Phoebe Halliwell

Phoebe Halliwell is a fictional character from the American television program Charmed, and one of the four leading characters featured during the series' run. The character is primarily portrayed by actress Alyssa Milano, as well as a few other notable actresses during different stages of the character's life. Initially Phoebe begins the series as the youngest child of three sisters. However, at the start of Season Four she becomes the middle of three sisters after the death of her older sister, Prue Halliwell, and the discovery of a previously unknown fourth sister, Paige Matthews. Phoebe has been married three times; to Cole Turner (2002–2003), Dex Lawson (2005) and Coop (2006–Present) In 2007, AOL named her the 7th greatest witch in television history. Alyssa Milano portrayed the character in all but one episode during the series' run, placing her second behind Holly Marie Combs, who appeared in all 179 episodes. The exception was the unaired pilot, in which Phoebe was played by Lori Rom.

Background

Early character history

Phoebe Halliwell was born in her family manor at 1329 Prescott Street, San Francisco, California on November 2, 1975 meaning she is a Scorpio like her sister Prue, who was born October 28, 1970 to the Charmed Ones' mother Patricia Halliwell and mortal Victor Bennett. Phoebe had two older sisters, Prue Halliwell and Piper Halliwell and a younger half-sister Paige Matthews. Phoebe was named after the favorite aunt of her mother.

Phoebe was initially born with the power of premonition. While pregnant with Phoebe her mother Patty shared her gift of premonition. Phoebe's maternal grandmother Penelope Halliwell bound or temporarily removed the powers Phoebe and her sisters possessed while they were still toddlers to keep a warlock named Nicholas from killing them and taking their powers for himself. To further protect the children, they were never told of their supernatural heritage. In effect, they were raised as mortals.

Phoebe's father Victor Bennett, and maternal grandmother Penny Halliwell would argue over the fact that Victor, as a mere human, was unable to protect his own children from the supernatural, and a disgruntled Victor eventually left his family. During this time her mother became pregnant with her Whitelighter's child, but the baby was given up for adoption when Phoebe and her sisters were still too young to remember her. On February 28, 1978, Patricia was drowned fighting the water demon. Phoebe and her two older sisters were effectively orphaned and were raised by their maternal grandmother Penelope.

Phoebe had a very frigid relationship with Prue growing up. While Prue thought Phoebe was immature and irresponsible, Phoebe thought Prue acted less as a sister than a mother. They bickered constantly, and Piper, as the middle sister, frequently had to mediate between them.

Phoebe was a good student, and once earned an award for student of the month. At the age of 10, Phoebe was transported by a spell cast by her future self to the year 2002, where she met two older versions of herself, her sister Piper, her half-sister Paige Matthews, Piper's husband Leo Wyatt, and Phoebe's future ex-husband Cole Turner. Cole protected her from the demon Kurzon and then she visited the realm of Whitelighters with Leo. After she helped the older Phoebe listen to her heart about marrying Cole, she returned to her own time, where Penny quickly erased her memory of the time travel. Unlike her sisters, Piper, Prue and later, Paige, Phoebe is more susceptible to turning evil because she is the only one of the sisters who was born in the Halliwell manor.

When she was 15 years old Phoebe got her first job at the local zoo. Dressed as a penguin she passed out balloons to young children. Once puberty hit Phoebe became known as the school flirt. Her female rivals became jealous and started her nick-name "Freebie", which stuck throughout high school. After graduating high school, Piper and Prue moved into an apartment together in North Beach, leaving Phoebe to live alone with their grandmother. They moved back when their grandmother Penelope became ill. Prue became engaged to a man named Roger and she asked Piper to be her maid of honor.

Unfortunately, Roger began to hit on Phoebe at her bartending job and sent her flowers. When Prue found out, she accused Phoebe of coming onto him. Around this time, Penny took a picture of the three. Although Penny had long believed her granddaughters would grow up to become the Charmed Ones, she thought they were too disconnected to ever fulfill their destiny. She planned to use a potion to bind the girls' powers forever, but she died before she could use it. After Penny's death, Phoebe left university and went to New York City, partly in search of her father and partly because she was devastated that Prue thought she'd come onto Roger. In New York she met a mortal named Clay and formed a relationship with him. Due to his criminal past and secretive nature the relationship was often rocky.

Revelation as a Charmed One

Six months after her grandmother’s death, having fallen on hard times, Phoebe called Piper in San Francisco and arranged to move back in with her sisters. However, Prue was still angry at Phoebe, thinking she'd wrecked her engagement. Piper was afraid Prue would be mad enough to change the locks on the manor (even though Phoebe owned one-third of it) and didn't tell Prue of Phoebe's return until literally minutes before Phoebe walked in the door.

While Phoebe and Piper were playing with their old spirit board, it suddenly moved on its own, spelling out the word "attic." Phoebe went up to check, and discovered the Book of Shadows from which she read the incantation that unbound their powers. The incantation was worded as:

Hear now the words of the witches,
the secrets we hid in the night,
the oldest of gods are invoked here,
the great work of magic is sought,
in this night,and in this hour,
I call upon the Ancient Power,
Bring your powers to we sisters, three,
We want the power,
Give us the power.

