I don't consider the Mayor storyline to be an apocalypse. He'd have ravaged the town, and after that? It wasn't the end of the world, like in Prophecy Girl or Doomed. And Angel saved the world a few times in his show. The episode ''Happy Anniversary'' for example. What do you consider to be an apocalypse exactly? Cause in s5, Lindsey tell them that it's not just 'an' apocalypse, it's THE apocalypse... That they're living in it. This whole thing never really made any sense to me.
What About The Shanshu?
- Thread starter white avenger
- Start date
I don't consider the Mayor storyline to be an apocalypse. He'd have ravaged the town, and after that? It wasn't the end of the world, like in Prophecy Girl or Doomed. And Angel saved the world a few times in his show. The episode ''Happy Anniversary'' for example. What do you consider to be an apocalypse exactly? Cause in s5, Lindsey tell them that it's not just 'an' apocalypse, it's THE apocalypse... That they're living in it. This whole thing never really made any sense to me.
mayfever
Friend of all the World
Angel helped save the world in The Zeppo 😀
And, if we're keeping score, Spike helped put Acathla together until he got cold feet and buggered off, so he got a fair share in causing an apocalypse.
Also, I'm still thinking Angel shouldn't be held fully accountable for Acathla because he wasn't Angel when he did it.
And, if we're keeping score, Spike helped put Acathla together until he got cold feet and buggered off, so he got a fair share in causing an apocalypse.
Also, I'm still thinking Angel shouldn't be held fully accountable for Acathla because he wasn't Angel when he did it.
BuffangelLovE
[No message]
Moscow Watcher
Scooby
Acathla wasn't put together. It was a monolith from the very beginning.
One of protagonist's privileges: writers always make him possessed when they want him to do something bad.😀
But, seriously, I'm sure that Angel will get his shanshu eventually (in "After the Fall" he's seen as an old man in the future), and, I think, Joss will make him hate it. Given how he reacted to being human in IWRY, it's the most obvious twist.
LadyLavinia
Scooby
What about the sins committed as a human being? Does the Shanshu give redemption for his sins as a human, as well?
mayfever
Friend of all the World
I think it's supposed to give him a clean slate, so yes, that includes his sins as a human being. Even if (when) Angel gets the Shanshu though, do you think he could stop brooding about his past? 😀
Moscow Watcher said:
You're right of course. Mixed him up with the Judge for a second... anyway, doesn't really make a diff, Spike still helped set him up etc. etc.
Angelus1898
Townie
Does nobody read after the fall???? ------------SPOILERS!!!!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He recieved the shanshu after L.A decended into a hell demention.
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Deus Ex Machina
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Question: If Angel has his soul before the seed is broken, thus ridding the world of magic, shouldn't the curse be broken so he can now experience happiness without losing his soul?
LadyLavinia
Scooby
If the curse is broken, wouldn't that mean his soul is gone as well? The soul is the curse.
BuffyElevated
[No message]
Deus Ex Machina
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Hmm, but I thought because it happened before the seed then it stuck (I thought someone in this thread said that the magic before the seed broke stuck, hence all the slayers still), but doesn't a curse have to be ongoing to be kept up?
Though I guess if Angel did lose his soul then ...well...Buffy has to be prepared to kill Angel.
VisionGirl
Newly Human
Scott Allie has been clear in saying that they (the writers) get to make up the rules of the magic-less world. So I just don't really think we'll know the details until we see season 9 in print. I'm OK with them making up the rules, as long as they're logical & consistent, KWIM?
Oh and also, if Angel loses his soul then Spike should too- they were both obtained via magical/mystical forces.
Oh and also, if Angel loses his soul then Spike should too- they were both obtained via magical/mystical forces.
white avenger
white avenger
It could be argued that, while Spike's soul was returned to him with no conditions or restraints, it was only the process by which it was restored that was magic. Once "installed," the soul was there just like the Slayers' powers, permanently.
Angel's soul, however, is a somewhat different matter. Either the spell has to remain intact for the soul to remain "installed." (Break the spell, and Angel loses his soul, never to be restored again.) OR...The spell on Angel's soul that imposes the "one moment of perfect happiness" is now powerless, hence, Angel's soul is intact and permanent, with no conditions or limitations.
Since Angelus hasn't popped up since the end of Issue 39, it would appear that the latter is true (unless, of course, he really HAS lost his soul, and Angelus is just pretending to be all remorseful, waiting to lure Buffy, Faith, and the others into a false sense of security. Then, when they least expect it...)
Since it took magic to install the soul again in S2, I think that confirms that the soul was held in place by magic, it didn't disappear via magic. I'm sure they'll make a workaround how that's not the case, though. Or just ignore it and hope no one makes a stink about it.
