Angel and stuff
Apr. 21st, 2004 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDebating doing a livejournal entry on Angel right now.
Have mixed feelings about the episode. And well, I'm nervous about other RL things. OTOH maybe jotting down preliminary thoughts will distract me from those RL life concerns that have me staring bleakly at my computer screen wondering when the dang dial-up connection will kick me out.
So here are my thoughts for what they are worth on tonight's Angel. Only seen it once so far...so there will probably be errors. And I'll probably want to say more later...there's quite a bit here to play with, even if I wasn't as blown away by it as everyone else appears to be.
In a photography studio - there's the print and the negative. The negative is the same as the print, but the inverse and you make the print off of the negative - which is what the print originates from. You can make as many prints as you like - but you need that negative. The negative is often the print backwards. Like reading words in a mirror. Everything is the opposite. It's flipped. Like an MC ESCHER drawing. Well this episode like Underneath is filled with photonegatives or mirror opposites.
1. Spike and Connor. Pip, who posts on teaattheford and apto, has been asserting in a series of posts on this forum that Spike is Connor's mirror, or in the Connor role. Until now, I was admittedly skeptical. Well the visual clues alone in this episode appear to prove Pip right.
Here's what I saw:
Up until this episode Spike and Angel are joined at the hip. They are fighting side by side. The writers literally pound it into our heads. Heck last weeks episode, Underneath, they were shot as reflecting each other. They are a unit. Spike is Angel's right hand man. Then - Connor shows up, right as Angel is informing Wes that they should make Spike check out Illyria. We *never* see Angel and Spike alone together in this episode and only briefly in each others company. While Angel seems to be in Connor's throughout. Also check out the fight scene with the car - Connor is fighting, Angel whips out of nowhere. It's a contrast to the Angel/Spike scenes, where Angel is fighting - and Spike shows up and gradually the two fight as a team.
Also Angel's treatment of Spike is the mirror opposite to his treatment of Connor. Wes worries about anyone checking out Illyria, because she'll hurt them. Angel says: "we'll make Spike do it." Later with Connor, Angel is *very* worried about Connor taking on Saijhan, even resists it. He tries to interfere, a barrier holds him back, he watches them through it, just as you can watch Spike and Illyria fight - through a glass window.
The fight scenes - Saijhan hits Connor repeated in the face and head, Illyria hits Spike repeatedly in face and head. Spike is nice to Illyria, she's snarky. Connor is nice to Saijhan, he's snarky. Saijhan doesn't take Connor seriously. Illyria asks to make Spike her pet.
We never see Spike and Connor alone together or even in the same room for more than five minutes. Angel also is introducing Connor more to Illyria than to Spike, he seems to almost be ignoring Spike at the time.
Check out the car scenes in both Underneath and Origin, who is sitting where, how are they sitting, how is it shot? In Underneath. Spike is in back, between the two seats, leaning over them talking to Gunn and Angel in front, making comments. In Origin, Connor is in back, between the two seats, leaning over them talking to Mom and Dad in front.
Another parallel: At the end of Why We Fight, Spike walks up to Angel who is standing in front of the glass contemplating life and talks to him. At the end of Origin, Angel is standing in the same position and framed the same way when Connor comes up to him.
Way too many visual images over series of episodes for this not to be deliberate on the part of the writers/showrunners. All of this seems to emphasize that Spike and Connor are meant to be mirrored by the writers. Or rather the relationship between Angel/Spike is a mirror or photo-negative of the Connor/Angel relationship.
