Insignificance
Jan. 22nd, 2004 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI’m trying to write this in between HOT and RUSH and ASAP! jobs today (grrr), because I miss writing about episodes and am starting to resent the fact that me employers actually expect me to work here, and I can’t squeeze in time to do it. Stupid employers. So this may be disjointed at best.
So far we’ve seen a lot of story about identity — about Angel’s confusion over his role and who he is now that he’s with W&H. Gunn, Fred, and Wes have all had identity issues as they try to reforge their personalities within the context of these new roles. And Spike has been bounced around most of all, desperately in search of some kind of meaning both as a ghost and as a soulled vampire. In this, and a little with Destiny, we’re getting a deeper look at Angel’s and Spike’s identity crises, and Soul Purpose (its name telling us right there what the crux of the issue is for both of them) finally tells us what’s driving a lot of Angel’s panic: insignificance. The fact that this is also a part of what motivates Spike now that his motivations have been shifted or destroyed is going to make it even harder for Angel, because they both want the same thing, but for different reasons. I like this, though I don’t like the way the storyline is going in terms of positioning Angel and Spike as simply warring for the same thing (to be the big champion of good, cuz, you know, bleh).
Of course, there are other interpretations of Angel’s fear, but I homed in on the insignificance thing because it’s something I identify with personally very strongly, and Angel’s dread feels all too familiar to me. The problem for Angel is that he’s been, for at least the past decade or so, an important player in a lot of games. W&H went to great lengths to try to eliminate him; he’s heard numerous prophecies related to him; he was important in Buffy’s role as Slayer on the Hellmouth. To suddenly be confronted, both with Spike’s return to his life and with his new role in W&H, with the idea that he is no longer necessary or worthy, that he is no longer the vampire with a soul, some kind of chosen one in league with the Powers That Be, is going to shake his peaches right off the tree. He has abruptly found himself unsure of his own role (Wes’s condemnation and killing of him), his own feelings and purpose (Fred’s declaration of his emptiness and hollowness), and he can’t reconcile that with the belief that he was meant for better things (Spike as savior, as the jolly good fellow who gets to be a real boy). Fear of insignificance and unworthiness, of being useless, has often been a huge motivator for people to achieve great things. It’s a fairly normal conceit for men, especially, to want to create something of lasting value, to have a reputation. So what happens when someone else comes along to challenge your sense of achievement, of lasting impact? And what happens when you are subsumed into a culture where your values are shaken or destroyed, and you become less significant and effective?
Well, you have nightmares that your friends are trying to kill you. You unwittingly make yourself a pawn in someone else’s power and revenge games. One of Angel’s great problems is that he’s never been able to judge people separately from himself — he doesn’t really understand the people he works with all that well as individuals in their own right, or really get their motivations and deepest needs. So his nightmares reflect back a vision of himself, a nightmare vision of himself that he believes others see, because he’s unable to really grasp their true feelings and motivations. I always thought that what happened with Connor and Wes would have been different for Angel if Wes had truly believed he could confide in Angel about his father-son prophecy fears (of course, we also wouldn’t have had the kickass storylines that came out of that, so...). But Angel has never presented himself as a confidey guy, and he doesn’t recognize a lot of the insecurities that Wes has, and so is unable to help him. He sees Wes as potentially threatening in some small degree, based on the nightmare visions of him in this ep. And he sees Fred as someone unconcerned, detached, from him, now that she is fulfilling a different role from the one she played before. Scientist Fred has replaced Heart of the Group Fred in his eyes. Gunn is threatening as the cat, as the big Other from the white room, and his fears of not being in power over Gunn now, of how potentially deadly Gunn could be, are right there in front of him. Each of these fears are based on how the others see him, not about themselves as individuals.
He’s also terrified of being locked down and sucked into W&H’s world, with the ensuing erasure of his past identity, the one he most wants. He wants that significant role, he wants importance and meaning and a legacy. He wants to be the vampire they talk about in the chatty rooms. But now he’s uncertain he can fulfill that; Spike may take it away from him, or W&H may, but either way, he becomes insignificant. He doesn’t count. His droning, endless life has no purpose and meaning. As an unsoulled vampire he can fight and feed and terrorize; with the soul, he has no direction unless it’s to do good, but if he’s insignificant, what point is the goodness? What point is there to his love for Buffy if his choice to be good and help her in Becoming turns meaningless because she cared for Spike, too? There’s also a clue in terms of how helpless he feels in his new role when the first song Lorne plays in his nightmare is “Don’t Fence Me In.” He has Iss-Yous big time.