Taaroko
Gunner of the USS Buffy/Angel
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- 438
I refuse to believe that the Shanshu can't happen anymore. To me, it falls into the category of divine intervention, not magic (and definitely not the jurisdiction of W&H), so magic being gone from the Buffyverse won't interfere with its fulfillment at all. On a similar note, I also refuse to believe that signing a piece of paper, no matter what the piece of paper is or what kind of ink you're using, can have any bearing whatsoever on a prophecy. Real prophecies can't be thwarted, altered, or signed over like property. (And I disagree with Kean about the prophecy "the father will kill the son". Regardless of the fact that Angel did end up slitting Connor's throat, that prophecy was never real. That it came true anyway was an ironic coincidence. Prophecies can't be written on a whim.) To me, Angel's willingness to sacrifice what he views as the shining light at the end of his tunnel for the mission proves more than anything else that he's meant to receive it.
And I don't think that IWRY counts as the Shanshu, and the Gem of Amara certainly doesn't either. Those were a random fluke and an equally random MacGuffin, respectively, and it would have been incredibly anticlimactic and far too easy of a resolution if they hadn't been done away with. The Oracles tell us flat out that the Powers aren't the ones who granted his humanity in IWRY, it was just Mohra blood.
I don't think Spike ever had a shot at the Shanshu (nor will he ever have one), for several reasons:
1) The Oracles imply that, while the Mohra's blood turning Angel human was just random chance, he would be able to earn it from the Powers by saving mankind and averting the Apocalypse.
2) In "Blind Date", Angel is drawn to the Scroll of Aberjian before he even has any clue what it's about. This is an ancient prophecy, not a raffle prize or something anyone can be eligible for if they meet a couple of conditions. The outcome has been fixed since long before Liam and William were even born. It won't change just because both of them are vampires with souls as of 2002. Therefore, the vampire with a soul who was drawn to it without even knowing what it was in 2000 is still just as much the one to whom it refers from 2002 on as he always was.
3) W&H spends crazy amounts of resources on Angel, compared to the way they never so much as offer Spike a job or send someone to track him or assassinate him, a pattern which continues after he has a soul.
4) The destiny that gets written on Angel's chip in "The House Always Wins" (which takes place after Spike gets a soul), is described thus: "among other things, he's positioned to be a major player in the Apocalypse". Side note: I find it interesting that Angel is far more incapacitated when his free will is briefly removed in "Lineage" than when his destiny is removed in "The House Always Wins". It looks to me like the two are interdependent to a certain extent. He clearly needs both of them to be functional.
5) Eve and Lindsey artificially engineer everything that seems to support the idea of Spike being a candidate. I watched the episode again recently and was very careful to note that every single theory or suggestion that the chaos going on has something to do with Spike's destiny starts with either Eve or Sirk (who is working for her). None of it comes from a credible source.
I think the first one there is particularly important, because while the prophecy may not specify which side of the battle Angel will be on, the Oracles do right in the first season, and I trust them more than I trust the wording of an ancient piece of text that is susceptible to translation errors. Just because the text itself doesn't specify the details of the outcome, it doesn't mean they aren't already set, it just means they aren't already known by any of the characters (or W&H). W&H's efforts are not only wasted but are most likely counterproductive (much like Voldemort's efforts to kill Harry are counterproductive), even though they have the right ensouled vampire in their sights. In order to be rewarded with a pulse, Angel has to *save* mankind and *avert* the apocalypse, and it's prophesied that he will. (Also, as far as I'm concerned, he kind of did exactly that in season eight, though in the most unconventional way possible. If it is true that doing something different would have doomed the world, as Whistler said, then once the mass Slayer spell was cast, Angel only had one option if he wanted the world to survive. Which it did. Not that I'm happy with what he did, but if he really didn't have another option, then I won't hold it against him when I can simply hold it against the writers instead for putting him in such an impossible situation and pretend for my own peace of mind that S8 isn't the inevitable continuation of the TV series.)
Also, there's Angel's willing and determined attitude about helping the helpless, compared with Spike's typical snarky indifference and grudging helpfulness (unless Buffy's around, of course, in which case he miraculously manages to sprout nobler intentions). Furthermore, Spike doesn't even really want or care about the Shanshu. He "doesn't give a piss about atonement". But it's incredibly important to Angel. I don't believe he's accountable for anything Angelus did (and therefore he can't be forgiven for any of it--no more than one person can be forgiven for someone else's sins), but I do understand his desire to right those wrongs in whatever way he can, even if it doesn't repair the original damage, and his difficulty with absolving himself of crimes he didn't commit (because he remembers committing them--and, more importantly, that he *enjoyed* committing them). Being human would mean being rid of the demon part of him that actually is responsible for all those things. It would mean having the freedom to simply live his life without that awful burden. And it would mean having the freedom to experience happiness without fear that it's *too much* happiness. I don't understand how it's selfish to want something like that or to be striving towards that kind of goal. All it is, really, is having hope for a time when his existence won't be as blighted as it is now, and I won't hold that hope against him.
