I'm So Chatty!: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and the Shipping News

[sunclouds33]

lokifan also asked me for two Wesley ships that I love and one Wesley ship that I dislike. Just as with CJ Cregg, I also went overboard and needed to write a whole separate entry.

Wesley/Lilah: LoveAngel sucks at established ships- except for Angel/Darla and Wesley/Lilah. I think Wesley/Lilah just might be my favorite. Wes/Lilah is a hugely popular ship

Comments

[sunclouds33]

Ravenclaw versus Slytherin?

Probably. Although, Slytherins can be terrific support people too if they think that being a support person is their gateway to prestige/power/influence. Slytherins en masse sign up to be Death Eaters- which basically a whole job being Voldemort's bitch. Murder and mayhem aside, I'd balk at the whole uniform tattoo that Voldemort chose right away. In fact, a lot of the Death Eaters were loyal to Voldemort even when it looked like he was dead or weakened beyond repair especially ultra-Slytherins Bellatrix and Crouch Jr. Some Slytherins really believe in the pyramid scheme of power and they know that they don't have what it takes to be on top, so they become loyal and committed to the person who does have what it takes to be on top.

Gavin was very supportive of Linwood and he was a total Slytherin. Gavin just didn't appear to be gunning for Linwood's job partly because Gavin was new but also because Gavin thought he'd do well by hitching his wagon to Linwood's star. I'm very Cordelia-cynical- I think Cordelia was a Slytherin who thought her gateway to power was being the Queen Bee in high school and then she was a Slyerin who decided, that her gateway to influence/moral authority/power over her neck of the woods as to be Angel's First Lady of Angel Investigations i.e. a total supplicant.

Lilah is a Slytherin who wants to arrive to power by being Top Dog i.e. Head of Special Projects. And even Lilah bows down before the Senior Partners and Holland Manners because she thinks that being their faithful servant is a way to get things done because she respects them.

Yeah, I do think a lot of the most intense hostility toward the ship comes from viewers slotting the characters into archetypes, rather than Wes doing so to Fred? It's plausible that I assign outsize importance to Supersymmetry, as it's my favorite Fred episode, but like, Wes practically has cartoon heart-eyes at the bad bitch side of Fred (which both Angel and Gunn don't even deign to demonize, they just flat-out pretend it doesn't exist). Part of that was that he was gratified at her turning to him, but he also was the only character who understood and supported her need to seize back agency in working the case.

Agreed and hee at "cartoon heart eyes". I think Wesley idealizes/idealized Angel, Cordelia, Gunn *and* Fred. I think it's bizarre that fandom seizes on Wes's idealization of Fred and emphasizes it's dysfunctionality but argues that Wes's idealization of Angel/Gunn/Cordelia is correct or even insufficiently appreciative. Especially since while Fred definitely has a dark side (Supersymmetry is important), it's not as overpowering as the others in AI or at least in the words of Tony Soprano, Fred does a better job at channeling her rage and her anger and her power to the assholes that actually deserve it than Angel or even Gunn who throw a lot of anger/bad decisions at people/good demons who don't deserve it at all.

In terms of Madonna/whore, I have issues with the fact that Fred's desire to kill Seidel out of vengeance and also because he continued to be an active threat to her killed the sex/relationship in Fred/Gunn. However, Gwen electrocuting Morimoto and his bodyguards to steal her toucha-toucha-touch-me device *prompted* Gwen/Gunn sex. Not an hour after Gunn met Morimoto's little girl who seemed to love her father and relied on him to provide for her. And it's all on *Gwen's* word that Morimoto is a bad guy.