(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Found a few things of interest on lj today:

1. http://community.ew.com/2015/07/24/love-bites-angel-or-spike/

Basically one EW blogger writes for Team Angel, and one for Team Spike. So far they have one comment.
The Team Angel comment lost me when she told me that both Angel and Buffy were heroes...eh, not really. Angel is what I'd call an anti-hero or classic noir hero - whose actions inevitably doom everyone around him, and he can never quite rise above his flaws. Reminds me a lot of the character of Luke in General Hospital, actually, abusive father, saintly mother, adoring sister, killed both his parents, and tries to be a hero, has an earth-shaking soul-mate relationship with a petite blond girl, who is a hero, but he can't ever really be with -- without destroying her. Later, he has a far more adult relationship with a rich bitchy heiress, who saves him a few times from himself, but is always feeling put aside by his one great first love with the pretty blond heroine (Laura). Finally, coming to grips with his issues, he decides to leave town, leave both loves, and go find his own redemption. It's not a new trope. Actually I didn't realize how similar the character's arcs were until I just wrote that.

Hero? Eh...depends on how narrow or broad your definition is and what your criteria for hero is.
Mileage varies on it. I've argued it to death on lj. Dlgood and I used to fight over it. We have yet to persuade one another. Actually, we just end up pissing each other off. Which to be honest happens most of the time that anyone engages in this particular debate. Because let's face it - one person's idea of a hero may well be another person's idea of a villain. Look at the political landscape, for every person who saw Obama or Bush or Reagan or Clinton or Carter or Nixon or Roosevelt or Churchill as heroic, there was someone else who REALLY didn't. Same is true with religion and mythology. Hercules - if read one way, is heroic, read another way is anything but.

Actually that was what I liked about how they wrote Angel and Spike on Buffy, you could argue it both ways. This was true of all the characters on that series, at any given moment they could either do something unexpectedly heroic or villainous.

People want it to clear cut or black and white. Black hats vs. White Hats. Heroes vs. Villains. But seriously? That's boring and predictable. Far more interesting when its not.

2. Tumblr discussions.

*People on Tumblr miss livejournal, while there are folks defending tumblir

* and Frelling Talk's discussion of it in LJ

Personally, I think the popularity is a side effect of people doing everything communication oriented on their smartphone.

Comments

[rahirah]

I see Angel as someone who wants to be a hero, and needs to be a hero, and sometimes succeeds in being a hero... but just as often, fucks it up and becomes a villain. Because epiphany aside, what he wants is not really to save people so they won't suffer so much, but to save people so HE won't suffer so much. So he saves 'em whether they want or need it or not.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sort of agree...he seems to like the idea of being a "hero". Cordelia and Wesley were somewhat the same way -- they desperately wanted to be "heroes" because you know, "heroes are good guys, they get applause, etc". I think they looked at Buffy, Giles, etc and only saw the "cool stuff" not the other side of it.

He is also a means justify the ends sort of guy. Hey, I saved them, does it really matter how I went about it? (Spike to be fair was somewhat the same way.)

But, I think you're right - he saved people so he could be redeemed or not suffer, so he could get the nice shiny prize at the end of it. When the prize was no longer attainable, he thought screw it - I'll do what I want to save the people I care about.
So he was sort of a hero - with the view of...well what's in it for me? Reminds me a little bit of the Iron Man/Batman hero trope, as opposed to the Captain America/Superman hero trope.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I have a rather different take on it - as far as I'm concerned (comics aside, but I think his role in the comics is just pointless character assassination to serve Buffy's personal development) when he goes wrong is when he starts seeing the point of heroism as being punishing the wicked instead of helping the afflicted.

[elisi]

he saved people so he could be redeemed or not suffer, so he could get the nice shiny prize at the end of it. When the prize was no longer attainable, he thought screw it - I'll do what I want to save the people I care about.
I am afraid I'm going to have to argue with this. Yes, Angel does fall into the trap of beliveing he 'deserves' an award, but not all that often. And he formulates one of the most beautiful thoughts on heroism ever put forward:

Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters... , then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.
Angel: I keep saying that, but nobody's listening.

