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shadowkatOkay, I've gotten ambitious again and went into areas that are slightly outside my scope, such as philosophy, neurobiology and well, Monty Python (which I skimp on). The following is about ATS 5.15
Hole in The World. It contains information on a philosopher Henri Bergson, a philosopher that was studied and debated by phyiscists and philosophers, including Einstein and Sartre, as well as information from neurbiologist James McGaugh - an expert on memory loss. Hopefully it makes some semblance of sense. I would greatly appreciate any comments you have! (Too scared to post on the public fanboards right now, I have miserable thin skin.)
I've organized it in three parts:
“There’s a hole in the world, feels like we ought to have known.”
What is a Hole in The World?
In Angel the Series three holes have been punctured in the world at different points in time – first in Sleep Tight, when Saijhan punctures a hole in the fabric of reality to push Connor and Holtz through. Then in The Price when Connor and Holtz puncture the fabric of reality to return. This hole has to be closed by a mystic. And then in Home when Angel creates a hole by removing Connor from the world’s memory.
Holes aren’t things to be taken lightly – I know because I’ve experienced what it is like to have a hole punctured in your world, nothing is the same afterwards. A hole was punctured in our world on 9/11. The fabric of reality shifted in ways I think we are just beginning to comprehend. This is one of the reasons I have difficulties with movies on time travel – because traveling back in time punctures reality – if you touch or hurt one item in the past, you tear the fabric and create a hole.
Here’s a snippet of an interview with neurobiologist James McGaugh from Scientific American that my friend cjl sent me regarding the effect of removing one memory from your brain.
“Let's suppose I said I am going to say a word to you and then I am going to use a new magical technique that technology has provided to eliminate that memory. So now I say "bicycle" and I go zap. Now think about bicycle. I said the word bicycle, but you know the general meaning of bicycle, you know what a bicycle looks like, you may remember a specific bicycle, you may remember having done something on a specific bicycle, and you remember how to ride a bicycle. Did I get rid of all of those? Not very likely, because those are all very deeply embedded in all kinds of memories that you have. Let's suppose that I did get rid of all of those; then you'd lose a huge portion of your life. Everything you knew about riding a bicycle would go, which would mean everything connected to that would also go. Your home, your family would be gone, and it can't work that way. There is an interconnectedness to the knowledge we have. Information does not exist in the abstract.”
Removing one memory creates a sort of black hole or a vortex into which all your other memories are sucked into and shredded. Your reality shifts and you become someone else.
So what effect did Angel’s removal of Connor have on the personalities, individual growth and realities of his friends? What were the consequences of creating a hole in the world?
Henri Bergson and The Caveman/Astronaut debate
"Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which masks reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself." Henri Bergson, Le Rire, 1900.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bergson.htm
Henri Bergson, who died in the early 1940s of bronchitis, attempted to integrate biological discoveries with a theory of consciousness. According to the website listed above, his philosophy countered the mechanistic view of nature – adopted by Darwinists at the time. He believed that the creative urge not the Darwinian view of natural selection was at the root of evolution. He believed in instinct. According to Bergson intuition was the way we would find the truth, it lay at the heart of reality. Bergson basically agrees with Spike in the Angel-Spike debate. Or does he? Interesting debate.
Angel: “You can’t see the big picture.”
Spike: “I am talking about something primal, brutual, animal instinct.”
Angel: “The human race have evolved..”
Spike: “Into a bunch of namby-pamby self-analyzing wankers.”
Angel: “We’re brighter, smarter, there’s a thing called teamwork, not to mention the superstitious terror of your pure aggressors.”
[Wes interrupts the debate and asks what it is about.]
Spike: “In a fight between astronauts and cavemen, who would win?”
Wes (after a moment dealing with the fact they’ve been arguing about this for 40 min): “Do the astronauts have weapons?” (From Hole in The World, 5.15 ATS)
Bergson would probably grin. Because both boys are right. That’s the fun of Angel and Spike, they are both right and wrong at the same time. Also flip them and you find at one point in time or another they would be arguing the opposite. How much do you want to bet if they’d had this argument prior to being turned: Liam would have been arguing instinct and William would have been arguing reason? I also like what it says about Wesley, who is always looking at who has the advantage. Reason can help save the day but so does instinct. This is something Gunn has forgotten, since his strength was always his gut, but all those memory boosts have made him rely less and less upon it. He’s relying on others to tell him what he wants to hear. First the conduit. Then Knox. He’s now Mr. Reason Guy, Mr. Rational, The Astronaut. Fred’s done the same thing, she left the cave behind and became Ms. Science Girl, the explorer, the astronaut. Meanwhile, we have an old cave-dweller lurking in the shadows waiting for its moment to strike. Spike and Angel team up to help Fred by using a combination of instinct and reason, Angel strategizes, and Spike reacts and intuits – trusting in Angel’s strategy and creatively building on it – such as the end when Angel turns to him, and he answers with the poetry.
In some ways, Hole in The World is telling two love stories – both deal with people who are struggling with that internal war between intellect and instinct. Fred says the cavemen win – pure instinct. Wes isn’t so sure, still relying on intellect. Still believing there’s a chance.
Bergson also believed, getting back to McGaugh, that human perception and consciousness was a continual flow, uninterrupted by demarcations in space or time.
Here’s a quote from a web site I found analyzing Henri Bergson’s philosophy: “While the physicist observes objects and events in succession, time is presented to consciousness as duration - an endlessly flowing process. Bergson argued that the 'real time' is experienced as duration and apprehended by intuition, not through separate operations of instinct and the intellect.” (This is commenting on what Bergson said in Time and Free Will (1889).)
So Bergson believed it was a combination of the two, not one or the other. To Bergson, whether the astronauts or cavemen won was immaterial and depended on the situation at hand. The winner would be the one who could rely on both – intellect and instinct.
***
A Rambling Annotated Analysis of Hole in The World (which is probably full of errors)
This is mostly odds and ends I noticed in last night’s episode.
1. Crystals & Nests
A. Nests:
First scene, shows Fred packing up her things in her bedroom and discussing going to school instead of staying home and getting married and raising kids in her dresser drawers. Living safe in the family nest. The idea of Fred feeling safe in nests and forcing herself to leave them is a theme that is also visited in Through the Looking Glass S2, when she leaves her cave-like dwelling to help Angel, in This Gang of Mine S3, when she leaves her room in the Hyperion and is threatened at Caritas by Gunn’s Gang, yet helps save the day by turning the tables on them, in Supersymmetry where she leaves Gunn and her room to seek vengeance on Seidel, in The Magic Bullet where she leaves a hole in the ground to shoot some sense into Angel, and now in Hole in The World, she’s taken back by Wes to her womblike bedroom, red, and safe, to die and gestate Illyria. Back to the nest so to speak. To emerge – as Illyria, a demon princess warrior. In each case she emerges from the cave stronger and altered. This is no exception.
B. Crystals
Fred and Wes are fighting bugs on the walls, parasitic monsters, who shoot crystals to reproduce. They look a bit like the parasites in Soul Purpose actually. And Angel once again gets attacked by one, which Spike kills in an interesting way.
