We few...we band of buggered
Apr. 23rd, 2004 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI'm speaking of the five people on my friends list who didn't think Ats 5.18 was the cat's pajamas and were just a little disturbed by the message at the end. I think it's five, may be less. Not sure.
Sigh. Bad day. Very bad day. Getting worse. It's past one and I should sleep, instead I keep writing and deleting posts.
Got some bad news tonight about my sister-in-law who just had the baby. She's in dreadful pain. Slipped disc and severe back contusion from her labor, which have made it impossible for her to care for her new baby. I'm terribly worried about her.
She's such a sweet person and so does not deserve this. And there's nothing I can do to help. My brother is keeping everyone but close friends away at this point - due to her fragile emotional state. (Her mother is not helping her, they had to throw her out). The whole situation makes me cry.
All my other problems, of which there are many, seem silly in comparison. There is nothing worse than wanting to help and being unable to.
Sigh. Bad day. Very bad day. Getting worse. It's past one and I should sleep, instead I keep writing and deleting posts.
Got some bad news tonight about my sister-in-law who just had the baby. She's in dreadful pain. Slipped disc and severe back contusion from her labor, which have made it impossible for her to care for her new baby. I'm terribly worried about her.
She's such a sweet person and so does not deserve this. And there's nothing I can do to help. My brother is keeping everyone but close friends away at this point - due to her fragile emotional state. (Her mother is not helping her, they had to throw her out). The whole situation makes me cry.
All my other problems, of which there are many, seem silly in comparison. There is nothing worse than wanting to help and being unable to.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 12:18 am (UTC)I hope she gets well soon!
Date: 2004-04-23 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 03:42 am (UTC)(SK not sure if you got my email? I don't get comments btw AOL considers them to be spammage.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 06:29 am (UTC)What is it about the episode that bothers you-the "maybe you can be saved by a lie?"?
No, it's more than that
Date: 2004-04-23 07:23 am (UTC)fresne and I actually discuss this in more depth in the comments to my last entry. Connor was not saved just by a lie. That would be one thing. He was saved at the expense of others, Angel shifted reality and in doing so changed and alterred others lives possibly to their detriment and did not think twice about it. So it's not just because Connor was saved by lies, it's because Angel pulled a Jasmine on everyone else - Angel did *exactly* the same thing Jasmine did and he got *exactly* what he wanted - Connor gets the perfect family and the perfect life. Angel was rewarded, while his friends go to hell.
What Angel did, if you think about it, is in essence sacrifice everyone to save his son. He shifted reality. He signed on with WR&H. He changed his friends memories and who they were. That disturbs me. It's incredibly ironic if you think about it - Angel makes a huge deal about Jasmine removing their free will and telling lies and how that's wrong and then turns around and pulls the same deal to save his son. Angel is no better than Jasmine was. She's right when she tells him that in Peace-Out.
Connor's happiness is at the expense of the reality that existed prior to it. It's similar in a way to what the monks did with Dawn in BTVS. The difference is that the monks did it to prevent Glory from finding the key and destroying reality as we know it, Angel did it to save his son, reality be damned. Buffy died instead of Dawn to keep reality intact and save her sister. Angel kills his son, then changes reality to save him.
Re: No, it's more than that
Date: 2004-04-23 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 06:51 am (UTC)What's the message that you didn't like on AtS? I really liked Connor in Origin, but sometimes I think that the family of the girl he helped murder and the families of the people Jasmine killed wouldn't be so inclined to let him go back to his happy life.
Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 07:40 am (UTC)I actually discuss this in a little more depth with fresne below. Origin disturbs me for a lot of reasons, the biggest one is that you have someone who got a happy life at the detriment of others.
Connor's happiness in Origin is at the expense of everyone else.
Angel basically is Jasmine in Origin. He does, if you think about it, the same things Jasmine did with the exception of eating people.
