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shadowkatManaged to figure out how to make fried chicken and fried zuccini/summer squash with almond flour last night. Seasoned it with garlic/parsley/sea salt/pepper, and used coconut oil. Was rather tasty.
Read that some online blog or zine believes :
AtS is better than BtVS. "If Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show about becoming, then Angel is about something far more challenging: existing. There is a rot to the world, one that threatens to infect us all—not in grand, dramatic ways, but mundane ones. Entropy and inertia are the natural order of things. According to Holland Manners, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil—it works with it".
Eh, the two series are so completely different in tone and style, that it is akin to saying an apple is better than a pear. You either prefer the pear or the apple, but one is not necessarily better than the other. I personally prefer apples - I like the crunch and variety, pears are too mushy. Not a fan of mushy texture. Also pears are sweeter and have a higher inflammatory index. But I know lots of people who prefer pears.
My brother never understood why I preferred Buffy to Angel. He thought Angel was more adult (eh, not really - well not if you include the last four seasons of Buffy, which he wasn't fond of.) Also, my sister-in-law and brother never understood why my mother and I preferred Spike. My mother didn't like Angel and could never get into the series that bore his name, because in part she found the character uninteresting and the actor wooden. While my brother and sisinlaw loved the series, and found Angel adorable. Also they found the physical comedy on Angel hilarious, while it tended to fall flat for me - but the witty by-play and absurdist comedy on Buffy had me laughing out loud.
My father, on the other hand, blissfully ignored both series and watches NCIS instead.
Never been a fan of fantasy serials.
We don't discuss it much. But it is interesting - how people swear one series is better than another, when if fact they are merely just pointing out a preference which has zip to do with any objective criteria whatsoever. I mean, I can argue both are excellent and both are campy cheesy serials, with little effort.
I do however think that of the two, Buffy was far more innovative. Let's face it - Angel has been done multiple times. Brimstone (short-lived), Koljack the Night Stalker, Forever Knight, Moonlight, etc. The most innovative take on the whole Angel trope is probably the serial The Originals, which isn't nearly as well written or captivating. But Buffy? I can't think of anything that resembles Buffy past or present. The closest might have been Veronica Mars. Vamp Diaries - is more about the vampires, not about a girl's coming of age story fighting them. And is there any female superhero shows on at the moment? Not that I can think of. In the past? Maybe Wonder Woman or Dark Angel - but neither featured quite the type of character line up that Buffy had. No, I think one of the reasons I became a die-hard fan of Buffy in a way that I have not become a fan of anything else before or since, is that it just broke the mold or stood outside of the trope, often making fun of or satirising the tropes it found itself in. It just was so different. And unlike a lot of tv shows, never sat on its laurels or phoned it in - the writers kept experimenting and playing with the narrative form. I can't think of many tv shows that have done all of that.
So yes, from that perspective Buffy was the more innovative and interesting series. Angel was a spin-off that initially followed a fairly safe and traditional anti-hero noir detective trope. What Angel did do that separated itself from the pack, however, is it became highly serialized and built a mythology. It also played a little with the trope and commented on it, often making fun of itself in the process, particularly in the latter (and in my opinion at least far more interesting and innovative) seasons.
Actually if you think about it - both shows have that in common. The initial seasons sort of follow a standard and somewhat formulaic traditional television trope. A gang of high-school kids fight and occasionally fall in love with monsters, and the monsters reflect the nasty high school issues they are dealing with. That has sort of been done before and after Buffy - Vampire Diaries was sort of that trope, Hex, and a few others. Albeit not as often as the supernatural noirish lone detective trope has been done (the latest entry to that fold is Constantine and well Sleepy Hollow, Gotham, and Supernatural). Angel started out that way, then sort of drifted away from it - making a law firm of all things the main villain. Normally it's other vampires, family members, demons, or some criminal mob boss - but here it was lawyers and their ability to create order through "laws". Angel tackled order, law, regulations, and control as problems. The Authority - was always the main problem for Angel, the monster or demon that had to be overcome - whether that authority was religious in nature (ie. God or the PTB), legal (the evil law firm WRH), or societal pressures. The phrase "Everybody thinks this is a good idea" - was often the opposite on Angel. And this was in a way what set Angel apart from it's predecessors who often focused on chaos as the bad guy. In Forever Knight - the lead character was a cop, and the monsters were people outside of the police force. On Angel - the bad guy was the police force.
Buffy was similar in a way - it too had issues with Authority. The Mayor was one the major villains in the series. As was the Watcher Council - who could not be counted on and often did more harm than good. Buffy was in some respects based heavily on the Western Trope of the lone gunfighter who comes into town to fix it up, the police, mayor, principal, council - all being a bit on the shady side and part of the problem. It's notable that when Buffy finally becomes an authority figure herself - she becomes her own worst enemy and must blow the town apart along with her image, until she becomes once again - the fighter, not the leader of an increasingly bureaucratic and fascist system.