Phoebe leafed through the Book for most of the night, and discovered that one of their ancestors was a powerful witch named Melinda Warren, who had prophesied that each member of her line would grow stronger and stronger until the arrival of three sisters who would be the most powerful good witches of all time—the Charmed Ones. Phoebe strongly believed that she, Prue and Piper were those sisters, but it took a series of strange events over the next day to confirm it.

Charmed life

The youngest sister

Phoebe and her older sisters Prue and Piper were collectively called the "Charmed Ones". They served as powerful good witches who protected the innocent as best as they could. As the youngest, she had a rebellious streak. Compared to her sisters, Phoebe wholeheartedly embraced her destiny from the beginning. She often wanted to use magic for fun, and was the first to tragically learn that breaking the rules of personal gain will lead to serious consequences. She was also the one who desired meeting her mother, Patty, the most, because she could not remember her (Phoebe was only three when her mother died). She missed her mother to such an extent she was willing to change history by trying to inform her mother of her coming death.

The next three years saw Prue and Phoebe become much closer than they ever had been, and they gradually confronted their issues. Phoebe desired an active power, and finally her wish came true in the season three opener.

During the show's first three seasons, Phoebe was often the first to discover facts. She was the one who first discovered that they are the Charmed Ones, beginning with a series of events with their old spirit board that was left behind by their mother up until she got to the Book of Shadows in the attic. She also was the first one to know that Leo was their Whitelighter, catching him while hovering to replace a light bulb. Leo made Phoebe swear not to tell her sisters about him. She revealed the truth to her sisters, but they thought she was just joking around.

Out of all the sisters, Phoebe is seen to be the master of spell-writing. Phoebe authored a spell for vanquishing The Source that drew on the magic from the Charmed Ones' ancestors. She also helped The Seer to put the Hollow back in its crypt.

Phoebe learns one of her past lives was that of her great-aunt P. Russell, a good witch who turned evil under the influence of her boyfriend Anton, a warlock. Anton seduced Russell to kill her cousins, P. Bowen and P. Baxter—the past lives of Prue and Piper, respectively—for their powers. Bowen and Baxter feared that Russell and Anton would be too much for their descendants to handle if they got back together in the future, so they cursed Russell's soul to make her future lives die at 24. However, they were able to fend it off by finding an amulet that protected its wearer from all magic.

Phoebe is also noted as the weakest Charmed One by some demons (like the Source) because her powers are the weakest out of the four. But due to her power of empathy she became much more powerful,as phoebe could channel others powers,thus giving her the power to reflect energy balls and fireballs demons threw at her. It should also be noted that phoebe could channel good withches powers to use as her own.

The middle sister

After the death of her sister Prue, Phoebe met a woman named Paige Matthews at the funeral for Prue. It turned out that Paige was her younger half-sister. Phoebe and Cole witnessed Paige inadvertently orb out from a demonic attack, and realized that she was half Whitelighter, signifying that her mother had a relationship with a whitelighter. This Whitelighter was Sam Wilder. He and Patty Halliwell left the baby girl on the door step of a church with the instruction that her name begin with a "P". Phoebe and Piper helped convince Paige to join them and reconstitute the Charmed Ones, and subsequently vanquished Prue's demonic killer, Shax.

For awhile, Phoebe must get used to the fact that she is no longer the youngest sister. At first, she doesn't like the idea of stepping into Piper's shoes as Piper is filling Prue's, though in the end Phoebe loves the idea that she finally can have someone around who is younger than her. She also finds it difficult to play the traditional middle sister's role of mediator. However, she once told Leo that mediating between Piper and Paige reminds her of how Piper had to mediate between her and Prue for so many years.

Phoebe followed a wolf that she saw in the hallway of the Magic School. The wolf lead Phoebe to Enola the shaman, a student at the school, who sent Phoebe on a vision quest to help her see her own future more clearly. On her quest, Phoebe finally managed to reach the portal that took her to the future. There she saw Piper, an older Wyatt, and a younger boy that turns out to be Piper's second son. Paige had become a teacher at the school, Phoebe is pregnant with a little girl, and they are living a life without demons. Wyatt's brother approaches her, saying, "Aunt Phoebe, we need your help," and she is returned to the present to hear Chris asking, "Phoebe, we need your help." Phoebe thus becomes the first one to know that their new whitelighter, Chris Perry is actually Chris Halliwell, her nephew and Piper and Leo's second son. This in itself is ironic as she often describes herself as "the wrong Halliwell" to keep secrets.

Chris tried to enlist Phoebe's help to get his parents back together, but Phoebe felt that meddling with Piper and Leo's relationship would be wrong. As Chris tried to persuade his aunt to join his cause, Phoebe gets a premonition and they go to a Middle Eastern desert where they rescue a female genie named Jinny from her demonic master. Jinny says that she wrote to Phoebe because her former master, Bosk, is trying to raise an ancient demonic city – the lost city of Zanbar – and she thought that if Phoebe became her master, Phoebe would wish her free so that Bosk could not use her to resurrect the city.

