"Prue, sometimes thing in life happen for a reason, no magic involved. Truck's been towed."- Victor to Prue.
Victor Bennett is a mortal and the ex-husband of Patty Halliwell. He is the father of the eldest three Charmed Ones; Prue, Piper, and Phoebe Halliwell, and the grandfather of the Charmed cousins.
After their divorce and Patty's death, Victor left his daughters to be raised by their grandmother after constantly fighting with her about how to raise the girls. Victor reappeared in his daughters' lives after they became witches and restored the relationship with his daughters.
Through his marriage with Patty, Victor was apart of the Warren line of witches.
History[]
Life with the Halliwells[]
Victor was working as a businessman when he met Patty Halliwell and the two quickly fell in love with one another and married sometime before their eldest daughter Prue was born in 1970. Patty's mother, Penny, was not pleased that her daughter had married a mortal. She had low expectations for men, especially mortal men.
Sometime between Prue and Piper's births, Victor found out that his wife and mother-in-law were witches--and his daughters were witches as well. Victor attempted to adjust to his wife's Wiccan life with little success. He and Patty fought constantly over how to handle their daughters' magical heritage. Victor thought that magic was dangerous, and would hurt his girls. He wanted to raise them as normal girls, while Patty (with Penny's support) wanted to raise them as witches. It didn't help that he and Penny sparred constantly in a Bewitched-style, Darrin Stephens-Endora type relationship.
Sometime after Piper was born, Patty started spending more time with her Whitelighter, Sam Wilder. Victor was increasingly frustrated with Sam's growing involvement in their lives and with magic in general, and left the family for a brief time in 1975. However, he returned after finding out Patty had given him a third daughter, Phoebe.
When Prue was six, Victor rescued her from the Nothing found within the Ice Cream Truck used to capture demon children. According to Victor, while he managed to save Prue, Grams was horrified, believing that Victor only got lucky since he didn't have powers. Shortly afterwards, Victor found out Patty and Sam were having an affair (whether or not it was a physical one was left ambiguous), and the two divorced sometime in 1977. Unknown to Victor, Patty was pregnant with a daughter by Sam, Paige Matthews.
Victor was still around for his girls after Patty's death in February 1978. However, unable to deal with Penny's overbearing nature, he left for good after a demon attacked on the night of Piper's fifth birthday. Prue and Phoebe were seven and three at the time, respectively. After Victor left, Grams warned the girls that he was a threat to them.
Return[]
His daughters didn't hear from him again for twenty years. Victor suddenly appeared in San Francisco in 1998, not long after the girls' powers were unbound. Prue was suspicious of him, but Piper and Phoebe were more open to seeing him, as they had scarcely any memory of him. However, they grew suspicious of him after Victor admitted he wanted to take the Book of Shadows from the girls in order to protect them. When he persisted, Prue made her feelings clear on the situation by using her telekinesis to violently fling him across the room. It turned out that a trio of shapeshifters were using him to get the Book. By betting his own life to protect the girls, he finally re-earns their trust, including Prue's. However he leaves the sisters without a proper goodbye, instead leaving a home movie from the '70s of the girls on Christmas morning, on the Manor doorstep. Victor wasn't heard from again for three years. Piper tried to keep in touch by sending him birthday cards, but only reluctantly because he never sent them one.
Unknown to her sisters, Phoebe began keeping in touch with their father through instant messages and e-mails. However, Victor doesn't appear again until 2001, when he comes to San Francisco for a job interview. While in town, he assists the sisters in helping to capture the demon children and bring them to the Ice Cream Man's truck. By saving Prue from the Nothing once again, Victor finally proves himself to Prue, and he and all of his daughters leave on good terms. Victor, finally regaining his place in his daughters' life returns to meet Piper's fiancee Leo while also to ask for Phoebe's magical assistance when he attempts to put stock into a ghost town.
Victor has an immediate distrust of Leo once he found out he was a Whitelighter, as he believes that Patty's affair with Sam was one of the contributing factors to the end of their marriage. He is especially sceptical when Leo tells him Piper has a "higher calling"--it was the same line Sam used on Patty. Once Leo explains to Victor that despite what happened to Piper's parents, he is still marrying Piper no matter what, Victor seems to warm up to him, and is a witness to Piper's marriage to him. Victor also was shocked when Patty was temporarily brought back from the dead, however, they were able to come together to motivate Piper into going through with her wedding.
After the death of his eldest daughter Prue, a visibly saddened Victor returned to help put her to rest. Victor was outraged when an argument about the police case surrounding Prue's death occurred at her wake. Months later, Victor gave Phoebe away at her wedding to Cole Turner. Victor seemed to accept his daughters' newly-found sister, Paige.
Sometime in 2002, Victor goes on a singles' cruise to Mexico, where he meets Doris, a demon in disguise. While it is not known for sure whether he was under the influence of a spell or not, Victor and Doris quickly fell in love and married. When he brought her home to meet his daughters, Doris showed her true colors and stabbed Victor in the abdomen, nearly killing him, before attempting to steal Piper's baby. She is eventually vanquished. Victor proves vital in this: despite being seriously wounded, he manages to climb down the stairs, pull Doris' partner away from an in-labour Piper, and throw him over the railing, saving Piper and allowing the girls to vanquish him and Doris. Afterwards, Victor witnesses his first grandchild, Wyatt, come into the world.
