early morning fanish musings

Hm.

Possibly/probably JW will give some sort of explanation during the second half of S5 that I haven't seen yet, but at this point I'm a little confused about what happened at the end of S4, when Angel made the deal with W&H in order to assure Connor a normal, happy life: Apparently only memories were modified, and the sequence of time and events remained the same, because Angel at least remembers what happened. However, this begs the question, if none of the others remember Connor, what did happen during the last year, and how did it happen, as far as they're concerned? It doesn't make that much of a difference for Fred or Gunn, but it makes all the difference for Wesley. There is no noticeable break in his character from S3/S4 to S5; the Wesley seen in Lineage only emerged during the darkness of that time and wouldn't have been possible otherwise - does or doesn't he remember how he turned into this man he became? How can he even be this man without the memories? Apparently the thing with Lilah happened (more or less) exactly as shown during S4 (Lineage, Wesley to his father, 'The last girl I was with I had to chop into little tiny pieces because a higher power saw fit to stab her in the neck.'; Unleashed: 'but my guests have paid a high price... some higher than others.', and the cut to Wesley's face suggests that this line (which feels a little forced in any case) isn't coincidence and that Wesley does remember the context Angel said these words to him) but how, in his (modified) memory, did he end up with Lilah in the first place, if not for kidnapping Connor and the ensuing events? Does he remember Angel trying to kill him and Fred and Gunn rejecting him, the summer with Justine in his closet, rescuing Angel, the slow way back into the group? Did these things happen in another context, for another reason?


I have to admit the full implications of this occurred to me only when Eve said 'Maybe Wesley knew what he was doing after all. Even if he doesn't remember any of it.', and it struck me as kind of sad, almost cruel, to have gone through all this, only to have it erased from your memory. It's one thing for Connor, who never had a chance from the beginning, who was already psychotic when he stumbled through the portal in S3 and fucked up beyond the help of anyone by the end of S4, but Wesley deserves to have the memories of this time, they're part of who he is, after all - not only the suffering, but that he made it through it; that he survived and made the right decisions in the end, despite the fact that no one made it easy for him. Not to mention that taking these memories is also taking a major part of the development of his friendship with Angel.



Otherwise, major fanish love. As in, five episodes per evening fanish love. [::blush::] There are still great emotional moments, but there's also great humour, and it feels good to be able to laugh again after all the deadly seriousness and big drama & tragedy of S 3/4.