Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Would Season 1 Cordelia have helped Angel?

So, let's pretend Buffy never comes. It's the Wishverse all over again. BUT, this time, Season 1 Wishverse Cordelia is granted the visions. She is propositioned by the Power that Be to use her seizure-inducing visions to help Angel in trying to defend the Hellmouth from the Master and countless threats thereafter.

Do you think Season 1 Cordelia with the visions would have been as virtuous as the one we see in the actual series? Would she readily help or remain reluctant throughout the whole of the series? Did Cordelia ALWAYS have the potential for goodness or did her time with the Scoobies largely have an effect on her morals?

AND, a slightly off-topic, do you think you would have enjoyed THAT series? A show called "The Powers," centering around Cordelia Chase being forced to choose between her lavish but mundane life or helping a brooding vampire trying to save the world?

I don't think I'd enjoy a show called "The Powers," at lest to the extent there'd be any major emphasis on "the powers that be". That, I felt, was one of the weaker concepts developed in the course of AtS. It started innocently enough as just a generic nickname Doyle gave the indescribable or ineffable force of nature that allowed him to perceive the future, but more in a generalized way than as a firm concept of any specific person or pantheon. Basically a way to tap dance around the existence of any particular higher being and the validity of a single religion. That changed over time, to the point where Angel and Cordelia, even to some extent Wesley, Gunn and Fred, all became acolytes of "the powers". And then Jasmine comes along claiming to be a "power that was.I also don't think precognitive abilities were actually inherently dangerous for humans; I think that was entirely the work of Jasmine and Skip to push Cordelia where they needed her, and the experiences Dru and others liked them were largely different.
It's one of the reasons I can't get on board with the idea in the other thread of Dru having connection to the "powers" and that it in turned lead her to William, who had the potential to be a righteous vampire. It takes a lot of the essence of free will, or the influences of the various experiences any of the characters had in their own development.


Which brings me back to the topic at hand. Cordelia didn't need the versions specifically to join team Angel, or contribute to the fight against evil. The seeds were sown well before she moved to LA, through her experiences that drew her deeper and deeper into the Scooby inner circle, and stayed even after she was no longer dating Xander. She had a passing interest in what they were doing, and helping in some way prevent the various ends of the world. Her experiences at the end of season 3 of Buffy, when her family lost everything they had only strengthened her humility and set her on her course to Los Angeles. I don't ascribe that so much to a higher power, than incidental happenstance as a direct consequence to her father's greed. Even if that didn't happen though, there was in fact an innate quality in her character that was good, and the two shows proved that by fostering those qualities she could grow into the sort of person we see in the later episodes of AtS.

It's essentially goes back to one of those other "what if?" topics, that pondered if, under different circumstances, Cordelia could have been a Slayer; or if she might have actually been an undiscovered Potential? And I do think that's a possibility, because she shares so many of the same traits that ultimately made Buffy who she was. She may have started off seeming shallow, but when the chips were down and the stakes were set, Buffy and Cordelia both made choices for the greater good. For Buffy, her catalyst to realize that innate potential was being called as a Slayer, for Cordelia, a large part of her it was the visions, but in either case other circumstances could have easily brought those qualities out of them, as they often do with many people. Had Cordelia gone to college, her life would probably have still changed in some ways, with a better than average shot at her making some good out of her life; especially without the influences of living on the hellmouth. Even with her father's money still in play, to be far from home, and a small fish in the big ocean of a large college; that's an adjustment in perspective in its own right. Even making glam new friends, partying it up, she'd have seen things and recognized a world most other wouldn't; and just like Buffy in "Helpless," she wouldn't be able to look away as easily when she knows what goes bump in the night. Again, that doesn't require the influence of anyone other than inner cognitive processes Cordelia had developed.