Of course, so do Spike and Lindsey. I was a bit disheartened to see such a gullible Spike, but I did enjoy the scene with Wes and Gunn — Spike beginning to see that pretty much everyone wants to yank his destiny chain, and that he’s not really as in control of this as he wants to think. There were glimpses of the old Spike I loved — yelling at the woman for being dumb enough to be attacked, the hooch thing, the way he reacted to Lindsey constantly with insinuations about certain types of relationships (oh, how I wish!) — but it will be interesting to see what they do with this insecurity of Spike’s. I know a lot of people were cranky about his reason for not going off to see Buffy, but that worked for me in some respects, because I can see him battling with that fear of insignificance. How do you top saving the world, really? What’s your next act? Lindsey seems to understand that fear enough to manipulate him effectively, but I hope it doesn’t devolve into merely the two vamps posturing and fighting for who gets to shanshu. The real boy nightmare is evidence of Angel’s fear of losing meaning, but in Spike’s mind, I’m not sure what the point is beyond Buffy, and that doesn’t seem to be his motivating factor right now. This is the part I’m most concerned about for future eps.
The episode did show some of the signs of a first time director, but overall, DB didn’t do a half bad job. The script — has that writer worked on Angel before? I don’t remember half the Angel writers, so I wasn’t certain — felt talky and overly expository, especially the pointed teases with Eve and Lindsey (“I’ll get what I want, our project”... I want people to kill me when characters start talking like that); and the amateurish and badly done part with Spike fucking “Buffy” — the actress’s head turned away so obviously, the piped in voice... hit my cringe in embarrassment buttons so I actually had to run away during that sequence. And I do wonder at the earrings as give-away, because seriously — how many people really notice that kind of thing, especially a guy? The clothes maybe, but the earrings? The Fred as detached scientist part went on a bit too long (though I did love the Jaws reference with the license plate), but I felt for the most part it wasn’t half bad. And I loved the scenes with Lindsey and Spike in the strip club so much (excellent lighting, fantastic blocking) that I’m pretty much willing to forgive anything, anyway. This show is full of hot men, and I just cannot find anything to gripe about when it comes down to that. It fulfills its purpose in setting up a foundation for the rest of the year, where we get to see how these fears in Angel play out.
And, as well, how Spike’s fear of his insignificance, and his hope that he is actually more than what he believes, sets Angel’s fears in motion and makes them worse than they would be, creating lots of potential consequences. If it’s the worst of the worst to become nothing more than a mail guy, or be so purposeless that your friends would kill you to put you out of your misery, then how do you fight that or change it? Do you buy into the destiny and prophecy thing? Or do you make fate your own? Those are questions both Angel and Spike have to answer; the fun will be in seeing who actually may have those answers.
Plus, I liked what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
paratti said about the goldfish -- check it out!
So far we’ve seen a lot of story about identity — about Angel’s confusion over his role and who he is now that he’s with W&H. Gunn, Fred, and Wes have all had identity issues as they try to reforge their personalities within the context of these new roles. And Spike has been bounced around most of all, desperately in search of some kind of meaning both as a ghost and as a soulled vampire. In this, and a little with Destiny, we’re getting a deeper look at Angel’s and Spike’s identity crises, and Soul Purpose (its name telling us right there what the crux of the issue is for both of them) finally tells us what’s driving a lot of Angel’s panic: insignificance. The fact that this is also a part of what motivates Spike now that his motivations have been shifted or destroyed is going to make it even harder for Angel, because they both want the same thing, but for different reasons. I like this, though I don’t like the way the storyline is going in terms of positioning Angel and Spike as simply warring for the same thing (to be the big champion of good, cuz, you know, bleh).
Of course, there are other interpretations of Angel’s fear, but I homed in on the insignificance thing because it’s something I identify with personally very strongly, and Angel’s dread feels all too familiar to me. The problem for Angel is that he’s been, for at least the past decade or so, an important player in a lot of games. W&H went to great lengths to try to eliminate him; he’s heard numerous prophecies related to him; he was important in Buffy’s role as Slayer on the Hellmouth. To suddenly be confronted, both with Spike’s return to his life and with his new role in W&H, with the idea that he is no longer necessary or worthy, that he is no longer the vampire with a soul, some kind of chosen one in league with the Powers That Be, is going to shake his peaches right off the tree. He has abruptly found himself unsure of his own role (Wes’s condemnation and killing of him), his own feelings and purpose (Fred’s declaration of his emptiness and hollowness), and he can’t reconcile that with the belief that he was meant for better things (Spike as savior, as the jolly good fellow who gets to be a real boy). Fear of insignificance and unworthiness, of being useless, has often been a huge motivator for people to achieve great things. It’s a fairly normal conceit for men, especially, to want to create something of lasting value, to have a reputation. So what happens when someone else comes along to challenge your sense of achievement, of lasting impact? And what happens when you are subsumed into a culture where your values are shaken or destroyed, and you become less significant and effective?
