It's not that any of these things were impossible, but it was like being jumped from season 2 to season 7 and just asked to take on faith that of course Spike has a soul and Willow tried to destroy the world and Giles is betraying Buffy. I felt like Joss had a Big Cool Idea he wanted to write about, and he was forcing the characters to play out that BCI whether it really fit them or not.
Agreed. A very good description of how something can be deliberately but sloppily written. And I agree. Flake_sake below also discusses this point. Characters can do bad things, but we need to see why they do it. Example in S6 - we see why Spike attacks Buffy in Seeing Red, or why Willow fries Warren in Villains, or why Spike would go for a soul. The writer is asking his reader to take a lot on faith here...and instead of taking the time to show us why the characters are doing these things, shows us things we already know or don't care about - such as how great a couple Riley and Sam are or that Buffy feels alone and disconnected, which hello, yes I know.
I left AAtS still liking Angel despite all the dicy things he'd done, but no longer. He's pretty much moved over to the villain side of the fence for me. I don't see how he's any different than Jasmine.
Oddly, I liked and was more sympathetic to Jasmine at the end of S4 than I am to Angel now. I can't stand the character now. And I liked Angelus in S2, he was fun and made sense. Twangel? I just loathsome, more so in some respects than Caleb, and I didn't think that was possible.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-09-11 01:48 pm (UTC)Agreed. A very good description of how something can be deliberately but sloppily written. And I agree. Flake_sake below also discusses this point. Characters can do bad things, but we need to see why they do it. Example in S6 - we see why Spike attacks Buffy in Seeing Red, or why Willow fries Warren in Villains, or why Spike would go for a soul. The writer is asking his reader to take a lot on faith here...and instead of taking the time to show us why the characters are doing these things, shows us things we already know or don't care about - such as how great a couple Riley and Sam are or that Buffy feels alone and disconnected, which hello, yes I know.
I left AAtS still liking Angel despite all the dicy things he'd done, but no longer. He's pretty much moved over to the villain side of the fence for me. I don't see how he's any different than Jasmine.
Oddly, I liked and was more sympathetic to Jasmine at the end of S4 than I am to Angel now. I can't stand the character now. And I liked Angelus in S2, he was fun and made sense. Twangel? I just loathsome, more so in some respects than Caleb, and I didn't think that was possible.