Post by stargazer1682 on Jan 22, 2019 20:55:30 GMT
I grew disenchanted with Cordelia about midway through season 3, mainly when they started pushing the crap of her and Angel falling in love. I hated that story; and if there's one good thing to come out of the cluster fuck of season 4, it's that it put the kibosh on that.
Plus, it didn't make a ton of sense for Cordelia to need to become part demon in order to stem the pain caused by the visions, since Doyle was part demon and they were painful for him. I mean, it stands to reason that it was part of Jasmine's plot to take her over, etc., but seeing how, when they introduced the idea, they had planned to go in a different direction, it doesn't make sense. And they made what it meant for her to be "part demon" nonsensical and her powers completely inconsistent and arbitrary.
The visions being painless and her ability to purge the energy of the hell dimension made sense atleast, her floating however didn't going back into the visions however I think could have if they did it more, but every power should have had a purpose, like the visions being painless is a way for Cordy to be protected not just from them but the effects if they ever needed to be used rather fast, such as Cordy has a vision of them being attacked and moments later it happens, if Cordy is still reeling from the vision it doesn't help anything to get it, her purging the energy allows her to assert a control and bond with Connor which Jasmine relied on, her being able to go back into the visions would have made sense if she used it more especially in events that were required to allow her ascension and such, but all that also only works if Cordy when she ascends then descends gets bodyjacked and that was the plan all along, if Cordy just goes bad the why she got all these powers is kind of odd.
With Joss's issue with Charisma in S4 now in my head do you think that's partly why he had Skip shit talk Cordy a little bit, in S3 she was a champion and respected for her willingness to die to further the mission and such, in S4 when Angel confronts him about Cordy/Jasmine he mocks the idea she was a champion iirc, do you think this may have had a little to do with Joss being pissed at her? As if Jasmine wasn't always the plan was what S3 Skip said intended to be true?
I find it interesting how certain scenes or dialogue can be interpreted different whne you know more of the behind the scenes, I said this before but I swear Dean calling Sam gassy in the ghost sickness ep of Supernatural was either Jensen having fun or the writers being meta about Jared and his ill timed farts, though I didn't find the one in Legends a few eps back all that clever, referencing the shows real expense issues doesn't make sense in regards to the team as it's stated in the show early on Gideon fabricates their food, clothes and what not, so how does the government get the bill, and who was paying for them for the previous 2 seasons in show?
From there it gets a little murkier, in terms of the usefulness or nature of her powers; because part of depends on whether her visions were supposed to be natural in the first place or a precursor to Jasmine; or something Jasmine hijacked to weasel her way into a mortal body. Sure, it would be super useful to be able to go back into the visions; and now that you mention it, they definitely should have and could have done more with that. But there again, Doyle was part demon and didn't have that ability, so were the visions even a power of a Brachen demon? Was going back into a vision a power set Cordelia would get that Doyle didn't have? For that matter, why wouldn't Cordelia be made part Brachen demon, like Doyle, if that was natural power for them to have?
I wouldn't say her being able to draw out the hell dimension spunk off Conner makes sense, because for one thing, how does that relate or have anything to do with her visions? And for another, what is that power an extension of and what would its use beyond helping Conner in that instance even be? I could maybe see it if the Jasmine parasite fed off that stuff and was drawn to other sources, but they never did anything else with that; so it was more a plot contrivance. And it's not like Conner stopped being a dick after that; I mean, she did that and then he still goes on to sink Angel to the bottom of the ocean and remains an angsty douche bag the rest of season 4. And I'm not sure she needed to glow to control Conner; the power of boners, especially at that age would have more than enough for her to be able to get him to do whatever she wanted. And there were a couple of instances showing Conner getting his engine revved up elsewhere; first with some girl he saved on the street, then later when Faith showed up, that it wouldn't have taken much.
Cordy flying was clearly one of those moments of the writers saying, "how can we punctuate Cordelia being different now that she's 'part demon';" and someone responding, "Oh, I know, she gets a vision and it's so painless that no one realizes that she's having the vision and they think she's still talking about the last one." "Yeah, and she's floating." "Why?" "Why not?" "...Yeah, good point."
What really annoys me with the whole "half demon" story is that they focus solely on her having powers, but there's no other physical manifestation of her as a demon. And nothing about her powers conventionally seem particularly "demon" like; with the exception of Lorne's ability to read futures.
I'm not so sure they were talking smack about Charisma by having Skip put Cordelia down; I mean, the idea of her actually deserving to become a higher being seemed absurd in the first place, so it kind of made sense for Skip to mock it. But there again, what was the real direction then? What was the real purpose to have her ascend if not to bring back a hitchhiker?
I have wondered about other jabs like that though; like during Restless when Willow is in the college play; and dream-Giles keeps talking about Willow stepping on everyone's lines, it's always made me wonder if that was a joke about Alyson Hannigan stepping on people's lines.
How is it we're having a livelier discussion about Buffy and Angel on the Arrow board than any of the threads on the Buffy board....?