When he sells out, it is purely for the sake of saving his son. The 'prize' goes off to never-never land as a consequence of that, not the other way around. And the compromises he then has to live with at W&H tear him apart until he goes for the only option he can see - to just go in all guns blazing.

I'm not saying he isn't a very flawed hero, but if he's 'in it' for anything, it's atonement. Or maybe more accurately, as the_royal_anna said:

And this is it: the bleak, endless cycle Angel fights against. He is the victim that dares to be the champion. But is he driven by the blood in his heart or the blood on his hands?

I don't know that Angel acts to prove he's worth something. I think that Angel acts to prove he's worth nothing. He acts to prove that actions are worth something; that even a monster is capable of good acts.

From her post on Damage. It's one of my favourite metas, and is absolutely excellent, especially on Spike & Angel.

[rahirah]

Oh, the Twilight arc is an abomination before the Lord, no argument there. (I could perhaps see Angel coming around to the idea that the world had to be destroyed to be remade, and that he was just the guy to make the hard decisions etc., but... not on the advice of a talking dog.)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Kate Lockley: And now you do?
Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
Kate Lockley: Yikes. It sounds like you've had an epiphany.


Pretty words. But Angel's actions do not follow them. He still does horrible things in order to save people. He hasn't figured out that how he saves them is in some respects far more important. Also does he actually save Connor? Connor has no choice in the matter. No way to seek his own redemption. Angel cheats.

Contrast Angel and Kate Lockely with Anne, who has a halfway house and is kind.
And saves one life at a time, the hard way.

I don't know that Angel acts to prove he's worth something. I think that Angel acts to prove he's worth nothing. He acts to prove that actions are worth something; that even a monster is capable of good acts.

Except are these acts actually good? Do they end in a good result? He may have good intentions, but his methodology needs work. He's the typical noir hero, tries to make the world better, tries to do the act of kindness, but every act is tainted with blood.
He can't do it without destroying someone's life, and falling back into the abyss.
It's the vigilante hero, or say Batman in the Chris Nolan films, who saves people by killing, by violence.

As Buffy tells Giles at the end of First Night - you can't fight evil with evil, sooner or later it will be hard to tell which is which. Angel fights the good fight, perhaps, but there's a reason he can't win - he fights violence with violence. He hurts people to save people.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure what the point of the Twilight arc was exactly, except Whedon and Metlzer's attempt to be out there.

In some respects, I agree. Although I still think his means needed a lot of work.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

LOL! I don't know...Angel could be dopey at times. But I completely agree - the Twilight arc doesn't work on multiple levels. (Although after watching the Brad Meltzer interview - I know why. Meltzer is a plot/theme guy, not a character guy.
Instead of having the characters move the plot, he creates a plot and sort of plugs the characters into it - as if they are actors cast in various roles that might fit them. Actually reminds me a lot of some AU Real Person fanfic I've read.)

[elisi]

Instead of having the characters move the plot, he creates a plot and sort of plugs the characters into it
Which wouldn't be quite so terrible if the plot itself wasn't awful. Spacefrack that results in a new world? I'm not a plot-writer, but I could think of something better in under five minutes.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I agree. When I watched the Brad Meltzer video, I thought, okay was Whedon stoned when he decided this was a brilliant idea? (I do wonder about television serial writers sometimes, they like to take their stories off the rails.) Apparently the space-frak came out of the fact that they really really wanted to do an explicit sex scene in a comic book because they thought it had never been done before. ( Oh dear. These boys need to get out more - because the Japanese, various cult and underground comic writers, not to mention anime have been doing nudity in comics and explicit sex scenes (and far better) I might add for decades. Also, Alan Moore did an explicit sex scene in Promethesis, which at least some of the Buffy writers clearly read. It made sense and was far better done, except that Moore only writes sex scenes between 70 year old men and twenty-something women. Personally I find that sort of a major turn-off, not to mention creepy, but that's just me.) Whedon apparently wanted to see if he could shock the mainstream superhero comic book reading public. He likes doing that. That's why they had kinky sex in S6, he likes shocking people.

