Not Fade Away

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Yesterday I posted about series finales, and I wanted to talk more about AtS. I know a lot of people dislike "Not Fade Away" because it's a cliffhanger, or because of some of the things Angel did, but that's not the problem I have with it.

From a metaphorical perspective, I think the ending is incredibly fitting, and in comparison with "Chosen," it perfectly illustrates the difference between BtVS and AtS. BtVS was about winning, about defeating evil, and so it ends with a triumph over the First, the closing of the Hellmouth, and (as always) the saving of the world. Whereas AtS is about fighting, the never-ending struggle to do good in a world where evil is the status quo, so it's appropriate that the show goes out, not with a victory, but with its heroes charging into battle. And I don't have a problem with Angel being wrong or morally flawed because, quite honestly, he's always been like that. I don't mind my heroes a little dark. I don't even mind the implication that everybody's going to die. I just want their deaths to be meaningful.

And that's the problem.

Much like Buffy's battle strategy in "Chosen," Angel's plan is really DUMB. What exactly does he hope to accomplish? He wants to take out the Black Thorn in order to make a statement, to "bring their gears to a grinding halt, even if it's just for a moment" - but what about the next moment? The moment after that? Who will fight for humanity when all our champions are dead in an alley? And that's what bothers me, because Angel chose this moment. He wasn't in immediate peril.* He wasn't forced to act. He could've continued his fight from the inside. And sure, he's worried that he's not really doing good by running Wolfram & Hart, worried about being corrupted by its influence, but at least he'd be continuing to fight. It's what he does, what he's always done - to borrow from Starbuck, "Fight 'em until we can't."

This power play is pointless. It ultimately accomplishes nothing. Wolfram & Hart will recover. The Black Thorn will be replaced, and no one will care that Angel stopped them for one moment when the next moment they're back in power. Angel is sacrificing himself and his friends for a fruitless symbolic gesture.

IMO, it only works if there's some bigger picture, if the Powers That Be intend to use this vacuum to seize power away from the Senior Partners, if they intend to use this moment to create a systemic, lasting change. There's some suggestion that this is, in fact, the plan, since Angel got this brilliant idea from Cordy's vision. The Powers That Be wanted Angel to do this (unless he got the message wrong). But we never get to see what that plan is.

(ETA) The other alternative, as discussed in the comments, is that we accept that Angel's made a wrong decision, but we give him the chance to redeem himself. He's lost hope, and I understand that, but the only way it's satisfying to me is if we get to see him built back up again, if we get to see him come out of the despair that led to this decision, rather than ending Angel's story when he's at his lowest point.

And there is the irony inherent in AtS' series finale. Because although metaphorically it's the perfect ending, and any sort of continuation mars the imagery of the fight that never ends, in other ways it only works if there's a continuation, if we see that there was a reason for doing this, that their sacrifices weren't in vain.


*Actually, I think it would've made a much better ending if there WAS an immediate threat. If Angel and all his people's lives were in danger, and the only choice was to get out of Wolfram & Hart, but they knew they'd probably die anyway trying to escape, and so they decided to take the Black Thorn down with them.

Comments

[xlivvielockex.livejournal.com]

Angel is the KING of dumb planning though so it was so fitting and in character for him. I mean, Cordelia even makes that joke in The Thin Dead Line and she was always the "truth teller" role. I'm thinking that per his usual, Angel got it wrong. He got the vision and decided that this was the course of action.

I totally agree that I don't think it would have done a damn thing unless, of course, The Powers were planning something that we didn't see. Like hitting W&H while their other forces were occupied. But still.

I actually like the final because it leaves it totally up for fanfic and well, it keeps with the overall message of the show. The fight never ends and even when you're up against huge odds, you keep fighting.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Huh. I thought the point was that there isn't a larger point. They're fighting...to fight. It may not make a whit of difference in the Larger Picture, but that's not what matters. The oft-quoted S2 Angel's epiphany: "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

The end result isn't important; the action is. Angel and his gang fight for Good. I think leaving it off on that note is absolutely brilliant, and I don't have much of a problem with Angel's plan because it seems very Angel-like (and fits well with the theme of the series).

Buffy's Chosen plan was stupid, though, and it's doubly stupid because it's supposed to seem brilliant.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

The understanding I had of Angel's plan is that when he said "just for a moment" he was speaking metaphorically, in terms of the attention span of immortal demons who are many millions of years old. It might be a couple of centuries before the Senior Partners get around to replacing the Black Thorn - to them, a mere moment; to the human race, several lifetimes of freedom.

