a.a.k Jensen Girl
Nombre de messages : 31402 Age : 36 Localisation : Belgique Date d'inscription : 02/12/2006
| Sujet: Charles Gunn and his relation with Angel Sam 24 Avr 2010, 18:48 | |
| Un essai qui analyse le personnage de Gunn. Il a été écrit pas Nina, sur Buffyforums. - Citation :
- Charles Gunn is the character who was simply wasted potential. But the writers didn't completely screwed up his story, and I tried ot show why Charles Gunn is the last man standing in contrast to Wesley who was everything but wasted potential. I'm not a great writer, and certainly in English my writing is limited. But I hope it's readable.
-----------------------------------------------
Season 1
When we met him, we met a young Afro-American man who owned nothing but the clothes he wore and a truck. One with a high price, he sold his soul to get it. He lived in the present and didn’t believe that he would get old enough to pay the price. He ate what they managed to steal that day and fought with the weapons they created themselves. Every day the children risked their lives to fight vampires and demons, to keep the street a little bit safer. There was nobody who paid them, nobody who thanked them and nobody who forced them. Charles Gunn and his team just did it, they helped without any gain. Nobody in the city looked at them, not even the vampires wanted them. Gunn was the lowest citizen of LA, street trash. But he was heroic street trash, risking his life for a better society.
The contrast with his current boss can’t be bigger. Angel in his early twenties was a privileged white boy who lived a comfortable life while his father paid. Without a doubt the young Liam got the best education he could get, wore the nicest clothes and lived in a beautiful house. Doing something heroic would probably not come up in his head, he did spend the whole day drinking, gambling and having sex. I suspect that this has to do with him not liking how his future looks like, the idea he has to live the next 50 years in the cage of society. But instead of changing anything, he was throwing his life away, doing nothing for society.
Although in the very first episode with Gunn, we already learn two gigantic similarities between the two. Both stand outside society; Angel because he is a vampire (with a soul) and Gunn because he is street trash. And of course the way their only family (that mattered) died. Both had a little sister, a sister that was their only loved one. And both sisters are killed by a vampire on the start of their journey. And both brothers are the guilty ones. Angel is of course literal the murderer of his sister. But Gunn and the way he worked were the reason that the vampires could get his sister.
And on the end of the episode, Charles Gunn is alone and lacks direction. He knows what he wants (killing vampires) but doesn’t know how. Angel shares these feelings at that point in time, sure he has his friends, his guilt and the visions… but he doesn’t know yet why he fights. The most characters don’t care about that but Angel and Gunn share that question. And that is the core of their relation. It’s why Gunn wants to work for the vampire Angel. The mission, the hope that answers will be found on the big question; “Why do I fight?”
Season 2 & 3
Because Gunn’s old way of fighting, the way that killed his sister, looked a lot like heroic suicide. Or his sister is right; she thinks that Gunn loves the thrill, getting as close to death as possible. We never found out if she was right because right after that conversation she dies and Gunn changes his way of living and fighting. He hangs around in the office of AI more often, because Angel’s way of fighting interests him; to have a mission, to do something that matters. For more than a season this was not clear, we figured already out that he was not just doing it for the money or because he enjoyed the company of Angel, Wesley and Cordelia so much. But the actual reason we heard in season 3 when he states that it’s about the mission.
Around that time in the story, Gunn can profile himself easily. He is the cool, heroic warrior, in contrast to the broody vampire, the dusty watcher and the cheerleader. From the words he uses you can conclude that he feels better. Probably the same pride Lindsey had, the boy from the streets who is more of a hero than the posh rich kids. Gunn is the man, he gets the girl (Fred) and he is the guy who looks down upon Angel who recently made some huge mistakes and got his ex knocked up. He is the hero of this mission, not the clumsy Wes or the struggling Angel.
Season 4
The real problems start when that image is breaking. The others find out about him selling his soul for a car (remember that in Ats the soul is the centre, it’s the difference between Angel and Angelus, it’s what they try to safe, it’s what Lilah and Holland did sell to W&H.), the team falls apart and Gunn has trouble keeping the leftovers together while he gets fooled around by Connor. He feels stupid when he can’t understand Fred’s passion (physics on a very high level) and Wesley does. He kills a man, which leads to Fred leaving him because he is not the man she fell in love with. And at that point I think that Gunn also stopped loving the person he is, he is not the cool street kid who is so much better than the rich kids. He is a murderer like Angel, Wesley can get the girl and Gunn is not as smart as Angel, Fred or Wesley. In the meantime Connor and Groo kind of took over his role as Angel’s best warrior.