Fred to Wes: “They reproduce by vomiting up crystals that attract and mutate the microbes around them to form eggs.”
Fredless – Fred figures out the demon insects are after the eggs laid in the demon’s head, from the crystals she found on the head and that were vomited on her clothes by the demon. That’s the trail. Her discovery enables her to come back to the Hyperion and save the gang with a contraption that slices open the head freeing the eggs so the parents can recover them and leave.
Hole in The World – it is by touching a crystal that Fred opens the sarcophagus and Illyria infects her. Illyria attracts Fred, ironically, through the same means as the creatures she destroys at the beginning of the episode attract and form their eggs. She becomes literally Illyria’s shell or egg to hatch out of.
2. Three Little Maids from School
“Three Little Maids from School – who all unwary come a ladies seminary, freed from a genius tutelary, three little maids from school…” Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado.
In the Mikado – the three maids are set up with three men, one with the hero, one as the bride of the Lord High Executioner, and the third with the Lord High Executioner’s colleague. Yum-Yum – the one with the hero is the most pure and innocent and is in the way of the Mikado’s son marrying a nasty old woman. The other two are a little more conniving.
In Angel the Series – we also have three little maids from school:
Cordelia – who has a choice between having her head explode or becoming part-demon, not realizing becoming part-demon means also being a gestation device for a higher being – Jasmine, which seeks to corrupt her body for its own purposes.
Nina – who is bitten by a werewolf and the werewolf gestates within her over a lunar cycle. Every time there is a full moon – the monster breaks out, she becomes something else.
Fred – who leaves home to investigate the world in a scientific way, gets a sarcophagus and by investigating the sarcophagus is infected by a deadly virus.
All unwary, Fred come from a ladies seminary (school in Texas), is freed from a genius tutelary (Seidel and Pylea), little maid from school….
Interesting it is Gunn singing it and he hides it from Wes. Gunn who was Fred’s first boyfriend with the AI team and Wes who becomes her final one. Gunn who saves Fred twice in Supersymmetry (at the sake of his own soul) and in The Price (by enlisting Wes’ help against Angel’s wishes and getting the treatment to her in time), is the one who puts her in danger this round – a danger that no one can free her from. And he does it for what? Knowledge. The reason he and Fred may have broken apart – Gunn’s insecurity over his lack of knowledge. He implants the knowledge in himself, literally selling his soul for it, and Fred’s – an interesting reference back to Double or Nothing – where it became clear to Gunn that they would take Fred’s soul if he didn’t give up his as he’d bargained ages ago…for a truck.
Also the horrible joke Gunn plays on Wes about the idea of him and Fred getting back together, and the comment Gunn makes – “if you hurt her, I’ll kill you quicker than a chicken.” He does make good on that comment with Knox. The question is will Wes? Since it was Gunn who, however inadvertently, set it all in motion.
3. “The Handsome Man Saves Me”
Saving. Angel’s whole purpose in life is to save doomed souls like himself. Yet, his curse seems to be to never be able to connect to them or to save those who are closest to him. I was struck by this irony in Smallville, where the only person Clark Kent wants to save is his father and Superman fans know that is the one person Clark can’t save. Just as the one person in all the world that Buffy wanted to save was her mother, Joyce, and Joyce is the one person she can’t save. Angel has it far worse than Buffy does, because Buffy could save her friends, she could save Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, and even to some degree Angel himself. Angel couldn’t save Darla, Connor, or Cordelia. And now….
Spike: “You won’t lose her.”
Angel: “I lost Cordy.”
He can save the Ninas, the Kates, the odd damsels, even the Faiths – but when it comes to those who are closest to him, who he has a chance of happiness with, he doesn’t appear to have a chance in hell. And I can’t help but wonder if he’s asking himself the same question I am, if I can’t save them – how can I begin to save myself. That may in essence be one of the many reasons he wanted to send Spike as far away from him as possible, he’s starting to care too much.
Fred discusses saving people with Angel in several episodes this season. In Unleashed and Hellbound – she asks Angel to help her save Spike, even if doing so would break Wolfram and Hart financially. Angel retorts some people aren’t worth saving. Something Spike appears to agree with. Fred tells him she thinks he is worth saving. He has saved her. But this round is different, this time thousands, millions of lives could be lost if they even attempt it and it may be too late anyway.
Fred: “I am not a damsel. I’m not. I save myself. I lived in a cave in Pylea for five years…”
Fred doesn’t want to be saved by someone else. She walks with heroes, but she wants that to be because she is one. Not their damsel. Never their damsel. Yet in this house of death she has become one. And it is ironically by a specimen, something she investigated.
4. “She felt as if she’d lived a long long time…” from The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
The Little Princess is about a girl who lost her father and mistreated in an orphanage, where a nasty headmistress leeched off of her inheritance. In the book she rises above the headmistress and helps inspire a servant/slave girl and regains her inheritance in the end.
When Fred asks Wes to read the Little Princess, he is reading the “Dread Host’s Companion of Immortal Leeches”.
Illyria is an immortal leech yet also in a way the Little Princess Warrior God, beloved and feared of many, who has lived a long long time. So is the Little Princess tale about Fred or about Illyria? Or about both?
We also have Eve’s song to Lorne – “She’s pretty as a picture, like a golden wing…” does this song refer to Eve or to Fred? Both girl’s fates seem pretty dire. And Lorne who appears to be off on everyone else – actually reads Fred when she sings My Only Sunshine and Eve when she sings her own line.
5. “My Sunshine, My only Sunshine… You make me Happy”
Oh my darling Clementine and My Only Sunshine ….two songs which refer to both Fred and Connor.
The first one, sung also by Lorne, in Soul Purpose, is about losing a girl down a well or mine shaft. She’s lost and gone for ever…Fred also appears to lost down a well – the deeper well inside her own body. Not unlike the tiny gold-fish swimming in Angel’s bowl – that she retrieves from Angel’s body in his dream. Connor similarly is lost down a well – this is the well of memory that Angel flushed him down to preserve his life.
Sunshine is the opposite of Clementine. It’s about gaining as opposed to loss. No need for clemency in Sunshine. The world is sunny and happy. Fred is Wes’ sunshine, she is the sunshine of the AI team, the one good light in their midst. Now her light has gone out. She has become Gunn’s Clementine – something he needs forgiveness for, and Wes’ Clementine – something he’s lost down a well. Connor as a child, a baby was Angel’s sunshine, it was a song Lorne hummed to him. But when he is taken through the hole in the fabric of reality by Holtz, he becomes Clementine, something Angel has lost and will never regain and seeks clemency for.
6. “Her organs are cooking. In a day’s time they’ll liquefy.”
Interesting motif – two of the four male characters have experienced something akin to this.
a. Spike – literally burned up from the inside out, his organs, his eyeballs, everything melting and liquefying to end up embedded in the amulet. (Just Rewards, S5 ATS)
b. Angel – in his dream he experienced Fred removing his organs one by one, hollowing him out so that he was nothing but a shell. (Soul Purpose, S5 ATS) This is the same thing that is happening to Fred according to Angel and Wes, she’s being hollowed out so there is nothing left but a shell.