I think the message of 'Not Fade Away' is more uncomfortable than 'Chosen', but perhaps also more mature or realistic. BtVS said that evil can be defeated forever; Ats said that it never can be, we can only win small victories. The first seven seasons of BtVS ended with the idea that Buffy could walk away from the fight against evil, and go party; the first five seasons of Ats ended with Angel's recognition that sooner or later, he would die in the fight against evil.

It's teenage idealism versus adult cynicism; Bildungsroman versus epic tragedy. At least Angel, like Beowulf, chose his moment to die and went sword in hand to fight the dragon...

[kcarolj65.livejournal.com]

I've always been of the opinion that NFA was meant to happen at the end of Season 6, had there been a Season 6. There would've been a better fleshing-out of the impetus (or impeti) driving Angel toward such an ultimately pointless symbolic gesture, or even a better setup for what may have turned out to be a not-pointless gesture but a legitimate strike as part of a larger scheme. In short, Joss ran out of time to do anything like that because the network pulled the plug, and he wanted to give some sort of "ending" to the series.

[rahirah]

Joss has a number of strengths as a writer, but he couldn't plot his way out of a wet paper bag. So yeah, his grand plans tend to work or not work based on whether he decrees they should, and whether or not he writes in a last-minute deus ex machina, rather than on any merit of the plan itself. I'm not as willing to write that off as 'just a structural problem' as some are; if your house has structural problems, it doesn't matter how fantastic the paint job is, it's gonna collapse sooner or later. There are absolutely seasons in which the emotional stuff pings with me to such a degree that I can enjoy them, even love them, in spite of the structual problems, but even in my favorite seasons, those problems are still there, and they're still problems.

The thing about the end of NFA, for me (and I do love that ending, and think it's very much in character for Angel, but I love it because it is very ambiguous) is that in S2, Angel's epiphany was about helping other people, even if there was no big plan or reward in it. In NFA, he's gone from hopeful, humanitarian existentialism to the bleak and hopeless kind: he's not bringing down the Black Thorn to help people, he's bringing it down to show the Senior Partners they don't own him. Some people may get helped in the process, but that's become incidental. (Just as the possibility of helping people with W&H's resources was incidental to his real plan of saving Connor.)

The big difference from "Chosen" is that I think that we're supposed to see NFA as an ambiguous ending, and Angel's plan as both admirable defiance of impossible odds, and prideful, despairing suicide. Whereas we're supposed to see "Chosen" as unambiguous - the good guys won, none of the core four got killed, and Buffy is no longer crushed under the burden of being the only slayer, and can go live like a real person now. And because there are so many things about S7 that undermine that reading for me, "Chosen" comes off to me as a much more bothersome and unenjoyable ending, despite the fact that it's superficially more upbeat.

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

oh angel... *sigh. shake of head* what am i going to do with you?
your plans are always so..... stupid. i love you really i do. your broody ways and huge forehead are very endearing but really????
i just... merrrrr.
so what your gonna all go on a suicide mission take out a small chunk of evil then die leaving the world without a champion?
REALLY? because to me that sounds like your quiting. your trying to make it look like your taking the heroes way out but your not. your just leaving. true you make a small dent when you go but in the long run it doesn't matter. even in the medium ish run it doesn't. now i can look at this plan and see two things happing. you guys take out the baddies and all go down swinging. then the senior partners start having open casting calls for the new and improved black thorn which could then be filled up with even bigger baddies and without a champion to save us the world slowly sinks into evil. oh whats that? you thought buffy and co . were gonna take over? now what on earth made you think buffy would be interested in fighting wolfram and hart? evil law firms aren't up her ally. she likes an evil she can actually take down. then theres the other outcome of .. no.. wait. yah i only see that happing.

and another thing so you destroyed the L.A branch. big whoop. wolfram and hart are a multi dimensional firm. why do you think you got the L.A branch to begin with? because it was to small to make an impact. it was just one small blip. sure to you it seemed big. its called big fish in a little pond syndrome. so lets break it down so you can understand angel cakes (and yes i will call you pastries if i want!).lets just look at the u.s . i'm going to assume theres several wolfram and hart's in the usa. why? because you have a branch in Rome. and i'm not deeply stupid. most big corporations have more then one place of business . (see i told you tiffany and co taught me stuff! ) especially hot shot law firms. so then you would most likely find ones in New York, Chicago, and Atlanta. Maybe Huston and Palm Beach. these are some of the biggest cites in the country. and with most big cites come rich people. ergo clients. now then that means there are AT LEAST about 5 other w&h's that you have no control over who plan to stay evil. notice that this does not include the other branches in Europe Asia or anywhere else. . we know for a fact there is one branch in Rome. which means theres mot likely branches in London, Paris, Brussels, Munich, Moscow/St. Petersburg and Madrid. these are some of the biggest cites in Europe. in Asia you most likely have a Beijing branch a Soul, Tokyo, and Hong Kong Branch. but i'm talking about stuff we dont need to get into.

