The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#3)

#3.

Hero: Cordelia Chase (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1-3, Angel)

"You think you're bad? All mean and haughty? ...lady, the bitch is back." -- Cordelia Chase, "Rm w/a Vu"

Many Buffyverse fans might scoff at the notion of Cordelia ranking higher than Willow on this list, especially considering that Cordelia’s character is practically assassinated by the writers in Season Four of Angel. How could a character who goes through such a terrible development ever be considered better than the most fan-beloved character in the Buffyverse. I have two defenses. One: I’m pretty much willing to discard everything that happens to Cordelia in Season Four as Jasmine’s doing; in my opinion, Charisma Carpenter is just playing Jasmine throughout the entire season rather than playing Cordelia possessed by Jasmine. Two: Cordelia develops just as much as Willow does within less time, taking center stage in a way Willow cannot if only by the nature of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s narrative as opposed to Angel’s. Also, when one looks at the heroic characteristics that make the Buffyverse’s heroes so admirable, Cordelia simply checks off more boxes than Willow. She might not be as powerful, but she’s more morally present, assertive, and philosophically intriguing.

In the early days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia Chase is the least interesting member of the secondary cast. Serving as little more than an image of who Buffy Summers would have been without the responsibility of being the Slayer, Cordelia is a stuck-up, snobby, self-centered… well, let’s use the term that she uses to describe herself: bitch. Her most interesting feature is the fact that she sings Whitney Houston songs really badly. While she does assist the Scoobies slightly during the events of “Prophecy Girl,” she does little else other than scream, whine, and complain. Her character does reek of the worst elements of 90s teen fantasy clichés.

And yet, as if by magic, Cordelia’s character makes a complete about face in Season Two. She’s still as self-centered, egotistic, and socially rapacious as she is in Season One, but she’s now far more emotionally cognizant and intellectually incisive. In “When She Was Bad,” the season opening, it is Cordelia who first manages to break through Buffy’s social shell and let the Slayer know that her casually cruel and emotionally distant behavior is truly hurting her friends. Later in the season, Cordelia defies her social status and gives in to her growing attachment to Xander, someone who has saved her life on multiple occasions, forging a relationship with him that is as hilarious as it is dysfunctional. She even lowers her place on the Sunnydale High social ladder in order to be with him, demonstrating that she is far more empathetic than most would think her to be. While Harmony, Cordelia’s best friend and second-in-command, is a shallow ditz through and through, Cordelia is layered. Sure, she keeps her self-interest as her top priority, but she is willing to put principles above power and hold true to authentic feelings.

In Season Three, however, Cordelia’s world begins to fall apart. In “Homecoming,” her antagonistic relationship with Buffy comes to a head, as the two reveal their personal insecurities to one another. While Buffy laments never being able to relax and be “normal” like Cordelia, Cordelia indicates that her position atop the high school food chain can be as isolating and hostile as Buffy’s vampire slaying. Her relationship with Xander crumbles after both he and Willow give into their hormones; unlike Oz, she is not nearly as forgiving of their foibles, especially after getting impaled by some rebar after discovering Willow and Xander making out with one another. Worst of all, her father is prosecuted for tax evasion, and her family fortune disappears, forever ruining Cordelia’s chances of going to Columbia for college. (Did I neglect to mention that Cordelia is the second smartest member of the Scoobies with the exception of Willow?) Yet, despite being brought to her lowest point thus far, Cordelia demonstrates noticeable growth. Her friendship with Buffy is shown to be resolute, and her willingness to offer some forgiveness to Xander after he makes overtures for reconciliation is admirable. Most importantly, Cordelia stakes her first vampire in the events of “Graduation Day,” showing that she, much like Buffy, is willing to accept the burdens of adulthood. She is no longer a character who is merely Buffy’s “road not taken.”

