posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
revdorothyl at 05:16pm on 22/04/2004 under angel episode commentary
revdorothyl at 05:16pm on 22/04/2004 under angel episode commentary[NO PROMO SPOILERS -- UP THROUGH 'ORIGIN' ONLY]
While thinking over last night’s episode of Angel, I managed to waste a couple of hours trying (in vain) to find internet confirmation for a quote I thought I remembered from the B5 episode “A Late Delivery from Avalon.” I thought Marcus said something to Dr. Franklin about ‘better a lie that ennobles and inspires us than a truth which destroys or debases,’ or words to that general effect, during the course of that episode. Or maybe I just imagined hearing that somewhere, sometime. But after watching “Origin” all the way through, it was impossible for me not to start thinking about truth and fiction and what makes life tolerable and hopeful for us on this earth.
So, let the wild ramblings commence! (It was either this, or spend all my time writing R-rated exegeses of Illyria's line, "I'd like to keep Spike as my pet." And some things are just better not shared -- at least by those of us with no talent for fanfic.)
I. The Original Game of Truth and Consequences. (“When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.” Dogen, founder of the Soto Zen school of Buddhism)
The “Origin” referred to in last night’s title seems to involve the idea of confronting our true beginnings in order to reconnect with our true selves – sometimes, with very unpleasant results. Whether rightly or wrongly, Angel’s decision to alter everyone else’s memories of reality in order to save Connor did lead to subtle and not-so-subtle alterations in the self-understanding and subsequent choices of Wes and the others.
Now, with Gunn away in a hellish dimension doing untold penance for his part in the death of Fred, Wesley becomes almost obsessed with the idea that somehow Angel is to blame for what happened to Fred. Perhaps Wesley just needs someone to be mad at . . . other than himself, or the physically invulnerable and emotionally confusing presence known as Illyria. And maybe he’s not entirely wrong to pick on Angel (apart from the obvious working out of his severe Oedipal issues with Angel as substitute father-figure, of course). We, the viewers, may suspect that Wes, Fred, Gunn, and Lorne were all leaning toward accepting W&H’s offer, even before Angel made his world- and mood-altering deal. But how is Wes to know that, or believe anything he’s told, without experiencing for himself the missing bits of reality? Perhaps it is only human nature (especially when in a severe funk and emotionally unstable) to suspect the worst when we learn that something is being hidden from us, and even more so when the person doing the hiding has seemingly gone out of his way to push our buttons and undermine our trust, recently.
Meanwhile, on a different and even nastier plane of existence, Gunn is asked to choose between the ‘false self’ and false existence of that macabre Mayberry, on the one hand, and returning to his old, ‘true’ existence (with the added burden of having to repeat the same sort of bad choice that brought him to that torture chamber in the first place: to get himself out of the frying pan by agreeing to the ‘nothing much’ the Senior Partners require, knowing on some level that there’s no such thing as a ‘little’ corruption when it comes to W&H and that there’ll be hell to pay for somebody, if not him). This time, Gunn doesn’t even finish listening to the offer, before making his choice, asking to have the necklace which imprisons him and steals his reality returned to him. He’d rather go on having his heart ripped out than give the bad guys what they want, this time.
Good for Gunn, I thought at first. He’s learned his lesson, and he’s a stronger person now. But then I have to start wondering if he hasn’t deliberately chosen the altered memory route for himself, this time, preferring the daily physical and mental torment of his false self to the painful ‘truth’ of his life at W&H? I don’t know, but I assume that time will tell.
On the other side of the coin, we have happy, well-adjusted Connor (and without all the broodiness and psychopathology, I’m suddenly enjoying having Vincent Kartheiser back for a guest spot), with a life-time of memories of being protected and loved and trusted by his trust-worthy parents. Yet, at one point, it seems that he may be facing death at the hands of a demon he was destined to kill, simply because he doesn’t remember the traumatic upbringing that turned him into the “destroyer.” No one would dispute that the fake memories are healthier in all respects than what Holtz did to him and turned him into, but can he still defend himself and those he loves when necessary? In spite of his endearingly honest response when Angel offers to teach him to fight--“Well, yeah! I’m all noble and stuff, but I’m not an idiot…!”--we begin to think that maybe Connor's physical survival, at least, is dependent on Wesley breaking that window and returning all those painful memories.
