Connor (Angel the Series)
Title: The Fascination Of What's Difficult
Character: Connor
Fandom: Angel the Series
Spoiler: For the entire show.
Author: selenak
Email: selenak@gmail.com
Thanks to: Kate and artaxastra for beta-reading.
Notes: An earlier version of this essay was posted a while ago in my journal.
THE FASCINATION OF WHAT’S DIFFICULT
One could say the odds were against him from the start, both inside the story and on a meta level. If there is one thing most fans of most fandoms would agree on, it is that baby storylines - having the leads of a show suddenly produce offspring - are more often than not disastrous. Moreover, the mere existence of this particular child violated all rules established in the fictional universe the story takes place in: vampires, we’re informed in early season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, can’t have children. Well, aside from the killing and “turning” normal humans into demons way. The person who tells us this is Angel, a vampire, later to become the main character in the BTVS spin-off that bears his name, and… the future father of the child who broke that rule: Connor.
I. Surely some revelation is at hand?
The story of Connor’s parents, Angel and the vampire who created (or, as the Jossverse terms it, “sired”) him, Darla, is an epic one which provides one of the crucial arcs of Angel the show and deserves its own essay. Suffice to say for the purpose of this essay that the backstory includes about a hundred and fifty years as two of the most vicious and inventive vampires around, a hundred years of separation after Angel got cursed with a soul, various attempts to destroy and save each other after that, and one furious night together that produced a son, Connor. We find out that Darla is pregnant at the end of the first episode of season 3; the same episode introduces, via flashback, a character previously only mentioned in dialogue- a vampire hunter named Daniel Holtz, whose wife and children Angel and Darla killed for sport, back in the day.. Family is an oblique theme from this point onwards.
In the episode Lullaby, Holtz has, courtesy of a pact with a time-travelling demon named Sahjahn, arrived in the present, while Darla has carried the baby to term but, due to being a vampire, can’t give birth. In the epic and moving conclusion to her storyline, she stakes herself to allow her child to live, becoming ashes even as Angel is holding her hand. Holtz, finding one half of the vampire couple that ruined his life with a newborn baby, doesn’t kill Angel, which rather disgruntles Sahjahn, who reminds Holtz that he has promised to show no mercy. “And I won’t,” Holtz replies. Later events will show he wasn’t bluffing.
Fast-forward a few episodes - which, incidentally, I find very useful in the case of mid-season 3 of Angel, which is decidedly not my favourite - and we see what Holtz had in mind. Unwittingly aided by Angel’s friend Wesley, who - due to a faked prophecy - believes Angel will kill his son, Holtz gets his hands on the baby, whom he plans to raise as his own son. This he ends up doing in Quor’ Toth, “darkest of the dark worlds” according to the demon Sahjahn who actually went to all this trouble to get rid of Connor entirely. He opens a rift to said hell dimension, through which Holtz, caught in a Mexican stand-off with Angel and Sahjahn, vanishes with the infant. By the time both return, only a few weeks will have passed for the audience and the main characters of the show; for Connor, renamed “Stephen” by Holtz, it will have been something between seventeen and eighteen years.
II. The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned
The first thing I thought when spotting the slight, somewhat androgynous-looking boy in A New World, arriving through a dimensional rift in the Hyperion Hotel where Angel and his friends live, , was “Peter Pan”. Then he greets Angel and promptly tries to kill him, and I remembered Peter Pan, as imagined by Barrie if not by Disney, is quite the vicious creature, from Hook’s point of view. (Hook, who traditionally is played by the same actor who plays Mr. Darling, everyone’s ineffectual father.)
Whoever cast Vincent Kartheiser as teenage Connor deserves my eternal gratitude. I happen to think the writing for Connor was good throughout the show, but Vincent Kartheiser didn't just sell it, he took it to another level, as the best actors on Joss Whedon's shows are wont to do. What struck me first was that they actually picked someone who looked as if he could be the child of David Boreanaz (Angel) and Julie Benz (Darla) (he shares traits with both of them, and does a great thing with the body language resembling Angel's) but that soon became the least impressive thing. Connor's arrival and initial fight against Angel quickly get the “has superpowers, is bent on killing his biological father” point across; then, Connor’s flight and subsequent discovery of a girl named Sunny (who is in the process of getting abused by her drug dealer) allows us to see Connor from another side. His reaction to observing someone being bullied is to help this person. (We also get to see that Connor is ruthless with people other than Angel, with his penchant for slicing off the drug dealer's ear; again, this is not a nice boy.) The shy, grateful way he responds to Sunny’s friendly overtures afterwards showcase his gentle side, and that he is very capable of affection. Then, after Connor finds Sunny dead from an overdose, comes the scene which didn't just seal the Connor love for me but made me reconnect with Angel the character for the first time since season 2's Epiphany: a second father-son encounter, as Angel has managed to track Connor down, only to find him next to Sunny’s dead body.
I feel for both of them each time I watch that and discover new aspects, like the fact that Connor doesn't attack Angel for a good long while here, probably because he's distracted due to finding the drug dealer who he knows is responsible for Sunny's death and also because Angel starts by giving him orders and pressing him against walls, and Connor, raised by Daniel Holtz, responds to orders. He also always has an easier time to connect with Angel physically; both in the fighting against and the fighting with him against someone else sense. This second encounter sets a pattern: it shows how deeply Connor can hurt Angel, from the time he tells him "my name is Stephen" onwards. When Connor demands of Angel: "Show me your true face!" it makes the scenes with baby Connor being comforted by Angel in game face incredibly poignant. In terms of acting, David Boreanaz has an intensity and chemistry in his scenes with Vincent Kartheiser that he has with few of his fellow co-stars.
There was no way that Connor, a child raised in a hell dimension on a daily diet of demon fighting and being told his purpose in life was to avenge his biological parents' wrongs, would turn out stable. What I find amazing is that he has something other than hate in him and can respond to Angel in more than one way, at all. This second encounter ends with Angel yelling at him to leave as the police arrive, getting shot for his trouble, and Connor not leaving, but staring at Angel in disbelief. Angel has to push him through the window. This is where Connor starts to doubt, something he won't forgive himself for only a day later.
Benediction, the next episode, presents us with Connor's other father, the one who raised him, Daniel Holtz, who followed Connor back from Quor’Toth. Connor loves Holtz. He comes across as an obedient, affectionate son with him, and the eerie recital in between their conversation gives you an idea of what he must have heard day in, day out throughout his childhood:
HOLTZ: I've always told you the truth about what your parents were, how you and I came to be together.
CONNOR: God gave me to you.
HOLTZ: Yes. God delivered you to me, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children.
CONNOR: Because he took them from you.
HOLTZ: That's right.
There was no way in which Connor could have loved one father without betraying the other. He is obviously ashamed of having had non-hostile feelings during his second and third encounter with Angel - the third ending with Connor actually smiling and laughing when sparring with Angel, and unbeknownst to him being observed by Holtz - and tries to hide them, assuring Holtz he still hates Angel completely. Which is when Holtz makes his final gambit. He once promised to show no mercy, remember, and true to his word, he shows none. Sending Connor to Angel, then getting himself killed by Justine, the woman who’d become his comrade and most important follower before Quor’Toth, in a manner that frames Angel, ensures not just that Connor will continue to hate Angel and love Holtz, but that Connor will blame himself for having responded to Angel earlier.
"Or maybe vengeance is what I do now," Holtz tells Angel, "Giving back what I took." Angel utterly misses the significance of this. As scriptwriter Tim Minear said, Holtz does not lie in this episode. He just uses the truth in an economical way. Does he love Connor, as he tells Justine? Probably yes. As a cut line in another Minear script, Home, says, Holtz just doesn't love him more than he hates Angel; thus, he ensures that Connor's love for him will make Connor into the ultimate weapon.
Ironically, the revenge Connor takes for the presumed murder of his father is something that marks him entirely as the child of his biological parents. Tricking Angel and locking him in a box under the sea for all eternity (or so he thinks) is the kind of thing Darla or Angel himself would have done. (For canon proof, see season 5 and Hellbound.) Leading up to this, the smile Connor displays upon his return to the Hyperion, bent on deceiving Angel into showing him his fighting moves, by saying "Let's give it a try." is utterly a Darla smile. I don't just love Connor because of what was done to him or his good sides. What makes him such a compelling character are his dark sides as well, a darkness certainly on display in Tomorrow, after he has beheaded and burned Holtz (to ensure Holtz does not become a vampire, as Connor believes Angel to have killed him). Angel keeps telling Connor he loves him even while Connor sinks him to the bottom to the sea, and with this dark image, season 3 concludes.
III. The Center Cannot Hold
In the fanfiction written between seasons 3 and 4, everyone assumed Connor would either stay with Justine or be on his lonesome. Nobody anticipated what actually happened: that Connor would stay with Angel’s remaining friends, Fred and Gunn, at the Hyperion. It’s possible this happened because Wesley captured Connor’s compatriot Justine soon after Angel's disappearance, beginning his secret search for Angel, but I think the fact Connor stayed with Fred and Gunn tells us more than that. He simultaneously lost the one person he loved, as well as his single biological tie to the world, the latter due to his own machinations; this didn't lessen the need for human company or something resembling family. When we meet Connor again in the season 4 opener, Deep Down, after three months with Fred and Gunn, he's actually more of a functional more or less happy teenage boy than he ever would be (without mental interference of some type being involved, as we see later). His “wasn’t the thing with the axe cool?” aside to Gunn, asking for approval with a grin, is Connor at his most boyish. Of course, this version of Connor still has his quasi-patricidal secret buried under the sea and is willing to stake vampires who could reveal it, but other than that he's basically a normal teenager, bratty to Gunn on occasion, but not over the top. And no, I don't see him as a sociopath. As far as Connor is concerned, he has avenged the murder of his father on the monster who did it, and is now starting a new life.
