This got really long, and is mostly negative towards Angel. I always try and make sure I'm explaining what I actually dislike rather than just saying a character sucks, though, and I hope that I was clear enough here. Apologies if not.
Firstly, this is really the first episode which delves into Angel's POV in any real depth so the 'suddenly feeling more guilty' is a bit of a narrative trick. Perhaps Angel always feels this way, kinda, but it was always from Buffy's pov. Why is he so mopey? Here's an insight. So from his perspective ts going to be more prominent.
I will say that I think this being an episode that is so focused on Angel's POV is both one of its strengths and also unfortunately one of the things that made it so annoying to me. I just don't like him and was probably never going to, but I think that his mental state
is shown very well and that this is some of Boreanaz's strongest acting in the entire season. You're right that it probably feels more sudden than it is because we haven't seen it from his side before, and with that in mind, it's executed really well. But I didn't feel that way while watching.
- And its important to note that Buffy fails to talk Angel down from his attempt to take his own life. Because Angel's continued existence cannot be about Buffy (or just about Buffy anyway) and has to be about something more, a purpose. That fact becomes more obvious the longer the season progresses....
This didn't feel emphasized enough in the episode, for me. I actually like the idea that she doesn't succeed because she can't be his reason for existing, but due to how quickly the snow starts falling, it feels like it's cutting her off.
it doesn't, in any way, 'dangerously mirror' a real life situation. It's gross to suggest it.
- Buffy and Angel are not in a relationship when the episode begins.
- When the episode ends they are still not in a relationship.
- There is no coercion on Angel's part, in fact he spends the majority of the episode avoiding Buffy and finding ways to deal with his struggles on his own/desperately seeking help from Giles.
- Angel does not involve Buffy in his decision to end his own life, he does not tell her that he will do it, where he will do it or demand that she watches. He tells her to go away. At this point Buffy is the one that has ended things so its Angel decision basically.
- This not an act or manipulation because, whatever his faults, Angel is sincere in his self-loathing and admitted weakness of character here. He is raw and vulnerable, not calculated.
- The crisis is not resolved by Buffy 'talking Angel down' but by supernatural means outside the control of Buffy.
- Entirely separate from these events Buffy gets closer to Angel always under her own agency, not because she thinks Angel is suicidal if she isn't around because, again, Buffy did not resolve the conflict, she just got some cathartic emotional outlet.
So, I know you detest the character of Angel almost to beyond parody, but don't try and make light of real world serious issues such as toxic coercive techniques by comparing them with what happens here. There is no mirroring. Do Better.
You're arguing that it doesn't mirror a real life manipulation tactic by listing all the reasons it's not
literally that tactic. I don't think that's a good argument. This scene has an older man planning to kill himself, his younger ex trying to talk him out of it, and this moment being followed up by a sweet moment with romantic undertones. Someone has compared it to an abusive partner threatening suicide as a manipulation tactic, even though that isn't literally what happened. You don't have to interpret it that way, and I don't even think it's the
only way to interpret it (although it is the interpretation I agree with), but this is a show filled with metaphors and double meanings, and I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to watch a teenage girl beg her older partner not to kill himself and think it
might be toxic. And I think your last line, where you accuse
@famicommander of "making light of real world serious issues" is incredibly unfair.
Phrasing like this shuts down any discussion of readings you personally dislike by acting as if your position is inherently more morally correct (which they also do, and I don't agree with it when they do it, either, even though I agree with their interpretation of the bangel relationship).
If anything, it's Buffy who butted her head into his business because she didn't want him to die. At that point they weren't a couple anymore, so that was her decision to go there and intervene.
I just really don't get the toxic part. I mean, I get what you are saying in relation to people using suicide as a manipulative tool to get someone they love to stay with them, but that's not what was happening with Angel at all.
Buffy is a teenage girl with complicated feelings about her relationship with Angel. Angel is a grown adult (more than that, if we count the additional centuries that a real person wouldn't have), and Buffy should never feel like she has to be responsible for him. And I also think it's important to remember that Angel doesn't have to intend to be manipulative for his actions to hurt her. That's true for everyone--intentions are important context (he didn't mean to make Buffy feel like it was her job to keep him from killing himself) but don't necessarily justify the outcome (She felt like it was her job to keep him from killing himself). His actions still led to that ending, and it's not unfair to criticize him for it.
I've said it many times before, the age difference as they began their relationship was definitely weird and something that would not be tolerated in real life.
