*Sigh* Poor Angel. He's Got Braces Like Cuchulainn.
byI love my dead gay vampire show because it makes me think. I'm always thinking about the foreshadowing and the past and what's going to happen in the future. My obsessions with the puzzles and riddles of Angel leads me to pick up on things outside of fandom, particularly in class. Particularly in my Celtic literature class (the written down oral traditions of the Irish and Welsh that date around 9th – 11th century) in which we discuss the aspects of the heroes. And well, who's my favorite Irish fallen hero – Angel, the original vampire with a soul.
Currently, I'm reading The Tain - which is an Irish epic story of a cattle raid. However, as I was reading the pre-tales, everything kept hitting me and I must have had the stupidest grin on my face the whole class period.
Unlike many hero stories, especially those from the Greeks and Romans those Western cultures are more familiar with, many Celticists argue that the Celtic tales are all about ruin. They are about the downfall of heroes or the fury that destroyed the world. They are the examples of what not to do compared to what to do. They start out great and end in ruin.
In Angel Season 1, Angel is happy to have a mission. A good mission. He has his happy family – Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn. Sure, they have tragedy; in fact, Doyle even dies. But Doyle's dead is that of a hero, and Angel retains his mission. He's lead by the Powers That Be – his otherworldly presence, and he is a good and fair leader. Season 1 is education of Angel and the ideal from which everything fell apart.
In the Mabinogi, a Welsh tale broken into four branches, the education and idealistic story is the very first branch – "Pwyll Prince of Dyfed." Pwyll inherits a bunch of land from his father, and he really isn't an effective leader. He's pretty lost and insults the Arawn, King of Annwfn. (Annwfn being the Welsh otherworld. This is different from an underworld. It's more accessible, and one can end up there by simply walking through some mist. The veils between the worlds are very thin.) Arawn, like a wise king, negotiates, and he ends up being Pwyll's mentor. And because of this connection, Pwyll gains both fame and fortune. He also learns the rules enough to seek a wife, Rhiannon. Rhiannon is headstrong, wise, and associated with the horse goddess, Apona. And she doesn't take shit from anyone. Together, she and Pwyll trick Gwawl (Rhiannon's betrothed fiancé) into letting her go because she and Pwyll are a true match. She's his sovereignty goddess. The Celts believed (or at least from what's drawn from the tales) that if the king doesn't have the right queen that the land suffers. They are the right match and prosper. This is the ideal tale.
Doyle and the PTB are Angel's Arawn. They train him and give him riches – his mission and his connection with humanity. They teach him the rules of society and bring him back into society. Loving Buffy was different than being part of society. They give him his sovereignty goddess – Cordelia. She's wise, in her own way, and doesn't take anyone's shit. Angel saves Cordelia in the first episode from Russell Winters, who essentially makes all these women his own by killing them. (Obviously, that's the wrong way to woo a woman.) Despite Angel's love for Doyle, Wesley, and Gunn, Cordelia's the one that holds him to care about humans in Season 1. (I think it's very important that she's not his love interest, because Angel's growth would end up in the same place as it did on Buffy.) When Doyle passes the visions along to Cordelia, this cements her place in Angel's life. When Angel goes to the Oracles asking to bring Doyle back, they tell him that another door has been opened. She's his sovereignty goddess – good for business and for him. The scene from "To Shanshu in L.A." when Cordelia is buying Angel art supplies enforces her role beyond the visions in Angel's life; she's his connection to the people. With her, their battles will go forth for good.
In Season 2, Angel ignores Cordelia's concerns about his obsession with Darla. (Yes, Wesley has concerns. But he is less vocal, and his love of Angel is pretty one-sided, but without the creepy stalker vibe.) Many of the pre-tales of The Tain deal with ignoring the advice of the sovereignty goddess. In "The Pangs of Ulster," Crunniuc mac Agnomain ignores his wife's plea not to have her race against horses, so she curses the land for men to have ‘birth pains' in their times of greatest difficulty. By ignoring, Cordelia's advice, Angel gets himself into deep trouble with the possibility of soul losing and impregnates Darla. Despite their history and lust, nothing good ever came from his and Darla's relationship; it was all destruction. (*avoids the fruits and vegetables from the Connor fans*) Angel also loses the trust of Cordelia. Buying clothing for her didn't make up for his rejection of her as his sovereignty goddess. She still carried ‘their' mission with the visions. She didn't get to chose like Angel did when he fired them. In fact, she takes a new king – Groo. And Angel has given the PTB a big ‘fuck you,' which I believe leaves him at the mercy of the less than pure PTB, i.e. Jasmine. (I'm going to leave the PTB aside, except in smaller mentions largely because this is a whole other discussion which involves the Vorlons, Shadows, and Q and is an annoying plot bunny.)
