Piper Halliwell

In 1998, The WB began searching for a drama series, and looked to Spelling Television, which had produced the network's most successful series 7th Heaven, to create it. Expanding on the popularity of supernatural-themed dramas, the production company explored forms of mythology to find mythological characters they could focus on with contemporary storytelling. In order to create the series, Constance M. Burge was hired as the creator as she was under contract with 20th Century Fox and Spelling Television after conceiving the drama Savannah. Piper is based on Burge's second-oldest sister Edie. On creating Piper, Burge stated "The middle sibling typically tends to be a real people pleaser and very funny, tends to deal with life with a lot of humour. That really applied to my sister, Edie and so I could see the character of Piper [through her]." Executive producer Brad Kern stated that Piper was written into the series as "the middle sister just trying to keep the peace, trying to find love, trying to find her career, and trying to keep Prue and Phoebe from killing each other." When the series was in its first development stages, executive producer Aaron Spelling had always known who he wanted for the role of Prue, Shannen Doherty, an actress from a previous Spelling Television series, Beverly Hills, 90210. Doherty already devoted to the project pitched the idea of her best friend for the role of Piper Halliwell, former Picket Fences actress Holly Marie Combs. Doherty played the role of Prue in a 28-minute test pilot (the "unaired pilot", never aired on television) alongside Combs and actress Lori Rom who played the youngest sister Phoebe Halliwell. Rom quit the series and a new pilot was filmed with former ''Who's the Boss'' actress Alyssa Milano, who took over the role of Phoebe. ==Appearances==