While it's tempting to think that the writers/creators of these series have been reading a wee bit too much Ayn Rand in their spare time, I don't believe this to be the case. For one thing, not all authority is circumspect, nor is the individual always right. In Rand's universe - as satirized recently online, Buffy would not suffer the aid of Xander or pre-witch Willow. She would do it on her own. And she'd demand to be paid for it. (Although to be fair, I always thought the Council should have given her some compensation. I don't buy into the naive and somewhat childish theory that superheros should save people for free or out of pure altruism - when they have no income and aren't independently wealthy. Heck, soliders, firemen, and cops don't. Support your local sheriff. But that's beside the point and has zip to do with Rand, who was a bit of an extremist in her views. Probably the result of growing up in Stalinist Russia. A good and nasty dictatorship could turn anyone into an extremist.) At any rate - the rebellion against Authority or the Powers that Be is certainly not a new concept and not limited to Whedon or even Rand, although I think Rand had more problems with people who wanted to be taken care of - than authority per se, as long as she was the authority. Phillip Pullman certainly tackles similar issues with his controversial series of children's books entitled His Dark Materials - where a couple of kids challenge The Authority or the organization supporting HIM, the Authority doesn't appear to be around. An idea that has been borrowed to a degree by Supernatural - where Dean and Sam, demon hunters extrordinare, equally question the unknowable and notably absent Authority - and his crumbling organization of angelic followers. Or George Orwell and Adolus Huxley who warn of the dangers of trusting an Authority too much with our basic freedoms and rights in the sci-fi novels 1984 and Brave New World respectively.
But just because it's not a new idea, does not mean you can't be innovative. After all, to borrow an old adage from copyright law, there are no new ideas or even original ones, just new ways of playing with them. What Angel and Buffy did differently was how they envisioned the Authority, and dealt with the struggle to defeat it - discovering to both their considerable chagrin - that when they did finally overthrow or seemingly overthrew the Authority, someone or something had to fill the vaccume left behind - and in both cases it turned out to be Buffy and Angel.
When they became the Authority or guy/gal in charge - things didn't quite work as they thought. They found themselves making some of the same mistakes the authority figures they spent so much time fighting had made. In the end, the only escape, was to blow it apart. Creating another problem - chaos.
Unlike most series, there is no neat ending here. Buffy blows up her town, shares her power, journey's off into the horizon - but is suddenly responsible for all those girls she empowered and the consequences of unleashing them into the world with no rules or authority to train or hinder them. Angel similarly blows up the law firm, and is dumped into Chaos...with hell raining down on him.
The writer's don't provide neat answers. Just questions. Destroy the authority, do we become it? And what then? The child rebels against the adult order, only to become that order...Neither extreme works, and both try to work towards the happy medium.
Most series don't appear to explore it to quite that degree or in quite that fashion. Since Buffy and Angel don't just tackle religious order but also societal order. Most series seem to stop short somewhere along the road. And that may be how these differed at least to me.
Your Mileage May Vary of course.
Need to make dinner.This was unedited and not proofed. Read at your own risk. I may come back and edit tomorrow. Not sure. Didn't plan on writing it. Just sort of came out. [ETA - has been edited somewhat.]
Read that some online blog or zine believes :
AtS is better than BtVS. "If Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show about becoming, then Angel is about something far more challenging: existing. There is a rot to the world, one that threatens to infect us all—not in grand, dramatic ways, but mundane ones. Entropy and inertia are the natural order of things. According to Holland Manners, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil—it works with it".
Eh, the two series are so completely different in tone and style, that it is akin to saying an apple is better than a pear. You either prefer the pear or the apple, but one is not necessarily better than the other. I personally prefer apples - I like the crunch and variety, pears are too mushy. Not a fan of mushy texture. Also pears are sweeter and have a higher inflammatory index. But I know lots of people who prefer pears.
My brother never understood why I preferred Buffy to Angel. He thought Angel was more adult (eh, not really - well not if you include the last four seasons of Buffy, which he wasn't fond of.) Also, my sister-in-law and brother never understood why my mother and I preferred Spike. My mother didn't like Angel and could never get into the series that bore his name, because in part she found the character uninteresting and the actor wooden. While my brother and sisinlaw loved the series, and found Angel adorable. Also they found the physical comedy on Angel hilarious, while it tended to fall flat for me - but the witty by-play and absurdist comedy on Buffy had me laughing out loud.
My father, on the other hand, blissfully ignored both series and watches NCIS instead.
Never been a fan of fantasy serials.
We don't discuss it much. But it is interesting - how people swear one series is better than another, when if fact they are merely just pointing out a preference which has zip to do with any objective criteria whatsoever. I mean, I can argue both are excellent and both are campy cheesy serials, with little effort.
I do however think that of the two, Buffy was far more innovative. Let's face it - Angel has been done multiple times. Brimstone (short-lived), Koljack the Night Stalker, Forever Knight, Moonlight, etc. The most innovative take on the whole Angel trope is probably the serial The Originals, which isn't nearly as well written or captivating. But Buffy? I can't think of anything that resembles Buffy past or present. The closest might have been Veronica Mars. Vamp Diaries - is more about the vampires, not about a girl's coming of age story fighting them. And is there any female superhero shows on at the moment? Not that I can think of. In the past? Maybe Wonder Woman or Dark Angel - but neither featured quite the type of character line up that Buffy had. No, I think one of the reasons I became a die-hard fan of Buffy in a way that I have not become a fan of anything else before or since, is that it just broke the mold or stood outside of the trope, often making fun of or satirising the tropes it found itself in. It just was so different. And unlike a lot of tv shows, never sat on its laurels or phoned it in - the writers kept experimenting and playing with the narrative form. I can't think of many tv shows that have done all of that.
So yes, from that perspective Buffy was the more innovative and interesting series. Angel was a spin-off that initially followed a fairly safe and traditional anti-hero noir detective trope. What Angel did do that separated itself from the pack, however, is it became highly serialized and built a mythology. It also played a little with the trope and commented on it, often making fun of itself in the process, particularly in the latter (and in my opinion at least far more interesting and innovative) seasons.
