(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

10 episodes of Angel that show how it was more than Buffy redux”

Episodes listed are To Shanshu In L.A from season 1, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been from season 2, Fredless, Birthday, Waiting In The Wings, AND Forgiving from season 3, Soulless from season 4, and finally Smile Time, A Hole In The World, and Not Fade Away from season 5.

To me that that list is seriously failing when it comes to season 2, what about episodes like Darla and Reunion?!? Home from season 4 also deserves a mention IMO, as well as You're Welcome from season 5. Fredless is a cute episode and all, but is it really comparable to the best episodes of the series?

The writer of the article talks about season 3 clearly being the overall best season, "As with Buffy, fans of Angel argue over which is the best season. Is it the second, which properly begins the larger story and gives it scope? The fifth, which wraps up that story with some hard but inspiring lessons? Or the third, which… okay, there shouldn’t really be any contest here. It’s the third. Most of Whedon’s top-shelf writers were heavily involved in season three (including Greenwalt, Minear, Noxon, and Fury), as the plotting became more complex and sophisticated, with the characters making crucial decisions that didn’t always pan out. Most importantly, the third season properly introduces Fred, who soon becomes the clever, sunny, quirky fan favourite

I don't remember season 3 being a particular fan favourite, but then I was thinking about it and I'm not sure that Angel does have universally (well more or less) agreed "best seasons" like Buffy does? Some people really love season 4 and the heavy serialisation there, while some absolutely hate it for what it does to Cordelia's character. Some really love the darker moments of season 3 with Holtz and Wesley, but then I saw a lot of dislike for "Soap Opera elements" at the time when season 3 was first airing, the Angel/Cordelia romance, dorky Angel, and the birth of Conner were by no means universally popular. With Buffy it's generally pretty easy to point to seasons 2, 3, and 5 as the clear favourites, but every Angel season seems to get a LOT of debate between love or hate from what I've seen.

To go off on a tangent for a moment, it seems like most of the hate for season 4 is because of Cordelia's character being lost that year, but I'd argue that already started happening in season 3. The first half of season 3 was great for portraying a more mature Cordelia, but the more they pushed the Angel/Cordelia romance, the more they started writing Cordelia as a Saint and Mother figure for Conner which just didn't work IMO and rang really false. Again at the time I remember a ton of controversy at how Cordelia was being written, especially all the fan jokes on the season 3 finale when she's carried off to the Heavens with twinkly lights, so it's interesting that season 4 takes all the blame for "ruining her character". Technically season 4 was not Cordelia any more, so there's actually more of a justification for the writing of her that year, in comparison to the saintly blonde that Double Or Nothing introduced to us. I remember speculation at the time was that it was down to David Greenwalt getting too carried away with seeing Cordelia as perfect, but I'm wondering now if it was more about fast-tracking Cordelia character arc to becoming a higher being, and thus wrapping up her journey? I remember at the end of season 4 that Joss said something to that effect of having nowhere else to take Cordelia's character at that point

It seemed that Joss allowed behind the scenes drama to affect the writing for Cordelia in quite negative ways unfortunately. I've noticed that posters on ohnotheydidnt get super-defensive if you imply that the treatment of Charisma was about anything other than Joss firing her for getting pregnant, but I would argue there were a lot of weird vibes in season 3 as well, there was definitely speculation at the time as to whether the Ascension was a way of writing Cordelia out. It's just a shame that Joss allowed whatever BTS drama there was to make its way onto the writing of the character

And this entry is starting to get really O/T, so maybe I should stop there :P But here's a poll anyway for favourite Angel season!

[Poll #2017986]

Comments

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Right, that's what confuses me when season 3 is never brought up when it comes to Ats ~ruining~ Cordelia's character, because it seemed like that was the time when they started radically altering her into Saint and Mother figure, and then Cordelia herself never came back in season 4

in BtVS/AtS fandom there seems to be a big base that very much rooted for Cordelia and thus saw her as Morally The Best amongst the secondary characters (and specifically, Morally Superior to Willow and Xander)

LOL I haven't heard the arguments about Cordelia being Buffy's one true friend, but it is interesting how fans will call a character a favourite, and yet whitewash so many of their character traits. I.e Joss very clearly DID mean to frame Cordelia as a bully who would pick on weaker members of her class like Willow for wearing the wrong clothes, but somehow that gets spun into Cordelia wasn't really being mean, she's just a straight talker and says what she thinks. I mean sure that's a part of it, but I don't see the point of denying that the character of Cordelia on Bts actually could be a bully as well, and she could lash out at others with very little justification. The character herself deals with that very issue in Room With A View when she fears that she's being punished for the way that she once treated people because she knew that she could get away with it, yet fandom just focuses on quotes like "Tact is just not saying true stuff" as summing up Cordelia's attitude to life...

The bitchier characters with the quick one-liners do seem to be the fan favs today, I guess they make for the more memorable tv characters, and I've unashamedly loved a few of them myself like Blair Waldorf (and Cordelia of course, in spite of what I'm saying here I did very much enjoy her character on Ats up until the mid season 3 changes). I just don't get why fandom seems to feel the need to justify their love for those characters by whitewashing them and painting them as secretly being better and more deserving than the characters around them.

Cordelia as a character did develop hugely on Ats, but I'd argue that I don't think that she ever did lose her sense of entitlement, she still had that attitude of them being special Champions and having a special status, and she was awfully quick to buy into being a "higher being" and ready to ascend from the mortal plane after only a few months of passing her visions on to Angel. I'm not denying that she was doing an awful lot of good for the mission, but she was also surrounded by people since high school who were equally ready to do battle, so IMHO it says a lot that the powers knew that they could get her to swallow that she was that amazing that she was ready to go to heaven and become a literal Saint. The retcon of how they were really playing her is actually pretty brilliant when you watch the season 3 finale in retrospect

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

"Tact is just not saying true stuff" as summing up Cordelia's attitude to life...