Season 5
And now Gunn’s story finally starts, he goes looking for a new place in the world. He wants to change who he is, play a different role. He agrees to have an implant with lots of knowledge, he starts wearing suits and using fancy words. Somewhere in the season, Angel says what we all think at that point; “I liked you more when you did hit things”. Gunn’s new image is incredible fake and disturbing, the man who once slept on the cold floor and fought vampires with self-made weapons is nowhere to be seen. Since the very first episode of season 5 we saw it all coming, Gunn’s hard lesson. Once more he learns that he is doing it wrong when he is responsible for the death of a loved one. His sister was sired and a vampire took over when he was too obsessed with hunting and now his corruption got Fred killed and Illyria took over Fred’s body. Just like in the past, Gunn is not blind for the wakeup call. He shakes of the fake image and when there is a situation where he can pay for his sins, he is ready to face those blows. He takes Lindsey’s place in hell, refuses to make deals with Hamilton to get out and he shows the big difference between Lawyer!Gunn and the man he is now. Where he placed people in danger just for the cool update or for his own name and power only some weeks ago, he is facing hell now and refuses to buy himself out if it costs the wellbeing of others. And he continues doing that in the last episodes of season 5 after Illyria saved him.
But the real conclusion after season 5 is that Gunn was looking for a mission, a reason to fight. But never found it, he tried to copy Angel’s mission but missed the point. When Fred died, he returned to the place he was when his sister died; guilt. A pattern we saw before with Angel, for a long time Angel was copying Buffy and fought because he felt guilty. Angel’s epiphany in season 2 is what changed everything; Angel found a reason to fight. He did share that with Kate but his friends were not interested in hearing Angel’s epiphany. I don’t believe that Wesley and Cordelia ever suffered from not hearing that, they were not that interested in the question “Why do I fight?” But Gunn asks the big question in NFA, it’s his last day and he is still searching for the bright moment Angel had in ‘Epiphany’. Gunn asks Anne the next question:
“What if I told you it doesn't help? What would you do if you found out that none of it matters? That it's all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive, and they will never let it get better down here. What would you do?”
And Anne answers that question with; “I'd get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here. Want to give me a hand?”
It’s what Angel once figured out; you shouldn’t do it for the big picture. Just keep on helping and do whatever you can do. Gunn did spend his last day on earth helping Anne, doing something small for the homeless children, the abused victims and the addicts. He takes care of the people outside society, the ones that are not seen by the normal people. The people Angel worried about in ‘In the Dark’ and doing what Angel’s reason to fight is; a little act of kindness. The very last episode and Gunn finally found his mission, one that equals Angel’s mission.
ATF
And then it happens; the most obvious link between Angel and Gunn; Gunn becomes a vampire. Soulless vampires are interesting material to look at when you want to learn more of the character. Once more we get a confirmation that Gunn is fascinated by being a hero and having a mission. He fools himself into thinking that the Powers that Be give him missions (instead of admitting that he simply stole that ability from a random demon). When Angel sees that picture of the AI team with Gunn’s head taped on Angel’s body, he remarks that Gunn wants to kill him but also wants him to be proud of Gunn. Sure a vampire twists the feelings of the person he once was, but it’s clear that Gunn is holding on to Angel. Angel is his hero but also his idol, the person he wants to be, only better. Maybe that is just the vampire talking, but it’s also possible that Gunn still feels that Angel is unworthy of his mission, of being a hero due his past as Angelus and all the mistakes Angel makes. When LA is back to normal and Gunn is no longer a vampire, Angel offers to help Gunn. Especially after Gunn’s time as a vampire, these two have more in common than you would have thought when they met 5 years ago.
And with Kate and Connor having the same mission statement as Angel and Gunn, the future of AI seems to be one of little acts of kindness and helping the people nobody wants to see. | |
|