I tend to agree with breidablik on this one: I don't think it's that Angel embraced his monster more than his man, it's that he, for the first time in the whole series, really accepted that part of himself. I believe that a lot of this season was Angel coming to terms with the fact that he's not the champion that he thought he was. And so desperately wanted to be. Proven by the faustian bargain he made when he took charge of W&H. That could be depressing -- but at the same time, he had a lot of hope for the future. He wanted to make a difference. And I have some theories about why he thought it was necessary to sacrifice himself to do so (mostly centering around the fact that he likely thought he deserved to die anyway), but here's this quote from "Power Play":
ANGEL: It's true. We're in a machine. That machine's gonna be here long after our bodies are dust. But the senior partners will always exist in one form or another because mankind is weak.
LORNE: Uh, do you want me to point my crossbow at him, 'cause I think he's gonna start talking about ants again.
ANGEL: We are weak. The powerful control everything... except our will to choose. Look, Lindsey's a pathetic halfwit, but he was right about one thing. Heroes don't accept the way the world is
I really believe that when it was all said and done, Angel was the most heroic he had been during the entire series.
By "Numero Cinco" -- Angel totally had lost the mission. For him, the mission was mostly gone from the beginning of the season (his disconnect and apathy about the work, his conviction that he was going to hell...) He was helping Cinco out, he was doing it half-heartedly. It seemed to me that he was trying to convince others that he hadn't lost the mission. At the end, he was inspired enough by what happened to Cinco, that he turned to the Shanshu prophecy as, really, a desperation move to have hope for himself.
And I gotta disagree about Spike -- it seemed to me that his worst nightmare is not mattering. Is ending up like Numero Cinco. I don't think it necessarily centers around Spike being the one. But yeah, that's a longer post for another time, probably.
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Date: 2004-09-23 10:39 pm (UTC)ANGEL: It's true. We're in a machine. That machine's gonna be here long after our bodies are dust. But the senior partners will always exist in one form or another because mankind is weak.
LORNE: Uh, do you want me to point my crossbow at him, 'cause I think he's gonna start talking about ants again.
ANGEL: We are weak. The powerful control everything... except our will to choose. Look, Lindsey's a pathetic halfwit, but he was right about one thing. Heroes don't accept the way the world is
I really believe that when it was all said and done, Angel was the most heroic he had been during the entire series.
By "Numero Cinco" -- Angel totally had lost the mission. For him, the mission was mostly gone from the beginning of the season (his disconnect and apathy about the work, his conviction that he was going to hell...) He was helping Cinco out, he was doing it half-heartedly. It seemed to me that he was trying to convince others that he hadn't lost the mission. At the end, he was inspired enough by what happened to Cinco, that he turned to the Shanshu prophecy as, really, a desperation move to have hope for himself.
And I gotta disagree about Spike -- it seemed to me that his worst nightmare is not mattering. Is ending up like Numero Cinco. I don't think it necessarily centers around Spike being the one. But yeah, that's a longer post for another time, probably.