II. False Consciousness and Free-Floating Aggression. (“The truth is more important than the facts.” Frank Lloyd Wright)
I'm not an 'Econ' or 'Poli Sci' person -- just a sometime Anthropology T.A. with a talent for note-taking -- so please bear with me for a moment. You see, I've just been reviewing my notes from a lecture on Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci this semester, and I can't help feeling that Marx's notion of Hidden or False Consciousness, and its role in getting us to support a system that abuses us, may be pertinent to a discussion of "Origin." I don't have any detailed notes on what Marx may have meant by "false consciousness" -- only that both it and the idea of "religion as an opiate of the masses" [which I'm not going to even touch here] are linked to Marx's essay on "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (1852). And then my notes go right on to talk about Gramsci, who developed the idea of false consciousness into a concept he called "hegemony": "the 'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group"... or, "when dominant classes leverage their privileged access to mass media and national discourse to foment support for the system that privileges them, so that a particular ideology -- representing particular class interests -- comes to be seen as 'natural' or 'common sense.'"
If anyone ever had privileged access to the mass media and information, with the presumptive ability to determine the shape of things to come and the interpretation of the recent past for his group, it's Angel, right? He decided what information everyone else would be allowed to retain in the form of memories, and used that privileged access (through the Senior Partners' very tempting offer) to benefit the person or persons most dear to him.
Or did he?
Well, perhaps Angel tried to exercise a little hegemonic control, there, but how successful was it, really? With Wolfram and Hart conveniently preserving the paper trail to their reorganization of reality, the same 'nudge' that the old warlock used to get Angel's attention and reacquaint Connor with his special abilities also led Wesley, apparently inevitably, to the 'truth,' or a version of it. (Having a 'sidekick' like Illyria, who's able to at least tell him that Fred's memories were altered and that Fred changed because of it, didn't hurt any, either, when it came to re-awakening his paranoia and secret desire to be the 'rogue demon hunter' all by himself, with no Angel to overshadow him.) The fact that it was relatively easy for Wes to pick up the trail, once he started to look for it, would tend to support what the critics of the "hegemony" idea have been saying for some time: 1) that you can't fool all of the people all of the time; 2) that when overt opposition to the system is impossible, those getting the short and dirty end of the stick will generally find a way to use "weapons of the weak" (foot-dragging, feigned ignorance, false compliance, gossip and legends, pilfering and petty sabotage, etc.) to subtly resist and strike back at their oppressors; and 3) that you step onto shaky ethnographic ground as soon as you start to privilege your own view of reality over that of others (telling your 'native informants' in effect, "Yes, no matter what you say to the contrary, you ARE oppressed -- you just don't know any better.").
Of course, from a purely practical point of view, this episode, with its little digs at Angel's hegemony (implying also that the Senior Partners can feel their grip on him slipping, or why would they be so bare-faced in their approach to Gunn?), could be seen as an attempt to 'crack the lid' and let off some of the steam from the seething pot of fannish outrage and questioning about the whole memory-wipe thing. Now, at least one more person (possibly two, if you count Illyria, and three, if Connor's occasional flashes of intensity and menace there at the end mean that he, too, got his old memories back, in spite of the forcefield) knows 'the truth'. And Wesley can remember that maybe he has some fence-mending to do with Angel, as well as vice-versa.
III. Hurrah for Hyperreality. ("Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history." Plato)
Turning back to my 'Anthro' notes for a moment, I see that I've got quite a bit jotted down about Jean Baudrillard ("Substance is nothing, image is everything") and Hyperreality in Late Capitalism. Apparently, Baudrillard described hyperreality as when the simulation comes to replace the reality, as being 'more real than the real thing', and we deliberately seek out the fake in preference to the real, because the fake feels more real and more authentic, to us (sort of like the cannon sounds in the finale of the "1812 Overture," I guess: when you try to record a real cannon firing, it just doesn't sound right, and the best recordings and live performances with the 'realest' cannon sounds resort to all sorts of fakes and substitutes).
