Top Fives: Top Five Times When Angel Was a Dick and Top Five West Wing Friendships

[sunclouds33]

My latest batch of Top Fives. I chose to tackle local_max Top Five Moments Where Angel Was a Dick and lokifan Top Five West Wing Friendships. More lists later!

Per local_max and my brief conversation here, I struggled a bit on how to define "dick". I ultimately came down on the side that "dick" is a diminutive term used to describe people or occasions where people are

Comments

[sunclouds33]

Ha, I agree with those selections. "School Hard" is one of the all-time biggest ones. Even if we give him latitude on his strategy - and I'm willing to grant, for the purposes of discussion at least, that it is a flaw in the writing of the episode, that Angel's plan makes sense in-universe for some fuzzy reason that the script failed to articulate, and that we shouldn't hold Angel responsible for the pointlessness of the plan, we are STILL left with Angel throwing Xander into this plan without telling him any of the content of the plan and then letting him believe afterwards he would have totally sacrificed him. I mean, what the hell man.

Yup. I do have a feeling from the standpoint of authorial intent that Angel's plan was *supposed* to make sense- but the script-writers failed to convey why. But then, I also get the sense that the authors wanted this trick to be seen as a little mean, but ultimately no where near damaging to their efforts to build Angel up as a swoony love interest for Buffy. Angel did come off many times worse based on a direct read of his actions instead of looking at a fuzzy-wuzzy read of his role and specialness to whitewash what he actually did.

[local_max]

Y'know, I was thinking, I think that Angel might have had a good reason behind the Somnambulist outburst. It's easy to write it off as more of the same given his other behaviour, but I think that its role in that episode itself is more this: I think it's important for him to establish *to Wesley* that he could easily overpower Wesley in one of Wesley's heartbeats if he decided to be an evil murdering monster again, so that if it turns out he is becoming an evil murdering monster again in his sleep, Wesley knows that he can't really handle it without huge precautions. Wesley's belief that he could take Angelus on could get him killed, and Angel's gonna make sure he knows that. That is still kind of dickish, but I think that read makes Angel's action read a bit differently and for a real purpose. This is different from knocking Lorne's hat off because he finds Lorne annoying -- in that Angel at this point really does want his friends to remember how dangerous he is, because part of the reason he has them around is to kill him in case he goes bad.

[sunclouds33]

I'm still dubious, but I see your point. I mainly think that Angel choke-holded Wesley because Angel was irritated by Wesley holding up a cross and treating him like a threat. Angel wanted a sympathetic and *trusting* hearing from Wesley and Cordelia even though he was about to confess that he might be very dangerous so ironically, Angel demanded that benefit of the doubt by force.

Angel walks forward and Wesley threatens him with a cross: “Come no closer!”
Angel turns his head away from the cross: “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Cordy: “Oh, is that what you told Miss ‘third body found in alley’?”
Wesley: “Why should we believe a word you say?”
Angel laughs, grabs Wesley’s arm and spins him around to grab him by the neck: “Because this is how fast I could take you if I wanted to.”

Angel said, "I'm not going to hurt you" like it was a point on why Wesley shouldn't hold up a cross. When Wesley didn't listen and further challenged Angel, *that's* when Angel started the choke-hold. Then the conversation proceeded the way Angel demanded- Cordelia and Wesley give Angel a sympathetic hearing where no one is brandishing crosses or stakes protectively i.e. Cordy and Wes are on *less* hair-trigger alert.

Even though Angel may be dangerous for some unknown reason, and probably Wesley *should* have continued to hold up his cross protectively and maintain a fighty-protective posture from a distance instead of visibly relaxing into Angel's story. Wes and Cordy were a little silly there. Then, Angel does submit to being chained to to the bed. Good on him. But it's on Angel's terms so Angel can learn what's up with him.

I wasn't sure how to evaluate Angel knocking Wesley's cross-bow out of his hands in Parting Gifts. Wesley *did* start the aggressive action- pointing a lethal weapon at Angel. However, quite a bit of that is legit defense- Wesley's on hair-trigger alert as a relatively inexperienced non-super fighting demons alone. Angel, a known powerful vampire with a detachable soul and conscience, was skulking around the spooky, dark hotel complex. However, some of it is Wesley getting off on controlling Angel with a legal weapon. "Pip pip, *I'm* asking the questions." Some of Angel knocking the cross-bow out of Wesley's hand is Angel exercising his right to self-defense- to not have a undeadly weapon pointed at him to compel answers to questions. However, another part is Angel reveling in beating Wesley easily with his greater strength and cutting him down to size since Angel's last impression of Wesley was Annoying British Guy Who Sabotaged His Faithervention. I ultimately decided it was too complicated to put in that Dick Entry.

[local_max]

Heh. Yeah, I think you're right -- I had forgotten that Angel said "I'm not going to hurt you," which changes the tenor of the scene. If he really were trying to remind them how dangerous he was, he wouldn't *also* be showing how magnanimous he is not to kill them right there.

I agree that the Parting Gifts moment is too ambiguous. I think Angel has the right to knock the crossbow away for self-defense, and, given that he is doing that anyway, I don't *really* begrudge him enjoying it, though it does kind of set off some of the dick alarms. But mostly I'm okay with Angel there.