Chapter I:
A New Beginning and New Challenges

Growth and Change

It must be admitted that moving Cordelia to LA as part of Angel Investigations posed a number of challenges.  In BtVS she had been a secondary character.  But on ANGEL she was the principal female on the series, the most high profile role next to Angel himself.  The writers therefore had to give the character real depth.  But, as I have already said, Cordelia provided an important element of balance for the series.  She was someone who lived in the real world whereas Angel most emphatically did not.   She was, therefore, to be the link between that world and Angel’s.  And the clash between her own enlightened self-interest and Angel’s more solitary and reflective nature was intended to be a source of much of the humor that was a very necessary leavening in what might otherwise be too downbeat and serious a tone.   Allowing Cordelia to abandon that important sense of self was therefore to risk destroying the sense of balance she brought to the tone of the series as  a whole as well as a unique and highly entertaining character.  How therefore to give her this greater depth without at the same time destroying the very things of value that her character brought to the series?

Throughout the first season of ANGEL I thought that the writers handled this dilemma skilfully.   First of all the writers were able to bring some very meaningful development to Cordelia in particular by plunging her fortunes ever deeper.  It was only having reached a very low ebb that she began to understand who she really is and what she can achieve.  In “City of…” we saw her in a crumbling apartment with no future as an actress and no food.  She had one good dress that looked very lonely hanging up by itself.  Her mindless self-improvement mantra simply showed how desperate she was.  And later there was a hint that she was almost prepared to give herself to Russell for an opportunity at the big time; she was that desperate.  But perhaps she reached her lowest point in “Rm w/a Vu” when the true grimness of her living conditions was revealed.  Her lights didn’t work properly, the water was brown and spurted out all over her and the place was infested with cockroaches. So she fled to Angel’s basement:

Cordelia: "Don’t even look at me!  I am such a mess.  I am the lowest of the lowest"

Angel: "What happened?"

Cordelia:  "My apartment.  It’s like the barrio – or the projects or whatever, and I live there!  I’m the girl from the projects!"

She had stuck things as long as she could but now she had enough. She was not a person who could survive indefinitely in sub-standard living conditions. Material things have always meant a lot to Cordelia. It is how she defined herself and her place in the world. She was someone because she had things. That is why she refused to speak to Aura. She was ashamed of what, in material terms, she had become. That was why she had to throw herself on the mercy of her friends. In short she had reached a crisis point in her life where her independence had vanished and her sense of self worth was seriously compromised.

Then came her chance to get a dream apartment. When it was first shown to her, her reaction is instructive:

Cordelia:  "I – I used to have this.  I – I was.."

Lady:  "I guess it’s your lucky day."

Cordelia:  "I used to have those, too."

Later on she says:

"It’s perfect and beautiful.  It’s so me.  I need it!".  

The problem for Cordelia is that, order to get the apartment, she has to get rid of Maude, the ghost of the former owner. That is why the focal point of this episode is the battle of wills between these two.   For Maude is every bit as materialistic as Cordelia.  She had no real love for her son, Dennis.  After all she cold bloodedly killed him because he failed to live up to her standards.  What she loves is her nice, neat successful life, insulated from all the lower elements in society.  As she says at one point to Cordelia:

“Your friends are dirty.  They ruined my nice home.”

The thing that hurt about this is that because Maude and Cordelia had the same values, Maude’s judgment echoed Cordelia’s own view of herself.  And while it did so Cordelia could not fight back.  But in the classic tradition, just when victory seemed inevitable, Maude overplayed her hand. She uses the word "bitch" and that triggers something deep inside Cordelia. Suddenly everything is changed. Maude is the one who is powerless and Cordelia is in charge. She has taken back control over not only over the situation but over her whole life.

Cordelia:   “I’m a bitch.”

Maude:  “Take off the bed sheets, make a noose.  Go on.  It’ll all be over soon.”

Cordelia: “I’m not a sniveling whiny little Cry-Buffy.  I’m the nastiest girl in Sunnydale history.   I take crap from no one.”

Maude:  “You are going to make yourself a noose and put it around..”

Cordelia:  “Back off!  Polygrip.  You think *you’re* bad?  Being all mean and haunty?   Picking on poor pathetic Cordy?  Well, get ready to haul your wrinkly translucent ass out of this place, because lady, the bitch is back.”

Maude:  “Do you think that I’m going to take that from trash like you?”

Cordelia:  “I tell you what I think.  I think that you’re going to pack your little ghost bags and get the hell out of my house.”

Cordelia had wanted to get the apartment because she thought it would help her recover her sense of self. As it turns out it was only because she recovered that sense that she got the apartment.  In the above quote there isn’t a word about Cordelia’s wealth or her parents’ social position.  What Cordelia is talking about is the way that she ruled Sunnydale High through the force of her personality – a personality that could get her anything she wanted.  Up to this point Cordelia had approached things on the basis that she was someone because she had nice things.  Now she learns that she is more than what she possesses and that in spite of being poor and, in material terms, a failure her inner strength is more than a match for Maude.

But, at the same time as showing us Cordelia had developed as a character, in the same episode the writers were  affirming  the continuity of her character.  Here was Cordelia the materialist; the key to change lay in something she wanted.  Here was the Cordelia who saw things from a resolutely first person singular perspective.  She didn’t care about who Maude had hurt in the past; all she cared about was getting Maude out of her apartment.  Here too was Cordelia, the hard headed practical woman with little time for self-examination or regrets.  She certainly had no illusions about who she as and what she had done.  But she didn’t agonize over this or apologize for it:  

Angel:  "You know, this really is just a place to live."

Cordelia: It’s more.  It’s beautiful, - and if it goes away it’s like.."

Angel:  "Like what?"

Cordelia:  "Like I’m still getting punished."

Angel:  "Punished.  For what?"

Cordelia:  "I don’t know.  For what I was?  For everything I said in High School just because I could get away with it?  And then it all ended, and I had to pay.  Oh, but this apartment. I could be me again.  Punishment over, welcome back to your life!  Like, like I couldn’t be that awful if I get to have a place like that."

It was in this attitude that we see the principal difference between herself and Angel.  Having been brought to the point where her sense of being in control of her life and of her own self worth have been compromised, she has been forced to look at herself, her life and the bad things she was responsible for. But while Angel recognizes that suffering can lead a person to seek change in their lives,  Cordelia doesn’t see the need to change.   She doesn’t want redemption from her past sins in the same sense.  What she really wants is for things to go back to being the way they were and the apartment is not so much a symbol of that but a means of achieving it.  And it is in this continuing difference in attitude and outlook between Angel and Cordelia that we find the source of much of the series' humor and the balance that brings.

