Totally Charmed

The Halliwells have been fighting Evil daily for seven seasons now. Are they ever going to get a break? Not according to Kate Donovan, who argues that the story is about the battle, not about the outcome.

EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT the Charmed Ones. They’re Good witches who battle Evil. Make no mistake about it, these females are the real thing—true warriors.

And like any true warriors, they want to win—to completely vanquish Evil for all time, not just for the thrill and satisfaction it would bring them, but so that they can start living somewhat normal lives, knowing that they have fulfilled their Destiny.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch.

The very essence of Goodness is having the strength and willingness to resist Evil.¹ If there were no bad options out there to tempt us, wouldn’t the concept of Good become meaningless? In other words, without Evil, wouldn’t Goodness cease to exist as well? What would be the point in the Charmed Ones fighting and struggling and sacrificing the way they do on behalf of Good if victory would mean the end of the very thing for which they fight?

The genius of Charmed is the way it presents and explores this paradox, teaching us that the battle itself is the goal. The sisters fight Evil so that Evil won’t get the upper hand. They keep the playing field level so that humans have a meaningful choice between Good and Evil. If the battle is kept even—if demons aren’t allowed to subvert Free Will with their sin balls and spells and illusions and fire balls—the Charmed Ones have faith that humans will choose Good more often than they will choose Evil, and therefore Good will triumph when the battle finally comes to an end.

Good Versus Evil

It has a Biblical ring to it, doesn’t it? Think of the Garden of Eden. God gave humankind three things: paradise, one simple rule and free will.

Free will—a.k.a. the power to break the “one simple rule” and lose paradise. And we all know what happened next. On the other hand, if no “bad” choice had been available, could Adam or Eve have been seen as “good” or worthy of paradise, rather than simply phenomenally lucky? Without Free Will, would they have been human beings at all? Happy? Yes. Human? Not in the sense we think of it. In our world, each person is, in reality, a micro-battleground for Good and Evil. Apparently, so were Adam and Eve.

The list of people—real and fictional—who have made poor choices since the Garden of Eden is impressive. For example, think of King David, another Biblical figure who succumbed momentarily to worldly temptations; Brutus, an honorable man except for that time he stabbed his close friend and ruler; then there’s Guinevere, who. . . . Well, you get the idea.

Interestingly enough, those folks are not famous as evildoers, but rather as humans with truly admirable qualities who just happened to falter in a fairly spectacular way.

So what about the Halliwell sisters? Where do they fit into this lineup?

The Charmed Ones

Destiny chose them to fight Evil, and it gave them amazing magical powers with which to do so. The sisters must be practically perfect to have earned that sort of honor, right?

Hardly. In many ways, the Halliwells are regular, albeit extremely good-looking, females. In one of the many strokes of genius that typify the series, the show’s creator resisted the temptation to give the girls such do-gooder occupations as ER nurse, ex-nun and cop. With the exception of Paige, who came to her powers later and was drawn meanwhile to social work, none had careers that screamed selfless hero/martyr. And even though Phoebe eventually became an advice columnist, which is arguably a service to her fellow humans, she did that after she became a witch and not wholly for altruistic reasons.

But these sisters did have a few things in their favor. A rich legacy, even though they didn’t know it. A line of good-hearted, powerful ancestors. A bond, however strained at times, as sisters. And as their story unfolds, we learn that they have evolved and are continuing to evolve. Phoebe may have been Evil in a past life, but perhaps that isn’t the badge of weakness it appears to be. Maybe having been Evil once, she can better appreciate the Goodness that now thrives in her heart.

All in all, these females meet the definition of Good in the sense that they do a great job of resisting Evil. On the other hand, they’re human. Or, as they jokingly reassured newcomer Paige, you aren’t really a Charmed One until you’ve dated a demon and, I would add, probably not a full-fledged One until you’ve become a demon! The very fact that they are a target of Evil, and come up against it every day in their battles, makes them bound to slip occasionally, especially where dark magic is involved. So Piper was turned into a Wendigo; Paige into a vampire; Phoebe was possessed by the Woogy; Piper became a Fury². . . .

