![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyStill haven't redone the second part (or hell, rewatched the episodes), but I wanted to commit this to... okay, paper doesn't work, but anyway, before it went away. This one is very rough around the edges. And probably the middle.
Part Three: Free-falling
There are two kinds of tragedies. There's the kind where it's all inevitable and it's tragic because no one had a chance or a choice. Then there's the kind where there were a million different possibilities that could have stopped all the pain and death, and it's tragic because you see each of those happier possibilities get closed off one at a time.
Connor was the latter type of tragedy.
He falls into happiness like it was meant for him. He sings with his dad. I wouldn't sing with my dad in public. He knows that Jasmine is a lie, but he's willing to pretend because it means that everyone is happy and that his dad is on the same side as him.
And then it all starts to break down. He loses Angel, and here is where we see personal anger. It's not anger on the behalf of Jasmine, like Angel with that guy (note to self, look up that guy's name). He's angry because everything was finally going well and now his father doesn't love his child anymore. "You ruin everything!" This was actually, in retrospect, a hint that Connor was in his right mind, because he was angry on his own behalf, not just Jasmine's.
Then we have the incredibly creepy 'give me your pain' scene. I have no doubts that what Jasmine says here about Connor's emotional state is true. And we see him give himself over completely to her.
And it doesn't last. He speaks with her voice in front of the gang, but when he senses Angel's presence, he's himself again. He never goes fully under her spell again. In fact, in the next episode, he goes against her wishes several times.
He wants to kill the prisoners, stopping only at Jasmine's direct order - she's not controlling him anymore. He hits Wesley. He abandons his post (and as Gunn shows us, he was needed there). He searches for Cordelia even though Jasmine tells him not to. He injures some of her followers in his search.
Why does he go to Cordelia?
In a way, it looks as if he's searching for absolution. He wants to know that it was worth it. And he realizes that it wasn't. That this lie - this lie he killed an innocent for - is just as hopeless as the rest. Jasmine was his child. He loved her, no matter her looks, no matter what she did. And it didn't matter.
So, he kills her. He's lost and alone.
He sees someone on a roof and he talks the man down from suicide. Even in the midst of all his emptiness, he reached out to save a life.
And then he finds out that the man he saved was about to abandon his family.
And Connor snaps.
Love, he decides, is a lie. Everyone that has loved him has betrayed him. Everyone who claimed to love him was using him. And the true tragedy is that this isn't true. Angel loves him. Angel loves him even though he believes that Connor will never love him back. He fights to save Connor, even though he thinks that it's doomed.
But Connor never sees any of that. He sees Holtz, loving vengeance. He sees Fred and Gunn, hypocrites who'll lie to him to keep him away from Holtz but will torture him for lying to them. He sees Angel kicking him out of the house and choosing Cordelia as the more important. He sees Cordelia, claiming to love him to bring Jasmine into the world. He sees Jasmine, his child, and he sees what happens when people know what she really looks like. He doesn't see any of the good of love. He doesn't know it.
He knows death. All his life, he's killed. He's the Destroyer.
He tried love, and when that fails him, time and time again, he falls back on the only thing that he knows works - death. He sets up quite a show and waits for his father to show up.
Why?
Did he want his father to kill him? Did he want his father to somehow save him?
His rant clears some things up. It lets us know, absolutely, that he believed what Angelus said about his mother. And it lets us know where he thinks that he was doomed - when his father let him get taken. Now, we know that Angel would have done anything to keep Connor. But Connor knows only what he sees. Love is a lie. A lie can't save. No one can be saved.
Throughout his time in this dimension, his beliefs have been broken down one by one. Angel wasn't evil. All demons aren't evil. Do good and evil even exist? Has anyone ever told the truth?
In the end, he decides that nothing is the answer. That everything is a lie and that no one reaches salvation.
And Angel tells Connor, once again, that he loves Connor.
I'm never sure of how to interpret the look on Connor's face. Something like... he wants so desperately to believe that it could be true and he knows that it can't be. So he challenges Angel - "So, what are you going to do about it?"
I think that he was expecting and hoping for death at that point. There's a cut line in Home, where he says that he 'helped' Jasmine - implying that killing her was the only way to help her. And I think that he wanted that same help from his own father.
When we see Connor for the last time (of the season only, I hope), we don't know his name. We don't know his life. But he teases and he smiles and... he was very much like an intense dose of the happy!Connor that we'd seen so briefly this year.
So, when was the last chance to save miserable!Connor?
If Angel had known the right words to say after Jasmine died, would Connor have heard him?
