A question about canon *Season 8 spoilers*

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jawapride

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So I just finished Season 8 and for the most part I really enjoyed it. Joss's letter at the end of the final issue was great where he talked about getting a little carried away at some points. I'm glad he recognized it.

Anyway, I've read After the Fall and Season 8 but I'm completely baffled as to how Angel went from being devoted to helping the helpless to destroying the entire world and abandoning all of his friends just to be happy with Buffy. The woman he decided to let go of years ago.

So finally my question. Is there anything I should read before I start Angel&Faith/Season 9? Do the Aftermath, Clown prince, etc. Angel comics detail Angel's path to Twilight? From what I see on the Buffy Wiki "chronology" page they aren't canon.

Thanks
 
Angel actually tried to save the world. Just in a very bad bad way. And he was tricked and mind controlled. More on that soon.

It seems like even though Scott Allie, Dark Horse's editor says the IDW stuff "counts", they will only care about Angel after the fall(I think there was a writer for season 9 that hadn't even read all the IDW stories, so I assume you can ignore most of those for now. It's clear the two companies weren't working on the Twilight thing together).

But the 8 issue Spike series with Willow in it by Brian Lynch, now or soon available in a hardcover with all 8 issues, ties in with season 8, and is supposedly canon, since Dark Horse lent IDW Willow. So read that, and some more Season 8 stuff will make sense(but bewarned, there are continuity errors). I don't think it mentions Angel though, but it's canon-ish.

Remember to also read all the Season 8 one shots, if you haven't already. The Riley one has a few Twangel moments.

And I recommend you google and read Q&A's with Scott Allie. It will clearify some, as will Season 9: Angel & Faith. For example, I think, if I recall correctly, Angel had been "influenced" by the glow/Twilight for a while, so some of his behaviour is blamed on that. We haven't been told exactly how influenced Angel was (or maybe Allie said it was as if Buffy & Angel had a couple of drinks, when the glow effected them, someone help me out here).

All in all, many fans seem to still be scratching their heads, not getting it, even after further explanation by Q&A's and Season 9's answers. We seem to be suppose to think Angel had good intentions, tried to avoid too much destruction, was somewhat mind controlled by Twilight, tricked by Twilight and Whistler and very very dumb. I think I can buy it, but the writers and editors seems to think they put more on the pages than they did.
 
S
Sweet J
[No message]
Okay. I'm glad I'm not alone here. I felt like I was missing something. Angel is totally out of character up until the point where
he kills Giles.
I thought for sure he was possessed by something up until the point where "Twilight" itself actually possesses him. It was a twist I assumed had already happened.

I'm going to have to believe he wasn't fully in control of his true will throughout most of Season 8. I just started reading through the first Angel & Faith book "Live Through This" and Angel is spot on with how he is in AtS and AtF.

Its like you said, Angel just comes off as very very dumb in Season 8. When Buffy said forget destiny I'm gonna save my friends Angel was right there with her... But why didn't he have that attitude from the get go? If he was so dedicated in his mission to save the world that he would go so far as to kill hundreds of innocent lives because that was the only way anyone would live why did he just give it up? His life's mission was to help those who couldn't help themselves.

Lets also not forget he experienced the happiest moment of his life and didn't lose his soul. Do we have an explanation for that?
 
jawapride said:
Okay. I'm glad I'm not alone here. I felt like I was missing something. Angel is totally out of character up until the point...
Click to expand...

Perhaps we are supposed to assume that Angel is dead certain that the world will end, unless he goes on with the Twilight master plan. The first few issues of A&F imply this as well. If you read issue 36 of S8 it is strongly implied that Angel sees something in the alternative future - right before he is blasted back through the letter O in HOLLYWOOD sign that we as audience do not see. It is also strongly implied in AtF that the alternative future he sees in the vision shared through Wesley the ghost is the endless field of corpses with him the lonely VIP standing. And it is strongly implied that the Fray future would go puff and that there will be no future at all ( timelines unraveling) in Whistler speech to Angel in Riley one-shot if Angel drops the plan and does what he desires the most - talk to Buffy. You might call it dumb or you might call it believing in prophecies too much - I believe it strongly depends on your overall perspective on the character of Angel and his past to take his trust in Whistler and the prophecy as dumb or as fatalistic. I have spent too much time discussing the issue , and it is my belief that in the end it runs down to the pure and simplistic 'want to believe' that Angel is dumb, criminal and worse - as the other poster here already stated - or not - as is my conviction. I believe he is neither - but the truth of the matter will be hopefully resolved by the end of comics run. And no, I would not go over all my arguments again, thank you so much.

