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Nov. 4th, 2002 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiSo, Angel. Angel and Foucault.
First of all, Fred really should wear long sleeves all the time. Her arms are frightening. The actress looks like she needs some kind of high-nutrition supplement for famine victims. It's not attractive and it can't be healthy for her to be that thin. This has gone past the point of joke material and into "please go see a doctor" land. In fact it's been in "please go see a doctor" land for a while now.
Second, Wesley and the double standard of doom. It's OK for me to use the information you let slip against you, but it's not OK for you to figure that out and use it against me? Grow some balls, Wesley. You like it when Fred uses you solely for your evil knowledge.
I liked Lilah's crunchy hair. I loved Angel's moment of blank-faced horror at the "she steals all the covers" line.
I too am sure that Fred and Gunn told Angel that Dr. Seidel (any relative to Sara over in CSI?) slipped and fell into his own dimensional portal.
In a way, I think I see Gunn's scary logic. He'll kill the guy so Fred doesn't have to, because he doesn't want Fred to face the consequences of having killed Seidel; and in general in the Angelverse it seems to be OK to kill evil creatures so long as it isn't personal or emotional, so Gunn may end up getting away with it. But I was struck by the visual parallels between Seidel's death and the scene in The Wish (which I saw recently on FX) where the Master kills Wishverse!Buffy. Same move, same shot, although not in slow-motion this time around. Possibly just coincidence, but the morality of killing Seidel whas such a big issue throughout, and Gunn's move so shocking (at least to me) that it's hard to believe that there won't be some kind of payback.
I do think that the dichotomy between killing for business and killing for pleasure (or personal satisfaction, or revenge, whatever) is lurking somewhere in the Angel universe. It's fine for the members of AI to kill off the baddie of the week (although if the baddie is human it's better if said baddie can be manipulated into self-destruction) so long as they don't get emotioally involved. Once there's an emotional involvement--once everything becomes personal--the battleground shifts. It's no longer about defeating an external enemy, it's about defeating an internal enemy: the urge to satisfy a personal desire for vengeance. So the person who is good has to demonstrate that goodness by exercising self-control and forgiving (or at least restraining him or herself from killing) the other person. Angelus kills people because he wants to, and this is why he's a particularly evil vampire: killing people gives him pleasure. Angel is good, and can kill people so long as he doesn't get too much personal satisfaction from it. It may even be the case that his ability to control himself--the ability to keep himself from killing the people he really wants to kill for personal reasons--is what justifies his ability to kill the people he doesn't really want to kill.
I may be talking nonsense here. Or worse, watered-down Foucault-influenced nonsense. There is at least one giant exception, which is Angel's reaction to Wesley's betrayal and theft of Connor.
First of all, Fred really should wear long sleeves all the time. Her arms are frightening. The actress looks like she needs some kind of high-nutrition supplement for famine victims. It's not attractive and it can't be healthy for her to be that thin. This has gone past the point of joke material and into "please go see a doctor" land. In fact it's been in "please go see a doctor" land for a while now.
Second, Wesley and the double standard of doom. It's OK for me to use the information you let slip against you, but it's not OK for you to figure that out and use it against me? Grow some balls, Wesley. You like it when Fred uses you solely for your evil knowledge.
I liked Lilah's crunchy hair. I loved Angel's moment of blank-faced horror at the "she steals all the covers" line.
I too am sure that Fred and Gunn told Angel that Dr. Seidel (any relative to Sara over in CSI?) slipped and fell into his own dimensional portal.
In a way, I think I see Gunn's scary logic. He'll kill the guy so Fred doesn't have to, because he doesn't want Fred to face the consequences of having killed Seidel; and in general in the Angelverse it seems to be OK to kill evil creatures so long as it isn't personal or emotional, so Gunn may end up getting away with it. But I was struck by the visual parallels between Seidel's death and the scene in The Wish (which I saw recently on FX) where the Master kills Wishverse!Buffy. Same move, same shot, although not in slow-motion this time around. Possibly just coincidence, but the morality of killing Seidel whas such a big issue throughout, and Gunn's move so shocking (at least to me) that it's hard to believe that there won't be some kind of payback.
I do think that the dichotomy between killing for business and killing for pleasure (or personal satisfaction, or revenge, whatever) is lurking somewhere in the Angel universe. It's fine for the members of AI to kill off the baddie of the week (although if the baddie is human it's better if said baddie can be manipulated into self-destruction) so long as they don't get emotioally involved. Once there's an emotional involvement--once everything becomes personal--the battleground shifts. It's no longer about defeating an external enemy, it's about defeating an internal enemy: the urge to satisfy a personal desire for vengeance. So the person who is good has to demonstrate that goodness by exercising self-control and forgiving (or at least restraining him or herself from killing) the other person. Angelus kills people because he wants to, and this is why he's a particularly evil vampire: killing people gives him pleasure. Angel is good, and can kill people so long as he doesn't get too much personal satisfaction from it. It may even be the case that his ability to control himself--the ability to keep himself from killing the people he really wants to kill for personal reasons--is what justifies his ability to kill the people he doesn't really want to kill.
I may be talking nonsense here. Or worse, watered-down Foucault-influenced nonsense. There is at least one giant exception, which is Angel's reaction to Wesley's betrayal and theft of Connor.
