non-spoilery meta about Angel in general
I liked last night's Angel a lot, and am surprised at how many people are meh about it. (I liked Smallville as well -- especially the last scene. Damn, both Clark and Tom Welling have grown.)
The Angel ep got at the fundamental tragedy of the Jossverse vampires for me, the idea of being damned without consent, of being made wretched without any real or informed choice about the matter or its consequences. A vamp is a human first, a human robbed of a normal life and a normal death -- and, if you subscribe to the idea of hell the way the Jossverse does, robbed of the chance for a peaceful afterlife.
I've blogged about this before, after "Home" aired and no one was sure if the show was coming back. This is the relevant part of what I said:
Forget the curse. The whole Darla arc ingrained in me the utter unfairness of Angel's lot in the universe (and of course, Darla's as well). Neither had a chance to live a full and contented life while human, Darla because of her circumstances and Angel because he simply wasn't hardwired that way. When they died they were never given the choice to become vampires (I suspect they might have chosen it anyway, just for the promise of eternal life, but still -- they were hardly informed). Through no fault of their own they became creatures considered wretched and evil by the "good" and "moral" beings of the universe. And then again, through no choice of his own, Angel gets re-souled and forced to make up for a multitude of sins. Not even sins he could take one hundred percent of the blame for -- they were committed by his body, sure, but it was the demon driving the car.
I don't know what I believe exactly about re-souled vamps' culpability for past actions. For Angel we've been given the doctrine that redemption is the way to go, and of course it makes sense for him to feel guilty about his past whether it was the fault of the vampire or the man. Or so we always thought. Because look at Spike now: no guilt there, and a chance at shanshu to boot, if we're reading our prophecies literally. And I say this completely divorced of any feeling or bias about Spike or Spuffy or whatever: as objectively as possible, this really does suck. It's not fair to Angel, not after all the work he's done.
But then, that's what makes him Angel, I guess. A guy with all the cards stacked against him, who keeps on trying, keeps on giving unselfishly, keeps on loving even after losing so much. Please, please let this show get renewed, so we can see him finally get the contentment he deserves.
The Angel ep got at the fundamental tragedy of the Jossverse vampires for me, the idea of being damned without consent, of being made wretched without any real or informed choice about the matter or its consequences. A vamp is a human first, a human robbed of a normal life and a normal death -- and, if you subscribe to the idea of hell the way the Jossverse does, robbed of the chance for a peaceful afterlife.
I've blogged about this before, after "Home" aired and no one was sure if the show was coming back. This is the relevant part of what I said:
Forget the curse. The whole Darla arc ingrained in me the utter unfairness of Angel's lot in the universe (and of course, Darla's as well). Neither had a chance to live a full and contented life while human, Darla because of her circumstances and Angel because he simply wasn't hardwired that way. When they died they were never given the choice to become vampires (I suspect they might have chosen it anyway, just for the promise of eternal life, but still -- they were hardly informed). Through no fault of their own they became creatures considered wretched and evil by the "good" and "moral" beings of the universe. And then again, through no choice of his own, Angel gets re-souled and forced to make up for a multitude of sins. Not even sins he could take one hundred percent of the blame for -- they were committed by his body, sure, but it was the demon driving the car.
I don't know what I believe exactly about re-souled vamps' culpability for past actions. For Angel we've been given the doctrine that redemption is the way to go, and of course it makes sense for him to feel guilty about his past whether it was the fault of the vampire or the man. Or so we always thought. Because look at Spike now: no guilt there, and a chance at shanshu to boot, if we're reading our prophecies literally. And I say this completely divorced of any feeling or bias about Spike or Spuffy or whatever: as objectively as possible, this really does suck. It's not fair to Angel, not after all the work he's done.
But then, that's what makes him Angel, I guess. A guy with all the cards stacked against him, who keeps on trying, keeps on giving unselfishly, keeps on loving even after losing so much. Please, please let this show get renewed, so we can see him finally get the contentment he deserves.