I think this is an understatement. Angel is more than a few years older. Just going from when he was born and when he was turned, he's, like, 25 or 26. I don't go with the "erm, he's 200+ years older, that seems kinda problematic..." argument because it's a vampire story and you have to work under the assumption that a vampire love interest is going to be centuries older or whatever and you aren't really
supposed to think about it like that, but the age he was turned (and consequently is stuck as, physically, forever)
still makes him significantly older than her. There's a full decade between the two of them, and other characters
do acknowledge it. I think calling it "weird" isn't grasping exactly why people find it uncomfortable. "Weird" would be if she was eighteen and he was 21+. "Creepy" is the word I would choose for sixteen and twenty-six, and doubly so with the added context that he fell in love at first sight when she was fifteen while stalking her.
Could there be nuances to this? All of the good actions done by all of these characters, don't they have a meaningful impact in how we perceive them as characters/people overall? Wouldn't that also work for Angel as a character?
I don't know about other people who dislike Angel, but for me the nuance comes in how the show chooses to present the actions in question, and my biggest issue with Angel is that most of the actions that the show wants to frame as romantic and sweet are the exact reasons I find him creepy. I don't need the show to teach me a happy little moral lesson like "older men following teenage girls around is bad," because I already know that, but it's still incredibly grating to see what is supposed to be a sympathetic love interest constantly do things that are often questionable at best. It's not fair to say Angel never faces consequences for anything, but they're never for the basic fact that his relationship with Buffy is inappropriate by definition. This is also why I liked Angelus in season two more than I like Angel normally (and particularly I disliked him in season three but that could be an essay all on its own); once the show stopped
expecting me to view all of his actions as good, or at least sincerely well-meaning, I was significantly less annoyed by him and able to appreciate his role in the narrative a lot more. I don't like feeling like a show is
telling me I should like a character, especially when I find the character incredibly unlikable. I haven't had this problem with other characters because the show doesn't feel like it's trying as hard to convince me, or the character is more likeable in my opinion, or both. The only other character where I feel like the show is enforcing an opinion on me is Xander, but I still tolerate him a lot more than I can Angel.
You'd have expected Giles, for example, to look down at Angel for getting involved with Buffy?
I absolutely think Giles should have at the very least been disapproving of Angel and Buffy's relationship. But I also don't know that it would be in-character for him to have had a strong reaction... especially in the first season, he doesn't always seem to notice when Buffy is having a "normal" problem, and the main issue Bangel has (an age gap) is absolutely a "normal" one. And, unfortunately, one that people just haven't always been as aware of in the past. As a man in the 90s who wasn't yet trying that hard to empathize with Buffy as a sixteen year old girl rather than Buffy as the Slayer, it makes sense that Giles doesn't take this as seriously as he maybe should've. Still, the lack of any concern feels off to me... Joyce feels more realistic, where she
does tell Buffy that Angel is too old for her, but only after he's lost his soul. It's too little too late, but she didn't even know they were dating until after they'd broken up, so what is she supposed to do about it?
And by "they" I mean the writers, the characters, the fans, pretty much everyone. I, for one, would have loved to have seen Giles directly confront Angel and tell him to stay the hell away from underage girls. Joyce too, except Joyce is an absolute moron and horrible excuse for a parent so that never would've happened. But it would be in-character for Giles to be the protective dad, so to speak.
Very much disagree that "Joyce is an absolute moron and horrible excuse for a parent." Joyce is a single mom who isn't home a lot but clearly cares a
lot about Buffy and tries very hard to understand her. Giles on the other hand is protective but not always paying attention to Buffy's non-Slayer-related problems. The scene where he literally isn't even listening when she's dropping hints that she wants him to take her to the ice show after her dad cancelled in "Helpless" comes to mind. Also, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph,
Joyce is the one who actually says that Angel is too old for Buffy in canon, not Giles. Do I think Joyce did enough about that situation? No, but between the two characters you've listed, she's the one who at least acknowledged the problem, which is more than Giles did about it. Giles only cared to talk about Angel as a vampire, not as an inappropriately older boyfriend.
it's a fantasy show about vampires and all sorts of supernatural elements. In real life, Buffy would be committing a crime for necrophilia by sleeping with a dead person. And we could find all sorts of other crazy things like that if we started taking the show apart and trying to make it fit in our reality.