Bosk soon enough attacked the manor, and because of his protective amulet that blocked her vanquishing potion, Phoebe wished Jinny free. Apparently, Jinny was actually a demon, and she could be freed only at the expense of the one who freed her, so now Phoebe would have to pay the price: she had become a genie herself, with Chris as her new master. Chris accidentally wished for Leo to get over his issues with Chris, and Phoebe made Leo become very friendly toward Chris. Chris decided to take advantage of the situation and wished for Piper and Leo to sleep together and it worked, just not as he planned: Piper and Leo fall asleep on the floor. Richard takes the genie bottle, with Phoebe in it, and attempts to use it to have Paige love him forever. To make up for his mistake, Richard wishes Phoebe free, and Phoebe and Paige manage to get Jinny back in the bottle.

Loss of active powers

Later, the Charmed Ones go on to trial against Barbas the demon. He admits to meditating a plan to trick them out of their powers, but argued that he still had a point – the Charmed Ones are risky with their magic. He turns the bulk of his accusation against Phoebe, who had recently been using potions to force premonitions; an action Paige believed might have led to Inspector Sheridan catching them. The Tribunal reversed their decision to kill their ally Darryl Morris, but they decided Phoebe must suffer the consequences for using her powers for personal gain. She lost her powers of premonitions, levitation, and empathy. This was a "temporary" punishment, and she had the possibility of earning them back if she used her magic correctly.

Utopia and retirement

Phoebe earned her power of premonition back again, but her powers of empathy and levitation were much harder to come by. She and her sisters participated in the Avatars' plan to change the world into a utopia. However, Phoebe's power of premonition revealed the truth and showed that trauma, death and sacrifice could not be covered up by the Avatars. The world was returned to what it once was, but a powerful demon named Zankou was released from his prison. He attempted to gain control of the manor to receive the power of the Nexus. By turning the Book of Shadows against the sisters, Zankou was able to use the spell and potion to steal a witch's powers. Zankou stole Phoebe's power of premonition so that he could anticipate their attacks and see what they were doing.

Phoebe and her sisters destroyed Zankou and the Nexus. Everyone, both normal and supernatural, believed they were dead. This was their chance to finally get a normal life.

Rewitched and the Ultimate Battle

Phoebe's new alias was Julie Bennett and everyone else but her loved ones could only see her "new look".

The Charmed Ones then met a young witch named Billie Jenkins, they revealed their identities to her and agreed to teach her everything they knew. Although Billie was Paige's charge, she eventually grew much closer to Phoebe, in part because Phoebe was always there for her.

They soon realized that hiding from their identities was a mistake however, so after consulting a Homeland Security agent who had been investigating the sisters' "deaths", Phoebe and her sisters returned to their normal lives.

Phoebe got her old job back and was dating a guy named Dex Lawson, who she had a premonition of marrying. She did marry Dex while under a spell cast by Billie. The marriage was annulled since both participants were not in their right state of mind. Phoebe was no longer romancing Dex. Phoebe lost her faith in her gift, until she had another premonition of the future. She was talking to her older self 6 years from now, and she was still supposed to have a daughter.

Phoebe soon moved out of the manor and got her own condo in the city.

When Phoebe found out that Billie was the Ultimate Power, she was reluctant to vanquish her and she and Piper were at a disagreement until a spell was cast on her because of Billie. She and her sisters had to hide out in the Underworld, as the magical community had turned their backs on them but later she faught against Billie and Christy and was killed in the process when the manor exploded.

Phoebe married Coop the Cupid in the series finale and gave birth to three daughters one of which she had foreseen with her premonition. Phoebe has turned into a warlock, a banshee, the Queen of the Underworld, a mermaid, a superhero, a Greek goddess (of Love), a genie, a ghost, a mummy, a Valkyrie, a witch beast that came out during a blue moon (along with Piper and Paige), a 1950s housewife and was trapped in the body of an evil sorceress.

Powers and abilities

Phoebe has the power of premonition, a passive power. She triggers this power when she touches or is in presence of something that has to do with what her premonition is about. This power was initially uncontrollable, but in later seasons if she wanted or pleaded for a premonition, she usually got it. While her premonitions are shown as black and white in the show, it is mentioned several times that Phoebe experiences them in color. As her power grew, her premonitions become more vivid to where they become slightly colored and she can hear and feel what is going on and to hold her premonition longer. (Phoebe's premonition increases in "The Eyes Have It" episode to include astral projection into her visions and also in "Hulkus Pocus" episode when she is able to interact and communicate with her future self in her premonitions).