Also refers back to two other episodes:
a. Inside/Out – where Cordelia by giving birth to Jasmine – has her entire life force sucked out of her, leaving nothing behind but a vegetable.
b. The Price – the parasite who takes Fred’s body, is sucking all of her moisture, hardening her skin, cracking it, and taking over her mind – until Gunn via Wes finds a way to pull the parasite out.
7. “Where’s Feigenbaum? I need him! He’s the Master..”
Feigenbaum, the bunny rabbit, is The Master of Chaos. (What is it with Whedon and Bunny Rabbits? Maybe he’s watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail one too many times.)
Mitchell Feigenbaum is apparently the author of the chaos theory. He discovered in 1975 the point at which periodic equations turned chaotic. Based on his discoveries, physicists where able to form a means of analyzing a chaotic universe.
8. Spike: “When is a door not a door? When it’s not there.”
Angel: “How much you want to bet that tree is it?”
Spike: “Either that or it could be the door to Christmasland.”
The door to Christmas land is a reference to The Nightmare Before Christmas, where Jack Skeleton kidnaps Santa Claus out of a desire to do something different. Tired of doing Halloween, year after year, Skeleton discovers Christmasland and thinks, wait here’s a new thing. Unfortunately his desire to try something different results in chaos. Its not the creativity itself that’s the problem, it’s how he decides to use it. The recklessness of his exploration. This circles back to Fred’s mother’s request:
“Promise me you will be careful.” And Fred’s response – “I’ll be more than careful, I’ll study everything and learn everything and look under every corner..”
It’s Fred’s reckless investigations and trust in colleagues that lead her to Pylea in the first place. She trusts Seidel and her curiosity persuades her to open the book, which pulls her to Pylea and hell. In Hole in The World, her curiosity about the sarcophagus tempts her to get too close to it, not treat it with caution and she gets infected. Like Jack Skeleton, Fred opens the door to what appears to be a world filled with wonder, only to find herself in Hell. Sort of the old story of Genesis turned on its head – you take a bite of the apple of knowledge and you are doomed.
9. The Scientists Worship Illyria
What is it with evil Scientists/Doctors on this show? We have Pavayne who is an evil surgeon. The Doctor in Unleashed who betrays Nina to the party-goers. The scientists in Why We Fight who are experimenting on the vampires in order to turn them into weapons. The scientists in Conviction who create a virus to place in a boy that was created by a shaman.
Interesting that it is two scientists that we see worshipping Illyria. And the scientists are the ones who are paired with Gunn and Fred. The first one – we see in Smile Time, he’s implanting knowledge in Gunn. He’ll do it in exchange for a little favor, clear an artifact through customs, no questions asked. Gunn agrees desperate not to lose his knowledge. Fred is introduced to the best science lab in the world through Knox, the cutest science nerd anyone could ask for. Knox tells Fred from the get-go that he has contained and created an equal number of viruses in Conviction. Not surprising his god would be a demon pathogen. Both scientists are thrilled with the idea of changing something or infecting it. In both cases the infection makes the individual appear more powerful than they were before – Gunn becomes Mr. Lawyer Guy, a whiz, while the new Fred – well Illyria certainly looks different.
10. Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Lots of references to that film here – one wonders if Whedon has spent one too many evenings watching that movie. Drogon who hates questions and Spike who can do nothing but speak in questions. Similar to the guard in Monty Python who requires you speak in questions to get through (I think, I unlike Whedon, have only seen the film once.) Spike and Angel have to fight a bunch of knights to get into a cave filled with sarcophaguses. And the rabbit – which ahem you have to watch the film to truly understand.
Final Notes
Overall a wonderful episode. I may have been more moved if I hadn’t felt that demonizing yet another female character wasn’t just a tad redundant. What is it with Joss Whedon and the whole sick mother becomes a demon motif? It is an interesting trend though – we have William’s mother – Anne, Joyce, Cordelia, Darla, Drusilla, Willow, and now Fred.
Nice use of foreshadowing – Spike’s comment to Wes in Lineage – “I had to kill my mother, well actually I sired her to save her from illness then had to stake her after she tried to shag me.” Also, Whedon seems to like the visual of the blood of the victim spurting onto their lover. In Seeing Red – he had Tara’s blood splatter Willow’s shirt when Tara is shot. In Hole in The World – Fred’s sickness becomes apparent when she spits blood in Wes’ face.
The parallel of the two love stories:
Wes and Fred moving closer together throughout the episode, until they are suddenly thrust apart by Illyria. Spike and Angel resisting each other, bickering, breaking apart until they are thrust together by Illyria to save Fred.
Any comments or further expansions on the above would be most welcome. Just be nice, I have miserable thin skin today.
Hole in The World. It contains information on a philosopher Henri Bergson, a philosopher that was studied and debated by phyiscists and philosophers, including Einstein and Sartre, as well as information from neurbiologist James McGaugh - an expert on memory loss. Hopefully it makes some semblance of sense. I would greatly appreciate any comments you have! (Too scared to post on the public fanboards right now, I have miserable thin skin.)
I've organized it in three parts:
“There’s a hole in the world, feels like we ought to have known.”
What is a Hole in The World?
In Angel the Series three holes have been punctured in the world at different points in time – first in Sleep Tight, when Saijhan punctures a hole in the fabric of reality to push Connor and Holtz through. Then in The Price when Connor and Holtz puncture the fabric of reality to return. This hole has to be closed by a mystic. And then in Home when Angel creates a hole by removing Connor from the world’s memory.
Holes aren’t things to be taken lightly – I know because I’ve experienced what it is like to have a hole punctured in your world, nothing is the same afterwards. A hole was punctured in our world on 9/11. The fabric of reality shifted in ways I think we are just beginning to comprehend. This is one of the reasons I have difficulties with movies on time travel – because traveling back in time punctures reality – if you touch or hurt one item in the past, you tear the fabric and create a hole.
Here’s a snippet of an interview with neurobiologist James McGaugh from Scientific American that my friend cjl sent me regarding the effect of removing one memory from your brain.
“Let's suppose I said I am going to say a word to you and then I am going to use a new magical technique that technology has provided to eliminate that memory. So now I say "bicycle" and I go zap. Now think about bicycle. I said the word bicycle, but you know the general meaning of bicycle, you know what a bicycle looks like, you may remember a specific bicycle, you may remember having done something on a specific bicycle, and you remember how to ride a bicycle. Did I get rid of all of those? Not very likely, because those are all very deeply embedded in all kinds of memories that you have. Let's suppose that I did get rid of all of those; then you'd lose a huge portion of your life. Everything you knew about riding a bicycle would go, which would mean everything connected to that would also go. Your home, your family would be gone, and it can't work that way. There is an interconnectedness to the knowledge we have. Information does not exist in the abstract.”
Removing one memory creates a sort of black hole or a vortex into which all your other memories are sucked into and shredded. Your reality shifts and you become someone else.