Always the Proper Priorities

Again and again throughout the season we see this genuine growth in her going hand in hand with the continuity of her character.  So, for example, we had her realization in “Bachelor Party” that a rich and handsome guy was not enough for her – she wanted depth.  But that wasn’t enough to make her disregard the fact that Doyle was short and poor.  Equally in the course of the season she became Angel’s closest friend but in “Somnambulist” and “Eternity” that genuine friendship did not affect her concern for her own safety.  And then in “Sanctuary” we have that wonderful vignette where, faced with Angel’s desire to help Faith, Wesley storms out of the office.

Angel:  "He'll come around."

Cordy:  "Wesley?  Sure!  People always get a little funny right after they've been sadistically tortured.  -  Well, you'd know.  (Puts a book of business checks on top of the box of doughnuts Angel is holding)  I need you to sign these."

Angel:  "You understand why we have to help Faith, don't you?"

Cordy:  "Totally.  (Points at the book) And here."

Angel:  "We can't just arbitrarily decide whose soul is worth saving and whose isn't."

Cordy:  "Oh, I know!  And this one?  (Rips out the page of checks)  Thanks. (Angel looks at the copies of the checks).”

Angel:  "Wait.  Those were all made out to you."

Cordy:  "Yeah."

Angel: "Paid vacation."

Cordy:  "Like I'm gonna stick around while psycho case is roaming lose downstairs with three tons of medieval weaponry?  Not!   Oh, and I'm thinking - sugar high?  Maybe not a great idea."

This was Cordelia.  Always practical and always with her priorities in the right order!

Perhaps the best example of this fine balance between the Cordelia who grows and changes as a character and the Cordelia who is at heart the same Queen C of Sunnydale is to be found in her reaction to the visions she inherits from Doyle.  She is never happy with them, partly because of the personal discomfort and partly because of the way they interfere with her ambitions.  Hence the rather comical reaction we have in “Parting Gifts”.  Her regret at Doyle’s loss was entirely forgotten in her annoyance at what he had done to her:

Cordelia: “Damn, I can’t believe he did this to me!”

Angel:  “Who did what?”

Cordelia:  “Doyle!  I thought our kiss meant something, and instead he - he used that moment to pass it on to me! Why couldn’t it have been mono or herpes!”

Equally her first reaction was to try to get rid of her unwanted gift:

“I want it out of me!  And if kissing is the only way to get rid of it I will smooch every damn frog in this kingdom!”

All she could see was the inconvenience and the burden of the visions.  She did not see them as a way to help people.  And it was the demon Barney who, in his kinder, gentler manifestation, pointed out that the visions may have been the only thing of value Doyle had to pass on.  Indeed Cordelia was so concerned with considerations of what was, from a practical point of view, best for her that she never really did give Doyle the consideration he was due.  And this is what gnaws  away at her in "Parting Gifts".  As Barney later points out to her very forcefully:

“Mixed in with all the pain and the grief, oh, a healthy dollop of guilt. A nagging thought that...that maybe some how you could have saved him.  If only you’d have been nicer to him.   If only you’d let your walls down. If only for ONE freaking second you gave a damn about anyone besides yourself.”

Barney is, of course, exaggerating but there is evidently truth in what he is saying.  After all an outright lie on his part would not have resonated with Cordelia at all.  And what Barney said (together with the fact that her vision actually saved her own life as well as putting it in jeopardy in the fist place) seems to have made her think differently about her newly found “gift”.  Certainly by the end of the episode she has accepted it, albeit grudgingly and is busily framing the drawing of what she saw in her vision.  Here the symbolism seems to me to be fairly plain.  By accepting Doyle’s gift with good grace she was accepting that her personal convenience was not the be all and end of everything and that she did owe some form of obligation to others.  So, she came to accept the visions just as she had accepted a lot of the other unpleasant aspects of working for Angel Investigations (like sawing up dead demons).  And in doing so she was already moving towards the sense of purpose that the events of “To Shanshu in LA” seem to have given her. 

Here we have a character who continues to see things from a first person singular perspective, whose principal concern lies resolutely in fulfilling her own ambitions (hence her efforts to cozy up with Rebecca in “Eternity”) and achieving her own financial security (her constant harping on the need to charge clients) and her own safety.  But here too is a character who has real courage and strength; whose materialism does not mean that she is shallow and who is beginning to realize that she does have obligations to others. And it is a character who does develop a real affection for and loyalty to Angel.  And here we come to the one real weakness of the writers’ treatment of Cordelia in season 1.

A More Central Role

For all of her character development, until Doyle’s death Cordelia seemed all too often a peripheral figure.  Doyle had the visions; Angel did the fighting and Doyle was Angel’s friend.  Any discussion of importance was between them.  All too often Cordelia seemed reduced to comic relief (especially in the entertaining scenes between Doyle and her) or a sort of Greek chorus, commenting from her own unique perspective on Angel and his preoccupations. Her take on the Buffy/Angel myth in IWRY was priceless.  When Buffy turns up at the office Doyle is concerned:

Doyle:  "Well, she seemed a little.."

Cordy:  "Bulgarian in that outfit?"

Doyle:  "No, I was going to say hurt."

Cordy:  "Yeah, there's a lot of that when they're together.  Come on."

Doyle:  "Where are we going?"

Cordy:  "Oh, they'll be into this for a while.  We still have time for a cappuccino and probably the director's cut of 'Titanic'."

This was a valuable role obviously.  As I have already said comic relief played a very important part in the series.  And it gave Cordelia the opportunity to deliver some of the best dialogue in season 1.  But the role she played here is hardly a central one and certainly not the sort of role you might expect from the series principal female.

Things changed, to an extent, in “Parting Gifts”.  In that episode the practical side of Cordelia came to the fore.  She grieved for Doyle’s loss as much as anyone but for her “life goes on”.  And this practicality allows her to show important support for Angel who is much less well equipped to cope with the loss.  And the danger Cordelia then finds herself in reinforces for Angel Cordelia’s importance to him.  In this episode we have the genesis of the friendship between the two of them.  And this feeling of friendship is immediately reinforced in “Somnambulist” both by Cordelia’s instinctive loyalty to Angel in the face of Wesley’s suspicions and by her evident concern and support for him at the end when he seemed almost in despair at the difficulty of separating himself from his past:

“You’re not him, Angel.  Not anymore.  The name I got in my vision, the message didn’t come for Angelus, it came for you.  Angel.  And you have to trust that whoever that the Powers That Be be…are…is…anyway,  they know the difference.”

