Cordelia Chase

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Character
Name: Cordelia Chase
Occupation:
Relationships: romances with Xander Harris, Groo, Angel, Connor; friendships with Allen Francis Doyle and Charles Gunn
Fandom: Buffyverse
Other: Played by actress Charisma Carpenter
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Cordelia Chase, or Cordy, is a popular character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later on Angel.

In Fandom

Cordy is very popular in fanfiction.

Cordy Pairings

Despite her canonical relationships and will they/won't they dynamic, Cordy/Xander only seems to be popular on Xander-centric sites, and there are very few Cordy/Wesley fanworks out there.

In Angel, she is commonly shipped with Angel and Angel/Cordelia slowly gained ground over Buffy/Angel as canon moved in that direction and Spuffy took off. Some fans liked the family vibe of Cordelia & Angel looking after Connor as a baby, and this was a factor in the widespread distaste for her subsequent canonical pairing with teenage Connor.

Her pairing with Doyle early in Angel's first season had a following. After Charles Gunn was introduced some fans enjoyed the Cordy/Gunn pairing, but it never gained a massive following. It was, however, one of the go-to background pairings in slash fics featuring Angel in the main couple.

Cordelia/Denis Pearson is a rare pairing of Cordelia and the ghost in her apartment. In many works, a spell results in the recorporealization of Denis.

Cordelia features in a lot of femslash, mainly with Faith, Buffy and Willow. There was surprisingly not a lot of femslash featuring Cordy on Angel the Series.

Controversies

Cordelia was always a popular character on Angel, but fans were unhappy with some of the storyline choices made by TPTB as the series progressed. Some fans were unhappy with Cordelia's arc in Season 3 and then there was the response to Season 4.

Pod!Cordy

In season 4, Cordelia was possessed by Jasmine, or possibly had been possessed by Jasmine for awhile. There is much debate in fandom about when Cordy stopped been Cordy. For a time, fandom referred to this season 4 Cordelia as Evil!Cordy, but when it was revealed that she had been possessed, pod!Cordy became the more common moniker. For most of season 4, fans were unaware that Cordelia had been possessed leading to theories, confusion and eventual anger at the treatment of a beloved character.

How deliberate was the destruction of Cordelia Chase? They SHOULD have let the audience in on her double nature, a big shocking “wow” moment and then let us stress about how she was hurting everyone and they had no idea who she really was. We should have been terrified that she would unleash Angelus on the world, we should have been shouting at the screen telling Lilah not to trust her. We should have watched with bated breath as Fred quietly noticed that something wasn’t right.

Instead they waited until you’d given up all hope.[1]

Pod!Cordy slept with Connor and became pregnant. This was part of Jasmine's plan to give birth to herself using Cordelia. It is also the incident that angered most fans, as it seemed so OOC for Cordelia. At this point, fans were unaware that Cordelia had been possessed. The process of birthing the demonic entity leaves Cordelia in a coma. She remains comatose for the remainder of season 4 and all but one episode of season 5; You're Welcome, the episode in which Cordelia dies.

The majority of the fandom was against the storyline associated with Cordelia's pregnancy in Season 4. Some found the sex scene between her and Connor squicky as she was seen as a mother to the boy. Other fans point out that Cordelia was a woman only four years older than Connor in canon, and suffering memory loss.[2] Still others point to the fact that Cordelia, posessed and without any agency, was actually a rape victim in this scenario.[3]

The dismissal of actress Charisma Carpenter after season 4 led to further controversy. The decision by TPTB to remove two prominent female characters, Cordelia and Lillah Morgan, angered many fans and the death of Fred in season 5, led some to draw uncomfortable conclusions about the treatment of female characters in Angel the Series.

Neither Cordelia nor Fred had a choice in when they died. They didn’t choose to leave the men they loved when they did, and they didn’t get to walk away. While the men were able to die heroic deaths in the midst of a fight, dying as they tried to save or protect others, the women were given deaths in which they were trapped in their bodies, with a mystical being eating away at them until there was nothing left.[4]


Common Storylines & Tropes

  • Birthdayverse or Cordy!verse fics were set in an AU featured in canon. In this verse, Cordy never came to work for Angel.
  • Fix-it fics, and denialfics were common in later seasons.

Notable Fanfiction

Gen

Het

Angel/Cordelia and Cordelia/Wesley fanwork examples can be found on their respective pairing pages.

Femslash

Notable Fanart

Notable Vids

Meta

Archives and Communities

Links and Resources

References

  1. ^ Also post by spuffybot, 2017.
  2. ^ Cordelia creeping out with Connor is made 100x more creepy post by Tumblr user Spuffybot, Nov 2017.
  3. ^ Cordelia and Connor WTF discussion on r/Angel. July 2017.
  4. ^ The problem with the deaths of Team Angel, meta post by Tumblr user ofstormandwolves, June 2019.
  5. ^ Better Buffy Fiction Archive: Doyle (accessed 24 April 2012)
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