In terms of social status alone, Cordelia is at her lowest point in Angel’s first season. Her acting career is floundering, her living situation is disastrous, and her overcompensating behavior is actively hurting her chances of getting a career. That said, she’s still as savvy as ever: in “City Of,” she’s quickly able to deduce that a so-called potential employer is actually a vampire preying upon her purely on the basis of minor setting details. She’s not yet physically capable of taking on vampires, but her ability to out-think her opponents keeps her safe and non-detrimental to Angel’s initial efforts. She also provides a crucial set of skills both Angel and Doyle lack: logistics, perspective, and pragmatism. While Angel and Doyle dedicate themselves purely to saving as many people as possible with no heed as to the proper method to achieve those ends, Cordelia is able to stop them in their tracks and focus their efforts. She’s almost singlehandedly responsible for turning Angel Investigations from a bunch of individuated acts of vigilantism to a tightly-run, well-organized, life-saving machine.

Personally, I’m not too fond of the plot development in which Cordelia falls in love with Doyle (Charisma Carpenter and Glenn Quinn have really poor chemistry). However, the final product of this relationship – Cordelia’s receiving Doyle’s visions – produces fantastic new developments for her character. Thanks to Doyle’s gift, Cordelia now feels a heightened sense of empathy and responsibility for the lives of others; heck, she might feel even more responsible for others’ safety than Buffy herself. However, this gift comes at the expense of her own health, as she suffers from splitting migraines, ulcers, and even nearly cancerous brain tumors in exchange for receiving the visions; as a pure human, her body isn’t capable of embracing these visions. More importantly, though, Cordelia’s physical injuries serve as a metaphor for the impact the visions are having on her original character. While Cordelia’s empathy, by necessity, expands from her having the visions, they push back against the selfish nature of her character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel Season One. Cordelia loses part of herself by having the visions. In the episode, “Birthday,” she must make the choice between the old self and her new self, a self that must become part demon in order to survive the visions. At first, she chooses the ideal life of an actress she always wanted, but her new reality reveals a monstrous burden unto all whom she cares about and the world at large. Without Cordelia, Angel would have taken on the visions himself, reducing him to little more than a babbling idiot reliant on Gunn and Wesley to execute the missions. Recognizing the anguish of her friends and the world around her, Cordelia makes the decision to sacrifice a part of herself – her self-interested essence – in order to save others. Cordelia remains as pragmatic, clever, and direct as ever, but her once predominant self-interest takes a back seat to her empathy: a truly heroic character development which neither Angel nor Willow is able to rival.

Then there’s Cordelia’s relationship with Angel. On a narrative level, Cordelia is a necessary foil to Angel’s self-loathing, broody nature; it’s only with her endlessly charming and humorous presence that Angel as a series is able to find some levity. Their friendship gradually transitions into a romantic relationship, one that, obviously, cannot be consummated, but that remains a cornerstone of the series. There are many commentators who dislike the direction the relationship between Angel and Cordelia develops, claiming that their romantic attraction ruins their platonic friendship; furthermore, they claim Angel had better chemistry with Buffy. I strongly disagree. Even in the early days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia had a physical attraction to Angel, such that she tried to nab his affections before Buffy during the episode, “Angel.” It’s not as if the simple physical attraction faded over time. What kept Cordelia and Angel apart during Buffy the Vampire Slayer and early Angel were the barriers within their friendship, with Angel considering Cordelia somewhat of a ditz and Cordelia thinking she could never love a vampire. Their friendship facilitates their romantic relationship, as they ultimately prove to be more compatible than Buffy and Angel ever were. Much of the tension between Buffy and Angel was the difficulty Buffy had with killing Angel should he ever turn into Angelus; Cordelia, on the other hand, is so comfortable with the idea of killing Angelus in order to save Angel that she and Angel make a running joke out of referencing this hypothetical. While the relationship between Buffy and Angel is all-consuming, the relationship between Angel and Cordelia always respects the individuals involved within it. Both retain their identities, and their chemistry with one another is all the more adorable because of this. Also, on the dramatic level, it’s much more interesting to see how characters get into a relationship rather than exploring a static romance; while Buffy and Angel’s romance isn’t exactly static, it’s not nearly so tumultuous and multi-layered as the bumpy road to Angel and Cordelia’s.