And there were a number of other episodes (I am thinking here especially of IGYUMS and “To Shanshu in LA”) where the friendship between Cordelia and Angel also featured.  It would also be wrong to say that she took no active part in the work of the Agency. She was "surveillance girl" in "The Prodigal" and, in episodes like "The Ring" her practical problem solving skills did indeed come into their own.  But interestingly those episodes where Cordelia features most significantly in terms of advancing the storyline were the ones in which the main plot point was to rescue her: “City of…”; “Rm w/a Vu”, “Parting Gifts”, “Expecting” and “To Shanshu in LA”.  That this is almost a quarter of the entire first season run is I think a very striking statistic and it is a subject to which I shall return.

Chapter II:
Regression

Helping the Helpless?

As I have already said, in the season 1 episode  “Parting Gifts” we saw Cordelia begin to come to terms with the fact that she did indeed have a part to play in helping others.  And perhaps even more significantly in “To Shanshu in LA” we saw the effect that the prolonged vision coma had on her:

 "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 bone here can figure out what those lawyers raised some time before that prophecy kicks in and you croak….That was the old me wasn’t it.

I am always a little suspicious of epiphanies but Cordelia’s new outlook here seemed to me to be just right.  She had one of the worst personal experiences imaginable – a first person view of the sort of harm inflicted by demons.  I can readily accept that as a life-changing experience that gave the character a strong push in the direction she was already going – towards having a commitment to help others.  But I also like the fact that it wasn’t overplayed by being too melodramatic. And at the same time there was that little touch of humor at the end which showed that Cordelia had changed but she hadn’t.  And this sense of believable development going hand in hand with continuity was maintained in the first few episodes of season 2.

I have repeatedly stressed that a very important feature of Cordelia was her inherent practicality.  She was the most self-possessed and self confident of individuals, a characteristic that allows her to cope with almost any difficulty.  This was the girl who, after being hung upside down and nearly sacrificed in WSWB, could only complain about her inability to get the stains from her dress.  In “Parting Gifts”, as I said, she grieved for Doyle’s loss but continued to try to live her life.  Moreover her practicality helped her understand what her boss was so reluctant to admit and allowed her to offer support for Angel who was much less well equipped to cope with the loss.  And in “To Shanshu in LA”, once she understood what Angel’s problem was, we saw not only  Cordelia’s concern for him but also her very down to earth (though ultimately futile) attempts to help him connect with the world: puppies, ant colonies and drawing material included.  This concern for and willingness to try to help Angel is something which again comes to the fore in “Judgment” at the very beginning of season 2, as witnessed by the following exchange:

Angel:  "I…I saw the light at the end of the tunnel … that some day I might become human.  That light was so bright, I thought I was already out."

Cordelia:  "Yeah.  We all got a little cocky, didn't we?  It's gonna be a long while  until you work your way out.  But I know you well enough to know you *will*. And I'll be with you until you do."

At his lowest point Cordelia is there to provide Angel with the encouragement and support  he needs.  She doesn’t lie to him about how hard it will be but because this is Cordelia “I speak the truth” Chase her expression of confidence is a convincing one.  This seems to me to be excellent use of typically Cordelia characteristics to move the series forward.

Equally in “First Impressions”  we see her forming a bond with Gunn because she understands that he too needs her help; that she can bring some emotional strength and stability to someone whose temper was very brittle.  And as with Angel in “Parting Gifts” we also see her stubbornness and moral courage in doing what she thinks is right no matter how hopeless it may seem and no matter what resistance she meets.

Cordelia: " You need some serious saving.  Looks like I've got my work cut out for me."

Gunn:  "Oh, is that right?"

Cordelia:  "Well, yeah.  Better just plan on having me I your life for a while.  At least until you find some peace."

Her help for others here was a nice mixture between, on the one hand, the Cordelia who in “Parting Gifts” began to realize she did owe something to others and who in “To Shanshu in LA” was given a strong push in that direction and on the other the practical Cordelia who did see the World for what it was and not what it should be.  And she could still be the Cordelia who could be sympathetic to others while at the same time looking out for herself first and foremost.  Hence the following exchange from “Untouched”:

Cordelia:  "I think you're kind of dangerous.   I'm not being mean.  I like you.  I do. But you come on all helpless and... I mean, people that have thought that you were helpless before have died."

Bethany:  "Those men in the alley…that was the only... they were gonna hurt me."

Cordelia:  "You could have floated them away… or…or spun them until they puked.  I don't know.  You squashed them."

 Bethany:  "You don't know how scary it was."

Cordelia:  "Yes, I do.    I had a vision of you.  That's how Angel found you.  I felt everything.  And those guys are better off squashed, I truly think, but  somewhere in that moment of panic a decision got made and I *don't* want something like that to happen to my friends  or, and I can't stress this enough, me.  No matter what, sex complicates the equation - even more than you think."

In short this was a Cordelia who was a more sympathetic figure (in both senses of the term) to the one we had first met in Sunnydale but not an essentially different one .  This was a Cordelia who understood what needed to be said, was not afraid to say it kindly but firmly and yet who had a proper sense of priorities in there.  This was someone who was interesting and entertaining at the same time.

I have to say though that the Cordelia we saw from “Dear Boy” to “Epiphany” was almost unrecognizable from this Cordelia.  First of all in “Dear Boy” the uncritical way she and Wesley  both maintain that Angel is innocent does stretch credibility:

            Cordelia: "He wouldn't.  Angel could never do a thing like that."

            Wesley: "He's not that type of person."

As Angel sure.  But Angelus?  And weren't they both afraid only a few moments earlier that he had gone bad?  Putting up a common front is one thing but asking for the evidence rather than giving a flat denial would have been much more reasonable.  For the Cordelia I have described this sort of burying her head in the sand is simply unbelievable.  And time and time again in the Darla arc she scolds Wesley about not doing more to convince Angel to give up his obsession with Darla.  But Cordelia is the one who should have been able to talk him.  She was his friend.  She had confronted Bethany with the truth; why not Angel?  Instead her passivity was typified by her and Wesley’s reaction to Angel’s drinking Kate’s blood at the end of “Shroud of Rahmon”:

Wesley:  “Angel drank human blood, from a living person. - something he hasn't done in a *very* long time."