Her premonitions are triggered by objects or strong psychic auras, making them a form of psychometry. This originally only encompassed precognition, to see the future, but grew to include retrocognition, to see the past, too. Phoebe also developed the power to trigger a vision in somebody else with similar powers, "sharing" visions with Elders and knowing how to trigger a specific "trap" premonition in Mitzy, who had stolen her powers. Kira, a powerful demonic seer, told Phoebe her powers were once limited to psychometry but they grew, like Phoebe's will in time. Phoebe's premonition powers also grew to her visions always revealing the truth, and in one episode, it gives her enhanced intuition as she was hiding to anticipate when demons were firing fireballs, and in many instances Phoebe has sidestepped and jumped out the way of incoming fireballs and energy balls with perfect timing.

Within her premonitions, they gave Phoebe the gift of Intuition this allowed Phoebe to sense whether she was in danger. Like in the Season 7 episode Freaky Phoebe where she was able to sense the demon was behind her with a pair of scissors, or the Season 7 episode Ordinary Witches where she and Piper lose their powers to mortals and the mortal who has her powers is able to sense when and where the next fireball was going to be launched. This aspect of her character wasn't really explored on the show and was applied inconsistently.

At first Phoebe was unhappy that she only got a passive power. However, it is actually highly sought after; at least one warlock the Charmed Ones faced specifically wanted this power for herself. Additionally, Melinda Warren told her that premonitions help good witches see how to protect and heal.

However she realized how useful her power is when her premonition helped to revive Prue from death after a dragon warlock killed her.

Later on Phoebe obtained her first active power of levitation, to defy gravity and float in the air. This power was uncontrollable when she first obtained it but she later gained complete control over it. She cannot usually move horizontally, and at one time, Prue has to use her telekinesis to move Phoebe over to another side of a cave while she was levitating. Phoebe usually mixed her martial arts and kick boxing with her levitating power to knock out her enemies. In Season 4, she was able to glide short distances with this power and walk on walls. In Season 5, she was able to propel herself through a ventilation duct with this power.

Prior to their wedding, Cole Turner became the Source. Once Phoebe became Queen of the Underworld, she acquired the ability to throw fire, which Leo told her was an upper level demonic power. She uses this power to vanquish several demons who upset her during Cole's reign as the Source. Phoebe learned that she was channeling the power of her unborn child, which was the spawn of the Source. Later, when the Seer magically transferred the child into her own womb, Phoebe lost all of her offensive demonic powers, and she later vows never to use black magic again.

Season six saw Phoebe develop the power of empathy. Being an empath allows her to channel the emotions of those around her. This initially caused considerable problems, as she would encounter other's emotions and act on their whims. Since powers are tied to emotions and Phoebe can feel other's emotions, she could sometimes tap into their powers.As she did when Valkyrie piper attacked she channeled pipers telekinetic Valkyrie powers to where she could use them, and also to the point where when used against her it had no effect this new power(if not taken away)could have made phoebe the most powerful of the charmed ones. This also allowed her to backfire energy balls and fireballs. When the sisters traveled to the future, it was revealed that Phoebe had used electrical powers to kill a man named Cal Greene, although it was never clarified if this was an expansion upon or usage of an existing power or an entirely new one.

Phoebe's powers were stripped by the Tribunal because she was misusing her powers for personal gain. She received back her premonition power in "Styx Feet Under". Like the other Charmed Ones, Phoebe can also brew magical potions and recite/write spells. Even in the flash-forward in the series finale, it was never made completely clear if Phoebe ever did get her powers of levitation and empathy back.

To make up for initially only having a passive power, Phoebe took classes in self-defense. She gradually became the most effective hand-to-hand fighter out of all the four sisters due to her martial arts training. She managed to hold her ground fighting demons notably fighting demonic wrestlers, Furies and vampires. Phoebe mostly uses her abilities of levitation to knock out her opponents in one blow.

While under the influence of the unborn Source-child, Phoebe gained the ability to throw fire, an upper-level demonic power.

Romantic life

Clay

Phoebe has had the most tumultuous love life of all the sisters.She is probably the only Halliwell to have the take-a-chance gene. Early in the show, Phoebe's former boyfriend Clay came into town after helping steal a cursed urn in Egypt. He tried to have Prue auction it off, but when she learned it was stolen she had it removed from the auction. The guardian of the urn attacked Clay, and the sisters saved him. Their relationship was not exactly successful, since Clay essentially tried to give them a curse.

Cole Turner

She started a romance with district attorney Cole Turner, who turned out to be a half-demon named Belthazor, sent to kill the Charmed Ones. Although Cole had started out using her to get close to the sisters, they fell in love. Cole later told her that he'd suppressed his humanity for over a century, but she'd helped him rediscover it. When Cole's demon half was revealed to the Charmed Ones, Phoebe helped him fake his own death and then let everyone, including her sisters, believe he was dead. Phoebe then spent time researching Cole's past, confiding only in Leo that she did not really vanquish Cole. She eventually told her sisters, which strained their sisterhood. Cole and Phoebe had a chaotic romance at best, constantly threatened by each their conflicting feelings and doubts, not to mention demonic interference.