Television Piper is the second eldest Halliwell sister and is portrayed by Holly Marie Combs in all of the show's aired 178 episodes as well as the unaired pilot, making Combs the only cast member to appear in the complete series and the first pilot. At the start of season one (1998–99), six months have passed since the death of her Grams, Penny Halliwell (Jennifer Rhodes). Piper having already moved back into her family's Victorian Manor with her eldest sister Prue (Shannen Doherty), is later joined by their youngest sister Phoebe (Alyssa Milano). On the night of Phoebe's return, she finds a book called the Book of Shadows within the Manor's attic. In the second season (1999–2000), Piper has quit her job at Quake and has ventured into running her own business in the form of the nightclub P3. After her split with Leo, due to the strenuous nature his Whitelighter duties place on their romantic relationship, Piper begins to date her neighbor Dan Gordon (Greg Vaughan) in an attempt at a normal relationship. This causes major conflict as Leo and Piper retain lingering feelings for one another resulting in a love triangle between the three characters. As Piper hones her skills as a witch and a business owner, she eventually comes to the conclusion that despite her love for Dan, her heart will always belong to Leo. Piper later breaks up with Dan and reconciles with Leo. In the season two finale, Piper and her sisters discover that the many attacks on their lives by evil beings have been orchestrated by a demonic force known as The Council. Piper also desires to learn more about Leo's life as a whitelighter and asks him to take her to meet The Elders, senior whitelighters who act as the authoritative council for all of good magic. Leo subsequently proposes marriage to Piper claiming that once married The Elders will not have the power to break them apart. Leo is taken into captivity by The Elders as punishment for breaking their rules and Piper is left heartbroken. The Elders allow the couple to prove that their relationship will not interfere with their greater calling. Piper and her sisters eventually learn that The Triad work for an even greater evil, The Source of All Evil who is the leader of the demonic realm known as The Underworld. Before the season's end, Piper acquires her second magical ability, the power to cause explosions. During the season three finale, Prue and Piper unwittingly expose themselves as witches to the world after being caught on camera by a local news crew fighting with The Source's personal assassin Shax. In the aftermath of the exposure, Piper is shot by a crazed Wiccan fanatic who wanted to join the sisters' coven and dies in the arms of Prue. Piper attempts numerous spells to resurrect Prue to no avail, and when she comes into contact with her Grams, it is revealed that Prue is still struggling to adjust to being in the afterlife and that she is being helped to process her actual death by both Penny and the girls' mother Patty Halliwell (Finola Hughes). but eventually grow to have a mutual respect for each other. With the addition of Paige, Piper and Phoebe are able to reconstitute the Power of Three and avenge Prue's death in vanquishing her murderer Shax and The Source himself twice – both in his original incarnation and that of his next incarnation, Cole. After Piper declines alongside her sisters, the Angel informs her that she is pregnant with her first child. and later protects her with a force field. When the child is born, to everyone's surprise, a boy—in a trip to the future she had only seen a daughter—Piper names him Wyatt Matthew Halliwell. Piper's son is discovered to be The Twice-Blessed Child, the most powerful magical being of all time, which attracts even more demons into the sisters' lives. In the fifth-season finale, a whitelighter from the future named Chris (Drew Fuller) arrives to assist the sisters against the ancient Titans of mythology. After the Elders are forced into hiding by the Titans, Chris manipulates events so that Leo has to become an Elder, causing him to separate from Piper. Piper is so angry that she initially refuses to give up her temporary powers (those of Demeter, Goddess of Earth), though Leo uses his newfound powers to artificially alleviate her pain. Her sisters use a spell to bring back Piper's feelings of loss. After gaining the sisters' trust, Chris informs them that his true mission is to prevent Wyatt from growing up to be the evil dictator he becomes in the future. Unlike her pregnancy with Wyatt, the pregnancy with Chris offers Piper no protection and she is forced to relocate to Magic School, with Wyatt, for her own protection. The Elder Gideon (Gildart Jackson), also headmaster of Magic School, attempts to kill baby Wyatt in order to prevent this future but is killed by Leo in the season six finale, the same episode in which future Chris dies and present-day Chris is born. Season seven (2004–05) starts with Piper and Leo attending two Indian friends' wedding, where they are possessed by the spirits of two passing Hindu deities, Shakti and Shiva. Piper uses these powers to defend herself from demons dispatched to kill her by old enemy Barbas (Billy Drago). He informs Piper of his decision in the episode "There's Something About Leo" and later urges the sisters to join sides with The Avatars in their plan to turn the world into a utopia against the warnings of Paige's boyfriend Kyle Brody (Kerr Smith) and The Elders. Realising the Utopia robs people of their free will, Leo sacrifices himself. Piper realises her children's pain over their father's loss and allies with The Underworld's new leader, Zankou (Oded Fehr), to force The Avatars to rewind time to before the change took place. Piper and Leo encounter evil Future Wyatt (Wes Ramsey) for themselves in the episode "Imaginary Fiends", but are able to stop the last impediment to his becoming a power for good. In the season seven finale, the sisters are forced to fake their deaths after they destroy Zankou and escape the constant threat of demon attacks, as well as police and government investigations. The eighth and final season (2005–06) begins with the sisters assuming new identities (those of their fictitious cousins), with Piper assuming the identity of Jenny Bennett (Beatrice Rosen) and later Jamie Bennett (Regan Nicole Wallake). The sisters also take on neophyte witch Billie Jenkins (Kaley Cuoco) to do some of their magical legwork for them when she discovers who they really are. They later resume their real identities in the episode "Rewitched" with the help of federal agent Murphy (Brandon Quinn) in exchange for helping the FBI handle supernatural investigations. An Angel of Destiny (Denise Dowse) seizes Leo in the episode "Vaya Con Leos" to motivate Piper against their final threat as Charmed Ones. This turns out to be Billie and her sister, Christy (Marnette Patterson), who believe the sisters have stopped using their powers for good. In the penultimate episode, "Kill Billie, Vol. 2", the two sets of sisters undertake an all-out battle, which destroys the Halliwell Manor, and only Piper and Billie survive. In the series finale, "Forever Charmed", Piper uses cupid Coop's (Victor Webster) time-traveling ring to call upon her mother and grandmother and save the lives of her sisters. After Christy is defeated, Piper and her sisters write about their lives in the Book of Shadows. An epilogue depicts Piper with her three children including the addition of a daughter who she calls Melinda, and then living to old age (played by Ellen Geer) and being surrounded by children and grandchildren. which could indicate the literature fitting into the established canon of the series and the so-called "Charmed universe". Piper's first appearance in Charmed literature takes place within the novel The Power of Three by Eliza Willard on November 1, 1999, which acts as a novelised version of the series premiere episode. Her last appearance in a Charmed novel takes place within Trickery Treat by Diana G. Gallagher on January 1, 2008. In 2010, Charmed gained an officially licensed continuation in the form of a comic book, which is often billed as Charmed: Season 9. The series is published monthly by Zenescope Entertainment. Set eighteen-months after the series finale, the sisters are seen living happy demon free lives and have each entered into motherhood. Piper has had a third child, a girl named Prudence Melinda and is planning on opening her own restaurant. In Issue #4, Mortal Enemies, Piper develops a new power in the form of distorting the molecules of objects when she melts the ground to trap the resurrected Source of All Evil. ==Powers and abilities==

