Angel. The Fall

[moscow_watcher]

The main complaints against Angel's arc I saw online boil down to two claims: a) Angel is out of character and b) to service Buffy's journey, Angel is destroyed.

Judging by Jeanty's Q&As, Angel's arc in season 8 is over. He won't be in #40. It's time to sum up his story. What the hell has happened to him?

Comments

[shipperx]

So, pre-season 8, Angel comes back to our times from the post-apocalyptic future. He saw the things to come and he knows that the Earth is doomed all the people he cares about will die.

Would have been nice had the execution not sucked so badly that anyone could have figured this out without fanwanking a single line of isolated text in an after-thought one-shot issue that hadn't been planned for the series and only came about after the readers did a collective "wha-huh?"

Only de-powerment can lead to further empowerment And only two no's can make a yes

[elisi]

*nods a lot*

The thing about Mitchell is that I adore him - and yet there's no doubt in my mind that he ought to be staked. Of course the show can't do that, but it's so very clearly shown that good intentions aren't enough. Wanting to change isn't change.

(And actually it ties in with all the reasons I was never a redemptionista, and never wanted unsouled Spike with Buffy - because it'd make her into a Josie or a Lucy, and it shouldn't be a woman's job to keep her man in check... and then get blamed when he falls off the wagon. /tangent)

[shipperx]

I attribute it the the glow influence. *shrugs* Then again, Stormwreath up-thread thinks it's a normal human reaction. Maybe it's denial. Maybe. I don't know. It's the part that grates me the most.

My beef with the comics is that we don't know. We're told a few things and a dog tells us a few things and there are plot holes to drive a fleet of trucks through. The Q&A's only make things worse. We no longer really know what Angel did or didn't do. We aren't sure what he knew or didn't know. We don't know how much control he had over the things he did do (and it's debatable what that even was). On the other hand we do know that the biggest of his mistakes he's hardly responsible for at all. That's not a character arc. That's smoke and mirrors leaving confusion in it's wake and topping it off with treating characters like marionettes. The whole 'glow' thing was invented because the writers themselves knew they were pushing characteration to the breaking point and beyond and they needed 'glow' to cause it to happen. That's a big

[moscow_watcher]

The Q&A's only make things worse.

Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. Everybody brings their shipping preferences (I'm guilty, too) and the interviewees try to please everybody.

On the other hand we do know that the biggest of his mistakes he's hardly responsible for at all. That's not a character arc.

I think his biggest mistake was not telling Buffy. And he is fully responsible for it. I understand that there is a segment in this fandom who finds such decision very romantic and sweet - Angel trying to save Buffy from herself, a strong and competent male saving a damsel in distress... Then again, who knows - maybe if he'd told her, maybe the whole Earth was destroyed, not only Sunnydale.

But the history doesn't have a Subjunctive mood. Even in Jossverse with it's parallel realities, I can't imagine Joss letting Angel undo what he has done.

THe fact that they had to have a last minute Riley one-shot that hadn't been planned but was the only thing to even take a stab at showing what if any motivation Angel had is another big red flag.