No, your point was a sweeping generalization. And that is mostly what I had an issue with. There are many, many people who dislike Cangel because of the quality of the character writing, lack of romantic chemistry and rushed delivery in S3.
In general I agree that Cangel could've worked from what had been established thus far, but slower and with addressing issues that had already been brought to light.
I agree that their friendship had developed somewhat over the seasons, but there wasn't any romance there. Angel thought Cordelia was flighty and materialistic- but grounded. It's true that he recognized how she'd changed by late S2 and valued her friendship. But there was no indication
Cordelia made fun of Angel for being a socially awkward eunuch who 'goes evil' if they have sex.
You said it yourself Fred was there to handhold the audience though this 'deepening of their relationship' or whatever. As was Lorne. And their views were both uninformed about Angel and Cordelia's previous history and/or attitudes towards each other. Two relative strangers saying to Angel 'ooh, do like Cordelia? You'd be great together, so cute and perfect and inexplicably epic, ask her out already.' That's juvenile writing.
Ultimately they were outsiders looking in. What the writers needed was somebody from their time in Sunnydale to point out their history to them, reminding them of how far they've come.
Wesley or Xander would've been best. Personally I would've loved a bit of crossover magic with Xander coming to LA to maybe invite Cordelia to his upcoming wedding/just catch up with old friends as he takes stock of his life, etc; his presence in a light-hearted episode could've echoed old dynamics and led to Angel questioning his feelings for Cordelia on his own before Lorne pipes up.
I disagree. Cordelia regressed for Cangel to even happen. Cordelia knows herself and her own feelings, ever since Xander she has accepted if she is attracted to a guy or finds a guy appealing. Same case with Wesley (which, in that case, much like with Angel himself, she got over her initial romantic attraction and moved on to just being good friends, until Cangel ruined that as well).
With Doyle is was mostly her not knowing about the half-demon thing and Doyle own reticence to tell her. Once she found out she was all 'oh, whatever, so ask me on a date already' Acceptance of what she likes.
But in S3 she's subconsciously recreating Groo to be more Angel-like? Like, what? That isn't any kind of Cordelia that we've seen, in fact, that's kinda superficial.
Maybe saying the word love out loud but no, she doesn't willfully obfuscate her own feelings to herself. That is an anti-Cordelia trait. But it is kinda Buffy-esque
Again, for the record, like the idea of Cangel and Angel moving on from Buffy after she dies, dislike the execution.
Anyway, I don't wanna derail the thread too much so I'll leave it there. But I might start a new thread for this. 🙂
I think you forgot the part where I used the word
met when I said "I rarely
met people who hated Cangel and weren't Bangel fans". Words have meaning. That was not a generalization, that was me talking about my experience with the people I met. A generalization would have been me telling you that all Bangel fans hate Cangel.
Keep in mind, I even added
rarely in there to soften it and not put all Bangels I met in the same basket. Also, notice that I used the word
hate because I was specifically talking about those fans who seem to have a ridiculous amount of dislike for that ship. The majority of Buffy fans are indifferent to Cangel or somewhat like or dislike the ship. I was pointing out that in my experience when someone is more on the extreme, showing strong dislike for the ship, it's very often a Bangel shipper. With that out of the way, I'll move on to the rest of what you said.
Angel was overly protective of Cordelia and that only grew more and more over the seasons. He also implied multiple times that he found Cordy attractive (like Cordelia did toward him). It was definitely more of a friendship at first, but it grew over time and I think it took longer because Angel was never thinking about getting with someone new following Buffy. He knew what intimacy could lead to after what had happened with the Buffster.
Cordelia making fun of Angel. Is that supposed to be an argument for why she didn't feel attracted to him? She did the exact same thing to both Xander and Doyle. 😉 She also bickered a lot with Angel, which is something she did with those other two guys too.
What I said is that the sudden 'kyrumption' speech by Fred was a little offputting because she barely knew them. However, that could be explained away by just imagining that Fred had moved on from her little crush on Angel and started trying to ship the two people she knew who were champions and that she had the most admiration for. You know, like someone hoping for two of their friends to get together. As for Lorne, like I said he always read Angel really well. This is explained in-universe by his supernatural gifts, but he also seemed to understand him on a personal level too. I trust Lorne! He was definitely not an 'outsider' by that point.
I will admit that it was surprising that Wesley didn't butt in a little more when it came to that topic, has he had been around them the most. As for your cross-over proposition, that sounds good to me! The shows would have benefited from a lot more cross-overs.
I'm not sure I get the next paragraph. I don't think she regressed. She just ALWAYS had an issue with admitting she had real romantic feelings for a guy. It might have to do with her pride. Remember, when she was dating in high school (pre-Xander) it never seemed to be about who she actually loved, but more about what status or money she could get from a specific guy. For the longest time she believed she deserved the best (whatever that was), and she would talk about the guys she actually loved as if they were not worthy enough for her to consider them.
The example of Groo you mention actually helps my argument. She always had something for Angel, but she refused to perceive him that way. She saw similar traits in Groo and she was more open with her affection for him because it
wasn't Angel. However, as time went by she realized that she was just projecting her love for Angel through Groo. She saw Angel in the latter. That's when she started exploring her heart more deeply and came to the "I love Angel" conclusion that you find cheesy or melodramatic. Except, in my case, I think that whole progression made sense.