Magical powers In Charmed it is revealed that magical witches can develop and master a variety of magical skills and powers which include scrying, As a magical witch Piper can utilize scrying, a divination art form that allows one to locate a missing object or person. Piper can also cast spells, often written in iambic pentameter or as a rhyming couplet, to influence others or the world around her. She can also brew potions, most often used to vanquish foes or to achieve other magical feats similar to the effects of a spell. As a witch and Charmed One, Piper has also developed a number of magical powers which include molecular immobilization and molecular combustion. Molecular Immobilization As Piper first comes into her powers, the first power she develops is the ability to slow down molecular motion so that objects, people, and even energy discharges instantly freeze in place. In the Charmed series, certain magical powers are attached to emotional triggers, although all powers can be affected by the user's emotions. For Piper, the emotional trigger for her freezing power is panic induced situations which enact a fear response. She can even specify a particular type of entity to be frozen, as shown in Season 3, episode 1 ("The Honeymoon's Over") when she intentionally caused only the innocents to freeze in a courtroom, even without knowing which beings present were innocents and which were demons. When Piper was new to her powers, objects she froze would eventually regain their mobility on their own, usually after several seconds. She later learns to unfreeze at will, even freezing an entire object, then unfreezing only part of it. This can be seen in the season three episode "Sleuthing with the Enemy", at which point Piper freezes a Zohtar demon named Krell (Scott MacDonald) in midair, then unfreezes his head in order to interrogate him. Apparently, Piper doesn't have to be directly in front of an object to blow it up, she just has to see it or know exactly were the object is. However, she has to aim her hands at her target in order for it to explode and has the potential of missing it, similar to throwing a projectile. For example, in the season four episode "Long Live the Queen," Phoebe pushed Piper's arms when she attempted to blast the demon Malick and she instead blew up a bicycle. Similarly, in the season seven episode "Witchness Protection," Leo pushed Piper away from blowing up Kyra and her hands missed the target, blowing up a picture instead. Although Piper needs to use her hands to use her exploding power, her heightened emotional state during the Blue Moon allowed her to blow things up without any hand gestures or even looking at her target. Over the course of the series, Piper's power grows to the point that even the most powerful demons are affected by it; she is able to vanquish Jeric, an Egyptian demon so powerful that in the past his enemies were only able to mummify him. She was also able to vanquish one of The Triad, three very powerful demons who had no known way of vanquishing them with just three hits from the power, albeit after he was weakened by the vanquish of one of his comrades. In later seasons, she also displayed the ability to deflect enemy attacks back at them in a similar way to telekinesis. In the Charmed comics, specifically in Issue #4, Mortal Enemies, Piper's power evolves such that, short of blowing objects up, she can reverberate their molecules at a speed which causes them to become disordered, resulting in either melting or burning. Natural abilities Piper is proven to be a skilled chef, unlike her sisters Phoebe and Prue, Piper has never pursued martial arts and is not particularly adept at physical combat, instead preferring to use active powers. But as the series continued and Piper takes a more leadership role, following Prue's death, her combative skills increased somewhat. ==Reception==

In 2001, Combs was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Science Fiction Series at the RATTY Awards for her portrayal of Piper. She was nominated for Best Science Fiction Lead Actress at the same awards ceremony in 2002 and won that category in 2003. In his review of the first season, Terry Kelleher of People magazine described Piper as "the sweet one" out of the three Halliwell sisters. PopMatters Michael Abernethy wrote that Combs was "the most enjoyable to watch" and noted that her character Piper played "the role of compassionate mediator between her two sisters" in Charmeds first three seasons. While reviewing the first season, Brett Cullum of DVD Verdict wrote, "Piper is the most sensitive middle sister who seems to bridge the gap between the oldest and youngest—the diplomat. She could handle the drama handily, and anchored the show with her acting chops and Neve Campbell-esque brunette good looks." A writer for Film.com described Piper as "the moral compass and voice of reason for the 'Charmed Ones'." Rachel Day of Geek Speak magazine praised Combs' acting on Charmed, noting that the scenes of Piper grieving over the loss of Prue in the season four episode "Hell Hath No Fury" was "superbly done" and showcased her "anger and pain at Pru[e]'s death." Day also praised Piper and Leo's relationship as "the most successful depiction" throughout the series. She wrote, "The relationship traveled the course from forbidden love to marriage to separation to reconciliation and a happy ending. Personally, a lot of the charm about Charmed for me was the way the show really showcased this relationship with all its up and downs." In reviewing the fourth season, Leigh H. Edwards of PopMatters felt that Piper and Leo provided "engaging, often funny material" when they were "navigating the equally momentous shoals of domesticity." Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly commented that when it came to the comedy moments in the sixth season, Combs' acting was the best one out of the show's three lead actresses. Flynn described Piper as a "pert little mother" and "purse-lipped precision underplayer." In his mixed review of the eighth and final season, DVD Verdict's Ryan Keefer praised Piper's "incredibly emotional goodbye to Leo" in the episode "Vaya Con Leos" and felt that she was "the saving grace for this season." ==Cultural impact==

In 2007, Piper was ranked third on AOL TV's list of Top TV Witches, behind Samantha Stephens from Bewitched and Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also ranked third on the same list the following year. In 2011, E! Online ranked Piper at number six on their list of the Top 10 Most Bitchin' Witches, writing "You don't have to be evil to be bitchin'. Not only does Holly Marie Combs' witch possess...the ability to freeze time and to make objects spontaneously explode, but Piper is driven by the desire to protect her family and won't let anything get in her way." In 2016, Piper was also ranked sixth in The Huffington Posts list of "The Top 10 Greatest Witches of All Time", adding that "Piper is the true MVP of the Charmed Ones; over eight years she stepped into the role of family matriarch and proved that witches really can have it all, becoming a wife, mother and successful businesswoman, but never forgetting that sisterhood is everything." Both the show and character were referenced in the episode "Sorry for Your Loss" of the sci-fi series The Tomorrow People, when Piper Nichols (Aeriél Miranda) introduces herself to Russell Kwon (Aaron Yoo), and he responds by saying "Charmed, Piper" In his review of the television series Witches of East End being too similar to Charmed, Christian Cintron of Hollywood.com noted that Rachel Boston's "high-strung but well meaning" character Ingrid Beauchamp "could be a carbon-copy of Piper." ==See also==