It seems to me that Wesley's final conversation with Illyria in this episode, after he's recovered the missing memories and 'is now Wesley' in some way that he wasn't before, hints at an aspect of hyperreality in the fabricated memories they'd been given:
Wesley: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
Illyria: To hide from the truth.
Wesley: To endure it.
In the same way, the hints of the old, fierce Connor at the end suggest the possibility, at least, that Connor did, after all, receive his old memories back, in addition to the lifetime of new and improved memories he'd been given, and that Connor is simply much better at pushing those negative new memories to the back of his brain than Wesley is. (After all, Connor received a lifetime's worth of new memories, where Wesley's happier reconstructions could only have covered a couple of years, at most -- plus, we know from Connor's behavior with Jasmine, whose true face he had seen from the beginning, that he can be awfully good at pretending that he doesn't see certain unpleasant realities, when he puts his mind to it.)
At first, it seems that Connor is still his new self, unshadowed by the past, when he tells Angel, "...I went all hard-core, there, for a second. That guy made me really cranky." And then he concludes, "...I'd like to go back, see my parents. This whole fighting thing -- I'm not...really sure it's for me." But then, having seen the look on Connor's face as he pushes the elevator button at the very end of the episode and having re-wound the tape to catch the last few minutes all over again, Connor's words seem more than ever to contain a potential double-meaning:
Connor: ...I'm not too worried about him [the warlock]. Nothing he can show me I haven't already seen. Anyway ...I just wanted to say goodbye. I gotta go back to my life, now.
and a moment later,
Connor: ...I need to take care of my parents. This isn't their world. They really don't feel safe, here. You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
Perhaps Connor has simply decided to accept the gift he now knows he's been given -- of a life-time of good memories and experiences to balance out the life-time of bad stuff and horror he'd already had -- and make the most of it, as the best way to honor both his fathers' sacrifices and care for him?
IV. Free Will -- Gotta Love It. ("Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness." Alfred Bernhard Nobel)
I didn't write the exact lines down, because I was in kind of a rush this morning, but I recall Sarjahn (or whatever the demon's name was) gloating over the apparently out-matched Connor, at one point, commenting on how mistaken he'd been to be so afraid of this soft kid, just because of prophecy, and saying something about how maybe he'd been underestimating the effects of 'free will' in the universe. His viewpoint (the demon's) was that the 'free' choices which had led to Connor's alternative life had effectively shot that ancient prophecy out of the water. Live (or exist) and learn.
From my perspective, of course, the idea of people being free to choose, in spite of all pre-destination and prophecy, is pretty important. (And, btw, I'm still really bothered by that whole 'destroying Fred's soul' thing, which not only contradicts a lot of Western and Eastern beliefs, but also suggests that Fred's choices were all irrelevant, once some more powerful entity decided to turn her into a blue-tinted mobile home.) And every now and then it's nice to have that freedom to choose reaffirmed on-screen. The worst bit about the memory wipe/reorganization at the end of last season was the fact that it apparently robbed Angel's friends and co-workers of their right to choose, with full possession of their faculties, which course they would take. Maybe that's about to come to an end. Maybe "free will" gets to win out, this time around.
[Have to stop now, since I'm feeling an almost overwhelming urge to sing "I Talk to the Trees" from "Paint Your Wagon" and go off on some wild exegesis of Spike's words about Illyria, ending with the idea that she can possibly talk with plants. That's nature's way of saying it's time to go home, get some supper, and go to bed, I'm pretty sure.]
While thinking over last night’s episode of Angel, I managed to waste a couple of hours trying (in vain) to find internet confirmation for a quote I thought I remembered from the B5 episode “A Late Delivery from Avalon.” I thought Marcus said something to Dr. Franklin about ‘better a lie that ennobles and inspires us than a truth which destroys or debases,’ or words to that general effect, during the course of that episode. Or maybe I just imagined hearing that somewhere, sometime. But after watching “Origin” all the way through, it was impossible for me not to start thinking about truth and fiction and what makes life tolerable and hopeful for us on this earth.
So, let the wild ramblings commence! (It was either this, or spend all my time writing R-rated exegeses of Illyria's line, "I'd like to keep Spike as my pet." And some things are just better not shared -- at least by those of us with no talent for fanfic.)