Cordelia:  "So, on top of everything else we may have reawakened his bloodlust?"

 Wesley:  "Yes."

Cordelia:  "Hmm…Full days work then."

Wesley:  "I think so."

Then they both get up at the same time and leave, turning off the lights.  This might have been in character for Wesley at the time but it was emphatically not for Cordelia.

But if Cordelia’s avoidance of responsibility in the events leading up to “Reunion” was problematic, her actions after that were even more troubling.   By this stage, although it had been clearly signalled by the writers, little enough had been made of Cordelia’s own sense of mission.  But the whole point of “Redefinition” lay in the way that three individuals come together as a team.  People who had previously been  worried about their own particular futures, who had squabbled and bickered among one another over essentially petty matters but above who had been adrift and directionless had now found a purpose.  But this purpose was sprung on them and on us the viewer from out of the blue.   When Cordelia’s had a vision of a girl in trouble they tried to get in contact with Angel by telephone and when he ignored them still hankered after his help:

Gunn: “If we had Angel he could track her.

Cordelia: “He’d also kill the big spiny demon that took her.”

But the message from TPTB was that the good fight goes on with or without Angel and if needs be then Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn had to carry that fight on themselves.  They were put in a position of having to choose whether to abandon someone in need or put their own lives on the line even without Angel.

What part did Cordelia’s new found empathy with victims or her own sense of having the ability and therefore the duty to help them play in all of this?  As far as I can see, none.  We get no sense of her calling to help others before the intervention of TPTB.  And it certainly didn’t get a mention after she got the vision.  In fact there was no attempt to relate anything she thought or did from “Redefinition” to “Epiphany” to her past.  If she had any particular view of her own drawn from her experiences in “To Shanshu in LA” they were essentially ignored.  And if characterization and development is going to be ignored in cases like this, the question has to be asked: what is the point of it?

It seems to me that what we see here is a textbook case of Cordelia’s storyline being moulded to fit Angel’s regardless of the violence that that does to her own characterization. Angel’s story was first of all one where he became obsessed with saving Darla.  It did not suit the writers’ purpose that Cordelia should interfere; so that’s the way her actions were written.  Then when Darla was turned, we were shown Angel turning his back on his own humanity.  Again it did not suit the writers’ purpose either for Cordelia and the others to try to help him or to explore the idea that they had equally turned their backs on him.  Hence the emphasis on the idea that he abandoned his friends, especially Cordelia.  And as far as the writers were concerned the real significance of what Cordelia and the others were doing to help others lay in the contrast between that as an example of what Angel should have been doing and what he actually was doing.   The story they wanted to tell – Angel’s story – was a rich and fascinating one.  But it is a pity that it required other characters to go in such forced and unnatural directions.

Nor was this the only problem for Cordelia.  It was really from “Epiphany” onwards that the writers seemed to loose interest in the very things that had made her such an interesting character and reduce her to what was at times a something of a cliché.  In particular they started to make a great deal of her visions and what they meant to her.  As Wesley pointed out to Angel:

“It's the visions, you see. The visions that were meant to guide you. You could turn away from them. She didn't have that luxury. She knows and experiences the pain in this city and, because of who she is, she feels compelled to do something about it. It's left her little time for anything else.”

And in “Disharmony” she and her former friend Harmony happily reminisce  about their lives in school.  But when they do so we become conscious that was a different time.  Cordelia has moved on.  And we see the difference encapsulated in the following little exchange:

Harmony: “We were powerful, rich, popular...”

Cordelia: “None of that's changed for me. Apart from the "powerful, rich and popular."

 Indeed we have been made very conscious of the changes in Cordelia’s life.  She has little time for herself nowadays, witnessed by the fact that she is tired and especially by the clothes she is wearing which are in stark contrast to Harmony’s.  But then Cordelia immediately follows her admission by saying:

 “It's hard to explain, but... It's like... I had these... I dunno, air pockets inside me... and the work I'm doing... we're doing... It's like the pockets keep getting... filled up and I'm becoming me and... Me has had way too much to drink so me shut up.”

Here we see a  Cordelia who has indeed found her path and is following it willingly.  Helping other people is now the focus of her life and if that means, suffering the agonies of the visions for the purpose, so be it.   So, in “No Place Like Plrtz Glrb” when she got everything she ever wanted handed to her she turned her back on it because it was an honor to suffer to help people.   Of course, finding a role for herself, a sense of purpose and a direction is in itself a positive for any character.  And self-sacrifice for the sake of thers is no doubt very noble.  But it was not recognizable as the Cordelia we had seen up until the end of season 1, the Cordelia who for example mixed altruism with self-interest  and compassion with clarity and firmness in her talk with Bethany in “Untouched”.  And not only does this pay scant regard to established characterization; it deprives Cordelia of a lot of interest such was its cliched nature.  So, why then did the writers lay such stress on her heroism at the expense of abandoning a much richer and more entertaining picture?  It seems to me that the reason for that lay in the developing relationship between herself and Angel.

Chapter III:
Cordy and Angel

Kyrumption

This was one of the keys to season 3.  The friendship between this pair had been one of the features of season 1.  And certainly towards the end of season 2 their friendship was again emphasized.  We saw the very personal offence that Cordelia took at the way that Angel had hurt her feelings and his anxiety to make it up to her.  We also saw his commitment to getting her back safely from Pylea. And, at the start of season 3, in “Heartthrob”, we were again reminded of this friendship.  The big smile and warm hug with which Cordelia greeted him on his return was I thought a very expressive moment.  As we saw in “Parting Gifts” Cordelia, more than anyone else, knew Angel and could reach him.  And she was not in the least  put off by his reluctance to open up to her.   We see in “Heartthrob” a similar understanding of Angel and a similar persistence and determination to help.  And in “Carpe Noctem” we see Cordelia in vintage form, laying things on the line for our hero:

“You're handsome. And brave and heroic... emotionally stunted, erratic, prone to turning evil, and let's face it, a eunuch."

That is the way that friends are supposed to be able to talk to one another, rather than continually walking on eggshells in case an unpleasant topic might cause friction.  Here, the way these two strange and very difficult individuals rely on one another is in many ways quite endearing. 