Actually if you think about it - both shows have that in common. The initial seasons sort of follow a standard and somewhat formulaic traditional television trope. A gang of high-school kids fight and occasionally fall in love with monsters, and the monsters reflect the nasty high school issues they are dealing with. That has sort of been done before and after Buffy - Vampire Diaries was sort of that trope, Hex, and a few others. Albeit not as often as the supernatural noirish lone detective trope has been done (the latest entry to that fold is Constantine and well Sleepy Hollow, Gotham, and Supernatural). Angel started out that way, then sort of drifted away from it - making a law firm of all things the main villain. Normally it's other vampires, family members, demons, or some criminal mob boss - but here it was lawyers and their ability to create order through "laws". Angel tackled order, law, regulations, and control as problems. The Authority - was always the main problem for Angel, the monster or demon that had to be overcome - whether that authority was religious in nature (ie. God or the PTB), legal (the evil law firm WRH), or societal pressures. The phrase "Everybody thinks this is a good idea" - was often the opposite on Angel. And this was in a way what set Angel apart from it's predecessors who often focused on chaos as the bad guy. In Forever Knight - the lead character was a cop, and the monsters were people outside of the police force. On Angel - the bad guy was the police force.
Buffy was similar in a way - it too had issues with Authority. The Mayor was one the major villains in the series. As was the Watcher Council - who could not be counted on and often did more harm than good. Buffy was in some respects based heavily on the Western Trope of the lone gunfighter who comes into town to fix it up, the police, mayor, principal, council - all being a bit on the shady side and part of the problem. It's notable that when Buffy finally becomes an authority figure herself - she becomes her own worst enemy and must blow the town apart along with her image, until she becomes once again - the fighter, not the leader of an increasingly bureaucratic and fascist system.
While it's tempting to think that the writers/creators of these series have been reading a wee bit too much Ayn Rand in their spare time, I don't believe this to be the case. For one thing, not all authority is circumspect, nor is the individual always right. In Rand's universe - as satirized recently online, Buffy would not suffer the aid of Xander or pre-witch Willow. She would do it on her own. And she'd demand to be paid for it. (Although to be fair, I always thought the Council should have given her some compensation. I don't buy into the naive and somewhat childish theory that superheros should save people for free or out of pure altruism - when they have no income and aren't independently wealthy. Heck, soliders, firemen, and cops don't. Support your local sheriff. But that's beside the point and has zip to do with Rand, who was a bit of an extremist in her views. Probably the result of growing up in Stalinist Russia. A good and nasty dictatorship could turn anyone into an extremist.) At any rate - the rebellion against Authority or the Powers that Be is certainly not a new concept and not limited to Whedon or even Rand, although I think Rand had more problems with people who wanted to be taken care of - than authority per se, as long as she was the authority. Phillip Pullman certainly tackles similar issues with his controversial series of children's books entitled His Dark Materials - where a couple of kids challenge The Authority or the organization supporting HIM, the Authority doesn't appear to be around. An idea that has been borrowed to a degree by Supernatural - where Dean and Sam, demon hunters extrordinare, equally question the unknowable and notably absent Authority - and his crumbling organization of angelic followers. Or George Orwell and Adolus Huxley who warn of the dangers of trusting an Authority too much with our basic freedoms and rights in the sci-fi novels 1984 and Brave New World respectively.
But just because it's not a new idea, does not mean you can't be innovative. After all, to borrow an old adage from copyright law, there are no new ideas or even original ones, just new ways of playing with them. What Angel and Buffy did differently was how they envisioned the Authority, and dealt with the struggle to defeat it - discovering to both their considerable chagrin - that when they did finally overthrow or seemingly overthrew the Authority, someone or something had to fill the vaccume left behind - and in both cases it turned out to be Buffy and Angel.
When they became the Authority or guy/gal in charge - things didn't quite work as they thought. They found themselves making some of the same mistakes the authority figures they spent so much time fighting had made. In the end, the only escape, was to blow it apart. Creating another problem - chaos.
Unlike most series, there is no neat ending here. Buffy blows up her town, shares her power, journey's off into the horizon - but is suddenly responsible for all those girls she empowered and the consequences of unleashing them into the world with no rules or authority to train or hinder them. Angel similarly blows up the law firm, and is dumped into Chaos...with hell raining down on him.
The writer's don't provide neat answers. Just questions. Destroy the authority, do we become it? And what then? The child rebels against the adult order, only to become that order...Neither extreme works, and both try to work towards the happy medium.
Most series don't appear to explore it to quite that degree or in quite that fashion. Since Buffy and Angel don't just tackle religious order but also societal order. Most series seem to stop short somewhere along the road. And that may be how these differed at least to me.
Your Mileage May Vary of course.
Need to make dinner.
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 02:39 pm (UTC)The writer's don't provide neat answers. Just questions. Destroy the authority, do we become it? And what then? The child rebels against the adult order, only to become that order...Neither extreme works, and both try to work towards the happy medium.