If Angel had taken him along after they escaped Jasmine, would he have listened then?
When did Connor reach the point of no return?
Part Three: Free-falling
There are two kinds of tragedies. There's the kind where it's all inevitable and it's tragic because no one had a chance or a choice. Then there's the kind where there were a million different possibilities that could have stopped all the pain and death, and it's tragic because you see each of those happier possibilities get closed off one at a time.
Connor was the latter type of tragedy.
He falls into happiness like it was meant for him. He sings with his dad. I wouldn't sing with my dad in public. He knows that Jasmine is a lie, but he's willing to pretend because it means that everyone is happy and that his dad is on the same side as him.
And then it all starts to break down. He loses Angel, and here is where we see personal anger. It's not anger on the behalf of Jasmine, like Angel with that guy (note to self, look up that guy's name). He's angry because everything was finally going well and now his father doesn't love his child anymore. "You ruin everything!" This was actually, in retrospect, a hint that Connor was in his right mind, because he was angry on his own behalf, not just Jasmine's.
Then we have the incredibly creepy 'give me your pain' scene. I have no doubts that what Jasmine says here about Connor's emotional state is true. And we see him give himself over completely to her.
And it doesn't last. He speaks with her voice in front of the gang, but when he senses Angel's presence, he's himself again. He never goes fully under her spell again. In fact, in the next episode, he goes against her wishes several times.
He wants to kill the prisoners, stopping only at Jasmine's direct order - she's not controlling him anymore. He hits Wesley. He abandons his post (and as Gunn shows us, he was needed there). He searches for Cordelia even though Jasmine tells him not to. He injures some of her followers in his search.
Why does he go to Cordelia?
In a way, it looks as if he's searching for absolution. He wants to know that it was worth it. And he realizes that it wasn't. That this lie - this lie he killed an innocent for - is just as hopeless as the rest. Jasmine was his child. He loved her, no matter her looks, no matter what she did. And it didn't matter.
So, he kills her. He's lost and alone.
He sees someone on a roof and he talks the man down from suicide. Even in the midst of all his emptiness, he reached out to save a life.
And then he finds out that the man he saved was about to abandon his family.
And Connor snaps.
Love, he decides, is a lie. Everyone that has loved him has betrayed him. Everyone who claimed to love him was using him. And the true tragedy is that this isn't true. Angel loves him. Angel loves him even though he believes that Connor will never love him back. He fights to save Connor, even though he thinks that it's doomed.
But Connor never sees any of that. He sees Holtz, loving vengeance. He sees Fred and Gunn, hypocrites who'll lie to him to keep him away from Holtz but will torture him for lying to them. He sees Angel kicking him out of the house and choosing Cordelia as the more important. He sees Cordelia, claiming to love him to bring Jasmine into the world. He sees Jasmine, his child, and he sees what happens when people know what she really looks like. He doesn't see any of the good of love. He doesn't know it.
He knows death. All his life, he's killed. He's the Destroyer.
He tried love, and when that fails him, time and time again, he falls back on the only thing that he knows works - death. He sets up quite a show and waits for his father to show up.
Why?
Did he want his father to kill him? Did he want his father to somehow save him?
His rant clears some things up. It lets us know, absolutely, that he believed what Angelus said about his mother. And it lets us know where he thinks that he was doomed - when his father let him get taken. Now, we know that Angel would have done anything to keep Connor. But Connor knows only what he sees. Love is a lie. A lie can't save. No one can be saved.
Throughout his time in this dimension, his beliefs have been broken down one by one. Angel wasn't evil. All demons aren't evil. Do good and evil even exist? Has anyone ever told the truth?
In the end, he decides that nothing is the answer. That everything is a lie and that no one reaches salvation.
And Angel tells Connor, once again, that he loves Connor.
I'm never sure of how to interpret the look on Connor's face. Something like... he wants so desperately to believe that it could be true and he knows that it can't be. So he challenges Angel - "So, what are you going to do about it?"
I think that he was expecting and hoping for death at that point. There's a cut line in Home, where he says that he 'helped' Jasmine - implying that killing her was the only way to help her. And I think that he wanted that same help from his own father.
When we see Connor for the last time (of the season only, I hope), we don't know his name. We don't know his life. But he teases and he smiles and... he was very much like an intense dose of the happy!Connor that we'd seen so briefly this year.
So, when was the last chance to save miserable!Connor?
If Angel had known the right words to say after Jasmine died, would Connor have heard him?
If Angel had taken him along after they escaped Jasmine, would he have listened then?
When did Connor reach the point of no return?