But there were beginning to be hints of things to come - that the relationship between them might turn to more than friendship.  In “That Vision Thing”, Lilah attacked Cordelia through her visions.   In response we see Angel wanting to help Cordelia because of a personal commitment to her and ignoring any consideration that gets in the way (including releasing a potentially very dangerous young man).  The implication is that Cordelia is the most important person in the world to Angel; someone for whom he will do anything.

And at the same time we see the way Cordelia stoically accepts the pain she is suffering because it is part of her mission.  In “Heartthrob” she says

“These visions . . . are killing me...it's getting worse every time.”

This emphasizes her role as “vision girl” the one who had the sense of mission.  It seems to me that the writers are consciously linking the things  - Angel’s relationship with Cordelia and her heroism.  The implication  of all of this was of course that there was a connection between the two – as if they were somehow fated to be together because of their heroism.  The writers even went so far as to make up a word for it:

Lorne: “We got a little term back in Pylea. Kyrumption?"

Angel: "I know it."

Lorne: "Okay. When two great heroes come together..."

Angel: "There will be no coming together, okay? Everything we've been through together and all anybody wants to talk about is..."

Lorne: "Can't fight Kyrumption, cinnamon buns. It's fate. It's the stars. Kyrumption is..."

Angel gets up: "Stop saying that. And stop calling me pastries."

Lorne: "You're a man of many limitations, Angel. But you're a man. You got a heart. And Cordelia is a hell of a lady. I mean, if I thought she'd like to wear green, I'd be elbowing you out of the way. But she's out of my league. She's a champion, Angel, old school. And besides, we all know you got a thing for ex-cheerleaders."

I must admit that I have never been keen on ANGEL as some sort of gothic soap opera.  One of the key problems is that ME’s emphasis on personal relationships and the sentimentality associated with them often distorts the treatment of genuine moral issues.  And unfortunately I am afraid that is what we see in season 3.  In episodes like “That Vision Thing” and its companion piece “Billy” the writers largely ignored the obvious moral and thematic implications of Angel’s single minded determination to save Cordelia at all costs simply because of his feelings for her.  Angel (aided and abetted by Wesley) effected Billy’s escape after having been warned that he was a menace.  Of course for Angel the motivating factor was helping Cordelia and he did not know for certain that Billy was dangerous.  No doubt he too felt as if he were being left with little choice.  But the truth was that he did have a choice and he had to take responsibility for the consequences of that choice.  But nowhere do the writers recognize this.  In “That Vision Thing” we are invited to accept at face value that Angel had no choice but to save Cordelia.  There is astonishingly little debate about whether it is right to save her and risk unleashing real evil in the world.  And “Billy” instead on concentrating upon this became in effect a sort of feminist morality tale.

Equally, when in “That Vision Thing” Angel presses Cordelia about her reluctance to let Lorne help her, we see not some self-sacrificing sense of mission but a fear that losing the visions would make her useless – especially to Angel.

Angel “Maybe he can make the noise stop.”

Cordelia: “Yeah.”

Angel: “Isn’t that what you want?”

Cordelia: “Yes…no…well…no.   Sure, I hate looking and feeling like this but if I lose the visions I wouldn’t be able to help you anymore.  You wouldn’t need me.”

This seems to suggest that  Cordelia wants above all else to be valued by Angel and that it is for this she unwillingly puts up with her visions rather than embracing them wholeheartedly.    That is why for me the idea that Angel and Cordelia were drawn together because they were both heroes rang so hollow.  Their relationship seems altogether too self-indulgent for that. 

What's Important to Cordelia

I think it would have been much better had the writers faced this more  squarely in season 2 and early season 3.  There the emphasis on Cordelia as having a heroic commitment to the mission disguises a far more interesting, recognizable and believable piece of characterization.  Making Cordelia and her visions all about everyone else is very one-dimensional.  On the other hand making the visions an issue which goes to her relationship with Angel gives her a layered motivation that is so much more arresting.   That is not to say that she wanted the visions for entirely selfish reasons.  I do not think that we have to discount the personal connection that she now feels to the victims that she sees.  As she said in “To Shanshu in LA”:

            "I saw them all.  There is so much pain.  We have to help them."

When you literally have to walk in someone else's shoes, when you are forced to identify with them so closely that where you end and the other person begins becomes blurred, then it is simply no longer possible to see everyone and everything from you own point of view. When you constantly live with the pain and suffering of others you can hardly avoid doing something about it – if only for your own peace of mind.   Helping the helpless simply becomes a case of making the best of a bad job.  She was going to suffer the pain anyway; why not make sure that some good at least comes out of it?  That way all the pain and suffering  serves some purpose and that is a comfort.

Equally, it has always been a characteristic of Cordelia that she faces life head on and deals with it as it is and not as she might wish it to be,    It was in “Through the Looking Glass” in season 2 that she was first asked to choose between life as a princess and life with the visions; and she chooses that latter.  And ultimately that was the right choice because this little idyll she was experiencing in Pylea at the time wasn’t real.   As she explained to a disbelieving Groosalugg:

Groosalugg: “You have not The Curse?”

Cordelia: “The visions? Oh, yeah. I've got visions coming out of my ears. And sometimes blood, too. But that doesn't make me a princess. That just makes me... kinda weird.”

Groosalugg: “I don't understand...”

Cordelia: “Where I come from... who I really am...is so far from being a princess you have no idea. I'm an actress.”

Groosalugg: “I do not know this word.”

Cordelia: “Actress. It means... when I'm lucky enough to get a gig... that other people tell me what to do, where to stand, how to move, what to say…”

Here we see Cordelia’s very powerful sense of reality.  Ever since she moved to LA she had wanted to be an actress.  But in “Belonging” we see the reality of that.  I wont try to describe the whole embarrassing episode.   Angel’s subsequent description gives the flavor:

Angel:  "Acting is her dream job?  I mean, that's the world she really wants to live in?  With people like that?  I don't get it."

Wesley:  "Who are you talking about?"

Angel:  "Mr. 'Hey, I'm an L.A. director, you know, shooting a commercial so I must be the center of the universe' guy?  It's just like, if you’re not making it in show business you’re a step or ten down the food chain.  I mean, all we do is save the world.   And the way he talks to her.  It's like she's his commodity.  Like she's his slave or something. And you know what the worst part is?  She took it.  When was the last time Cordelia took crap from any of us?"