I. The Original Game of Truth and Consequences. (“When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.” Dogen, founder of the Soto Zen school of Buddhism)
The “Origin” referred to in last night’s title seems to involve the idea of confronting our true beginnings in order to reconnect with our true selves – sometimes, with very unpleasant results. Whether rightly or wrongly, Angel’s decision to alter everyone else’s memories of reality in order to save Connor did lead to subtle and not-so-subtle alterations in the self-understanding and subsequent choices of Wes and the others.
Now, with Gunn away in a hellish dimension doing untold penance for his part in the death of Fred, Wesley becomes almost obsessed with the idea that somehow Angel is to blame for what happened to Fred. Perhaps Wesley just needs someone to be mad at . . . other than himself, or the physically invulnerable and emotionally confusing presence known as Illyria. And maybe he’s not entirely wrong to pick on Angel (apart from the obvious working out of his severe Oedipal issues with Angel as substitute father-figure, of course). We, the viewers, may suspect that Wes, Fred, Gunn, and Lorne were all leaning toward accepting W&H’s offer, even before Angel made his world- and mood-altering deal. But how is Wes to know that, or believe anything he’s told, without experiencing for himself the missing bits of reality? Perhaps it is only human nature (especially when in a severe funk and emotionally unstable) to suspect the worst when we learn that something is being hidden from us, and even more so when the person doing the hiding has seemingly gone out of his way to push our buttons and undermine our trust, recently.
Meanwhile, on a different and even nastier plane of existence, Gunn is asked to choose between the ‘false self’ and false existence of that macabre Mayberry, on the one hand, and returning to his old, ‘true’ existence (with the added burden of having to repeat the same sort of bad choice that brought him to that torture chamber in the first place: to get himself out of the frying pan by agreeing to the ‘nothing much’ the Senior Partners require, knowing on some level that there’s no such thing as a ‘little’ corruption when it comes to W&H and that there’ll be hell to pay for somebody, if not him). This time, Gunn doesn’t even finish listening to the offer, before making his choice, asking to have the necklace which imprisons him and steals his reality returned to him. He’d rather go on having his heart ripped out than give the bad guys what they want, this time.
Good for Gunn, I thought at first. He’s learned his lesson, and he’s a stronger person now. But then I have to start wondering if he hasn’t deliberately chosen the altered memory route for himself, this time, preferring the daily physical and mental torment of his false self to the painful ‘truth’ of his life at W&H? I don’t know, but I assume that time will tell.
On the other side of the coin, we have happy, well-adjusted Connor (and without all the broodiness and psychopathology, I’m suddenly enjoying having Vincent Kartheiser back for a guest spot), with a life-time of memories of being protected and loved and trusted by his trust-worthy parents. Yet, at one point, it seems that he may be facing death at the hands of a demon he was destined to kill, simply because he doesn’t remember the traumatic upbringing that turned him into the “destroyer.” No one would dispute that the fake memories are healthier in all respects than what Holtz did to him and turned him into, but can he still defend himself and those he loves when necessary? In spite of his endearingly honest response when Angel offers to teach him to fight--“Well, yeah! I’m all noble and stuff, but I’m not an idiot…!”--we begin to think that maybe Connor's physical survival, at least, is dependent on Wesley breaking that window and returning all those painful memories.
II. False Consciousness and Free-Floating Aggression. (“The truth is more important than the facts.” Frank Lloyd Wright)
I'm not an 'Econ' or 'Poli Sci' person -- just a sometime Anthropology T.A. with a talent for note-taking -- so please bear with me for a moment. You see, I've just been reviewing my notes from a lecture on Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci this semester, and I can't help feeling that Marx's notion of Hidden or False Consciousness, and its role in getting us to support a system that abuses us, may be pertinent to a discussion of "Origin." I don't have any detailed notes on what Marx may have meant by "false consciousness" -- only that both it and the idea of "religion as an opiate of the masses" [which I'm not going to even touch here] are linked to Marx's essay on "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (1852). And then my notes go right on to talk about Gramsci, who developed the idea of false consciousness into a concept he called "hegemony": "the 'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group"... or, "when dominant classes leverage their privileged access to mass media and national discourse to foment support for the system that privileges them, so that a particular ideology -- representing particular class interests -- comes to be seen as 'natural' or 'common sense.'"