If I ever see someone saying "dating vampires is unethical because they're dead," I'll let you know, but that's just not the same thing as saying "it's unethical for someone significantly older to date a young teenager." Vampires aren't real, adults taking advantage of teenagers is.
Second, Buffy was not just any ordinary teenager. She was the Slayer, meaning that she had had the responsibility of protecting/saving the world. She had demonstrated her maturity in many ways. More ways than most teenagers would be able to demonstrate, including myself when I was that age (🤣 ).
Third, she was quite clearly consenting to the sex and she loved Angel.
I don't really have much to say to this apart from the fact that I could not disagree more. Buffy has mature responsibilities, but she's still a teenage girl. She's still sixteen when they start dating and freshly seventeen when they have sex. Having a mature job doesn't make her an adult. Similarly, she legally cannot consent to adults as a minor, regardless of maturity. Age of consent in California is eighteen.
The age of consent should be 18 everywhere. And anyone who argues it should be lower gets a gigantic side eye. 16 year olds don't know a damn thing. They are not adults and any adult that seeks out a romantic or sexual relationship with them should be shunned from respectable society regardless of legality.
I agree with your basic statement that teenagers should not be in relationships with adults, but I think your logic is incomplete. Is there, mentally, that huge of a difference between 16 and 18? What's so magical about 18? Why not 19? Why not 17? I felt pretty much the same at all those ages. 18 is a pretty arbitrary number, and making that the hard line leaves room for a 19 year old and a 17 year old who went to the same high school to be considered a predatory relationship when they might not even be a full two years apart. I don't think this is the best response to someone pointing out that different places have different ages of consent; I think it's a better argument to look at Buffy and Angel's relationship in the context of how
large the gap is rather than exactly what age is acceptable to have sex, and also the fact that their relationship started earlier. It's not enough to say "the age of consent is ___" when they were dating for nearly a year prior and he had been watching her nearly a year before that.
I mean, Angel's whole thesis when he breaks up with Buffy is that she's still a kid and doesn't know what she wants and he has to leave for her own good. And this is true of her as an 18 year old, when on the show he started following her around at 15, kissed her at 16, and raped her at 17. He decides AFTER she becomes a legal adult that he's too old for her? Great timing. And then Buffy's whole speech before the series finale when she's 22 or 23 is that she's STILL cookie dough.
I do agree with you here. Angel talks to Buffy like a child pretty regularly, as well as saying that people her age are still just kids. It adds an uncomfortable layer to their relationship, for me; if that's how he sees her peers (calling Xander "just a kid," saying Faith is "barely more than a child"), what does he think of her, a girl he's sleeping with? Telling teenage girls that they're more mature than their peers and that this makes them special and grown up is something that happens in real life all the time, and it's gross.
You obviously seem to approach them as if they were real life, and you can't get over certain actions that some characters commit. I just hope you can understand that not everyone is like you, and that this whole topic is a lot more complicated and nuanced than you are making it out to be by repeating ad nauseam how terrible a person Angel was/is.
I think this sums up how I feel about a lot of anti-Angel arguments even though I also dislike him. I do consider Angel's actions in the context of real life, but that's not the same as acting like they
are real life, and I think that distinction is important. I personally think Angel is a more interesting character when taking into account the age gap context (which, in turn, makes a lot of his actions that would otherwise be acceptable into an example of an older man grooming a teenage girl), and interpreting the work this way makes him pretty unsympathetic. I think he's interesting as a villain more than as a love interest, and part of that is because if someone where to act like this in real life, I would consider him a bad person. But age gaps like this where also a common trope at the time and bangel wasn't written with the intention of drawing attention to it or making a point about it, and if you watch it with that context, Angel is a much more likeable character. It's very 90s/early 00s to give a badass teenage protagonist a mysterious older love interest who is just so drawn to them because they're cool and special. I wouldn't say Angel fully fits the trope, but that's the context the character was created in. Multiple contexts (how real life abuse works, how media at the time was written, how the characters in-universe view the situation) produce multiple interpretations, because he's not
real. Fictional characters are meant to be interpreted in different ways. Not all of those interpretations will line up with real life. Because he's not real.
Now, on a more light-hearted note, and also more directly on topic, my favorite post here:
Oh, Christmas is a traditional time for Ghost Stories. Moreso than Halloween.
You're right! I hadn't even thought of that. This post has done more than any other on the thread to improve my opinion of the episode, honestly.