Of course, Fred and Gunn don't see it that way once they get the happy news from Wesley. "He's Angel's son," Fred says to Gunn. "That's all that matters." Here we have the crux of the problem. For starters, Connor isn't solely Angel's son. He's Holtz's son; he's Darla's son. Facts that everybody tends to ignore. Secondly, Fred caring for Connor because he's Angel's son, not because he's himself, is bound to get her disappointed - even if he hadn't buried his father under the sea. “Angel’s son” is an expectation, not a person. It also doesn't help with Connor's problem of seeing himself as worthy of affection. Once she has heard the truth about Angel’s fate from Wesley, Fred uses a taser on Connor, first to render him unconscious and then to punish him, which is a shock to him (because he hadn't known she knew), but not particularly a surprise in the sense of him not expecting the violent retribution.
FRED: I would have done anything for him. Now all I wanna do is hurt him.
CONNOR: (overhearing) Go ahead. Hurt me some more, Fred.
FRED: Shut up!
CONNOR: You think I care? You get used to it.
FRED: You don't feel anything, do you? There's nothing inside.
CONNOR: Why don't you open me up and find out?
FRED: How could you do that to your father?
CONNOR: That thing is not my father.
I never can make up my mind during that scene if this is just bravado or if he actually does want Fred to punish him. One thing I'm sure of, he's not kidding about his familiarity to being hurt, and I don't think he's just referring to fights with Quor'Toth demons. As we later find out, Holtz's methods of child-rearing included tying Connor to a tree at age five and leaving him on his own, challenging Connor to free himself from the ties and track down Holtz (which he "only" needed five days for). Then, there was the precedent of Justine being taught patience by Holtz plunging a dagger in her hand, nailing her to a table.
By the time Connor has managed to free himself from the chair Fred and Gunn tied him to, Angel is back (courtesy of Wesley) and proceeds to demonstrate the concept of tough love, informing Connor of the truth about Holtz’s death, re-telling Connor he loves him and then, throwing him out of the Hyperion. It’s a terrific scene. But it has repercussions beyond anything Angel intended. From one POV, Angel did the right thing - Connor needed to be punished for what he did. From another POV, it was a disaster as it seemed to negate what Angel told Connor during the entrapment, that he didn't blame him and still loved him. One thing Connor is regularly blamed for is not recognizing that Angel loves him until it is too late, but aside from the entire being-raised-on-the-conviction-that-Angel-was-the-worst-thing-ever factor, can I note that Angel sends some extremely mixed signals? "I love you, now get out" being one of them. The irony is that Connor does internalize the entire speech about the harshness of the world and its need for champions Angel gives here; he can still recite it months later in Inside Out. He believes Angel this time, about ethics at any rate. He believes him enough to feel utterly betrayed when it appears Angel had been lying.
The glimpses we get of Connor on his own in the next few episodes show us him fighting vampires and saving people. As opposed to Sunny, the family he saves in Slouching Towards Bethlehem does not respond with friendliness but is entirely creeped out by him. Connor’s return to the Hyperion is obviously triggered by the desire to go to the only thing that passes for family in his knowledge, even if just to observe. I don't think he intended to make his presence known to Angel, Fred or Gunn, but there he finds someone else who needs his help, whom he can save, and who, like Sunny, wants to be his friend afterwards. Cordelia.
IV. The Best Lack All Conviction
Cordelia disappeared from Los Angeles at the same time Connor sunk Angel to the bottom of the sea. As far as viewers - and in fact Cordelia, herself - knew at the time, she had been made into a Higher Power, after spending most of the prior three seasons transforming herself from the brash, snarky and vibrant material girl she used to be, to a dedicated seer and (a term that gets overused on this show) champion. This, to put it mildly, didn’t turn out to be a fortunate development, though the later reveal of Jasmine in season 4 at least made sense of it in one of the show’s more inspired retcons. At any rate, Cordelia’s return to the Hyperion, complete with amnesia, already contains several hints that something is terribly wrong, and it is connected to her time as a Power. (The episode’s title, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, hails from the Yeats poem “The Second Coming” - as do most of the subtitles of this essay; put into context, the last two lines of the poem - “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” - foreshadows what awaits both Cordelia and Connor, who encounters her for the second time in this episode while saving her from some demons.
Much like the Sunny scene in A New World was the counterpoint to the explosive mixture of hate, aggression and unwilling curiosity in the Angel encounter, Connor's early scenes with Cordelia serve a similar purpose. For the most part, they show Connor at his best. Yes, hormones come into play soon, but initially, he responds to her distress and sadness. He doesn't lie to her, or try to present himself in a better light. He tells her what he has done and he tries to comfort her and be there for her, not just by fighting whoever attacks her but by helping her to regain her confidence. Not until Cordelia chooses to stay with him in the abandoned building he has started to live in instead of returning with Angel to the Hyperion - which Connor clearly hadn't expected - does a competitiveness with his father enter the picture when it comes to his developing feelings for Cordelia. (You can see the exact moment this occurs to Connor, because Vincent Kartheiser plays it so well.) Because of Cordelia's relationship with Angel, which had turned from friendship into a not quite openly-declared romance the previous season, and the fact she knew Connor as a baby, the fandom at large responded to the scenes between Connor and Cordelia with a resounding "ewww" long before it was revealed Cordelia was possessed. As for me, I found (and still find) them moving, as far as Connor is concerned. There is nothing wrong or twisted from his side of the equation in falling for the beautiful woman who becomes his first real friend (and who, as opposed to Fred and Gunn, does not reject him after hearing what he has done). He is gentle and considerate when with Cordelia and, smitten as he is, still remains capable of putting her welfare before his own gratification. Hence, in Apocalypse, Nowish, his going to Angel - a definite first on Connor's part -and begging him to come to Cordelia and talk to her, despite his awareness Cordy has feelings for Angel is particularly telling. What Connor feels for Cordelia will be used as a weapon by her possessed self; that doesn't mean said feelings - neither the sexual desire nor the tenderness and respect - by themselves are something perverse or something that should be held against him.
Of course, Cordelia isn't exactly herself and becomes less herself the more the season progresses. But this is something not even her friends, who (as opposed to Connor) knew her before, notice. Connor reacts to the manipulation, the constant (literal) switch between Angel and him, her moving from the Hyperion to his place and back, as expected; it heightens his rivalry with his father. But he's still capable of responding to Angel in a non-hostile manner as well. They definitely have a moment after their fight in Spin the Bottle, and in Habeas Corpses, Connor teases Angel for the first time (about zombies; Connor in Season 4 only rarely gets to display humour, but he does on occasion, and it's something Season 5 Connor does far more often, for obvious reasons), and afterwards, when they're back the hotel, actually reaches out towards him. Literary. Connor makes a step toward Angel, saying "Dad", Angel - who, unknown to Connor, has witnessed Connor and Cordelia having sex the previous episode - turns away from him, goes into his office and tells Cordelia to take her new boyfriend and get out. The second time Angel kicks him out is possibly even more damaging than the first, as the first time, the "punishment" concept was understandable to Connor. This second time, though, not so much. It pretty much identifies Cordelia as the only reliable source of affection for Connor, the only one to believe in.
V. ….While the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity
Which doesn't mean Connor’s need for his father, suppressed and twisted as it is, ever lessens. It's there in Connor finding a dead family, reading the word "Daddy” written in a calendar, and despite all the other death he has seen, throwing up. It's there in my personal highlight of the episode Soulless, in the encounter between Connor and Angelus. Angelus, as first fandom, then the actual show termed the soulless variation of Angel, was brought to the fore in a desperate effort on the part of Our Heroes to defeat the mysterious “Beast” that managed to blot out the sun and is terrorizing Los Angeles since a couple of episodes, and in Soulless still is locked up in a cage in the basement. (No Freudian jokes, please.) Again, Vincent Kartheiser and David Boreanaz are both on top of their game and the scene just bristles with intensity. Angelus is, of course, the version of his biological father Connor has been taught about most. So it's not surprising he needs to see Angelus for himself. (Connor is the only person close to Angel who goes into the basement to visit Angelus without any pretence or excuse.) Angelus, master of verbal warfare, evokes a whole different degree of verbal viciousness from Connor in response. When Connor wants to insult Angel post-Deep Down, it usually goes along the teenage lines of "you are the reason my life sucks" (in Awakening). With Angelus, it goes like this:
ANGELUS: Is that my shirt?
CONNOR: Not anymore.
ANGELUS: Looks good on you.
CONNOR: So did Cordy.
ANGELUS: She looks good on everybody.
They manage to surprise the other. Connor does not react to Angelus’s "Greek play" taunt about Cordelia. For one thing, I doubt Connor has read Sophocles or Freud, and for another, he has no memories of Cordelia as a mother figure. But he does react, stricken and strongly, when Angelus speaks of his real mother, Darla, referencing both her and Holtz:
ANGELUS: Kind of unnecessary, don't you think? I mean, with your track record, I'll be staking myself by the end of the day.
CONNOR: It's fine by me.
ANGELUS: Darla felt the same way. It made her sick, you squirming inside her. So, she jammed a stake in her own heart, just so she wouldn't have to hear your first whiny breath.
CONNOR: You don't know anything!
ANGELUS: Then there was Holtz. You disappointed him so much that he stabbed himself in the neck.
CONNOR: (angry) My fa- (catches himself) Holtz was a good man. All he ever wanted was for you to get the punishment you deserve. And you will.
He lies with the truth, Cordelia says about Angelus. And Connor believes him, on both counts. Presumably, nobody has ever bothered to explain the manner of Darla's death to Connor, or say anything about Darla in general (other than Holtz, that is), so that backfires badly. There is no reason now to not believe Angelus, and in Inside Out and Home, we see Connor has become convinced his mother hated him, that he's responsible for the death of the death of both his mother and other father. The degree of self-loathing he displays is another thing that breaks my heart about Connor. Speaking of self-loathing, here is the one point where Connor manages to surprise Angelus:
CONNOR: (...) The truth is, Angel's just something that you're forced to wear. You're my real father.
Bear in mind here that Angelus in Connor's belief system is the worst monster that ever existed. It's self-accusatory at the same time. Connor, walking towards Angelus at the end of this scene, is responding to the "don't disappoint Daddy" taunt, but what does he really want from him at this point? A fight? Death? Or some more twisted kind of acknowledgement?
(Side note: that scene has a spectacular Bad Wrong vibe about it, if you ask me. Since it's something that comes up in fanfiction on occasion, I am compelled to note that I think Angel would rather castrate himself than touch Connor in a non-paternal way. But Angelus, who gets called “Daddy” by one of the vampires he sired, Drusilla, even she’s having sex with him: Bad. Wrong.)