So what effect did Angel’s removal of Connor have on the personalities, individual growth and realities of his friends? What were the consequences of creating a hole in the world?
Henri Bergson and The Caveman/Astronaut debate
"Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which masks reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself." Henri Bergson, Le Rire, 1900.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bergson.htm
Henri Bergson, who died in the early 1940s of bronchitis, attempted to integrate biological discoveries with a theory of consciousness. According to the website listed above, his philosophy countered the mechanistic view of nature – adopted by Darwinists at the time. He believed that the creative urge not the Darwinian view of natural selection was at the root of evolution. He believed in instinct. According to Bergson intuition was the way we would find the truth, it lay at the heart of reality. Bergson basically agrees with Spike in the Angel-Spike debate. Or does he? Interesting debate.
Angel: “You can’t see the big picture.”
Spike: “I am talking about something primal, brutual, animal instinct.”
Angel: “The human race have evolved..”
Spike: “Into a bunch of namby-pamby self-analyzing wankers.”
Angel: “We’re brighter, smarter, there’s a thing called teamwork, not to mention the superstitious terror of your pure aggressors.”
[Wes interrupts the debate and asks what it is about.]
Spike: “In a fight between astronauts and cavemen, who would win?”
Wes (after a moment dealing with the fact they’ve been arguing about this for 40 min): “Do the astronauts have weapons?” (From Hole in The World, 5.15 ATS)
Bergson would probably grin. Because both boys are right. That’s the fun of Angel and Spike, they are both right and wrong at the same time. Also flip them and you find at one point in time or another they would be arguing the opposite. How much do you want to bet if they’d had this argument prior to being turned: Liam would have been arguing instinct and William would have been arguing reason? I also like what it says about Wesley, who is always looking at who has the advantage. Reason can help save the day but so does instinct. This is something Gunn has forgotten, since his strength was always his gut, but all those memory boosts have made him rely less and less upon it. He’s relying on others to tell him what he wants to hear. First the conduit. Then Knox. He’s now Mr. Reason Guy, Mr. Rational, The Astronaut. Fred’s done the same thing, she left the cave behind and became Ms. Science Girl, the explorer, the astronaut. Meanwhile, we have an old cave-dweller lurking in the shadows waiting for its moment to strike. Spike and Angel team up to help Fred by using a combination of instinct and reason, Angel strategizes, and Spike reacts and intuits – trusting in Angel’s strategy and creatively building on it – such as the end when Angel turns to him, and he answers with the poetry.
In some ways, Hole in The World is telling two love stories – both deal with people who are struggling with that internal war between intellect and instinct. Fred says the cavemen win – pure instinct. Wes isn’t so sure, still relying on intellect. Still believing there’s a chance.
Bergson also believed, getting back to McGaugh, that human perception and consciousness was a continual flow, uninterrupted by demarcations in space or time.
Here’s a quote from a web site I found analyzing Henri Bergson’s philosophy: “While the physicist observes objects and events in succession, time is presented to consciousness as duration - an endlessly flowing process. Bergson argued that the 'real time' is experienced as duration and apprehended by intuition, not through separate operations of instinct and the intellect.” (This is commenting on what Bergson said in Time and Free Will (1889).)
So Bergson believed it was a combination of the two, not one or the other. To Bergson, whether the astronauts or cavemen won was immaterial and depended on the situation at hand. The winner would be the one who could rely on both – intellect and instinct.
***
A Rambling Annotated Analysis of Hole in The World (which is probably full of errors)
This is mostly odds and ends I noticed in last night’s episode.
1. Crystals & Nests
A. Nests:
First scene, shows Fred packing up her things in her bedroom and discussing going to school instead of staying home and getting married and raising kids in her dresser drawers. Living safe in the family nest. The idea of Fred feeling safe in nests and forcing herself to leave them is a theme that is also visited in Through the Looking Glass S2, when she leaves her cave-like dwelling to help Angel, in This Gang of Mine S3, when she leaves her room in the Hyperion and is threatened at Caritas by Gunn’s Gang, yet helps save the day by turning the tables on them, in Supersymmetry where she leaves Gunn and her room to seek vengeance on Seidel, in The Magic Bullet where she leaves a hole in the ground to shoot some sense into Angel, and now in Hole in The World, she’s taken back by Wes to her womblike bedroom, red, and safe, to die and gestate Illyria. Back to the nest so to speak. To emerge – as Illyria, a demon princess warrior. In each case she emerges from the cave stronger and altered. This is no exception.
B. Crystals
Fred and Wes are fighting bugs on the walls, parasitic monsters, who shoot crystals to reproduce. They look a bit like the parasites in Soul Purpose actually. And Angel once again gets attacked by one, which Spike kills in an interesting way.
Fred to Wes: “They reproduce by vomiting up crystals that attract and mutate the microbes around them to form eggs.”
Fredless – Fred figures out the demon insects are after the eggs laid in the demon’s head, from the crystals she found on the head and that were vomited on her clothes by the demon. That’s the trail. Her discovery enables her to come back to the Hyperion and save the gang with a contraption that slices open the head freeing the eggs so the parents can recover them and leave.
Hole in The World – it is by touching a crystal that Fred opens the sarcophagus and Illyria infects her. Illyria attracts Fred, ironically, through the same means as the creatures she destroys at the beginning of the episode attract and form their eggs. She becomes literally Illyria’s shell or egg to hatch out of.
2. Three Little Maids from School
“Three Little Maids from School – who all unwary come a ladies seminary, freed from a genius tutelary, three little maids from school…” Gilbert & Sullivan, The Mikado.
In the Mikado – the three maids are set up with three men, one with the hero, one as the bride of the Lord High Executioner, and the third with the Lord High Executioner’s colleague. Yum-Yum – the one with the hero is the most pure and innocent and is in the way of the Mikado’s son marrying a nasty old woman. The other two are a little more conniving.
In Angel the Series – we also have three little maids from school:
Cordelia – who has a choice between having her head explode or becoming part-demon, not realizing becoming part-demon means also being a gestation device for a higher being – Jasmine, which seeks to corrupt her body for its own purposes.
Nina – who is bitten by a werewolf and the werewolf gestates within her over a lunar cycle. Every time there is a full moon – the monster breaks out, she becomes something else.
Fred – who leaves home to investigate the world in a scientific way, gets a sarcophagus and by investigating the sarcophagus is infected by a deadly virus.
All unwary, Fred come from a ladies seminary (school in Texas), is freed from a genius tutelary (Seidel and Pylea), little maid from school….
Interesting it is Gunn singing it and he hides it from Wes. Gunn who was Fred’s first boyfriend with the AI team and Wes who becomes her final one. Gunn who saves Fred twice in Supersymmetry (at the sake of his own soul) and in The Price (by enlisting Wes’ help against Angel’s wishes and getting the treatment to her in time), is the one who puts her in danger this round – a danger that no one can free her from. And he does it for what? Knowledge. The reason he and Fred may have broken apart – Gunn’s insecurity over his lack of knowledge. He implants the knowledge in himself, literally selling his soul for it, and Fred’s – an interesting reference back to Double or Nothing – where it became clear to Gunn that they would take Fred’s soul if he didn’t give up his as he’d bargained ages ago…for a truck.