2. Another interesting photo-negative or mirror that shouted out to me: is Fred/Spike and Spike/Illyria or rather Fred/Spike relationship in Just Rewards to Hellbound- Illyria/Spike - Orgin. We have Spike/Fred in Just Rewards through Hellbound, where Fred is studying Spike in her lab, she's the one in the lab with the weird newcomer, with the clipboard in hand treating him like a specimen. The one prodding him with her readings while he calls her pet or flirts. Over time he becomes less something to be analyzed and something to be saved, a person. Now we have the mirror of that relationship, or alternate print - with Spike and Illyria. This round it is Spike, complete with his little clipboard, interviewing the weird newcomer, Illyria. Spike who is attempting to study her. And unlike the Fred/Spike scenerio, this one is violent - Illyria hits Spike, and is almost too corporeal. Spike in the bit between Just Rewards to Hellbound, is contained, hugs himself and if he strikes out goes through walls. Spike was all ghost, intangible, soft. Illyria all shell, hard, tangible. What remained of Spike was his spirit, his body out phase (hidden). What remains of Fred is her shell, her spirit is out of phase or gone (I think out of phase, hidden). IF we continue with the opposites - then I'd speculate (completely unspoiled on this) that Fred's spirit is probably in a box, just as Spike's corporeality is. Fred got taken over by Illyria by opening a box. Spike became corporeal by opening one. Illyria/Spike is the photo-negative of Spike/Fred.
3. Gunn's hell/Connor's heaven - while Angel is metaphorically getting his heart ripped out watching Connor, Gunn is literally getting his heart ripped out. (Another mirror image is Gunn/Angel in this episode). While Angel made a deal to give Connor the perfect life sans memories (his real memories are in a box), Gunn makes a deal to stay in a penalty box symbolizing in some respects Connor's perfect life, with his memories taken from him. Gunn has the perfect family, no memories of his past existence, but goes to the dungeon to get his heart ripped out for payment each day. WR&H offer him a counter-offer, he refuses, deciding to stay in his hell. Angel gave Connor the perfect family, no memories of his past existence, yet is forced to have his heart ripped out repeatedly - Vale gives him the counter-offer which would give back Connor's memories, Angel does anything to avoid it. He is willing to have his heart ripped out watching his son die to avoid it. Gunn's hell is the photo-negative/mirror of Connor's heaven. Gunn's deal - signing the contract with WR&H for memories to be better - the photo-negative/mirror of Angel's deal with WR&H to extract memories and to give Connor a better life.
4. Wes/Illyria is the photo-negative of Wes/Lilah. We go down to the file cabinets and Illyria stands just as Lilah did while Wes rummages through the documents and finds the condemning contract. It's an echo. And it leads him to a result just as damning as the one he discovered the last time - he can't save her. Both times he hunts the contract thinking he can save the girl - and both times he is confronted with reality or truth. The contract is signed. They made the choice to join. There is no going back. You can't rescue Lilah, but since this is the photonegative/mirror, we may yet get Fred.
5. Box metaphors. This time it's memories that WR&H has placed inside a box, a glowing glass box which Wes breaks open. (Let's see previous items placed in boxes are: spirits - Just Rewards, Virus - Conviction (the box being the boy), Sleep - Life of The Party, Illyria's essence - Hole in the World, Corporeality - Destiney) Once again - WR&H hires someone to box something up on the request of an Angel team member and an another Angel team member smashes the box. The result of smashing the box is not as dire as WR&H would like the Angel team member to believe. Spike becoming corporeal did not destroy the world. Connor regaining his memories actually saved his life, it did not destroy him as Angel feared.
*** As an aside:I believe Connor remembered everything and made the decision to stick with the fabricated memories and new world. He tells us why: 1) "I don't want to fight" after killing Saijhan. 2)"I love my family, they need protection in this world." Is this in character? Yes. Why - note what Wes tells Illyria, the new memories have changed us, we are different, and they help us endure the truth. Connor's fabricated memories gave him the assurances he didn't have before. As the demon Vale (I think that's his name) states - giving everyone back their memories does not change anything, it won't alter reality - all it does is make them aware or conscious of it - basically puts them in the same place as Angel has been all year - he can remember what happened before, but is in this reality. Another way of understanding it is looking at Gunn, who can remember what happened whenever he removes his amulet, but is stuck with his reality and chooses to put it back on since not knowing is less torturous than knowing. He chooses to forget. *(not sure if that made sense or not, sort of writing this off the top of my head, here.)
If Connor had not remembered - Saijhan would have killed him. And unboxing Saijhan did not result in anyone's death but Saijhan's. Nor did unboxing the memories cause Wes to turn on Angel, if anything it enabled Wes to finally understand and trust Angel again. It put Wes and Angel back on a level playing field, more or less. Repressing things, avoiding them - does not work.
