Cordy based on Shakespeare?

[Cangel]

Hi everyone :1a:

I have no idea how this happened (okay, I have, but it's too embarrassing to tell), but today I found out there's a Shakespeare character called Cordelia (in 'King Lear')

Well I looked around a bit online and found this about her:
"Cordelia’s chief characteristics are devotion, kindness, beauty, and honesty—honesty to a fault, perhaps."
"This fleeting moment of familial happiness makes the devastating finale of King Lear that much more cruel, as Cordelia, the personification of kindness and virtue, becomes a literal sacrifice to the heartlessness of an apparently unjust world."

It sounds a bit like our Cordy, doesn't it? Especially honesty. In the play her honesty (I mean when she refuses to flatter her father or something like that...never read the actual play) is what got her banished. In Buffy, although it seems to be a bit blunt and tactless most of the time, she's also very much for honesty. Later on, as we get to know her (esp on Angel) we also see how kind and devoted she is. And well beauty, no doubt, she has it.
I inserted the second quote because it's a lot like her death on Angel. Well, she doesn't actually sacrifice herself, but she dies a champion and only moments after finally admitting her love to Angel, which makes it really cruel.

So, does everyone agree on this or does it seem a bit far-fetched?

Oh, and also, the Shakespeare cahracter itself was based on a certain Queen Cordelia. Now that could be where Cordy got her high school nickname :D

[Blondie Bear]

It's not far fetched. I read something quite similar in one of the books I read for my thesis. I can't remember which one now, though (there were too many).

[Keanoite]

I wouldn't say our Cordy and Cordelia from King Lear are very like but I suppose they do share some similarities. Cordelia was completely virtuous. It took our Cordy awhile to get there. Cordelia wouldn't lie and that is true of Cordy too. Although now that you mention the play I can't help but think that maybe there are a few similarities. Remember when Skip showed Cordy her life if she hadn't met Angel in L.A. and how Angel literally lost his mind without her friendship? That reminds me Of Lear having been cast out of Regan's home and he is caught in the Tempest comepletely insane, lost with Cordelia, his favoured daughter.She was the one that protected him really from her sisters.

Hmm...I'll have tot hink about this now. It has me intrigued.

[Aethra]

I read the play after I'd just started watching Buffy, so I noticed the name, but I didn't really think much of it. There are character similarities, but Cordelia doesn't really have a very big role in King Lear. She is important in the beginning and the end, but is exiled in a very early scene, and gone for the majority of the play (which brings up the theory of Cordelia actually being the Fool, although that has nothing to do with Buffy--its just interesting). And then she comes back, briefly, and then everybody dies. Our Cordelia doesn't have a huge role on Buffy, but she's very major in Angel, and I just didn't get a good enough read on Shakespeare's Cordelia to judge on comparasons. I think Cordelia's purpose in King Lear was mainly as a foil for her sisters, and to provide a bittersweet, tragic ending.
*smacks head for not writing about this on the AP Lit. and Comp. test*

[Keanoite]

I always saw Cordelia (Lear) as the ray of light in a world of darkness. I really don't see Cordy as that person in Buffy or Angel. I like the idea of Cordy being the fool though. She provides moments of brutal honesty that no-one else could get away with saying, in both shows. It's fair to say that Anya took over the role of the fool when Cordy left.

[Entiel]

also Joss is a big fan of Shakespeare so he could have gotten the idea from there..like somewhere in the extras of AtS s5 he says that he gt the idea of "killing" Fred one day in his house when they were having a Shakespeare night...

[nerd4hire]

I always saw Lear's Cordelia as being more like Fred, and thought Amy Acker would have made a great Cordelia. It's a short part, but an important one.

[Keanoite]

I would have said more Tara than Fred and I always saw Veiny Willow as Goneril.

Edit:

Blondie my sincere apologies! That was supposed to be for SS! Well at least you got karma out of it!

[Aethra]

Speaking of Shakespeare, anyone else read Twelfth Night, set in Illyria? I got to that part of Angel a day or so after having started the play, and was shocked. I wrote a paper on it too, kinda. My teacher commented "OMG!!" :D

[palabravampiress]

Joss is very culturally aware. He slips cultural references in all the time and, as we already know, he is a fan of Shakespeare. I'm not surprised that there are some references. I mean, yes, I think the name Cordelia is probably a reference to Lear; I just don't think it goes much deeper than that.

I'm kind of like Keanoite; I saw Lear's Cordelia as sort of a ray of light in an otherwise dark and cruel world. In Lear, the most important aspect of the character is her constancy. She doesn't change; she is loyal from beginning to end, even when her family is disloyal to her. The tragedy of Lear is that, due to an inflated sense of ego and pride, he doesn't realize it until everything he spent his life building is dead or destroyed. Our Cordy is nothing if not changeable. She undergoes a transformation through which she eventually becomes a shining beacon of light in an otherwise dark and cruel world, yes, but it is that very changefulness that makes me doubt her connection to Shakespeare's Cordelia. Had she undergone a drastic transformation like our Cordy did, King Lear would have been a very different play.

[bufsum]

also Joss is a big fan of Shakespeare so he could have gotten the idea from there..like somewhere in the extras of AtS s5 he says that he gt the idea of "killing" Fred one day in his house when they were having a Shakespeare night...

Off topic: On another Shakespeare night they came up with Once More With Feeling. Thank you, dear Bard.

Erm... back on topic: I thought this myself after I read the play. I agree with Kean that it there are some blaring similarites. Ala the Angel crazy w/o her, and the fact that she is so honest. Realistically our girl could not have been exactly like Cordelia, and thank goodness. If she was there's no way her character could have stuck around for seven seasons. Each character in the Jossverse changes somehow (as long as they stay alive long enough to do so), I doubt we would have such a connection to it if they didn't. You can only go so far with stock characters when you have an hour show, and the Buffyverse writing team. :)

[Fake Shemp]

it is not sad in no way to think about that, i had always thought it and cant wait for the new hollywood king lear to see if they kill it (love king lear) wonder if they go bloody with the eye bauging scene