Post by Riff on Mar 26, 2006 8:31:23 GMT -5
Wes has no idea. When it comes to tiny blonde women, it doesn’t take a swami (real or otherwise), to see how easily spun Angel can be. He isn’t alone in this; one of the ways in which Angel the Series differs from Buffy is the degree to which each character’s identity is flexible. Many of the identities are archetypal across both shows: superpowered, nerdy, goofy, broody, immortal, yet in Angel as a whole, each character has manifested at least two of these characteristics. That level of flexibility makes sense in the wider environment of Los Angeles, but adds a special level of difficulty to interpersonal relationships and identity.
Very true, and the fact that characters can so totally change identity is intriguing and something which you rightly highlight as the theme of the episode. Would you say Wesley and Cordelia are the two most notable examples of character development? But then everyone, including Spike when he arrives in L.A., passes through a great deal of change in the Angelverse. I think we see those different facets of character you mention as the characters progress. The changes are cumulative, though. For example, dark periods come and go, but always leave scars.
Wes, on the other hand, actually dons the coat and claims Angel’s identity for himself. By the end of the episode, he is giving orders to the Fang Gang, taking the lead in the rescue of Virginia, and being written up in the society pages as “private detective and bodyguard to the stars” (a role Cordy had envisioned for Angel when he saved Rebecca’s life in the episode “Epiphany”). Not to mention Cordy’s outraged: “One day as Angel, one day! and he’s getting some.” This doesn’t just have implications for this episode, but for the season as a whole. Wes will take on the role of leader after Angel “snaps”; much later, Wes will give Angel a run for his money in the brooding department.
Wesley dons Angel’s coat…
*slaps forehead* ;D
I’d noticed the parallels that emerge between Wes and Angel as the series moved on, but it didn’t occur to me that Wes’s usurping of Angels identity in this ep foreshadows all that. Oh, dear.
I didn’t really notice the parallels until we were into Season 3 and Wes became ostracised and isolated. It’s not much of leap at that point to say, “But, that’s just like Angel last season!”
Wes drinks blood, pretends to be burned by a cross, and makes Virginia cover up her mirrors, to maintain the illusion that he is a vampire. In a nice twist, Cordelia complains that Wes is encroaching on her territory, as he encroached on Angel’s: “Reflected glory—that’s my thing!”
“You live in Los Angeles. It’s all about the car you drive…Why do you hate yourself?” The swami may have been a fake, but he definitely serves up some truth to Angel. In a nice bit of metacommentary on the episode, he says: “There are two yous: the image you work so hard to create and the real you.” He nails Angel on his “affected persona” and tells him “You’re reflected in the people around you. The way they see you. What do you think they see?” Throughout the episode, Cordy and Wes show exactly what they see in Angel: he’s broody, morose, obsessive, unpredictable, prone to guilt, and noble. It’s a significant statement; the darker Angel gets and the more morally ambiguous decisions he makes, the more he pushes Cordy, Wes, and Gunn away. Not only to protect them from his darkness, but avoid seeing his darkness and disappointment in himself reflected in his friends.
That’s a very nice observation. As with BtVS, the second season is a great improvement on the first, writing wise. Despite its obvious sophistications, the first season of AtS still had a monster-of-the-week feel. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but the series really started to hit hard when that format was made more malleable.
The horrible feeling we start to get in the midst of all this ep’s fun and games is that everything is about to go very wrong, and the season does not disappoint. In a sense, then (to get all meta-something on you ), Angel’s darkness is reflected in the viewer, also.
I particularly like what you say about wanting to hide his darkness and disappointment in himself. Angel is open about who he is and, despite his othering of Angelus, does take responsibility for his past. Nevertheless doesn’t really want the others to understand what he is, that he hungers for human blood and has a dangerous (demonic?) temper. And, in concert with the ep’s theme of reflection, it could be suggested that his hiding from them is an attempt to hide from himself. As you say, the false swami understands this denial in him. It makes me wonder why even more mind games weren’t used on Angel than we saw in the series.
That definitely puts the Buffy and Angel relationship in a whole new light; especially since Angel’s only response is: “Um…” In “Untouched,” we saw the parallels between Cordelia and Drusilla; this episode, we get Buffy and Darla. If Angel had gotten involved with Cordy instead of Buffy, would Angelus’ pattern of abuse been altered? Would he have attempted to drive Cordelia insane, as he did Dru? How much of his behavior toward Buffy was striking out at her as an avatar of Darla? In addition, this is part of a continued pattern of treating the Buffy and Angel relationship with a lighter touch; less rising music and heartbreaking scenes equals both characters moving on from the star-crossed lover parts they’d played in the past.
It’s a very interesting question (well, series of questions ). In Season 1 of BtVS he dusts Darla without a second’s thought; in Season 2 he has a moment of perfect happiness with Buffy. Angel had no moment of perfect happiness with Darla. Should we infer from this that Buffy was important in and of herself? Unless, I suppose, he sees Buffy as a good version of Darla.
One question the series does not address is why Angel feels he can’t, as a vampire, have a relationship with Buffy, but he does think that it is a possibility with Cordelia. Is it because he believes he will not achieve perfect happiness with Cordelia (Season 4 calls that into question, since it is a fantasy version of being with Cordelia which causes him to finally lose his soul)? Why not?
This is definitely not Buffy’s world; emotional and psychological compromises are made all the time in the Angelverse.
I think of BtVS Season 6 as the “Angel” season. ;D
Wes and Angel are still trying to figure out who they are, bumbling and fumbling toward some kind of stable sense of self. They’ve got a long road ahead of them.
They still have!