Angel gave Connor a new life at the expense of reality and everyone else. He paid WR&H in his blood and those of his friends to shift reality in order to give Connor a happy life. Vale states, you can get the memories back but not shift reality back. Reality shifted the day they took over WR&H.
So, okay, we have happy wonderful Connor who can leap buildings in a single bound, has the lovely parents, the great education - and oh, just don't look behind door number 1 - that's Illyria, or door number 2 - that's Gunn, or door number 3 - that's Lorne, or door number 5 that's Wes...or all the other people we don't know of whose lives were changed because of Connor. Also, everything about Connor is a lie. It's a fabrication. Connor's existence is not that different than the wR&H penalty cell, except for one thing, Connor is going into the basement to get his heart ripped out - no, that's everyone else. I liked Connor - I find the character fascinating. But I do not like the idea that it is okay to alter others memories, existence and reality just to save one kid. That said, I'm not sure I'm supposed to.
It's not the last episode of the series. There are four more. Something tells me that Angel is going to pay for this one in blood.
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 09:03 am (UTC)This also might tie in to the entire experience of being a vampire. It's a cheat too, cheating death, cheating the possibe consequences of one's actions if you believe in an afterlife, which I think Angel did and Spike, especially, does. They took something that didn't belong to them-eternal life-(whether deliberately or unknowingly) and many others paid in blood for their continuing lives. They are living on borrowed time, well passed their allotted years, and I'm afraid that it's time to pay the piper. What happened with Eve gives me hope, though, since her "I'm gonna die" was really "I"m gonna die some day like I'm supposed to."
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 09:13 am (UTC)I think what happened with Eve and Lindsey may be the secret. The idea of love. Eve became mortal because she fell in love. She betrayed the senior partners out of love. She stopped cheating death or manipulating her way around it.
I'm not unconvinced that our trickster characters: Lindsey and Eve may not be the force for good here. They may be the ones pushing at the edges of Angel's fabricated reality.
Origin is a fascinating episode, because so much of it may be a mislead. We are in the point of view of Pinnoccio after all.
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 09:28 am (UTC)Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 09:35 am (UTC)Spike changed himself because he fell in love and acknowledged that love. It's why he got the soul. And it's why he wore the amulet and saved the world. Angel keeps denying himself love - because he thinks it will unleash Angelus - he believes love unleashes his monster, as we see him mention in Smile Time. But was it "his love" for Buffy that unleashed Angelus, or Buffy's love for him, the fact he felt bliss for being loved? To love, requires pain and risk - it's what the First Slayer Guide told Buffy in Intervention. Risk the pain.
Angel is afraid to risk it and as a result he remains in the eternal loop symbolized by the penalty box he finds Lindsey in.
It's an odd Catch-22, To break the cycle - Angel must love, but he fears to love because of Angelus underneath. Sort of like Connor and the memories. Will the memories turn Connor into a monster?
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 09:49 am (UTC)Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 12:11 pm (UTC)Also earlier in the season we have the contrast of Dana, who like Connor in Home appears monsterous and beyond hope. But Andrew and the slayers show up with a viable alternative to WR&H. Not to mention Lawson who shows up in Why We Fight - asking for help, for a reason.
Angel's solution? Death.
I also can't help but remember the caveman/astronaut debate:
Angel: why can't you see the big picture
Spike: why can't you unleash it, see the passion
Angel keeps repressing things, burying them - the mindwipe is just one example. He also keeps following prophecies or seeking them out - what happens with Vail is another example. He's so busy trying to control everything and everyone, that I think somewhere along the way he forgot what's important. In a way that's what both Jasmine and WR&H do, control everything. Repressing emotion.
I hope we don't see Connor again. Because if we do...I agree killing him in front of Angel is almost poetic justice and far too tempting for a writer to resist. This can't end well. Origin left me with a deep sense of foreboding. (Unspoiled - so have no clue if I'm right.)
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 01:13 pm (UTC)And Wesley got his memories back, as will Gunn, as "did" Illyria, and Lorne as well. And as Illyria said, the lack of these memories changed who they were. The return of the memories, no matter how much Wesley says it won't effect him, WILL effect him.
