Thought provoking review! Which, of course, means I'm going to reply to a few of your points. Hope you don't mind. :-)
Many fans wonder what the hell happened to Angel. Why he acts like this? When he was lying? When he was telling his minions that he wanted to banish all magic and destroy Slayer army? Or when he was telling Buffy that he tried save her and to minimize the damage?
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that you've decided that the second statement was the lie? You talk about Angel being a "villain and a criminal" as if it were established fact; you talk about him "killing her slayers" as if we'd actually ever seen him killing one there on the page, let alone 206 of them.
It seems to me the writers intended the first statement to be the lie, however. And Buffy herself is acting like she believes Angel was telling her the truth.
I've said before - I think this was a misdirect. We saw lots of people claiming to be acting in Twilight's name, but very rarely saw him doing anything particularly evil. He elbowed
( ... )
Let's say that Angel really didn't know that the space fucking would destroy the world, and his seeming indifference to that when Buffy points it out really is just shock and momentary denial on his part. Let's give him all that. Angel's goal was still the purely selfish one of propelling him and Buffy into another universe, without her consent, separating her from her family and friends forever. For this he (at the very least) organized a force which killed hundreds of people.
He was not fighting to to make the world a better place. He was fighting to ensure himself and Buffy a ticket to a better world, regardless of the collateral damage.
The arc may be asking us questions about whether Angel's actions were justifiable, but the only real answer is HELL NO.
(And when thirty Watchers commit suicide rather than face the horrors Twilight is supposed to unleash on the world, I find it VERY hard to believe Angel knew nothing about the potential danger to this world in opening the portal. He just didn't care.)
Angel's goal was still the purely selfish one of propelling him and Buffy into another universe, without her consent
I wouldn't go that far. He seemed to believe that this was happening anyway; it was inevitable:
"The outcome is beyond us. The only absolute in the Earth is that it will end."
"The universe already chose us."
His personal motivation seemed to be one of awe that for once in his long existence, fulfilling a prophecy would also mean doing something he really wanted to do, as opposed to having to endure yet more suffering and loss. I do think that rather blinded him to the side effects.
And "without Buffy's consent"?? He told her he was terrified that she wouldn't want to explore what this prophecy would mean for the two of them; that she would turn away and reject it. Instead, she flew over to him, grabbed him by the lapels and started kissing him. In my book, that's enthusiastic and clear consent.
The arc may be asking us questions about whether Angel's actions were justifiable, but the only real answer is HELL NO.
( ... )
Angel fights to make the world a better place, to make a difference.
"The universe already chose us."
Angel pushed Buffy to the Twilight realm because the Universe will regard the Slayer with the power to rewrite the world according to her wishes. He used her and her love for him mercilessly for this. Unluckily for him, Buffy refused.
I don't disagree with your analysis, but I don't think it contradicts what I said either.
Angel thought that if the new universe being born was fated to have the Best Slayer Ever as its tutelary deity, Buffy would be the perfect choice. And he admits that he has selfish motives for that as well as thinking it's "the right thing to do". He assumed Buffy would feel the same way about it, and he was half-right; she did want to accept what was offered to her, but her sense of duty to her friends made her refuse.
he admits that he has selfish motives for that as well as thinking it's "the right thing to do"
He became very similar to S6 Willow fixing everything with magic! Rewriting the world would mean wiping Tara's mind again. It was bad then, how could it be good now?
Willow didn't think that what she did was a bad thing then either... Godlike power corrupts people.
Maybe this would be a good time to emphasise that I'm not trying to say that Angel was in the right here - I'm personally more on Buffy's side. I'm just trying to suggest that the moral issue isn't as black-and-white as a lot of people are painting it, and that Angel had good reasons for doing what he did that aren't as crude as "He's gone insane" or "He's being mind controlled". He genuinely and unquestioningly believed in the rightness of his cause, and I suggest that Joss's message might be "People like that are dangerous. Especially the unquestioning part.".
It does contradict. If this was already happening, then Angel wouldn't have been needed as an agent to "push" Buffy. If the result is inevitable, it doesn't require him to plot and plan. It requires nothing.
His reducing deaths is a lie. He left the human soldiers to die on the field. Why? Because he needed to continue "push"ing Buffy to become. If it was inevitable, he could have saved the soldiers with his superpowers. If it was inevitable, he wouldn't have needed to let ANYONE die when he could've saved them with his Superman powers that can probably turn back time if he flies fast enough around the sun.
It wasn't inevitable. If it was, he wouldn't have needed to "push". Instead, you can argue that Angel believed it was inevitable because he was in denial. But his erroneous belief is set upon the cognitive dissonance of him taking aggressive action. An inevitable outcome cannot be manipulated.
I think that as far as Angel knows, the inevitable thing, the thing that was already happening, was that Twilight (as in the end of the old world) would fall. In #35 he says the only absolute in the earth is that it will end. Pushing Buffy was about making her strong enough to survive the process of opening the new reality.
The deaths he was talking about reducing were the Slayer deaths that Buffy had just accused him of, not the soldiers, who Angel seems to lump in with the bad guys he was distracting.
Later being different from now was exactly Buffy's argument. She's mortal, or used to thinking of herself as such. Angel isn't. Her friends are still alive. All of his have died, or been broken beyond mending Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Wesley. He saw Connor die in AtF. That was reset but the memory is still real and to Angel memories often seem to be more real than the living world around him. I can see the possibility of consequence free happiness being something that would draw Angel more than any other character. It would be like being forgiven and wanting that is something that goes bone deep. But Twilight seem to represent more than purely personal happiness to him, he talks about no more fighting no more dying, about fixing everything not just himself. I think it's not as straightforward as people seem to want to read it.