If anyone ever had privileged access to the mass media and information, with the presumptive ability to determine the shape of things to come and the interpretation of the recent past for his group, it's Angel, right? He decided what information everyone else would be allowed to retain in the form of memories, and used that privileged access (through the Senior Partners' very tempting offer) to benefit the person or persons most dear to him.
Or did he?
Well, perhaps Angel tried to exercise a little hegemonic control, there, but how successful was it, really? With Wolfram and Hart conveniently preserving the paper trail to their reorganization of reality, the same 'nudge' that the old warlock used to get Angel's attention and reacquaint Connor with his special abilities also led Wesley, apparently inevitably, to the 'truth,' or a version of it. (Having a 'sidekick' like Illyria, who's able to at least tell him that Fred's memories were altered and that Fred changed because of it, didn't hurt any, either, when it came to re-awakening his paranoia and secret desire to be the 'rogue demon hunter' all by himself, with no Angel to overshadow him.) The fact that it was relatively easy for Wes to pick up the trail, once he started to look for it, would tend to support what the critics of the "hegemony" idea have been saying for some time: 1) that you can't fool all of the people all of the time; 2) that when overt opposition to the system is impossible, those getting the short and dirty end of the stick will generally find a way to use "weapons of the weak" (foot-dragging, feigned ignorance, false compliance, gossip and legends, pilfering and petty sabotage, etc.) to subtly resist and strike back at their oppressors; and 3) that you step onto shaky ethnographic ground as soon as you start to privilege your own view of reality over that of others (telling your 'native informants' in effect, "Yes, no matter what you say to the contrary, you ARE oppressed -- you just don't know any better.").
Of course, from a purely practical point of view, this episode, with its little digs at Angel's hegemony (implying also that the Senior Partners can feel their grip on him slipping, or why would they be so bare-faced in their approach to Gunn?), could be seen as an attempt to 'crack the lid' and let off some of the steam from the seething pot of fannish outrage and questioning about the whole memory-wipe thing. Now, at least one more person (possibly two, if you count Illyria, and three, if Connor's occasional flashes of intensity and menace there at the end mean that he, too, got his old memories back, in spite of the forcefield) knows 'the truth'. And Wesley can remember that maybe he has some fence-mending to do with Angel, as well as vice-versa.
III. Hurrah for Hyperreality. ("Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history." Plato)
Turning back to my 'Anthro' notes for a moment, I see that I've got quite a bit jotted down about Jean Baudrillard ("Substance is nothing, image is everything") and Hyperreality in Late Capitalism. Apparently, Baudrillard described hyperreality as when the simulation comes to replace the reality, as being 'more real than the real thing', and we deliberately seek out the fake in preference to the real, because the fake feels more real and more authentic, to us (sort of like the cannon sounds in the finale of the "1812 Overture," I guess: when you try to record a real cannon firing, it just doesn't sound right, and the best recordings and live performances with the 'realest' cannon sounds resort to all sorts of fakes and substitutes).
It seems to me that Wesley's final conversation with Illyria in this episode, after he's recovered the missing memories and 'is now Wesley' in some way that he wasn't before, hints at an aspect of hyperreality in the fabricated memories they'd been given:
Wesley: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
Illyria: To hide from the truth.
Wesley: To endure it.
In the same way, the hints of the old, fierce Connor at the end suggest the possibility, at least, that Connor did, after all, receive his old memories back, in addition to the lifetime of new and improved memories he'd been given, and that Connor is simply much better at pushing those negative new memories to the back of his brain than Wesley is. (After all, Connor received a lifetime's worth of new memories, where Wesley's happier reconstructions could only have covered a couple of years, at most -- plus, we know from Connor's behavior with Jasmine, whose true face he had seen from the beginning, that he can be awfully good at pretending that he doesn't see certain unpleasant realities, when he puts his mind to it.)