Also the horrible joke Gunn plays on Wes about the idea of him and Fred getting back together, and the comment Gunn makes – “if you hurt her, I’ll kill you quicker than a chicken.” He does make good on that comment with Knox. The question is will Wes? Since it was Gunn who, however inadvertently, set it all in motion.
3. “The Handsome Man Saves Me”
Saving. Angel’s whole purpose in life is to save doomed souls like himself. Yet, his curse seems to be to never be able to connect to them or to save those who are closest to him. I was struck by this irony in Smallville, where the only person Clark Kent wants to save is his father and Superman fans know that is the one person Clark can’t save. Just as the one person in all the world that Buffy wanted to save was her mother, Joyce, and Joyce is the one person she can’t save. Angel has it far worse than Buffy does, because Buffy could save her friends, she could save Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, and even to some degree Angel himself. Angel couldn’t save Darla, Connor, or Cordelia. And now….
Spike: “You won’t lose her.”
Angel: “I lost Cordy.”
He can save the Ninas, the Kates, the odd damsels, even the Faiths – but when it comes to those who are closest to him, who he has a chance of happiness with, he doesn’t appear to have a chance in hell. And I can’t help but wonder if he’s asking himself the same question I am, if I can’t save them – how can I begin to save myself. That may in essence be one of the many reasons he wanted to send Spike as far away from him as possible, he’s starting to care too much.
Fred discusses saving people with Angel in several episodes this season. In Unleashed and Hellbound – she asks Angel to help her save Spike, even if doing so would break Wolfram and Hart financially. Angel retorts some people aren’t worth saving. Something Spike appears to agree with. Fred tells him she thinks he is worth saving. He has saved her. But this round is different, this time thousands, millions of lives could be lost if they even attempt it and it may be too late anyway.
Fred: “I am not a damsel. I’m not. I save myself. I lived in a cave in Pylea for five years…”
Fred doesn’t want to be saved by someone else. She walks with heroes, but she wants that to be because she is one. Not their damsel. Never their damsel. Yet in this house of death she has become one. And it is ironically by a specimen, something she investigated.
4. “She felt as if she’d lived a long long time…” from The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
The Little Princess is about a girl who lost her father and mistreated in an orphanage, where a nasty headmistress leeched off of her inheritance. In the book she rises above the headmistress and helps inspire a servant/slave girl and regains her inheritance in the end.
When Fred asks Wes to read the Little Princess, he is reading the “Dread Host’s Companion of Immortal Leeches”.
Illyria is an immortal leech yet also in a way the Little Princess Warrior God, beloved and feared of many, who has lived a long long time. So is the Little Princess tale about Fred or about Illyria? Or about both?
We also have Eve’s song to Lorne – “She’s pretty as a picture, like a golden wing…” does this song refer to Eve or to Fred? Both girl’s fates seem pretty dire. And Lorne who appears to be off on everyone else – actually reads Fred when she sings My Only Sunshine and Eve when she sings her own line.
5. “My Sunshine, My only Sunshine… You make me Happy”
Oh my darling Clementine and My Only Sunshine ….two songs which refer to both Fred and Connor.
The first one, sung also by Lorne, in Soul Purpose, is about losing a girl down a well or mine shaft. She’s lost and gone for ever…Fred also appears to lost down a well – the deeper well inside her own body. Not unlike the tiny gold-fish swimming in Angel’s bowl – that she retrieves from Angel’s body in his dream. Connor similarly is lost down a well – this is the well of memory that Angel flushed him down to preserve his life.
Sunshine is the opposite of Clementine. It’s about gaining as opposed to loss. No need for clemency in Sunshine. The world is sunny and happy. Fred is Wes’ sunshine, she is the sunshine of the AI team, the one good light in their midst. Now her light has gone out. She has become Gunn’s Clementine – something he needs forgiveness for, and Wes’ Clementine – something he’s lost down a well. Connor as a child, a baby was Angel’s sunshine, it was a song Lorne hummed to him. But when he is taken through the hole in the fabric of reality by Holtz, he becomes Clementine, something Angel has lost and will never regain and seeks clemency for.
6. “Her organs are cooking. In a day’s time they’ll liquefy.”
Interesting motif – two of the four male characters have experienced something akin to this.
a. Spike – literally burned up from the inside out, his organs, his eyeballs, everything melting and liquefying to end up embedded in the amulet. (Just Rewards, S5 ATS)
b. Angel – in his dream he experienced Fred removing his organs one by one, hollowing him out so that he was nothing but a shell. (Soul Purpose, S5 ATS) This is the same thing that is happening to Fred according to Angel and Wes, she’s being hollowed out so there is nothing left but a shell.
Also refers back to two other episodes:
a. Inside/Out – where Cordelia by giving birth to Jasmine – has her entire life force sucked out of her, leaving nothing behind but a vegetable.
b. The Price – the parasite who takes Fred’s body, is sucking all of her moisture, hardening her skin, cracking it, and taking over her mind – until Gunn via Wes finds a way to pull the parasite out.
7. “Where’s Feigenbaum? I need him! He’s the Master..”
Feigenbaum, the bunny rabbit, is The Master of Chaos. (What is it with Whedon and Bunny Rabbits? Maybe he’s watched Monty Python and The Holy Grail one too many times.)
Mitchell Feigenbaum is apparently the author of the chaos theory. He discovered in 1975 the point at which periodic equations turned chaotic. Based on his discoveries, physicists where able to form a means of analyzing a chaotic universe.
8. Spike: “When is a door not a door? When it’s not there.”
Angel: “How much you want to bet that tree is it?”
Spike: “Either that or it could be the door to Christmasland.”
The door to Christmas land is a reference to The Nightmare Before Christmas, where Jack Skeleton kidnaps Santa Claus out of a desire to do something different. Tired of doing Halloween, year after year, Skeleton discovers Christmasland and thinks, wait here’s a new thing. Unfortunately his desire to try something different results in chaos. Its not the creativity itself that’s the problem, it’s how he decides to use it. The recklessness of his exploration. This circles back to Fred’s mother’s request:
“Promise me you will be careful.” And Fred’s response – “I’ll be more than careful, I’ll study everything and learn everything and look under every corner..”
It’s Fred’s reckless investigations and trust in colleagues that lead her to Pylea in the first place. She trusts Seidel and her curiosity persuades her to open the book, which pulls her to Pylea and hell. In Hole in The World, her curiosity about the sarcophagus tempts her to get too close to it, not treat it with caution and she gets infected. Like Jack Skeleton, Fred opens the door to what appears to be a world filled with wonder, only to find herself in Hell. Sort of the old story of Genesis turned on its head – you take a bite of the apple of knowledge and you are doomed.