This was sort of the cornerstone of the whole season, these missing memories and their significance. ME isn't going to just let this drop.
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 02:22 pm (UTC)I'm not clear on who remembers - do Lorne and Gunn? Or just the people in the room with Angel - ie. Connor, Illyria/Fred and Wes?
Illyria is the one I'm most interested in - because before Wes smashed the glass she only had fragments of Fred's memories, there was still more Illyria than Fred in there, now...whoa! She has a whole five years worth of memories, a duplicate set. The question is how will she process these memories?
If Lorne and Gunn both get them back - how will this affect Gunn's decision to stay in the penalty box? And how will it affect Lorne?
Like you, I'm also curious about Connor. But I'm not sure ME has time left this season to address those issues. Yes, he can forget the past, push it aside, but he has all this power - how do you deal with that? Not to mention the fact that he knows this life isn't the real one.
Re: Ah what bugged me about Origin
Date: 2004-04-23 02:32 pm (UTC)I am of the opinion now that when the box was smashed, it undid the whole memory wipe. Connor got his memories back, as did his new parents (who will have to deal with the situation as Joyce and Buffy did). So did Wesley, Illyria, and Lorne, although we only got to see Wesley and Illyria's reaction because Lorne wasn't around at the end of the episode, and Gunn had no memories at all at the time the box smashed.
Which means reprecussions are to come.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-23 09:43 am (UTC)A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Date: 2004-04-23 04:34 pm (UTC)Since, this is where the discussion is, I thought I’d respond to the last post here…
I hadn’t really thought about the repetitions of destiny beyond the classic,
A man meets Death in a marketplace in Antioch. Death seems very surprised to see him, but says that they will meet tomorrow. The man flees to Constantinople, where he is killed. The man is upset that Death managed to track him down, to which Death replies, “Well, that’s why I was so surprised to see you in Antioch. I knew that I was supposed to meet you today in Constantinople.”
The man being Sahjan. With Vale as a manipulator of destiny. He has the jar. He wants to tidy up. He holds this boy’s life framework in a box to engage destiny like a play. The play really is the think to catch the conscience of the kind.
In some ways, I wonder if prophecy isn’t Big Beard in the Sky Father for Angel. It is the sense that Father is waiting and he has a table prepared for Angel and someday it will be time to go home. Which as so often happens, puts me in a Bujold (this time Paladin of Souls) thought process.
Vale, valley of the shadow of death. Veil, the curtain between the worlds of the living and the dead. Curtain and the Wizard of Oz behind it who manipulates illusions. The shoes are real. The witches broom is real. Heart, mind, courage, home being in the perception.
And Angel so trusting in prophecy that he sends his only begotten son to face it all dewy lamb and fluffy floppy. Well, the only one begotten in the, well, I want to say biological way, but in its manner vampirism has that element of the biological. In any case, other sons and daughters are rampant and roving.
Yes, I definitely agree about the 5.18 not 5.22 thing, because what was also interesting was that in our parallel plot line we have Gunn being offered a choice, knowledge/betrayal and ignorance/torture. Knowledge being linked as it is with taking the choice that W&H offers, turning it down is the “noble” thing. Since it’s also the masochistic thing, its interesting.
That repetition of hearts. Eventually the torturer gets around to everything, but for now it is hearts. The mind is empty. Courage wanders and doesn’t know who to face. Home was last year’s child.
Re: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Date: 2004-04-23 08:49 pm (UTC)Knowledge being linked as it is with taking the choice that W&H offers, turning it down is the “noble” thing. Since it’s also the masochistic thing, its interesting.
This image keeps playing around in my head too. The masochism.