The entire Angelus interlude not only distracts the group from suspecting Cordelia - who is, as earlier mentioned, possessed, and in fact the string puller behind the Beast, thus buying the entity possessing Cordelia, a fallen Power who later will be named Jasmine, time to gestate inside her - but further fortifies Connor's isolation from the group and exclusive concentration on Cordelia. I don't think Connor was already unreachable at that point. When Faith, the Slayer whom Wesley brings to salvage the Angelus situation, dresses him down, he doesn't respond with a grudge but with admiration; he's obviously impressed by her. As the two have more than one thing in common (I'll get to that), it's a pity she doesn't stay around. Cordelia, by this time, is almost entirely taken over and busy doing her stint as an evil mastermind to enable Jasmine's birth. Yet there are moments between her and Connor which are either flashes of the Cordy of yore - as when she teases him about the grimaces he makes in front of the mirror - or serve the same function their early scenes did, i.e. highlight Connor's capacity for love. Watching him doing the quintessential fatherly gesture after Cordelia shows him how - feeling the movement of his child inside Cordelia's belly, scared and delighted - sort of sums up this tragedy for me. Yes, this is the big bad of the arc they are expecting and he's falling further all the time. But, he's also a child who is expecting another child and so desperate for this last promise of a family to be true.
Possessed!Cordy could not have asked for a better present than no one in the group deigning to inform Connor about their suspicion of her in Players. Thus, he finds the entire bunch seemingly bent on killing a pregnant Cordelia for no reason anyone has given him, saves her, and by the end of the day, makes the choice that turns him into a murderer. Just so there is no misunderstanding: regardless of the circumstance, background, context, etc., I hold Connor fully responsible for the death of the young girl dressed in white, whom Cordelia demands as a sacrifice to allow their child to be born in safety. I also think that the writing and the acting show us, in tandem, how he got there, and why he makes that choice.
After capturing the girl, Connor has doubts, and the ghost of his dead mother, Darla, appears to him, giving us the first and last time these characters are on screen together. Arguing with Darla, Connor argues essentially with what he does know to be true:
DARLA: They're scared because of what you've done, not because of what you are.
CONNOR: They wanted to kill me when I was still inside of you.
DARLA: But that changed when they saw you, held you in their arms, felt the warmth of your skin, the goodness in your heart.
CONNOR: And it will happen again when they hold my child. It's the only way.
DARLA: You have a choice, Connor. That is something more precious then you'll ever know.
CONNOR: What choice? They're hunting us like animals!
DARLA: Because you're acting like one. As a vampire I killed without mercy or remorse because I didn't have a soul. What's your excuse?
CONNOR: You think I wanna do this?
DARLA: Then don't.
CONNOR: (nearly in tears) I have to.
When Connor, after nearly letting the girl go, returns to his original choice and drags her to her death, knowing that he's helping commit murder. Just as surely as, say, Angel does when locking fifteen to twenty lawyers in a room for Darla or Drusilla two seasons earlier, or Faith does when she kills a professor because the BtVS Season 3 Big Bad, the Mayor (who has become her surrogate father, in a parallel) told her to. As with the other characters, I see it as something they have to atone for and which I wish they hadn't done but which makes storytelling sense by illustrating how far gone they were at those points. (Faith more so than Connor, as Connor knows why he kills/help to kill, although that doesn't make the murder less foul.) All of which lead me to feel pity as well as horror. This is what tragedy is defined by.
VI. Injustice of the Skies
Inside Out ends with the birth of Jasmine (played by the divine Gina Torres) and Cordelia sinking into a coma for the rest of the reason. Jasmine, a name which Angel and friends give her, defines herself as a Power That Was, and is essentially a Galadriel who has taken the ring, to borrow a comparison from Lord of the Rings. She’s able to provide the universal peace she promised as a relief from the proceeding catastrophes, but at a high price: essentially meaning she doesn’t just fill everyone with bliss, but also takes their free will and makes them her tools. Contact with Jasmine’s blood, however, will negate this effect. When Jasmine is born, the audience isn’t immediately informed that Connor isn't under her sway like everyone else, but there are early signs to make an educated guess. Some subtle ones, like that it's Angel who actually kneels down first, with Connor following suit, and some larger ones. While Wesley and Gunn have no problem happily deciding Fred (whom they loved) deserves to die once Fred - after accidentally coming into contact with Jasmine’s blood - turns against Jasmine, Connor hasn't lost his awareness that he did things that do not predestine him for universal bliss:
JASMINE: You're troubled. Come in, Connor. Tell me what's bothering you.
CONNOR: I- I can't.
JASMINE: Of course you can. You can tell me anything.
CONNOR: Cordelia used to say that to me. It's just - having you here, I finally know why I was created. For you; to help bring you here.
JASMINE: That and so much more.
CONNOR: But, I don't deserve- I shouldn't be so happy. I've done things. I betrayed my Dad, hurt people...
JASMINE: I know... all of it. I've watched you - not just these past days - but all your life and before. Connor, you deserve all the happiness I can bring you.
Connor helping Jasmine voluntarily, as opposed to everyone else, highlights both sides of his nature, again. He finds out she eats people to sustain herself and accepts that, which is on a par with Faith’s complicity in aiding the Mayor’s plan to consume Sunnydale High upon his Ascension. In both cases, it is the abdication of moral responsibility in trade for affection from a beloved person, or the conviction that anything that beloved person wants is right.
On the other hand, Connor's relationship with Jasmine shows his capacity for love, again. He sees her as she truly is - the inhuman exterior that horrifies Fred and the others once Jasmine’s thrall is broken - and it doesn't matter; she is his daughter. He knows she uses him as an instrument, but that, too, is okay, because so did the other people he loved, Holtz and Cordelia. Further, because of Jasmine's effect on everyone else, he finally permits himself to show affection for Angel. Scenes like Connor telling Angel not to be so hard on himself or singing Jasmine to the tune of Mandy with him take on a new significance once we know Connor is not under the influence during that time. What Jasmine offers him isn't just her own love and the idea that his life has purpose, but a way to live with his biological father. The look of utter betrayal at Angel once Connor realizes what happened in Magic Bullet, when Fred manages to free Angel from the brainwashing, is another example of Vincent Kartheiser adding even more impact to a scene with his acting. Instead of just feeling relieved, I felt incredibly sad.
This scene also marks the end of the interlude during which we saw Connor smiling and happy while working with his father. Jasmine thinks his unhappiness is due to the fact that he hasn't surrendered his pain to her entirely, and the scene in which she makes him do this after healing him from the damage his last fight with Angel has left, in its mixture of creepiness and tenderness, sums up their relationship. Note that Connor, when embracing Jasmine, still doesn't smile, but she doesn't see it, only the camera and we do.
When Cordelia is hidden elsewhere, Connor starts to search for her. At this point, he certainly has crossed the line to "raging psychopath" (something the sorcerer Cyvus Vail will later call him), as evidenced by the (admittedly funny amid all the angst) "Tell me and I'll crush your windpipe," "You mean ‘or,’ don't you? Don't you?" dialogue between he and Jasmine’s minion that he’s interrogating to find Cordelia. Was he still salvageable? Perhaps the question, if you don't like Connor, is "was he worth bothering to save?" or "does he show any signs of being redeemable?" He was certainly still aware of right and wrong. In Peace Out, the second to last episode of the season, we finally get a big outpouring of what goes on inside Connor, spoken to the comatose Cordelia, whom he has tracked down:
CONNOR: I wanted to see you again. I had to, to know that you're still here... with me. I'm sorry I haven't- It's started, Cordy. The new beginning. Just wish you'd wake up and see it. Just what you wanted. I mean... it is what you wanted, right? Why you came to me? You know...what this was all about? Protecting our baby - Jasmine - so she can... be, and make this world the... the kind of place you wanted. And it is better. Not harsh and cruel - the way that Angel likes it so he has a reason to fight. (angrily) 'Cause you know that's what he's about, him and the others. Finding reasons to fight. Like that's what gives their lives any meaning. The only damn thing! (punches the lectern, smashing it) I'm not like them. I just... I want to stop. Stop fighting. I just want to rest. God, I want to rest. But I can't. (teary) It's not working, Cordy. I tried. I tried to believe. I wanted it. Went along with the... the flow. Jasmine, she's... she's bringing peace to everyone, purging all of their hate and anger. But not me. Not me! I know she's a lie. Jasmine. My whole life's been built on them. I just... I guess I thought this one was better than the others.
Why you came to me. He doesn't believe any longer that Cordelia came to him because she loved him. He certainly doesn't believe anyone else loves him. What Connor did during the last third of the season, the crimes he committed, weren't to get himself anything. What did he personally gain? Family, for a brief time, before it started to fall apart again. A taste of a better, peaceful world, but one he could only see, not participate in, as his intact free will also ensured he would not feel the Jasmine-given bliss. This does not make the death(s) he caused less criminal, but I think it does put him in another category than the Wolfram and Hart lawyers, who do what they do for power, or Angelus, who gets off on the pain he causes, or, for that matter, Holtz, who ultimately chose vengeance as his consuming and only purpose. So yes, it makes Connor redeemable.
When Jasmine, stripped of her power to enthral by Angel and experiencing universal hate and rejection by everyone, calls for Connor - "Father, I need you. Help me. Please." - Connor comes running, without hesitation. Season 4 is very much a tragedy of fathers and children, and the power of parental love; obviously, Angel's love for Connor, but also Connor's love for Jasmine. For whatever reason you might think he does what he does when he finds Jasmine about to kill Angel, there is no doubt that he means what he says:
JASMINE: Connor, I still have you. Angel's ruined everything. But he can't defeat both of us. You still believe in me, don't you? You still love me?
CONNOR: Yes.
And he smashes her skull. Killing someone you love is the cruellest thing the Jossverse does to its characters, and it changes them forever. Buffy kills Angel in Becoming, and it's immaterial that he later returns from the hell dimension she sends him to. Holtz does it to his young daughter Sarah, the child Angel and Darla turned into a vampire to mock him, and that death, particularly, made Holtz into the merciless man he became. Later, Holtz makes Justine do it to him, no matter how she cries and pleads with him not to. Angel will do it to Connor, soon after, in a manner of speaking. And here, Connor does it to Jasmine.
