Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Wow.

This is all so interesting, it's hard to know where to start commenting. Your comments on Angel's many betrayals, particularly his arranging Lindsay's murder, make me think of the scene at the end of "The Gift" where Giles kills Ben. Ben says something about the fact that Buffy didn't kill him, and Giles replies, "No, she couldn't. She's a hero. Not like us." And then he kills Ben with his own hand.

Fast forward to "Not Fade Away," where Angel doesn't just betray and murder Lindsay, he coldly sends an employee to do it. It's more like something from "The Sopranos" than what we expect on "Angel" or "Buffy." Poisoning an enemy is another pretty non-heroic act. I'd argue that at the end of the series, Angel has in fact become an antihero. He's fighting for good with the tools of evil. Throughout seven seaons of "Buffy," we were always assured that in the long term, you can't get away with that. But here's Angel doing it, and we keep rooting for him.

IMO, the key to his transformation was Illyria's advice, "You must serve only your own ambition." That advice solidified his decision that in order to have a real impact on evil in the world, he has to give up little things like personal morality and his hope of becoming human. I don't get the sense that either was a huge sacrifice for him: He told Spike earlier in the season that he no longer believed in the Shanshu prophecy, and I personally am not at all sure he ever really wanted his humanity back, or he'd have fought harder for it in "I Will Remember You." And personal morality got left behind at least once before, when he left a roomful of (barely) human lawyers locked in with Darla and Drusilla.

He's accepted that he's no longer the guy who rescues girls in alleys. That's not big enough for him anymore. He's the guy who will stop at nothing to slow down the big evil.

To bring it back to your theme of loyalty and hope, he's given up his old hopes (for personal redemption, for becoming human, for a life with Buffy) and his old loyalty (to his friends, his ideals) in favor of a new hope—that he can have a real impact on evil in the world, even if he can't ever stop it.

In fact, it occurs to me that one of the most stirring things about the whole plan set in motion in the last two episodes was the willingness of all the team members to risk eternity in some mega-hell dimension just for the chance to kill off a few of the really, really bad guys. Another thing Angel said earlier in the season was, 'If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do." He's decided that the results of his actions on the world are more important than their impact on himself, And he's somehow convinced the rest of the gang to go (possibly straight to hell) along with him.

Go, Angel! Slay those dragons!