I'm wondering if the box metaphors we see all season long may in some respects refer to Angel boxing up Angelus and his emotions. Angel seems to be boxing up each of his emotions and desires and putting them aside. Buffy over here. Connor over here. Spike over there. Darla over there. Wes and Cordy over there...and so on, layer after layer of boxes, underneath them all lies Angelus, and underneath Angelus what informed him. Liam and the family he destroyed.
6. Who is WR&H and what do they do? Got plenty of clues. I think: They are reasonable men who keep the world ticking along in an orderly fashion, with everything boxed up in its own nice little place, making deals, owning portions of peoples souls, controlling the world. WR&H may in some ways be the mirror of The Initiative in the Buffyverse or the photonegative. Hamilton offers Gunn a way out, but Gunn cuts him off before he tells him the deal, refusing it. Gunn has had enough of dealmaking. But has Angel?
Angel is shown making deals with the evil Vale (played to perfection by character actor Dennis Christopher, from the film Breaking Away and other numerous roles) - a deal that could get Connor killed and indeed almost does. Angel keeps making deals with fate to protect his family, himself. A deal to give Connor a better life. A deal to ensure Connor doesn't get those memories back. Wes is right - and is echoing Gunn in this scene, when he asks Angel, what deal did you make? So we have Angel's deal the photo-negative of Gunn's?
7. Back to Connor - his life with his family is the opposite of the life he had with Angel. A photo-negative or an alternate print of the previous season. With his new family, he is a stable kid, who goes to Standford and doesn't fight. I don't like fighting he says. With Angel, he is a fighter. Outside of normality. Not in the sunlight. No family, outside of a father and a drop-dead gorgeous super-being he's attracted to and would possibly have sex with. Spike is his mirror. Vampire son, with human inside vs. Human son/with vampire inside. Photo-negatives or mirrors.
Fascinating episode.
Interesting episode. I wasn't blown away by it. It's not a favorite.
Okay off to bed now...to read maybe and try to sleep.
Have mixed feelings about the episode. And well, I'm nervous about other RL things. OTOH maybe jotting down preliminary thoughts will distract me from those RL life concerns that have me staring bleakly at my computer screen wondering when the dang dial-up connection will kick me out.
So here are my thoughts for what they are worth on tonight's Angel. Only seen it once so far...so there will probably be errors. And I'll probably want to say more later...there's quite a bit here to play with, even if I wasn't as blown away by it as everyone else appears to be.
In a photography studio - there's the print and the negative. The negative is the same as the print, but the inverse and you make the print off of the negative - which is what the print originates from. You can make as many prints as you like - but you need that negative. The negative is often the print backwards. Like reading words in a mirror. Everything is the opposite. It's flipped. Like an MC ESCHER drawing. Well this episode like Underneath is filled with photonegatives or mirror opposites.
1. Spike and Connor. Pip, who posts on teaattheford and apto, has been asserting in a series of posts on this forum that Spike is Connor's mirror, or in the Connor role. Until now, I was admittedly skeptical. Well the visual clues alone in this episode appear to prove Pip right.
Here's what I saw:
Up until this episode Spike and Angel are joined at the hip. They are fighting side by side. The writers literally pound it into our heads. Heck last weeks episode, Underneath, they were shot as reflecting each other. They are a unit. Spike is Angel's right hand man. Then - Connor shows up, right as Angel is informing Wes that they should make Spike check out Illyria. We *never* see Angel and Spike alone together in this episode and only briefly in each others company. While Angel seems to be in Connor's throughout. Also check out the fight scene with the car - Connor is fighting, Angel whips out of nowhere. It's a contrast to the Angel/Spike scenes, where Angel is fighting - and Spike shows up and gradually the two fight as a team.
Also Angel's treatment of Spike is the mirror opposite to his treatment of Connor. Wes worries about anyone checking out Illyria, because she'll hurt them. Angel says: "we'll make Spike do it." Later with Connor, Angel is *very* worried about Connor taking on Saijhan, even resists it. He tries to interfere, a barrier holds him back, he watches them through it, just as you can watch Spike and Illyria fight - through a glass window.
