Character Analysis: Paige's bond with her sisters

[cyma]

Probably one of the best and rational analysis of Paige's bond with her sisters compared to Piper and Phoebe's bond with Prue by a poster at IMDB:

Even if Paige were super-close to Piper and Phoebe, based on her character arc as established in Season 4, it would be out of character for her to change her name to Halliwell. Why would she need to do that to show she was close to her sisters? That makes no sense to me at all. Just so there can be three Halliwell sisters again? How vapid would that have been? Unless Paige was established as always being an orphan or hating her adopted family, it seems very unrealistic.

Paige kept her name in honor of her fallen parents, the Matthews, because everything she did after their deaths was to make them proud and honor them. It's why she kept her name after she married Henry Mitchell, who she loved so deeply that it gave her access to her healing powers, she wanted to continue honoring her parents whose deaths made her a better person in the end. Paige would never disrespect her parents by changing her name to Halliwell even if she came to be the closest of close to Piper and Phoebe.

I'm curious, what's your definition of true sisters? Closeness? Growing up together?

Piper and Prue's relationship wasn't the definition of sisterhood, it was definition of best friends. They were best friends who happened to be sisters. While all four were sisters who happened to be witches. Just because Paige wasn't best friends with Piper and Phoebe doesn't mean they weren't true sisters. Prue and Phoebe would have barely fit the definition of true sisters if that were the case.

Paige, Piper, and Phoebe may not be the closest sisters (they were close to an extent -- there was some level of closeness established), but they are true sisters in every sense of the word. The difference between the two sets is not true sisterhood, but a level of closeness.

I find it demeaning and rude to claim that unless you're best friends with a brother/sister you're not true siblings. Family is family, no matter what.

[Chrisaholic]

I intend to agree here. It doesn't matter if you have a different family name but the important thing is family is family, by blood or anything else.

[Esmeralda]

I can't totally agree with this. All of this *could've* been true but the writers blew it by not letting Paige have anything in common with her half-sisters except the magic thing. Had they let Paige be interested in cooking, she could've bond with Piper. Had she been able to use her whitelighter powers to help Phoebe with "Ask Phoebe", she could've bond with Phoebe. The first set bond because they had grown up together and had all of those shared memories. Except for the Power of Three thing, Paige never had a reason to bond with her half-sisters, hence the reason for the fact that she was treated more as a substitute for Prue than as a sister, and why Piper or Phoebe treating her like a real sister would not have made sense - she was always an outsider looking in, as was proper with the way the writers set it up.

To top it off, her half-sisters were more into their own lives with Paige than they were with Prue - Piper had her own family and Phoebe had her baby daddy search. It makes sense that they never grew as close as the original set.

It's why I wish they'd let Shannen have one more year, set up Paige as an innocent and friend who actually shared interests with the Halliwells while letting Phoebe and Cole have their relationship during Season Four, then have Prue die at the end of Season Four and let them find out that Paige is their half-sister in Season Five. Since they would already have a relationship with her, having that bond would make sense. The way the show was done them ever getting a bond didn't for the exact reasons that the OP said.

But to just have them automatically accept a total stranger as a sister, no, that would've made no sense. And to even eventually have them do so didn't either, which is why I'm glad they were never close.

[iamthesun]

I'm curious, what's your definition of true sisters? Closeness? Growing up together?

They are both equally important..when you grow up with siblings (depending on age difference) you go through things together like school..and you have a bond. Though not every set of siblings are close just because they grew up together, it does have an impact, being there with each other from the start. I have sisters that I didn't grow up with and now we aren't particularly close, because we didn't form a bond when we were younger - it's hard to get those years back when they've gone. So Es I completely see your point there. It's unnatural to try and force a bond. But I have a sister who I did grow up with..despite an age difference we are close. So I would say that closeness is the true meaning of sisterhood.

[Esmeralda]

Exactly so. I have friends who I consider sisters much more than my blood sisters because we have so many things in common. Now my blood sisters are extremly close because they do share interests, interests I don't share with them. But they're my sisters because I grew up with them and shared many experiences with them.

Like me and my sisters, Prue and Phoebe were anything but close growing up while Prue and Piper were. But with the Charmed thing, they had to become close in order to protect each other. Since Piper already had her explosion power where she could take care of demons all on her own, there was no need for her to grow close to Paige, especially because she saw Paige as taking Prue's place (if she didn't, she would've been able to have contact wtih Prue, and she never was...) and because she then had her own family to care for. Piper often tried to act like she was close to Paige - giving Wyatt Paige's last name as a middle name; making the dress for Paige - but it was always superficial, never real.

Had Piper never gotten her explosion power or had she not been married and so soon afterwards become a mother, then she may have had a reason to grow close to Paige - but for her, Paige was never anything but a substitute for Prue in the Power of Three. It's why her worried about Phoebe dying in "Kill Billie, Vol 2" but not Paige - she never once thought about going back to look for her and never cried for her the way she cried for Prue and cried for Phoebe - made plenty of sense. Anything else wouldn't. They were never "true" sisters.

[kriswyatthalliwell]

I don't think you can really compare Prue's relationship to Piper and Phoebe to Paige's relationship to Piper and Phoebe. First off, Prue, Piper, and Phoebe grew up together and eventually had to at least stand each other and even when they were angry at each other they always came back together (Power Outage). Paige on the other hand has only been with the girls for a short while so maybe their bonds not as strong, I'm not saying she's not a true sister because that's just untrue. Paige is a true sister and Piper and Phoebe do love her as much as they do Prue, but when ever Piper has to choose between Phoebe or Paige Phoebe always wins because their bond is stronger. It doesn't make Paige less of a true sister or true Charmed One than Prue or Phoebe, just that the bond is stronger.

[ljones]

I can't totally agree with this. All of this *could've* been true but the writers blew it by not letting Paige have anything in common with her half-sisters except the magic thing. Had they let Paige be interested in cooking, she could've bond with Piper. Had she been able to use her whitelighter powers to help Phoebe with "Ask Phoebe", she could've bond with Phoebe. The first set bond because they had grown up together and had all of those shared memories. Except for the Power of Three thing, Paige never had a reason to bond with her half-sisters, hence the reason for the fact that she was treated more as a substitute for Prue than as a sister, and why Piper or Phoebe treating her like a real sister would not have made sense - she was always an outsider looking in, as was proper with the way the writers set it up.

Your description of Paige's relationship with Piper and Phoebe seemed to resemble what it was like during her early period with the family.