When Chris Halliwell comes to the present from the future to save his brother Wyatt from becoming evil, Piper calls on her father to help understand why he is so distant towards her. To Victor's surprise, Chris is excited to see him; according to his grandson, they have a very close relationship in the future, and were drawn closer after Piper's death when Chris was only fourteen. Victor advises Chris to try and get close to his mother because he couldn't during his life, and tells him that he possibly already changed his bleak future by coming to the past. Additionally, Chris tips Victor to stop smoking cigars, telling him it will have a big impact on his health in the future and Victor does so immediately.
After baby Chris is born, Wyatt expresses some jealousy towards him, using his powers to orb him away; one time, he orbed him right to Victor, who brought baby Chris home. From there, Victor gets involved with the problems surrounding Chris' Wiccaning and Wyatt and Chris' sibling rivalry. When a temporarily resurrected Penny casts a spell that accidentally transfers Wyatt and Chris' rivalry into the sisters, they are turned back into their adolescent selves. Victor and Penny bicker about the best way to handle the situation, and eventually summon Patty to work out their issues. Patty sides with Victor, causing Penny to leave. Patty and Victor ruminate on what kind of parents they would have been had they stayed married, and Patty lived to see the girls as teenagers.
When the sisters prepare to fight the demon Zankou, they leave Wyatt, Chris and the deeds to the manor and Piper's nightclub P3 with Victor, making him their official guardian in case they do not survive.
After the Charmed Ones are assumed dead by both the magical and mortal communities (even though they faked their deaths), Victor still maintains his role as the boys' guardian, even after the Elders try to talk him into giving the boys to them. The sisters use their powers to glamour into Victor's nieces. When the Charmed Ones come out of hiding and reveal that they are, in fact, still alive, the charade ends.
Before the sisters' last Ultimate Battle that kills Paige and Phoebe, Piper leaves her sons with Victor to protect them. Wyatt is taken by the demon Dumain in order for antagonists, Billie and Christy to have enough power to summon the Hollow. Victor finds out that baby Chris has received his powers and encourages him to use them to orb Wyatt back, successfully. When Piper and Leo go back in time with Coop's Ring to bring Paige and Phoebe back to life, they meet a younger Victor and Patty in the 1970s, on the day that they conceive Phoebe. When they bring the Patty from the past to the future, she meets an older Victor, who tells her that they divorced. Afterwards, she stays with him to catch up. Victor also informs Patty of Prue's unfortunate fate and the two part on good terms.
Appearance[]
Victor is a handsome aged man, and his eldest daughter is described as looking like him.
- Hair: Victor once had a mop of dark brown near black hair much like his daughters' though over the years his hair has greyed though he still has a lot of hair, which now looks mostly grey white.
- Wardrobe: Victor has a simple style which due to his businessman lifestyle mostly constitutes of suits of different colours and cotton button-down shirts. Though his style stays much the same he rarely wears a tie unless he has too for a formal occasion, and occasionally wears a brown jacket. He occasionally wears a protection ring with green emeralds.
Personality[]
Victor is a kind and caring man, though his life has never been easy. He has struggled a lot with learning of magic and witchcraft, which later caused the abandonment of his family, with him being unable to deal with the thought of his children dying early like their mother. Though he was proved right after his eldest was killed due to a demon, which devastated him. He is brave, as he has saved Prue, twice from being killed by the nothing.
Since returning to his girls, Victor has been very determined and stubborn to be in their lives, especially with Prue, whom is said to be the most like him. Though he struggled as a father, Victor is seen as being a better grandfather with him having a close relationship with all his grandchildren, and having a unique relationship with his grandson; Chris, and has even created a parental bond with Paige, and a grandfatherly bond with her children. With the deaths of the rest of his children, Victor has managed to put his own grief aside in order to be there for his grandchildren.
Professional Life[]
- Businessman: Victor's actual job is left ambiguous, though whatever it is, it has allowed him to move back to San Francisco, giving him the chance to be near his daughters and grandchildren. He later retired from that life after the deaths of his two son-in-laws, his youngest daughters and Paige, in order to become a full time parent to his six grandchildren, and to help Henry to raise his three children.
Romantic Life[]
Patty Halliwell[]
Patty was Victor's ex-husband, and the mother of his three daughters. Victor met Patty Halliwell at an unknown time, presumably in the sixties. The two fell madly in love and married, though Penny forbade Patty to change her last name to "Bennett". They had their first child after their marriage, and they named her "Prue Halliwell", not Bennett, likely because of Penny again. Though the couple were extremely happy together, Victor left her and their two daughters (Prue and Piper) after learning of magic, though he later returned. Despite loving Victor, she later had an affair with her Whitelighter, Sam Wilder, after much arguing about the sisters' futures with Victor. They soon divorced, though they made up after Patty died and saw him several times as a spirit. However, Victor held a huge grudge towards Sam and Whitelighters in general from the divorce onward.
Etymology[]
- Victor: The name is one of the earliest Christian names, borne (as Vittorio) by several saints and popes, symbolizing Christ's victory over death. It has been quietly in the Top 200 since 1880, but just recently has taken on a cool edge by fashionable parents in London and seems ripe for a similar reevaluation here too. It means to conquer.
- Bennett: (also spelled 'Bennet') is an English and Irish language surname (and, less commonly, given name); related to the medieval name Benedict, both ultimately from Latin Benedictus"blessed". Bennett is the English spelling of the Anglo-Normanname Ben[n]et (Modern French first name Benoît, surname Bénet). The oldest public record of the surname is dated 1208 in County Durham.
Trivia[]
- Victor's grandson Drew Trudeau was named after him with his full name being Andrew Victor Trudeau.