Angelus was, we know, both sadistic and masochistic. Angel seems to be too. So is Spike. Lots of torture metaphors and more to the point, removing bodily organs or hollowing out. There's Pavayne who removed body parts and whose blood WR&H used to build their law firm upon. (Hellbound). Walter who is the torturer in Damage, using needles. The torturer in both Underneath and Origin who rips out hearts. The dream in Soul Purpose where Fred removes items from Angel's chest. Fred herself who is hollowed out by Illyria. And this circles back to Angel our king once again - who as Angelus enjoyed torturing people, hollowing them out, and recreating them in his image. I'm wondering if WR&H is similar.
A man meets Death in a marketplace in Antioch. Death seems very surprised to see him, but says that they will meet tomorrow. The man flees to Constantinople, where he is killed. The man is upset that Death managed to track him down, to which Death replies, “Well, that’s why I was so surprised to see you in Antioch. I knew that I was supposed to meet you today in Constantinople.”
What a fascinating take on fate. And it hits closely to something I've been pondering. I wonder if fate is really just the resolution of various unpredictable but inevitable causes and effects over time.
Sort of like hitting one dominoe and watching the rest fall. Sooner or later someone is going to hit that dominoe, it's inevitable. What we don't know is how the others will fall down or if someone will remove one or two along the way. Or playing Jenga - you pull out this block and that block praying the tower doesn't crumble, yet it's foundation is affected by your action - it will crumble and someone will pull out a block. We are all, like it or not, interconnected.
Sajhan creates havoc. WR&H make him incorporeal. Sajhan reads a prophecy where he will be killed. He's incorporeal so this is unlikely. He brings back Holtz to kill the boy who he believes will kill him. Holtz doesn't cooperate. Sajhan brings in WR&H. WR&H don't cooperate. Sajhan finally takes matters into his own hands - making Angel aware of him. Holtz takes Connor into Quortof because of Saj.
Pissed Angel makes a deal with wR&H to make Saj corporeal. Saj wrecks havok, Holtz's minion, Justine puts him in an urn which winds up in arch enemy Vail's hands. Connor returns. Connor kills Sajhan. What did Sajhan do wrong? Become corporeal? Or was his death inevitable no matter what - because of who Sajhan is and how the universe reacts to him? Sajhan can't help but create havoc and the universe can't help but want to put him in his place. It's not fate...it's not destiny...its the natural order or balance of things. Same with Angel.
If we unraveled the thread of time, would Connor have lived if Angel never took Wesely in? Would Fred? Or would someone else have fulfilled that role and it would happen anyway? Can we change fate?
Or is it that we are focusing like Angel on the wrong thing? Angel keeps focusing on the end result - the destination, he's not paying much attention to the journey there and I think that may be the mistake. Just like Sajhan was spending way too much time worrying about what might happen and not enough on what was happening.
There's an old saying - if you focus too much on the future, you can end up shitting on your present or something to that effect.
It's like your quote - Death tells him - what are you doing here?
I'm meeting you tomorrow. Instead of thinking, I have just a few more days left to live - I should live them to the fullest. The man spends all his time worrying about tomorrow attempting to escape it. If he'd just stayed put and enjoyed his life and focused on the journey not what may lie ahead, who knows? He may have cheated death.
Hollow Fisher Kings
Date: 2004-04-25 10:12 am (UTC)All this hollowing out is making me think of the Fisher King for some reason. Or perhaps it is the Hollow Men
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men…
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom…
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves…
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star…
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
No, mmmm…Fisher King, Elliot. Elliot Fisher King. Dying lands under infertile kings. Except, manifestly Angel has a son. Information that was put in a box that was put on a shelf that hangs on the wall in the basement of the house that Pavayne built. A man, who like, Sajhan, is still waiting in his coffin/jar. Like jenga. Like dominoes. No man an island to be separated from the main.
All these characters hollowed out and the remains put in boxes like so much Canopic Jars, so that Dead Osirus, who has other reasons for avoiding the physical end of romance, can bring them to life.
And Isis, whether you pick Cordy or Fred, is gone. Consumed.