9. The Scientists Worship Illyria
What is it with evil Scientists/Doctors on this show? We have Pavayne who is an evil surgeon. The Doctor in Unleashed who betrays Nina to the party-goers. The scientists in Why We Fight who are experimenting on the vampires in order to turn them into weapons. The scientists in Conviction who create a virus to place in a boy that was created by a shaman.
Interesting that it is two scientists that we see worshipping Illyria. And the scientists are the ones who are paired with Gunn and Fred. The first one – we see in Smile Time, he’s implanting knowledge in Gunn. He’ll do it in exchange for a little favor, clear an artifact through customs, no questions asked. Gunn agrees desperate not to lose his knowledge. Fred is introduced to the best science lab in the world through Knox, the cutest science nerd anyone could ask for. Knox tells Fred from the get-go that he has contained and created an equal number of viruses in Conviction. Not surprising his god would be a demon pathogen. Both scientists are thrilled with the idea of changing something or infecting it. In both cases the infection makes the individual appear more powerful than they were before – Gunn becomes Mr. Lawyer Guy, a whiz, while the new Fred – well Illyria certainly looks different.
10. Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Lots of references to that film here – one wonders if Whedon has spent one too many evenings watching that movie. Drogon who hates questions and Spike who can do nothing but speak in questions. Similar to the guard in Monty Python who requires you speak in questions to get through (I think, I unlike Whedon, have only seen the film once.) Spike and Angel have to fight a bunch of knights to get into a cave filled with sarcophaguses. And the rabbit – which ahem you have to watch the film to truly understand.
Final Notes
Overall a wonderful episode. I may have been more moved if I hadn’t felt that demonizing yet another female character wasn’t just a tad redundant. What is it with Joss Whedon and the whole sick mother becomes a demon motif? It is an interesting trend though – we have William’s mother – Anne, Joyce, Cordelia, Darla, Drusilla, Willow, and now Fred.
Nice use of foreshadowing – Spike’s comment to Wes in Lineage – “I had to kill my mother, well actually I sired her to save her from illness then had to stake her after she tried to shag me.” Also, Whedon seems to like the visual of the blood of the victim spurting onto their lover. In Seeing Red – he had Tara’s blood splatter Willow’s shirt when Tara is shot. In Hole in The World – Fred’s sickness becomes apparent when she spits blood in Wes’ face.
The parallel of the two love stories:
Wes and Fred moving closer together throughout the episode, until they are suddenly thrust apart by Illyria. Spike and Angel resisting each other, bickering, breaking apart until they are thrust together by Illyria to save Fred.
Any comments or further expansions on the above would be most welcome. Just be nice, I have miserable thin skin today.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-26 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-26 01:52 pm (UTC)You're not kidding! Even though it will be a long, long time until I get to this episode on the site, I've saved this post to my hard drive so I can use it once I get there.
Oh, and as an added note to the bunny/chaos link, this is also highly reminiscent of Donnie Darko, a brilliant science-fiction film that came out about a year and a half ago about a boy who is either schizophrenic or a prophet. A large, demonic bunny rabbit named Frank appears before him and tells him that the world is going to end in 28 days, and the film has set off scores of debates on-line on different websites over whether Frank is an agent of chaos, whose goal is to destroy reality, or whether he is in fact trying to set it right. In the movie, Drew Barrymore's character, an English teacher, is fired for teaching an "inflammatory" short story in class, Graham Greene's The Destructors, in which a group of young boys break into a mansion and instead of stealing the money, destroy the entire place by flooding it, and laugh while it happens. A repeated theme throughout the film is "Destruction is merely a form of creation" (shades of Jasmine there, too)
The chaos of the flood links with the sound of the sea Fred heard in Angel's chest in Soul Purpose, and the "shells" of next week's episode's title. And the chaos again links with the rabbit. Something tells me that Joss has seen Donnie Darko, because there are a lot of thematic links between particularly Angel and that film. It would be interesting to do a full analysis one day.
<Head Spinning>
Date: 2004-02-26 02:14 pm (UTC)Quick Notes on 5.15
Date: 2004-02-26 02:54 pm (UTC)The last Joss episode. Depresses me just thinking about it.
-- The Fred/Wes scenes didn't hit me as hard as they did everybody else. I thought the romance was too fresh, too new to sustain that kind of melodramatic regret over losing their "perfect luv." When it came close to the end, I wanted Fred and Wes to grieve over the life they COULD have had together, but would never be able to enjoy. The possibilities unfulfilled. Now that would have hurt.
-- "Hole in the World" is Fred's "Innocence." But this time, instead of the heroine's lover turning into a monster and precipitating the crisis that propels her into adulthood, it's the heroine who changes into a monster. Fred is caught between her childlike innocence (represented by Feigenbaum) and her adult life as a demon killer with Wes and the Fang Gang in L.A. When things got tough, she could always retreat to the cave inside her head; but now, Illyria has intruded into Fred's last hiding place. If there's anything left of Fred inside the body, she's going to have to beat Illyria when the demon has taken over Fred's home turf. A crucible of the mind.
-- Spike and Angel, a true team at last. This was what we've been waiting for all year: the caveman/astronaut argument, the jet plane ride, the confrontation with Drogyn, and--my favorite--"St. Petersberg"! (Of course, if you think about the last one, you get the image of Unsouled!Spike and Angelus cutting the heads off innocent Russian peasants. But what the heck--the reference was just so cool!)
-- Believe it or not, Gunn's disintegration was my favorite part of the episode. The humming of G&S and the embarrassed switchover to hip-hop says volumes about the compromises he's made this season. This was J. August Richards' best episode, bar none. His brotherly banter with Wes, his love (no longer sexual, but still powerful) for Fred, his confrontation with the Conduit, the horrified realization of his guilt followed by the beat-down of Knox--JAR dominated. Everything I ever wanted from the character.
-- Lorne's subconscious violent streak from Life of the Party finally gets a workout. He also seems to be back on track with the psychic readings. (So is last week's brownout with David Fury officially a plothole?)
-- Joss (when he's on) always gives you an extra level of detail; the characters are sharper, the world he's created seems a bit more credible. This time, he expands the Buffyverse in entirely new direction with the burial pit of the Old Ones in the Deeper Well. Spike's musings about the bloke in New Zealand staring down into the other end of the hole helps Joss convey the sense of awe Joss wants us to feel about the concept.
More later.
CJL
Re: Quick Notes on 5.15
Date: 2004-02-26 03:30 pm (UTC)Re: The Fred/Wes romance? No arguments here. It didn't move me as much as I wanted it to. I honestly think ME did a poor job of really building it. It felt too new. So if they'd spent their last moments together discussing what might be as opposed to what was? Maybe. I was actually moved more, oddly enough, by Gunn's scene with Knox regarding Fred. I feel for Wes, but...it just didn't hit me. I didn't cry in this episode.
"Hole in the World" is Fred's "Innocence."
What's interesting about this episode is how many holes in the world there are. On BAPS, Nancy T stated the hole in the world and Spike's comments regarding it partly related to the concept of mortality and Spike and Angel's realization, which has slowly been dawning on them over the past 7 years that you can't save people. Death will take them. The best you can get is a reprieve. And sometimes "death", as Lorne states to Eve, is far better than the alternative.