Okay, so these things are bound to happen. But once again, Charmed doesn’t take the easy way out. Most shows would have the heroine get in touch with her inner Good in order to overcome her possession by Evil. But in Charmed, when a sister goes Evil, it’s to the bone! The unafflicted sisters, or Leo, or someone had better save the day, because the Evil sister is having way too much fun to worry about doing the right thing. Proof? In an episode where all three sisters turned Evil, Piper actually reduced her beloved Leo to a pile of debris because he was getting on her nerves. Fortunately, when the spell was reversed, Leo came back, but that’s the sort of high-stakes fun Charmed can’t resist doling out.

It’s easy to behave well when there’s no Evil around to tempt you. The challenge is to be Good in the face of almost overwhelming temptation. And the Halliwell sisters find ways to handle that challenge better than most.

Charmed 101

One of the best episodes for purposes of this essay—not to mention, one of the best episodes period—featured an Infector with a box containing seven sin balls, which had the ability to find a germ of sin in a person and magnify it until that sin consumed its host. The Infector’s goal was to use the balls to infect seven humans. But not just any humans. He needed to corrupt seven “paragons of virtue”—humans who would ordinarily excel at keeping their bad tendencies under control, assuming Free Will was at play. But the sin balls completely subverted Free Will.

We were told that no amount of magic, however strong, could counteract a sin ball. Only a selfless act by the infected person could do that. We were also told that for one of these Seven Deadly Sins—the sin of Pride—there was no such thing as a selfless act. Even when a prideful person does something for someone else, it’s from a sense of invincibility, not sacrifice. They do it for the rush of pride they experience for having acted so nobly.

Another Catch-22. And unfortunately, this meant that Pride was the one sin that couldn’t be beaten.

And who got infected with Pride? The sister who was arguably the ultimate paragon—Prue.³

For Phoebe, the Infector selected the Lust ball, thereby exploiting her natural playfulness and big heart with hilarious—but potentially deadly—consequences. For Piper, who has a tendency to overdo, he chose Gluttony. And in one of the inspired moments that make this show great, laid-back Leo was hit with Sloth.⁴ Yes, even Leo has a tiny germ of sin!

The point is, the Charmed Ones aren’t perfect. They have flaws, and their flaws make them vulnerable to the very Evil they’re trying to fight. But that’s a Good thing, as it turns out, because every bout with Evil makes them stronger, wiser and more evolved in their ability to fulfill their Destiny.

Cole

There’s no better example of the battle between Good and Evil in the Charmed universe than Cole Turner. He literally embodied the fight! Cole, the well-intentioned man with human weaknesses, and Belthazor, an upper level demon with centuries’ worth of practice being Evil: they coexisted in a physical form that could morph between two appearances, the handsome guy and the scary one. We watched in amazement as the battle raged, knowing that at the height of his battle, Cole was facing the most frustrating choice of all: whether or not to use Belthazor’s Evil powers for Good, knowing that if he did so—if he dared tap into that Evil once too often—he might never come back from it.

He faced temptation in forms we can’t possibly comprehend. And we’re not just talking about the choice between Good and Evil. There was that third choice, the one that was both his strength and his downfall—his love for Phoebe. He would do anything for her. It was his reason for being Good, and we can see the danger there. He would be Good for her, but to protect her, he would also be Evil. He was a man completely lacking a moral compass and, eventually, that caught up with him. But even when he became the Source of all Evil, it wasn’t because he wanted power for himself. It was to save Phoebe.

Ironically, Cole—the half-demon—illustrates what is best about being human: the ability to be unselfish—to put another person above oneself—even if that impulse is misdirected.

Love

So where does Love fit into this Good and Evil equation? Clearly Love is never really Evil but, as in the case of Cole, it can make a person vulnerable, and Evil will exploit that weakness for its own purposes. The Halliwells have a lot of experience with that particular concept.

