Haven't seen the Robin/Nikki/Spike icon. I gather it's unpleasant.
I agree that ME wants us to see hero and anti-hero at the same time. That's why I love the show. Though at times, reading fan reactions, it's easy to get worried about what the writers were really after. Certainly lots of fans just see Angel as The Hero. My whole thing has been trying to decide whether Lynch is with the writers, or with those fans. And maybe I'm willing at this point to say that he's not with the fans, though he may not yet be all the way to the writers of the series.
We'll see what he does with W&H. That's pretty big. I decided last night that I'm hoping that W&H WANTED Angel to get himself killed, and that he has obliged them. Now they can leave him thinking he's defeated them, and they can find new and better ways to keep him as ensnared as he always was. (They do play him like a violin). Maybe the outbreak of publicity will be an important vehicle for that. A move like that would exonerate Lynch from the charge that his vision of the uber-apocalypse is very lame when compared to the understanding of the apocalypse that the series was working with. Cause if it went like this, the uber-apocalypse vision was just a lie to tempt Angel to forget what he knows about the ineradicable nature of evil.
I disagree with you a bit about Spike. He certainly was a trickster figure (big time) as he streaked through Sunnydale and literally upended everything. But now that he has the soul, one that he fought for, I think his room for being so unpredictable is reduced. He's achieved a kind of unity and it would seem random to undo that enough to make him behave randomly. Not that there aren't stories to tell about him. But not so much about whether there's doubt as to his fundamental commitment to the good. Maybe stories about mistakes he makes about what the good is. Dunno. I expect Whedon to make it clear how Buffy came to be robbing banks, so I don't want to say that a good story teller couldn't get Spike to turn evil again. But I do think it would take some work, and the "will he or won't he" stories really are silly in that context. (I think they are all really meant to play off an audience that tends to misperceive Spike, cause though he's gold, he sure as heck doesn't glitter).
Spike isn't perfect, of course. But the huge struggle is over. I'd say the same about Faith. She's had her fall, and her redemption. I expect her story to be a pretty straight-forward one of a slayer with good instincts but massive lack of self-confidence. It's the title characters who are still in play. Their foils/contrasts have already done their work in making us see how complex the eponymous heroes are. Again with caveats that I haven't the imagination a really good story teller has.
I retain trust in Joss. Not that I think he's perfect. Season 7 really is a mess. Willow-magic-crack-what-a-waste. His feminism is clumsy as hell and interferes with good storytelling from time to time. But I trust him to tell a story worth reading here. Unlike season 7 where he might have been tired, he's gone out of his way to start this project up. I'm assuming there's a reason for it. But Joss could blow it with me. This whole thread started with me basically laying down a gauntlet. I expect him to connect these characters back up with the ones we last saw in The Chosen. He had better be planning on explaining the evolution of BtBR. etc. etc. He just hasn't blown it yet. (I held AtF open for six issues; you might be convincing me to reopen it; season 8 is still open for me.)
Lynch on too many characters: Word. Big word. It's not one character too many. More like at least five.
Re: Angel...-and Spike
I agree that ME wants us to see hero and anti-hero at the same time. That's why I love the show. Though at times, reading fan reactions, it's easy to get worried about what the writers were really after. Certainly lots of fans just see Angel as The Hero. My whole thing has been trying to decide whether Lynch is with the writers, or with those fans. And maybe I'm willing at this point to say that he's not with the fans, though he may not yet be all the way to the writers of the series.
We'll see what he does with W&H. That's pretty big. I decided last night that I'm hoping that W&H WANTED Angel to get himself killed, and that he has obliged them. Now they can leave him thinking he's defeated them, and they can find new and better ways to keep him as ensnared as he always was. (They do play him like a violin). Maybe the outbreak of publicity will be an important vehicle for that. A move like that would exonerate Lynch from the charge that his vision of the uber-apocalypse is very lame when compared to the understanding of the apocalypse that the series was working with. Cause if it went like this, the uber-apocalypse vision was just a lie to tempt Angel to forget what he knows about the ineradicable nature of evil.
I disagree with you a bit about Spike. He certainly was a trickster figure (big time) as he streaked through Sunnydale and literally upended everything. But now that he has the soul, one that he fought for, I think his room for being so unpredictable is reduced. He's achieved a kind of unity and it would seem random to undo that enough to make him behave randomly. Not that there aren't stories to tell about him. But not so much about whether there's doubt as to his fundamental commitment to the good. Maybe stories about mistakes he makes about what the good is. Dunno. I expect Whedon to make it clear how Buffy came to be robbing banks, so I don't want to say that a good story teller couldn't get Spike to turn evil again. But I do think it would take some work, and the "will he or won't he" stories really are silly in that context. (I think they are all really meant to play off an audience that tends to misperceive Spike, cause though he's gold, he sure as heck doesn't glitter).
Spike isn't perfect, of course. But the huge struggle is over. I'd say the same about Faith. She's had her fall, and her redemption. I expect her story to be a pretty straight-forward one of a slayer with good instincts but massive lack of self-confidence. It's the title characters who are still in play. Their foils/contrasts have already done their work in making us see how complex the eponymous heroes are. Again with caveats that I haven't the imagination a really good story teller has.
I retain trust in Joss. Not that I think he's perfect. Season 7 really is a mess. Willow-magic-crack-what-a-waste. His feminism is clumsy as hell and interferes with good storytelling from time to time. But I trust him to tell a story worth reading here. Unlike season 7 where he might have been tired, he's gone out of his way to start this project up. I'm assuming there's a reason for it. But Joss could blow it with me. This whole thread started with me basically laying down a gauntlet. I expect him to connect these characters back up with the ones we last saw in The Chosen. He had better be planning on explaining the evolution of BtBR. etc. etc. He just hasn't blown it yet. (I held AtF open for six issues; you might be convincing me to reopen it; season 8 is still open for me.)
Lynch on too many characters: Word. Big word. It's not one character too many. More like at least five.