So in this scenario, is it the Cordelia indigenous to the Wishverse, or Cordelia who was sent there by Anya, who has lived the life that would ultimately foster one of Angel's allies in LA? If it's the former, I think she does team up with Angel and Giles and Oz to lead the resistance, and take down the Master; and challenging other evil that strikes. If there's one conceit that changes from BtVS to AtS, Cordelia wasn't quite as nave, considering how easily she was killed in "The Wish".
If it was the Wishverse-Cordelia, it's hard to say, since we never actually met her, but it could be plausible. Consider the radical difference between Harmony in the prime reality, in contrast to Harmony in "The Wish". She was basically a funhouse mirror to Cordelia, so if that's how she ended up in a world with no Buffy, the Wishverse-CC may very well be close to who she would become in LA with AI, at least in certain respects. She didn't have her own car, she had to dress more conservatively, and had a lot more people she knew or cared about die. It would probable take one good, meaningful death for that version of Cordelia to finally have enough and decide to be part of the solution. That's definitely a "what if?" possibility worth exploring - who was the real Cordelia Chase of the Wishverse? She was still head of the Cordettes, but so much was different about them and the world they lived in; was there really nothing more to any of them, let alone the Cordelia that actually lived in that reality, than what we saw?


He lied to us through song! I hate when people do that."

Cordelia's morals changed during the last episode of Angel season one. Her constant barrage of visions which was killing her helped her realize the scope of what Angel was fighting as a champion for TPTB. It helped her empathize with all of the victims out there. So it's hard to say what she would have done.

Even though she was kind of a fifth wheel in BTVS she still helped a few times because she knew it was the right thing to do. So even though Xander, Buffy, and Willow liked to trash talk her much of the time she proved useful especially when Buffy disappeared after Angel was sent to hell. I believe if she had been given the visions earlier her emotional development would have been faster just like Buffy had to evolve when she became the slayer. After all Buffy was much like Cordelia when she attended Hemery High in Los Angeles. She also didn't want to work with Giles at first when she moved to Sunnydale.

So I think that Cordelia always had the potential to become a morally good person. She just seemed to be like the poor little rich girl who believed that popularity would bring her the attention she craved and didn't receive from her parents who appeared to think that throwing things and money at her showed how much they loved her.

Season One Cordelia was fawning over Angel just because he was there and he was mysterious and brooding.

She knew that weird stuff happened in her townbut as long as it did not happen to her, she particularly did not really care at that point. It just wasn't her concern.

She sorta proved that she had potential during the Homecoming episode when she and buffy are trapped together and they have to work to escape.

It's funny how people who can empathize with Willow who's on her own a lot and Buffy who is the slayer against her will. Yet they cannot have any sympathy for Cordelia who actually is the only one of the three to be betrayed by their significant other (Xander) and almost mortally injured when she is impaled on top of his betrayal.

Obviously Cordelia came off as a big snob and a spoiled rich girl. Both of these appearances were facades. She knew that her supposed friends like Harmony only liked her because she was the Queen Bee. So she worked hard to maintain that mask. When she finally did join the Scooby Gang as a fifth wheel she was subjected to just as many insults from the Scoobies as she dished out. But the viewers have been brainwashed to believe that it's okay to treat her that way because she was horrible before. However if you were a truly good person you'd forgive and forget. Xander was able to overcome these petty differences and kindly paid for her prom dress when he realizes that the spoiled rich girl is no more and that she is now working to earn her own finery.

I love Cordelia, but she was a mean girl. Yes, a lot of it was a faade, but it doesn't change the fact that she was hurtful and constantly tried to make people feel inferior to her. She did it even when she was friends with the scoobies (though that was unintentional for the most part so I forgave it). I think the fact that scoobies weren't meaner to her than they could've been and even accepted her into their group was a testament to how much they were being the bigger people.

I think she would've been reluctant, but eventually would've done it. Cordelia always had the potential for good, but was too caught up in her own world to fully realize this potential. Knowing Buffy and see what she and her friends did, I think, opened her eyes and made her see that the world was bigger than boys and clothes and little by little she wanted to do more to help. She could've walked away after everything that happened in Prophecy Girl, but instead she continually hung out with them and tried to help with their investigations. I think that's proof that she was always a good person, but she needed something or someone to help her bring that out.

But as much as I love Cordelia Chase, I'm not sure if I'd watch an entire show centered around her.

Helped do what start a business and accumulate income. Since she hadn't gone from riches to rags yet hell no. The only reason she has to join Team Angel is money. It's not because she wants to save lives and help people. The "Hopeless" are income for her. She somewhat cares but really she cares more about what they can do for her. "MONEY" It's why she makes perfect sense in a town like L.A and on Angel. The only reason her morals change is the non stop vision attack which opens her shallow eyes to the horrors of the world. So now the hopeless are "Helpless". Cordelia is my favorite character. I know her arc like the back of my little gay hand. She only cared about herself in season 1 of Buffy. She had no reason to help Angel.