BtVS: Why I hate Angel
Oct. 10th, 2005 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyThis is a rant I've been meaning to have for a while. I'm obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and somewhat less so with Angel. (All my friends may now laugh themselves sick. I've spent years of their lives explaining how I didn't need to see Buffy to know it was an intolerable piece of trash. Ok, friends. You've had your laugh. Now shut up.)
I would like to say that I really, truly hate Angel. Always and forever Angel. I can forgive him for Angelus. Indeed, I found Boreanaz rather better looking and more interesting when he played Angelus. But Angel? My good lords! He abandons the woman who he believes is his true love, not once, but twice. The first time, he tells her it is "for her own good", which translates as "all your fault." Buffy's too young to understand that he's lying, too young to understand that he's running away, not being noble. What he does at the end of Season Three is a travesty. Gods save me forever from people doing things "for my own good." He refuses to allow her to have any part in the decision, and then blames it on her! And as I said, she's too young to catch at him it. Even on the most basic level, he thinks that she's old enough to sleep with, but not old enough to deal with the consequences of that action. That is unacceptable. We call it statutory rape in the law. While I'm not a fan of the stat rape laws, it is precisely that sort of situation that the laws are supposed to address. I think that Buffy was old enough to make the decision, and old enough to deal with the consequences.
He abandoned her a second time when he asked TPTB to turn him back into a vampire. Again, I think it was because he was afraid. I think he was especially afraid of being involved with a girl who could kick his ass. His argument to the effect that it would improve her life expectancy sounded false to me. Once again, he didn't involve her in the decision, which is flatly wrong, surely. He says he loves her, but insists on making all the decisions? How on earth does anyone, even a vampire, shelter the Chosen One? So, he wins on stupid, as well. There is also this: he remembers having had one perfect day. As painful as such a memory can be, it is still a priceless one, and he stole it from her. He can remember, but she cannot. Remember why she showed up in the first place? To yell at him for precisely that behavior, to tell him how much it hurt for him to be able to see her, but for her to not be able to see him, for him to have the right to make those decisions without including her. His choice to turn back time is like that, cubed.
Season Five of Angel, he's working in a company with the most comprehensive library of spells and curses. Does he bother to turn one lone researcher loose on the question of whether or not it would be possible to remove his curse? He does not. He is on tolerably good terms with Willow, one of the most powerful witches in the Western Hemisphere. Does he ever, once, ask Willow if she would try reverse-engineering his curse to see what could possibly be done so that he and Buffy really could have a future together? He does not. He makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to find a way to be with Buffy, no effort to create a world in which they can love. If this is true love, give me casual friendship.
Here's the thing. One of Joss's constant themes is that redemption is always possible. Always. Even Spike. Even Andrew. Angel is offered, over and over again, not merely redemption, but happiness, and he turns it down every time. He looks for the most difficult, the most painful way to proceed. This is artificial angst, this is false pride, it is fake martyrdom, and while he's welcome to every bit as much of it as he can swallow, he never seems to care how much it hurts other people, especially not how much he hurts Buffy. He acts as if Buffy's pains belong to him, so if he can manage to grieve both of them, he gets double points on the pain-o-meter. However, redemption isn't bought by pain. It's a free gift. It's the result of repentence, and pain is often a consequence, but it is not the cost.
Love hurts, and gods know you always hurt the one you love, but it's not a goal, dammit. Love will take care of that all by itself, it doesn't need your help.
and somewhat less so with Angel. (All my friends may now laugh themselves sick. I've spent years of their lives explaining how I didn't need to see Buffy to know it was an intolerable piece of trash. Ok, friends. You've had your laugh. Now shut up.)
I would like to say that I really, truly hate Angel. Always and forever Angel. I can forgive him for Angelus. Indeed, I found Boreanaz rather better looking and more interesting when he played Angelus. But Angel? My good lords! He abandons the woman who he believes is his true love, not once, but twice. The first time, he tells her it is "for her own good", which translates as "all your fault." Buffy's too young to understand that he's lying, too young to understand that he's running away, not being noble. What he does at the end of Season Three is a travesty. Gods save me forever from people doing things "for my own good." He refuses to allow her to have any part in the decision, and then blames it on her! And as I said, she's too young to catch at him it. Even on the most basic level, he thinks that she's old enough to sleep with, but not old enough to deal with the consequences of that action. That is unacceptable. We call it statutory rape in the law. While I'm not a fan of the stat rape laws, it is precisely that sort of situation that the laws are supposed to address. I think that Buffy was old enough to make the decision, and old enough to deal with the consequences.