I'm copying this entire portion because this is probably one of the best summations of what the series were and what they were trying to do (at least btvs, I haven't seen Angel) that I've come across, in terms of questions of power and authority, which are embedded in btvs from the very first episode. (the mild librarian is a Watcher, the principal is eaten by his own students, etc)
And I know not everyone agrees but I like the open-endedness; the insistence that everything be neatly wrapped up by the last episode seems besides the point to me. NFA is somewhat more open-ended than Chosen, I think? (Again, going from what I've read not seen) But ME had Btvs as a "laboratory" to practice and experiment for AtS.
she becomes her own worst enemy and must blow the town apart along with her image, until she becomes once again
That's a great image, and probably the best summary of Chosen yet, and I love the parallel to the lone gunslinger trope. (Which I've rarely seen stated - is it because of Buffy's gender, or the fantasy and romance elements? - but seems perfectly obvious now.)
ETA: found this via petzipellepingo's rec list: http://petzipellepingo.livejournal.com/10604747.html
no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 03:17 pm (UTC)I've found that a lot of people who say Angel is more mature tend to ignore 4-7 of Buffy. It's continually relegated to 1-3 and while it's less dark than 4-7, I still wouldn't say AtS is more mature. It's more grim, sure, but grim doesn't equal mature, necessarily.
Also, I have to disagree that Angel was about balancing good/evil. If anything S5 turned that on its head, no? That was the point. Thinking they could use evil to do good blew up in their faces.
Meh. I think both are stories that end up in similar places but from opposite beginnings. Buffy was about learning to accept yourself. Angel was about getting over yourself. The coming of age aspect of Buffy pretty much ended in S3, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 11:06 pm (UTC)NFA is somewhat more open-ended than Chosen, I think? (Again, going from what I've read not seen)
Yes and no. I've heard valid arguments on both sides. It depends on how you choose to interpret the episodes, I suspect.
NFA - does sort of end with the demons raining down on them, and it does look like our heroes are walking to their deaths. (The Wild Bunch/Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ending - a popular 1970s Western ending - where the protagonists walk into a final gunfight, and die fighting. You don't necessarily see it.) The other interpretation is they survived to fight another day (or Brian Lynch's comic book series ending).
Chosen - on the other hand, really is pretty open-ended. Buffy and her friends leave Sunnydale and appear to riding off into the sunset in their school bus. But she empowered all these new slayers and in Angel we learn they've set up shop over seas and are training slayers. Only the "Sunnydale" chapter has been closed.
While in Angel - he doesn't leave LA and appears to go down with the city. A true noir ending.
So of the two...Angel's is arguably less open-ended. It's just the more nihilistic ending, but that is in keeping with its genre - noir, where the hero is doomed to forever fall into the abyss, along with the world he inhabits. Some prefer that, but I don't think you can objectively state it is better, more adult, etc...it's just a genre preference.
which are embedded in btvs from the very first episode. (the mild librarian is a Watcher, the principal is eaten by his own students, etc)
Yes, I think the authority theme is one of the few themes that carries through to the very end of the series. And to fully appreciate the depth of the exploration - you sort of have to have seen the entire series. Something is lost - in skipping over bits. Some episodes explore more in depth than others, but it is definitely in all of them to some extent.
I've also noticed that it is a recurring theme in Mutant Enemy's other work - such as Marvel Agents of Shield, Firefly, Dollhouse, Much Ado About Nothing, and Cabin in the Woods. Although not quite as deftly examined as it is in BTVS, oddly.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 11:14 pm (UTC)Although I think both series ultimately was less about good/evil per se than order/chaos or power and authority. Coming of age was definitely part of it - dealing with power, and handling various types of authority - and what do we do when we become the very authority we've been battling against? Do we make the same mistakes? Is Angel any better than the Mayor, the Master or WRH? Is Buffy any better than Glory or Professor Walsh, Adam, the Watcher Council or the First Evil?
Given the circumstances - we are all capable of making difficult and evil choices, albeit depending on one's pov.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-09 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 02:30 am (UTC)Would make life easier.
Writing the post above clarified something for me - or I finally figured out why I have become fannish over certain shows and not others. I have issues with authority figures - and power, and series that explore that issue in depth clearly resonate for me on a certain level that other series that don't explore it do.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 02:34 am (UTC)Yeah, the "outsider who challenges power" theme is pretty compelling to me too. But BtVS also grabbed me emotionally through Buffy, Willow, and Spike, in ways that no other show has. Maybe Arya Stark, but that includes the book so it's not an equal comparison.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 02:39 am (UTC)Nor for that matter does Game of Thrones.
So - I do have to connect with the characters on a deep level. And for it to sustain itself - there has to be a steady flow of new and interesting character development.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 05:52 pm (UTC)I didn't read the article, but I've read ones with the basic Angel >> BtVS premise before, and it leaves me a little cold. I love "Angel," I think it's a great show, and there are certain things it did better than "Buffy" -- but I just find "Buffy" more gripping and emotionally affecting, and I disagree with contentions that AtS dealt with philosophy and BtVS didn't, or that type of thing, or that AtS is necessarily more adult. As you say -- I think it's genre preference more than anything else.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 06:34 pm (UTC)I don't really think you can say one was better than the other, necessarily. Ratings wise? Buffy did better and lasted longer. It also had a bigger effect on pop culture and the tv landscape - mainly because it was far more innovative and there really hasn't been anything on like it before or since.
A lot of tv scribes, from Shondra Rhimes to Russell T Davies, were highly influenced by Buffy and stated how it changed how they viewed television.
While Angel was a good series and I enjoyed it - it really doesn't stand out that much in television history. It didn't change how people viewed tv nor did it really influence anyone. The trope/genre it was in - was done before and done since.