The utter brokenness of Connor afterwards still permits him to save a cop about to commit suicide in Home, the season finale. The fact that Connor, in this state, still has it in him to care about helping a stranger tells me he's not completely lost. Of course, this isn't the end of the scene. After Connor succeeds in stopping the man from killing himself, the cop makes the mistake of mentioning his family. And this - not at Jasmine's death, but this point - is where Connor snaps and loses it entirely. The cop, revealed as a parent who was about to commit suicide like Holtz, like Darla, was just an unfortunate coincidence, but it brings forth an outburst of rage and violence that we never saw Connor display against a human before. He starts to beat the unfortunate man into a pulp. The next thing we hear about Connor is that he is about to blow himself and a lot of innocent bystanders up in a mall.
There are fascinating parallels and contrasts to this scenario on AtS. One of the more obvious is a suicidal Faith in Five by Five, who in the process of seeking death after her own downward spiral into nihilism, self-hatred and despair, hurt - and tortured, in the case of Wesley - a lot of people in order to make Angel kill her. But Connor is Angel's son, and so he reacts differently, as he did with Faith. What would have happened if Angel, after saving the innocent bystanders, led Connor back the Hyperion, as he led Faith back into his loft after rescuing Wesley? Who knows? Connor and Faith might have parallels, but they are two different characters. Maybe Connor would have gone the way Faith did - maybe it would have been the turning point for him, and he would have started the road to atonement by accepting responsibility for his past. Or maybe he would have found another method to kill himself. We don't know. We do know that Angel didn't want to take the risk. He made his Faustian pact with Wolfram & Hart - the law firm connected to the mysterious Senior Partners as the embodiment of evil who are Angel’s ongoing opponents throughout the show - to save his son before going into the mall to begin with. What he finds once confronting Connor doesn’t dissuade him from his course, as Connor is well and truly broken:
ANGEL: Connor... you have to believe that there are people who love you.
CONNOR: Jasmine believed you when you said you loved her, but it was all a lie.
ANGEL: Jasmine was the lie.
CONNOR: (yelling) No! She knew if you found out who she really was that you'd turn against her, and she was right. That's just what happened. People like you. People like this. None of you deserve what she could give you. (sighs) She wanted to give you everything.
ANGEL: I know how that feels. 'Cause I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over.
CONNOR: We can't start over.
ANGEL: We can. I mean, we can change things.
CONNOR: There's only one thing that ever changes anything... and that's death. Everything else is just a lie. (cries) You can't be saved by a lie. You can't be saved at all.
(...)
ANGEL: I really do love you, Connor.
CONNOR: So what are you gonna do about it?
ANGEL: Prove it.
And Angel does. Connor, when we see him in the final scene of the season, which echoes the very first scene in Deep Down, has no memories of what happened and is reconstructed from scratch. Wolfram and Hart gave him new memories and a new family. (They also removed any memory of Connor from anyone but Angel and their own liaisons.) It's a wonderful, terrible thing. In essence, Angel has done what Jasmine did to her followers, his own words to her about free will notwithstanding, and he did it to save his son. Which left the question hanging for the fifth season: can you be saved by a lie, after all?
VII. The Quality of Mercy
When I finished Season 4, I had no idea whether or not we would see Connor again. I hoped so, but I had no way of knowing. If there hadn't been a fifth season, however, I wouldn’t have felt cheated in regards to Connor's storyline. I would have hoped he’d one day remember again, since I believe that in the long term, he needed to confront what he had done, but I would also have thought that the mercy granted to him by Angel's deal was just that: mercy. As Connor is a character I love, who had been battered, twisted and broken throughout his previous existence, I would have concluded that yes, he should have that mercy.
But, then we got Season 5.
In Origin, we get presented with the result of Angel's mindwipe in a more thorough manner than we did at the end of Home, as the sorcerer Vail, a Wolfram and Hart client who manufactured Connor’s artificial memories, needs him to dispense with the time-travelling demon Sahjahn, last seen in Season 3. Mindwiped!Connor gets along famously with his “parents,” thinks Angel is the epitome of cool, and displays a deadpan sense of humour as well as a knack for teasing Angel. In short, he is the ideal son Angel wanted. (Even though he still likes strong older women, which for some reason his father, whose love interests tend to be either centuries older or centuries younger, finds objectionable.) There are subtle echoes of the earlier version - his "Awesome!" reaction mirrors "That was cool!" in Deep Down- as he is extremely protective of his family and ready to kill someone for them, with no other reason given than that this will stop someone else from threatening them. (For all Functional!Connor knows, Sahjahn is as innocent as the girl in white.) Of course, Vail neatly illustrates the process of mindwipes by citing an example of a fake memory: - Mindwiped!Connor remembers being lost in a supermarket at age five, not tied to a tree deliberately by his father, and he remembers being found again by his parents and swept into the arms of his mother, not needing five days to track down Holtz. This probably really is Connor as he would have been without the childhood from hell.
Then, with Sahjahn about to kill Connor - who in his mindwiped state hasn’t lost his enhanced abilities but has lost all the memories of how to fight - the Orlon window holding the truth is broken (by Wesley, rather fittingly, as he started the whole series of disasters by his misguided attempt to save Connor-the-baby via kidnapping), and Connor’s memories return.
It's a great bit of physical acting (again) by Vincent Kartheiser, because you see the difference at once, and Sahjahn promptly is dispatched. At which point, Connor has a choice between the old self and the new. His immediate choice is to drop the bloody axe, the symbol of the death and violence that marked his real life, and tell Angel that this wasn't for him. He does not tell Angel, yet, that his memories have returned, but he gives him a hint and the one thing nobody else could offer Angel throughout the season: absolution. Tone subtly changing from the way he talks post-mindwipe to the earlier season 4 tones, he ends his goodbye scene with:
CONNOR: You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
It's a moment of grace. You can debate whether Angel (who in his Faustian deal changed everyone else's memories as well) deserves forgiveness just as much as you can argue whether Connor deserved to be protected and saved earlier, but I think it comes down to what Giles said in Season 2 of BtVS: You don't deserve mercy. It is given. Wesley, trying to cope with the return of his original memories, sums it up in his conversation with Illyria earlier:
WESLEY: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
ILLYRIA: To hide from the truth?
WESLEY: To endure it.
Connor now knows the truth, but as opposed to the state he was in by the end of Home, can now endure it. The last time we see him on screen is in the finale, when he has started to process the experience. Note the use of the word "started" - I don't think we're to assume this will be the end of his story. He is able to interact with Angel in a cautious but affectionate way, and, in an echo of Habeas Corpses in Season 4, he shows up at Wolfram and Hart to save his father. The series finale has been called unnecessary nihilistic, but I can think of few more optimistic choices than letting Connor, that utterly damaged, screwed up child of two vampires who served as his father's punishment, become the symbol of Angel's hope, of forgiveness, and salvation. Other than Lorne, Connor is the only one who the audience knows survived the story intact, and, as opposed to Lorne, not in a bitter, isolated way. Does Connor still have a lot of work to do in regards to his past, present and future? Absolutely. But that is how great stories end and how the story of Angel and Darla ended, several seasons back - with a new story beginning.
Links
General
Poisoned Heart : Website dedicated to Connor, with essays and fanfic; hasn't been updated in years, unfortunately
The Destroyer: Virtual spin-off centered around Connor; the first season has been completed
The Nyazian Prophecies: another virtual series with Connor as the main character
Icons: both of Connor and Vincent Kartheiser in other roles.
Vincent Daily: your source of news about the talented Vincent K. who brought Connor to life.
Fanfiction Favourites
On the Education of a Young Man by yahtzee63 has to be one of
the earliest stories written about Connor. With only three episodes of background to draw on for teenage Connor, written and set between
seasons 3 and 4, it was by necessity jossed in some points (i.e. Connor not being with Justine, for example), but still upholds very well. Excellent take on what Connor's childhood with Holtz must have been like.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation: set, like the earlier story, between seasons 3 and 4, but as opposed to the earlier one written post-show; great take on Connor's relationships with Fred and Gunn, which don't get investigated very often.
True Faces: set in early season 4; Connor ponders his two fathers and recent revelations. Includes one of the best subtle foreshadowings of Jasmine I can think of. By Guerdemuirth.
Them Bones basically founded my favourite little subgenre in the very little corner of Connor fanfiction: Connor meeting the ghost of his mother. An elegant story by viola_dreamwalk, set and written in early season 4, i.e. before this meeting actually took place in canon.
She later, in season 5, tackled a ghostly encounter between Darla and Connor again, which is not connected to the earlier story and offers an interesting counterpoint interpretation: Soothe the Burn.
Five Lies That Connor's Father Told Him by kita0610 is heartbreaking and covers the entire show, and all the fathers.
Who By Accident by callmesandy, onthe other hand, is that rare thing, a post-NFA story with plot that pulls of a very tricky pairing - Buffy/Connor - convincingly, gets not just the two main characters but everyone else right as well and is (even rarer for a Connor story) low on the angst (though that's present as well, inevitably) and great with humour. I adore every word, including such gems as Buffy telling Dawn a sign of Connor's not-evilness was the fact he was very concerned about using birth control. (Well, he would be!)
And lastly, a very creepy and yet oddly touching AU in which Jasmine reigns and her thrall was never broken, Pentecost, by Doyle. If you're squeamish, be warned, while there is nothing explicit, there is emotional incest all over the place, and as a large percentage of Connor fanfic consists of incest pairings (one look at canon should tell you why), this one is a good representative of how to do this tricky subject justice.
Vid Favourites
Anticipate: one of the earliest and still best Connor character studies, by icsbanana.
Counting Bodies offers the unholy family, Angel, Connor and Darla all at once. Love the black and white, the colour red creeping in, and the connections drawn between the characters.
Also a family vid, by yhlee: Fighting It. This one also uses plenty of Wesley, which is only right as you could say he and Connor were each other's misfortune.
Zero is a great Connor character study, and has been amply reviewed here for all the important point it makes about Connor, Angel, Jasmine etc., so let me praise it for the shallow Vinnie = Pretty reason as well.