the point is just in this dimension alone there are going to be a t least 16 other branches. all of which are deeply dedicated to evil. in fact the same could be said for the black thorn. you think only people in L.A want to bring about the Apocalypse? I dont think so. therefor your plan was worthless. you kjust got everyone you cared about killed for no real reason. if you wanted out of wolfram and hart you should have thought of something different . i'm sure you could have done something. you have shone that you can execute a plan. . next time let someone else make the plan. like.. wes or uh no... um gunn.. you know what? your gang sucks at making plans. if they're not stealing babies they're selling their soul for trucks and or killing college professors and we all know spike isnt patient enough to stick to a plan. . i guess next time your gonna have to go with illryia. she seems pretty smart. if slightly insane. no wait LORNE! let Lorne do the planning next time. i can assure you that you will end up singing show tunes and possibly wearing costumes. which i think is a lot better then what you had in mind.

[caromiofic.livejournal.com]

Angel *had* lost hope. He's sick of fighting a war that's too big for him to do much to, and Cordy's gone, Fred's gone, Connor is effectively not his son, Gunn, Wes, and Lorne are falling apart... I absolutely knew watching the last 2 eps that he didn't expect or want to come out of that fight alive....and that didn't entirely bother me. He hit a certain kind of rock bottom in S2, but he still had more to lose.....and season 5 did that. It made me so sad the show was canceled, because there was such potential to emotionally rise from the ashes in S6.

In interviews at cancellation time, Joss said season 6 would be the team ending up in a Hell dimension as consequence of NFA and having to fight their way out over the course of the season. They'd also be drawing together again as a family because of it, since they'd almost been ripped entirely apart in S5 (Wes would be included, since Joss wasn't killing off the staff if they'd gotten renewal).

[elisi]

This post addresses your concern. :)

[lostboy-lj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is all spot on, E.

In "Clocks" I included a flashback sequence that picks up directly after Angel intones "Let's go to work." But, of course, the plan is rubbish, the odds are stupid, and the whole business goes arse-end faster than you can tear off your shirt and howl "For Sparta!" Its just a really boneheaded move.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

I think part of the decision (in addition to the fact that yes, the PTBs sent him the vision of all of the lead players for a reason, and I'm sure it wasn't to befriend them) was that...the fact that that fight was never going to end anyway--that there would always be a tipping of the scales--factored into it. It is expected of Angel & Co. to continue to fight a fight they simply cannot win, and they were dying one by one in a losing war. So it makes sense, in a way, to pick a fight (cause hey, it wasn't as if they weren't fighting already), bitch slap the evil doers in the face, and go out, yes, but go out on top. For one moment, they got to lay the ultimate smack down, which...what's that saying? If you make a god bleed? It makes people cease to believe in them. Such a tale would be inspiring, no doubt. It kind of reminds me of "300" in that respect. Oh sure, they're going to lose, but it was a glorious battle where they got to have their moment, and that moment, makes it all worth it.

IMO, of course. Pardon the somewhat ramble.

[mistletoe54.livejournal.com]

It's a dilemma isn't it? How can one feel the ending is a valid conclusion to the series and yet feel dissatisfied with it as a conclusion to a hero's struggle?

Probably because Angel was always a flawed hero. As soon as he came back from Hell, Angel was on borrowed time. From then on he doubted what he was doing and it was only the reassurance of others that kept him going. When everyone was on the point of death, insanity or already dead he had no support group to keep him believing. Alone, Angel never did well. Even epiphanies and living in the world as if it were the world we want it to be, that it should be, turned out to be no more than lip service when it came down to it.

Secondly, when did Angel ever make the right choice? Sometimes he chose with the best of intentions, but the result usually made matters worse. By NFA he had lost everything, even the will to carry on. I think he was going down fighting as a last show of defiance, not only to the Senior Partners but to TPTB. There is nothing but pessimism in Season 5 and sadly the ending is also pessimistic.