When things got tough, she could always retreat to the cave inside her head; but now, Illyria has intruded into Fred's last hiding place. If there's anything left of Fred inside the body, she's going to have to beat Illyria when the demon has taken over Fred's home turf. A crucible of the mind.
Interesting this reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind - where Jim Carrey fights the people removing his memories. OR Gunn's fight in the White Room with himself - is the white room a metaphor for Gunn's mind? No probably not. I think you're right up until now, Fred could retreat to her mind - as is reiterated in The Little Princess Tale - about Sarah Crew thinking and dreaming and living in her head. Her bedrooms are retreats of the mind. And the one thing she asks Wes to bring is a "book that can call up any book ever written".
But Illyria has taken over her mind and body - and Fred has sunk to the deepest well inside herself. It's reminiscent of the last time she was possessed by the parasites in The Price. Can she fight off Illyria as she fought them off or fought of JAsmine's mind spell?
I agree regarding Gunn - Gunn's realization was the point in the episode that I got a lump in my throat. JAR moved me. It is his best episode to date. I honestly felt his pain when he realized what he had done.
Lorne's subconscious violent streak from Life of the Party finally gets a workout. He also seems to be back on track with the psychic readings. (So is last week's brownout with David Fury officially a plothole?)
Maybe not...Angel does say to Lorne: "How can you be sure? You've misread others..." And Lorne nods, but says, that he's sure with this one. Question? Is Lorne's empathy out of wack? Or can magic spells get in the way of it? You've forgotten in last weeks episode those puppets had a heavy duty cloaking spell in effect, one that was at it's most powerful when people sang. Perhaps that's the irony - the puppets could block Lorne the best when they sang - because he'd only see what he wanted to see.
Oh a few Bergson quotes that pumpkinpuss found:
1."Bergson offered an interpretation of consciousness as existing on two levels, the first to be reached by deep introspection, the second an external projection of the first. The deeper self is the seat of creative becoming and of free will." Certainly backs up your views on Fred.
2."The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.... "
3."The present contains nothing more than the past, and what was found in the effect was already in the cause."
Good comments, thanks.
Re: <Head Spinning>
Date: 2004-02-26 03:34 pm (UTC)My friend pumpkinpuss found these gems:
1. keever on whedonesque stated the song Eve is singing is the same one Lindsey sings in To Shanshue in LA.
2. Here's some quotes from Bergson:
"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.... "
"The present contains nothing more than the past, and what was found in the effect was already in the cause."
and...
"Bergson offered an interpretation of consciousness as existing on two levels, the first to be reached by deep introspection, the second an external projection of the first. The deeper self is the seat of creative becoming and of free will."
Re: <Head Spinning>
Date: 2004-02-26 03:40 pm (UTC)I'm not convinced of this, but since this is one of Christian Kane's actual songs, I haven't heard the whole thing. They don't seem the same based on the lyrics we heard in the actual ep (which was Dead End, not To Shanshu)
Rabbits and things (Spoilers for Donnie Darko)
Date: 2004-02-26 03:51 pm (UTC)I'm wondering if the same thing may not have happened in the whedonverse. Did Buffy's decision to die instead of Dawn throw the world out of wack? Did Willow's decision to bring her back continue that? Was it Dawn's fate to die? And when Buffy chose to do so in Dawn's place - was it Buffy's fate to accept it? In Chosen we're told it hasn't - that they did the right thing. But Angel is the flip side of Buffy, so when Buffy does the right thing, Angel often does the wrong one. So - was Angel's decision to save Connor in the way that he did throw the world out of wack? If he went back in time and changed it - would he do what Donnie Darko did and throw it back into wack?
Is Illyria the flip side of Jasmine? Jasmine = order at it's extreme. Illyria may be chaos at it's extreme?
Interesting. Makes the head spin.
Re: Rabbits and things (Spoilers for Donnie Darko)
Date: 2004-02-26 04:05 pm (UTC)Oh, I love that! I had been trying to put my finger on what exactly was being compared or contrasted with the two "demon births". And if we delve more into this, it is quite ironic that the force of extreme chaos emerges out of the scientist while the force of extreme order emerges from the part-demon.
Re: Eve's song
Date: 2004-02-26 06:07 pm (UTC)Pretty girl on every corner.
Sunshine turns the sky to gold.
Warm, warm, it's always warm here.
And I can't take the cold.
This whole world shines so brightly.
Pretty as a picture, she's...
Settles me with love and laughter.
And I can't feel a thing.
The sky's gonna open.
People gonna pray and crawl.
It's gonna rain down fire...
The sky is gonna open,
people gonna pray and sing.
Oh, I can't feel...
punkinpuss
This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-26 06:44 pm (UTC)Maybe it's because it's Fred I'm still seeing, but what if Illyria isn't what she seems to be? Jasmine wasn't either. She's one of the Old Ones, so yeah, yeah, death, destruction, mayhem, doesn't play well with others.
Arethusa posted this at ATP:
"Illyria is the Latin name of the Greek goddess of childbirth, daughter of Hera and Zeus, therefore granddaughter of Chaos, the malestrom from which the world was created. In this case she causes Fred to give birth to her, just as Jasmine took Cordy's body and life to reecreate herself."
So lots of interesting birth/rebirth references throughout the ep. That whole cycle of death/life, order/chaos thing. In Just Rewards, when Angel is about to destroy the amulet and Ghost!Spike, Spike tells him it's fitting, what with the "circle of death" and Angel being his grandsire. Even though it's not explicit, I sense that Angel is still at the center of this cycle of death/life/birth/rebirth etc., or more specifically, his actions in Home are the beginnings of this fractal process.
You mentioned that every time Fred emerged from her various caves, she became stronger and changed, just as she does this time as Illyria. Cordy ended up in a coma after giving birth to Jasmine. Could Fred find a way to survive this metamorphosis? Of course I also got a very Dark Phoenix vibe from this.
Quite agree that JAR gave a stunning performance. The confrontation scene with Knox felt Shakespearean in its horrific power. And the White Room scene with himself was very deft in its use of vocal inflections and body language. Note that Conduit!Gunn speaks in cold, ultra rational lawyery tones but uses brute physical force to show its mastery over Real!Gunn. The Conduit has no problem integrating its caveman/astronaut aspects. It's Real!Gunn who suffers, as Angel does, from this dichotomy, this split between who he was and who he wants to be. Is the Hole in the World also the hole inside Angel or Gunn that represents their inability to become whole?
Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-26 09:21 pm (UTC)So lots of interesting birth/rebirth references throughout the ep. That whole cycle of death/life, order/chaos thing. In Just Rewards, when Angel is about to destroy the amulet and Ghost!Spike, Spike tells him it's fitting, what with the "circle of death" and Angel being his grandsire. Even though it's not explicit, I sense that Angel is still at the center of this cycle of death/life/birth/rebirth etc., or more specifically, his actions in Home are the beginnings of this fractal process.
