Why Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Most Important Character Is Also The Most Annoying

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show filled with amazing characters, and fans love to debate which one is the best. Many prefer Buffy, the natural leader who uses her abilities as a Slayer to put vamps and other supernatural baddies in their place. Others prefer Willow, the geeky girl next door who eventually embraces her own magical mojo. Other fan-favorites include Spike (the bad boy with slick hair and a slicker accent), Anya (the former demon who loves nothing more than sex and money), and Faith (the sexy Slayer who goes from being Buffy’s frenemy to being her worst nightmare).

Few fans name Cordelia, and for good reason: while she grew as a character once she joined the Angel spinoff, she spends the vast majority of Buffy as a mean girl who does nothing more than disparage the other characters we know and love. After a while, it’s easy to start asking yourself a very blunt question: “why is Cordelia even in this show?” However, the answer is deceptively simple. She’s here as a constant reminder of how much Buffy (who was basically Cordelia before becoming a Slayer) has grown as a character. 

The Softer Side Of Sneers

In those first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia is seemingly the opposite of Buffy in every way. Buffy is defined by her duty to protect others, and she often misses out on the best parts of her high school days because she is busy fighting vampires. Cordelia, meanwhile, is a spoiled little rich girl who constantly berates Buffy for being so different than pretty much everyone else in Sunnydale High School.

While she gets some fun, sarcastic lines here and there, Cordelia can often feel like a superfluous character. However, she serves a more basic function in Buffy the Vampire Slayer by being an ongoing foil for Buffy. Like all good foils, Cordelia is everything that Buffy isn’t: she’s weak instead of strong, cruel instead of kind, and cowardly instead of brave. Nonetheless, Buffy is sometimes envious of Cordelia, like when she wishes she could be more like the resident mean girl because she thinks that’s the kind of woman Angel liked when he was still a mortal.

The Yin To Buffy’s Yang

Of course, Cordelia is a foil with a very specific purpose: she’s here to highlight how much Buffy has grown as a character since becoming the Slayer. Before Buffy moved to Sunnydale and fully embraced her destiny of fighting vampires, she was a vapid valley girl in Los Angeles. She just wanted to buy cute clothes and enjoy being popular, and she was so good at this that she was eventually elected Fiesta Queen. All of this is supremely shallow, of course. But to Buffy, this was the normal life she had to sacrifice in order to become the Slayer.

The constant presence of Cordelia highlights the significance of Buffy’s sacrifice. Until her family went broke and she had to move to Los Angeles, Cordelia enjoyed all the privileges of being Sunnydale’s most popular girl. All the women want to be her, and all the men want to be with her. She gets what she wants wherever she goes, and she generally gets to rule the school with the indifference of an imperious queen.

She’s A Killer Queen

In short, she has the life that Buffy desperately wants to have. When we see Cordelia sneeringly enjoying the fruits of her popularity, it’s easier to appreciate how Buffy sets her own needs aside for the sake of others. After a while, Buffy grows into her new life, and aside from occasional relapses (like her desperate bid to get elected homecoming queen), she never seriously tries to become a vapid Valley girl again. When we look at Cordelia, we see everything that Buffy is not, which only helps us to appreciate the Slayer’s growth that much more.

Buffy fans might hate Cordelia for being endlessly cruel to their favorite characters. But she is a constant reminder that Buffy, had she never become the Slayer, would be just as bad, if not worse. Greatness was thrust upon Buffy, and she rose to the occasion so well that she ended up saving the entire world, time and time again. Without Cordelia, the fandom might (like so many Sunnydale residents) very well take Buffy’s sacrifices for granted. Thanks to Cordelia, though, we got to spend three years appreciating how Buffy left her childhood behind to save everyone’s life but her own.

If you still really hate Cordelia, though, you should start rewatching Angel. By the end of that show, you’ll realize that nobody hated Sunnydale’s snarkiest Scooby more than Joss Whedon, who proved himself the meanest girl of them all by ruining her character (and, allegedly, Cordelia actor Charisma Carpenter), one insane plot point at a time.