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NikkolasKing posted:There are familiar faces from Buffy who pop up in Angel...besides Angel himself I mean. One character in particular grows so much on Angel that it's startling. A total 180 doesn't even begin to describe how much they change and improve in terms of being a compelling character. I actually did a rewatch of Buffy and Angel quite a few years ago, and there are 'timelines' online showing what order you should alternate Buffy/Angel episodes to keep the continuity roughly similar. It was certainly pretty cool having someone temporarily disappear from one show and arrive in the other as a guest star for a few episodes, made the world seem more real and not something a lot of shows have been able to do. And yeah, I still think of Wesley when I want an example of good character development. It's almost impossible to pinpoint when he went from comically ineffective toff to one of the most badass characters in the show.
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Mar 12, 2022 12:27
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boquiabierta posted:^^hi jabby! I’ve wondered what happened to you in the healthcare stories thread, nice to see you again! Thanks  I've taken a bit of a break from the healthcare chat outside of working hours, the pandemic has been a bit gruelling.
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Mar 16, 2022 00:38
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roomtone posted:Spike's basically never 'evil' on the show the way other villains are, at least not since mid S2 when they realised they weren't killing him off. It's more that he is just only interested in how he feels, and acts accordingly. How he feels can either be good or bad for other people. Him getting the soul just gives him the ability to look beyond himself for a second and realise okay maybe how I feel about this isn't the only or even relevant thing. You need to sort of ignore the usual vampire rules when thinking about Spike and just think about him as a person for a lot of it to work. I thought they handled the 'what does a soul do?' thing pretty well with Spike. Sure, prior to getting re-souled he can logically work out what is the good/evil course of action, and how his actions might affect other people, he just can't actually empathise with anyone. He's like a psychopath trying to live a normal life, he knows what the consequences of his actions might be but he doesn't feel any guilt over them. So of course his love for Buffy is twisted and manipulative, he desperately wants to be with her but he doesn't actually care about her feelings beyond how they influence her actions towards him. If he can manipulate her into ditching her friends and spending more time with him, that's a 100% positive result. How it makes her feel isn't even on his radar. And ultimately of course (in my opinion), the reason he goes to get his soul back isn't because he feels guilty over anything he's done. It's because he realises that without that ability to feel her emotions he's going to drive her away for good. EDIT: Although I admit I really like the contrast they explore in Angel between a vampire that was cursed with a soul and one who sought it out willingly.
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Mar 16, 2022 16:11
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NikkolasKing posted:Soulless Spike's morality is a debate that will probably never end and I commented on it just the other day on Reddit where somebody was trying to say he was always a psychopath. I think the conflict is assuming "he's a psychopath" means "he's purely selfish and evil" when it really just means he doesn't feel empathy. Sure, some real-life psychopaths become serial killers but plenty of them lead normal lives (and may actually have an advantage in some careers). Obviously it helps that psychopathy in humans is more of a spectrum, but just lacking empathy doesn't automatically mean you'll behave badly, especially if you put a lot of conscious thought into what the consequences of your behaviour will be. And especially especially if you're consciously trying to be a 'good' person, like Spike presumably is. So refusing to give up Dawn makes sense even if you assume he doesn't feel anything for her, because he doesn't want the world to be destroyed. Both for selfish reasons and because preventing the world being destroyed is obviously what a good person would do. Him leaving flowers for Joyce is harder to explain, but even if he doesn't feel anything for her he still understands the concepts that a friend dying is sad and that leaving flowers is considered a nice gesture. So yeah, it's complicated, but I still think the best explanation for his morality is that he intellectually knows the difference between good and evil, he remembers his life before being vamped and he can usually work out how his behaviour will make other people feel, but he lacks true empathy and he lacks the guilt that comes with hurting others. The reason he's hard to get a read on is because he's often actively trying to compensate for those traits. He just doesn't always do a great job, especially where choosing the 'good' option conflicts with something else he wants. As for the question of "why is he trying to be good now when he wasn't before", I think you can either put it down to him enjoying spending time with the Scooby gang and wanting it to continue, some sort of deeper moral revelation from spending more time around humans and remembering more of his past, or just plain being bored with being the villain. But the biggest factor is probably falling in love with Buffy and wanting to imitate her/impress her, whereas his behaviour before was more driven by his relationship with Dru and Angelus. jabby fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 17:05
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The Notorious ZSB posted:My forever crush on Dushku is entirely because of BtVS I actually really liked her in Tru Calling. Such a shame that got cancelled on a cliffhanger.
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Mar 16, 2022 23:36
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The Ted episode is indeed pretty disturbing for seeing Buffy basically get an abusive step-father. The existence of perfectly human appearing androids has always been one of the weirder bits of the show though.
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Mar 17, 2022 22:10
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sad question posted:I am reminded of this great bit from Angel when he decides to go to the Wolfram & Hart "home world" and gets a talk about evil from Holland: As wacky as Angel could get, I really love the plot device of Wolfram & Hart 'gifting' him control of the LA branch. It really drew a dividing line between Angel and Buffy (exemplified when Andrew turns up and point-blank tells Angel nobody trusts him anymore), and it fit completely with the Senior Partner's characterisation of not really caring about the little things, or even the overall balance of good and evil, but just about keeping the game going. It's also just an ingenious move on their part, the bureaucracy keeps him busy and obviously nothing corrupts like power.
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Mar 19, 2022 22:36
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sad question posted:I felt they did a poor job of integrating him into the cast. Few fun interactions with people aside from Buffy. Yeah, Spike and Angel always had decent chemistry with the rest of the Scooby gang. Riley had... nothing. I just remember them all being pretty indifferent to him.
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Mar 22, 2022 23:49
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Marenghi posted:I don't know if Riley would have been better as an actual normal college guy over normal college guy who's secretly special forces. Probably. "Slayer tries to date a normal guy" could have been an interesting contrast to "Slayer dates a vampire". But with Riley already being a bad-rear end demon-hunter it ended up being pretty close to "Slayer dates a male, slightly less effective Slayer" which is just dull.
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Mar 23, 2022 00:03
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