On the other hand, as far as we know, Spike doesn't the same happiness clause (it's never been tested, so we don't know for sure that his soul was restored free of exit clauses), he doesn't have the same difficulty with guilt, and he pretty much already does whatever he wants, so why should he get the Shanshu?
And then there's the matter of how Angel and Spike got their souls. I don't think that has anything to do with how good they are when they have them. In fact, I'd say that Angelus wanting nothing to do with his soul and trying to kill the people who want to restore it is a powerful testament to how much of a difference that soul makes, as are the measures Angel takes to ensure he keeps his soul, even though they make him miserable. He might have been cursed with it, but for the overwhelming majority of the time, he isn't trying to get rid of it. The more the human soul and the evil demon hate each other, the better it reflects on the soul, but the more it sucks to have both of them at once. So the fact that Spike's demon and William's soul can coexist more peacefully might make it easier to be him than it is to be Angel, but it doesn't mean he's a better person or that his soul is stronger.
Liam's soul and Angelus's demon clearly loathe each other, but they're fused together into Angel because of the curse, with the soul being what's in control of the mind and motor functions. (I'm not say that he'd go back to being the Liam of 1753 without the demon, because that's clearly not what happened when he was human in IWRY; as long as he has the memories of everything that's happened since then, for all intents and purposes he'll still be Angel, just without the vampiric physiology and urges.) But with Spike, fighting for his soul means his demon is kind of okay with it being there. Or, at least, it was okay with what he thought it would be like for it to be there, but he didn't really have a clue. I can't imagine that William's soul was terribly pleased with the situation, though. He didn't ask to get yanked out of whatever form of afterlife he was in and shoved back into that body any more than Liam's soul wanted to be shoved back into his body, so I feel like what soulless Spike did to William's soul by having it restored was just as cruel as what the Romani did to Liam's soul when they cursed Angelus. Still, it means that only one part of soulful Spike isn't happy about this. While Angel is at constant war with himself (but not in a schizophrenic way--I think of it as being more like extremely conflicting urges), Spike isn't quite so much. So Angel being cursed with his soul instead of fighting for it doesn't make him less good, it just makes him more tragic. And fighting to get a soul doesn't make soulful Spike more heroic, it just makes soulless Spike incredibly reckless and thoughtlessly cruel (but I wouldn't have expected any better of a soulless being). Angel fights for his soul every day. Spike gets off easy because he doesn't have to (as far as we know).
Oh! And the thing about Angel's curse and how the lack of magic may or may not be affecting it. To me, it seems most logical that it wasn't affected at all. The curse was cast using magic, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that it is sustained using magic or that the exit clause requires magic to work. Perfect happiness may be metaphorically magical, but it's not literally magic. So, even though it's a rather depressing theory, I think that he can still lose his soul through perfect happiness, but then that's it. No more soul for him. Ever. The silver lining there, I guess, is that perfect happiness looks like it'll be in pretty short supply for him from now on. Yay. The Shanshu can't come soon enough.
Wow, this ended up being waaaay longer than I planned...
And I don't think that IWRY counts as the Shanshu, and the Gem of Amara certainly doesn't either. Those were a random fluke and an equally random MacGuffin, respectively, and it would have been incredibly anticlimactic and far too easy of a resolution if they hadn't been done away with. The Oracles tell us flat out that the Powers aren't the ones who granted his humanity in IWRY, it was just Mohra blood.
I don't think Spike ever had a shot at the Shanshu (nor will he ever have one), for several reasons:
1) The Oracles imply that, while the Mohra's blood turning Angel human was just random chance, he would be able to earn it from the Powers by saving mankind and averting the Apocalypse.
2) In "Blind Date", Angel is drawn to the Scroll of Aberjian before he even has any clue what it's about. This is an ancient prophecy, not a raffle prize or something anyone can be eligible for if they meet a couple of conditions. The outcome has been fixed since long before Liam and William were even born. It won't change just because both of them are vampires with souls as of 2002. Therefore, the vampire with a soul who was drawn to it without even knowing what it was in 2000 is still just as much the one to whom it refers from 2002 on as he always was.