Yeeees. While ignoring the thing she was talking about when she said that? Wasn't true at all.

That seems to be par of the course when it comes to snarky, "jerk" characters. Whenever they say something, people just take it as straight talk because they're rude about it. The do the same things with Spike and Anya. It's like an inside joke fans refuse to see. Spike tells Buffy she doesn't know what she wants, yet he's the one who spent the entire episode telling her to leave him alone while following her and waffles between killing and saving her.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's strange, it's almost like there's an attitude of a character being better somehow if they are rude all the time, and people will excuse any type of appalling comment because that's just how they are. Another character making a comment about being relieved that Harmony's vampire, instead of a "great big lesbo", would have been torn to shreds by fandom for example, but when Cordelia says that it's somehow seen as funny and endearing because hey she's a character who is known to not have a lot of tact. As if that somehow makes it okay?

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember a discussion once about Faith and slut-shaming and the person claimed the Scoobies did it continually. I'm not the biggest fan of S3 so maybe I'm not remembering, but the only person I remember calling her that was Cordy when she first shows up. Willow does in S4, once. Everyone remembers Willow saying it, but they seem to forget it was Cordy in S3 and claim they all did it.

But I guess it's retroactive characterization for people. Like one thing I noticed on rewatch is Anya is seen by fandom as a punisher of wicked men, but she really just punishes Cordy in S3. She takes wishes and turns them to sinister ends for the wisher.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I think that it stands out more in people's minds when a character like Willow slut-shames and calls Cordelia a "skanky ho" in Phases, or calls Faith a "slutbomb", because the episode calls attention to it being OOC and we are just as surprised as Buffy and Tara were at Willow saying that. It stands out in people's memories more than a character casually making comments about other women that just slip off the tongue, that's somehow seen as more excusable/not such a big deal, cause again that's just how that character is?

But yeah, I don't remember any of the scoobies slut-shaming Faith particularly in season 3, if anything they were pretty impressed by Faith's brashness in the beginning and thought that she was really cool when she would do stuff like hit on Giles, or tell stories about sleeping naked. Willow originally took issue with Faith because she was jealous at Buffy starting to hang out with her more, and she saw Faith as being so much cooler and more exciting than herself. I don't think that was ever any subtext of "Why does she want to hang out with her" though, it was more hurt at not being included

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

It could be. I suppose when I see it I'm also seeing all those lists about how Willow was a horrible, horrible person, exclusionary, etc. I have Willow issues, but let's just calm down a touch, you know? Admittedly, it could just be fandom-projected Cordy issues. It's always tearing the others down to build her up.

One of the reason I left Tumblr were the seemingly constant "Boy, do I wish the gang could have seen Cordy on Angel! She's really shut their mouths! They're always talking smack!"

Except none of them really did? Not moreso than Cordy did Buffy on AtS. Buffy makes one crack in S5 comparing her to S3 Cordy. That's it.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I'm also seeing all those lists about how Willow was a horrible, horrible person, exclusionary, etc.

It's double standards again I guess. Cordelia was outright portrayed as someone who had exclusive standards and could judge others, so that was okay, but then fandom feels the need to fixate more on Willow's issues with other women because they feel like it's not acknowledged enough in canon maybe?

But yeah, Corelia does seem like a huge fan favourite these days with newer fans on tumblr especially. I like Cordelia a lot more on Ats, and I would say that I appreciated her for her humour on Bts definitely, but I don't get why fandom wants to frame her as a character who is just somehow more honest and better than everyone around her, even though she was always written as a character who was very elitist and someone who could be oblivious to the feelings of others. Are her comments in Go Fish for example on the perks for high school jocks ("What about that nutty all men are created equal?"/"Propaganda from the ugly and less deserving") somehow more acceptable just because she doesn't feel the need to sugar-coat her views?

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

but it is interesting how fans will call a character a favourite, and yet whitewash so many of their character traits.

Yeah, fandom's tolerance threshold for what it will accept as a "flaw" in a favorite character is BIZARRE, LMAO. Even rather commonplace traits or behavior that you see all the time IRL from average people--fandom ~recoils from the idea that their faves could have those traits or display such behavior… even when it's nothing particularly terrible at all. So weird. xD

The bitchier characters with the quick one-liners do seem to be the fan favs today, I guess they make for the more memorable tv characters, and I've unashamedly loved a few of them myself like Blair Waldorf (and Cordelia of course, in spite of what I'm saying here I did very much enjoy her character on Ats up until the mid season 3 changes). I just don't get why fandom seems to feel the need to justify their love for those characters by whitewashing them and painting them as secretly being better and more deserving than the characters around them.

I think, in all probability, people don't realize they have a slanted view of these characters, it's an automatic consequence of stanning for them. And in the case of Blair and Cordelia in particular, I think it's the combination of them not just being bitchy/snarky, but also being entitled (in fandom's minds) to be so, by their elevated social status in-verse. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that their nicknames are "Queen B" and "Queen C." I very much doubt that fandom would've responded to them in the same way if they'd started out being poor or from a lower social stratum (and IMO this effect came into play even after Cordelia's family lost their money, b/c early canon bias is enormously impactful.) Fandom has different unconscious standards for what it will accept from a higher-ranking character vs. a lower-ranking character and it regularly instinctively conflates status with moral worth.

Cordelia as a character did develop hugely on Ats, but I'd argue that I don't think that she ever did lose her sense of entitlement, she still had that attitude of them being special Champions and having a special status […] The retcon of how they were really playing her is actually pretty brilliant when you watch the season 3 finale in retrospect

ITA.