Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

III. Are We Learning, Yet?

In part 1 of this Angel "Time Bomb" commentary, I asked (because of the juxtaposition of Wesley's words about the need for adjustment to the new reality and Illyria, on the one hand, with Illyria's equation of adaptation with compromise, on the other) the not-entirely-rhetorical question, "is 'adjustment' just another word for 'complicity' with the hegemonic evil which surrounds you?"

The short answer to that question is, of course, "it depends." The slightly longer version is, it depends on what you're adjusting to, and whether you're simply 'going along to get along' or are actually trying to deal creatively and positively with what 'is' rather than what 'ought to be' or 'used to be.' What it boils down to is, are you learning or merely giving in?

Once again in this episode, Spike seems to be the vampire version of the 'Energizer bunny' (he keeps going and going and going) or an old 'Timex' watch (he takes a licking, and keeps on ticking) -- at least up until the point where Illyria decides to dust him first (sort of a compliment, I suppose, that of all Angel's crew he's the one she wanted to have the least amount of warning and no chance to fight back). "Giving in" or "going along to get along" doesn't really seem to be in his behavioral or philosophical repertoire, most of the time. But "change" and "growth" are in his repertoire (both in his pre-soul and ensouled incarnations, especially as seen in BtVS seasons 5 through 7). And of all the gang, Spike seems to be the most resilient when it comes to taking the new reality of Illyria wearing Fred's body in stride (though, of course, he hadn't known or loved Fred nearly as long as the others). Illyria almost seems a little put out or surprised by Spike's ability to separate Fred-the-person-whom-he'd-loved from Illyria-the-demon-whom-he-happily-punches-in-the-face-and-mocks:

Illyria: You are adapting.
Spike: We do that.
Illyria: Adaptation is compromise.
Spike: It's called "learning." But, then, I guess you know everything there is to know.

Gunn also seems to have mastered the learning curve by now, at least when it comes to making deals with demonic forces, no matter how tempting or 'for the greater good' the offer may appear. As he tells Angel, Gunn's not into making deals anymore, no matter how much tougher that's going to make it for him to continue being a lawyer.

Both Angel and Gunn seem to see uncomfortable reflections of themselves and decisions they've made in the not-too-distant past in the temptation and lose-lose proposition currently facing Amanda.

As things are, Amanda and her disabled (incurably brain-damaged) husband can't afford to raise this baby, much less give him the kind of privileged and important position the Fell Brethren are promising. But the clincher is that the Brethren are offering to make her husband whole again, so that he can once again remember who Amanda is and get his life back. As Amanda tearfully asks Angel and Gunn, "How does a person turn all that down?"

Angel, of course, had made the deal with W&H in order to make his son Connor whole and give him the chance for a good life (even at the cost of Connor not remembering -- until last week -- who Angel is, and nobody else remembering who Connor is). That deal, though it seems to have turned out all right for Connor after all, had contributed to all of them ending up where they are right now.

And Gunn had signed the paper that ended up costing Fred's life because he'd wanted for himself what Amanda wanted for her baby (and what Gunn's own mother, if she were around, would no doubt have wanted for her son): to be 'somebody', to be treated with respect and actually matter to a lot of people.

Gunn and Angel both understand the temptation facing Amanda, and they have both given in to similar temptations in the past, but we're sort of left wondering, at the end of this episode, if only Gunn has really learned this particular lesson, that demonic deals always end up costing you far more than you ever imagined (like having a demon-puppet's hand up your spinal column pulling your strings, or watching someone you love hollowed out and turned into a soulless walking mobile home for the thing that killed her) and you'd trade anything to be able to go back and make a different choice.

But, unfortunately, the only "do-overs" you get after a demonic pact are the kind that involve endlessly repeating the same phony day and getting your heart ripped out (or, in the case of this particular episode, being swept up in the wake of a time-jumping and homericly unstable former god-king who seems intent on taking everyone with her when she blows).

This Gunn has learned, and he seems to be willing to go to any lengths to fight the good fight and keep someone else from winding up in a similar hell.

Wesley, we discover in this episode, has learned a few things, too (besides the fact that he had stolen Angel's son and gone more than a little "dark" and "bent" in the unexpurgated version of the past couple of years).

As far as this episode's plot is concerned, though, one of the main things he learned from last week's mis-adventures is that there's no going back for him, no reversing or undoing of the events that took Fred away forever and left only Illyria in her place. As Wes has to remind Illyria, he has learned from the failure of that attempt and does not need to repeat it over and over: "...now I know, you're all that's left." Whatever remains of Fred is contained in Illyria, and so for good or for ill, Illyria's continued survival and presence matters to him ("I'm not in love with this thing, Angel. But, for some reason, I need it right now").

