Questions, Ponders, and Nit Picks

[samsmom]

His vampy senses are sort of 'in and out', aren't they?

I mean, if Spike can suss out Buffy's location in s7 just with his smell, at least half an hour after she left the house, you'd think Angel, who's in love with Cordelia and so concerned with her, would be able to smell the chemical differences with her dying.

[Livvie]

Or you know, smell when she has been taken over by a power that was or had a life growing inside of her. Cause two heartbeats, duurrr.

I realize they had to do the inconsistencies for the sake of the story but come on, then just don't make his senses so good rather than only good when you need to make a joke.

[samsmom]

It's an example of the writers having the character serve the story rather than the other way around. Angel's only a vampire when it suits them, Angel only craves human blood when it serves the story of Wesley kidnapping Angel's son. The rest of the time, it might as well just be his drink of choice, for all the craving you see in five years.

[Angela]

Not that I would intentionally take up for this show's writers or their inconsistencies, but I thought the human blood thing was pretty consistent. In Disharmony, you can tell that Angel really would probably prefer the taste of human blood when Harmony was describing how much she missed it. And the whole point of them having W&H introduce the taste of human blood slowly was to build up Angel's craving of it. If they'd poured him a glass of it, he would have known instantly. Instead they slowly spiked his pig's blood with it to build up the fervor, no?

[samsmom]

Yes, very right.

I guess what I'm saying is how vaguely dissatisfied I was during the show's run that his craving for human blood wasn't part of the main focus of *who* and *what* Angel was. That part in Disharmony was wonderful, but why not have more of those moments? He worked with a woman with a working uterus. Why not have a couple lines of dialogue or maybe a look that showed how aware he was of her cycles? What about all those times all them would come back bloodied and bruised from fighting the lurking evil? Would it have hurt to show him having to go off on his own, after a lingering look at the blood?

I loved a big portion of the show, especially the first two and a half seasons, but there were times when you could forget Angel was a vampire.

[DamnSkippy]

Originally Posted by Angela

Not that I would intentionally take up for this show's writers or their inconsistencies, but I thought the human blood thing was pretty consistent. In Disharmony, you can tell that Angel really would probably prefer the taste of human blood when Harmony was describing how much she missed it. And the whole point of them having W&H introduce the taste of human blood slowly was to build up Angel's craving of it. If they'd poured him a glass of it, he would have known instantly. Instead they slowly spiked his pig's blood with it to build up the fervor, no?

Yes, they used it to build up the fervor, but they "used it" to serve the plot. It was rare that there was any mention or visual indication that Angel craved human blood as he described to Harmony. For example, in S1 and S2 when Cordy hands him his blood, there's nothing in his reaction to make it seem like the pig's blood (or blood in general) is anything more than a glass of refreshing ice tea. In City Of, he yells at the girl in the alley to leave because she's bleeding and he's vamped out and he's not sure he can control himself in the presence of it. But I think that was the last time we see that kind of self-control/hunger until the spiked blood in S3. Then it goes away again.

I'm not saying it should have been evident in every show that he craved it because that would have gotten old, but when the blood was around him, it would have been nice to see that struggle.

ETA: Xposted with Sam. What she said.

[Syn]

Let's not forget the lovely brooding scene at the end of "The Shroud of Rahmon", after Angel bit Kate and drank her blood. You could tell how much he wanted more, how the taste was eating at him--and I'm not entirely sure he was thinking about biting Kate at that point. I think he was thinking about Darla. And I think it was subtly carried through to the Darla arc. Here is Darla, human and dying, and Angel could feed off of her and remake her, satisfying two carnal desires that he felt but didn't want to acknowledge.

Or maybe I'm just looking too deeply into it.

[samsmom]

I see what you're saying, and I sort of agree. Much as I loathe to see his attention anywhere but on Cordelia, I think all the Darla dreams and seeing her again reawoke a side to him that he'd spent some time burying in order to be around humans to the extent that he was -the erotic, blood-lusting vampire that took what he wanted. I think that's why he nuzzled Cordelia. Not so much because of Darla but because his carnal side was re-emerging.

But again, after that scene with him trying not to remember how Kate's blood tasted, did we see any more signs of him suppressing the urge to drink from humans?

[Angela]

So we've got at least 4 mentions in multiple seasons that Angel craved human blood, right? Heck, for the AtS PTBs that's practically written in stone, especially given the short shrift so many other supposedly significant occurrences that were completely forgotten.

(Just for the record, while I know that technically Angel would probably have recognized Cordelia was a woman, there are some things I really *really* don't want to see on screen. Really. )

[samsmom]

Originally Posted by Angela

(Just for the record, while I know that technically Angel would probably have recognized Cordelia was a woman, there are some things I really *really* don't want to see on screen. Really. )

LOL!

Okay, maybe that would have been a bit much on the vamp meter.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by samsmom

Okay, maybe that would have been a bit much on the vamp meter.

I can say with some certainty that it would have been a bit much on the Angela meter.

[tojoson]

OFFSPRING

In the end, when Sahjhan is releasing Holtz from the statue.

Sahjhan wanted Holtz to do his work, because he couldn't touch anything, or be touched here, (revealed later in the series), BUT he was shown holding a cigarette, and wearing a watch, and when Holtz was kneeling on the ground, Sahjhan put his hand on his shoulder.

[LisaMarie514]

okay I have one...

how the heck did Groo jump from Pylea back to Los Angeles as they never gave any indication he knew how to read...and where did he go when Cordy dumped him?

(Of course the real question is why did they have to mess up the whole fricken story and bring the big lug back in the first place???)

[SlytherinAngelic]

Interesting questions, but since I hate Groo with a passion, I'm attempting to hold back that hatred. Maybe... he has a higher IQ level than a toddler, a fact that still shocks me, so maybe thats how he knows how to read or he got someone else to create a portal for him. And maybe he went back to Pylea by someone else creating a portal for him.

[samsmom]

Originally Posted by LisaMarie514

(Of course the real question is why did they have to mess up the whole fricken story and bring the big lug back in the first place???)

OMG, LisaMarie, the ANGST of course. Why do an adult story about two adults trying work out the mechanics of complicated relationship when Joss can just redo the teenage triangle angst o' rama (so popular on soap operas) that allows Angel to behave like a seventeen year old instead of someone who's seen a bicenntenial? /sarcasm