That's the only thing I think can be quantified - on an objective scale.
Philosophy? A friend of mine has an entire site devoted to the philosophy of Buffy and Angel. Actually, I started actively discussing and writing about BTVS on a site entitled All Things Philosophical about BTVS and ATS. It's still up.
So, yeah, mainly a genre preference or personal preference. Unless you are discussing how it changed and influenced television or pop culture? Then hands down Buffy, Angel at the end of the day, from a purely pop culture standpoint, was just a really cool spin-off.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-10 06:51 pm (UTC)I guess to continue on the theme, it's interesting how some ideas from one show get picked up in another -- for example, the way "The Wish" and "Birthday" tell a kind of similar story centred around Cordelia, of a world in which Cordelia is "the star" and in which she is no longer an adjunct to the main character's journey. However, "The Wish" very deliberately, and I think even subversively, cuts short the obvious narrative -- where Cordelia learns Buffy's importance and comes to terms with it, etc. -- completely short, killing the episode's apparent protagonist halfway through, and then going on to tell the "real" story, which is following through on the consequences of Buffy's absence on Buffy, her friends, the town, etc. Whereas "Birthday" is a more traditional story in which Cordelia recognizes her value to the cause over her value as a star. The latter is in some ways more traditionally satisfying as a narrative -- Cordelia has a character arc with a real beginning, middle, and end -- but it's also I'd argue less imaginative and in some ways easier on the character (Cordelia has to choose between being an amazing person because she's a Champion selected by the Powers That Be, or being an amazing person because she's a television star -- as opposed to "The Wish," where she has to choose between being a bit player in someone else's story or the star of a narrative that ends with her death).
I'm definitely aware of the ATPOBTVS site :) I've browsed there before.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-11 02:57 am (UTC)Except, the two scenarios aren't really comparable. Because it's "Fred" not "Connor" that Angel lets die. In "Home" - Angel puts the team, the world, LA in great jeopardy to save Connor. He sacrifices everyone to save Connor - and doesn't find another way. He takes the deal with the devil. In fact it can be argued that Fred dies because Angel sacrificed Fred to save his son. A son who tried to kill a mall full of people - who was not an innocent young girl who never hurt anyone and bravely fought alongside her sister.
While in Buffy - Buffy realizes that she can save Dawn and the World, by sacrificing herself. She doesn't allow the world to end, and she doesn't allow Dawn to die. And she doesn't sacrifice her friends for Dawn. She only sacrifices herself.
When it has been other people - for example "Angel", who she has to kill in order to save the world in S2 - she kills him. Actually that's why she balks at killing Dawn and Spike. Angel - notably has never had to make that choice until Fred - and he didn't love Fred the way Buffy loved Angel. But in S7 - she states she'd do it - if there was no other way.
This is why Buffy was a hero and Angel was an anti-hero.
Buffy put others needs first, Angel put his own needs first. Both were consequentialists and idealists - in their own ways. The difference is in tone - Buffy is lighter, Angel is the dark side of both. Both saw the consequences, they just chose which ones mattered the most. Angel never sacrificed himself or his son, he sacrificed his team, which is why notably at the end of Angel - all the original members, his versions of Willow (Wes), Xander (Cordelia), Giles (Doyle), Anya (Gunn), Tara (Fred) - are either dead or soon to be dead - and mainly due to their involvement with him. That's the genre - in noir - the hero isn't a hero, he's an anti-hero, and everyone who champions him is dead by the end of his story. And unlike Buffy, Angel's idealism - was that he would shanshu that he would be seen as a champion. He isn't interested in saving the world - he's interested in being saved. He remains up until the very end deluded about who and what he is - WRH manages to pull a major con on him because of his idealist opinion of himself.
Buffy in contrast sees the good in others, and sees others as worth saving. Unlike Angel, she doesn't want or need to be the hero, she just steps up because she wants to make the world better.
Unlike Buffy, Angel can't share his power - because it is stolen. It's not his. His power comes from sucking life from the living. He's has superpowers purely through being a vampire. And when he's given the opportunity to be human, to no longer be a vampire - he squanders it - believing that if he did so - he'd destroy Buffy? Please.
The writer's took the theme a step further with Cordelia in both The Wish and Birthday. Note that Cordy needs to be the lead actor, important, the center of attention in both episodes. In one - she's killed off early - and the focus shifts to everyone else - not even Buffy is the lead in that episode. No the main characters or heroes are actually Giles and OZ. It's not Buffy being absent from their lives, so much as Buffy and their interaction in Sunnydale being what changed. Because when Buffy pops up - she's bitter, angry, and useless.
Everyone dies. While in Birthday - which is a delusion that Skip and the PTB feed Cordy - using Cordy's insecurities to build on it, her deepest wishes and desires. Cordy needs to be important, integral to the team, a superhero. She needs to be a star. She was always Queen Bee. Cordy is the classic narcissist - she has no inner self, all of her self esteem comes from what others think of her, how they view her, how important she is to them. It's no wonder she eventually becomes possessed by a Goddess who reflects everything she most desires.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-11 04:28 am (UTC)I think part of the reason Buffy does kill Angel, though -- is that she recognizes on some level that Angel has some responsibility for Acathla. Dawn has no responsibility for Glory. And while Buffy on some level keep Angel's souled and unsouled actions separate, I think she doesn't entirely -- if she could completely separate the two sides of Angel, then she wouldn't let Angelus "get" to her. If Angelus has some Angel inside him, then Angel has some Angelus inside him.
