a.a.k
Jensen Girl
Nombre de messages : 31402
Age : 36
Localisation : Belgique
Date d'inscription : 02/12/2006
 | Sujet: Re: Ce qu'en pensent les fans  Dim 10 Fév 2013, 10:02 | |
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- SPOILERS FOR S3
I don't think she's actually OOC -- it's just that...she really has, at the end of s3, lost her selfish side, I think. What I'd say is that Cordelia's selfishness and shallowness transform into a different kind of self-absorption. She starts defining herself as basically caring about Angel and Angel only, and then that becomes her whole focus -- her "selfishness" now basically manifests in her working for Angel and the mission, because that's her whole identity totally anchored to Angel.
SPOILERS FOR YOU'RE WELCOME
You're Welcome has Cordy being shallow frequently, but never selfish-in-the-sense-of-caring-about-herself. She makes two efforts to reach out to Wesley -- one in the research scene and one when she compliments his mojo at the episode's end. The rest is entirely devoted to Angel, Angel's mission, etc. She makes a few cracks and is glad about it -- but outside of making things right with Wesley (to a small extent) and ensuring that Angel's on the right track, there is nothing about her human life that Cordelia cares about enough to deal with. There is no self-preservation at all.
I think it is actually brilliant in its own way. But it's a tragedy. Cordy gets to pick up great clothes and snark, and those are things she enjoys, but I think those are still minor superficial pleasures, not ones that she craves deep down. And there's making things right with Wesley. And that's it -- that's all that Cordelia is doing for herself outside of Angel/the mission. And in this episode, her total, laser-eye focus on cheering Angel up and getting him back onto The Mission (which leads to NFA at the season's end), there are no complaints about her fate, no scenes of Cordelia genuinely lamenting the fact that she's dead at 22 because she got those damned visions. No attempt to stake out territory, or bemoan the fact that she can't stake out territory, that's for her and her alone. That's what The Mission does to you -- that's what the visions did for Cordelia.
Doyle died heroically and self-sacrificingly, but it was a necessary self-sacrifice and he didn't have a whole day to think it over and not say anything to anyone about how it actually sucked. He kissed Cordelia, in a scene that is mirrored by Cordelia's kissing Angel, passing along the visions to her. But he had relationships with other people -- the whole of Hero not only keeps both Doyle/Cordy and Doyle/Angel on the front-burner but emphasizes Doyle's reconnecting to his past. Cordelia in You're Welcome has no past -- and the little that she does (before Angel) is...Harmony, whom she casually encourages to torture because that's what heroes do I guess!, and whom she doesn't care about at all. I think that Cordelia's story only makes sense to me as a tragedy about the dark side of heroism (both the real kind, and the idea of heroism) -- there is too little in You're Welcome that suggests Cordelia has any real sense of self beyond her use to Angel and to the mission that can make me feel admiration for her rather than pained, heartbroken pity.
ETA: but I might change my mind! Lol. I should really stop writing emotional posts.
ETA2: Ah, okay, I think something was bugging me but now I get it.
Cordelia has two things she cares about in You're Welcome. One is the Mission. Distant, distant second is her love life. (Distant third is making things up to Wesley.) Her last moment of selfish desire (in the sense of, "acting for herself," rather than selfish in a pejorative way) is to kiss Angel -- and that is pretty much the whole of her taking something for herself. But Angel is The Mission -- and she loves Angel because he's The Mission. And then in Power Play it turns out the kiss gave Angel her visions so even that was The Mission. She watches Doyle on tape and uses that as a teachable lesson to Angel about he should Mission better and never compromise. And that is, I think, the problem -- her and Angel's heroism and their love are so intertwined that there is no room for...um, any independent identity for her. So she does have two focuses, The Mission and Love, but the Love is part of The Mission anyway, and The Mission is part of her Love. It's both Angel and The Mission which take her in and spit her out; and the fact that she has no real anger at either or desire to make space for herself from either (and that they are kind of the same) is the tragedy. | |
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