This I strongly agree with. I think it is a cycle that keeps repeating itself, like fractals (which I decided to look up in the dictionary today - it means (according to The American Heritage Dictionary at any rate):" a geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irrelgular shapes that cannot be represented by classical geometry..." Whoa! Why do I suddenly see MC Escher painting in my head when I read that? I also see the past 5 seasons of ATS. If you look back on some of the episodes in S3 and compare them to some of the episodes in S5, you see an odd pattern - Birthday/You're Welcome - where Cordy has the death she should have had in Birthday. The Price/Hole in the World - this time Fred has the type of death she almost had in The Price. The difference between S3 and S5 is of course Connor. He's what was in S3 and what is removed from S5.
Also Jasmine - order? Illyria - Chaos. Are Jasmine and Illyria mirror images of each other? Jasmine comes from chaotic Cordelia, while Illyria comes from order loving Fred.
I think you are right about the duality - which is expressed in the caveman vs astronaut argument. And seen in the relationship as well as the bickering between Spike and Angel. Note Spike is the only character outside of possibly EVE that seems to be acting sanely, and not chaotically here. We see the best in him. (Not sure about Angel yet). Spike is also the only character who has dealt with his duality. He is both William and Spike and he knows it. Angel on the other hand is trying to ignore Liam and Angelus. Gunn likewise is ignoring the Panther - seeing the rational man. Spike, like Cordelia used to, is constantly remind Angel of who he is and Angel would like him to shut up.
You mentioned that every time Fred emerged from her various caves, she became stronger and changed, just as she does this time as Illyria. Cordy ended up in a coma after giving birth to Jasmine. Could Fred find a way to survive this metamorphosis? Of course I also got a very Dark Phoenix vibe from this.
I'm completely unspoiled on this, but my hunch is that she will survive it. Just not sure how. Will it be something Angel does that saves her? Or will she conquer it herself? I have this odd feeling that we may end up with a huge reset, ie. the mindwipe being undone, which I have mixed feelings about. Depends on how they do it, assuming they do do it. Don't know. Just spec.
Is the Hole in the World also the hole inside Angel or Gunn that represents their inability to become whole?
Interesting question. Is this why Spike is the character who wonders about it? Because he's whole more or less, just as Cordelia is now whole more or less? Having dealt with their dark sides. Maybe not. Gunn tore at my heart in this episode. I honestly felt the most for him. I felt he'd lost something and he wasn't sure how to retrieve it.
Yet, Gunn is avidly aware, almost hyper-aware of the interactions of the AI gang, he knew about Wes and Fred way before they mentioned it to him, while Angel is the opposite, completely unaware of everything going on around him. The only thing Gunn is unaware of is what is going on inside himself - he's lost track of that and it's to his detriment. While Angel is so introspective, he doesn't see anything else until it's almost too late.
Love the mirror reflections here.
Thanks for this response!
Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-26 10:51 pm (UTC)I foud a site today called, incredibly, Wolfram Research Inc. that states the Escher perspective is repeating patterns. Lately I've become obsessed with his "Magic Mirror" drawing because the way the two beast part then merge in the mirror reminds me of Angel and Spike, as shadows of each other.
Here's the drawing. (http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A26L.html)
"Inspired in part by Lewis Carroll's book, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Escher utilizes his magical winged lions, Symmetry # 66, in an engaging visual gymnastics where the beasts emerge from the mirror to form a jigsaw mosaic across the tiled table upon which the scene unfolds. On the opposite side of the mirror, the reflected image does the same. The dual realities merge in the middle."
I got the feeling in this episode that Angel is starting to see Spike as a younger version of himself. He tries to get Spike to leave, but I think it's to keep him from being corrupted. Regarding the midwipe, I think you're right, because Angel was repeating old patterns when he took accepted W&H for his friends. This year has been a repeat of last year, as Little Bit and others have said. He can't let go of the patterns because he can't let go of the past. It's a hard thing, to overcome long established patterns, but the alternative is a loop. He might need to face that delimma again, so he can make the right choice this time.
So, who is Donnie?
Date: 2004-02-27 02:28 am (UTC)Rufus
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 06:50 am (UTC)Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-27 10:44 am (UTC)The Gunn arc is really great stuff. It's like totally Shakespearean! The tragically flawed hero here is Gunn because he does realize what he's doing (and done). More than Angel whose big problem is that he doesn't see himself even though he's the only one without a memory gap.
As for the dictionary meaning of fractal, frankly I barely understand this stuff in its mathematical or physical implications. I can visualize it sort of. "A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes that cannot be represented by classical geometry." So, it's a pattern. Okay, I can see how that can be an analogy. Don't know if I can explain it but I think I get it. In this story, it's the repeating pattern, in a different scale. We're getting history repeating itself because the Fang Gang's memories have been wiped -- they're doomed to repeat history since their memory loss prevents them from learning from it. Is that how you're seeing it?
Those graphs of fractals wouldn't make any sense except from a mathematical perspective I imagine. Although the fact that it is shaped like a volcano makes some sense, ie., larger pattern progressing to smaller pattern. It's not a step by step visualization of the pattern's movement. It's a graph that visualizes its proportional changes. That's the other thing about analogies. It's about relationship, proportion and ratio. Hence "Ratio Hornblower" in Smile Time. I had to look up analogies also. Been a couple of decades since I had to study them for my SAT's!
Why Spike? He's the only one who isn't involved in or has knowledge of the Connor mindwipe. Even Eve knows about that. He's not affected by it or part of it.
punkinpuss
Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-27 12:40 pm (UTC)Yes, that's it exactly. Actually Aresthua does a very good job of showing a visual description of it in her post below. Another wonderful description is "the Butterfly Effect" or what Rob describes in Donnie Darko.
In Donnie Darko - a boy avoids his fate, death, and by doing so, sets in motion a series of chaotic events that could lead to the end of the world. By going back in time and accepting his fate - death, he undoes the chaos. The recent movie the Butterfly Effect is likewise about a man who goes back in time to undo a child-hood trauma, but all he manages to do is make it worse, each time losing something different and making something worse in the future or his present.
Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-28 09:25 am (UTC)Thanks for this link and the explanation above. Yes, I think that's what fractals mean. So if we add that explanation to the whole Feigenbaum theory of the Butterfly Effect...we know why Joss Whedon said that he figured out how the season had to end while writing episode 15.
Butterfly Effect is what Rob describes in Donnie Darko.
The change of one event, causes a ripple effect pushing other events into motion until you find yourself in a mirror world. The shapes are the same yet different, fractals echoing backwards, just like that mirror world painting (drawing?) by Escher. Sort of like the image of Gunn looking at himself in The White Room. Or Spike looking down at the hole knowing someone else is looking right back at him possibly at the same time.
To solve the problem - Donnie, in Donnie Darko went back and corrected the event that caused the chaotic chain reaction. I have a completely unspoiled hunch that's what is going to happen here, just not sure if they do it how it will work without causing problems.
Re: This 'n' that
Date: 2004-02-28 12:41 pm (UTC)I love the way this man thinks. Why just insult someone to his face when you can insult someone to his face without him knowing?