Part of the way I read "Becoming" also comes down to how real, or not-real, Angel is as a person. Angel is a vampire. He's already dead. He doesn't cast reflection. And indeed, if you look at seasons one and two, we don't get much of a sense of Angel's inner life -- perhaps because, for all intents and purposes, he doesn't have one. Out-of-story, Angel is made up of fantasy tropes, of Buffy's fantasy, in order to do the horror tale that they tell in season two. In-story, Angel's only way of interacting with humans is to do what he did as a vampire -- to show them what they wanted to see in order to entrap them. I don't think Angel is trying to entrap Buffy before his soul loss -- I think that he is consciously trying to do what he tells Whistler he wants to do in the "Becoming" flashbacks: he wants to help her. But Angel, as we know, has been away from humans for decades. So he presents himself as fantasy boyfriend because I think he intuits that's the role that Buffy "wants," to get close. Angel, as a human -- died with Liam, or at least, that is one of the possible interpretations of the story. And in that interpretation, Buffy is not killing an innocent person.
It's a very good point that Angel does basically sign the world away for Connor -- and that is the true equivalent. Meanwhile, what Angel does isn't even the same as "saving" his son. He not only "saves" his son's life. As we see, Angel can get close to Connor, and manages to "defeat" him in combat. If Angel got his whole team with him, I think it's very likely he would be able to subdue Connor, bring him back to the hotel, lock him up in the cage used for Angel earlier in the season still in the Hyperion basement, and try to talk to him. This could be done without selling his team's futures away. But no -- he's already given up on Connor as he is. Which is, I think, because Angel doesn't fundamentally believe in his own redemption. Angel had to have someone magically transform his life for him to get where he is, and even that was apparently not enough -- so he magically transforms Connor, and sacrifices his team in the process.
Now, Buffy risks several lives to trade the Box of Gavrok back for Willow -- which has a fairly close equivalent, I think, in Angel agreeing to release Billy for W&H in order to get Cordy back. I don't think Buffy would truly, absolutely let hundreds of people die to get Willow back -- but she is unwilling to follow Wesley's harsher code and give up Willow for a certain victory over the Mayor as opposed to the possibility of defeat (and they do, after all, defeat the Mayor).
One thing that is pitiable about Angel, when compared to Buffy, is that Angel really wants to be a hero partly because...he has done so many terrible things. The only way to make up for what he's done is to do something big -- to work for one day where he's "redeemed." Buffy's cosmic score card is mostly empty when she shows up in Sunnydale -- with not many pluses and minuses -- and she is able to take things one day at a time more easily. Angel's need to prove himself, to be a hero, is his way of attempting to make up for a long and bloody past which *nothing* can make up for, at all. He can't make up for his past, but he also finds it very difficult to ignore it -- and so he hangs his hopes on the idea that he might some day be able to. I think both shows suggest that being a hero is something that one can't achieve by *trying* to be one; the best one can do is to try to be one's best self, to try to do more good than bad on any given day.
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Date: 2014-10-11 04:29 am (UTC)And definitely -- knowing that "Birthday" was a setup from Skip changes the tenor of the episode a great deal. I sort of read it on two levels (well, at least two levels!) because it actually sort of works when read straight-up -- as a traditional story of choosing what is difficult and right over what is easy. But this is just the first layer -- the layer that is designed to appeal to and trick Cordelia. It's pretty ingenious as a trick for both Cordelia and audience -- because dig deeper, and Skip is offering her a false dichotomy, of a life in which Cordy is the star of a chintzy TV show, who has lots of fans -- or the star in a cosmic battle of good vs. evil, in which she is truly the only woman in all the world who can handle the terrible burden of the visions dropped on her. The same kind of false dichotomy is dropped on Cordelia in the finale -- in which Skip "makes her" choose between becoming the leading lady in the personal drama of Angel's life, or the leading lady in the world drama, the key player in good vs. evil.
Part of what is interesting about it -- is that it really suggests that there are no circumstances in which a person should be set so high above others. It goes in direct contrast to Buffy refusing more power in "Get it Done." I don't think it's as simple as that Buffy is selfless and Cordelia is selfish -- because we are reminded that Buffy could have been like Cordelia, and more to the point, I think Cordelia really is very strongly motivated, by s3 or so, to do good. Rather, it questions the idea at all that any human, even with the best of intentions, can truly be a "Higher Power." Or perhaps there are humans who have achieved some degree of enlightenment -- but heroes are basically people like us. That is the realization Buffy eventually comes to -- that being "better" than other people hurts both her and others, and that the solution is to bring other people to her level.
I think Cordelia's desire to help the helpless is pretty genuine -- and while there are definitely narcissistic elements in her martyrdom, re: the visions, her staying with the visions is still a pretty remarkable willingness to endure incredible pain for what she thinks is right. She trades in her old values of glamour and the like. The problem is, she picks up a different kind of glamour, of being a Champion -- which is part of Angel's problem as well. I think the two reinforce each other's bad habits to a degree.
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Date: 2014-10-11 03:49 pm (UTC)Regarding Cordelia & Angel and what narcissism:
I recently learned what "narcissist" means - it's someone who does not have a strong sense of self, at the core for whatever reason, they have no true sense of their own self-worth or their own inner voice. They can't get value internally - they have to get it externally - from other sources.