He abandoned her a second time when he asked TPTB to turn him back into a vampire. Again, I think it was because he was afraid. I think he was especially afraid of being involved with a girl who could kick his ass. His argument to the effect that it would improve her life expectancy sounded false to me. Once again, he didn't involve her in the decision, which is flatly wrong, surely. He says he loves her, but insists on making all the decisions? How on earth does anyone, even a vampire, shelter the Chosen One? So, he wins on stupid, as well. There is also this: he remembers having had one perfect day. As painful as such a memory can be, it is still a priceless one, and he stole it from her. He can remember, but she cannot. Remember why she showed up in the first place? To yell at him for precisely that behavior, to tell him how much it hurt for him to be able to see her, but for her to not be able to see him, for him to have the right to make those decisions without including her. His choice to turn back time is like that, cubed.
Season Five of Angel, he's working in a company with the most comprehensive library of spells and curses. Does he bother to turn one lone researcher loose on the question of whether or not it would be possible to remove his curse? He does not. He is on tolerably good terms with Willow, one of the most powerful witches in the Western Hemisphere. Does he ever, once, ask Willow if she would try reverse-engineering his curse to see what could possibly be done so that he and Buffy really could have a future together? He does not. He makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to find a way to be with Buffy, no effort to create a world in which they can love. If this is true love, give me casual friendship.
Here's the thing. One of Joss's constant themes is that redemption is always possible. Always. Even Spike. Even Andrew. Angel is offered, over and over again, not merely redemption, but happiness, and he turns it down every time. He looks for the most difficult, the most painful way to proceed. This is artificial angst, this is false pride, it is fake martyrdom, and while he's welcome to every bit as much of it as he can swallow, he never seems to care how much it hurts other people, especially not how much he hurts Buffy. He acts as if Buffy's pains belong to him, so if he can manage to grieve both of them, he gets double points on the pain-o-meter. However, redemption isn't bought by pain. It's a free gift. It's the result of repentence, and pain is often a consequence, but it is not the cost.
Love hurts, and gods know you always hurt the one you love, but it's not a goal, dammit. Love will take care of that all by itself, it doesn't need your help.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 10:25 am (UTC)Becky
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 01:12 pm (UTC)The central metaphor is that all teenagers are special, but have a hard time articulating this to their parents and to adults, who do not perceive their abilities or worth.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 05:03 am (UTC)In later seasons, the metaphors change as Buffy grows up. Her difficulty becoming an adult are somewhat less metaphorical, but the endless struggle against evil is still externalized, where it can be more easily seen and understood. Figuring out how to behave ethically is a struggle that becomes especially difficult for young adults -- at least, young adults who were me.
Jo Walton once used the phrase "the instantiation of metaphor." I like that a lot. It is the special province of fantasy and science fiction, it is something that our genres can do that are difficult or impossible to do in other genres. Being able to change "it is as if she was fighting demons" to having the character literally fight demons opens up a world of possibilities. I don't know much about magic realism, so I can't speak to it, but I believe that it also does similar things with metaphor.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 04:43 am (UTC)Each season is a story arc. One of Buffy's strong points is the story arc which gives the writers enough space to do interesting things with the plot and the characters. Season One is the weakest of all the seasons, in my opinion, with the possible exception of Season Seven. As with most shows, it takes a while to get its feet under itself. The first really good episode, again in my opinion, is "Prophecy Girl", which is the last episode of Season One.
One thing Buffy emphaticically does not lend itself to is scattershot viewing of an episode here and an episode there. My best non-fannish friend said that he really hated BtVS. He'd seen a lot of episodes because his friends all ranted and raved about it, and there was just nothing special there. I talked him into watching Season One, starting from the beginning, and promised we could stop at any point he liked. He watched the first two or three episodes to please me. His attempts to say something nice were amusingly strained. About half-way through Season One, he got totally hooked. We've now finished all of Buffy, and have just started Angel. We get together every Friday night, drink gin and tonics, and watch Buffy (now Angel) DVDs. We average three episodes a night, and sometimes get as high as five.
All that said, I know a lot of people who don't like Buffy. There are the people for whom fantastical settings just don't work. If you've never been able to read a science fiction or fantasy book, Buffy won't do it for you. (Frankly, I can't remember what you liked to read. It has been a long time, hasn't it?) If you're very rigid about wanting things to be absolutely logical and consistent at all times (a lot of sf fans are like that) then Buffy won't live up to your expectations there, either. There are a bunch of other reasons that people have given for hating Buffy. The strangest one I've heard so far is not liking the dialogue. As far as I'm concerned, the dialogue is the reason to watch it in the first place. Whedon and his writers are brilliant. And if you're interested in true writing virtuousity, pay attention to the way they handle exposition. The writers can get more information packed painlessly into six lines of dialogue than most writers can manage in a full minute on screen.
Um, I did mention that I was obsessed, right?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 01:13 pm (UTC)I have a K&M mid-term on Friday, if you could think good thoughts for me, it would be much appreciated. I cannot remember which muscle is a synergist to a muscle in a certain movement but an antagonist to that same muscle in another movement!