Character: Connor
Fandom: Angel the Series
Spoiler: For the entire show.
Author: selenak
Email: selenak@gmail.com
Thanks to: Kate and artaxastra for beta-reading.
Notes: An earlier version of this essay was posted a while ago in my journal.
THE FASCINATION OF WHAT’S DIFFICULT
One could say the odds were against him from the start, both inside the story and on a meta level. If there is one thing most fans of most fandoms would agree on, it is that baby storylines - having the leads of a show suddenly produce offspring - are more often than not disastrous. Moreover, the mere existence of this particular child violated all rules established in the fictional universe the story takes place in: vampires, we’re informed in early season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, can’t have children. Well, aside from the killing and “turning” normal humans into demons way. The person who tells us this is Angel, a vampire, later to become the main character in the BTVS spin-off that bears his name, and… the future father of the child who broke that rule: Connor.
I. Surely some revelation is at hand?
The story of Connor’s parents, Angel and the vampire who created (or, as the Jossverse terms it, “sired”) him, Darla, is an epic one which provides one of the crucial arcs of Angel the show and deserves its own essay. Suffice to say for the purpose of this essay that the backstory includes about a hundred and fifty years as two of the most vicious and inventive vampires around, a hundred years of separation after Angel got cursed with a soul, various attempts to destroy and save each other after that, and one furious night together that produced a son, Connor. We find out that Darla is pregnant at the end of the first episode of season 3; the same episode introduces, via flashback, a character previously only mentioned in dialogue- a vampire hunter named Daniel Holtz, whose wife and children Angel and Darla killed for sport, back in the day.. Family is an oblique theme from this point onwards.
In the episode Lullaby, Holtz has, courtesy of a pact with a time-travelling demon named Sahjahn, arrived in the present, while Darla has carried the baby to term but, due to being a vampire, can’t give birth. In the epic and moving conclusion to her storyline, she stakes herself to allow her child to live, becoming ashes even as Angel is holding her hand. Holtz, finding one half of the vampire couple that ruined his life with a newborn baby, doesn’t kill Angel, which rather disgruntles Sahjahn, who reminds Holtz that he has promised to show no mercy. “And I won’t,” Holtz replies. Later events will show he wasn’t bluffing.
Fast-forward a few episodes - which, incidentally, I find very useful in the case of mid-season 3 of Angel, which is decidedly not my favourite - and we see what Holtz had in mind. Unwittingly aided by Angel’s friend Wesley, who - due to a faked prophecy - believes Angel will kill his son, Holtz gets his hands on the baby, whom he plans to raise as his own son. This he ends up doing in Quor’ Toth, “darkest of the dark worlds” according to the demon Sahjahn who actually went to all this trouble to get rid of Connor entirely. He opens a rift to said hell dimension, through which Holtz, caught in a Mexican stand-off with Angel and Sahjahn, vanishes with the infant. By the time both return, only a few weeks will have passed for the audience and the main characters of the show; for Connor, renamed “Stephen” by Holtz, it will have been something between seventeen and eighteen years.
II. The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned
The first thing I thought when spotting the slight, somewhat androgynous-looking boy in A New World, arriving through a dimensional rift in the Hyperion Hotel where Angel and his friends live, , was “Peter Pan”. Then he greets Angel and promptly tries to kill him, and I remembered Peter Pan, as imagined by Barrie if not by Disney, is quite the vicious creature, from Hook’s point of view. (Hook, who traditionally is played by the same actor who plays Mr. Darling, everyone’s ineffectual father.)
Whoever cast Vincent Kartheiser as teenage Connor deserves my eternal gratitude. I happen to think the writing for Connor was good throughout the show, but Vincent Kartheiser didn't just sell it, he took it to another level, as the best actors on Joss Whedon's shows are wont to do. What struck me first was that they actually picked someone who looked as if he could be the child of David Boreanaz (Angel) and Julie Benz (Darla) (he shares traits with both of them, and does a great thing with the body language resembling Angel's) but that soon became the least impressive thing. Connor's arrival and initial fight against Angel quickly get the “has superpowers, is bent on killing his biological father” point across; then, Connor’s flight and subsequent discovery of a girl named Sunny (who is in the process of getting abused by her drug dealer) allows us to see Connor from another side. His reaction to observing someone being bullied is to help this person. (We also get to see that Connor is ruthless with people other than Angel, with his penchant for slicing off the drug dealer's ear; again, this is not a nice boy.) The shy, grateful way he responds to Sunny’s friendly overtures afterwards showcase his gentle side, and that he is very capable of affection. Then, after Connor finds Sunny dead from an overdose, comes the scene which didn't just seal the Connor love for me but made me reconnect with Angel the character for the first time since season 2's Epiphany: a second father-son encounter, as Angel has managed to track Connor down, only to find him next to Sunny’s dead body.
I feel for both of them each time I watch that and discover new aspects, like the fact that Connor doesn't attack Angel for a good long while here, probably because he's distracted due to finding the drug dealer who he knows is responsible for Sunny's death and also because Angel starts by giving him orders and pressing him against walls, and Connor, raised by Daniel Holtz, responds to orders. He also always has an easier time to connect with Angel physically; both in the fighting against and the fighting with him against someone else sense. This second encounter sets a pattern: it shows how deeply Connor can hurt Angel, from the time he tells him "my name is Stephen" onwards. When Connor demands of Angel: "Show me your true face!" it makes the scenes with baby Connor being comforted by Angel in game face incredibly poignant. In terms of acting, David Boreanaz has an intensity and chemistry in his scenes with Vincent Kartheiser that he has with few of his fellow co-stars.
There was no way that Connor, a child raised in a hell dimension on a daily diet of demon fighting and being told his purpose in life was to avenge his biological parents' wrongs, would turn out stable. What I find amazing is that he has something other than hate in him and can respond to Angel in more than one way, at all. This second encounter ends with Angel yelling at him to leave as the police arrive, getting shot for his trouble, and Connor not leaving, but staring at Angel in disbelief. Angel has to push him through the window. This is where Connor starts to doubt, something he won't forgive himself for only a day later.
Benediction, the next episode, presents us with Connor's other father, the one who raised him, Daniel Holtz, who followed Connor back from Quor’Toth. Connor loves Holtz. He comes across as an obedient, affectionate son with him, and the eerie recital in between their conversation gives you an idea of what he must have heard day in, day out throughout his childhood:
HOLTZ: I've always told you the truth about what your parents were, how you and I came to be together.
CONNOR: God gave me to you.
HOLTZ: Yes. God delivered you to me, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children.
CONNOR: Because he took them from you.
HOLTZ: That's right.
There was no way in which Connor could have loved one father without betraying the other. He is obviously ashamed of having had non-hostile feelings during his second and third encounter with Angel - the third ending with Connor actually smiling and laughing when sparring with Angel, and unbeknownst to him being observed by Holtz - and tries to hide them, assuring Holtz he still hates Angel completely. Which is when Holtz makes his final gambit. He once promised to show no mercy, remember, and true to his word, he shows none. Sending Connor to Angel, then getting himself killed by Justine, the woman who’d become his comrade and most important follower before Quor’Toth, in a manner that frames Angel, ensures not just that Connor will continue to hate Angel and love Holtz, but that Connor will blame himself for having responded to Angel earlier.
"Or maybe vengeance is what I do now," Holtz tells Angel, "Giving back what I took." Angel utterly misses the significance of this. As scriptwriter Tim Minear said, Holtz does not lie in this episode. He just uses the truth in an economical way. Does he love Connor, as he tells Justine? Probably yes. As a cut line in another Minear script, Home, says, Holtz just doesn't love him more than he hates Angel; thus, he ensures that Connor's love for him will make Connor into the ultimate weapon.
Ironically, the revenge Connor takes for the presumed murder of his father is something that marks him entirely as the child of his biological parents. Tricking Angel and locking him in a box under the sea for all eternity (or so he thinks) is the kind of thing Darla or Angel himself would have done. (For canon proof, see season 5 and Hellbound.) Leading up to this, the smile Connor displays upon his return to the Hyperion, bent on deceiving Angel into showing him his fighting moves, by saying "Let's give it a try." is utterly a Darla smile. I don't just love Connor because of what was done to him or his good sides. What makes him such a compelling character are his dark sides as well, a darkness certainly on display in Tomorrow, after he has beheaded and burned Holtz (to ensure Holtz does not become a vampire, as Connor believes Angel to have killed him). Angel keeps telling Connor he loves him even while Connor sinks him to the bottom to the sea, and with this dark image, season 3 concludes.
III. The Center Cannot Hold
In the fanfiction written between seasons 3 and 4, everyone assumed Connor would either stay with Justine or be on his lonesome. Nobody anticipated what actually happened: that Connor would stay with Angel’s remaining friends, Fred and Gunn, at the Hyperion. It’s possible this happened because Wesley captured Connor’s compatriot Justine soon after Angel's disappearance, beginning his secret search for Angel, but I think the fact Connor stayed with Fred and Gunn tells us more than that. He simultaneously lost the one person he loved, as well as his single biological tie to the world, the latter due to his own machinations; this didn't lessen the need for human company or something resembling family. When we meet Connor again in the season 4 opener, Deep Down, after three months with Fred and Gunn, he's actually more of a functional more or less happy teenage boy than he ever would be (without mental interference of some type being involved, as we see later). His “wasn’t the thing with the axe cool?” aside to Gunn, asking for approval with a grin, is Connor at his most boyish. Of course, this version of Connor still has his quasi-patricidal secret buried under the sea and is willing to stake vampires who could reveal it, but other than that he's basically a normal teenager, bratty to Gunn on occasion, but not over the top. And no, I don't see him as a sociopath. As far as Connor is concerned, he has avenged the murder of his father on the monster who did it, and is now starting a new life.
Of course, Fred and Gunn don't see it that way once they get the happy news from Wesley. "He's Angel's son," Fred says to Gunn. "That's all that matters." Here we have the crux of the problem. For starters, Connor isn't solely Angel's son. He's Holtz's son; he's Darla's son. Facts that everybody tends to ignore. Secondly, Fred caring for Connor because he's Angel's son, not because he's himself, is bound to get her disappointed - even if he hadn't buried his father under the sea. “Angel’s son” is an expectation, not a person. It also doesn't help with Connor's problem of seeing himself as worthy of affection. Once she has heard the truth about Angel’s fate from Wesley, Fred uses a taser on Connor, first to render him unconscious and then to punish him, which is a shock to him (because he hadn't known she knew), but not particularly a surprise in the sense of him not expecting the violent retribution.
