|
NAME: Cordelia Chase AGE: 18 HEIGHT: 5? 8? SKILLS: Shopping, Bitchiness HAIR: In posession of an excellent stylist WARNING: Approach with caution. Beware of reefs and shallows. CASE HISTORY: When we first met the admittedly beautiful Cordelia Chase, she seemed to be a completely shallow and self-centered bitch-queen: spoiled, rich, and popular. She headed a clique of wanna-be Cordettes who scorned all but the fashionable, the rich and the pretty. Cordelia once told Buffy she considered herself the "Slayer of Dating", and it seemed a fair statement, as she had most of the desirable boys of the school on her string. Cordy's biggest fears revolved around losing her looks, her place on the cheerleading squad, or her popular status; nothing else seemed to matter to her at all. Cruelty to those less fortunate was one of her favorite pasttimes. But as time went on, we began to see that Cordelia does, in fact, have layers. Much of her superficiality is a defense mechanism, and we've seen that she's rather lonely underneath. She's ruthlessly honest -- in her own words, "Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass." Though any kind of conversation with her revealed her to be an incredible ditz, she nevertheless worked hard at school and had good grades and good SATs. (Perhaps that's just because failing out of school is considered just as loser-esque as doing *too* well academically.) Cordelia quickly realized how important the Slayer's work is, and in the second season of "Buffy" she rather begrudgingly became a Slayerette. Since that time she has proved her loyalty, and her worth fighting evil, over and over again. Her addition to the inner circle was facilitated by her year of dating Xander, but even after their painful breakup she continued to help Buffy & co. In some ways she never changed -- she's still spiteful, tactless, superficial, spoiled, and ditzy. But we know that there's more to her than that. We've seen it. The story of Cordelia and Xander is not a happy one. Enemies since childhood, they fell into an embrace immediately after screaming "I hate you!" at each other. After multiple attempts to deny their feelings for each other, they eventually gave up and became a couple. As their relationship deepened, we saw that Cordy was willing to give up what she valued most, her social status, for love -- but in the end she lost everything. It's hard to say if Xander ever really loved her; even when they were dating, he usually showed more concern for Buffy and Willow than for his girlfriend. When he cheated on her -- with Willow, of all people -- Cordy was deeply hurt, and has been trying to hide that pain ever since. Cordelia has had other men, of course. In the first season, we saw her go through boy after boy, only to have the one she really liked die in the season finale; in the second season, she only had two or three flings before she and Xander fell into each other's arms; in the third, she had a few rebound dates but was still too stunned from the loss of Xander to ever really find another boy. Her crush on the Watcher Wesley was the closest she came to real interest post-Xander. During the first and second seasons had a recurring thing for Angel, and more than once she tried to put the moves on him, much to Buffy's dismay; but it didn't work out between them, and (one hopes) it never will. Near the end of the third season on "Buffy", Cordelia's father lost all his money. Everything she owned was taken away, she was forced to get a part-time job, and she couldn't afford go to the colleges that accepted her: USC, Colorado State, Duke, and Columbia. This is part of the motivation for her move to Los Angeles with Angel. (The fact that L.A. is Cordy's idea of Shoe Heaven is simply not enough motivation on its own...) On "Angel" Cordelia will fight evil and pursue an acting career. These sound like good choices for her, as these are the things she's been doing for as long as we've known her: fighting evil as a Slayerette, and acting superficial and ditzy to hide a basically good and intelligent person underneath. Well, to a certain extent. Just so long as she doesn't try to sing. SPECIAL NOTES: Now that Cordelia has moved to the show "Angel", we will be seeing her only rarely on Buffy. For more information on her and her new show, visit our sister site, The City of Angel. |
Buffy & the Slayerettes
Buffy ][ Xander ][ Willow ][ Oz ][ Giles ][ Spike
Gone But Not Forgotten
Angel ][ Angelus ][ Cordelia ][ Memorial Garden