But Love has also been the source of a long line of Halliwell strength—the unselfish ability to put another person’s needs, and sometimes their very existence, above one’s own. Knowing that others—including their mother, their beloved Grams and Melinda Warren—have gone before them gives them confidence and a sense of responsibility. And it also gives them the knowledge that even after they’re gone, their magic—their fight on the side of Good—will be a legacy to future generations of Halliwells.

Personal Gain and Personal Loss

We know instinctively that a Good witch should never use her powers for her own personal gain, and the sisters have learned it through experiences both dramatic and humorous. For the Charmed Ones, however, it’s not enough to use their Magic for Good and to resist the temptation of personal gain. Destiny takes it one step further and asks them to experience tremendous personal loss as well.

They lost their eldest sister in the fight against Evil. That fight took their mother from them at an early age too. Prue lost Andy. Phoebe lost Cole—more than once, in fact. Because of their commitment to the battle, they have had difficulty maintaining friendships with outsiders, having romances, building careers. And even though Piper now has children, the stakes are so very high in regard to protecting and guiding them that, should things go awry, her son could grow up to be the most powerful force for Evil the world has ever seen. Beyond these sacrifices loom the future tragedies they know in their hearts will assail them. Yet they continue. They have evolved along with their powers, understanding that the prohibition against personal gain is only the tip of the iceberg for a Charmed One.

The poignancy of their losses, and the nobility of their continued sacrifices, proves beyond a doubt that Destiny made the right choice with them. They are human, yes, and they will always falter on occasion, but they are also Good—not just because they choose Good, but because they choose it for noble, unselfish reasons.

The Elders

What can we say about this bunch? They’re above the fray—dedicated yet removed. They were once human, once capable of such uniquely human experiences as falling in love, but they no longer have such “petty” feelings. They are detached from emotion and, as a result, their definition of Good doesn’t really work for the sisters, or for us.

They didn’t want Piper and Leo to marry because it could cause complications for the Battle. They have allowed the sisters to experience painful trials to become stronger, more committed. Judging by Leo’s example, Whitelighters still feel compassion for their charges’ trials, but we get the impression the Elders have almost lost that ability.

When Leo himself became an Elder, he became detached too. The very qualities that earned him Whitelighter status—the amazing generosity of spirit and the desire to ease suffering he demonstrated as a human—began to fade on an individual level. And by individual, I mean his wife and his children! It was only when he came face to face with the anguish he caused Chris that he was jolted back to being a caring person. And ironically, that jolt made him too human to be a successful Elder anymore.⁵

We admire the sisters because they have to control their emotions and make heart-wrenching choices. Do we admire the Elders? I don’t think so. Once again, it’s easy to be Good when there’s no temptation and, for the Elders, temptation has been greatly minimized.

The Elders are the ultimate proof that the battle between Good and Evil is an Earth-bound one. Humans have to fight it. The Elders and the Demons, while seemingly major players, are really on the fringe, because the battle does not rage inside them as it does for the Charmed Ones. The show is at its most brilliant when the sisters are fighting the external battle and the internal one simultaneously. Those shows leave us drained. They also inspire us.

The Rules

Want more proof that Good and Evil need each other, whether they like admitting it or not? How about the “deals” and the “rules” and the so-called “neutral” entities that keep popping up? For example, there’s the clean-up crew that comes in when Magic has been exposed. These fellows don’t make value judgments—they just clean up the mess. Then there’s the Angel of Death—seems like a nice enough guy, but he’s got a schedule to keep and that’s that.

There’s even a rule, respected by demons as well as the forces of Good, that a witch who is first coming into his or her powers can choose whether or not to be Good. Evil can tempt the witch, but cannot directly subvert Free Will, which meant, when Paige’s time came, a demon could present her with a truly reprehensible human specimen to kill, but couldn’t make her kill him. And being a witch destined to do Good, she didn’t.

The best illustration of this principle of mutual rules and agreements was the episode about the Hollow, an entity so dangerous that Good and Evil work cooperatively to keep it confined for fear it will consume all power. It nearly decimated Magic once, whereupon Good and Evil pooled their power and confined it, with one representative from each camp keeping guard, apparently whiling away the time by playing a never-ending board game.