I don't usually like shipping the leading man and leading woman in a TV show just because they... are the leading roles, but in the case of Angel and Cordy it just felt genuine and organic. Both characters benefited from each other's influence. I've said it before, but both Angel and Cordelia were some of my least favorite characters on
BtVS, yet I ended up loving them on
Angel. A big part of that was because of how their relationship grew and played out. I don't think someone will be able to convince me otherwise, but I don't mind reading your arguments.
Especially as the perfect happiness seemed to be tied to comfortably being with the one he loved and who loved him back despite everything, rather than the sex itself. And yes, Connor might well have made Angel happy, though there was perhaps too much worrying going on for him to be perfectly happy, at least after he had time to (over)think things. But there are so many things other than sex that could lead to perfect happiness; it was even shown that sex led to a moment of perfect misery for Angel.
Definitely an aspect of the show that deserved better clarity. I would agree with that being a weak plotline.
You know, this wasn’t a Cangel vs Bangel before you took it there. The holier than thou and dismissive attitude you show is really not argument. Your design is only to insult because you like something else and want to undermine my right to dislike that thing.
It is ok for others not to believe in Cangel based on the way they told the story, not based on shipping preferences.
For me, they told a bad story that literally ruined characters for the sake of a flaccid romance that was forced onto the story by network décisions and it shows. It could have been gradual and convincing. But the way they went about it, was not.
They speed-ran a character development for Cordy to make her fit a new role but it was all forced, fabricated, and told rather than shown. And the results were so meagre the ship never even happened. It was all melodrama and no pay off.
As for Cordy and Wesley I think s2 especially shows that Cordy and Wes are way closer as friends than Wes and Angel. Not that Wes and Angel dont like each other. But Wes always has Angel at a distance, and part of his isolation in season 3, pre-Connor kidnapping, is that they completely write off the trust and connection he had with Cordy.
Now that isn’t all at Cangel’s feet. It is the sad truth that s3 goes full steam ahead on romantic relationships to the cost of other relationships. So Cordy is all about Angel and Groo, Wesley all about Fred.
It is a sad sacrifice they made of a friendship they had spent a season and a half building up. One of the last great Cordy and Wes scenes is when they re-enact the Bangel drama. Beyond that the show sadly sidelines their meaningful friendship entirely
Me sounding confident in
my argument based on my experience with the fandom does not translate to me being "holier than thou" and "dismissive". If you are talking about the "Sorry boys and girls...", that was tongue-in-cheek. I responded to you starting with a wink even, because I've had these conversations about ships countless times before and they're fun and silly at the same time. These arguments can be a little feisty, but it doesn't mean we're seriously insulting each other over them. Is it not possible to just banter about a topic?
When you just up and decided to call
all Cangels "delusional" (see, Topher,
that is a sweeping generalization), I didn't insult all Bangels back, choosing instead to just explain why I think the Bangel ship is not a good one. But now you come back, telling me what my
own design in posting is, which
literally makes you sound "holier than thou". I never talk or argue with the goal of insulting somebody else. I just love debating about topics I care about, and when I do it sometimes I can be playful and teasing, but it's all in good spirit and I try to make it obvious. Also, I don't post here much anymore, but this is not the first time I respond to you in disagreeing fashion and you take it quite seriously/badly (it seems). I'm actually a little confused by the recurrent antagonism, as I thought we were on good terms and it's not like I killed your dog or something. I'm just disagreeing with you on a topic.
Now moving back to Cangel, yes I did bring up the fact that it tends to be the Bangels that have a heavy dislike of Cangel. Because it's literally true. The same is true the other way around, by the way. I think both sides can be a little biased because of their 'allegiance', which shouldn't be that difficult to believe. The difference is that as a Cangel, I don't
hate Bangel. However, I will bring up the ship's flaws if you are crapping over the Cangel ship. Has it gotten to a point on BB where we can't even debate over each other's opinion?
I think it's perfectly okay to not like Cangel whether you are a Bangel or not. But that doesn't mean people, like me, can't criticize your perspective and rationale (like Topher did with mine above). It's also totally legitimate to underline the fact that Bangels tend to be biased against Cangel in general because its existence makes Bangel unlikely.
I don't think their relationship was flaccid at all. It just never got the chance to fully spread its wings because of what happened with Joss and Charisma during season 4. The closest we got to what Cangel could have been is in 'You're Welcome', which was one of the best episodes of the 'Verse, and I'm not alone to think that. Again, I do believe the romance buildup was gradual. I conceded that some of it (like the 'kyrumption' bit) was too much, but plenty of us felt it was natural and built up nicely overall.
They definitely didn't speed-run Cordy's character arc. I didn't like her character in
BtVS and I slowly learned to like her on
Angel as she grew and matured. There were definitely speed-bumps for her character arc (for example, 'To Shanshu in L.A.') where some bigger jumps were made, but that's pretty much how it happens in real life too. Usually big events happen to a person that force them to make choices that change them. The only section of the story where Cordelia's character progression was off was during season 4, and we know why that was the case.
I don't have much more to say about the Cordy/Wes and Angel/Wes topic. I just didn't see it like you did. Cordy and Wes didn't really have any big, meaningful moments in the show, at least that I can remember of (the Bangel scene is less about them and more about the show poking fun at the melodramatic Bangel ship). Even Gunn had a few special scenes with Cordelia. Meanwhile, Angel and Wes had something right from the get go, and even through
—and past
—the separation they always showed respect for each other. Pretty beautiful, actually. I think it's a big reason why Angel was so angry, because it was WESLEY that 'betrayed' him.
There, I'm done. No hard feelings.
🙂