3) W&H spends crazy amounts of resources on Angel, compared to the way they never so much as offer Spike a job or send someone to track him or assassinate him, a pattern which continues after he has a soul.
4) The destiny that gets written on Angel's chip in "The House Always Wins" (which takes place after Spike gets a soul), is described thus: "among other things, he's positioned to be a major player in the Apocalypse". Side note: I find it interesting that Angel is far more incapacitated when his free will is briefly removed in "Lineage" than when his destiny is removed in "The House Always Wins". It looks to me like the two are interdependent to a certain extent. He clearly needs both of them to be functional.
5) Eve and Lindsey artificially engineer everything that seems to support the idea of Spike being a candidate. I watched the episode again recently and was very careful to note that every single theory or suggestion that the chaos going on has something to do with Spike's destiny starts with either Eve or Sirk (who is working for her). None of it comes from a credible source.
I think the first one there is particularly important, because while the prophecy may not specify which side of the battle Angel will be on, the Oracles do right in the first season, and I trust them more than I trust the wording of an ancient piece of text that is susceptible to translation errors. Just because the text itself doesn't specify the details of the outcome, it doesn't mean they aren't already set, it just means they aren't already known by any of the characters (or W&H). W&H's efforts are not only wasted but are most likely counterproductive (much like Voldemort's efforts to kill Harry are counterproductive), even though they have the right ensouled vampire in their sights. In order to be rewarded with a pulse, Angel has to *save* mankind and *avert* the apocalypse, and it's prophesied that he will. (Also, as far as I'm concerned, he kind of did exactly that in season eight, though in the most unconventional way possible. If it is true that doing something different would have doomed the world, as Whistler said, then once the mass Slayer spell was cast, Angel only had one option if he wanted the world to survive. Which it did. Not that I'm happy with what he did, but if he really didn't have another option, then I won't hold it against him when I can simply hold it against the writers instead for putting him in such an impossible situation and pretend for my own peace of mind that S8 isn't the inevitable continuation of the TV series.)
Also, there's Angel's willing and determined attitude about helping the helpless, compared with Spike's typical snarky indifference and grudging helpfulness (unless Buffy's around, of course, in which case he miraculously manages to sprout nobler intentions). Furthermore, Spike doesn't even really want or care about the Shanshu. He "doesn't give a piss about atonement". But it's incredibly important to Angel. I don't believe he's accountable for anything Angelus did (and therefore he can't be forgiven for any of it--no more than one person can be forgiven for someone else's sins), but I do understand his desire to right those wrongs in whatever way he can, even if it doesn't repair the original damage, and his difficulty with absolving himself of crimes he didn't commit (because he remembers committing them--and, more importantly, that he *enjoyed* committing them). Being human would mean being rid of the demon part of him that actually is responsible for all those things. It would mean having the freedom to simply live his life without that awful burden. And it would mean having the freedom to experience happiness without fear that it's *too much* happiness. I don't understand how it's selfish to want something like that or to be striving towards that kind of goal. All it is, really, is having hope for a time when his existence won't be as blighted as it is now, and I won't hold that hope against him.
On the other hand, as far as we know, Spike doesn't the same happiness clause (it's never been tested, so we don't know for sure that his soul was restored free of exit clauses), he doesn't have the same difficulty with guilt, and he pretty much already does whatever he wants, so why should he get the Shanshu?
And then there's the matter of how Angel and Spike got their souls. I don't think that has anything to do with how good they are when they have them. In fact, I'd say that Angelus wanting nothing to do with his soul and trying to kill the people who want to restore it is a powerful testament to how much of a difference that soul makes, as are the measures Angel takes to ensure he keeps his soul, even though they make him miserable. He might have been cursed with it, but for the overwhelming majority of the time, he isn't trying to get rid of it. The more the human soul and the evil demon hate each other, the better it reflects on the soul, but the more it sucks to have both of them at once. So the fact that Spike's demon and William's soul can coexist more peacefully might make it easier to be him than it is to be Angel, but it doesn't mean he's a better person or that his soul is stronger.
