slow dementia. The visions are killing her, and she knows it. She is dying, and her best friend has abandoned her to do the good work they are meant to do together. She can't tell Wesley and Gunn; their fledgling enterprise is already precarious enough without the knowledge that every time she gets a vision, as far as she knows she's inching closer and closer to death.
Angel and Cordelia do of course reconcile, in part because of his legitimate remorse and in part because Cordy comes to understand his reaction to Darla when Harmony Kendall -- now a vampire -- arrives in Los Angeles and makes a fool out of her. Past attachments are complicated, and sometimes shaking off our old lives entirely is impossible. With that in mind, Cordy and Angel reaffirm their friendship, tenuously... and then Cordy gets sucked into Pylea, giving Angel the opportunity to put his money where his mouth is and dive in after her.
Cordelia's role in the Pylean adventure requires little commentary, because -- as with the Pylea arc in general, which is marvelous but fairly light entertainment overall -- what you see is what you get. Cordelia is given back all the privilege she's ever lost, and then some. She is made a literal Princess. A handsome warrior who wants nothing more than to protect and love her offers to take away the visions that cause her endless pain and will eventually, as far as she knows, leave her a vegetable.
Some interpret Cordelia's refusal to surrender the visions as foolish pride, and perhaps it is. But Cordelia knows that she has a destiny. She's always known that, ever since she was young, though in high school her thoughts about it didn't go far beyond 'trophy wife'. Sure, having the visions is terrible. Keeping them will probably kill her eventually. But she and Angel (and Wesley and Gunn and, soon, Fred) are a team, and team players don't give up when the going gets tough.
No gift comes without a price, and if Cordy needs to suffer so others might live, she's going to do it. The mission is what matters, and she believes in the mission. She will pay for that faith dearly, but she wouldn't have it any other way. In the meantime, her experience as royalty on Pylea helps her get together the self-respect to quit acting, a pursuit she has come to find demeaning; after 2.19 "Belonging", we never see Cordelia act again (barring the alternate timeline in "Birthday").
Demonize Me, Already
Season Three finds Cordelia once more operating as the core of Angel Investigations, especially in Angel's absence while he grieves over Buffy's death. Wesley may be the leader, but it is Cordelia who supplies the common sense, including advice on everyone's various romantic pursuits. She isn't always right, but she's clearly the person everyone trusts. When Angel does return, it is clear that they are now closer than ever after their Pylean journey.
It's readily obvious from 3.01 "Heartthrob" that the visions are going to become a serious problem. Cordelia suffers in silence, going home to take hot baths and cry in the dark. To draw attention to her plight would be a distraction, and the last thing she wants is for the group to decide her visions must somehow be removed.
Then comes 3.02 "That Vision Thing". Lilah Morgan of Wolfram & Hart uses a psychic channeler to send especially tactile visions to Cordelia; physical effects begin to manifest on her body in a sort of stigmata, and by the story's midpoint she is covered in boils, open wounds, and burned flesh. Still she fears what she would be without the visions. She feels that Angel (and by extension the mission) wouldn't need her anymore. For someone who once thought her mere presence in a room was reason enough for people to grovel, this is remarkable. When she gives in, crying, saying that it is too much and she wants the visions to stop, Angel must reassure her that even without them she would be a vital member of his team. And it's true: without Cordy, the group would be a mess.
The fallout from "That Vision Thing" is 3.06 "Billy", centered around the demonic prisoner Angel has freed from a Powers-maintained (or rather Jasmine-maintained) prison dimension in exchange for Lilah's sparing Cordelia. Taking personal responsibility for the murders Billy subsequently causes, Cordelia goes on a one-woman manhunt to bring him down. In a staggering display of self-confidence, she confronts Lilah -- the woman who only weeks earlier had profoundly violated her -- and, dismayed by the lawyer's condition, encourages her to reclaim her personal agency.
When the season's arc begins the following episode, in 3.07 "Offspring", Cordelia and Angel's friendship (now with vague romantic overtones) is tested when it is revealed he lied about sleeping with Darla the previous year. Cordelia, empathizing with Darla due to her own unwanted pregnancy (in "Expecting"), lets her guard down and briefly forgets that Darla is, in fact, a monster. Darla's inevitable attack on Cordy precipitates a battle with Angel, during which an awestruck Cordelia receives a vision about Darla's pregnancy: the child is innocent and ensouled. After Darla sacrifices herself to save baby Connor, Cordelia and Angel essentially raise the child together, leading romantic tension to boil to the surface more and more.
On Cordelia's birthday, she falls into the vision-coma already described earlier. The demon Skip -- previously Billy's jailor, though she does not know this -- offers her the chance to give up the visions and live a new life as a wildly successful actress. He tells her that the visions were never truly her destiny, and that it has all been a mistake. Manipulating her to see only Angel's frustration with her condition, he leads her to question her faith in the mission and whether or not she is willing to die. Accepting his offer, she finds herself in an alternate timeline where she is, finally, the protagonist... only to find that something just isn't right. Despite herself, she leaves her life of glitz and glamour to fight a demon and save Angel, reclaiming her visions when she knows, somehow, that they belong to her.
Skip advises Cordelia that the only way to safely retain the visions is to become half-demon. Cordelia's response: "demonize me, already."
And many fans seem to do exactly that.
This is the point where many viewers dismiss Cordelia altogether. She's a "Mary Sue", they say (in a typical reduction used to defame female characters), and her motivations are unrealistic. They feel her sudden and precipitous growth in power is unbalancing to the character.
