Vision Unclarity

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Xander

You Can Call Me Ash
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Decided here would be the best place as its about a power rather than Cordy or Doyle themselves, but if not move at will.

Anyway, watched Birthday recently and the whole of S3 has got me thinking, in Birthday it is stated a human can't deal with the visions, hence Cordy's demonisation. After that the visions are a breeze, it seems like Cordy has fun with them. So my question, why did Doyle get all the pain? The only explanation I could think of was he was not the right type of part-demon (or thinking about it, maybe he had less demon in him then Cordy does, but following point still holds valid).

So thinking about this I was wondering why The Powers That Be (TPTB) would send such painful and eventually deadly visions to "vessels" who are not capable of coping with them. So they have to get the message to Angel but couldn't they find another demon, or even a less painful way of doing so. Strikes me as odd, TPTB are meant to be the "good guys" yet they are killing their own goodies. I know Angel is a show of moral amibiguity but still, bugs me.

(Also noted two other things by watching Angel S3, Charisma still looks good but the hair at the end, Nope! And the baby who plays Connor, too cute for words!)
 
The Powers That Be always confuses me. I know they're supposed to be "good guys" but to me it seems way more complicated than that. I'm not sure what to think about them.

To me it doesn't really make sense that Doyle is the wrong kind of part-demon. I never thought about this but now that you mention it it is pretty strange.
 
My take on this is that prior to Cordy getting the visions the PTB had always used the best candidate they could find to receive them. For example Doyle was strong enough to survive the visions, being half demon, but he was still not exactly physically suited for the task, just the best option they had because they didn't want to go so far as to alter someone specifically to suit their needs. That kind of direct involvement isn't their style.

Jasmine however had no such problem in influencing and using humans and demons to suit her purposes and so when she had Cordelia altered to become part demon and thereby be a strong enough vessel to contain her when the time came she also made certain that Cordy was given the exact physical nature needed to channel the visions without any of the harm or pain previously seen.

Basically Doyle was your standard half demon whilst Cordy was custom made for the visions.
 
That sort of makes sense. She was made a half-demon because of this, she didn't get the visions because she was a half-demon. Although, I'm not sure if I want to say that this has got a lot to do with Jasmine.. it probably does, I'm just.. well, you're probably right.
 
In my mind there is no doubt that Cordy's demonic alterations were done because of Jasmine. We know that she had been manipulating her since City of which led to her getting the visions in the first place and we also know that she needed Cordy altered so that she was capable of giving birth to her new physical form. We also know that Skip, who carried out the alterations, was working for her all the time so it couldn't have been anyone other than Jasmine. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.
 
Xin Rong
Xin Rong
Actually i think its been since serie 1 of buffy
Yeah, I know, I agree, I was just talking about the pain thing. I don't know if I believe that the reason why the visions hurt less for Cordy (than for Doyle) had to do with Jasmine choosing the right kind of demon to recieve the visions.
 
Don't get me wrong, i don't believe that Jasmine did it for Cordy's benefit. The thing is that it was in Jasmine's interest to keep Cordy as healthy as possible, she didn't want her to suffer any further damage to her brain and die before Jasmine could make use of her.

That being the case Jasmine would have made certain that any further visions received by Cordy would have been harmless to her so she would have altered Cordy specifically to be able to receive them without the pain.
 
Gothic said:
In my mind there is no doubt that Cordy's demonic alterations were done because of Jasmine. We know that she had been manipulating her since City of which led to her getting the visions in the first place and we also know that she needed Cordy altered so that she was capable of giving birth to her new physical form. We also know that Skip, who carried out the alterations, was working for her all the time so it couldn't have been anyone other than Jasmine. It would be too much of a coincidence otherwise.
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How do you know its only been since city of, it could have been before that- jasmine could have been responsible for cordy becoming a scooby etc.
 
Gothic said:
Don't get me wrong, i don't believe that Jasmine did it for Cordy's benefit. The thing is that it was in Jasmine's interest to keep Cordy as healthy as possible, she didn't want her to suffer any further damage to her brain and die before Jasmine could make use of her.

That being the case Jasmine would have made certain that any further visions received by Cordy would have been harmless to her so she would have altered Cordy specifically to be able to receive them without the pain.
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Yeah, I understand what you're saying and all, and it makes sense. I'm just not sure I believe that is the reason. Or that there is a real reason to this. Or to why the visions hurt Doyle the way they did. But I pretty much agree with you, I just haven't exactly thought this through while watching so I haven't made myself a real opinion about it, that's all.
 