Gunn:  "Never.  And the day after never."

Angel:  "Exactly!  He's also got her wearing this - flimsy swimsuit that covers like nothing."

And Cordelia’s own description shows her own sense that, as an actress, she was simply being used.   On Pylea too she was being used as a tool in the affairs of state; a way for the Trombli to seize and retain power.  Cordelia is only a princess because she is a pawn in their game.  Both being an actress and being a princess were illusions and pretty useless ones too.  The visions through which she could actually help people were, on the other hand, a reality.  Cordelia as an individual has always been grounded in the realities of life.  But more than that, her personal experiences with the world as it was led her to understand who she really is.  And at that point she was the person who had the power to help others and not simply daydream her life away.  This is proper characterization. Here is genuine insight into a character’s psychology.

But at the same time it has always been important for Cordelia that she be someone special, someone important. In “Birthday” we have the following exchange:

Skip: “Cordelia -- I want you to listen very closely. You go back into your body, you won't wake up. You will lie there, unable to move, unable to speak, until the next vision hits, and then you will die. That is how that life is destined to end.”

Cordelia: “But that's not fair. How's Angel gonna save that girl if I don't tell him where she is? He needs me!”

Here we see what really dismays Cordelia about having to give up the visions.   Her immediate reaction was to focus not on the consequences for the victim of her not being around but on the fact that Angel needed her.  If the important thing was to save the hapless victim, then wouldn’t it have been more natural for her to say “if I’m not around the girl will die”.  Her words here remind me very much of  a couple of things that were said in “That Vision Thing”.  First of all Fred told her:

“You're like Angel's Lassie. Sure, he does most of the saving but it's your visions that tell him that Timmy is trapped in the well, or the robbers are hiding in the barn. He really needs and depends on you."

Then Cordelia herself says to Angel:

“If I lose the visions, I wouldn't be able to help you anymore. You wouldn't need me."

And it is this view Cordelia has of herself, as someone important, someone who can do great things that is the key for the rest of her story. 

And it is in this context that we come to “Birthday” (which is obviously a key episode for her in this season).  My problem with this episode is  that its treatment of Cordelia seemed to be characterized by exaggeration  and hyperbole.  We were shown someone who had a golden alternative future and the special interest of TPTB in her welfare.  Worse there was too much in it that suggested that Cordelia was someone who wanted nothing for herself but simply has an altruistic desire to help others and who is prepared to make any sacrifice necessary for the purpose.  On several occasions, as she is enjoying her wealth and fame, she seems to have a feeling that she should be doing something else:

“Nev, you ever get a nagging feeling you're supposed to be somewhere doing something but you can't remember what?”

This suggests that the visions were her destiny and that she had to choose them because the alternative was that everyone else would suffer because she was not there to play the role that she should have.  That seemed to come far to close to an idealization of her character for comfort.   Hence my very negative reaction to the episode when I first saw it.

Fortunately this didn’t seem really reflect the writers intentions for Cordelia and in later episodes they corrected any mis-apprehension under which I had been laboring. In episodes like “Double or Nothing” and “The Price” the writers affirm that Angel is her priority and that the sacrifice that she made in “Birthday” was for him and for no other reason. The first clue comes in “Couplet”.  From the beginning of that episode, it was clear that she didn’t really love Groo.  She just wanted a human contact – or in Groo’s case a human looking contact.  This is why there was such a concentration on her part on “com-shucking like bunnies” rather than on establishing a more meaningful relationship.  The problem is that Groo really did love her.  Cordelia realizes this almost straight away.  In “Couplet” she says:

“You didn’t give up your throne and come all this way for a makeover.  Did you?  You came for something I can’t give you – me.”

And admittedly she is never dishonest with him about this.   But she knew he had hopes and that those hopes were doomed.   She still kept him around because it suited her to do so.  And Groo probably realized this himself.  In “Benediction” when he asks Lorne to let Cordelia know he has gone for a walk, he adds the rider “if she asks.”  In those words he implicitly recognizes that she isn’t going to ask because she really doesn’t care that much where he is.  And in this he is proven correct.  When he returns, Cordelia mistakes him for Angel because it is Angel’s return she has been waiting for – not his.  Cordelia’s real attitude to Groo is best summed up in the following exchange between her and Fred in “The Price”:

Cordelia: "He is such a sweetie. So loyal and loving - like a puppy dog."

Fred: "Cordy..."

Cordelia: "I know that didn't sound very good, but he is. A puppy dog. A sexy, well-built, go-all-night puppy dog. “

But even more instructive was her attitude to Wesley at the end of season 3.  He was a friend, a comrade in arms.  Yes, he had acted wrongly.  But he had done so from the best of motives.  But with Cordelia this past friendship really counted for nothing at all.  We even reached the stage where in "Tomorrow" she can look at a photograph with Angel and Wesley framed on either side of her and think only of Angel  And even if we dismiss all ideas of friendship, where was the compassion, the concern due to someone in trouble?  What did the Loa say about Wesley in “Loyalty”?

"Simple mortal, your pain is just beginning. Betrayal and agony lie in wait.”

Wesley’s case is the acid test for Cordelia’s compassion for other human beings.  Here we have someone who is need, someone who isn’t evil but has lost his way and may begin to do evil because of it.  Helping him is hard, not in the sense of having to face terrible dangers or overcoming great physical odds.  It is difficult because it asks a lot of a person’s moral fiber.  To do so really would be heroic.  We now see the limitations on Cordelia’s oft repeated determination to “help the helpless”.  When the needs of others conflict with something that Cordelia cares more about – like Angel’s wishes – then they do not count.

And it’s not only basic considerations of compassion that are thrown overboard when they come into conflict with what Cordelia wants.  Even common sense is jettisoned.  Take the need to close the tear in reality that was opened in the hotel lobby in “Forgiving”.  Everyone was concerned that something nasty would come through it.  This was partly out of a sense that that whatever escaped from Quortoth could do terrible damage on Earth.  Indeed in ”the Price” we have a clear example of the potential for harm in the fate of poor Phil.  But aside from any other consideration you might think that a healthy sense of self preservation might lead AI to explore any avenue that might show them how to close the tear.  But when Fred suggested contacting Wesley her reaction was:

“Oh. I don't think Angel's gonna go for that."

The inanity of this drove even that loyal puppy Groo to protest:

"Yes. We must always consider Angel. Angel is our leader. We must obey  his wishes."