The fight scenes - Saijhan hits Connor repeated in the face and head, Illyria hits Spike repeatedly in face and head. Spike is nice to Illyria, she's snarky. Connor is nice to Saijhan, he's snarky. Saijhan doesn't take Connor seriously. Illyria asks to make Spike her pet.
We never see Spike and Connor alone together or even in the same room for more than five minutes. Angel also is introducing Connor more to Illyria than to Spike, he seems to almost be ignoring Spike at the time.
Check out the car scenes in both Underneath and Origin, who is sitting where, how are they sitting, how is it shot? In Underneath. Spike is in back, between the two seats, leaning over them talking to Gunn and Angel in front, making comments. In Origin, Connor is in back, between the two seats, leaning over them talking to Mom and Dad in front.
Another parallel: At the end of Why We Fight, Spike walks up to Angel who is standing in front of the glass contemplating life and talks to him. At the end of Origin, Angel is standing in the same position and framed the same way when Connor comes up to him.
Way too many visual images over series of episodes for this not to be deliberate on the part of the writers/showrunners. All of this seems to emphasize that Spike and Connor are meant to be mirrored by the writers. Or rather the relationship between Angel/Spike is a mirror or photo-negative of the Connor/Angel relationship.
2. Another interesting photo-negative or mirror that shouted out to me: is Fred/Spike and Spike/Illyria or rather Fred/Spike relationship in Just Rewards to Hellbound- Illyria/Spike - Orgin. We have Spike/Fred in Just Rewards through Hellbound, where Fred is studying Spike in her lab, she's the one in the lab with the weird newcomer, with the clipboard in hand treating him like a specimen. The one prodding him with her readings while he calls her pet or flirts. Over time he becomes less something to be analyzed and something to be saved, a person. Now we have the mirror of that relationship, or alternate print - with Spike and Illyria. This round it is Spike, complete with his little clipboard, interviewing the weird newcomer, Illyria. Spike who is attempting to study her. And unlike the Fred/Spike scenerio, this one is violent - Illyria hits Spike, and is almost too corporeal. Spike in the bit between Just Rewards to Hellbound, is contained, hugs himself and if he strikes out goes through walls. Spike was all ghost, intangible, soft. Illyria all shell, hard, tangible. What remained of Spike was his spirit, his body out phase (hidden). What remains of Fred is her shell, her spirit is out of phase or gone (I think out of phase, hidden). IF we continue with the opposites - then I'd speculate (completely unspoiled on this) that Fred's spirit is probably in a box, just as Spike's corporeality is. Fred got taken over by Illyria by opening a box. Spike became corporeal by opening one. Illyria/Spike is the photo-negative of Spike/Fred.
3. Gunn's hell/Connor's heaven - while Angel is metaphorically getting his heart ripped out watching Connor, Gunn is literally getting his heart ripped out. (Another mirror image is Gunn/Angel in this episode). While Angel made a deal to give Connor the perfect life sans memories (his real memories are in a box), Gunn makes a deal to stay in a penalty box symbolizing in some respects Connor's perfect life, with his memories taken from him. Gunn has the perfect family, no memories of his past existence, but goes to the dungeon to get his heart ripped out for payment each day. WR&H offer him a counter-offer, he refuses, deciding to stay in his hell. Angel gave Connor the perfect family, no memories of his past existence, yet is forced to have his heart ripped out repeatedly - Vale gives him the counter-offer which would give back Connor's memories, Angel does anything to avoid it. He is willing to have his heart ripped out watching his son die to avoid it. Gunn's hell is the photo-negative/mirror of Connor's heaven. Gunn's deal - signing the contract with WR&H for memories to be better - the photo-negative/mirror of Angel's deal with WR&H to extract memories and to give Connor a better life.
4. Wes/Illyria is the photo-negative of Wes/Lilah. We go down to the file cabinets and Illyria stands just as Lilah did while Wes rummages through the documents and finds the condemning contract. It's an echo. And it leads him to a result just as damning as the one he discovered the last time - he can't save her. Both times he hunts the contract thinking he can save the girl - and both times he is confronted with reality or truth. The contract is signed. They made the choice to join. There is no going back. You can't rescue Lilah, but since this is the photonegative/mirror, we may yet get Fred.