At first, it seems that Connor is still his new self, unshadowed by the past, when he tells Angel, "...I went all hard-core, there, for a second. That guy made me really cranky." And then he concludes, "...I'd like to go back, see my parents. This whole fighting thing -- I'm not...really sure it's for me." But then, having seen the look on Connor's face as he pushes the elevator button at the very end of the episode and having re-wound the tape to catch the last few minutes all over again, Connor's words seem more than ever to contain a potential double-meaning:
Connor: ...I'm not too worried about him [the warlock]. Nothing he can show me I haven't already seen. Anyway ...I just wanted to say goodbye. I gotta go back to my life, now.
and a moment later,
Connor: ...I need to take care of my parents. This isn't their world. They really don't feel safe, here. You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
Perhaps Connor has simply decided to accept the gift he now knows he's been given -- of a life-time of good memories and experiences to balance out the life-time of bad stuff and horror he'd already had -- and make the most of it, as the best way to honor both his fathers' sacrifices and care for him?
IV. Free Will -- Gotta Love It. ("Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness." Alfred Bernhard Nobel)
I didn't write the exact lines down, because I was in kind of a rush this morning, but I recall Sarjahn (or whatever the demon's name was) gloating over the apparently out-matched Connor, at one point, commenting on how mistaken he'd been to be so afraid of this soft kid, just because of prophecy, and saying something about how maybe he'd been underestimating the effects of 'free will' in the universe. His viewpoint (the demon's) was that the 'free' choices which had led to Connor's alternative life had effectively shot that ancient prophecy out of the water. Live (or exist) and learn.
From my perspective, of course, the idea of people being free to choose, in spite of all pre-destination and prophecy, is pretty important. (And, btw, I'm still really bothered by that whole 'destroying Fred's soul' thing, which not only contradicts a lot of Western and Eastern beliefs, but also suggests that Fred's choices were all irrelevant, once some more powerful entity decided to turn her into a blue-tinted mobile home.) And every now and then it's nice to have that freedom to choose reaffirmed on-screen. The worst bit about the memory wipe/reorganization at the end of last season was the fact that it apparently robbed Angel's friends and co-workers of their right to choose, with full possession of their faculties, which course they would take. Maybe that's about to come to an end. Maybe "free will" gets to win out, this time around.
[Have to stop now, since I'm feeling an almost overwhelming urge to sing "I Talk to the Trees" from "Paint Your Wagon" and go off on some wild exegesis of Spike's words about Illyria, ending with the idea that she can possibly talk with plants. That's nature's way of saying it's time to go home, get some supper, and go to bed, I'm pretty sure.]
contemplative
(no subject)
I have little to offer on the hegemony front, but wanted to mention I'm firmly in the Connor-Remembers-All Camp. I would have said that just thanks to the sudden jolt that allowed him to overcome Sahjhan, alone. But considering what a fine faker Connor was in season 4—where he saw Jasmine as a maggot-face the whole time—I pretty much have no doubts about this. His parting words to Angel, and his shift from using the word "dad" to using the word "father" are enough for me. (Upon proofing: and now that I've read further, I see you've gotten there, too, but I'll keep this here)
[Refer to your section on hyperreality, from, "Apparently, Baudrillard..." to "...fakes and substitutes," (I have to prune my entry to get it to post)]
How about internet friendships, too? Obviously, a lot of them grow into 'real' friendships. Many people are friends in meatspace now, who met in cyberspace. But there's something distinctly artificial about daily interaction with virtual strangers. When I consider some conversations I've had with people I only know through the shiny box, I know they're more 'real' than quite a few of my meatspace friendships. Now, I have a lot of people in my meatspace life with whom I am close—closer than I'll ever be to the internet people. But there's a certain platonic conversational intimacy I share with a couple of cyberspace friends that I don't share with most of my meatspace friends whom I've known longer.
I wonder if I'd 'met' these people in the course of daily living, if we would have shared these aspects of ourselves, after a mere couple of years into our friendships. (Hmmm, I'm probably going to cross-post this in my own journal.) And yet, I could literally walk away from these relationships, with no warning, and in so many senses, it would be as if they never existed. I'm creeping myself out right now, so I'll stop this train of thought.
[Refer to section which begins, "It seems to me that Wesley's..." and ends with "...when he puts his mind to it.)"]