Xin Rong said:
How do you know its only been since city of, it could have been before that- jasmine could have been responsible for cordy becoming a scooby etc.
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Well, truthfully we don't know where it really began but City Of is as good a point to assume as any. That was the first point where Angel actually began working for the PTB after all.

Not only that but Skip made a big deal out of Angel and Cordy meeting up again at that party when he explained things to her in Birthday so it makes sense that this was the point at which Cordy's life started to be influenced by Jasmine. You are right in that we can't be certain though.
 
Well also, and this ties into the whole 'Cordy was made for Jasmine deal' - but maybe Cordy was made a little more than half demon? Maybe she was mostly demon but looked human, and was still good (until the time was right when she was 'activated' as an evil vessel for Jasmine).
 
Anyway, watched Birthday recently and the whole of S3 has got me thinking, in Birthday it is stated a human can't deal with the visions, hence Cordy's demonisation. After that the visions are a breeze, it seems like Cordy has fun with them. So my question, why did Doyle get all the pain? The only explanation I could think of was he was not the right type of part-demon (or thinking about it, maybe he had less demon in him then Cordy does, but following point still holds valid).
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Why would humans be unable to deal with psychic visions? That never made any sense to me. Drusilla had visions even before Angel turned her into a vampire. And even after becoming a vampire, Drusilla was a human/demon hybrid - like Doyle. And I don't recall her suffering in any kind of way over her visions. So, why did the show establish that humans couldn't deal with psychic visions? Where did Whedon get that idea? : scratch
 
Well, I'm guessing it wasn't psychic visions in general but only these visions that were meant to be given to someone a bit "stronger" in the demony way..?

I have another question about the visions.. I was never a fan of Groo, in fact I very much disliked him and I really didn't want him to be involved in any way with Cordelia. But if they had had sex in Pylea (or maybe even in season 3 in LA) he would have got the visions instead. Which would have made everything a lot easier.. Cordelia would never have been made part demon and she wouldn't have been a vessel for Jasmine and everything would probably have ended a lot happier, am I right..? (I was just watching the Pylea-episodes yesterday and realized I so wanted Cordy to com-shuk with Groo only because of this...)
 
LadyLavinia said:
Why would humans be unable to deal with psychic visions? That never made any sense to me. Drusilla had visions even before Angel turned her into a vampire. And even after becoming a vampire, Drusilla was a human/demon hybrid - like Doyle. And I don't recall her suffering in any kind of way over her visions. So, why did the show establish that humans couldn't deal with psychic visions? Where did Whedon get that idea? : scratch
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The visions that Cordelia/Doyle received were directly from the PTB. Drusilla's visions were most likely due to her having some predisposed psychic ability.

Dru's visions also, don't seem to come in as clearly as Cordelia/Doyle's were. She gets inklings of what's to come, not the exact scenes that play through her mind.
 
eponinethen said:
I have another question about the visions.. I was never a fan of Groo, in fact I very much disliked him and I really didn't want him to be involved in any way with Cordelia. But if they had had sex in Pylea (or maybe even in season 3 in LA) he would have got the visions instead. Which would have made everything a lot easier.. Cordelia would never have been made part demon and she wouldn't have been a vessel for Jasmine and everything would probably have ended a lot happier, am I right..? (I was just watching the Pylea-episodes yesterday and realized I so wanted Cordy to com-shuk with Groo only because of this...)
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As Cordy expressed in "That Vision Thing" she wanted the visions because she feared Angel wouldn't need her. So thats why she kept them. Maybe it was also a way of her personally bettering herself, attoning for her sins in high school.

And yeah I think Dru just had some pyschicness, not necessarily PTB visions, because why would the powers send visions to a mad vampire? (Well okay Angel got them in "Birthday" but he had a soul)
 
"Sins in high school"..? Yeah I know she wanted them. Well, she said she wanted them but then she also said (in That Vision Thing) that she didn't want them anymore. Well, that was when she got the visions from Wolfram & Hart but I'm guessing she wouldn't have wanted the visions if she knew that was the way for Jasmine to use her as a vessel either.
 
She wanted to help but didn't want the visions, it was a juxtapositiony feeling. And "sins in high school", just the fact she was a bitca.
 
Especially not when she was helping the scoobies save the world. Who cares if you're judgemental when you're saving lives? 😀
 
My opinion exactly 😀

But really, I don't know much about what's considered "sinning", but the only really bad thing Cordy ever did that I can think of was wishing Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.
 
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