Season 3 is all about the love of Wesley and Angel. Because his sovereignty goddess has left him, Wesley becomes Angel's human connection. Wesley was dumped by Virginia the season before, and Fred rejects him for Gunn. But Wesley doesn't work as the sovereignty goddess, and life goes to hell in a hand basket. (Wesley doesn't have the confidence that a sovereignty goddess should have, and he and Angel would need to have a romantic relationship for him to gain some confidence.) Instead of having powers given by the PTB, Wesley's been pushed around by them. If the PTB really wanted, they could have come down and told Wesley that the prophecy of "The father will kill the son" was a lie created for Angel and Connor's downfall.
Like most great heroes, the birth of Connor was something that was foretold. And he was likely to have some supernatural power. Season 3 is the story of the birth of Connor and the betrayal of Wesley.
In Celtic society, children were often fostered out to make strong ties between families, especially those of royalty. By "Dad," it's clear that Connor isn't being raised by single dad, Angel, but by the whole village. Despite Cordelia playing mommy in some scenes, it's clear that Connor has two daddies. It's Wesley, not Cordelia, who accompanies Angel to Connor's doctor appointments, and it's his office that Connor's bassinet is placed in.
Wesley's also deeply isolated from the rest of the gang. Sovereignty goddesses always work best with their kings to insure the welfare of the people. But this season, we see Angel working less and less to save people. He's caught up in his own undoing with the wrong partner at his side. In the second branch of the Mabinogi, "Branwen daughter of Llyr," Branwen is betrothed to the King of Ireland. Her uncle disagrees with this marriage, and the two lands, the Isle of the Mighty and Ireland, end up warring. Chaos. Angel ends up fighting everyone in his life for his child – including Wesley. At the end of Branwen's tale, only she and seven warriors from the Isle of the Mighty and four pregnant women from Ireland are alive. Everyone else is dead. And Branwen dies of a broken heart. In "Forgiving," Wesley's heart breaks, but instead of dying Wesley gets acquainted with the enemy. His big picture morality side is dead.
Holtz is the villain that Angel forgot about. In the Mabinogi, Gwawl's friends come back to take revenge of Pwyll. However, they don't make an appearance until "Manawydan son of Llyr" – the third branch. By then Pwyll is long dead, and Rhiannon, their son, Pyderi, Manawydan (Rhiannon's new husband), and Cigfa (Pyderi's wife) are the only ones left in Dyfed after the battle to take revenge on. Gwawl's friends try to destroy them by destroying their family unity. This is what Holtz does. He destroys the family with alienation of Wesley and the stealing of Connor. He wants to breaks them up because they are Angel's strength. And he uses the wrong sovereignty goddess, Wesley, to tear everything apart.
Though at the end, Cordelia comes back to Angel. She's even going to get together romantically with him. She's the sovereignty goddess that he's supposed to be with. In fact, she shoved Wesley out and despite Fred's encouragement, she refuses to talk with Wesley and make things better. (This I believe also have to do with the PTB's influence.) However, this is also a hint that she's changed. The sovereignty goddess would have gone to Wesley's and made everything better through non-violent means. Or she would have counseled Angel to see Wesley. And Connor does a good job at convincing Angel that they are a-okay with each other. But they can't be back to the ideal of Season 1 without Wesley in the mix. It's all an artificial façade of them being well, which made the cliffhanger essential for shattering that reality.
Season 4 is the Jasmine arch. It's the struggle between the father and his son over a woman, and the king's right to be with every woman in the land. It's also further exploration into the demon half of Cordelia and what that really means. Not only has Cordelia's visions lessened in pains, but they have also lessened in frequency. And they also tend to help the Angel team, not the general public.
In the pre-tale of The Tain, "Cuchulainn's Courtship of Emer and His Training in Arms," when Cuchulainn finally wins Emer's hand in marriage, his father, King Conchobor, demands the right to sleep with her as the sovereign king's right to sleep with every woman on her wedding night. This creates overwhelming tension between father and son. However, Cuchulainn gives in and let's his father sleep with her. This gives Cuchulainn and Emer's marriage prosperity.
When Cordelia returns, both Connor and Angel struggle for her affections. Angel – being the sovereign king – should have right to be with her first. The problem with Angel is that he loves Cordelia and will lose his soul if he sleeps with her. At this point, Connor and Cordelia are meant to be together, because whether right or wrong that's what the PTB is cheering for. But because Angel doesn't bless their union, it doesn't work out to be a good thing.
(The whole almost incest thing is mute in when comparing it to Celtic literature since kings and queens all over the world are inbred because they must marry those who are of the same social stature.)
