Cordelia Chase bio
When we first met the beautiful Cordelia Chase on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", she seemed to be a completely shallow and self-centered bitch-queen. Her father was a workaholic moneybag, her mother a neglectful trophy wife who apparently amused herself by constantly falling ill, which left Cordelia virtually parentless with money to burn, the ultimate spoiled little rich girl. She headed a clique of wannabes called the Cordettes, who scorned all but the fashionable, the rich and the pretty. Popular, desirable Cordelia once told Buffy she considered herself the "Slayer of Dating," and it seemed a fair statement, as she had most of the 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 saw that she was 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 made her sound like an incredible ditz, she nevertheless worked hard at school and had good grades and good SATs. Cordelia soon had to admit how important the Slayer's work is, and in the second season of "BtVS" she rather begrudgingly became a Slayerette. She 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 was always spiteful, tactless, superficial, spoiled, and ditzy. But we knew that there was more to her than that. 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 attempting to deny their attraction to one another, 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, 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 she had a recurring thing for Angel, and more than once she tried to put the moves on him, much to Buffy's dismay; but he proved totally resistant to her glam and sophomoric charm. 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 to go to the colleges that accepted her: USC, Colorado State, Duke, and Columbia. That was part of the motivation for her move to Los Angeles. (The fact that L.A. is Cordy's idea of Shoe Heaven is simply not enough motivation on its own...) On "Angel," she is continuing to do 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. Cordelia Chase came to Los Angeles with high hopes of living the glamorous Hollywood dream. A struggling actress unafraid of anything except someone not recognizing her as the talented soon-to-be star that she was, Cordelia found L.A. and the path to stardom to be rockier than she anticipated. She began working with Angel, who lent her a helping hand in return for the all-too-human connection she provides. Though Cordy intended to stay only until her career took off, she was unexpectedly saddled with the visions from the Powers That Be that tormented Doyle for so long. On the surface it seemed that the shallow, bitchy, materialistic Cordy had very little in common with with the long-suffering Angel working grimly towards redemption -- but by now they have seen so much evil, suffered together and shared loss, their friendship has cemented. As Cordelia said, "I'm good for exactly two things: international superstardom or helping a vampire fight evil." After the season-one-finale spell which caused her to have relentless vision after vision as blindingly painful torture, Cordelia was changed -- she saw and experienced so much pain from so many people in need, it shook her out of her self-centered world and caused her to realize that fighting evil is the most important thing she can do. There's no doubt about it. She's really changed. When did she become so brave? So self-sacrificing? And let's not forget resourceful, smart (ok, she was always smart) and even... (gasp) kind. Dare I say, loving. Cordy does so much for Angel, not out of some kind of shallow infatuation, but out of her deep and sincere love for a friend. It's almost heartbreaking. I never thought I would say this... but the kind of relationship that she and Angel have, is the kind of solid caring from which true romance can grow. With emotions running high, an intense vision knocked Cordy right into a coma. A demon named Skip explained that she wasn't supposed to have the visions and she was supposed to be a famous actress. Giving her the chance to go to the life she was meant to have immediately or die when she received her next vision, Cordy took her life as an actress. She soon realized that she wasn't meant to be in the famous life she though, but was meant to be with Angel and have the visions. Angel didn't have the strength, and the visions could have reduced him to a gibbering lunatic. The only way to do this was to become part demon. Cordy didn't hesitate sacrificing what was asked. As far as Cordy's demon side, we've only seen her levitate and she has had no physical demon aspects appearing. Taking a break from cases the group at Angel Investigations went to the ballet where Cordelia and Angel were possessed by lovers and got a little physical. The situation causing the two to confront their feelings for eachother, or would have when Groo came to LA and Cordy leapt into his open arms. After deciding she was sick of being lonely and wanted someone, Cordy decided to to let herself be with Groo. After Angel heard her feelings, he gave her time off and money and told her to stay away for a while, take Groo and be happy, have a vacation. But possibly the biggest fight or at least the most emotional battle, was the one against Holtz (a man that Angelus had destroyed) who was brought to the present from the 18th century whose sole purpose was to destroy Angel(us). Since Cordelia left, Wesley has betrayed everyone by kidnapping Connor under the impression of a fake prophecy stating "The Father will kill the son". Wesley's throat was slit by a woman working for Holtz, who took the baby from Wes. Holtz has taken Connor to a Hell dimension that Angel can never reach. Angel attacked Wesley in the hospital and vowed to kill him. The entire group is falling apart, and Cordelia knows nothing of what's happened. She was taken over by a higher power who took possession her body and was used to give birth to a new power (Jasmine), and the birth of it put her in a coma that she has yet to recover from. Unfortunately Cordy didn't wake up from her coma and she died. But she did have a final adventure, helping Angel get back on track through the powers that be.