Deep Down - Family
Dec. 1st, 2003 03:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyWow, that first dream just makes me shiver in delight. Such amazing set-up. All the ingredients are right there. And seeing Angel's want is such a horrible, hopeless thing.
I believe that the only time that we ever see Wesley wear glasses in S4 is in Angel's dream (question - does he have them in Awakening? I'd guess not, as that surely would have given the dream away.).
But the dream. Wow.
A warm group, full of love and hope and teasing.
Then the first moment of truth - "I'm starving." I'd imagine he is, since he hasn't eaten in how long? Right after that, he says he wants to freeze the moment, the exact words that dream!Connor uses against him.
And we see Wesley, undeniably part of the family. A moment of discord all on its own, since the last time those two were together, Angel was swearing that he'd never forgive Wes.
Wesley toasts to family, and Angel has an empty glass that Cordy wants to fill with water. Well, water is all he has, isn't it? And in the toast to family, Angel's glass is always, inevitably, empty.
Connor interrupts the C/A near-mackage, and Angel ruffles Connor's hair, leading to the next point of discord - "I could poke your eyes out." Hmm. There should be a play. All throughout this sequence, there are hints of what is to come.
Everyone starts eating, but Angel doesn't get the chance. It's interesting that Angel shows the desire to eat in this dream, in the way he never does in the real world. He wants his family, his home, and his humanity - only human Angel eats real food.
Angel grabs a plate from Connor, but all that's on it is juice - blood. He isn't human. He doesn't eat human food. All he can satisfy himself with is blood.
Trying to deny that, he knocks over his glass, shattering it and spilling its water across the floor.
Cordy chids him and is gone. As is the warmth of the family setting. Fighting his nature loses him even the false safety of the water glass, of Cordy, and its hidden promise.
Now only Connor is with Angel, and the floor is covered in water, the room filled with a ghostly, watery glow. When Angel was last alone with Connor, he found himself doomed to the bottom of the sea.
Connor mocks him and Angel is revealed to be lost and alone, trapped in a box at the bottom of the ocean.
It's interesting, what dreams say. Cordy on his right, Connor on his left. Cordy abandons him and Connor betrays him. That's about the size of what happened at the end of season three. And Wesley is at the far end of the table, too separated by space to do anything. Where Angel put him, unable to trust him, to look at him after what he'd done.
Cordy, Connor, and Wesley are the only ones to directly interact with Angel in the dream. The rest are background noise, used to make Angel feel more like a normal man.
Of those three, Cordy is now trapped in her own body and Connor is forgotten. Wesley has been caged and his mind has been fucked, but he's still there.
Instead of Cordy and Connor, Angel has Fred/Eve and Gunn/Spike (that's an instinctive thought - I'll need to think more about why those are the duos that came to mind).
I believe that the only time that we ever see Wesley wear glasses in S4 is in Angel's dream (question - does he have them in Awakening? I'd guess not, as that surely would have given the dream away.).
But the dream. Wow.
A warm group, full of love and hope and teasing.
Then the first moment of truth - "I'm starving." I'd imagine he is, since he hasn't eaten in how long? Right after that, he says he wants to freeze the moment, the exact words that dream!Connor uses against him.
And we see Wesley, undeniably part of the family. A moment of discord all on its own, since the last time those two were together, Angel was swearing that he'd never forgive Wes.
Wesley toasts to family, and Angel has an empty glass that Cordy wants to fill with water. Well, water is all he has, isn't it? And in the toast to family, Angel's glass is always, inevitably, empty.
Connor interrupts the C/A near-mackage, and Angel ruffles Connor's hair, leading to the next point of discord - "I could poke your eyes out." Hmm. There should be a play. All throughout this sequence, there are hints of what is to come.
Everyone starts eating, but Angel doesn't get the chance. It's interesting that Angel shows the desire to eat in this dream, in the way he never does in the real world. He wants his family, his home, and his humanity - only human Angel eats real food.
Angel grabs a plate from Connor, but all that's on it is juice - blood. He isn't human. He doesn't eat human food. All he can satisfy himself with is blood.
Trying to deny that, he knocks over his glass, shattering it and spilling its water across the floor.