It is hard to believe that in this behavior we witness someone who has the makings of a morally superior person.  Instead we see a very fallible human being.

Queen C

So why then was Cordelia singled out for special treatment in “Birthday” and “Tomorrow”?   Well, if we consider Skip’s own rationale for Cordelia’s apotheosis, it doesn’t actually make a whole lot of sense.   His first contention is that she chose her visions over a “happy normal life”.  But, as we have seen, that’s not Cordelia’s version of things.  She gave up the happy, normal life for Angel – to help him.  But, the main burden of Skip’s case lay in the use that Cordelia had made of the powers she had been given.  She wasn’t corrupted by them in the sense that she used them for her own benefit.   Instead she used them to fight evil and help Connor.  The problem is that she did no such thing.  First she had no control over her powers.  In “Provider” she actually tried to levitate herself largely for her own amusement and got nowhere.   More to the point the only two occasions on which she actually used her new powers to do anything could not accurately be described as fighting evil.  On both occasions the powers kicked in to protect her from a fairly immediate threat, one from the sluks and the other from Connor.  The sluks weren’t actually evil.  Holtz referred to them as “frightened rats”.  And she was really no help to Connor at all.  It does indeed seem that Cordelia’s use of her powers helped principally herself out.

So, why did she accept Skip’s words at face value?  And it is in answering this question that we see the  common thread that links Cordelia’s previous behavior with Skip’s rather implausible assessment of it.  Let us look at her reaction when Skip told her she was a higher being:

Cordelia: "It's ridiculous. - I'm just a somewhat normal girl - who - has visions, glows, and occasionally blows things up with her crazy new power….I'm a higher being."

Skip: "Yes."

Cordelia: "And when you say I've - outgrown this level, that sort of implies..."

Skip: "You're moving on to a new one."

Cordelia: "Now I'm really scared."

Skip: "I know. But I also know you're ready."

Cordelia: "Oh, no, I'm not."

Skip: "Ah, the universe begs to differ. And deep down inside, I think..."

Cordelia: "Yes! All right? Stop saying I know!  Maybe I do know. Maybe, if given enough time, I might even get used to the idea, but…I don't have enough time, do I?"

As I have already said, deep down inside Cordelia has always believed that she was someone special, destined for higher things.  In Sunnydale she thought of that as marrying someone fabulously wealthy like the frat boy she had her eye on in “Reptile Boy”.  Later, in LA she thought of it as becoming a rich and successful actress.  And even inheriting Doyle’s visions doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference to this basic orientation. In “Birthday” what prompted her to give up the visions was the idea that she was weak and valueless to Angel.  What changed her mind was the idea that she was the most important thing in his life.  And that meant more to Cordelia than the needs of strangers.  Her attitudes to Groo and Wesley too were determined not by what they themselves deserved or needed but by what was important to Cordelia. That is not to say that she did not genuinely want to help others or that she did not make sacrifices to do so.  What it does mean is that she sees herself and what is important to her as having a “special place” in the Universe.  In this she really is the same Queen C that she was in Sunnydale High. 

So, when Skip comes along and confirms every suspicion she has ever had about herself, it is easy for her to believe him, even though what he actually said made no objective sense at all.  And so, it was because of this vanity, this need to be someone important, that Cordelia fell into what we now know as a trap.  For all her clear-sightedness, her ability to see and deal with the world as it was Cordelia was as human as the rest our little band.  She too could be seduced by the lure of something she really wanted.  By convincing her in “Birthday” that she was someone special and that Angel really did need her, Skip set the bait.  Cordelia willingly accepted the demon DNA just as Jasmine needed her to.  In “Tomorrow” the trap was sprung and she was brought to where Jasmine was able to possess her. 

 From that point until “You’re Welcome” Cordelia as a character disappears from the series.  But we did get one more glimpse of her – the real Cordelia.  In  the season 4 episode “Spin the Bottle” the writers show us the 17 year old Sunnydale Princess.  In doing so they are reminding us of who deep-down she really was.  And the emphasis is instructive.  As we have seen, from season 2 of BtVS onwards she was certainly more than the self-centered materialist she had initially appeared to be.  She was first and foremost a girl who has a very hard, practical streak in her.  This Cordelia wasn’t much of a philosopher and didn’t concern herself overly with abstractions such as the difference between good and evil.  She was far more concerned with the day to day task of living and making life as comfortable for herself as possible. And it was, I think, largely in this context that we got the “I speak the truth and I don’t care what anybody else thinks” Cordelia.  But equally the way she would blurt out what she saw as the truth regardless of the way that it looked to others was an indication of her fearlessness, physical as well as moral.  And certainly she was a brave and loyal friend.  We do from time to time get the odd glimpse in "Spin the Bottle" of these different aspects of Cordelia.  The re-emergence of her old line in invective was so refreshing.  I loved:

Wesley: "There is no call to be snippity, Miss."

Cordelia: "This is a clarion call for snippity, Princess Charles."

And when threatened by TeenLiam she never lost her composure.  But there can be little doubt where the real focus of the writers’ interest was here.  Almost everything that Cordelia said or did in "Spin the Bottle" was about her.  For example, it seemed to her entirely believable that the Government would engage in a conspiracy to ruin her hair.  But the best example was when TeenLiam ran out of the hotel and Wesley was worried about his safety, Cordelia was shocked because he left her:

"Excuse me? Did I just get the brush off? Did a guy just bail on me? There really is some sort of horrible spell."

And when he returns because of the “demons” outside she is relieved:  

"Yep. I still got it."

The concentration here is on her self-centeredness.  And it must have been intended as a reminder that, within Cordelia, this was a basic impulse that never completely disappears no matter how much the character grows and changes over time.  Again that is not to devalue Cordelia’s commitment to helping the helpless.  After all she wanted to be special through helping Angel do just that.  She was prepared to undergo considerable pain and suffering for the purpose.  And finally when forced to choose between giving up the visions and accepting demon DNA she chose the unknown and took a considerable risk with herself.  This is quite typical of Cordelia.  She has never been short of either moral or physical courage.  But the point is that her choices and the courage that it required were not the result of pure altruism on her part.  There was a mixture of motives.  The writers are telling us that here is a genuine individual who has needs and wants of her own and who can help others both out of compassion for their suffering and because it serves her own needs.  And she can understand and misunderstand what others want and need because she looks at those needs and wants through the prism of her own.  That was why she volunteered for the demon DNA and that was why she volunteered to be a “Higher Being”.  Yes, she saw both decisions as a way to help others.  But she only began to believe they did because they also helped her fulfil her own needs.   In other words Jasmine was able to manipulate her by appealing to the self-centered part of Cordelia’s nature.  As Skip himself said somewhat sarcastically in “Inside Out”:

“Cordelia was chosen as a higher being because she was such a pure, radiant saint.  Please!”