Why did the Source decide to unleash the Hollow anyway? Because he could not defeat the Charmed Ones without it. He had reached the point where complete destruction of everything was preferable to allowing them to exist. This Source was no longer precisely Evil. He was insane.

Free Will Versus Destiny

We’ve shown that there can’t be Good without Evil or, more accurately, without a meaningful choice between them. The Charmed Ones fight to protect that choice, using their Magic to restore but not tamper with it.

Do the sisters have Free Will? And how does Destiny fit into the equation?

In Charmed, Destiny is a person’s promise. Their potential. Their highest purpose, cosmically speaking. They may be destined to do great things, perhaps eventually to become a Whitelighter, but anyone can turn his or her back on Destiny. And Evil can throw a monkey-wrench into even the best Destiny, such as when a demon or a Darklighter tries to destroy or turn a human before that human is able to accomplish all the Good he or she is destined to do.

Obviously, the Charmed Ones have an amazing Destiny—to make a lasting contribution to the world by saving innocents, the downside being that every warlock and demon is gunning for them. But the sisters also have an escape clause, courtesy of Free Will.

For one thing, the Book of Shadows provides them with a Relinquishment spell, and while they resist using it, the concept is clear and recurring. Even though they destroyed that page in the book, the spell lingers in their memories, always haunting them, always available to be exploited, as the Source tried to do.

When the sisters managed to defeat the Source ahead of schedule, the Angel of Destiny himself visited them to offer an amazing opportunity: in reward for their unselfish heroism, they could now choose to give up their powers and lead normal lives.⁶

It seemed like an impossible choice: their magical powers in exchange for the security of love, motherhood, friendship and the other human wonders so often denied to them. When they were young and new to the craft, the idea of giving up their growing powers—their heritage—seemed insane to them. But several years and many losses later, Piper and Phoebe had grown weary of the battle, and the yearning for a normal life had grown stronger.

Again, the show didn’t take the easy way out by having the sisters decide they owed it to the world to give up their own needs for those of the greater Good. It was more complicated—more human—than that. The sisters were given a reminder of how it felt to have power at their disposal, power they could use for good, and to protect themselves and their loved ones, and they couldn’t imagine life without it. Sure, they were being unselfish to a point, but keeping their powers also meant keeping that rush, that excitement, that confidence, and they didn’t want to give it up.

For the Charmed Ones, Destiny is a particularly interesting concept because their destinies are so intricately intertwined. Yes, they can relinquish their powers, but it is an all-or-nothing proposition. Yes, they have amazing individual powers with which to battle Evil, but in the battles that really matter, it takes the Power of Three. That shared Destiny is the source of their strength, not just because their Magic is strongest when they work together but because it always reminds them that they are not alone in the fight.

Chris

If the Cole storylines were the most enthralling on Charmed, the Chris arc was the most profound in terms of the battle between Good and Evil as it intersects Free Will. Chris had seen a world in which Evil had taken over, and he was sent back to our time⁷ to prevent that from happening.

There were two ways for Chris to fix the future: either stop the event that would turn his beloved baby brother from Good to Evil, or kill Wyatt before he grew too powerful to ever be stopped. It was only because Chris had seen Evil at its worst—its most pervasive—that he could accept this mission. He was desperate to save the world without harming his brother, but if all else failed, he would have killed Wyatt.

At first we were appalled by Chris’ methodical approach to his task. Then we began to glimpse the pain it was causing him and we slowly began to trust him—to worry as much or more about him as we did about Wyatt, because Chris was just a child too in a sense, and saddled with the fate of the world and the prospect of killing a loved one.

Once again, Charmed at its best.

Demons

The Charmed Ones fight for Good. Do demons fight “for” Evil? Actually, a demon fights for himself or herself. Period. The show makes that clear again and again. Even the demons who do the Source’s bidding do it in hopes of moving up the demonic ladder, not out of any sense of allegiance. A demon who works for the Source has two options: gaining more or stronger powers if he succeeds in an endeavor; fiery, agonizing destruction if he fails. On the other hand, a demon who doesn’t work for the Source can’t get ahead at all. Not much of a choice. (But then again, they’re not really into choice, right?)

