Top Ten Reasons To LOVE Charlie Bradbury

               
             In Season 7 of Supernatural, we were introduced to a brilliant young hacker named Charlie Bradbury who became an unwilling ally of the Winchesters and one of their best friends.

X: She's played by Felicia Day...

                 Yes the queen of geekdom herself has once again ascended her throne to bring us a lovable and completely amazing character! Sometimes there is an actor who just so totally owns the character that you couldn't imagine anyone else in the role (Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka or Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, for instance...) and that is exactly what Day does with Charlie. From the moment she dances onto our screens to the very appropriate music of Walking on Sunshine, Charlie just sparkles with wit and life. If you're not a fan of Felicia Day this might be a downside for you, but as personally I love her to death I can't see it as anything but a good thing.


IX: She willingly embraces her geek heart...

             Far different from the Ed and Harry of the earlier seasons (though they will forever hold a place in my heart), Charlie is a likable geek. She isn't pushy or rude and her tendency to make references and turn to her Hermione action figure for motivation comes across as much more genuine and less "Oh gracious...you NEED to get out more!" It's also nice to see a geeky girl character on a show who isn't being played for laughs or made into a pathetic, can-never-get-a-date type of clichéd pity figure. Charlie is adorable, but that's more of a side-effect of just how confident she is in herself. She knows what she is and she embraces it. Definitely someone I can identify with, though I daresay she does it with a lot more grace than I ever could!


VIII: She is practical and funny...

           It isn't always easy being a geek. At some point we all have to face the fact that the fantasy we all indulge in isn't really of much use in the real world. Unless you are one of the lucky few who can actually make a decent living with your day job being writing for Doctor Who or reviewing DC Comics, it just isn't feasible to spend all of your waking hours dreaming about your obsessions, nor is it healthy That just isn't the way the world works and if you try it you're going to end up living in your parents' basement and eating cereal your entire life. It is with this knowledge that we should all receive inspiration from Charlie. She knows that she's weird, geeky, and outspoken, but instead of ramming it down others' throats and demanding that they accept her the way she is - she goes out and does something with her life. She looks at herself and comes to the realization that in order to get away with being who she is she must make herself as indispensable as possible. That should be a motivation for us all to stay humble, to work hard, and to realize that we're not the center of the universe and no one owes us anything.


VII: She isn't a love interest for the boys...

            I can't stress this one enough. Half of the problem with the first two seasons of girls was that many of them existed to be the girl-of-the-week who had the mystery for the brothers to solve or they were a love interest. Sometimes both, as in the case of Cassie. This wasn't always a bad thing. Lisa, for instance, grew from a one-note character into someone that we could like as a person. But all too often the focus wasn't really put on building them as a character. The only recurring characters to subvert this tendency entirely have been Mary Winchester, Ellen Harvelle, and Jody Mills, which are all mother figures. At least that's how it was until Charlie came along. Within her very first episode Charlie identifies herself as a lesbian which means that there can not be any romantic tension with the Winchesters. That means that there will never be any of the 'will they, won't they' subtext in the scripts. Charlie is just allowed to be her own character and not have to worry about that sort of dynamic. It's very refreshing.


VI: She kicks butt...

             Charlie isn't always right and she doesn't always come out on top. She wants to run away from danger and sometimes she needs saved. But what makes her so wonderful is that when push comes to shove she is there. When it comes down to the wire, no matter how scared she is, she will do her best to stand up for what is right and solve the problem. It doesn't always work perfectly and she doesn't punch out bad guys to make a point; she just does her best and works as part of a team.



V: She's going to be a hunter and help people...
            When most people go into hunting it is either because they've suffered tragic loss (Bobby, John, Sam, etc.) or because they are sick and twisted (Gordon). Sometimes they get into it because they're looking for revenge and sometimes it's because it is the family business and they just honestly don't know what else to do. Cases like Charlie where they just stumble onto the supernatural accidentally and decide to help out are very rare. To date I think that Charlie is the only one to join up willingly and not because of necessity or some terrible, life-changing incident. Why does she do it? Because she is a tad obsessive about the new things she learns, she loves the Winchesters, and she wants to help people. She isn't in it for kicks, isn't in it for profit, and isn't even in it because she believes it is her calling. Her calling is for comic conventions and video game hacking...hunting is just something she does because she knows it helps to make the world a safer place.


IV: She's still alive...

                In a show that couldn't hold on to any female character worth their salt (pun intended) and that kills off its characters in various horrible ways (including the two leads), do you know how rare the type of exit Charlie was given is? It's rarer than hen's teeth! Rarer than Cain's blade! Practically non-existent, one-of-a-kind, and probably-never-to-happen-again type of rare! So the fact that Charlie left willingly (much like the way she got into hunting) and went with Dorothy to help with the rebellion in Oz just makes her all the more unique.  But because she left that way it also means that she is able to return to the show and we all know that the Winchesters will be delighted to have their good friend and IT expert back for another slumber party! I'm still waiting for them to braid Sam's hair...


III: She loves her mother...

            *SNIFF!* No. I'm not crying! I just...have something in my eyes. An eyelash curled the wrong way or something...ah who am I kidding? Yes. I bawled like a baby during the episode Pac-Man Fever. That title is misleading, I tell you. You think you're going in for a jolly little ride down video game memory lane and then the bottom just falls out from under your feet. It starts off with poor Sam looking awful - pale, exhausted, shaky - and with Dean trying to take care of the stubborn Sasquatch. But then Charlie shows up and you think that things will get better. She teams up with Dean to keep Sam from overexerting himself and she gets her own FBI duds via an adorable scene where Dean takes her shopping. But then she goes missing and, in the search to find her, Dean and Sam unearth some surprising things about Charlie's past. Turns out that the hacking she's been doing and the funds she's been transferring have all been going to a hospital. A hospital where her mother has been in a unresponsive coma for over a decade because of a car accident. Charlie has been paying for the care of her mother in the hopes that one day maybe she will wake up and can hear her say "I love you". It never fails to tear my heart to pieces when Charlie tearfully begins to tell Dean about how her mother read The Hobbit to her at night and inspired her to love the things that she does with such passion. I cry unashamedly at the ending of this episode each time when Charlie finally realizes that she has to let her mother go and so sits down one more time with a worn copy of Tolkien's beloved book and begins to read: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole full of the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat .It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort..."


II: She kills the Wicked Witch...

              Ding, dong, the witch is dead! How fitting for bookworm and geek Charlie to get an episode featuring Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of Oz. I was a bit uncertain initially about how well Frank L. Baum's fantasy world would mesh with the set universe of Supernatural but I had confidence that the writers could pull it off. And they did! They gave us a darker version of Oz and a slightly-less starry-eyed version of Dorothy who is, in this version, a tough, no nonsense hunter who is protecting the inhabitants of the fae country Oz. After proving herself yet again by slaying the witch, Charlie elects to go with her new found friend to help the rebels win their war.


I: She's the little sister Dean and Sam never had!

       

         Their relationship is just too adorable and sweet. That's all I need to say about it.