And...I think that was why they thought Meltzer's plot was a great idea - because of the shock value. There's a pressure in serial writing to do bigger, better, splashier. Bigger villain. Shocking twists. Etc. Unfortunately, if done poorly it looks dumb, and well is jumping the shark. But serial writers - comic book and notably television do it, because of that constant pressure to have that "must-see" moment. It's less about telling a story, and more about grabbing media attention or having that big marketing moment.

Say what you will about that issue - but it did grab the media's attention and sell a lot of comic books. That's why they did it. But it's also why Fonzie literally jumped the shark in jet-ski stunt on Happy Days, the ratings were failing, so they decided to do a stunt to grab viewers attention and create a "must-see" moment.

[elisi]

Angel fights the good fight, perhaps, but there's a reason he can't win - he fights violence with violence. He hurts people to save people.
'When great German guns were yawning open-mouthed at you, it was no use saying, “Take the nasty, horrid things away, I don’t like them.” They wouldn’t go unless you took other big guns and fired at them.'
From 'The Rough Road' by John Locke.

There's a definite truth to this. Anne helps one person at a time, picking them up at trying to put themselves together. But Angel wants to fight the system. Wants to stop the whole machine (which is what W&H represents). Of course it's not possible, but his instincts aren't wrong. He wasn't made to be a nursemaid, he was made to be a fighter. A champion, a protector. Except he is flawed. Unlike Buffy he has that darkness, that past that will never let him be.

Which is where the whole drama of the show comes from.

If Angel was Anne, there wouldn't be a show. Or, it'd be very different. But the conflict between the hero he wants to be, and the monster he was, is what makes him a fascinating character. Yes he gets things wrong CONSTANTLY. But he keeps trying.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I agree with all that. But ...I still don't see any of that as being necessarily heroic, at least not in the modern sense of the word. It is however the definition of the film noir hero.

"The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time.” - Frank Miller.

or, better yet - see the essay below:

http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/essays/detective_hero.asp

These hard-boiled heroes are anti-social loners that are subject to existential angst. The environments they live and work in are dark and scary metropolises, often red-light districts, or otherwise dehumanizing environments, like large desolate office buildings. They are experiencing anonymity through their large scale surroundings. The tough guy is often marked by an excellent gift of verbal wit, even if they are not always given the strongest intellect; this is a heritage from the hard-boiled novels. Their worlds are dominated by crime, corruption and cruelty. The protagonist often gets tangled up in some of these activities himself, in addition to his interest in the erotic. Thus, he lives in a distorting world.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/general/does-film-noir-mirror-the-culture/the-male-protagonist.php

In the Angel's world, there are no heroes, there are no villains, just monsters with varying agendas. But within that world there are flashes of heroism.

Anyhow, I think this goes back to the general thrust of my initial post about differing types of heroes? And how mileage, it varies on this point?

I mean we generally agree, what we disagree on is what type of hero Angel is. I don't see him as a romantic hero, I see him as a hero caked in blood.

[elisi]

I wouldn't call him a romantic hero, and he certainly fits into the noir mould very well. I just think there's... more to him.

I get like this with my favourite characters - there are so many facets that I automatically rebel if someone tries to pigeon hole them. Spike is probably the ultimate example of this, but Angel is up there too. :)

ETA: What I mean is that how I view is a little like a patchwork quilt. With opinions like this playing into it. He's a son, he's a lover, he's a hero, he's a monster, he's a victim, he's a father (not just to Connor, but to those he's sired as well)... Actually, maybe this fic captures him best: Shashu Blue.

He wears the coat, the look, the cadence of noir... But it's only the first layer.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Eh, not really pigeon-holing. Just don't see him the way that the EW shipper did, which is swoon-worthy big hero or as a romantic hero. And I like the character too..

Don't believe me? Check out this essay:

http://www.oocities.org/shadowkatbtvs/as_restraint.html

Also I was discussing him within the narrow context of the EW post, not generally.

[elisi]

Oh, I'm not arguing, really. Pollyanna here... /o\

And nope, not a big swoon-worthy romantic hero. Unless it's Spike swooning. ;)