Or is it that we are focusing like Angel on the wrong thing? Angel keeps focusing on the end result - the destination, he's not paying much attention to the journey there and I think that may be the mistake. Just like Sajhan was spending way too much time worrying about what might happen and not enough on what was happening.
Oh, I think that’s very likely. The writers/W&H are I think doing an excellent job at distraction. It’s like magic, only it involves tricks and slights and hands. I consider Angel’s obsession with earning money to send little Connor to a good college and neglecting the in between. Perhaps the answer is all there in Prophecy Girl. Walk through fate and out the other side. It’s all very Thoreau and suck the marrow/cream filling out of the bones/Twinkie of life.
Re: Hollow Fisher Kings
Date: 2004-04-25 08:33 pm (UTC)I watched an old 1980's movie last night - called The Chosen starring Robby Benson and Barry Stiller as two boys, one the son of a zionist and one the son of a rabbi. One boy, Danny, places his mind ahead of his heart - he has a photographic memory, total recall, can understand numerous languages, and is struggling with his father's approval, his father is distant and has raised him in silence. This boy is Haisdic and his father believes in prophecy. His father keeps telling this boy his path is pre-ordained. The other boy, Rueben, isn't very good at school. He can't remember things or speeches. He falls for girls. He is all heart. He has a very close connection with his father. He brings his father tea. And his father believes that we make our own destiny, we chart our own course. Not wait for God or someone else to show us.
At one point in the movie - Danny and Rueben are sitting at a garden.
Rueben is gardening - his hands in the earth. Danny is sitting on the rail with a book, as Rueben tries to recite the speech from Macbeth - the dying king's speech about "dreams". Danny relates the following to Rueben:
In Hebrew the word for King is spelled first with an m and ends with an L. In Hebrew the word for Fool is the same word but reversed - it starts with an L and ends with an M. In Hebrew the word for Mind starts with an m. In Hebrew the word for heart starts with an L.
It means - a king is a man who places his mind ahead of his heart.
A fool is the man who places his heart ahead of his mind. But the King cannot lead without the Fool, because he needs compassion, and heart to see. And the Fool cannot lead without the King because he needs the ability to know what to do, to plan.
It reminds me of Spike and Angel, the Fool and the King. One leads with his heart. One leads with his head. They are the mirrors of one another. But, what happens when they work together? Combine? No longer hollow.
In Prophecy Girl - Buffy ignored the Prophecy. She was almost killed by the Master. Who saved her? Heart (Xander)- who refused to follow prophecy and followed his heart, and Mind (Angel) - who believed in the Prophecy and knew where she was. The Fool leads the King to the Grail. Without the Fool, the King won't find it.
Re: Hollow Fisher Kings
Date: 2004-04-26 01:44 pm (UTC)Rather than flee to Constantinople, she goes to the market in Antioch and faces the Master. Faces Death. Dies. But it seems that Prophecies don’t give you all of the details. If she hadn’t gone, the Master wouldn’t have gotten out. If she hadn’t gone, Buffy wouldn’t have lived again, more powerful than before she went into the belly of the earth. If, if, if.
King and fool. I'm feeling so incredibly Lear towards Angel, but Cordelia is already dead.
But, what happens when they work together? Combine? No longer hollow.
Okay, that merits an, "oooooh!" Nice. Both the cup and the contents. The grail full of not Mountain Dew, but water.
This discussion keeps sparking such pleasing tangents, I’m wondering, do we want to take it on Board?
Re: Hollow Fisher Kings
Date: 2004-04-26 02:11 pm (UTC)I've considered it. Rahael certainly reproduced her's with Sophist.
(So there's precedence.) Not sure how though. I think I'd have to go back to our first posts on it, in the earlier entry.
Hmmm…I’m not entirely certain that Buffy ignores the prophecy as ceases to struggle against it and simultaneously learns to walk through it, with a little help from her friends.