Well, you have nightmares that your friends are trying to kill you. You unwittingly make yourself a pawn in someone else’s power and revenge games. One of Angel’s great problems is that he’s never been able to judge people separately from himself — he doesn’t really understand the people he works with all that well as individuals in their own right, or really get their motivations and deepest needs. So his nightmares reflect back a vision of himself, a nightmare vision of himself that he believes others see, because he’s unable to really grasp their true feelings and motivations. I always thought that what happened with Connor and Wes would have been different for Angel if Wes had truly believed he could confide in Angel about his father-son prophecy fears (of course, we also wouldn’t have had the kickass storylines that came out of that, so...). But Angel has never presented himself as a confidey guy, and he doesn’t recognize a lot of the insecurities that Wes has, and so is unable to help him. He sees Wes as potentially threatening in some small degree, based on the nightmare visions of him in this ep. And he sees Fred as someone unconcerned, detached, from him, now that she is fulfilling a different role from the one she played before. Scientist Fred has replaced Heart of the Group Fred in his eyes. Gunn is threatening as the cat, as the big Other from the white room, and his fears of not being in power over Gunn now, of how potentially deadly Gunn could be, are right there in front of him. Each of these fears are based on how the others see him, not about themselves as individuals.
He’s also terrified of being locked down and sucked into W&H’s world, with the ensuing erasure of his past identity, the one he most wants. He wants that significant role, he wants importance and meaning and a legacy. He wants to be the vampire they talk about in the chatty rooms. But now he’s uncertain he can fulfill that; Spike may take it away from him, or W&H may, but either way, he becomes insignificant. He doesn’t count. His droning, endless life has no purpose and meaning. As an unsoulled vampire he can fight and feed and terrorize; with the soul, he has no direction unless it’s to do good, but if he’s insignificant, what point is the goodness? What point is there to his love for Buffy if his choice to be good and help her in Becoming turns meaningless because she cared for Spike, too? There’s also a clue in terms of how helpless he feels in his new role when the first song Lorne plays in his nightmare is “Don’t Fence Me In.” He has Iss-Yous big time.
Of course, so do Spike and Lindsey. I was a bit disheartened to see such a gullible Spike, but I did enjoy the scene with Wes and Gunn — Spike beginning to see that pretty much everyone wants to yank his destiny chain, and that he’s not really as in control of this as he wants to think. There were glimpses of the old Spike I loved — yelling at the woman for being dumb enough to be attacked, the hooch thing, the way he reacted to Lindsey constantly with insinuations about certain types of relationships (oh, how I wish!) — but it will be interesting to see what they do with this insecurity of Spike’s. I know a lot of people were cranky about his reason for not going off to see Buffy, but that worked for me in some respects, because I can see him battling with that fear of insignificance. How do you top saving the world, really? What’s your next act? Lindsey seems to understand that fear enough to manipulate him effectively, but I hope it doesn’t devolve into merely the two vamps posturing and fighting for who gets to shanshu. The real boy nightmare is evidence of Angel’s fear of losing meaning, but in Spike’s mind, I’m not sure what the point is beyond Buffy, and that doesn’t seem to be his motivating factor right now. This is the part I’m most concerned about for future eps.
The episode did show some of the signs of a first time director, but overall, DB didn’t do a half bad job. The script — has that writer worked on Angel before? I don’t remember half the Angel writers, so I wasn’t certain — felt talky and overly expository, especially the pointed teases with Eve and Lindsey (“I’ll get what I want, our project”... I want people to kill me when characters start talking like that); and the amateurish and badly done part with Spike fucking “Buffy” — the actress’s head turned away so obviously, the piped in voice... hit my cringe in embarrassment buttons so I actually had to run away during that sequence. And I do wonder at the earrings as give-away, because seriously — how many people really notice that kind of thing, especially a guy? The clothes maybe, but the earrings? The Fred as detached scientist part went on a bit too long (though I did love the Jaws reference with the license plate), but I felt for the most part it wasn’t half bad. And I loved the scenes with Lindsey and Spike in the strip club so much (excellent lighting, fantastic blocking) that I’m pretty much willing to forgive anything, anyway. This show is full of hot men, and I just cannot find anything to gripe about when it comes down to that. It fulfills its purpose in setting up a foundation for the rest of the year, where we get to see how these fears in Angel play out.