And I don't disagree with the point you made before, that Angel was being patronising and manipulative to Buffy for doing this, even though he would have said he was doing it out of respect for her. I'm just saying it's perfectly in character for him to do this sort of thing... just as it was for her to turn around and do her own thing instead
Which I also don't disagree with. We're a triumvirate of double negative agreement on Angel's patriarchal tendencies.
It's like Lenin in April 1917 wondering whether to push for a Bolshevik revolution straight away, even though the preconditions listed by Marx for a socialist revolution in pre-industrial Tsarist Russia weren't yet all in place. Should he "push", and maybe achieve the Socialist paradise within his own lifetime (possibly at the cost of many, many deaths), or sit back and lose the opportunity?
The folks subsequently slaughtered by Stalin might not be quite as philosophical about it.
Many fans wonder what the hell happened to Angel. Why he acts like this? When he was lying? When he was telling his minions that he wanted to banish all magic and destroy Slayer army? Or when he was telling Buffy that he tried save her and to minimize the damage?
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that you've decided that the second statement was the lie? You talk about Angel being a "villain and a criminal" as if it were established fact; you talk about him "killing her slayers" as if we'd actually ever seen him killing one there on the page, let alone 206 of them.
It seems to me the writers intended the first statement to be the lie, however. And Buffy herself is acting like she believes Angel was telling her the truth.
I've said before - I think this was a misdirect. We saw lots of people claiming to be acting in Twilight's name, but very rarely saw him doing anything particularly evil. He elbowed ( ... )
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Let's say that Angel really didn't know that the space fucking would destroy the world, and his seeming indifference to that when Buffy points it out really is just shock and momentary denial on his part. Let's give him all that. Angel's goal was still the purely selfish one of propelling him and Buffy into another universe, without her consent, separating her from her family and friends forever. For this he (at the very least) organized a force which killed hundreds of people.
He was not fighting to to make the world a better place. He was fighting to ensure himself and Buffy a ticket to a better world, regardless of the collateral damage.
The arc may be asking us questions about whether Angel's actions were justifiable, but the only real answer is HELL NO.
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I wouldn't go that far. He seemed to believe that this was happening anyway; it was inevitable:
"The outcome is beyond us. The only absolute in the Earth is that it will end."
"The universe already chose us."
His personal motivation seemed to be one of awe that for once in his long existence, fulfilling a prophecy would also mean doing something he really wanted to do, as opposed to having to endure yet more suffering and loss. I do think that rather blinded him to the side effects.
And "without Buffy's consent"?? He told her he was terrified that she wouldn't want to explore what this prophecy would mean for the two of them; that she would turn away and reject it. Instead, she flew over to him, grabbed him by the lapels and started kissing him. In my book, that's enthusiastic and clear consent.
The arc may be asking us questions about whether Angel's actions were justifiable, but the only real answer is HELL NO. ( ... )
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"The universe already chose us."
Angel pushed Buffy to the Twilight realm because the Universe will regard the Slayer with the power to rewrite the world according to her wishes. He used her and her love for him mercilessly for this. Unluckily for him, Buffy refused.
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Angel thought that if the new universe being born was fated to have the Best Slayer Ever as its tutelary deity, Buffy would be the perfect choice. And he admits that he has selfish motives for that as well as thinking it's "the right thing to do". He assumed Buffy would feel the same way about it, and he was half-right; she did want to accept what was offered to her, but her sense of duty to her friends made her refuse.
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He became very similar to S6 Willow fixing everything with magic! Rewriting the world would mean wiping Tara's mind again. It was bad then, how could it be good now?
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Maybe this would be a good time to emphasise that I'm not trying to say that Angel was in the right here - I'm personally more on Buffy's side. I'm just trying to suggest that the moral issue isn't as black-and-white as a lot of people are painting it, and that Angel had good reasons for doing what he did that aren't as crude as "He's gone insane" or "He's being mind controlled". He genuinely and unquestioningly believed in the rightness of his cause, and I suggest that Joss's message might be "People like that are dangerous. Especially the unquestioning part.".
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His reducing deaths is a lie. He left the human soldiers to die on the field. Why? Because he needed to continue "push"ing Buffy to become. If it was inevitable, he could have saved the soldiers with his superpowers. If it was inevitable, he wouldn't have needed to let ANYONE die when he could've saved them with his Superman powers that can probably turn back time if he flies fast enough around the sun.
It wasn't inevitable. If it was, he wouldn't have needed to "push". Instead, you can argue that Angel believed it was inevitable because he was in denial. But his erroneous belief is set upon the cognitive dissonance of him taking aggressive action. An inevitable outcome cannot be manipulated.
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The deaths he was talking about reducing were the Slayer deaths that Buffy had just accused him of, not the soldiers, who Angel seems to lump in with the bad guys he was distracting.
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Well, yeah. But there's a bit of a difference in it ending 5 billion years from now and in his pushing to have it happen this year.
So inevitable doesn't equal urgent or convenient for his happy time.
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Which I also don't disagree with. We're a triumvirate of double negative agreement on Angel's patriarchal tendencies.
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The folks subsequently slaughtered by Stalin might not be quite as philosophical about it.
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