Charmed/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • In the Charmed episode "All Halliwell's Eve", Phoebe gets told that her true love's name will start with a C. At the time, Phoebe thinks it refers to Cole. However at the end of the series Phoebe marries Coop whose name also starts with a C. It could also be a reference to her boyfriend Clay from New York before she became a witch.
    • Further. Clay, Cole, and Coop were arguably her most influential romances (Clay before the series, Cole in the middle, Coop at/after the end). There are three of them. C is the third letter of the alphabet. Phoebe is the third of the Charmed sisters. Is anybody else seeing a pattern here?
  • Not quite sure if this is best classified as "Fridge Horror", but it certainly gave this troper some: the scene in "The Power of Three Blondes" where the 3 titular blondes magically usurp the sisters' identities and then start coming on to Chris. Towards the end of the episode, one of the fakes asks her sister, the one who's stolen Phoebe's identity, if she slept with Chris; he says "yes". This despite the fact that as far as under-the-spell Chris is concerned, the woman in question is his BIOLOGICAL AUNT WHOSE CARE HE GREW UP UNDER. A quite credible argument for the idea that his relationship to the Charmed Ones wasn't conceived by the writers until after the start of the season it happened in.
  • Billie is seen as being some sort of a Mary Sue because of the show's focus on her story as well as the many feats seen on her part which were never hinted at being feasible at least by any non-Halliwells before. But aside from the side story focus not being terribly much greater with her than it was with the likes of, say, Cole, she and Christy's story has involved a terrible lot of calling out the Charmed Ones over shirking their duties for their personal lives even as far back as that being what convinced them to drop their false faces and lives. Thus, it all makes sense. Aside from Kaley Cuoco portraying her like this was one of her sitcom characters half the time, everything that makes Billie appear Sue-ish, from her outdoing the Charmed ones at demon hunting early on to her and Christy suddenly being the Ultimate Power and almost matching them, wasn't because of how she was this great, nigh-unstoppable prodigal super witch. It was her determination to do good and hunt down demons, especially due to her sister's kidnapping, plus the Triad's manipulation of everyone involved, versus the sisters' increasingly single-minded determination to fulfill their dreams getting in the way of their Wiccan call of duty (to the point, as mentioned above, where they changed face hoping to completely skip out on their world-saving job). The Charmed Ones' experience with Billie was a cautionary tale about the consequences of neglecting duty.
  • When Wyatt is evil in the original future Chris came from, he speaks with a vaguely British accent that he doesn't use when he is good. Why does he use it? Because he turned evil because Gideon kidnapped him as a child. He subconsciously absorbed that this was what evil sounds like.
  • In 03x01, Cole tells the demonic judge, 'Free Willy' he'll "take it from here" before promptly vanquishing him. Later on, we find out he's here to destroy the Charmed Ones like Free Willy was.

Fridge Horror

  • Charmed has a particularly dark case involving Penny (the Charmed Ones' grandmother) dying. Before she died, she had made a potion to strip the sisters of their powers permanently. It was quite lucky she died before she gave it to them, wasn't it? Almost as if some higher power had a hand in her death such as the Elders maybe? Given that Penny was going to de-power the most powerful good witches in the world, it's almost definite the Elders stepped in and killed her before she got there.
  • Speaking of the Elders, after Gideon's assistant found out about Gideon's evil plan, Gideon blasted him into a pile of ashes to keep him from talking. Bad enough on its own, right? But this happened at Magic School, which is magically enchanted so that nobody can die there. Even if you're beheaded, you still remain conscious and aware as long as any part of your body remains on the school's grounds. So as long as even one speck of that guy remains embedded in the carpet... yikes.
  • An in-universe example in "Be Careful What You Witch For". Piper and Phoebe recall a story in which an abusive boyfriend attacked Prue and how the entire situation enraged Grams. Piper notes the boyfriend disappeared not too long afterwards. In the spirit of the trope, something that she didn't know then but now does (Grams being a witch) makes Piper consider there was a supernatural reason for his disappearance.
  • In Season 5's "Sense and Sense Ability," the Crone foresees Wyatt's future and is downright terrified by it. ("I've seen everything!") It seems like it's just because Wyatt is a Halliwell - a de-facto force for good and a powerful one at that. But then Season 6 reveals that (before Future Chris' time-travel trip) Wyatt grows up to be a God Mode Sue Complete Monster that ruins the world.

Fridge Logic

  • The Book of Shadows contains descriptions of many unique demons and warlocks, often together with a spell and/or potion to vanquish them. Which raises the questions:

a) Why they haven't been vanquished by previous Halliwell witches?
b) How do they know that said spell/potion will actually work?

    • Probably the biggest excuse through the course of the show: The Power of Three. The spells worked to wound or weaken the demon, but the Power of Three worked as something of an amplifier to push the power of the spell or potion over the top. Many spells were described as a "Power of Three Spell," which makes them sound like only a trio of witches could do them effectively.
    • Also, perhaps one of their ancestors looked into the future and took notes?