Now that works better...I was trying to loop my brain around the conudrum of how we deal with destiny. We often think of it as an either/or prospect. Prophecy Girl compared to Chosen. In both Buffy goes down to the Hellmouth. But in the first she goes alone like the Prophecy states, as the shadowmen and Watchers tell her - literal interpretation. In Chosen, she flips over the board, she goes down with all the potentials, she opens the portal with hers and their blood, just as she opened it with just her blood in Prophecy Girl.
Actually, wait - blood opening portholes - Buffy's blood opens the porthole holding back the Master in Prophecy Girl, (her friends blood is supposed to ressurrect him in When She was Bad), it's Angel's blood that opens and closes Acathla's mouth to hell in Becoming, in Graduation Day, it's Buffy's blood that heals Angel, and in The Gift, it's Buffy's blood that stops the rip in the fabric of reality which Dawn's blood caused to open. Finally we have Chosen, where Buffy goes down not alone but with her fellow slayers -opening the hellmouth with their blood (an echo of when it's opened earlier in the Season with Spike's and to a small degree Xanders and Jonathans (all three symbolic of heart over head).) Spike joins them down in the mouth of hell and it is Spike who closes the mouth with his spirit. So the cup is Buffy's blood, the grail is Spike's spirit? The prophecy states one girl alone, Buffy doesn't ignore the prophecy what she does is alter it slightly - she flips over the playing board. It refers back to a statement of Gunn's in inside out, when Fred asks if they are all just puppets - Gunn says know. If you don't like the game you flip it over. Sort of like Whistler who states - we aren't puppets, bad things happen, but we choose how we react. Buffy chose to meet death head on, but she took companions with her into Hades realm, she didn't go alone. She had weapons.
King and fool. I'm feeling so incredibly Lear towards Angel, but Cordelia is already dead.
Is Angel - King Lear or King Macbeth. Two kings, one good at heart but weak in mind, one weak at heart and good at mind? Macbeth ruthlessly does whatever is necessary to take over and rule his kingdom and is wholeheartedly in favor of the ends justify the means.
He dreams though of damnation and he goes by the fates. Lady Macbeth does him in. King Lear destroys his family preferring his kingdom.
Tears out his heart for power and loses both. Then there's the other king, the older one, Arthur, who lies weak on his death bed, mortally wounded by a spear driven into his side by his son, Mordred, the only cure a sip from the elusive grail. A grail that he finds through the eyes of his fool.
sk:But, what happens when they work together? Combine? No longer hollow.
fresne: Okay, that merits an, "oooooh!" Nice. Both the cup and the contents. The grail full of not Mountain Dew, but water.
Isn't it interesting that in all the Shakespearen plays with Kings, we have fools? Falstaff in Henry the VI and VII, whose line Spike gives in The Gift. The man who follows Lear in King Lear. They provide comic relief, they make us the audience laugh, but at the same time...they also make the King or protagonist more sympathetic, show his human side. Where would King Hal be without his Falstaff?
If you like I can try to repost to the board but my dial-up is driving me crazy. If you prefer to try, I give you permission if you can do it from my live journal.
Posting to ATPO
Date: 2004-04-26 02:48 pm (UTC)They start with:
"FRESNE: This was an instance of an episode I may enjoy a bit better in the analysis than in the moment.
For all that I enjoyed the new happy Connor, I couldn't help but feel that it was a happiness purchased with everyone else’s fractured dissolution.
And, as I analyze it, it comes to greater focus, that my issue is that I personally have issues with anything to do with the theft of mind. Of anything, my knowledge and experiences and how they have shaped me are uniquely mine. So, an episode resolution that tacitly says that Angel made the right choice, cuz look see, it made life bearable and it’s okay to do anything for family makes me feel…well, I didn’t sigh with the happy pleasure that seems to be gusting about."
And end with my last message/post. Not sure what to title the whole thing as? Any ideas? (I'm blanking on titles at the moment.)
Let me know. I won't post it until I hear back from you.
SK
no subject
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Date: 2004-04-26 12:12 pm (UTC)