This need for approval, for acceptance - to be a hero or champion in others eyes may be the fatal flaw in Angel and Cordy's characters. And the reason they need it - is in part environmental - neither had unconditional love. Buffy had her mother's unconditional love. Cordy and Angel seem to be without that. And if you look through all the episodes of both series - it is in a way a recurring theme. The characters who seek external approval or glory, tend to fall apart. You can't get your self-worth from others, that's not how it works.
The metaphor of the vampire - and the inability for Angel to cast a reflection (except in photographs) is interesting - for the narcissist desperately needs to see his reflection in another - to get that approval. Angel's need for approval, for that positive reflection was what motivated Liam (who rebelled because he couldn't have his father's approval), and it motivated Angelus (to become the worst vampire ever to obtain the Master's approval and admiration - which he did), and Angel (to become a hero/champion to obtain the PTB, Buffy, and possibly God's approval and admiration). Note everything Angel does is to obtain approval from another source. He can't get it from himself. He has no core self. And with Angel, more so even with Spike - we constantly see him looking in mirrors - and wishing to see himself.
Cordelia is similar - everything she does is to obtain external approval. Cordy is constantly talking to mirrors in the series as well. Ironically, the song she selects to sing, while possessed by the Gods that tricked her, is "The Greatest Love of All" - which is of course your self. You really can't love anyone else until you love yourself first. Because otherwise all you are doing is attempting to fill an empty void. Being self-less is really no better than being selfish. The Gods in a way are telling us what is wrong with Cordy.
She needs someone else to tell her what is right.
Same with Angel - he needs the oracles, Doyle or Cordy's visions to tell him what to do. Who to save to obtain that approval.
This by the way is why Cordy and Angel could not work as a couple. They enabled each other - their relationship at its core was about mirroring what they wished to see about themselves reflected in the other.
What neither can wrap their heads around, even though various people tell them at different points - "that it's the choices we make each day, the individuals we save or help or care about along the way. The seemingly unimportant people. Not the big stuff." In Epithany - Angel is told that - but he promptly forgets it.
But Buffy seems to get it -in part because she is loved. She's not self-less. And doesn't need to obtain approval. She knows in her core, in her heart, who she is. That's what makes Buffy powerful enough to say no to the shamans in Get it Done.
I think this is a theme in both series. Superstar - is about a boy with no sense of self, who makes a deal with the devil to become a star - to do all the things that he believes will obtain love and approval. But it's never enough. He's never satisfied. And it feels empty, not real. And Superstar is very similar in construct to Birthday. The theme explored seems to be: How we view and define and feel about ourselves - has a huge affect on how we interact with the world around us and the decisions we make. I think you need to be your own hero/champion before you can be anyone elses - if that makes sense?
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Date: 2014-10-11 04:22 pm (UTC)I'm on my phone so sorry if there are any mistakes!
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Date: 2014-10-11 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-11 08:42 pm (UTC)Agreed on the above.
Willow is interesting though. And you could make a valid argument that she's another classic example of narcissism. Her parents barely acknowledge her - and from what little we see in Gingerbread, they view her as a trophy or a validation of themselves. So, her family is narcissistic.
Also, Willow gets her self-worth from others. It's why she falls apart when OZ leaves her, and falls apart again when Tara leaves. It's also why she needs magic - because she feels like a 0 or loser without it.
But what distinguishes Willow from Cordelia and Harmony and Angel as well as Wes...is she does have some inner strength. She manages to survive without the magic and without Tara. And when she accesses the magic again in S7- she is provided with a choice, whether to become like Amy or for that matter Warren, or more like Tara.
Willow doesn't completely rely on external validation, any more than Xander or Spike do. They don't really want or desire center stage. Willow only takes center stage when she's either pushed there after Chosen, or out of grief - when she loses Tara. But it's temporary in each case. And they appear to be beaten down a lot, yet still stand without constant stroking. They aren't told they are chosen or destiny.
Spike isn't cursed with soul. And Willow is good at the magic like the hacking, but she does seem to know who she is without the magic. She's not quite as lost.
In part it's the difference between the two genres...Angel's story is a dark one, it's about falling into the pit of despair and attempting, possibly futilely to rise above it. And like you stated so well above,
Angel doesn't believe in himself, any more than Cordelia does. Their friends were never real or true. They just had "groupies". Angel never quite trusts those around him, any more than Cordy does. Both surround themselves with groupies or people who will stroke them.
Angelus did this as well - with the Fanged Four (who were his groupies, he didn't love them or trust them, their purpose was to adore Angelus.)
Willow as lost as she seems at times - doesn't surround herself with groupies. She doesn't require Buffy's approval. Not really. Nor Tara's.
Nor Giles. If she did, she may not have gone quite as off the rails.
In some respects, I found her to be more complex than the characters on Angel - but that may just be my own preferences - since I know there are people online at this moment who felt the exact opposite.
Part of the reason Willow and Tara are doomed though, is well the same reason Willow and Oz were - Willow needed Tara and Oz's love, stroking, validation...and was petrified of losing it, but I don't think she trusted them completely. I think she was always afraid of their betrayal or desertion. And she couldn't quite be there for either OZ or Tara, without trying to control them in some way. Willow has major control issues - which has less to do with feelings of self-worth and more to do with trust.
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Date: 2014-10-11 08:51 pm (UTC)Gunn strikes me as being similar to Xander or another take on the Xander character. Both grew up in semi-violent environments - either with violent parents (Xander) or in a violent street gang (Gunn). Both had to kill someone they loved and trusted who had turned into a vampire.