FRED: I would have done anything for him. Now all I wanna do is hurt him.
CONNOR: (overhearing) Go ahead. Hurt me some more, Fred.
FRED: Shut up!
CONNOR: You think I care? You get used to it.
FRED: You don't feel anything, do you? There's nothing inside.
CONNOR: Why don't you open me up and find out?
FRED: How could you do that to your father?
CONNOR: That thing is not my father.
I never can make up my mind during that scene if this is just bravado or if he actually does want Fred to punish him. One thing I'm sure of, he's not kidding about his familiarity to being hurt, and I don't think he's just referring to fights with Quor'Toth demons. As we later find out, Holtz's methods of child-rearing included tying Connor to a tree at age five and leaving him on his own, challenging Connor to free himself from the ties and track down Holtz (which he "only" needed five days for). Then, there was the precedent of Justine being taught patience by Holtz plunging a dagger in her hand, nailing her to a table.
By the time Connor has managed to free himself from the chair Fred and Gunn tied him to, Angel is back (courtesy of Wesley) and proceeds to demonstrate the concept of tough love, informing Connor of the truth about Holtz’s death, re-telling Connor he loves him and then, throwing him out of the Hyperion. It’s a terrific scene. But it has repercussions beyond anything Angel intended. From one POV, Angel did the right thing - Connor needed to be punished for what he did. From another POV, it was a disaster as it seemed to negate what Angel told Connor during the entrapment, that he didn't blame him and still loved him. One thing Connor is regularly blamed for is not recognizing that Angel loves him until it is too late, but aside from the entire being-raised-on-the-conviction-that-Angel-was-the-worst-thing-ever factor, can I note that Angel sends some extremely mixed signals? "I love you, now get out" being one of them. The irony is that Connor does internalize the entire speech about the harshness of the world and its need for champions Angel gives here; he can still recite it months later in Inside Out. He believes Angel this time, about ethics at any rate. He believes him enough to feel utterly betrayed when it appears Angel had been lying.
The glimpses we get of Connor on his own in the next few episodes show us him fighting vampires and saving people. As opposed to Sunny, the family he saves in Slouching Towards Bethlehem does not respond with friendliness but is entirely creeped out by him. Connor’s return to the Hyperion is obviously triggered by the desire to go to the only thing that passes for family in his knowledge, even if just to observe. I don't think he intended to make his presence known to Angel, Fred or Gunn, but there he finds someone else who needs his help, whom he can save, and who, like Sunny, wants to be his friend afterwards. Cordelia.
IV. The Best Lack All Conviction
Cordelia disappeared from Los Angeles at the same time Connor sunk Angel to the bottom of the sea. As far as viewers - and in fact Cordelia, herself - knew at the time, she had been made into a Higher Power, after spending most of the prior three seasons transforming herself from the brash, snarky and vibrant material girl she used to be, to a dedicated seer and (a term that gets overused on this show) champion. This, to put it mildly, didn’t turn out to be a fortunate development, though the later reveal of Jasmine in season 4 at least made sense of it in one of the show’s more inspired retcons. At any rate, Cordelia’s return to the Hyperion, complete with amnesia, already contains several hints that something is terribly wrong, and it is connected to her time as a Power. (The episode’s title, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, hails from the Yeats poem “The Second Coming” - as do most of the subtitles of this essay; put into context, the last two lines of the poem - “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” - foreshadows what awaits both Cordelia and Connor, who encounters her for the second time in this episode while saving her from some demons.
Much like the Sunny scene in A New World was the counterpoint to the explosive mixture of hate, aggression and unwilling curiosity in the Angel encounter, Connor's early scenes with Cordelia serve a similar purpose. For the most part, they show Connor at his best. Yes, hormones come into play soon, but initially, he responds to her distress and sadness. He doesn't lie to her, or try to present himself in a better light. He tells her what he has done and he tries to comfort her and be there for her, not just by fighting whoever attacks her but by helping her to regain her confidence. Not until Cordelia chooses to stay with him in the abandoned building he has started to live in instead of returning with Angel to the Hyperion - which Connor clearly hadn't expected - does a competitiveness with his father enter the picture when it comes to his developing feelings for Cordelia. (You can see the exact moment this occurs to Connor, because Vincent Kartheiser plays it so well.) Because of Cordelia's relationship with Angel, which had turned from friendship into a not quite openly-declared romance the previous season, and the fact she knew Connor as a baby, the fandom at large responded to the scenes between Connor and Cordelia with a resounding "ewww" long before it was revealed Cordelia was possessed. As for me, I found (and still find) them moving, as far as Connor is concerned. There is nothing wrong or twisted from his side of the equation in falling for the beautiful woman who becomes his first real friend (and who, as opposed to Fred and Gunn, does not reject him after hearing what he has done). He is gentle and considerate when with Cordelia and, smitten as he is, still remains capable of putting her welfare before his own gratification. Hence, in Apocalypse, Nowish, his going to Angel - a definite first on Connor's part -and begging him to come to Cordelia and talk to her, despite his awareness Cordy has feelings for Angel is particularly telling. What Connor feels for Cordelia will be used as a weapon by her possessed self; that doesn't mean said feelings - neither the sexual desire nor the tenderness and respect - by themselves are something perverse or something that should be held against him.
Of course, Cordelia isn't exactly herself and becomes less herself the more the season progresses. But this is something not even her friends, who (as opposed to Connor) knew her before, notice. Connor reacts to the manipulation, the constant (literal) switch between Angel and him, her moving from the Hyperion to his place and back, as expected; it heightens his rivalry with his father. But he's still capable of responding to Angel in a non-hostile manner as well. They definitely have a moment after their fight in Spin the Bottle, and in Habeas Corpses, Connor teases Angel for the first time (about zombies; Connor in Season 4 only rarely gets to display humour, but he does on occasion, and it's something Season 5 Connor does far more often, for obvious reasons), and afterwards, when they're back the hotel, actually reaches out towards him. Literary. Connor makes a step toward Angel, saying "Dad", Angel - who, unknown to Connor, has witnessed Connor and Cordelia having sex the previous episode - turns away from him, goes into his office and tells Cordelia to take her new boyfriend and get out. The second time Angel kicks him out is possibly even more damaging than the first, as the first time, the "punishment" concept was understandable to Connor. This second time, though, not so much. It pretty much identifies Cordelia as the only reliable source of affection for Connor, the only one to believe in.
V. ….While the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity
Which doesn't mean Connor’s need for his father, suppressed and twisted as it is, ever lessens. It's there in Connor finding a dead family, reading the word "Daddy” written in a calendar, and despite all the other death he has seen, throwing up. It's there in my personal highlight of the episode Soulless, in the encounter between Connor and Angelus. Angelus, as first fandom, then the actual show termed the soulless variation of Angel, was brought to the fore in a desperate effort on the part of Our Heroes to defeat the mysterious “Beast” that managed to blot out the sun and is terrorizing Los Angeles since a couple of episodes, and in Soulless still is locked up in a cage in the basement. (No Freudian jokes, please.) Again, Vincent Kartheiser and David Boreanaz are both on top of their game and the scene just bristles with intensity. Angelus is, of course, the version of his biological father Connor has been taught about most. So it's not surprising he needs to see Angelus for himself. (Connor is the only person close to Angel who goes into the basement to visit Angelus without any pretence or excuse.) Angelus, master of verbal warfare, evokes a whole different degree of verbal viciousness from Connor in response. When Connor wants to insult Angel post-Deep Down, it usually goes along the teenage lines of "you are the reason my life sucks" (in Awakening). With Angelus, it goes like this:
ANGELUS: Is that my shirt?
CONNOR: Not anymore.
ANGELUS: Looks good on you.
CONNOR: So did Cordy.
ANGELUS: She looks good on everybody.
They manage to surprise the other. Connor does not react to Angelus’s "Greek play" taunt about Cordelia. For one thing, I doubt Connor has read Sophocles or Freud, and for another, he has no memories of Cordelia as a mother figure. But he does react, stricken and strongly, when Angelus speaks of his real mother, Darla, referencing both her and Holtz:
ANGELUS: Kind of unnecessary, don't you think? I mean, with your track record, I'll be staking myself by the end of the day.
CONNOR: It's fine by me.
ANGELUS: Darla felt the same way. It made her sick, you squirming inside her. So, she jammed a stake in her own heart, just so she wouldn't have to hear your first whiny breath.
CONNOR: You don't know anything!
ANGELUS: Then there was Holtz. You disappointed him so much that he stabbed himself in the neck.
CONNOR: (angry) My fa- (catches himself) Holtz was a good man. All he ever wanted was for you to get the punishment you deserve. And you will.
He lies with the truth, Cordelia says about Angelus. And Connor believes him, on both counts. Presumably, nobody has ever bothered to explain the manner of Darla's death to Connor, or say anything about Darla in general (other than Holtz, that is), so that backfires badly. There is no reason now to not believe Angelus, and in Inside Out and Home, we see Connor has become convinced his mother hated him, that he's responsible for the death of the death of both his mother and other father. The degree of self-loathing he displays is another thing that breaks my heart about Connor. Speaking of self-loathing, here is the one point where Connor manages to surprise Angelus:
CONNOR: (...) The truth is, Angel's just something that you're forced to wear. You're my real father.
Bear in mind here that Angelus in Connor's belief system is the worst monster that ever existed. It's self-accusatory at the same time. Connor, walking towards Angelus at the end of this scene, is responding to the "don't disappoint Daddy" taunt, but what does he really want from him at this point? A fight? Death? Or some more twisted kind of acknowledgement?
(Side note: that scene has a spectacular Bad Wrong vibe about it, if you ask me. Since it's something that comes up in fanfiction on occasion, I am compelled to note that I think Angel would rather castrate himself than touch Connor in a non-paternal way. But Angelus, who gets called “Daddy” by one of the vampires he sired, Drusilla, even she’s having sex with him: Bad. Wrong.)