Chapter IV:
Summing Up Cordelia

But whatever else we can say about Cordelia, she remained the most clear sighted of all our band.  She remained morally courageous and she remained Angel’s friend.  These characteristics all played an important part in her final appearance in ANGEL, in the 100^th episode of the series “You’re Welcome”.  When Angel seeks to defend his acceptance of Wolfram and Hart’s bargain she cuts his rationale to shreds:

Angel: “He was about to kill you. And himself. He was so torn up. I didn't have any other way to stop him, any way to help him. Connor's happy now.”

 Cordelia: “So, not only did you strike a deal with your worst enemy to give up your son, you let them rape the memories of your friends who trust you?”

But while in that characteristic way of hers Cordelia speaks the truth fearlessly, her aim is nevertheless to help.  She has faith in Angel, even where he has none in himself:

“A guy who always fought his hardest for what was right, even when he couldn't remember why. Even when he was miserable, which was, let's face it, a not small portion of the time. He did right. And that gave him something. A light, a glimmer.”

But above all, for something that was clearly so important to her, she brooked no compromise.  Of Doyle she said:

“Doyle Pissed me off so righteously going out like that, but he knew. He knew what he had to do. Didn't compromise. Used his last breath to make sure you'd keep fighting.”

And that is what Cordelia did here too. Just as Doyle passed something on to others from the very gates of death, Cordelia herself did the self-same thing:

“I'm just on a different road... and this is my off-ramp. The Powers That Be owed me one, and I didn't waste it. I got my guy back on track.”

She used her last influence to help keep Angel in the fight.  And although this episode brought an end to Cordelia’s participation in ANGEL, I find this a satisfying note on which to close her journey.  It seems to me to pay proper respect to the characterization of Cordelia that we had all become familiar with and it was a characterization that was both more realistic and more interesting than some of the cliched characterization we saw in early season 3 especially.

And sadly that is the note on which I have to end this sketch.   Cordelia was a terrific character - a true original. She was someone who lived in the world as it is; not as it should be.  She combined sound practicality with moral as well physical courage.  And as a result of this had a perspective that could challenge conventional attitudes in a way that was not only entertaining but made the audience re-examine their own beliefs.   What, she would ask, is so great about self-sacrifice if it can't actually achieve anything concrete?  As such she could be at the same time a real friend to Angel and also a true counterpoint to him.  The scope for creative tension between them was endless.  She could and should have challenged his pre-occupation with his past and his internal life.  She could and should have been the one to try to change him and open him up to the world.  But none of this seemed to suit the writers concept for her.  It is a real shame that, when such novel, interesting and thought provoking possibilities lay before before them, the writers opted for the conventional, the dull and the anodyne.

ME has never made a secret of its social liberalism.  Indeed I think that some of its key showrunners would happily describe themselves as feminist.  And no doubt they would stoutly maintain that in Cordelia they created a “strong female” character.  I have to say if that was their intention they failed dismally because the Cordelia we saw was generally a passive figure, often a victim and after season 1 was defined principally through her importance to the show’s principal male character.  That is not my definition of a strong character.  In season 1 we saw her occupying the traditional female role of supporting the (male) hero without herself becoming a factor in influencing the direction of events.  Worse still, while being nominally Angel's best friend for a large part of season 2 she is effectively a bystander when she is so ineffective in the Darla arc.  Or take the end of season 3, when Wesley’s kidnap of Connor precipitates a crisis.  Here Cordelia is notable by her absence so she has no influence either on the distrustful state of mind Wesley got himself into or Angel’s own self-destructive reaction.  Even when the writers were laying such stress on her heroism from late season 2 to mid-season 3 it was a traditional stereotype of female heroism – the willingness to suffer for others, rather than a willingness to try to change things.   Interestingly “Billy” is one of the few episodes in which she did take the initiative and hunted down the eponymous villain of the episode.  But she was not the one who ended his menace – Lilah did.  As I pointed out in my review of that episode, for Cordelia to kill someone who is more human than Angel would of course be a big no-no, especially since it was not plausibly necessary to save Angel.   Lilah, on the other hand,  is of course the evil bitch lawyer who can actually  kill for revenge because by doing so she confirms that that is contrary to the nature of her gender just as she herself is.

"Billy" was a perfect opportunity to explore how the fact that Cordelia had been victimized  might have produced a self-centred and unwarranted reaction, just as in "Rm w/a Vu" the writers had an opportunity to explore how Cordelia's past transgressions might haunt her.    As I have repeatedly pointed out, for me the fascination with ANGEL as a series is that way that we see the malign influences of their past drive Angel, Wesley and Gunn to do stupid and self-centred things.  At times they were unsympathetic certainly;  but it is what made them strong, active characters.  In contrast, and this is something that she shares with Fred the other principal female in the piece, the writers  had little or no interest at all in showing Cordelia's present actions being shaped by her past experiences.  It is true that, when she begins to fall into Jasmine's trap at the end of season 3, we are conscious of how Cordelia's faults shaped her response to Skip.  But even here we see not a Cordelia who went out and made her own mistakes, but rather a Cordelia who was victimized by someone's malevolence.  Indeed, “Cordelia in peril” was a major theme  in no less than eight different episodes as well as the Pylea mini-arc.   This is of course a very traditional role for female characters.  And of course there is the fact that in the aftermath of “Epiphany” we find that the most important thing shaping Cordelia’s character and the situations she finds herself in is what she meant to Angel.  Angel wants to make amends to her for hurting her feelings.  Angel is concerned for her safety.  Angel loves her and wants to be important to her.  Angel can’t function without her.  Some of this may be accounted for by the fact that ANGEL never was an ensemble piece; it was always Angel’s story and so it was inevitable that most of the other characters would get short changed in their stories.  Nevertheless that does not account for the very conventional – and frankly all too often uninteresting – stereotyping into which Cordelia was forced at times in seasons 2 and 3.  And coming from an organization that would declare its feminism and its opposition to traditional female stereotypes, this is frankly bizarre.