5. Box metaphors. This time it's memories that WR&H has placed inside a box, a glowing glass box which Wes breaks open. (Let's see previous items placed in boxes are: spirits - Just Rewards, Virus - Conviction (the box being the boy), Sleep - Life of The Party, Illyria's essence - Hole in the World, Corporeality - Destiney) Once again - WR&H hires someone to box something up on the request of an Angel team member and an another Angel team member smashes the box. The result of smashing the box is not as dire as WR&H would like the Angel team member to believe. Spike becoming corporeal did not destroy the world. Connor regaining his memories actually saved his life, it did not destroy him as Angel feared.
*** As an aside:I believe Connor remembered everything and made the decision to stick with the fabricated memories and new world. He tells us why: 1) "I don't want to fight" after killing Saijhan. 2)"I love my family, they need protection in this world." Is this in character? Yes. Why - note what Wes tells Illyria, the new memories have changed us, we are different, and they help us endure the truth. Connor's fabricated memories gave him the assurances he didn't have before. As the demon Vale (I think that's his name) states - giving everyone back their memories does not change anything, it won't alter reality - all it does is make them aware or conscious of it - basically puts them in the same place as Angel has been all year - he can remember what happened before, but is in this reality. Another way of understanding it is looking at Gunn, who can remember what happened whenever he removes his amulet, but is stuck with his reality and chooses to put it back on since not knowing is less torturous than knowing. He chooses to forget. *(not sure if that made sense or not, sort of writing this off the top of my head, here.)
If Connor had not remembered - Saijhan would have killed him. And unboxing Saijhan did not result in anyone's death but Saijhan's. Nor did unboxing the memories cause Wes to turn on Angel, if anything it enabled Wes to finally understand and trust Angel again. It put Wes and Angel back on a level playing field, more or less. Repressing things, avoiding them - does not work.
I'm wondering if the box metaphors we see all season long may in some respects refer to Angel boxing up Angelus and his emotions. Angel seems to be boxing up each of his emotions and desires and putting them aside. Buffy over here. Connor over here. Spike over there. Darla over there. Wes and Cordy over there...and so on, layer after layer of boxes, underneath them all lies Angelus, and underneath Angelus what informed him. Liam and the family he destroyed.
6. Who is WR&H and what do they do? Got plenty of clues. I think: They are reasonable men who keep the world ticking along in an orderly fashion, with everything boxed up in its own nice little place, making deals, owning portions of peoples souls, controlling the world. WR&H may in some ways be the mirror of The Initiative in the Buffyverse or the photonegative. Hamilton offers Gunn a way out, but Gunn cuts him off before he tells him the deal, refusing it. Gunn has had enough of dealmaking. But has Angel?
Angel is shown making deals with the evil Vale (played to perfection by character actor Dennis Christopher, from the film Breaking Away and other numerous roles) - a deal that could get Connor killed and indeed almost does. Angel keeps making deals with fate to protect his family, himself. A deal to give Connor a better life. A deal to ensure Connor doesn't get those memories back. Wes is right - and is echoing Gunn in this scene, when he asks Angel, what deal did you make? So we have Angel's deal the photo-negative of Gunn's?
7. Back to Connor - his life with his family is the opposite of the life he had with Angel. A photo-negative or an alternate print of the previous season. With his new family, he is a stable kid, who goes to Standford and doesn't fight. I don't like fighting he says. With Angel, he is a fighter. Outside of normality. Not in the sunlight. No family, outside of a father and a drop-dead gorgeous super-being he's attracted to and would possibly have sex with. Spike is his mirror. Vampire son, with human inside vs. Human son/with vampire inside. Photo-negatives or mirrors.
Fascinating episode.
Interesting episode. I wasn't blown away by it. It's not a favorite.
Okay off to bed now...to read maybe and try to sleep.
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Date: 2004-04-22 08:09 pm (UTC)And don't forget the most important boxes: W&H brought Darla back in a box and the following season Connor himself was brought in in Darla's box (don't blame me - it's Tim Minear's joke).