Of course, Cordelia’s story isn’t without its problems. Her decision to become a higher being in “Tomorrow” is the single most baffling character moment in the entire Buffyverse, wherein her character is completely abandoned in order to pave the way for the disastrous plot of Season Four. Then, after her body is pulled out of the higher plane, we are witness to her having amnesia, gaining back her memories, and undermining the dynamic of the group, culminating in… having sex with Connor. My skin crawls just thinking about it. Were these events actually under Cordelia’s control, there’s no way she’d rank at #3 on this list. Fortunately for Cordelia’s integrity as a personality (though not for her integrity as someone the audience cares about), all of these actions are revealed to be Jasmine’s doing, leaving Cordelia completely free from blame in the brouhaha of Season Four. That said, the events of the season arc lead to Cordelia entering a coma, her body having been brutalized by a demonic pregnancy, magical duels with Willow, and the remaining effects of the visions.

This brings us to the finest Cordelia moment in the entire Buffyverse, the peak of the Angel-Cordelia romance, and what I consider to be the best executed death in the entire Buffyverse: “You’re Welcome.” Angel Season Five is the best season of its series, yet it is the only season in which Cordelia is not a member of the main cast. However, it is not the best season of the series because Cordelia is not part of its main cast. While Season Five might be more fun than other seasons of Angel, the moral center of the show gets lost somewhere amidst the members of the gang working for Wolfram & Hart, having giant parties with demons, and turning into puppets. To some extent, Angel and his crew do lose sight of their “save the world” mission and miss the bigger picture. Who should step in but Cordelia, recently out of her coma and ready to help once again. Throughout the episode, we see Cordelia bring our characters back to Earth after the zany events of the plot, but we also see her tying up emotional and moral loose ends from last season. It’s almost as if she’s completing a mission of redemption. She ends up saving Angel from Lindsey’s assassination attempt, getting her guy back on track. Yet, just as we’re excited to have Cordelia back on the show, she notes that she must leave. After one cathartic kiss between Cordelia and Angel and a “you’re welcome” from our beloved Cordelia, we learn from a phone call that Cordelia dies in her sleep. Her spirit merely gets a chance to assist Angel before she ascends to heaven. This final scene is touching in a way few other moments in the entire Buffyverse are, a poignant departure to a beloved character that does justice to her evolution and the core of her character.

The case of Cordelia Chase is truly a moving one: a maturation from comedic caricature to profound hero. She’s the perfect example of how the trying circumstances of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel can take a simple-minded, naïve person and shape her into a truly inspiring figure. She’s one of the most well-defined perosnalities in the Buffyverse, and her qualities all feed into a satisfying heroic arc. While her one character-breaking moment in “Tomorrow” is a strike against her, it’s ultimately a smaller and less egregious digression than Willow’s many ups and downs in Season Six. I’ve clumped them together in the third and fourth position on this list because of their many positive similarities. Both characters are the spirits of their respective series; both are consummately witty; both are humorous, both are emotionally complex secondary protagonists. Most importantly, they are both heroes who start out as relatively simple, selfish people with a great deal of heroic potential who end up becoming the best people they can be. The same cannot be said for the number two hero, a character whose heroic potential does not come to fruition but instead destroys him.

Villain: Lilah Morgan (Angel Seasons 1-4)

"I have this office because I earned it." -- Lilah Morgan, "That Vision Thing"

Who ever thought that the most nefarious and dangerous villain in Angel’s entire run would be that one chick lawyer without magical powers? Certainly not me. Yet Lilah’s evil speaks for itself. Her very name is a play on some of the most evil villains in the Western Canon (Delilah from the Book of Judges and Morgan le Fay from Arthurian legend). Unlike her namesakes, though, Lilah is no standard evil witch. She is the most complex and cryptic character in the entire Buffyverse rogues’ gallery, a personality with so many twisted layers such that viewers are kept wanting to learn more. And yet, despite her backstory being shrouded in mystery, we do get to see exactly how this self-professed “bitch” manages to claw her way to the top of a bloody throne of Wolfram & Hart employees, rising to become the unquestioned head of Wolfram & Hart’s LA branch for the majority of the series. She’s the best Angel villain, bar none.