Good catch! Your explication reminds me of Buffy and Dawn. Buffy was the only person who knew Dawn—who experienced a revelation about the truth of Dawn. Buffy shared information with Giles, and eventually the others discovered it, too. But for all intents and purposes, the fakeness of Dawn was only 'real' to Buffy. She's the only one of the Scoobies who saw it and felt it, firsthand (granted Joyce and Tara had flashes of it too, thanks to illness/brain-suckage). Yet Buffy (and Joyce; and Tara, once she was restored, and after the Glory-threat had passed) was (were) the one(s) compelled to protect Dawn.
[Refer to your section on free will, and the problems with the idea that Fred's soul was destroyed, beginning with, "From my perspective, of course, the idea of people being free to choose," and ending with, "...freedom to choose reaffirmed on-screen."]
I have to go meta (I don't like to) to deal with Fred's soul. The 'verse has a loose, fluid, and rather watered down definition of soul. For much of BtVS, it wasn't much more than conscience. Occasionally, it is more akin to lifeforce. I think that to most of us, soul is that thing which, once it is removed from a creature, all that is left is the temporary. Soul is the eternal bits of an otherwise fleeting expression of the creature. In the 'verse, soul is treated more as if it is the evanescent element. In other words, just smile and nod when Mutant Enemy starts talking about soul, because it would be like me trying to explain quantum mechanics to you (whatever that is).
Hyperreal friendships and communities
I wonder if I'd 'met' these people in the course of daily living, if we would have shared these aspects of ourselves, after a mere couple of years into our friendships.... And yet, I could literally walk away from these relationships, with no warning, and in so many senses, it would be as if they never existed. I'm creeping myself out right now, so I'll stop this train of thought.
There's definitely something to what you're saying -- like relating to a community of people on the TV and their mythology and experiences as though they were more real, in some ways, than many of our own everyday experiences, internet friendships have a unique sense of safety and confidentiality and intimacy that only seems to go with artificiality, in our culture (One could argue).
From the Wikipedia entry on hyperreality: "Hyperreality is significant as a paradigm to explain the American cultural condition. Consumerism, because of its reliance on sign exchange value (e.g. brand X makes you cool, car Y means you’re rich), is the contributing factor in creating hyperreality. Hyperreality tricks the consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance."
That bit about "detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial stimulation..." particularly worries me, at times. But I have to believe that there's something REAL behind all our simulations and reproductions -- that we're all real people behind these icons and screen-names, all reflecting on real moral, spiritual, and emotional dilemmas in our lives, and all possessing a REAL soul in a far more permanent and hopeful meaning of the term than what we got in "Shells".
(no subject)
And yeah, it's all about free will. Angel objected to Jasmine taking away free will, and then he went and did the same thing. And I'm convinced Connor got his memories back and made a free choice.
Interesting thoughts!
(no subject)
And definitely the irony was pretty thick, there, with Angel's attitude toward free will vs. Jasmine's, and then what Angel actually did. Though I do think that having the fake memories in addition to the real ones gave Connor a much freer choice than he'd ever had before, when his world was limited to pain and anger and all the worst of humans and demons.
(no subject)
I pulled out the DVD and transcribed that scene for you, btw.
Marcus: He was in Earthforce -- doing what?
Franklin: Take a look.
M: You can't show him this.
F: Marcus, it's who he is.
M: I don't care. It'll kill him.
F: Wait now wait now, let's be sensible, alright, this is the first step towards healing him. We can't just let him wander around the rest of his life thinking that he's King Arthur.
M: Why not?
F: Because this is the truth!
M: Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.
F: Alexander Pushkin, yes.
M: Let this one truth die, Stephen. Let him be Arthur; let him be anyone he wants.
F: I have an obligation to help him. Now if I confront him with this it may be enough to snap him out of this delusion.
M: Your Hippocratic oath says "Do no harm". If you do this you'll be doing great harm, Stephen. Stephen!
F: Look, I'm sorry -- I have to.
Alexander Pushkin
F: Alexander Pushkin, yes.
M: Let this one truth die, Stephen. Let him be Arthur; let him be anyone he wants.
Thanks so much! This will come in handy (besides reassuring me that I didn't imagine that conversation or its possible relevance to "Origin"). You're a true friend, to go the extra mile and transcribe this quote for me. I really appreciate it (as well as all your interesting and profound reflections on 'Angel' in general).