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Cordelia Chase

Cordelia Chase is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off series, Angel. Portrayed by Charisma Carpenter, the character appears as a series regular in the first three seasons of Buffy, before leaving the show and becoming a series regular during the first four seasons of Angel. The character made her last television appearance in 2004, appearing as a special guest star in Angel's 100th episode. Cordelia also appears in both canonical and apocryphal Buffy and Angel material such as comic books and novels.

Cordelia is introduced in "Welcome to the Hellmouth" as one of Sunnydale High's popular students, attending school alongside vampire slayer Buffy Summers. Through her interactions with Buffy and her friends, she comes to accept the existence of supernatural forces and helps Buffy fight against them. In the television series Angel, Cordelia joins Angel, a heroic vampire with a soul, in forming a detective agency dedicated to stopping supernatural forces and helping the helpless. After Cordelia acquires the ability to see visions of those in need, she becomes a more compassionate and heroic character. In the middle of the third season, she becomes a love interest of the protagonist Angel. In the fourth season of Angel, she appears to take on a villainous role before it is revealed that she is possessed by a malevolent deity; this storyline eventually leads to her death and subsequent exit from the series. The character makes further canonical appearances in the comic books Buffy Season Eight and Angel: After the Fall, in a dream flashback and as a spirit guide.

Created as a foil for Buffy's titular heroine, Cordelia was initially characterized as "shallow", "vain" and "self-centered", and was used in the series to create conflict for the other characters. The character went through changes as she gradually redeemed herself throughout the course of Buffy and Angel, and has received attention in academic texts related to gender studies and social status.

Cordelia Chase first appears in the premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, titled "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Introduced as a potential friend for Sunnydale High's newest student, Buffy Summers, Cordelia reveals her true colors by cruelly mocking Willow Rosenberg whom Buffy befriends instead. Ignorant of the supernatural, Cordelia shows up regularly throughout the first season of Buffy to insult and ridicule the other characters. She plays a larger role in the episode "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", in which she falls victim to a social outcast who wants revenge on popular students for ignoring her so much that she turned invisible. In the season finale, Cordelia helps Buffy and her friends battle vampires, finally coming to terms with the existence of supernatural forces. In season two, Cordelia becomes a more active ally to the "Scooby Gang" and begins a romantic relationship with Xander Harris in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Dating someone of Xander's social status causes Cordelia's ostracism from her popular peers and she reluctantly breaks up with him. However, when Xander performs a love spell to pay her back for hurting him, Cordelia realizes how much he cares about her and takes him back, rejecting her superficial friends in the process. In season three's "Lovers Walk", Cordelia is heartbroken to see Xander kissing Willow and ends their relationship. By the season three episode "The Wish", Cordelia slips back into her antagonistic persona from the first season, disassociating herself from the Scooby Gang altogether. In the episode "The Prom", she reveals that her house and her family's entire wealth has just been seized for tax fraud and both of her parents (never named or seen on-camera) are now in prison. Cordelia later attempts an unsuccessful relationship with Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and makes peace with Xander at the prom. In the season three finale, she rallies alongside Buffy and her friends at graduation against the demonic Mayor Richard Wilkins III, where Cordelia slays her first vampire.

After three seasons on Buffy, Cordelia left the series to move over to star in Angel, a spin-off series focusing on Buffy's vampire ex-lover Angel. The first season of Angel sees Cordelia move to Los Angeles, in the hopes of escaping her new-found poverty by becoming an actress. After Angel saves her life in the series pilot, Cordelia helps him found the supernatural detective agency Angel Investigations, working in an administrative position. She also becomes close to half-demon co-worker Doyle, but their budding romance is ended by his death nine episodes into the series. Before dying in the episode "Hero", Doyle passes his ability to see people in distress over to Cordelia when he kisses her. Although she initially views the visions as a curse, in the season one finale, a demon causes Cordelia's visions to overwhelm her - causing her to experience worldwide pain - and upon her recovery she vows to help those in need. In season two's "Reunion", Cordelia and the other staff at Angel Investigations are fired by Angel, who is becoming increasingly obsessed with bringing down the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. Cordelia joins Wesley and Charles Gunn in re-forming the agency on their own. Angel and Cordelia eventually reconcile in the episode "Epiphany". As her acting career continues to flounder, Cordelia is sucked into and made princess of a medieval hell dimension called Pylea in the season two episode "Over the Rainbow". When presented with the opportunity to pass her visions over to a champion named the Groosalugg, Cordelia refuses and returns to L.A. with her friends in the season two finale.

