nothing even resembling an organized post. just contrarianism.
The Wessay may get finished some day after all. I don't know what possessed me to re-watch AtS S3, but I went for it and am now sucked into the first few episodes of S4 but S3 is pretty brilliant too. Obviously my huge pro-Wes bias is below! locked because it got a little acerbic and ranty, so, fair warning.
( love can be a terrible thing )
( love can be a terrible thing )
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See, I agree wholeheartedly that Wes has his emotional spots like always wanting to make the tough, manful decision or being easily manipulated by British logical men. However, I actually think that Wesley ended up being proven rather right after the fact that Fred and Gunn are so much on Angel's side that they wouldn't listen to Wesley. I generally don't like to make "proven right after the fact" arguments and I'll even agree that Fred and Gunn hadn't proven such Angel-obeisance. However that Angel gets no repercussions from them about trying to suffocate a human, a former partner in his hospital bed makes me think that Wesley was right to assume that Gunn and Fred were carried away with Angel- ( ... )
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Right? RIGHT? Aside from the act itself - which, trying to smother a helpless (see what I did there?) person in a hospital bed is not exactly proof of good character, particularly not if it's prefaced by, "I AM TOTALLY IN MY RIGHT MIND RIGHT NOW, JSYK," - the way everyone let it all go suggests Wesley didn't pull the his fears of uncritical Angel partisanship out of his ass, you know?
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I don't think that has anything to do with hero worship. I think it's because they were just greatly sympathetic to Angel considering he just lost his baby boy, and the only child he was ever going to have. They were all pretty pissed off with Wes at that point which wouldn't have necessarily been the case if he'd come to them beforehand.
I just think Gunn and "Angel worship" and two very unmixy things. I don't see it.
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Maybe, in addition to the emotional investment, the siding with Angel is related to looking at the 'end results' (Connor: dead, Wesley: alive) rather than the actual motivations and degree to which they were right to begin with
That's reasonable, and normally I'd be a bit more sympathetic to that approach.
But...I know it's a mistake to look at the 'verse with real world logic (or any logic at all, HEYOOOOO), but this whole conversation - OUR FRIEND deserves the benefit of the doubt, no matter what the likely cost - is why we need mandatory reporting laws, for starters. And why they don't work as well as we'd like them to, to tragic effect. I wish I were being OTT with the SUCH A GOOD GUY thing up there ( ... )
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Anyway...
But...I know it's a mistake to look at the 'verse with real world logic (or any logic at all, HEYOOOOO), but this whole conversation - OUR FRIEND deserves the benefit of the doubt, no matter what the likely cost - is why we need mandatory reporting laws, for starters. And why they don't work as well as we'd like them to, to tragic effect. I wish I were being OTT with the SUCH A GOOD GUY thing up there, but, not the case. Child protective services aren't an option for a kid who doesn't exist, but Wesley's general thought process here is the one we need people to have. I get that this isn't Judging Amy, but for this to be the one depiction of something along these lines, where the end result unproblematically validates the whole culture of apathy and silence around child endangerment...it's so fantastically exceptionalist.That's an excellent point. I think part of the problem with the ( ... )
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ahaha. Well, I tend to assume Wesley thinks as I do, which isn't as unfair as it would normally be. (I'd imagine the whole Darla debacle would've brought that home fairly recently.)
Faith and Willow are some of the best examples of people who needed external guidance somewhere along the way but couldn't have it because the system is broken for the magic people.
good point. And they do both come around, by making use of those systems in their own ways. eventually.
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They’re not angry with Wes because he considered that Angel may hurt Connor. They’re angry with him because he never told them about it, went to Holtz behind their backs, and now Connor has been killed. I think they would have reacted very differently if Wes had confided in them from the very beginning. Gunn isn’t too emotionally involved in Angel to see his darkness (That Old Gang of Mine establishes how Gunn will always mistrust Angel) and Fred makes it clear why she’s so hurt;
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I think it’s a little more complex than that. I know you don’t like Angel much at all but hopefully we can at least both agree that it’s totally understandable why he was so angry in this episode. I think many parents would lash out in a similar manner if they were faced with the person who kidnapped their child and got them killed (unintentionally, yes). Murder is never OK (sidebar: I personally don’t think Angel was actually trying to murder Wes, ‘cause if he was Wes would have totally been dead) but there are certain situations where people’s actions can be a little more understandable/sympathetic than in others. In this case I think his friends were far more forgiving of Angel because they realise he was grieving badly.
I'm not sure Fred's lines there can be taken at face value - hindsight 20/20 blah blah blah - and even if they could, Fred is just speaking for Fred and giving advice about Angel. It doesn't count as an explanation from Gunn or Cordelia. ( ... )
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