Liam's soul and Angelus's demon clearly loathe each other, but they're fused together into Angel because of the curse, with the soul being what's in control of the mind and motor functions. (I'm not say that he'd go back to being the Liam of 1753 without the demon, because that's clearly not what happened when he was human in IWRY; as long as he has the memories of everything that's happened since then, for all intents and purposes he'll still be Angel, just without the vampiric physiology and urges.) But with Spike, fighting for his soul means his demon is kind of okay with it being there. Or, at least, it was okay with what he thought it would be like for it to be there, but he didn't really have a clue. I can't imagine that William's soul was terribly pleased with the situation, though. He didn't ask to get yanked out of whatever form of afterlife he was in and shoved back into that body any more than Liam's soul wanted to be shoved back into his body, so I feel like what soulless Spike did to William's soul by having it restored was just as cruel as what the Romani did to Liam's soul when they cursed Angelus. Still, it means that only one part of soulful Spike isn't happy about this. While Angel is at constant war with himself (but not in a schizophrenic way--I think of it as being more like extremely conflicting urges), Spike isn't quite so much. So Angel being cursed with his soul instead of fighting for it doesn't make him less good, it just makes him more tragic. And fighting to get a soul doesn't make soulful Spike more heroic, it just makes soulless Spike incredibly reckless and thoughtlessly cruel (but I wouldn't have expected any better of a soulless being). Angel fights for his soul every day. Spike gets off easy because he doesn't have to (as far as we know).
Oh! And the thing about Angel's curse and how the lack of magic may or may not be affecting it. To me, it seems most logical that it wasn't affected at all. The curse was cast using magic, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that it is sustained using magic or that the exit clause requires magic to work. Perfect happiness may be metaphorically magical, but it's not literally magic. So, even though it's a rather depressing theory, I think that he can still lose his soul through perfect happiness, but then that's it. No more soul for him. Ever. The silver lining there, I guess, is that perfect happiness looks like it'll be in pretty short supply for him from now on. Yay. The Shanshu can't come soon enough.
Wow, this ended up being waaaay longer than I planned...
The Powers That Be have been screwing Angel over from the start. Whistler, their agent, was a cheerleader for him ending the world and foregoing any Shanshu (makes the Shanshu look like a load of crap). As we know from Jasmine, the PTB are not without their own motivations. From everything I've seen in the show, they've been playing him as a puppet from the start and I don't think the double-edged sword that prophecies always are needs to be brought up.
Whoever Shanshus--and since there were plans for Spike to Shanshu at the end of AtS, so I don't think it's off the table in the writers minds--it will come at an extremely high price.
Whoever Shanshus--and since there were plans for Spike to Shanshu at the end of AtS, so I don't think it's off the table in the writers minds--it will come at an extremely high price.
Taaroko
Gunner of the USS Buffy/Angel
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Considering that Jasmine is pretty much a Satan metaphor, I'm not taking her word for it. Not about the Powers, and definitely not about how she supposedly played the Angel Investigations team like a chess board for years before showing up in person. Just because the Powers don't make it easy for Angel and don't explain every single thing to him all the time, it doesn't make them the bad guys. They let him figure things out on his own because he can, they don't send extra help because he doesn't need it, and they don't stop the people around him from dying because death is an inevitable part of life. This approach makes him stronger. I don't doubt that they could defeat W&H and all the other stuff Angel has faced if they showed up themselves, but why should they when Angel is capable of doing it with just a little bit of guidance, getting him closer to the Shanshu? That's not evil, it's like good parenting. If you do everything for your kids and protect them from every little bump and bruise, they never learn anything for themselves. It might seem harsh to let them learn by experience, but sometimes that's the only way they learn. If the Powers were actually evil, the show would be pretty pointless and I would probably hate it. But they aren't, and it's my all-time favorite show. And it's been a while since I read any of the comics, but I don't recall Whistler ever cheering on the end of the world. I remember him gravely telling Angel that the only way to save it is by carrying on with the Twilight façade.
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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They told him to carry on the Twilight facade which would lead to the end of the world. It's arguable that Angel didn't know, but the PTB would have known that Twilight was the end. Either Whistler was operating by himself or he was an emissary of the PTB, but if they cared about the world, all they had to do was advise him to do nothing.
I never said the PTB were evil. They have their own motivations, which Angel repeatedly ends up getting the tail end of. As Angelus1898 said, Angel already turned human, only to find his town in Hell. With what Twilight said about the Shanshu, I think it will turn out that it was already done and over with or the mistake of teaming with Twilight cost him it.
I never said the PTB were evil. They have their own motivations, which Angel repeatedly ends up getting the tail end of. As Angelus1898 said, Angel already turned human, only to find his town in Hell. With what Twilight said about the Shanshu, I think it will turn out that it was already done and over with or the mistake of teaming with Twilight cost him it.
Taaroko
Gunner of the USS Buffy/Angel
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It was in "Home", but you can barely tell that's what's happening because it's right on the edge of a scene cut. It seems like slitting his throat was the way to activate Cyvus Vail's memory spell, or something.
BuffyElevated
Scooby
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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I will have to go back and look. I saw something but thought he just knocked him out. If he slit his throat then it would have been more than just a memory thing, wouldn't it? I mean.. healing the throat and all too.