And, as well, how Spike’s fear of his insignificance, and his hope that he is actually more than what he believes, sets Angel’s fears in motion and makes them worse than they would be, creating lots of potential consequences. If it’s the worst of the worst to become nothing more than a mail guy, or be so purposeless that your friends would kill you to put you out of your misery, then how do you fight that or change it? Do you buy into the destiny and prophecy thing? Or do you make fate your own? Those are questions both Angel and Spike have to answer; the fun will be in seeing who actually may have those answers.
Plus, I liked what
paratti said about the goldfish -- check it out!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 09:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 04:40 pm (UTC)I do think there is more to Spike's desire to do good that just doing it for Buffy, something that he may have started to feel in the last season, and may just need some practice to really decide whether he can do it. The soul caused him guilt about doing evil, and I'd like to think it also helps him take satisfaction out of doing good.
I agree, however, that Spike seemed altogether too guilible when he bought into Lindsey's scheme. Did Spike not know about the whole Doyle/Cordelia vision thing? I suppose Doyle came and went pretty fast. It frustrates me the way characters in the shows (BtVS and AtS) can seem to be oblivious to the rest of their world, especially when it involves matters that affect them both (Angel bringing the amulet to Sunnydale is a rare exception).
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 06:00 pm (UTC)What a great review. You said it all and then some. I've linked from my journal 'cause I know my other friends will love it. Thanks for your thoughtfulness and eloquence.
Julia
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 07:43 pm (UTC)thanks for the wonderful review. it set my thoughts racing in a million different directions. this struggle between spike and angel is just fascinating.....i have to wonder why lindsay and icky eve are so dead set on having the senior partners lose interest in angel. in my mind, this translates as angel actually being mr. shanshu. do they fear angel? they obviously want to take his power away. v. confusing indeed.
let me ask you this.........why do you think lindsay called himself doyle? he has to know the very real possibility of spike telling team angel about this guy he met who has "visions". i'm curious of the motivation behind that and wondered what you thought.
thanks again!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 09:12 am (UTC)As well, the Doyle thing. I would assume Lindsey would know enough about Spike that he'd know Spike would eventually have a conversation with the rest of them. Plus, Spike *met* Doyle in the In the Dark. So... either Spike's got a very bad memory, or the writers are concocting some kind of bizarre scenario that we can't see yet, or... everyone's just smoking too much weed and not thinking too clearly. I have a hard time believing they wouldn't remember that Spike met Doyle once (he may or may not have known his name, but that seems odd, as well), so the only thing I can think of is that Lindsey's deliberately dropping things that he hopes Spike will spill to the others -- that he wants this to be set up his way, and this is how he's doing it.
Or they're very stoned.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 06:52 pm (UTC)Lindsey's statement when he left that he was through with the game seemed fairly definitive, so his interest in either making sure Angel doesn't have power, or getting control of W&H, or something else, confuses me a little.
this is where i get confused as well. it seems that it would be in lindsay's interest to help the good guys. but instead, on the surface it seems that he is working against angel and for the big E evil. maybe he knows of the senior partners' true plans for angel and he is only trying to stop them. it makes sense that he would have insider information. why else is he hiding himself if he isn't working against them.
So... either Spike's got a very bad memory, or the writers are concocting some kind of bizarre scenario that we can't see yet, or... everyone's just smoking too much weed and not thinking too clearly.
or......and i really hope this is not the case.....it's another case of ME disregarding continuity. -but i think i must be because lindsay knows it will get back to angel and unnerve him.
-or, as you suggested, there is far to much weed smoking around the writer's conference table.
one more thing...mind if i friend you?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 12:49 am (UTC)I know a lot of people were cranky about his reason for not going off to see Buffy, but that worked for me in some respects, because I can see him battling with that fear of insignificance. How do you top saving the world, really? What’s your next act?
::nods::
I hadn't really thought about it in such simplistic terms, but you're right. Poor Spike. And poor Angel. It's amazing how similar both boys really are.