Also the matter of 'being tricked by Whistler' is very much in the open. Whatever Whistler is/was, it is never safe to assume in Whedon story that just because the guy is drinking his beer with a pair of murderous half-demons , his hands dripping blood, that he is truly and completely black hat from this point or always was - you never know if what they want you to see for now is not going to be turned upside down again down the season.

And yeah, I still believe Willow will end up intentionally triggering Twilight - by her suicide by Buffy, and that she is going to do it while being 'good'.
 
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VisionGirl
VisionGirl
I always like your take on Angel.
Wow, him thinking the inevitable end of the world being the visions he saw in AtF makes a lot of sense to me. I feel stupid for not making that connection. I get that his motives and wants are there on the page I guess what bothers me is his smug confidence in his plan as he presents it to Buffy when he first reveals himself. I feel like he should've taken off that mask with sadness not a creepy smile. Regretting what he had done to get to where he was.

I think the story holds up better when you look back on it but it was told poorly. I realize the only thing I really don't like about season 8 is the "Twilight" book as a whole. "Last Gleaming" hits its marks and feel like the rest of the season. I like the season overall despite my issues with it.
 
After the Fall issues 1-17 are the only ones Joss had any input on, and the only ones that are Whedon-canon. He said he didn't even read most of the others.

Neither Joss or Dark Horse will ever come right out and say that any of the IDW comics are non-canon, but it's safe to say he won't feel any need to be consistent with stories written without his input. Apparently Dark Horse is making an effort not to directly contradict anything in the IDW books, but neither will they make reference to any of it.

Scott Allie said that you don't need to read any of the IDW comics to know what's going on in seasons 8 or 9. Any backstory you need to know will be spelled out.
 
Just to make a note here - I spoke with Christos Gage ( the current A&F writer) in person at the last Boston Comic Convention - and asked him specifically to clarify the matter of canon/not canon with 17 issues of After the Fall. He said that he was told to consider it all canon, that he read all 17 issues and that this story is going to be considered canon in A&F series. He also told me to watch out for AtF to be mentioned in the A&F series. The last thing he promised was to mention it to JW if he had a chance and ask Joss to speak out in public on the canonicity of that comic. I guess it will either happen or not - but I did my personal best as a fan to have the issue cleared.

And yes, GC said that DH feels all the need to be consistent with AtF. I never asked about anything that IDW published after the first 17 issues, because I don't really care about whatever balderdash IDW produced without Joss.
 
I've always just assumed that the first scene where Angel comes flying out of thin air and into the "Hollywood" sign as what happened directly after the final scene in IDW's "After The Fall" arc, which would fit in pretty well with the talking dog showing him the LA "where you didn't lose the battle," as though it were a parallel dimension or an alternate reality. As for Spike, Connor, Gunn, and Illyria, and possibly Kate and Nina, I imagine they, and everyone else who had been in hell, just popped back to the moment before all hell, literally, broke loose, with Spike and the others in Angel's team being the only ones with any memory of what had happened. Then Spike's arc took place soon afterwards.
 
white avenger said:
I've always just assumed that the first scene where Angel comes flying out of thin air and into the "Hollywood" sign as what happened directly after the final scene in IDW's "After The Fall" arc, which would fit in pretty well with the talking dog showing him the LA "where you didn't lose the battle," as though it were a parallel dimension or an alternate reality. As for Spike, Connor, Gunn, and Illyria, and possibly Kate and Nina, I imagine they, and everyone else who had been in hell, just popped back to the moment before all hell, literally, broke loose, with Spike and the others in Angel's team being the only ones with any memory of what had happened. Then Spike's arc took place soon afterwards.
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Yeah, I don't get that, did Angel somehow think that the last part of ATF, when they had won, was fake?
 
