More emotional death for you: Fred or Cordelia

J

Joshua

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Who had the more emotional death for you in "Angel"? Fred or Cordelia? Or both?

Personally I think both were the most emotional for me. I loved both characters so much in the show, and to see them die like that was a painful experience as a fan.
 
I'm gonna go with Fred.

Cordelia went out on a high note, her last appearance made you realise how much you'd missed the character in Season 4. At least she got one episode for some great one-liners, got to be kick-ass and 'got her man back on track.' One of the highlights of Season 5.

Fred's passing was one of those soul-crushing experiences. Let's take the nicest character on either show and slowly, over the course of an episode, burn away her soul.
Now that's harsh, and I say that as a big fan of Illyria. I think she's awesome. Pretty much everything she says is awesome- 'I'd like to keep Spike as my pet.'

But her death is to show everyone how horrible and costly working for W&H is, so, yeah, I think it's worse.
 
Aimee
Aimee
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On paper Fred probably is. But personally, I was never interested in the character and have always loved Cordelia. Couple that with the manner in which Cordelia as a character, and Charisma as an actress were treated, I found Cordelia's death much more emotional.
 
Cordelia had a smoother transition but it didn't stop me from getting emotional. She had a beautiful farewell. Fred's case was sad.
 
They were sad in different ways, I think.

Cordelia had a lot more closure in one sense- "You're Welcome" was pretty much a swansong for her character, and it was a great one. She got to go out on a high note, and the episode was all about what made Cordelia so awesome. I think the way Cordelia was treated on the show before this, however, and the fact that her death wasn't mentioned after the episode... I don't know. It's disappointing. But her character knows she's only there for a finite time from the beginning of the episode, and she goes out on her own terms, so to speak. There's still a lot of "What could have been?" there, especially with the relationship between her and Angel (romantic and platonic), which adds to the sadness.

Fred's death is a lot more shocking, I think. She and Wesley are in the lovey-dovey early days of their relationship. She is an integral part of the team, and she is killed off horribly and painfully. Though Fred, and the audience, know her time is limited, because Angel and Spike are determined to save her, the characters and the audience have hope that this will not happen, right to the end. And then she's gone. Unlike Cordelia, we actually see the aftermath of Fred's death, and we see the whole team mourn for her- sad, but in a way it's more closure than Cordelia got, as we get to see the impact of the team after Fred's loss, and how she impacted those around her. We don't get that with Cordy.

So, they're both great final episodes, and both are very emotional, but in different ways.
 
Honestly, I think the most emotional one for me would be Cordelia's. Fred was my favorote character in Angel, but somehow Cordelia's death made me cry so much more. I think maybe it was because of the way her demise was executed. It was so sudden and unexpected. You think she is back and better than ever, then Angel gets that phone call. I burst into tears when that happened and that is when I realized that I truly loved Cordelia. I hated her in BtVS, but in AtS I grew to love her so much that now even when I rewatch Buffy I love her then as well.

I think "You're Welcome" was a brilliant episode and of all the deaths in the Buffyverse it was the best death. Like the one that pulled at me the most. It made me cry, but also made me realize that it was a death that had to happen. In a world where you face death and destruction every day there is bound to be pain in your backyard sometimes and with Cordelia's death Angel really suffers.
 
Both are very emotional for such different reasons, that it's really hard to compare. To me, they are like apple and oranges when it comes to comparison.

On the spot though, Fred's death was always the most shocking of the two. When I first watched the episode, I never ever saw her death coming, it was absolutely devastating.

Cordy is more knowing that she will die, and thinking that she deserves some closure after s4, but at the same time being sad because she became such an awesome pillar character on AtS.
 
For me its with out a doubt Fred. I cried a river and still do when I see her die.

I never shed even one tear when cordelia dies.

I just love Fred so much.
 
I found Fred's death more moving in terms of how it was portrayed but Cordy's death annoyed me more than anything else in terms of how it was handled. There was virtually no emotional reaction from the rest of the Fang Gang making me wonder at first if they actually knew she was dead.

Whereas Fred gets a 2 episode sob fest for her demise. Is that fair?
 
Fred. I mean, I prefer her character more than Cordelia. Both deaths are so tragic, both are horrifically violated and are denied a natural afterlife. Yet for me, I guess it does come down to
a) me prefering Fred over Cordelia
b) the fact that there were constant reminders everywhere of Fred's fate. We saw well into depth of Illyria, we saw how it affected Gunn, Wes and Angel. We got scenes like when Illyria takes Fred's form in The Girl In Question, and of course, Not Fade Away. I'm not necessarily saying this is a good or a bad thing, just made it more 'emotional' for me.
 
They were both fridged, so I think they were both as bad as each other.

Personally, I think Cordy's death SHOULD have been worse. But it wasn't, because it was ignored. She died and that was it, the very next episode, everyone had moved on and it was like she didn't exist.

Fred's death pushed the story, her death resonated for the rest of the season, right up until the finale, and we were MADE to feel it and we had to tune in every week to see that this character who had been a major part of the story for the last two and a half seasons, had literally been replaced. We had to see Fred's face every week, but it wasn't Fred and it would never be Fred again.

Plus, Fred's death made the Scoobies look like complete tools.
 
Both were emotional for me but for different reasons. I was devastated because of how Fred died but I was equally emotional about Cordelia because I had watched Cordy grow from season 1 of Buffy in Sunnydale. It was like saying goodbye to a long-time friend.
 
I may have had a change of heart about this, I'm not sure.

I've read that Amy Acker wanted a change for her character and so Joss came up with the Illyria idea, and watching the end of Angel S5, its obvious that there's some 'Fred-ness' left in Illyria, just from her reaction to Wesley's death.
So...if the actress wanted the change, imo it makes it a little less sad.

I'm not going to recap the bad blood stuff between Joss and Charisma, but the whole 'Cordy going evil thing' was not to her likeing, which is why she gave such a disappointing performance.
Maybe that makes it sadder when she dies, like it was a waste of a good character, I'm really, not sure. 🙁
 
Fred's death. I stopped caring about Cordelia since the beginning of season 4. I love Fred though, she's smart, funny, awesome and adorable and Amy Acker does a great job playing Fred and Illyria. As much as I like Illyria, I was so sad and upset that they killed Fred. But then they killed Wesley, so now they can be happy in the afterlife together.
 
thetopher
thetopher
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This is a difficult choice for me. I loved both characters, and fridging the two female leads on the show so close to one another is pretty bad. Fred's death was more gut wrenching, especially with her soul (supposedly) being destroyed along with her life. But we got Illyria out of it, who is one of my favorite characters in AtS* and elevated Acker to being the best actress on either show IMO. So, while Fred's death is always sad during my rewatches, I'm also always excited to get to the Illyria episodes. I also don't entirely view Fred and Illyria as being separate characters, so it's like Fred never left at all.

Cordelia went out on a higher note, and "You're Welcome" is the perfect episode for her story to end on. But I don't think it should have ended in the first place. Despite the fact that S5 is one of my favorite Buffyverse seasons, Cordelia being there for the whole thing would have elevated it to Godly status. Her character being used as a plot device in season 4 and the crappy treatment of Carpenter behind the scenes are pretty solid proof that the Big Guy (Joss) doesn't always know what he's doing. She'd been there since "Welcome to the Hellmouth," i think she deserved to be there all the way till the end (...which would ideally have been AtS season 7's finale. *sigh*)
 
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