Evil

Okay, so what about Evil? Can it exist without its counterpart? Is it really trying to wipe Good off the face of the Earth?

Maybe some of the lower-level demons are that shortsighted, but the brainy ones know the truth. Evil likes to tempt. To corrupt. If everyone were Evil, then who would be left to corrupt? Isn’t that how demons move up the ladder? They need victims!

In theory, at least, Evil has as much a stake in preserving Free Will as Good does, but in practice, the preferred technique for a demon is to subvert Free Will with a spell, an illusion or, as noted above, a good old-fashioned sin ball. Why? If Free Will is the essence of Evil, why do demons keep subverting it?

The only explanation, other than their apparent inability to defer gratification, is that they seem to know that Good would triumph eventually if humans were given a real choice.

There’s also the fact that those who fight for Good have the purpose of protecting and advancing Goodness, while a demon has the purpose of protecting and advancing himself or herself. It’s all about the demon’s own self-interest. We often hear the expression “the greater good,” but never “the greater evil,” and there’s a reason for that.

And ultimately, that gives Good an edge in the battle, doesn’t it? True unity behind a common purpose—a greater Good—and the willingness of the individual combatants to sacrifice themselves for that goal is a powerful concept. And it’s never more evident than with the Charmed Ones, who know that their power is a legacy from Melinda Warren and countless other ancestors, and know also that their children will inherit it. Demons don’t waste time thinking about such things.

Another point in our favor? Humans have a lot of practice struggling against their own base tendencies. Demons, in contrast, don’t have any Good in them at all. Because of this, they can’t understand Goodness and can constantly underestimate it. And when they do have the bad luck to get infected with a little Good? Consider Cole as the Source: that little glimmer of human love that the Source couldn’t extinguish led to his downfall. He couldn’t understand it, so he couldn’t beat it.

Of course, Evil has its edge too. The warriors of Evil have no problem taking Free Will away from a victim, and oftentimes they choose as their victims the very warriors who have chosen to defend Good.

Demons resort to magic as a sign of desperation. The Charmed Ones use magic too, but only because the demons and assorted evildoers do, and only to restore balance and fairness to the battle. The sisters know in their hearts that when Good finally triumphs, it won’t be because of magic. It will be the power of love, the strength of unselfishness and faith in something greater than oneself that will carry the day.

Good versus Evil. It’s a story as old as humankind and destined to last just as long—which is very good news for Charmed fans.⁸

Post Script

I wrote this essay before the Avatars bullied their way back into the show, and now that their arc has come and gone, I thought I’d add a note about them. In many ways, the Avatar storyline reaffirms the basic principles of the show in regard to the concept of Good versus Evil, but was it necessary? First of all, Cole clued us in years ago as to their true nature, in an episode where they tried to recruit him, insisting that they were a power beyond Good and Evil, and he responded that he knew Evil when he saw it.

The Avatars claimed to be getting rid of Evil. Yet to do so, they employed Evil’s hallmark tactic, i.e., robbing humans of meaningful choice. Once again, it’s Charmed 101. We can’t blame Leo for forgetting it for a while, since he’s been through a lot lately. And apparently, the sisters needed a reminder as well. But like Cole, Charmed fans weren’t fooled for a minute.

When Kate Donovan isn’t watching escapist TV, she’s writing books or practicing law in Northern California, where she lives with her very understanding husband and two children. Her first published novels were time travels and paranormal romances, one of which, A Dream Apart—her first and still her favorite—was the story of a young woman who discovers that she’s really a witch and has to learn to embrace her powers and a very unusual Destiny. Is it any wonder Kate became a Charmed fan? Her latest is Exit Strategy, a female action/adventure story from Silhouette’s Bombshell line. Kate can be reached at katedonovan@hotmail.com.