(miss murchison made me do this). "Soul-Set Time?" (first reactions to AtS 5.22) : comments.
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(no subject)
I think you're right. Thanks for reminding me of the air of someone haunted or not quite in this world that Wesley's had all season, even before he consciously regained his memories of that betrayal. His MIND may not have remembered before he broke the window-cube-thingy, but the wear-and-tear on his SOUL from that little sojourn in his personal hell still showed through. It's almost as if his love for Fred was the last blade of grass he clung to, in order to keep from falling off the face of the earth, and once Fred was gone, he just drifted away.
[When I was a kid, we had souvenir coffee mug from our sojourn in Ireland which said, "An Irishman is never drunk, so long as he can hold onto a single blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth." Somehow, that image seemed appropriate to describe Wesley's relationship to the world of the living these last few months, or years.]
"Angel never quite understood what Harmony was capable of, I think because of his distaste for vamps in general. I think Harmony could have been part of the team, but Angel gave her little encouragement."
Yes -- I just got done writing something about that in my "post-script" to this post (it fit in beautifully with exploring the relationship between hope and loyalty). Angel's SELF-disgust does seem to color and perhaps even distort his view of what all other vamps are capable of. Even now that Spike has a soul, Angel has had some powerful mental block against seeing any good or real change in Spike, or being able to put any faith in Spike (without massive displays of reluctance and disbelief, at least).
Wonderful thoughts! Thanks for taking time to jot them down before your guests arrived, and I hope we get to talk about all this some more.
(no subject)
I agree with you that s5 and s6 seemed to be giving us evidence that Spike could be good without a soul, but then it also gave us lots of evidence that he couldn't be good enough. Ultimately, that's where the rape attempt (and the demon eggs, and the kidnapping in Crush, and more) was of use. Spike had hit his glass ceiling of goodness. He went further than a regular vamp (aka Harmony) could be expected to go, and that's because his (as a vampire) primary reason for being took a radical hit when he was chipped.
I have all sort of soul thoughts here, with the Spike vamp/chip/soul specific bits here.
I'm thankful that Harmony turned out to be a Judas. It would have negated a good bit of 'verse mythology if she'd been left telling us "I'm not good and I'm okay, and that's enough."
(no subject)
For now, let me say that it is MORE than likely that in my enthusiasm for symmetry and a neat idea, I lost sight of the reality of Harmony (as a sheep who's always been a sheep, in the words of Cordelia in BtVS season 2, and who does what everyone else does only in order to claim she did it first).
Harmony's self-knowledge and self-understanding could fit into a thimble and still leave more than enough room for my thumb. She is merely drawn to the most powerful "group" or "whole" around her, and draws her identity entirely from being "a part" of some greater (or, in most cases, more evil) whole.
I've just been reviewing Paul Tillich's THE COURAGE TO BE as part of my research for my Slayage paper, and Harmony's an example of the worst sort of "courage to be as a part". Angel, in his worst moments of darkness and existential angst, represents a form of the "courage to be as oneself" (unrelated and unconnected to one's world). I'm hoping that in all of this season of AtS and the last two or three seasons of BtVS I'll also be able to find examples of the more transcendent and desirable form, simply "the courage to be" ('the courage to accept acceptance').