Of the three initial members of Wolfram & Hart we encounter – Lindsey, Lee, and Lilah – Ms. Morgan immediately establishes herself as the most dangerous of the bunch. If Lindsey is the wolf and Lee is the rat, Lilah is the viper. She might recoil in fear when directly threatened, but there’s no member of Wolfram & Hart with a more vicious attack. Her scheme to destroy Angel in “The Ring” far outpaces those of her rivals, as she traps the vampire with a soul inside a demon fighting ring. She addresses her foes directly and with no small amount of snark, but one senses a brilliant and disturbed intellect sneaking out from behind her gaze. Though she’s not the initial conspirator in the scheme to have Faith kill Angel, she so quickly upstages and outfoxes Lee than she ends up getting his face smashed multiple times into a table. She has the most contacts and the most complete network of any of the Los Angeles junior partners. While Lindsey takes most of the spotlight in the latter half of the season, we’re still somewhat curious to see what Lilah has up her sleeve.

We soon learn that Lilah is far more depraved than Lindsey and that much more determined to beat him out for promotion. In “Reunion,” she befriends a sexually traumatized telekinetic named Bethany Chaulk and feigns being her one true ally, all while hiring men to rape and murder the young girl in order to see just how powerful she is. Yet Lilah’s conniving does not stop there. When all of the other junior partners are killed by Darla and Drusilla, Lilah is put into direct competition with Lindsey for the recently opened position of Vice President of Special Projects. It’s a neck and neck battle, as Lindsey’s record of betrayal keeps him distanced from the firm, but Lilah’s plans have a longer record of turning out poorly. By the end of the season, it looks as if Lindsey is going to come out on top, even getting the approval of the higher ups, but he then turns on Wolfram & Hart and cedes the position to Lilah… all while sharing with the audience tremendous insight as to Lilah’s instinct for self-preservation.

While Lindsey focuses on success alone and his rivalry with Angel, Lilah plays a much longer game. When Darla and Drusilla approach her and Lindsey in an attempt to infiltrate Wolfram & Hart, she keeps her mouth shut – seemingly out of fear, but secretly to keep tabs on all her potential enemies. She tries to seduce Lindsey whilst being wired in order to gather as much information from him as she can and sell him out; though he catches the scheme due to knowing Lilah for so long, it likely would have worked on any other villain in the series. Most important of all, Lilah spends all of the time she isn’t spending trying to thwart the efforts of Angel Investigations finding dirt on the middle managers, such that she can blackmail them should they attempt to kill or fire her. She’s the most grand strategic villain in all of the Buffyverse.

Once Lilah steps into the position of authority, she uses it for all that it is worth. Whilst her rivals try to thwart Angel’s efforts using building code violations, she hires a demon called John Hancock to link Cordelia’s physical well-being to the state of the people she sees in her visions. This is one of the most brutal acts of torture in the entire series, and Lilah executes it without a single moment of remorse. Moreover, she then uses this act as leverage to get Billy Blim freed from a Hell dimension. Granted, this plan does result in Lilah getting beaten up by one of the men under Billy’s influence, but she gets her revenge by murdering the misogynistic bastard in cold blood. She is largely responsible for the tragic, albeit convoluted, series of events that leads to Connor’s kidnapping by Holtz, as her minions end up giving Holtz the moment he needs to escape. (Also, in the same episode, she shows that she’s entirely willing to have her men shoot a baby.)

And that’s not all. Lilah manages to go further than both Lindsey and Holland by becoming head of Special Projects… by removing the former head’s head. From her new top position, she’s able to nearly kidnap Connor and extract information from Lorne: no doubt part of a long-term scheme to turn Angel to the dark side. Unfortunately, all of these plans go down the tubes when the Beast comes in to ruin everyone’s favorite spin-off series, but we are left to wonder just what Lilah had down the pipes had Jasmine and her lummox of a minion had not come and screwed everything up.

