One of the things that struck me reading your essay is that one of the few images that is taken "seriously", as it were, is crucifixion.
Oh, yes. I could have gone on quite a bit more about that - I'd particularly glossed over "Destiny," but thankfully you've already covered that one for me. I just didn't want to get sidetracked into something that might have been interpreted as Angel vs. Spike. ; ) But it is in the absurdity of their fight that you get closest to the series' attitude on religion in general, which is basically that it's silly... which is terribly odd in itself, since all that stuff objectively does work in the context of the show, and that Angel's "big brass testes" in the final episode seem to be proven out by his ability to be a bigger martyr than anyone else. (Cup of Perpetual Torment indeed!) Both shows are very serious about selfless sacrifice equalling heroism, which means that any hero is going to end up a martyr at the of the day, which pretty much puts us right into Passion of the Christ land. Heroes are all about the suffering and the dying. (That's also, incidentally, why I included that closing quote, in which Angel claims that it doesn't even matter if Champions "make a difference." Say wha-?)
I also particularly liked your observation that coding the bad guys as "demons" and the places they come from as hell dimensions sidesteps all that bothersome business of determing whether they really are evil or just Other.
Yep, that would require actually having to think about what constitutes good or evil. Bad reveals itself eventually, says the series, and good just has to sit back and say "See! I told you so!" When you've got handy items around like souls and demon horns to identify bad guys, who needs a conscience?
Er, except for the guys with demon horns who aren't bad. Um...
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Oh, yes. I could have gone on quite a bit more about that - I'd particularly glossed over "Destiny," but thankfully you've already covered that one for me. I just didn't want to get sidetracked into something that might have been interpreted as Angel vs. Spike. ; ) But it is in the absurdity of their fight that you get closest to the series' attitude on religion in general, which is basically that it's silly... which is terribly odd in itself, since all that stuff objectively does work in the context of the show, and that Angel's "big brass testes" in the final episode seem to be proven out by his ability to be a bigger martyr than anyone else. (Cup of Perpetual Torment indeed!) Both shows are very serious about selfless sacrifice equalling heroism, which means that any hero is going to end up a martyr at the of the day, which pretty much puts us right into Passion of the Christ land. Heroes are all about the suffering and the dying. (That's also, incidentally, why I included that closing quote, in which Angel claims that it doesn't even matter if Champions "make a difference." Say wha-?)
I also particularly liked your observation that coding the bad guys as "demons" and the places they come from as hell dimensions sidesteps all that bothersome business of determing whether they really are evil or just Other.
Yep, that would require actually having to think about what constitutes good or evil. Bad reveals itself eventually, says the series, and good just has to sit back and say "See! I told you so!" When you've got handy items around like souls and demon horns to identify bad guys, who needs a conscience?
Er, except for the guys with demon horns who aren't bad. Um...