The entire Angelus interlude not only distracts the group from suspecting Cordelia - who is, as earlier mentioned, possessed, and in fact the string puller behind the Beast, thus buying the entity possessing Cordelia, a fallen Power who later will be named Jasmine, time to gestate inside her - but further fortifies Connor's isolation from the group and exclusive concentration on Cordelia. I don't think Connor was already unreachable at that point. When Faith, the Slayer whom Wesley brings to salvage the Angelus situation, dresses him down, he doesn't respond with a grudge but with admiration; he's obviously impressed by her. As the two have more than one thing in common (I'll get to that), it's a pity she doesn't stay around. Cordelia, by this time, is almost entirely taken over and busy doing her stint as an evil mastermind to enable Jasmine's birth. Yet there are moments between her and Connor which are either flashes of the Cordy of yore - as when she teases him about the grimaces he makes in front of the mirror - or serve the same function their early scenes did, i.e. highlight Connor's capacity for love. Watching him doing the quintessential fatherly gesture after Cordelia shows him how - feeling the movement of his child inside Cordelia's belly, scared and delighted - sort of sums up this tragedy for me. Yes, this is the big bad of the arc they are expecting and he's falling further all the time. But, he's also a child who is expecting another child and so desperate for this last promise of a family to be true.
Possessed!Cordy could not have asked for a better present than no one in the group deigning to inform Connor about their suspicion of her in Players. Thus, he finds the entire bunch seemingly bent on killing a pregnant Cordelia for no reason anyone has given him, saves her, and by the end of the day, makes the choice that turns him into a murderer. Just so there is no misunderstanding: regardless of the circumstance, background, context, etc., I hold Connor fully responsible for the death of the young girl dressed in white, whom Cordelia demands as a sacrifice to allow their child to be born in safety. I also think that the writing and the acting show us, in tandem, how he got there, and why he makes that choice.
After capturing the girl, Connor has doubts, and the ghost of his dead mother, Darla, appears to him, giving us the first and last time these characters are on screen together. Arguing with Darla, Connor argues essentially with what he does know to be true:
DARLA: They're scared because of what you've done, not because of what you are.
CONNOR: They wanted to kill me when I was still inside of you.
DARLA: But that changed when they saw you, held you in their arms, felt the warmth of your skin, the goodness in your heart.
CONNOR: And it will happen again when they hold my child. It's the only way.
DARLA: You have a choice, Connor. That is something more precious then you'll ever know.
CONNOR: What choice? They're hunting us like animals!
DARLA: Because you're acting like one. As a vampire I killed without mercy or remorse because I didn't have a soul. What's your excuse?
CONNOR: You think I wanna do this?
DARLA: Then don't.
CONNOR: (nearly in tears) I have to.
When Connor, after nearly letting the girl go, returns to his original choice and drags her to her death, knowing that he's helping commit murder. Just as surely as, say, Angel does when locking fifteen to twenty lawyers in a room for Darla or Drusilla two seasons earlier, or Faith does when she kills a professor because the BtVS Season 3 Big Bad, the Mayor (who has become her surrogate father, in a parallel) told her to. As with the other characters, I see it as something they have to atone for and which I wish they hadn't done but which makes storytelling sense by illustrating how far gone they were at those points. (Faith more so than Connor, as Connor knows why he kills/help to kill, although that doesn't make the murder less foul.) All of which lead me to feel pity as well as horror. This is what tragedy is defined by.
VI. Injustice of the Skies
Inside Out ends with the birth of Jasmine (played by the divine Gina Torres) and Cordelia sinking into a coma for the rest of the reason. Jasmine, a name which Angel and friends give her, defines herself as a Power That Was, and is essentially a Galadriel who has taken the ring, to borrow a comparison from Lord of the Rings. She’s able to provide the universal peace she promised as a relief from the proceeding catastrophes, but at a high price: essentially meaning she doesn’t just fill everyone with bliss, but also takes their free will and makes them her tools. Contact with Jasmine’s blood, however, will negate this effect. When Jasmine is born, the audience isn’t immediately informed that Connor isn't under her sway like everyone else, but there are early signs to make an educated guess. Some subtle ones, like that it's Angel who actually kneels down first, with Connor following suit, and some larger ones. While Wesley and Gunn have no problem happily deciding Fred (whom they loved) deserves to die once Fred - after accidentally coming into contact with Jasmine’s blood - turns against Jasmine, Connor hasn't lost his awareness that he did things that do not predestine him for universal bliss:
JASMINE: You're troubled. Come in, Connor. Tell me what's bothering you.
CONNOR: I- I can't.
JASMINE: Of course you can. You can tell me anything.
CONNOR: Cordelia used to say that to me. It's just - having you here, I finally know why I was created. For you; to help bring you here.
JASMINE: That and so much more.
CONNOR: But, I don't deserve- I shouldn't be so happy. I've done things. I betrayed my Dad, hurt people...
JASMINE: I know... all of it. I've watched you - not just these past days - but all your life and before. Connor, you deserve all the happiness I can bring you.
Connor helping Jasmine voluntarily, as opposed to everyone else, highlights both sides of his nature, again. He finds out she eats people to sustain herself and accepts that, which is on a par with Faith’s complicity in aiding the Mayor’s plan to consume Sunnydale High upon his Ascension. In both cases, it is the abdication of moral responsibility in trade for affection from a beloved person, or the conviction that anything that beloved person wants is right.
On the other hand, Connor's relationship with Jasmine shows his capacity for love, again. He sees her as she truly is - the inhuman exterior that horrifies Fred and the others once Jasmine’s thrall is broken - and it doesn't matter; she is his daughter. He knows she uses him as an instrument, but that, too, is okay, because so did the other people he loved, Holtz and Cordelia. Further, because of Jasmine's effect on everyone else, he finally permits himself to show affection for Angel. Scenes like Connor telling Angel not to be so hard on himself or singing Jasmine to the tune of Mandy with him take on a new significance once we know Connor is not under the influence during that time. What Jasmine offers him isn't just her own love and the idea that his life has purpose, but a way to live with his biological father. The look of utter betrayal at Angel once Connor realizes what happened in Magic Bullet, when Fred manages to free Angel from the brainwashing, is another example of Vincent Kartheiser adding even more impact to a scene with his acting. Instead of just feeling relieved, I felt incredibly sad.
This scene also marks the end of the interlude during which we saw Connor smiling and happy while working with his father. Jasmine thinks his unhappiness is due to the fact that he hasn't surrendered his pain to her entirely, and the scene in which she makes him do this after healing him from the damage his last fight with Angel has left, in its mixture of creepiness and tenderness, sums up their relationship. Note that Connor, when embracing Jasmine, still doesn't smile, but she doesn't see it, only the camera and we do.
When Cordelia is hidden elsewhere, Connor starts to search for her. At this point, he certainly has crossed the line to "raging psychopath" (something the sorcerer Cyvus Vail will later call him), as evidenced by the (admittedly funny amid all the angst) "Tell me and I'll crush your windpipe," "You mean ‘or,’ don't you? Don't you?" dialogue between he and Jasmine’s minion that he’s interrogating to find Cordelia. Was he still salvageable? Perhaps the question, if you don't like Connor, is "was he worth bothering to save?" or "does he show any signs of being redeemable?" He was certainly still aware of right and wrong. In Peace Out, the second to last episode of the season, we finally get a big outpouring of what goes on inside Connor, spoken to the comatose Cordelia, whom he has tracked down:
CONNOR: I wanted to see you again. I had to, to know that you're still here... with me. I'm sorry I haven't- It's started, Cordy. The new beginning. Just wish you'd wake up and see it. Just what you wanted. I mean... it is what you wanted, right? Why you came to me? You know...what this was all about? Protecting our baby - Jasmine - so she can... be, and make this world the... the kind of place you wanted. And it is better. Not harsh and cruel - the way that Angel likes it so he has a reason to fight. (angrily) 'Cause you know that's what he's about, him and the others. Finding reasons to fight. Like that's what gives their lives any meaning. The only damn thing! (punches the lectern, smashing it) I'm not like them. I just... I want to stop. Stop fighting. I just want to rest. God, I want to rest. But I can't. (teary) It's not working, Cordy. I tried. I tried to believe. I wanted it. Went along with the... the flow. Jasmine, she's... she's bringing peace to everyone, purging all of their hate and anger. But not me. Not me! I know she's a lie. Jasmine. My whole life's been built on them. I just... I guess I thought this one was better than the others.
Why you came to me. He doesn't believe any longer that Cordelia came to him because she loved him. He certainly doesn't believe anyone else loves him. What Connor did during the last third of the season, the crimes he committed, weren't to get himself anything. What did he personally gain? Family, for a brief time, before it started to fall apart again. A taste of a better, peaceful world, but one he could only see, not participate in, as his intact free will also ensured he would not feel the Jasmine-given bliss. This does not make the death(s) he caused less criminal, but I think it does put him in another category than the Wolfram and Hart lawyers, who do what they do for power, or Angelus, who gets off on the pain he causes, or, for that matter, Holtz, who ultimately chose vengeance as his consuming and only purpose. So yes, it makes Connor redeemable.
When Jasmine, stripped of her power to enthral by Angel and experiencing universal hate and rejection by everyone, calls for Connor - "Father, I need you. Help me. Please." - Connor comes running, without hesitation. Season 4 is very much a tragedy of fathers and children, and the power of parental love; obviously, Angel's love for Connor, but also Connor's love for Jasmine. For whatever reason you might think he does what he does when he finds Jasmine about to kill Angel, there is no doubt that he means what he says:
JASMINE: Connor, I still have you. Angel's ruined everything. But he can't defeat both of us. You still believe in me, don't you? You still love me?
CONNOR: Yes.
And he smashes her skull. Killing someone you love is the cruellest thing the Jossverse does to its characters, and it changes them forever. Buffy kills Angel in Becoming, and it's immaterial that he later returns from the hell dimension she sends him to. Holtz does it to his young daughter Sarah, the child Angel and Darla turned into a vampire to mock him, and that death, particularly, made Holtz into the merciless man he became. Later, Holtz makes Justine do it to him, no matter how she cries and pleads with him not to. Angel will do it to Connor, soon after, in a manner of speaking. And here, Connor does it to Jasmine.