Cole's former compatriots in the Brotherhood of the Thorn, a society of upper-level demons, believed Phoebe's love for Cole was all that was keeping him good, so they goaded him into killing a witch the Charmed Ones were helping protect. This temporarily destroyed Phoebe's love for Cole, but by the end of season 3, they finally commit to making the relationship work.

In Season 4, Phoebe's half-sister Paige, along with Leo, goes back in time to see why her parents died in a car accident and how she managed to survive. Two spirits, Lulu and Frankie, escape through the time portal and possess Phoebe and Cole. The two go on a crime spree, holding up a jewelry store to take a diamond engagement ring, steal a wedding gown and head to the local church, where a possessed Cole holds a gun to the reverend's throat, forcing him to marry the couple. Before they can say 'I do', the spirits of Lulu and Frankie escape their bodies, leaving Cole, bleeding to death after being shot by Darryl Morris. Leo heals him, and Phoebe and Cole vow to marry each other.

Shortly afterward, the Source unleashed the Hollow, and Cole was persuaded to take in the Hollow by the Seer, ostensibly to save all magic and protect Phoebe. Cole ran in front of a fireball thrown by the Source, thus absorbing his powers; this enabled Phoebe and her sisters to vanquish the Source. What no one knows is that the Seer deliberately intended for Cole to become the new Source, whose powers entered the "void" left by Belthazor's death.

Cole started getting nightmares of becoming the new Source, but was unable to keep the Source from completely taking him over. Eventually, little was left of Cole's humanity except his love for Phoebe. Cole, however, hoped to use Phoebe's love for him to turn her evil and destroy the Power of Three. Phoebe started to get a bad feeling about her upcoming marriage, so Piper suggested she use magic to find out what her heart felt. Phoebe cast the spell to hear her heart's desire, which ended up summoning her future and past selves. Older Phoebe refused to tell Phoebe about the events of the future for fear of changing things for the worse. Little Phoebe reminded Present Phoebe of her favorite fairy tale, Cinderella, and her dreams of finding her prince. Older Phoebe admits to Cole privately she broke off their engagement and helped vanquish him after finding out he was the Source, but sacrificed herself to save Cole from a demon attack. Although Phoebe didn't know it, the Seer was trying to have Phoebe killed in hopes of becoming Queen of the Underworld in Phoebe's place. The spell reversed itself, and Phoebe decided to go through with the wedding.

On the day of the wedding, Cole uses his evil magic to bring chaos into his bride's life and sabotage his own wedding in hopes of luring Phoebe into a dark wedding in a cemetery. The Seer had told him that if he married Phoebe in a normal wedding, he'd never be crowned as the Source. Cole made Phoebe's wedding gown several sizes too big, and reorganized the letters on the tag to say "Millie Platt." Phoebe blames the mess on Paige. To make up for it, Paige gives Phoebe an all-natural face cream, but Cole intervenes again, making the cream give Phoebe acne. To prove she is not sabotaging the wedding, Paige casts a vanishing spell to get rid of Phoebe's pimples, but instead make Phoebe disappear completely. While the girls prepare for the ceremony, they transfer the vanishing spell from Phoebe to Paige. Victor walks her down the aisle, but a Lazarus Demon attacks outside the sanctuary on Cole's orders. Paige is nearly killed, and, still being invisible and now unconscious, Leo initially could not see her to heal her. Cole saw a growing puddle of blood; realizing it was Paige, he kept quiet as he wanted her dead. However, after Phoebe grew hysterical at the thought of Paige dying, Cole pointed out where she was and Leo healed her. The sight of Paige nearly dying is enough to make Phoebe call off the wedding. Just when the girls think there's nothing that can be done, they come up on a chapel in the mausoleum and conduct the ceremony there. They don't know, however, that a dark priest is conducting it.

To her shock, Phoebe finds herself to be pregnant; unknowingly, she is carrying the next Source. The baby had been made pure demon as a result of the dark wedding; had the wedding been a normal one, the baby would have been born as a powerful good witch. Under the baby's influence, Phoebe began manifesting the ability to throw flames from her hands—one of the powers of the Queen of the Underworld. Paige, and later Piper, suspects that Cole has turned evil again, but don't know that he is the Source. Paige finally tells Phoebe of her suspicions, but Phoebe initially doesn't believe her. However, when she tells Cole that she's worried about her new fire-throwing powers, she gets a premonition of his recent dealings with demons. Realizing that Paige was right all along, she immediately leaves him. Shortly afterward, she found out that Cole's new personal assistant, Julie, was really a demon sent to seduce Cole away from her, and killed her with fire.Cole attempted to give up his powers to an evil wizard, but Phoebe (under the Seer's coaching) killed the wizard before the transfer was complete. The two are then duly crowned as rulers of the underworld.

