Cordelia fluffy?

[valerii]

Came across the following while reading this ancient LJ post (which I am reading because I am deeply bored):

it upsets me, because Mutant Enemy has always lost the mission on this show thanks to external politics and Joss Whedon's fundamental misunderstanding of what he could do with Angel (all the sh*t he did with Firefly? He could have EASILY done with Angel. Fred could have been River, Angel could have played a good Mal, et cetera. Cordelia would have been an issue, but I think Cordelia wasn't out of place in season two in a dark world, and could have remained Cordelia in a darker Angelverse)

Okay, ignoring the base argument being made here about Whedon's possible mishandling of AtS, I just wanna ask: Why would Cordelia in a darker Angelverse be an "issue?" I mean, I've been thinking about this sort of Cordelia-related stuff for awhile, really, it's just that reading this made me even more interested. If Wesley's goofy ass could darken up, then why couldn't the same happen with Cordelia? Or, for that matter, with anybody else?

It's not like we never saw any hint of darkness in the character as shown on screen. There's the near-sadistic way she treated Xander post breakup, her hard-edged world weariness in That Vision Thing, her ruthlessness in Billy, her not even being bothered by Angel trying to suffocate Wesley, and that's not even addressing the things that should have affected her, but evidently didn't (like being tortured in Pylea). I usually thought that Cordelia was written as comedy relief because the writers were afraid of making the too dark -- so much so that when Cordelia tells Angel to freaking torture someone, it's still played for laughs. But then I start wondering if we were ever suppose to take Cordelia seriously, like, ever, and if maybe the writers (and, to a certain extent, the audience) were short-changing the character, not allowing her be more serious/dark/whatever.

Any thoughts?

 

[nerd4hire]

But we did see Dark Cordelia in season four.

It's true in order to see her she had to become something else, just as in order to see Dark Fred she had to become Illyria.

I wonder if the reason characters like Cordelia and Fred don't devolve into darkness the way Angel, Wes, and Gunn do goes back to Whedon's faith in the idea of female strength.

I think Cordelia and Fred actually endure more on screen suffering than Wes and Gunn, but they don't retreat from it into slovenly apathy the way Wes does, or look for the quick fix the way Gunn does. They take up the cause, and resolve to fight the fight while retaining what they see as the better parts of their natures. Personally I don't have a problem with that.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

But we did see Dark Cordelia in season four.

It's true in order to see her she had to become something else, just as in order to see Dark Fred she had to become Illyria.

I wonder if the reason characters like Cordelia and Fred don't devolve into darkness the way Angel, Wes, and Gunn do goes back to Whedon's faith in the idea of female strength.

I think Cordelia and Fred actually endure more on screen suffering than Wes and Gunn, but they don't retreat from it into slovenly apathy the way Wes does, or look for the quick fix the way Gunn does. They take up the cause, and resolve to fight the fight while retaining what they see as the better parts of their natures. Personally I don't have a problem with that.

Thats really intresting,but I think it would have been cool to see a guy who could deal with it the same way, who didn't have to go to darkness!

 

[valerii]

I wonder if the reason characters like Cordelia and Fred don't devolve into darkness the way Angel, Wes, and Gunn do goes back to Whedon's faith in the idea of female strength.

Well, it's one thing to believe in girl power (or whatever), but when you start writing female characters as impossibly strong saints that are incapable of weakness and/or darkness, I take issue. Besides, even BtVS (the ultimate girl power show) gave us Buffy exploring her dark side, Willow going evil (of her own accord, unlike with Jasmine and Illyria), and Anya killing innocents as the result of a bad breakup. Meanwhile, Cordy and Fred, instead of being developed and explored as entirely complete individuals, are forced into the role of feminine moral center (on a male-dominated show, which, IMO, completely goes against the feminism of BtVS, as the women here are more ideas than people), even when it Just Doesn't Fit. Fred, the girl that spent years being treated as something less-than-human, should've been perversely pleased by victory over psycho!Wes in Billy, not all "poor Wes, I know you didn't mean it." And Cordelia, who spent years being tormented horribly in the name of Angel's redemption, should've been beyond f**ked up after the Jasmine possession, not all shiny and happy and appearing one last time in order to remind Angel of what he should already know.

That's not "female strength," that's female-as-comforter-of-men.

I think Cordelia and Fred actually endure more on screen suffering than Wes and Gunn, but they don't retreat from it into slovenly apathy the way Wes does, or look for the quick fix the way Gunn does. They take up the cause, and resolve to fight the fight while retaining what they see as the better parts of their natures. Personally I don't have a problem with that.

