C is for Cordelia

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

C is for Cordelia Chase

Cordelia in her blue "come bite me" dress from The Wish

Cordelia Chase was a high school class mate of Buffy's for three years.  She was the quintessential popular, bitchy "Queen Bee" of Sunnydale High.  The childhood enemy of Xander and Willow (they had a "We Hate Cordelia" club), Cordelia learnt about demons and vampires and mystical going-ons at the end of the first season.  She reluctantly helped out researching and fighting, eventually becoming a member of the Scooby Gang, as Buffy's friends were known, even dating Xander for a period of time.

After graduating from high school, Cordelia moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career before joining forces with Angel as an employee of Angel Investigations in the TV show Angel.  Cordelia received the gift of visions from The Powers That Be which helped Angel and the team in their fight against evil. 

I always found Cordelia an intriguing character - although I was never sure if I liked her or not.  She started off as the stereotypical bitchy cheerleader, became a useful friend of the team (and frequent damsel in distress), returned to bitchy cheerleader, and then became a dedicated evil fighter.  She was always the one who said aloud what everyone else was thinking, the one with the sarcastic point of view who prevented the show from becoming too nice.  I was glad they moved her over to Angel though - she'd run her course with the core Scooby Gang, and if she'd stayed on Buffy she'd have become the useless, repetitive character who was only used for the occasional snide comment once or twice an episode (which is where she was starting to go towards the end of season 3).  Besides which, she actually got some serious character development over on Angel and became girl power in her own right.  She was no longer the damsel in distress - instead she was the one pointing the hero in the right direction, offering words of wisdom and advice, and helping to save the day.
  
I've stitched Cordelia wearing the blue "come bite me" dress from the episode The Wish.    The Wish is my favourite episode from the first 3 seasons.  Cordelia wishes the town into an alternate dimension where many of the other characters were polar-opposite versions of themselves (for example Willow and Xander were vampires).  The episode was very well done, and was an early example of how the show could easily turn everything on its head to do something new and different.

Happy stitching!