Due to their son's influence, Phoebe was able to touch the Source's Grimoire, an evil version of the Book that normally repelled good beings' attempts to touch it. She began teleporting by flame-based teleportation, a power usually associated with high upper-level demons. She also tried to suggest that one of her readers beat her cheating husband over the head with a stapler. However, she tried to play both sides of good and evil. For one thing, she was not willing to kill innocents. In fact, when she got a premonition that a demon was sent to kill an innocent, she offered to help her sisters stop him. However, she merely ordered the demon to leave, much to Piper, Paige and Leo's dismay; they are unwilling to have Phoebe as playing both sides.

Phoebe's attempt to play both sides also undermined Cole's support in the underworld. Several demons were also upset that Phoebe had killed several of their compatriots, but Cole blamed it on hormones. Ultimately, Phoebe found out that the Seer was giving her a tonic designed to destroy her good side—under orders from Cole. She also found out that Cole had personally killed the innocent she'd seen in her premonition. She renounced her crown and joined her sisters in vanquishing Cole, using the spell she wrote to vanquish the Source. Phoebe cried through most of the spell, and was inconsolable for some time afterward.

After Cole died, he ended up in the demonic Wasteland, where all demons go after being vanquished. His powers as the Source were absorbed by the creature there, but he survived by clinging to his love for Phoebe. He tried to get Phoebe to help bring him back to life using a resurrection spell in the Grimoire, but Phoebe didn't want to ever use dark magic again and asked him to move on. When Cole learned he could absorb the powers of other demons when they were killed in the Wasteland, he picked up massive demonic powers and escaped, just in time to save Phoebe's life.

Phoebe was transformed into a mermaid by a spell, but was turned back when she admitted she still loved Cole. However, she told him that their relationship was completely over. She pushed through with efforts to obtain a divorce. Cole repeatedly tries to prove he's still good in order to win Phoebe back, but Phoebe isn't willing to accept him anymore. Despite her earlier efforts to save him, she now believes that it's only a matter of time before his demonic powers make him give in to that evil again. Cole makes numerous attempts to prove that he's good, only to be rebuffed each time by Phoebe and her sisters. Just as Phoebe wonders if she was being too hard on him, her fears are justified when he nearly strangles her to death under the influence of a siren's magic.

Eventually, Cole goes insane due to the combined weight of his despair over Phoebe's rejection of him and the numerous demonic powers he has absorbed. Not long afterward, just as Phoebe feared, the weight of his new powers turns him completely evil. He tries to stir up legal troubles for Phoebe and her sisters in a twisted plot to win her back. All this does is make Phoebe hate him with a passion. Cole's real plan was to trick the sisters into giving up the manor so he could get the Nexus. He then planned to use its power to turn Phoebe evil, then kill her sisters and take over the city. However, Phoebe managed to bluff her way into the basement just as Cole was summoning the Woogyman. With scarcely any emotion, she spoke the banishing spell, and Cole was sucked into the ground along with a crowd of other demons he'd invited into the manor. Cole, however, manages to survive (he was invincible by this time), and Phoebe tells him to his face that he's nothing to her now—and won't feel a thing when she and her sisters figure out a way to vanquish him.

In one final effort to win Phoebe back, Cole became an Avatar. He cast a spell which altered reality, making it so that Paige had been killed shortly after Prue's death, preventing the Power of Three from being reconstituted. He felt Paige was responsible for turning Phoebe against him. In this reality, he and Phoebe are married and rule the underworld from the manor. However, he discovers that in this reality, Phoebe has long since fallen out of love with him and only remained his wife to protect Piper from being killed. He also finds out that he is Belthazor in this reality, leaving him vulnerable to being vanquished. Paige, who was unaffected by the spell, was able to unite with her sisters to vanquish Cole once and for all.

Jason Dean

Phoebe then dated the new owner of the paper she writes for, Jason Dean (played by Eric Dane). Their relation was very serious and Phoebe even went to live with Jason in Hong Kong. After 15 months, Jason finally finds out Phoebe is a witch, as opposed to her telling him. He reacts negatively, and they ultimately break up.

Others

After Phoebe had a vision about life without demons and her being pregnant, Phoebe does math and decides she needs to find a husband urgently. She uses her empathy to find out if her dates feel love or committed, and if they do not she dumps them. She even went so far as to force her premonitions, so she can have more time for her dates. Her active powers were stripped because of this abuse.

Much later, Phoebe decided to take a sabbatical from work. Her editor Elise Rothman, instead of just rerunning Phoebe's column for two months, hired a ghostwriter, Leslie St. Claire (played by Nick Lachey). Phoebe immediately fell in lust with him, though she did not want her column to be written by a male writer. After a brief tryst, Phoebe eventually got her column back as well as her power of premonitions. Leslie moved on after his ghostwriting job was over, feeling that Phoebe has too much to hide for his taste (Phoebe kept on standing him up at their dates, and never explained it—she was always doing witch-related activities).

Phoebe gained a romantic interest in the new literature teacher at Magic School, Drake (played by Billy Zane). Unfortunately his only problem was that he was destined to die after two weeks. However, he managed to fulfill his mission; he was sent by none other than Cole, to restore Phoebe's faith in love.