Indeed, there’s not too much direct information we know about Lilah overall. What we do know, however, reveals quite a bit. Lilah’s mother apparently suffers from a severe degenerative brain condition, so bad that she can no longer recognize her daughter. Lilah has fought her hardest to ensure that her mother has the best treatment possible. More important is the fact that she is the only significant female lawyer at Wolfram & Hart. In order to prove her worth and break the glass ceiling, she must be, as she puts it, “better and smarter and quicker than every man at Wolfram & Hart”; looking at her record, she pretty much hits the nail on the head. Lilah is one of those characters who, much like Buffy and Cordelia, will never stand to be beaten upon and made to feel subordinate to or subjugated by a man. Her killing of Billy is especially cathartic in this regard, as she reasserts her place as villain #1 on Angel. Her personality is cold, ruthlessly efficient, and completely amoral – practically inhuman in its depth of moral depravity and determination to perform the most cruel acts imaginable. She’s more of a monster than even many of the vampires in these series…

However, appearances can be deceiving. While Lilah is a terrifying villain who has done all that she can to disguise her humanity, she does allow herself to be vulnerable in exactly one area: her relationship with Wesley. Lilah initially starts sleeping with Wesley in order to convince him to join Wolfram & Hart as a magical consultant: his recent firing from Angel Investigations and rejection by the friends he betrayed have left him bitter and malleable to her interests. Though Wesley refuses to join the firm directly, he does accept assistance from her military contacts in order to wage his own private war on demons. He also continues to have sex with Lilah as an act of self-loathing; why not have sex with the most evil human being he knows given that he will never have the trust of his friends again? Over time, however, this destructive romance begins to genuinely affect both participants. Wesley realizes that, while he doesn’t love Lilah, the feeling of self-loathing that he has while with her empowers him to pursue Fred more rigorously. Lilah, by contrast, might not love Wesley, but she does get a chance to feel something, heck, anything. Her position in Wolfram & Hart is such that she has no opportunity to show emotion or attachment to anyone. The ability to have someone to turn to at night gives her a release, and it’s honestly fascinating to see one of the most high-strung, entirely unsympathetic characters in the series let her hair down and simply enjoy whatever time she has with Wesley. That said, even within this relationship, her basic villainy holds true: she is extremely possessive of Wesley, such that she treats Fred as a threat to be destroyed or killed. The only reason she doesn’t trigger the kill order is the risk that Wesley might leave her entirely.

The tension between Lilah, Wesley, and Fred keeps building to what should be a brilliant climax… and then the Beast comes and ruins it. In the most frustrating event for any villain arc in the entire series, Lilah is removed from power entirely when the giant rock monster smashes his way through Wolfram & Hart, killing all of her contacts and making her practically useless. Wesley saves her and brings her to Angel Investigations to recuperate, but she’s then killed when Angelus breaks loose. Lilah escapes from the world’s most dangerous vampire in a scene very reminiscent of Jenny’s death, but she actually puts up more of a fight. However, in a “shocking twist,” it’s the Jasmine-possessed Cordelia who ends up stabbing Lilah (as if we honestly expected that the woman who was turning Connor into an agent of evil and had sex with him wasn’t the villain of the arc). It’s the most frustrating and embarrassing defeat of a great villain in the entire series. While her death in “Salvage” does give us a truly wonderful scene in which Wesley has to behead Lilah’s corpse to ensure that she does not rise again as a vampire, it’s not enough to wash out the bad taste of Lilah’s death. She makes one final appearance in which her ghost sets up the plot device of Angel Season Five, effectively putting the final and best season of Angel into motion, and gets a spectacular scene with Wesley in the Wolfram & Hart contract office, but the audience is left wanting more.

That said, for what we got, we fared pretty well. Lilah is the most complex, fascinating, and threatening villain in all of Angel: calculating, charismatic, charming, and cunning. She embodies all of the best characteristics of Wolfram & Hart as the main antagonist of the series while retaining individual characteristics that make her engaging. She even serves an allegorical function, as she represents the monstrous extreme of the “hard-working, career-oriented woman” trope; no job is worth one’s morality, empathy, and basic humanity. Lilah actually made a run for the top spot on the villains list, but her unceremonious death at Jasmine’s hands kept her out of the top two. However, keep this fact in mind: Lilah is the worst human being in the entire Buffyverse. No other villain makes so many nefarious choices to do wrong… and we love her all the more for it.