In season three's "Birthday", Cordelia learns from the demon Skip that her visions are slowly killing her because human beings are not strong enough to control them. To save her life, Cordelia accepts Skip's offer to alter history so that she never met Angel in L.A., instead landing her big break as an actress. However, even in this alternate timeline, Cordelia feels compelled to help others and eventually crosses paths with Angel again, who received the visions in her place and is now insane. Unable to let her friend suffer, Cordelia has Skip return the timeline to normal, and agrees to become half-demon, with new powers, in order to harbor the visions safely. This season also sees Angel become a father, with Cordelia stepping in to mother the infant Connor until he is kidnapped into a hell dimension in the episode "Sleep Tight", only to emerge as a disturbed teenager in "The Price". In the episode "Waiting in the Wings", Angel realizes he has romantic feelings for Cordelia, but is prevented from voicing them by the return of Groosalugg. Cordelia dates Groosalugg for the remainder of the season, but Groo notices she loves Angel instead and decides to leave. In the season finale, Cordelia arranges to meet Angel to confess her feelings, but is prevented from doing so by Skip, who informs her that she has become a higher being. Cordelia accepts her duty, and leaves Earth for another dimension. In season four, Cordelia feels trapped in her position as a higher being, and so in the episode "The House Always Wins" she returns to Earth in an amnesiac state. In "Spin the Bottle", her memories are returned via a spell, along with a vision of a mysterious Beast. Afterward, she admits to Angel the feelings she once had for him. As L.A. succumbs to the apocalypse in season four's "Apocalypse, Nowish", Cordelia begins to behave out-of-character; she seduces Connor, murders Lilah in the episode "Calvary", commands the Beast in "Salvage", and magically battles former friend Willow to keep Angel from his soul in the episode "Orpheus". In season four's "Players", the team realize that the now pregnant Cordelia is possessed, so Cordelia takes the unstable Connor on the run with her so they may give birth to their supernatural offspring, Jasmine. In "Inside Out", Skip explains that Jasmine is his master, and a higher being who possessed Cordelia before her returning to Earth, manipulating events to be born in a new body of her own.

Cordelia falls into a post-natal coma for the remainder of season four. Following an eleven-episode absence, Cordelia returns to Angel in season five, in the 100th episode "You're Welcome". Having (apparently) awoken from her coma, Cordelia reunites with Angel Investigations, who she discovers have taken over Wolfram & Hart since their defeat of Jasmine. She chastises Angel for accepting W&H's "deal with the devil" and reminds him of his true mission and higher calling. Together, they face and defeat their old enemy, Lindsey McDonald (Christian Kane) who had been impersonating Doyle in an attempt to destroy Angel. In the episode's closing moments, Cordelia reiterates to Angel that she loves him and kisses him, shortly before he receives a phone call reporting that Cordelia died that morning in the hospital. When Angel turns around, Cordelia is gone. It is later revealed that this encounter - the Powers That Be repaying their debt to Cordelia - allowed Cordelia to pass one last vision over to Angel, giving him the knowledge he needs to bring down the Circle of the Black Thorn.

Between 2001 and 2004, Joss Whedon and Jeph Loeb developed a 4-minute pilot episode for Buffy the Animated Series, which was set during the show's first season. Had the series been picked up by a network, it would have featured Cordelia (voiced by Charisma Carpenter) in more high-school adventures. Following a 2008 leak of the pilot to YouTube, Loeb expressed some hope that the series may be resurrected in some form.

Cordelia also appears in comic books and novels based on the Buffy and Angel television series. The Cordelia Collection, Vol. 1 by Nancy Krulik is a novelization of the Buffy episodes "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", "Some Assembly Required" and "Homecoming". These episodes tell specific incidents in which Cordelia becomes targeted: by a scorned classmate, to become a zombie's bride and by hunters in a case of mistaken identity. She appears in numerous Angel novels as a member of Angel Investigations, but some feature Cordelia more prominently; in Not Forgotten she uncovers exploitation of child immigrants, while in Haunted she appears as a contestant on a supernatural-themed reality television show when she has a vision about another applicant. Cordelia appears in the majority of Angel comics, published by Dark Horse Comics during 2000–2002 and set between episodes of the television series. She appears less frequently in those by IDW Publishing between 2005 and 2011, mainly in stories set in and after the fifth season. Cordelia typically plays a minimal role in the Dark Horse Angel comics. However, issue seventeen was a "Cordelia Special", in which demonic items are stashed in Cordelia's apartment. In the Dark Horse Presents story "Lovely dark and deep", Cordelia lands a role as the star of a demonic movie. Cordelia appears in the IDW Publishing comic mini-series Angel: The Curse, set after season five, in flashback scenes. She subsequently reappears in the mini-series Angel: Old Friends, which sees Angel battle evil clones of his friends. Cordelia claims to be the genuine article, having returned from the dead, but Angel is unconvinced and kills her; his suspicions prove correct when her body immediately disintegrates like the other clones.

Angel: After the Fall, a canonical comic book continuation of the television series plotted by Joss Whedon and written by Brian Lynch, features the characters of Angel and all of Los Angeles condemned to Hell after the events of the series finale "Not Fade Away". Cordelia does not appear until the twelfth issue, in which she acts as a guide to Angel in his dying moments; it is revealed she serves in some capacity as a higher power now. The character departs in issue thirteen. Cordelia also appears in a dream sequence within the twentieth issue of Buffy's canonical continuation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, titled "After These Messages... We'll Be Right Back!". Buffy dreams of when she was in her first year at Sunnydale High; Cordelia's physical appearance is based on the art style of Loeb and Whedon's unproduced Buffy animated series.

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