No they don't. Fred is horrifyingly passive-aggressive, and repressed her Pylea craziness instead of actually dealing with it. (For the most part -- in Supersymmetry, when she does try to deal with it, how does she go about dealing? Nasty, scary vengeance.) Meanwhile, the writers deny us any chance of seeing Cordelia's immediate reaction to hearing of Angel torturing Linwood, using black magics, teaming up with Lilah, and attempting to suffocate Wesley (which, presumably, she was, indeed, told of) -- possibly because Cordelia's near-fanatical loyalty to Angel might seem a little sick and twisted after all that?

 

[nerd4hire]

I'm not sure I understand what you wanted to see.

It sounds like you're saying, because they retained their moral compasses, and made themselves into the kind of woman they wanted to be this somehow insults the feminist ideal.

Are you saying the only acceptable model for the feminist ideal is to have them beaten and weakened by their suffering. I don't get it.

I think I'll understand better if you tell me exactly what it was you wanted to see happen to Cordelia.

 

[valerii]

It sounds like you're saying, because they retained their moral compasses, and made themselves into the kind of woman they wanted to be this somehow insults the feminist ideal.

What I think insults the "feminist ideal" is the concept that being a strong woman also means being incapable of darkness, that strength = purity/innocence. It is, to me, unrealistic that Cordy and Fred would go through these horrible things and come out of it unmarked. By denying them darkness and weakness, you deny them humanity.

Are you saying the only acceptable model for the feminist ideal is to have them beaten and weakened by their suffering.

No. That's not what happened with Willow, Buffy or Anya, and that's not what I wanted to see with Cordy and Fred. I believe that, where Buffy, Willow and Anya were written as strong/powerful women, Cordy and Fred were too often written as the male concept of what women should be.

Buffy, Willow and Anya, who explored and understood their dark sides and weaknesses, either got to live on or died heroically.

Cordy and Fred, whose weaknesses and dark sides were more or less ignored by the writers, both died horribly. Cordelia was possessed and raped and left in a coma, where Fred was freaking eaten and her corpse desecrated by the presence of her murderer.

By exploring the darkness and weakness in Buffy, Willow and Anya, they were made stronger. Cordelia and Fred, who were denied darkness by the writers and who, in turn, constantly denied themselves, became sacrifices.

 

[nerd4hire]

I think I'm starting to focus in on what you wanted to see. As you said previously Cordelia and Fred were capable of getting downright dark, but you wanted it to be more a core thing, is that right?

Like after Cordelia comes through the torture she endures in To Shanshu in LA when she's psychically linked to all the world's suffering, there's this:

Cordy hands Angel the cup with the blood: "You too. (Angel looks up at her) Don't be embarrassed. We're family."
Angel accepts the cup. Cordy notices Wesley staring at her.
Cordy: "What?"
Wesley: "It's just I... - I'm not used to..."
Angel: "He is not used to the new you."
Cordy: "I know what's out there now. We have a lot of evil to fight, a lot of people to help. - I just hope skin and bones here can figure out what those lawyers raised *sometime* before the prophecy kicks in and - you croak. - That was the old me, wasn't it?"
Angel: "I like them both."

You object to that correct? To you that is weakness not strength.

I'm still not sure I understand how you would prefer her to behave. After Wesley suffers in Season 5, he goes physically to seed, shoots an innocent guy in the knee, murders another not so innocent guy, and stabs his only real friend in the gut. Is that more the sort of darkness you were hoping for from Cordelia?

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I didn't read all the posts, just the first 3 actually, and one thing that struck me was the fact Val said Impossible Strength regarding these characters.
Forgive me, but Fred began her story in this 'darkness'.

Her story from Heartthrob is her journey back from this dark place, we don't actually get a resolve until Supersymmetry and instead of that giving some light at the end, it adds another bout of darkness to her character, a different kind.

Not everyone succumbs to the dark the way the male(and fred) characters did, but some people are constantly strong, no matter the odds if they have faith and hope in their hearts. Personally i choose to believe that Cordelia never succumbed to it because she knew that what she was doing was right thus gave her the faith she needed,

 

[Angel's vision]

Ok what bothers me is why she didn't acknowledge(say anything about it) the Conner trying to kill her and himself bit, then appearing to be all strong and act as if nothing happend from season four,but apart from that i do beleive from what Al has said she had Faith not to succumb, it stricks me she was the strongest Character in the show, who held the group together when things where rough.Hence the impossible strengh argument, which i have seen plenty of evidence of with her character.Fred well she was strong in her own quiet way, which is just as effective.Cordy def isn't fluffy!