When main idea gets undermined by setting (or Why I dislike Angel finale)

[rbfvid]

I strongly dislike „Not Fade Away”, but I never took the time to pinpoint why exactly. It’s not just because I hate cliffhanger endings. That cliffhanger ending fits main idea of „Angel” pretty well... And then it hit me - the main idea. Fighting the Good Fight. That’s the problem

Comments

[snogged]

I enjoyed your interpretation of the episode.

Also, yes. Doesn't everyone want to piss Angel off? LOL.

[rbfvid]

Yeah, who could resist pissing Angel off?)

[rebcake]

It's pretty annoying.

There are several places in both BtVS and AtS where the fans say the writers are saying that we should all agree with things as they are presented. But...I know hardly any fans who do agree that what the characters are saying is the objective truth. So, if nobody is convinced, does that mean bad writing, or that the surface statements were misdirects all along? I'm talking about things like

[rbfvid]

I'm not sure if I'm getting you right. You are meaning something like "good writing always leaves room for interpretation"? Or "sometimes writers just fail, and fans are forced to create a 'headcanon fix' for the resulting mess"?
But anyway, I don't think NFA fits into any of these categories. It's not ambigouos or poorly crafted episode, it fits the general theme of the show pretty well. It works for the most of the audience. Just not for me.

[rebcake]

It works for the most of the audience. Just not for me.

Does it? Maybe I'm in too isolated a corner of the fandom, but I can't think of anybody who argues that Angel wasn't doing the equivalent of a suicide bombing for no good reason and with no regard for collateral damage*.

I think my point is more that fans have a certain interpretation that isn't necessarily backed up by the surface of the text, but if everybody sees the thing as counter to the surface text (Watsonian, right?), then maybe the intended takeaway is the subtext (Doyleist? Doyle-ish?). Maybe not, but I think fans like you shouldn't be overly concerned with what the writers seem to be saying you're supposed to be seeing and trust your own eyes and thoughts.

*Given the timing, not long after the invasion of Iraq, I tend to think the writers had a lot of things to say about doing stupid, violent things with the weakest of justifications. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit.

[rebcake]

Oh! And also! I am a big fan of the unreliable narrator in a story, especially for comedic effect. But I get the feeling that AtS was almost entirely set up as being from the unreliable narrator perspective, that unreliable narrator being Angel himself. He sees himself as heroic and having purpose and a good friend. But really? Maybe not so much.

[feliciacraft]

Very good points. You're looking for an in-universe, or Watsonian explanation to the series finale of AtS, when I just shrug with the Doylist explanation that the show came to an end rather abruptly when the network decided to cancel the show, and the ending was the best the writers could do to go out with a bang.

Joss had MORE stories planned for AtS; what exactly they were going to be, we'll probably never know. So that's why the ending does not exactly sum up the entire series arc satisfactorily--the story wasn't supposed to end there. That's why it doesn't make sense the longer you think about it.

[rbfvid]

Yeah. Sadly, there are too many moments in AtS where we should just eat up the Doylist explanation (basically the whole season 4). Because story doesn't make any sense, no matter how hard you try...

[feliciacraft]

Sometimes I wonder if TV series wouldn't be better if many seasons were ordered at once, something that's sometimes done in the UK(?), instead of one season at a time. It gives writers a better chance of planning long arcs and character development.

[rbfvid]

It works well with the short UK seasons (3-6 episodes), but it's not such a good idea for 22-ep long seasons with lots of fillers. Besides, in BtVS case that would mean that several fan favorite characters would get killed off as planned - Spike, Faith...

[londonkds]

Here via Sunnydale Herald:

Yep, pretty much my Watsonian explanation of the finale was "Angel let himself get tricked into slaughtering a pretentious demon drinking club who liked to bullshit that they were the secret rulers of the world, because as usual he fell prey to the delusion that the objective of fighting for good is killing all the bad people".

[rebcake]

I...like this explanation. Especially the "pretentious demon drinking club". *\o/*

[rbfvid]

Yesss, you found a great way to put it together =)

[big_n_happy]

I think this all makes more sense if you think of Wolfram and Hart as a (really overt) capitalism metaphor. Capitalists don't want to destroy the world, they just want to profit from misery. Although some of their actions may be destabilising and destructive, they don't necessarily want instability, in fact stability may be better for exploitation to continue. This allegory works particularly well in S5, where Team Angel are co-opted - it's a very adaptable and seductive system

[rbfvid]

Oh, I somehow frogot that that Anne/Gunn scene was in NFA. Which means that "pointless suicide" part was explicitly highlighted by the writers.
As you already guessed, I'm not a fan of the idea that (quoting londonkds above) fighting for good is killing all the bad people.
If you want (pointless) RL parallels, just compare Russia (who chose Angel's way - killing all bad people) and Scandinavia (who chose Anne's way - help and compassion).

[big_n_happy]

if we're going there with RL, Scandinavia's protectionism kinda relies on financial imperialism (including, in Sweden's case, nazi gold) and has developed a virulently anti-immigrant streak in keeping with that nationalist project. But that is probably too far from the topic. I don't have a concrete utopia to point to.

ANYWAY, agreed, climbing to the top then killing the ruling class is a terrible plan. Aside from anything else, they're isolated by the end (one difference with any genuine revolutionary or even significant reform situations - which require some kind of mass base rather than a small rag-tag team). They're almost certainly going to lose.

Genre-wise, it's a pretty clear Peckinpah reference and the moral compass in that stuff tends to be pretty clearly whacked. IDK, I like it for all the reasons you don't basically.

[big_n_happy]

I guess one fundamental point, in terms of why their decision makes some (dubious) kind of sense, is - if leaving W&H to their own devices would leave the world as normal, would that be a good thing?

Even if you support overthrowing W&H though, Angel's strategy is still a suicidal B&W gesture. No disagreement there obviously.