At the beginning of season 8, Phoebe had a premonition that she would marry an acquaintance named Dex Lawson. She decided to pursue a relationship with him, and later married him while under a spell gone awry. Instead of getting the marriage annulled, she convinced Dex to stay married to her. When Phoebe revealed to him she is a witch, Dex had a similar reaction to Jason's (rather negative). He learned that his relationship with Phoebe was solely motivated by spells and premonitions, not Phoebe's own heart. When Phoebe agreed with this conclusion, they annulled the marriage and broke up.

Later in season 8, Phoebe falls in love with a Cupid named Coop. It was revealed in the series finale, that the elders sent Coop to Phoebe hoping that she would fall in love with him to make up for a little of what she had lost through the years. Although it is "against the rules" for a Cupid to find love for themselves, the Elders lifted this restriction for Phoebe. The finale shows that in the future Coop and Phoebe are married by the Angel of Destiny in Magic School and that they will have three girls. As a sidenote, Phoebe almost fell in love with another Cupid who had to leave her to keep his job.

Once marrying Coop, the couple have three children, all girls. Also, it seems as Phoebe and Billie are still close as the finale season showed their relationship and how well they connected and cared for one another, as Billie is seen watching Phoebe's older two daughters as she's on her way to give birth to a third.

Phoebe's most notable relationships:

Name	Relationship	Season	Notes
Clay	Boyfriend	Season 1 (Feats of Clay)	Phoebe's boyfriend when she lived in New York. She breaks up with him because of his tendency to lie about his actions. He returned to San Francisco in hopes of winning Phoebe back, but Phoebe broke up with him after it appeared he was still lying to her.
Cole Turner	Boyfriend (2000–2002) Husband (2002–2003)	Season 3-5	Cole was Phoebe's longest running relationship throughout the series. She falls for him during the third season, not knowing that he's truly a demon named Belthazor sent by The Triad to kill her and her sisters. She finds out about his true nature (3x08 "Sleuthing with the Enemy") and tries to vanquish him. Phoebe's love stopped her from truly vanquishing him and instead, helped him fake his own death. They had a chaotic romance at best, constantly threatened by each their conflicting feelings, and demonic interference. By the end of season 3, they finally commit to making the relationship work. Cole was stripped of his powers during the fourth season (4x08 "Black As Cole"), becoming human in the process. When the Charmed Ones vanquished the Source, the Source's powers were transferred to Cole, without them knowing. Cole and Phoebe get married in mid Season 4. Phoebe later finds out that Cole is the new Source. After briefly reigning with him as Queen of the Underworld, Phoebe joins her sisters in vanquishing him and sends him to the demonic wasteland. Cole finds a way out of the wasteland during the Season 4 finale and tries to win Phoebe back during the fifth season's early run. Phoebe rejects Cole's love, causing him to turn mad and become obsessed with nothing but getting Phoebe back. Cole creates an alternate reality (5x12 "Centennial Charmed") in one final attempt to win her back. This action, however, caused his untimely death. He did reappear in one episode in the seventh season, (7x16 "The Seven Year Witch") to help keep Piper and Leo together, which he hopes will restore Phoebe's faith in love.
Miles	Dated	Season 5 (Sympathy for the Demon, A Witch in Time)	Miles was Phoebe's love interest after Cole. She falls in love with him but later learns that he's pre-destined to die.
Jason Dean	Ex Boyfriend	Season 5-6	Phoebe later began a relationship with her boss, Jason Dean. The relationship was very serious. Phoebe even lived in Hong Kong with him for a while. However, during their relationship, she had to lead a double life because of Jason's ignorance when it comes to her Charmed life. Jason faints when he learns Phoebe's shocking secret (because Paige orbs in front of him). He eventually couldn't handle Phoebe's secret, causing them to end their relationship.
Leslie St. Claire	Fling	Season 7	Leslie (portrayed by Nick Lachey) was a ghost writer for Phoebe's column when she went on a sabbatical. At first Phoebe finds him annoying and unsuitable for the job because he is a man. They have strong desires for one another (they even had sex in Phoebe's office one time). The fling however ended when Leslie had to move back to Los Angeles.
Drake De'mon	Fling	Season 7	After Leslie, Phoebe falls for Drake, an ex demon who wants to become a teacher for magic school. They had chemistry indeed, the only problem was he only had a couple of weeks to live. It was revealed that Drake was sent by Cole (7x16 "The Seven Year Witch") to help Phoebe not to give up on love. Drake did more than that though, he revealed to Cole seconds before he died that he fell in love with Phoebe.
Dex Lawson	Ex Husband	Season 8	When Phoebe (magically disguised as Julie) met Dex, she receives a premonition that she will get married to him. The marriage turned out to be the result of a spell Billie had cast to help Phoebe realize that faking her death was a mistake. Phoebe tells Dex everything, including the fact that she's a witch. Their marriage was annulled after the event. In the end however, Dex questioned Phoebe's feelings for him. If she really did fall for him or if it was because of the premonition she had of them getting married.
Coop the Cupid	Husband	Season 8	Coop was a cupid who was sent by the Elders to help Phoebe find love. Chris and Wyatt later reveal in the finale that the Elders sent Coop, hoping that Phoebe would fall in love with him after all the things they put her through. In Season 3 episode "All Halliwell's Eve," a man revealed to Phoebe (by peeling the skin of an apple) that her true love's name begins with a "C." She thought it was Cole at first, but in the end, it turned out to be Coop.