The utter brokenness of Connor afterwards still permits him to save a cop about to commit suicide in Home, the season finale. The fact that Connor, in this state, still has it in him to care about helping a stranger tells me he's not completely lost. Of course, this isn't the end of the scene. After Connor succeeds in stopping the man from killing himself, the cop makes the mistake of mentioning his family. And this - not at Jasmine's death, but this point - is where Connor snaps and loses it entirely. The cop, revealed as a parent who was about to commit suicide like Holtz, like Darla, was just an unfortunate coincidence, but it brings forth an outburst of rage and violence that we never saw Connor display against a human before. He starts to beat the unfortunate man into a pulp. The next thing we hear about Connor is that he is about to blow himself and a lot of innocent bystanders up in a mall.
There are fascinating parallels and contrasts to this scenario on AtS. One of the more obvious is a suicidal Faith in Five by Five, who in the process of seeking death after her own downward spiral into nihilism, self-hatred and despair, hurt - and tortured, in the case of Wesley - a lot of people in order to make Angel kill her. But Connor is Angel's son, and so he reacts differently, as he did with Faith. What would have happened if Angel, after saving the innocent bystanders, led Connor back the Hyperion, as he led Faith back into his loft after rescuing Wesley? Who knows? Connor and Faith might have parallels, but they are two different characters. Maybe Connor would have gone the way Faith did - maybe it would have been the turning point for him, and he would have started the road to atonement by accepting responsibility for his past. Or maybe he would have found another method to kill himself. We don't know. We do know that Angel didn't want to take the risk. He made his Faustian pact with Wolfram & Hart - the law firm connected to the mysterious Senior Partners as the embodiment of evil who are Angel’s ongoing opponents throughout the show - to save his son before going into the mall to begin with. What he finds once confronting Connor doesn’t dissuade him from his course, as Connor is well and truly broken:
ANGEL: Connor... you have to believe that there are people who love you.
CONNOR: Jasmine believed you when you said you loved her, but it was all a lie.
ANGEL: Jasmine was the lie.
CONNOR: (yelling) No! She knew if you found out who she really was that you'd turn against her, and she was right. That's just what happened. People like you. People like this. None of you deserve what she could give you. (sighs) She wanted to give you everything.
ANGEL: I know how that feels. 'Cause I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over.
CONNOR: We can't start over.
ANGEL: We can. I mean, we can change things.
CONNOR: There's only one thing that ever changes anything... and that's death. Everything else is just a lie. (cries) You can't be saved by a lie. You can't be saved at all.
(...)
ANGEL: I really do love you, Connor.
CONNOR: So what are you gonna do about it?
ANGEL: Prove it.
And Angel does. Connor, when we see him in the final scene of the season, which echoes the very first scene in Deep Down, has no memories of what happened and is reconstructed from scratch. Wolfram and Hart gave him new memories and a new family. (They also removed any memory of Connor from anyone but Angel and their own liaisons.) It's a wonderful, terrible thing. In essence, Angel has done what Jasmine did to her followers, his own words to her about free will notwithstanding, and he did it to save his son. Which left the question hanging for the fifth season: can you be saved by a lie, after all?
VII. The Quality of Mercy
When I finished Season 4, I had no idea whether or not we would see Connor again. I hoped so, but I had no way of knowing. If there hadn't been a fifth season, however, I wouldn’t have felt cheated in regards to Connor's storyline. I would have hoped he’d one day remember again, since I believe that in the long term, he needed to confront what he had done, but I would also have thought that the mercy granted to him by Angel's deal was just that: mercy. As Connor is a character I love, who had been battered, twisted and broken throughout his previous existence, I would have concluded that yes, he should have that mercy.
But, then we got Season 5.
In Origin, we get presented with the result of Angel's mindwipe in a more thorough manner than we did at the end of Home, as the sorcerer Vail, a Wolfram and Hart client who manufactured Connor’s artificial memories, needs him to dispense with the time-travelling demon Sahjahn, last seen in Season 3. Mindwiped!Connor gets along famously with his “parents,” thinks Angel is the epitome of cool, and displays a deadpan sense of humour as well as a knack for teasing Angel. In short, he is the ideal son Angel wanted. (Even though he still likes strong older women, which for some reason his father, whose love interests tend to be either centuries older or centuries younger, finds objectionable.) There are subtle echoes of the earlier version - his "Awesome!" reaction mirrors "That was cool!" in Deep Down- as he is extremely protective of his family and ready to kill someone for them, with no other reason given than that this will stop someone else from threatening them. (For all Functional!Connor knows, Sahjahn is as innocent as the girl in white.) Of course, Vail neatly illustrates the process of mindwipes by citing an example of a fake memory: - Mindwiped!Connor remembers being lost in a supermarket at age five, not tied to a tree deliberately by his father, and he remembers being found again by his parents and swept into the arms of his mother, not needing five days to track down Holtz. This probably really is Connor as he would have been without the childhood from hell.
Then, with Sahjahn about to kill Connor - who in his mindwiped state hasn’t lost his enhanced abilities but has lost all the memories of how to fight - the Orlon window holding the truth is broken (by Wesley, rather fittingly, as he started the whole series of disasters by his misguided attempt to save Connor-the-baby via kidnapping), and Connor’s memories return.
It's a great bit of physical acting (again) by Vincent Kartheiser, because you see the difference at once, and Sahjahn promptly is dispatched. At which point, Connor has a choice between the old self and the new. His immediate choice is to drop the bloody axe, the symbol of the death and violence that marked his real life, and tell Angel that this wasn't for him. He does not tell Angel, yet, that his memories have returned, but he gives him a hint and the one thing nobody else could offer Angel throughout the season: absolution. Tone subtly changing from the way he talks post-mindwipe to the earlier season 4 tones, he ends his goodbye scene with:
CONNOR: You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
It's a moment of grace. You can debate whether Angel (who in his Faustian deal changed everyone else's memories as well) deserves forgiveness just as much as you can argue whether Connor deserved to be protected and saved earlier, but I think it comes down to what Giles said in Season 2 of BtVS: You don't deserve mercy. It is given. Wesley, trying to cope with the return of his original memories, sums it up in his conversation with Illyria earlier:
WESLEY: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
ILLYRIA: To hide from the truth?
WESLEY: To endure it.
Connor now knows the truth, but as opposed to the state he was in by the end of Home, can now endure it. The last time we see him on screen is in the finale, when he has started to process the experience. Note the use of the word "started" - I don't think we're to assume this will be the end of his story. He is able to interact with Angel in a cautious but affectionate way, and, in an echo of Habeas Corpses in Season 4, he shows up at Wolfram and Hart to save his father. The series finale has been called unnecessary nihilistic, but I can think of few more optimistic choices than letting Connor, that utterly damaged, screwed up child of two vampires who served as his father's punishment, become the symbol of Angel's hope, of forgiveness, and salvation. Other than Lorne, Connor is the only one who the audience knows survived the story intact, and, as opposed to Lorne, not in a bitter, isolated way. Does Connor still have a lot of work to do in regards to his past, present and future? Absolutely. But that is how great stories end and how the story of Angel and Darla ended, several seasons back - with a new story beginning.
Links
General
Poisoned Heart : Website dedicated to Connor, with essays and fanfic; hasn't been updated in years, unfortunately
The Destroyer: Virtual spin-off centered around Connor; the first season has been completed
The Nyazian Prophecies: another virtual series with Connor as the main character
Icons: both of Connor and Vincent Kartheiser in other roles.
Vincent Daily: your source of news about the talented Vincent K. who brought Connor to life.
Fanfiction Favourites
On the Education of a Young Man by yahtzee63 has to be one of
the earliest stories written about Connor. With only three episodes of background to draw on for teenage Connor, written and set between
seasons 3 and 4, it was by necessity jossed in some points (i.e. Connor not being with Justine, for example), but still upholds very well. Excellent take on what Connor's childhood with Holtz must have been like.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation: set, like the earlier story, between seasons 3 and 4, but as opposed to the earlier one written post-show; great take on Connor's relationships with Fred and Gunn, which don't get investigated very often.
True Faces: set in early season 4; Connor ponders his two fathers and recent revelations. Includes one of the best subtle foreshadowings of Jasmine I can think of. By Guerdemuirth.
Them Bones basically founded my favourite little subgenre in the very little corner of Connor fanfiction: Connor meeting the ghost of his mother. An elegant story by viola_dreamwalk, set and written in early season 4, i.e. before this meeting actually took place in canon.
She later, in season 5, tackled a ghostly encounter between Darla and Connor again, which is not connected to the earlier story and offers an interesting counterpoint interpretation: Soothe the Burn.
Five Lies That Connor's Father Told Him by kita0610 is heartbreaking and covers the entire show, and all the fathers.
Who By Accident by callmesandy, onthe other hand, is that rare thing, a post-NFA story with plot that pulls of a very tricky pairing - Buffy/Connor - convincingly, gets not just the two main characters but everyone else right as well and is (even rarer for a Connor story) low on the angst (though that's present as well, inevitably) and great with humour. I adore every word, including such gems as Buffy telling Dawn a sign of Connor's not-evilness was the fact he was very concerned about using birth control. (Well, he would be!)
And lastly, a very creepy and yet oddly touching AU in which Jasmine reigns and her thrall was never broken, Pentecost, by Doyle. If you're squeamish, be warned, while there is nothing explicit, there is emotional incest all over the place, and as a large percentage of Connor fanfic consists of incest pairings (one look at canon should tell you why), this one is a good representative of how to do this tricky subject justice.
Vid Favourites
Anticipate: one of the earliest and still best Connor character studies, by icsbanana.
Counting Bodies offers the unholy family, Angel, Connor and Darla all at once. Love the black and white, the colour red creeping in, and the connections drawn between the characters.
Also a family vid, by yhlee: Fighting It. This one also uses plenty of Wesley, which is only right as you could say he and Connor were each other's misfortune.
Zero is a great Connor character study, and has been amply reviewed here for all the important point it makes about Connor, Angel, Jasmine etc., so let me praise it for the shallow Vinnie = Pretty reason as well.