Skytteflickan88 said:
Yeah, I don't get that, did Angel somehow think that the last part of ATF, when they had won, was fake?
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But, in ATF, Angel hadn't won. LA was literally in hell and all of its residents were being killed and tortured by various demon lords. All that he was able to do was to try and save what few that he could.
 
white avenger said:
As for Spike, Connor, Gunn, and Illyria, and possibly Kate and Nina, I imagine they, and everyone else who had been in hell, just popped back to the moment before all hell, literally, broke loose, with Spike and the others in Angel's team being the only ones with any memory of what had happened.
Click to expand...

Hold on back up, the last issue of the After the Fall series was very clear that EVERYONE remembered their time in hell after Los Angeles was saved from it. Angel was a celebrity in Los Angeles in fact. Even people who died had memory of it like Groo.

ladydorotea said:
He also told me to watch out for AtF to be mentioned in the A&F series. .
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I don't know if you've been reading A&F but it has been mentioned. At the end of the first issue it brings up the events in AtF as motivation for being Twilight as he didn't want the rest of the world sent to hell like LA had been before it was saved.
 
jawapride said:
Hold on back up, the last issue of the After the Fall series was very clear that EVERYONE remembered their time in hell after Los Angeles was saved from it. Angel was a celebrity in Los Angeles in fact. Even people who died had memory of it like Groo.
Click to expand...

The people remembered for awhile, but eventually the memory all pretty much faded away or they went into denial.
 
jawapride said:
Isn't that in the non canon Angel series though?
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Well, technically, everything after the ATF arc is non canon, so anything from that moment on is open to conjecture. I just think that it would make more sense for the Senior Partners to wipe that memory from everyone's minds, especially if it is still their desire to maintain their anonymity. Plus, if the entire population of Los Angeles and the surrounding area, including the ones who had been eaten alive in hell, retained full knowledge of the ordeal, the vast majority of them would be under psychiatric care for the rest of their lives, It's the same thing as Sunnydale, but on a much larger scale. Whatever they experienced, however they felt, was forgotten almost as soon as it happened.

In other words, "Are we suspecting that Glory and Ben have some sort of connection?"
 
The idea that people's memories of "Hell-A" are fading is canon, and has been mentioned in season 9, in one of the early issues of Angel & Faith. It's because they couldn't move forward with the story if Angel was a celebrity.
 
ladydorotea said:
Perhaps we are supposed to assume that Angel is dead certain that the world will end, unless he goes on with the Twilight master plan. The first few issues of A&F imply this as well. If you read issue 36 of S8 it is strongly implied that Angel sees something in the alternative future - right before he is blasted back through the letter O in HOLLYWOOD sign that we as audience do not see. It is also strongly implied in AtF that the alternative future he sees in the vision shared through Wesley the ghost is the endless field of corpses with him the lonely VIP standing. And it is strongly implied that the Fray future would go puff and that there will be no future at all ( timelines unraveling) in Whistler speech to Angel in Riley one-shot if Angel drops the plan and does what he desires the most - talk to Buffy. You might call it dumb or you might call it believing in prophecies too much - I believe it strongly depends on your overall perspective on the character of Angel and his past to take his trust in Whistler and the prophecy as dumb or as fatalistic. I have spent too much time discussing the issue , and it is my belief that in the end it runs down to the pure and simplistic 'want to believe' that Angel is dumb, criminal and worse - as the other poster here already stated - or not - as is my conviction. I believe he is neither - but the truth of the matter will be hopefully resolved by the end of comics run. And no, I would not go over all my arguments again, thank you so much.

Also the matter of 'being tricked by Whistler' is very much in the open. Whatever Whistler is/was, it is never safe to assume in Whedon story that just because the guy is drinking his beer with a pair of murderous half-demons , his hands dripping blood, that he is truly and completely black hat from this point or always was - you never know if what they want you to see for now is not going to be turned upside down again down the season.

And yeah, I still believe Willow will end up intentionally triggering Twilight - by her suicide by Buffy, and that she is going to do it while being 'good'.
Click to expand...

Thank for for elucidating on some of the questions I had!

Angel being dumb, or easily tricked was a hard pill to swallow, especially since he demonstrated himself to be a master duplicitist in Season 5.
 
Angel6
Angel6
Yeah he certainly did! Damn you Scott Allie! The bum hadnt even watched Angel...Grrrr
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