(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Watched the latest Sherlock but my mind kept wandering. Just couldn't focus on it. I think work has killed my brain again, well that and church and apartment hunting...so I really can't focus on any entertainment that requires any deep thought. Which explains why I review comic books. LOL!

There was however one great line in Sherlock that made me laugh my head off.

Sherlock upon realizing Watson was blogging about him and his cases online. "Go ahead Watson, go back to inflicting your personal opinions on people online." Sigh, unfortunately, that is what we do folks. We inflict our opinions on each other - sometimes politely....

The older I get the more I realize that not everyone interrupts things the same way. Sent out a Request for Proposal last week - and got five different questions all interpreting it differently.
Made me wonder if everyone read the same RFP. People boggle my mind. The range of ways you can interpret the same thing.

For the folks busy arguing about Angel's modus operandi and whether he was invested in saving souls or lives or whatnot? May I suggest that you check out :

http://atpobtvs.com/sindex.html

That site literally analyzes Angel the Series episode by episode, with in depth analysis, annotations, and philosophical meta by people who actually have advanced degrees in the topic.

It's possibly the most extensive site you'll find on Angel. Or at the least amongst them. As well as the most objective and thorough.

I'm used to arguments about Angel - I was on not one but two Angel boards back in 2002-2005. And we had battles, because I see Angel as more of an anti-hero, who pretty much deserved everything he got and then some, but was struggling to pick himself up and find redemption no matter how often his flaws got the better of him. What I liked about Angel was what the writers stated about the series at the time - its about those of us who aren't chosen, who aren't special, who are struggling to make our way. In some respects Angel was about struggling to find meaning in an increasingly meaningless universe. It was a complex story, with a wide variety of conflicting metaphors. But my friends on the ATPO board and Angel's Soul Board saw Angel very differently than I did. Many saw him as a hero, noble, many as just a guy struggling to make life work. What made the character interesting was the varied views.

That said? The character does not work for me in either the Dark Horse or the IDW comics. One has him too heroic, the other too moronically anti-heroic. Apparently this is a character no one can write convincingly - outside of the tv series, who knew? Either that or I really haven't given David Boreanze enough credit. Possibly a bit of both? Turns out Spike is easier to write. But that does make sense if you think about it, Angel after all is the traditional/classical hero (think Batman or Hercules), while Spike is a far more modern hero...think John Constantine or Iron Man.

Damn, it smells like waffles - from the hallway. I'm wondering about my neighbors.

Comments

[hazelk]

Many saw him as a hero, noble, many as just a guy struggling to make life work. What made the character interesting was the varied views.
It seems to me that Angel, as played by Boreanze, was pretty much a fill in your own hero character. A blank slate and once the fanfic writers got hold of him even more so. Spike as well to an extent.

David Hines had an interesting post (http://hradzka.dreamwidth.org/412402.html) a while back about how stock characters tend to be overwhelmingly male. They're easy to write because we already know most of them and I think it (the male bias) applies to protagonists as well to an extent. I mean people have diametrically opposed views on what kind of character Spike or Angel represented but like or loathe everyone seems to think they know who they are while one of main criticisms of Buffy is that she's so 'opaque.'

[shadowkat]

Can't say I agree with that interpretation at all. Angel and Spike were actually fairly well-drawn characters on both shows, with lots of back story and strong emotional arcs. Your saying just because people have vastly different views or interpretations of a character- then obviously the character was a stock character and under-developed? That's not true.
And seriously, people have vastly different views about everything.

We actually knew more about Spike and Angel than we did about Xander or Willow if you think about it. Or for that matter Giles.

The only characters I think come close to stock characters, and I don't believe there are any in Whedon's series are Harmony, Sam and possibly Riley who felt at times
felt overly cliche.

But a way to know if a character is stock or not? Is if someone can actually write an in-depth analysis using textual backup as opposed to merely making things up.

[hazelk]

I wasn't saying they were stock characters or underdeveloped. What I was saying was that like stock characters they fit certain well known types (in your own example the traditional Batman/Hercules hero type for Angel) closely enough that people see the type and impose that on the character regardless of their particular back story. It was an observation about how fans respond to the characters more than the characters per se and seemed a reasonable stab at trying to explain the (to me) curious phenomenon that people don't simply have different interpretations of these characters but diametrically opposed takes.

[shadowkat]

Ah. Thank you for the clarification.

I'm reading this at work where I'm multi-tasking, so admittedly misread.

I made the same attempt you did - trying to break it down into stock character tropes in my post above, but your response reveals to me the flaw in my own analysis.

I'm making an assumption about how others (who I don't know much about outside of what they post online which is relatively little) view or think about things. We honestly don't know why say one person sees "protagonist privilege" being expressed in the comics and another really doesn't. Is it political leanings? (shrugs). Any more than we can explain - why one interprets the female empowerment in Chosen as anti-feminist and another person does not. (I personally liked the female empowerment spell in Chosen). We can guess, but it is hard to know. Same with characters - I honestly can not find a clear pattern as to why one friend sees Angel as a noble hero and the other as a cursed guy etc. I've tried.
But each time I think I've figured out the formula, someone comes up with a new variable that just does not compute.

[shadowkat]

Okay, I scanned David Hines post now and I now understand what you were getting at. Sorry...about that. No time to read it in more depth or rather no energy. (I blame work).

The essay made me think a lot of Salt - a film that had originally had a male lead and was changed for Angelina Jolie. The stock story was the male lead saves his wife and son or something like that while on the run and how this informs his character, and motivation - etc. But it was removed from the script when Angelina took over the role - because the producers did not think it believable that a wife would save her husband. It went against the stereotype.

For many people - Buffy works best when she goes against the stereotype, when she plays with it or goes along with it - you see vehement responses. e.g. Plays Bella to Angel's Edward. The reason for this - is many of the fans of Buffy came to the show because she was not the stereotype, not the swooning gal we see in so many romantic vampire gothic tales.

People want Buffy to be the powerful working class gal heroine. I think this would not be the case if she wasn't amongst the few working class gal heroine's who can slay the bad guy and save the world.

I was having a lengthy discussion about stereotypes with norwie in my lj - and we were snarking about the following:

"Torture the Cheerleader, Save the World"

I stated, be nice if it were torture the football player for a change of pace.

That's the problem.

Going further - part of the reason a sizable chunk of the fandom is so obsessed with Spike is he goes against the stereotype - he's actually the girl in a good portion of the series. The femme fatale. Which is an interesting twist on an old trope. Angel likewise bucked stereotype by being portrayed as both the damsel and a twist on the old curse cliche. Remove the curse - he's evil, with it he's good. Cursed to be good. Spike...is the femme fatale with the heart of gold. (Sort of the male version of what BSG did to a degree with Starbuck).

When you do that - you will often attract attention. And if you play close attention to some of the fanfic out there - you'll note many writers are writing about a Buffy who is in the male role and a Spike in a female nuturing role.