Illyria seems to have taken a little while to figure out that Wes had, in fact, been trying to betray her and get rid of her (when she was being all helpful and smacking Angel around for him, even) by breaking the 'window' in hopes of changing the past.

Being of the "Everything I Need to Know I Learned When I Was An Omnipotent God-King and You Were the Ooze at My Feet" school of thought, Illyria isn't exactly an eager student of human emotions or behavior, most of the time, and doesn't exactly embrace the idea of "change." As she says near the end, "Change is constant, yet things remain the same" -- or at least, they ought to stay the same, especially the part where she's feared and worshiped and is absolute master of everything.

In spite of all that she's experienced, all her unpleasant discoveries about her kingdom and her followers being long-gone and turned to ash and herself a little too human now to be able to safely wander through other worlds and realities without becoming some other being's lunch, and in spite of her grudging attempts to learn about this world from Wes or from playing "Kick-the-Spike" . . . in spite of all that, Illyria seems honestly appalled when she finds any trace of change, growth, or humanity in herself.

Though she remembers 'betrayal' as a perfectly neutral word, describing something as natural and normal as air and water, she is now bothered to discover that the idea of Wesley's betrayal actually bothers her.

Something of what Angel has learned along the way becomes clear when he tries to get Illyria to do a little adapting and learning of her own. Having already reminded her a few moments earlier, "You're not a king anymore; your domain is gone, swallowed by time," Angel now urges her to make a better choice this time around, one that doesn't end with her demon energy breaking loose from her human form and making a really big crater in the process:

Angel: Illyria, the future can change, here. You can choose a different path.
Illyria: And be nothing.
Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold on to what you were... it's destroying you.

I can't help wondering if Angel might be talking about himself, just a little bit, when he's urging Illyria to choose life on a somewhat more human scale rather than self-destruction on the epic scale.

Considering the "prize" for which Angel has been watching ever since the end of season one, when he learned what the "Shanshu" prophecy really meant, he's just about the last person to agree that being more human or ordinary is the same as being 'nothing' (in spite of choosing to trade in his ordinary humanity for the chance to go on being able to aid the Slayer and fight the coming battles with superhuman strength during "In the Dark").

Maybe that's one reason why I can't believe that, ultimately, Angel is really going to let Amanda's child be turned over to the Fell Brethren and eventually sacrificed, rather than simply being another ordinary human child whose mother loves him but has an up-hill battle to keep him fed and sheltered or a candidate for human adoption. He might make some very dubious choices and violate a lot of people's free will in order to give his own son a more normal human life, but I can't quite see him willing to take on the same moral debt or karmic burden in order to take all that irrevocably away from Amanda's son.

(Of course, I could be seeing patterns and portents and parallels where none actually exist. It wouldn't be the first time.)

But more than the "it's not so bad to be slightly more human" thing, I'm wondering if Angel isn't, maybe, talking about himself in the sense of needing to be what he is now and fight the war on those terms, rather than fighting to convince himself and others that they're still the same "save-one-life-at-a-time" street champions they were before, only more so (because with more and better toys), and being destroyed by it, bit by bit.

Are Angel and Illyria in some weird sense switching places? She becoming another superhumanly strong but strangely vulnerable and seriously depressed potential-champion who doesn't play well with others (sort of like the messed-up Angel whom Whistler found in an alley and took to see a new Slayer being called), while Angel is finally accepting that this is his kingdom now, that he possesses great power, and that (perhaps not unlike Gunn with the power of his legal knowledge) he and others have already paid so much for him to get this power, that he had darned well better use it?

Illyria becomes some sort of proto-Angel, while Angel becomes a "motivated go-getter" warrior king with some serious conquering to do (possibly a very early version of Illyria?). Could be.

All I know for sure is that, within this episode, the only answer to Angel's "Tell us how we fight an invisible war" query seems to have come from Illyria: "so much power here, and you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition" -- the words Angel repeats to himself before appearing to turn his coat and become a W&H kind of motivated leader.

So far, the possibilities that occur to me are these: 1) Angel has unaccountably decided to sell out (not likely); 2) Angel has decided to use Illyria as his Niccolo Machiavelli or Otto von Bismark, giving him advice on how to become a really successful and ruthless leader, in order to utterly crush his enemies (hopefully we're still talking about the Senior Partners, there); or 3) Angel perked up his cute little vampire ears when Wes suggested that Illyria would never stop trying to conquer everything there is, put that together with the fact that there seems to be a pretty strong mutual antipathy between her and the Partners, and decided that, on the principle of "set a thief to catch a thief," he could somehow use Illyria's unquenchable thirst for power and a return to the good old days by siccing her on the Senior Partners (with a little Angel & Co. backing, of course), to flush them out into the open and maybe weaken them so much that all Angel and friends will have to worry about is mopping them up afterwards.

That last one is the one I'm rooting for, of course. But with the Jossverse, you never can tell for sure.