Cordy chids him and is gone. As is the warmth of the family setting. Fighting his nature loses him even the false safety of the water glass, of Cordy, and its hidden promise.
Now only Connor is with Angel, and the floor is covered in water, the room filled with a ghostly, watery glow. When Angel was last alone with Connor, he found himself doomed to the bottom of the sea.
Connor mocks him and Angel is revealed to be lost and alone, trapped in a box at the bottom of the ocean.
It's interesting, what dreams say. Cordy on his right, Connor on his left. Cordy abandons him and Connor betrays him. That's about the size of what happened at the end of season three. And Wesley is at the far end of the table, too separated by space to do anything. Where Angel put him, unable to trust him, to look at him after what he'd done.
Cordy, Connor, and Wesley are the only ones to directly interact with Angel in the dream. The rest are background noise, used to make Angel feel more like a normal man.
Of those three, Cordy is now trapped in her own body and Connor is forgotten. Wesley has been caged and his mind has been fucked, but he's still there.
Instead of Cordy and Connor, Angel has Fred/Eve and Gunn/Spike (that's an instinctive thought - I'll need to think more about why those are the duos that came to mind).
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 07:16 am (UTC)And much, much later, in Awakening, we see that Angel continues to prioritize these three people in his wishes and deepest hopes.
It makes me weep.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 01:04 pm (UTC)Any comments on the other dream sequences? I got the Cordelia one, and I guess Lorne speaks for himself, but I think I'm missing something in the Conner halucination (besides Angel's repressed desire to kill him.)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 08:39 pm (UTC)And Lorne does speak for himself (or, rather, for Angel), but in a very direct way. It's interesting that Angel chooses Lorne as the vision who speaks of his desire to take revenge on Connor. Is it because Lorne is a demon, a symbol of all that Connor blindly hates?
The Connor hallucination is as bipolar as Angel's relationship with Connor. Note the timing of the kill - after Connor has accepted him as his father (which foreshadows the later kill coming after Connor admits that Angel 'tried to love him', after Connor decides that it's the world and himself that's broken, not just Angel). After the fighting and the final acceptance of fatherly love, Angel kills Connor, because he has no choice. That's what so funny - as long as they had an external enemy to fight, Angel could ignore that fact that what killed Connor, what poisoned Connor, wouldn't have been possible without him having Angel as a father. If Angel hadn't ever been Angelus, Connor never would have been taken by Holtz. He killed his son after he accepted that his son was his son in every way that counted. As he does later after Sacrifice and Peace Out and Home - Connor is broken in a way that would take so much time to fix - look how long it took Angel to get started!
And there's also the echo from Tomorrow - Angel suddenly kills his son in a reversal of his son suddenly attacking him. Aft and foreshadowing mixed in with the fact that life sucks so very much for Angel.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-02 06:24 am (UTC)I actually have a theory that Jasmine started slowly infiltrating Cordy back in TSiLA
In my personal canon, Jasmine started back in Birthday, when Cordy got demonized. It would totally explain her off behaviour for the rest of the season (including and especially that "I only care about Angel" line someone was talking about in your comments earlier). Starting in TSiLA would work too, of course, but I'm not sure I saw any indication.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-02 10:25 am (UTC)And it's just a theory. I need to gather evidence. Basically, my theory is based on the idea that Jasmine was always the one sending the visions, and therefore, what happened in TSiLA may have given her more of a head's up on the situation - if she was sending the visions, and all of a sudden there was no filter, I just don't trust her to stay out, completely. And it makes Cordy in First Impressions feel more real to me, if there's a touch of Jasmine there. And there are some other places where I get notes of oddness in S2 (The Shroud of Rahmon, it's odd that Cordy's thing doesn't really feel like her, whereas everyone else's felt more rooted in the people we knew). And, of course, there's the going to Pylea. She magically gets sucked into the portal? Why Cordy? She didn't seem to be standing closer than anyone else and why wouldn't she scream or something about it? Unless they needed to all go to Pylea. The whole Pylea thing was a huge step in the development of Angel's Cordy thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 06:18 pm (UTC)This is really cool analysis.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-01 08:41 pm (UTC)And thanks!