25 Greatest Characters Across The Entire Whedonverse

4. Cordelia

Appeared in: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel If you had watched only Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you'd probably wonder while Cordelia Chase was on this list at all, let alone in the top five. If you watched Angel in the first season, you might have thought "okay, she grew a little, but doesn't everyone?" If you stuck around to season four, you would have barely recognized her. Cordelia Chase became a champion during her time with Angel in Los Angles. And while her story was never properly wrapped up, allegedly due in part to off-screen issues, where she got to was nothing short of incredible. Charisma Carpenter managed to take a vapid valley girl and turn her into something special. Yes, things got twisted when she wound up in a relationship with Angel's son, who she helped raise. A lot of fans had a problem with it, and its incestuous undertones, but strangely enough, like with so much of Buffy and Angel, because it wasn't shocking for the sake of shocking but shocking for the sake of story, it worked. Her best moments came in seasons two and three, but over the run of the show as a whole, and in the attempt to wrap things up, season five's Thank You, we got a character better than any of us could have expected.