At the end of Season 4, Connor is desperate and confused. He's going to destroy himself, because he can't cope with the world falling apart around him. He doesn't have the mentor in his father to teach him of the world, and he had to kill his own daughter. Growing up in a different hell dimension, Connor can't cope with the one he's forced to live in, and he still doesn't understand the rules. Angel bargains for a better life for his son, but essentially he kills his son and starts everything in a spiral toward doom.
In "The Death of Aife's One Son" from The Tain, hero (the strongest solider in all the land) and King of Ulster, Cuchulainn kills his (and Aife's) son, Connla. In another tale, the reader is informed that Aife is an enemy of Cuchulainn, who he defeats and sleeps with as a sign of dominance. And that Connla, once he is of age, is supposed to come back to Ulster and reveal his name and genealogy only to Cuchulainn. When Connla comes from this enemy land and refuses to give his name to the greeters, Cuchulainn orders his soldiers to kill him. However, one by one, the soldiers refuse to kill Connla, and Cuchulainn knows by both the timing and the land Connla came from that it's his son. Cuchulainn's wife tries to stop him from killing his son. But he does anyway. Right away, this is noted as a bad thing because none of the cows in Ulster give birth for three days.
While the cows continue to give birth, Angel and company are in the beast's belly. Through Angel's fulfillment of the father will kill the son prophecy he's gained blood power, whether he wants it or not.
Cuchulainn's dialog: "the blood of Connla's/body will flush/my skin with power"
But this power is corrupted, and they're going to fall apart. Yes, they don't get the consequences right away. But Angel is no longer the hero. He's separated and isolated by his secret, and his sovereignty goddess is coma-bound, and then dies. The perfect feeling of Angel/Cordelia-ness comes through in "Your Welcome" because they're ideally right for each other. She's his correct partner in the ideal of Season 1, but she can't be there because Angel's been corrupted by Wolfram & Hart. It's also deeply touching because she's the last one that knows all of Angel's life in L.A. and most of it in Sunnydale. She even remembers Connor, which I believe is a big red flag for Angel that everyone else should to because there's nothing that isolates like secrets.
Despite Cordelia's exit, Season 5 does have a sovereignty goddess. Last night's episode – "A Hole in the World" – sealed this for me. Spike is Angel's other half. Lord knows that they fight like an old married couple. And as David Fury said, Angel's love story of this season is Angel and Spike.
Spike works with Angel at Wolfram and Hart because while he fights for good, he hasn't always had the best motives and didn't always do it the clean and true way. Angel before Season 5 was too clean and moral for Spike to stand. We know that Spike doesn't like ritual, and for Angel, being good was like a ritual: "Oh, no. I can't do anything fun tonight. I have to count my past sins, then alphabetize them." Despite her mockage, Cordelia was right about how Angel's treats the mission. It's his ritual. I don't think Angel counts his sins as much these days. He's too worried about who's trying to stab him in the back or the front. He's also separated and isolated with his secrets. Though I think, he's more at ease with Spike because Spike never carried those memories; Spike's the only one that didn't have anything erased from his head. This is also why I think that Angel was so giddy over the remember St. Petersburg line. They can reminiscence without big gaping holes.
Fred's being placed as the bestest, best girl in the whole wide world in "A Hole in the World" doesn't work because, much to Joss' dismay, she isn't the sovereignty goddess. The heroes don't save the sovereignty goddess; she's out there commanding armies. In The Tain, when Madb and her husband, Ailill, attack the men of Ulster for a prized bull, Madb is out on the battlefield commanding soldiers. In fact, it's her war, and she's the one that divides them up into fighting sections. Fred doesn't command anyone. She doesn't even really do a very good job with controlling the science department. She overspends her budget, gets overstressed, and often pawns off the work to Knox. She isn't a leader.
Yes, Spike isn't the typical leader. But we know that he's had plenty of minions and can control things. But he's always been the most powerful when having someone next to him who's most Alpha than he is – both Angel and, to some extent, Buffy.
In short, Angel is never going to get back to the Season 1 ideal. He and his men (since all the women are dead) are too messed up to ever get back. Andrew was right when he said that they weren't on the same side. The end of Season 5 and possible the end of the show (I'm trying to be an optimist) aren't going to be pretty because it's Angel. If it was pretty, I would be mad. Angel, like the other tales I've discussed, is a story about what goes wrong. It gives the ideal in Season 1, and by Season 5, it's complete chaos. The hero is not meant to be the CEO of a huge, evil law firm. He's better off serving the people, little by little, and being their Champion in the big battles of good verses evil when he's called upon. And the scary thing is that I think Angel knows this but he can't go back because of Connor and the deal he made with the devil.