These claims simply do not add up in the context of the series. As we have seen, Cordelia spends the first two seasons of AtS recontextualizing her solipsistic worldview into one that is just as self-centered without being selfish. She is still Cordelia Chase, she is still someone special, but she is someone special because she has a job to do. She is part of the mission now, and the sort of vanity that would make her balk at becoming part-demon is far behind her; in fact, it was probably behind her as far back as "Hero".
If becoming a demon is the only way to continue the mission, that is what Cordelia is going to do. The mission is what gives her purpose; as she explains to Harmony in 2.17 "Disharmony", the mission is what fills the "air pockets" inside her and helps her to "become [herself]" -- in essence it's Buffy's "cookie dough" speech from Buffy 7.22 "Chosen", but far more succinct and more articulate.
As for Cordelia's magic powers: yes, they are a somewhat clumsy deus ex machina. But to complain about sudden bursts of mystical power in the same universe where Willow Rosenberg can go from bumbling adept (BtVS 4.08 "Something Blue") to god-wounding archmage (BtVS 5.19 "Tough Love") in a year and a half seems disingenuous. Cordelia's charismatic powers aren't even something she can consciously control (as Willow or Tara do), and only come into play twice in any meaningful way (3.19 "The Price" and 3.21 "Benediction"). Really, they are hardly something to get worked up over. What is important about them is that -- like Willow's sudden growth in power from "Tough Love" onward -- they leave us pretty alarmed. What exactly is happening to Cordelia? We don't know.
A Higher Being
Not long after Cordelia's transformation, she is startled by the reappearance of Groo just as romance between herself and Angel is finally beginning to blossom. This is absolutely perfect, on the surface, as Cordelia knows that a) a romantic relationship with Angel is potentially a death sentence because of the curse and b) using Groo as an Angel substitute means that she and Angel can continue to work the mission together without complications. I say 'using', here, but I don't believe that Cordelia consciously takes advantage of Groo; it is more that she doesn't take much time to reflect on her own feelings. She has trouble taking Groo seriously because of his gentle, naive mannerisms, and Cordy has always been the type to look outward and judge others rather than look within.
Angel's jealousy prompts him to give Cordy a paid vacation, and it is in the following episodes that we see, through her absence, what a key factor she is in holding Angel Investigations together. Most importantly, she is Wesley's closest friend and confidante, and without her available for him to consult, the events of 3.15 "Loyalty" and 3.16 "Sleep Tight" become almost inevitable. Cordy is the character everyone trusts, and removing her from the equation is deadly.
Upon Cordelia's return, she is again the only person who can console Angel in his grief. In an echo of their shared grieving period for Doyle, she feels the same sense of loss for the child she has come to love as her own, and is the first person to reassure Angel that it is okay to mourn, forever if necessary.
In the whirlwind of emotions surrounding Connor's return from Quor'toth as Stephen Holtz, Cordelia takes the time to make it very clear that any characterization of her as some kind of gentle pacifist exists only in the world of fanon: while the others balk at Angel's desire to kill Holtz, Cordy endorses it. She merely feels it is important that Angel be honest with his son first, and in the end she turns out to be right; Angel's duplicity makes it easy for Connor to believe that he has murdered Holtz even when no such thing is true, which leads to the events of "Tomorrow".
"Tomorrow" is not just the next major step in Cordelia's narrative arc; it is also the last one. While she returns -- in various senses of the word -- during Seasons Four and Five, it is "Tomorrow" that marks the last entry in her own story arc. This episode takes her off the page as a protagonist and renders her as something else; this isn't to say that analysis should not continue, and that is what the final section of this essay is for. In the meanwhile, let's address these final moments of Cordelia's character arc.
Groo has left her, and Cordelia is left with the question of whether she does, in fact, love Angel; she has spent so much time denying it to herself that she isn't entirely sure she can trust her own judgment, and she certainly does not have time to reflect now. Eventually she seems to decide that yes, she does, and as if to confirm this realization she has a vision of herself declaring her love; it is almost as though in this moment, the mission and her love finally become one and the same thing.
Arranging to meet with Angel by the sea, Cordelia gets into her car -- she is depicted here, for the first time since BtVS, as owning an automobile -- and drives toward Point Dume. On her way she is met by Skip, who stops time and tells her that the moment has come for her to take her place in the heavens as a higher being. After protesting that she cannot leave behind the love of her life before ever getting to experience that love, she realizes that this is the final sacrifice the Powers require if she is to prove her worth.
With a wry smile, she consents. For who is she to refuse? This is bigger than her. There is a sizable contingent of the fanbase that blames Cordelia's choice for the events of Season Four. They think that she is foolish and selfish to accept the power Skip offers, and feel that she is rightly punished for her arrogance.
To me, that is insane. Cordelia's sin was always pride, not avarice. She is a materialist, but as early as "Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight" her desire for finery is always about keeping up the right appearances. Cordelia is not the kind of person who craves power, she is the kind of person who craves comfort, and to give up the possibility of a long life fighting alongside the man she loves in order to ostensibly benefit all mankind is the most profound gesture she can make to prove her growth as a person. This isn't about arrogance; arrogance would be to look an agent of the Powers in the face and say, "No thanks, I think it should be all about me and my feelings. Thanks, though."
So Cordelia says yes, and becomes one with the cosmos. In theory, that should really be where this all ends. Unfortunately, the best laid plans...
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