Both fear becoming violent. Both fear not being taken seriously, considered just the geeky dork (Xander) or the street thug (Gunn). They are afraid that how others have defined them is who they are. They are also both afraid of becoming that which they slew - the monster. Xander fears becoming his father - note, unlike Angel he doesn't want his father's approval, if anything he'd prefer not to have it, what he is afraid of is becoming his father. He's the opposite of Angel.
Gunn's a darker take on Xander, just as Cordelia was a darker take on Willow.
Gunn does seek out external sources to prevent his fears. Xander never does.
Gunn doesn't trust himself to be good enough without enhancements,possibly due to Fred choosing Wes over him? Xander doesn't trust himself to be good enough for Anya, possibly due to his fear of his father and unresolved issues with Buffy choosing Angel over him?
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Date: 2014-10-11 09:06 pm (UTC)I agree and interesting take on Becoming. I think after Becoming, it is impossible for Buffy to trust Angel or any man for that matter. Her issues with Riley and Spike in some respects circle back to Becoming, and her discovery that she can't trust Angel. Note, not Angelus, Angel.
She admits this to him in S3 - finally. She loves him but she can't trust him. And because Angel doesn't believe he should be saved or redeemed - never makes the choice to have a soul, for him its a curse. He'd actually prefer to be without it. Notably, Buffy begins to trust again - Spike - when he chooses the soul. Spike chooses hope, while Angel always chooses despair.
Going back to S1 Finale Prophecy Girl - it's notable that Angel doesn't save Buffy - but instead provides the information leading her to her demise - because hello, destiny/prophecy - it's been foretold and Angel is a fatalist. When Xander and Angel find Buffy in Prophecy Girl - Angel decides it is over, she's dead. Xander says screw you and saves her. And in Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest - Angel tells Buffy she's going to fail. The Master is stronger.
It's Spike in Becoming - who decides that this isn't necessarily the case, and that he and Buffy working together can take down Angelus. That the world is not doomed to end. He's not a fatalist.
It's one of the reasons Buffy and Angel can't ever work in the long run. Buffy believes in herself, in hope, and a positive outcome - that you can change the world and your destiny remains in your hands unwritten, while Angel believes in nothing, and the world is doomed to failure, and there's nothing you can do to avoid destiny. The two views are opposed. He brings on the end of the world, Buffy finds a way to prevent it.
In other words - what motivated Angelus to resurrect Acathla and bring about the end of the world - is the same thing that motivates Angel.
Both are empty vessels for whatever prophecy or destiny or external force that comes along for them to attach too.
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Date: 2014-10-11 09:18 pm (UTC)Part of the way I read "Becoming" also comes down to how real, or not-real, Angel is as a person. Angel is a vampire. He's already dead. He doesn't cast reflection. And indeed, if you look at seasons one and two, we don't get much of a sense of Angel's inner life -- perhaps because, for all intents and purposes, he doesn't have one. Out-of-story, Angel is made up of fantasy tropes, of Buffy's fantasy, in order to do the horror tale that they tell in season two.
I agree and hadn't really thought of it that way before. But I think part of what the writers were doing with the Buffy/Angel story is examining those romantic fantasy tropes. They set them up like carefully placed dominoes..and slowly struck each one down, examining the flaws. The whole Beauty and the Beast fantasy trope is spun on its ear - she sleeps with "Angel" and he turns into a Beast. Her love seemingly turns him into a monster. Because he can't accept her love - her hope. It gets sucked into an abyss. He's not a person so much as an ideal - whatever she needs him to be. He has no self. So when they make love - share their real selves, expose their real selves - who should emerge? Angelus. Free from the curse. Almost as if the cursed self is the false self or false trope, the sugar coating. While beneath is the monster..?
Angel is the tortured soul - another fantasy trope, but Buffy can't save him.
Angel can't do it himself. He's always a hair-line away. And you can't help but wonder if he wants to be saved?
The creators of both series - clearly studied these tropes in horror films and films - and felt the need to deconstruct them. I think it's the deconstruction of the tropes - that partly attracted me to the series. Particularly what they did with Angel. I was admittedly not that invested in the series...oh I liked it okay, but no more than anything else - until Innocence when Angel flipped and how he flipped. That surprised me. Suddenly the series became about something else. And it became clear that Buffy/Angel was not meant to be a positive romantic relationship. The writers were taking a hammer to the star-crossed lover trope in more ways than one.
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Date: 2014-10-12 12:23 am (UTC)In the Buffyverse they are denied the right to really mature - they are simply seen as static entities. Moving to AtS opens their personal universes in some amazing ways. I know this was needed - Buffy had it's quota of characters to follow if nothing else.
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Date: 2014-10-12 12:28 am (UTC)Arya is the ultimate realist - and she refuses to give in - that is also why I like BtVS. And why I like Wesley in Angel. They see through illusions and lies. The same can be said for Spike, but issues involving his love life are exempted.
They challenge power on so many levels.
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Date: 2014-10-12 12:54 am (UTC)Whereas Angel not only sold his entire crew down the river, he then figured the most grandiose way possible to negate that choice and kill that crew, as well as opening the world to an invasion of monsters. I love the way Spike pegs him - always needed to think he was the leader, needs high quality accoutrements, refuses to see an almost inevitable disaster because he now takes the place of God.
And btw - I'm a Spangel fan, so I do love Angel. Just prefer to keep it real.