Professional life

In the first season, Prue hires her to work for her at the Auction House in the episode The Wendigo, which she quit at the same episode due to her having a vision after touching an artifact. After graduating from college with a B.A. in Psychology, Phoebe lands a steady and successful job as a journalist specializing as an advice columnist for the newspaper, "The Bay Mirror". She initaly takes over when an innocent who had that job before her was in trouble. She saves the innocent's job, but the innocent liked her work better, quit (she didn't like the job anyway) and recommended her to the editor Elise who hired her. Her column is titled "Ask Phoebe." She attends graduate school to further her studies in Psychology while working for the newspaper, but was forced to fake her own death and assume a new identity after vanquishing Zankou. It is never mentioned whether she resumes her studies or not. In the future, she publishes a best-selling book. She also continues to write for "The Bay Mirror", but after falling in love with Coop her advice column focuses on helping people find love.

Prior to her work at "The Bay Mirror", Phoebe had accepted multiple odd jobs (especially during her six-month stay in New York). Upon her return to San Francisco in the autumn of 1998, she had been a bartender, a hotel lounge psychic, a hospital volunteer, and an executive secretary at SWA Properties, a real estate company.

Death count

During the run of the series and her life as a Charmed One, Phoebe died 8 times, including both times she died and time was reset in the first season.

Episode	Episode Name	Cause of Death	Revival
2x2	Morality Bites	Burned at the stake as punishment for murder.	Sent back in time, as she had learned her lesson.
1x22	Déjà Vu All Over Again	Killed by an energy ball thrown by a demon twice.	Time was reset both times.
5x08	A Witch in Time	Killed by a fire ball thrown by a warlock.	Piper, with the help of Leo, went back in time to save her.
6x15	I Dream of Phoebe	An evil genie wished for her death.	Richard wished for The Charmed Ones to be alive, but it was only possible because Leo healed Piper when she called out for him. Therefore, since Piper did not die, it was not possible for her sisters to die either.
7x07	Someone to Witch Over Me	Killed by a Celerity Demon.	Leo revived her after he became an Avatar.
7x19	Freakie Phoebe	Killed by her sisters while inside the demon, Amara's, body.	Brought back from the ghostly plane with a spell.
7x22	Something Wicca This Way Goes	The Charmed Ones fake their death because they wanted to have normal lives again.	They said that their death was fake because the police wanted to catch a murderer.
8x21	Kill Billie Vol. 2	Killed after the manor exploded.	Piper and Leo, with the help of Coop's ring, went back in time to save her.

Notes

• Phoebe pronounces her family name as "Hal-lee-well," while Prue, Piper and Paige pronounce it "Hal-luh-well."
• In the season three episode "Once Upon a Time" we are shown a brief glimpse of Phoebe's personal/legal records Cole is reading from to try and pretend that they have common interests. This reveals seral snippets of personal information such as the fact that:

   Her favorite film is "Kill It Before It Dies"
   Her favorite artwork is "The Birth Of Venus"
   Her favorite book is "Sense & Sensibility"
   Her favorite song is "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve

• This episode also shows that she shared an "imaginary friend" with her sisters, called Lily, who later turned out to be a Fairy.
• Phoebe's astrological sign is also Scorpio, like her older sister, Prue and her future nephew, Chris.
• When the sisters' ancestor, Melinda Warren, looks into the future with her power of premonition through Phoebe, she tells them that she sees "many more generations of my beautiful daughters". Ironically, Phoebe is the only sister who has three daughters.
• Phoebe is a huge fan of the TV series Sex and the City, even to the point where the 2005 episode "Malice in Wonderland" featured a myriad of references to that show and Phoebe narrating the episode in the style of Carrie Bradshaw.
• Ironically, the most famous real-life Halliwell, Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell, once appeared on an episode of Sex and the City as a character named Phoebe over two years before "Malice in Wonderland".
• Her hair and clothing styles change the most out of the Charmed Ones.
• Each time that Phoebe gained a power it would be the first episode of a season.
• Phoebe is the only living Charmed One who hasn't died 3 times in one season.

References in other media

• Phoebe is mentioned briefly in the movie "Big Fat Liar" where Amanda Bynes said "I was watching Charmed on the WB last night and right when Alyssa Milano was about to cast a spell on her super cute, demon boyfriend..."

See also

• List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture

External links

• Phoebe Halliwell at the Internet Movie Database
• Phoebe Halliwell at the Charmed Wiki