finished Angel

[rm]

Thoughts and a lot of spoilers:

http://lettersfromtitan.com/2011/01/05/buffy-angel-and-a-whole-bucketload-of-spoilers/

Comments

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I really might have to rewatch Angel one of these days, because as far as I remember it, I found the end so utterly bleak that even the end of CoE is easier to deal with for me...

[elisi]

Huh. How curious. I shall point you towards two posts by the_royal_anna: Power Play and Not Fade Away, and pull out a few quotes:

And what I always loved best about the Buffyverse was that it wasn’t always about getting out of the hole. Sometimes you can't get out of the hole, and you can’t sit around waiting until you do. You have to make a difference where you are, as you are. That's the point.
~
I've always loved Angel differently to the way I loved Buffy. Once upon a time I said that Buffy was character-driven where Angel is theme-driven, that sometimes in Angel it felt like the characters were subservient to the story. And now I start to see that that was the point of Angel; that it was about characters trying to be bigger than the story they were in. It was a battle, character versus story, and the answer was always that you could only fight your story so far. That in the end you'd have to seize your story, whichever point of that story you'd find yourself at, and make it yours. I think that's what Angel leaves with me. It's your story. Tell it.
~
I have seen so many incredible stories about great, epic battles between good and evil. I've seen that dark army advance so many times, and it’s always been about the battle, the cost, the outcome. It's always been about who won, about how they won.

Last night, I saw that turned on its head. I sat there and saw the show that told me you don't have to be good enough to beat them to be good enough. I saw the show that told me a handful of fighters standing up in the face of evil is threat enough to burst the gates of hell. I saw the show that told me that what matters is not what you achieve, but what you do.

I saw a show that dared to stand there and tell me you are enough.


Most of all though, for me, it comes down to this:

ANGEL: Go home...now.
CONNOR: They'll destroy you.
ANGEL: As long as you're OK, they can't.

Angel and Jack are incredibly similar, and yet there is this one, huge difference. Angel saves the boy (at the cost of the world? Certainly at the cost of his mission and his friends). Jack sacrifices the boy (but saves the world).

Angel, in NFA, is - despite everything - at peace with his choices.

Jack, in CoE, has to literally leave the world because he can't live with the choice he made.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Not to completely hijack rm's journal, but mostly because unlike her I absolutely do believe Wesley when he says that there is nothing he wants from life any longer. He's too conscientious to outright commit suicide, but he doesn't really care any longer, and he'll take the chance if it presents itself. To be finally able to permit himself to give up and let Illyria lie to him. And it's not just Wesley, at this point all of them are harbouring something of a death wish—except of course Lindsey, who is the only one who still has expectations and passion, and Angel makes Lorne shoot him. Never mind Wesley, for me that is the most depressing scene of the finale.

I'd argue that Angel was more or less at peace with his choices in the end because he expected he wouldn't have to live with them for much longer.

Angel saves the boy (at the cost of the world? Certainly at the cost of his mission and his friends). Jack sacrifices the boy (but saves the world).

I did notice that, and this is one of the choices I really respect RTD for. A lot. Everyone understands why Angel did what he did, regardless of what the results turned out to be. Whereas Jack's choice in CoE... I still don't have the right words. Maybe there are none.

[elisi]

I think Anna says it best:

It's a bleak and joyless world where heroes do not fight because they have hope, but fight because fighting is their only manifestation of hope.

Hmmm. Although really, the finale is 'If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do' taken to its furthest extreme.

I did notice that, and this is one of the choices I really respect RTD for. A lot.
Oh me too. Despite Rusty's writing being more uneven, he has the balls to go where Joss fears to tread, and I respect the hell out of that.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Like I said above, I'd probably have to rewatch Angel. It's been years since the last time, and I'd probably change my opinion about a lot of things...