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selenakSo, the threatened big post of Connor love. Aka: what ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
selenak sees in the hellspawn. All quotes courtesy of the Buffy Dialoge Database.
Firstly, if you had told me ca middle of season 3 that Connor would become my other favourite character on AtS - after Darla - I would have been massively surprised. Because the entire baby storyline was one of the reasons, back then, why I grew disenchanted with the show and started to resent the third season. Or rather: I was okay with the baby right until it got born - Darla's death, as mentioned earlier, was a suitably epic and moving conclusion to her storyline - but then it seemed Angel the show had turned into a whacky sitcom about Angel the vampire Dad. The fact that they knocked us over the head with how wonderful and suitable Angel and Cordelia were for each other every other second and that I wasn't interested in the Fred/Gunn/Wesley triangle didn't help, either. And let's not mention the entire St. Cordy desaster. By the end of Provider, I was ready to throw things at the tv, except when Holtz and Justine were on screen, who seemed to have wandered in from another show entirely. Then of course we got Loyalty and Sleep Tight, and the fantastic Wesley storyline, and I could see how the previous ubercuteness of Angel & baby Connor was justified, but I still wasn't emotionally invested in Connor himself.
This changed with A New World.
Whoever cast Vincent Kartheiser as teenage Connor deserves my eternal gratitude. I happen to think the writing for Connor was good throughout the show, but VK didn't just sell it, he took it to another level, as the best actors on Joss' shows are wont to do. What struck me at first was that they actually picked someone who looked as if he could be the child of David Boreanaz and Julie Benz - he shares traits with both of them, and does a great thing with the body language resembling Angel's - but that soon became the least impressive thing. Connor's arrival and initial fight against Angel quickly get the superpowers, bent on killing his biological father point across; then the Sunny sequence allows us to see Connor from another side. His reaction to observing somene being bullied and abused is to help this person. (We also get to see Connor is ruthless with people other than Angel, with his penchant for slicing off the drug dealer's ear; this is not a nice boy.) The shy, grateful way he responds to her friendly overtures afterwards showcase he has a gentle side, very capable of affection. (Oh, and that he's at first puzzled by the kiss which in all likelihood is the first he ever got - I don't think Holtz, 18th-century-man that he was, ever kissed him - and then responds would indicate he has inherited something of his parents' sensual nature.) Then, after Connor finds Sunny dead, comes the scene which didn't just seal the Connor love for me but made me reconnect with Angel the character for the first time since season 2's Epiphany: the second father-son encounter.
I feel for both of them each time I watch that, and discover new aspects, like this time that Connor doesn't attack Angel for a good long while here, probably both because he's distracted due to finding the drug dealer who he knows is responsible for Sunny's death and because Angel this time starts by giving him orders and pressing him against walls, and Connor, raised by Daniel Holtz, responds to orders. He also always has an easier time to connect with Angel physically; both in the fighting against and the fighting with him against someone else sense. This second encounter sets a pattern there. And it shows how deeply Connor can hurt Angel, from "my name is Stephen" onwards. The "show me your true face!" demands make the scenes with baby Connor being comforted by Angel going into game face all incredibly poignant all of a sudden. And acting wise, DB has an intensity and chemistry in his scenes with VK which he has with few of his fellow co-stars.
Asashylogic put it recently, there was no way that Connor, child raised in a hell dimension on a daily diet of demon fighting and being told his purpose in life was to avenge his biological parents' wrongs, would turn out stable. What I find amazing is that he has something other than hate in him, and can respond to Angel in more than one way at all. This second encounter ends with Angel yelling at him to leave and getting shot for his trouble, and Connor - not leaving, but staring at Angel in disbelief. Angel has to push him through the window. This is where Connor starts to doubt, something he won't forgive himself for only a day later.
Benediction presents us with Connor's other father, the one who raised him. The scenes between Connor and Holtz further cemented my affection for the character, even before the final twist, because they made the dilemma he was to be in clear already. He loves Holtz. He comes across as an obedient, affectionate son with him, and the eerie recital in between their conversation gives you an idea of what he must have heard day in, day out throughout his childhood:
HOLTZ: I've always told you the truth about what you're parents were, how you and I came to be together.
CONNOR: God gave me to you.
HOLTZ: Yes. God delivered me to you, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children.
CONNOR: Because he took them from you.
HOLTZ: That's right.
There was no way in which Connor could have loved one father without betraying the other. He obviously is ashamed of having had non-hostile feelings during his second and third encounter with Angel - the third one ending with Connor actually smiling and laughing when sparring with Angel, and unbeknowest to him being observed by Holtz - and tries to hide them, assuring Holtz he still hates Angel completley. Which is when Holtz makes his final gambit. Sending Connor to Angel, then getting himself killed by Justine in a manner that frames Angel ensures not just that Connor will actually continue to hate Angel and love Holtz but that Connor will blame himself for having responded to Angel earlier.
"Or maybe vengeance is what I do now," Holtz tells Angel, "giving back what I took," and Angel utterly misses the significance of this. As Tim Minear said, Holtz does not lie in this episode. He just uses the truth in an economical way. Does he love Connor, as he tells Justine? Probably yes. As a cut line in another Minear script, Home, says, he just doesn't love him more than he hates Angel, and so he ensures that Connor's love for him will make Connor into the ultimate weapon.
The revenge Connor takes for the presumed murder of his father ironically is something that marks him entirely as the child of his biological parents. Locking Angel in a box under the sea for all eternity (as he thinks) is the kind of thing Darla or Angel himself would have done. (For canon proof of this on Angel's behalf, see season 5 and Hellbent.) And the smile when he comes back to the Hyperion, bent on deceiving Angel into showing him his fighting moves, saying "let's give it a try"? Utterly a Darla smile. I don't love Connor just because of what was done to him or his good sides. What makes him such a compelling character to me are his dark sides as well, and they are certainly on display in Tomorrow after he has beheaded and burned Holtz.
(Flippant sidenote: Connor kissing dead Holtz on the forehead, promising to atone for having been deceived, and then beheading him makes it clear why he doesn't understand why on Earth Wesley takes so long with Lilah in Salvage.*g*)
In the fanfic written between seasons 3 and 4, everyone assumed Connor would either stay with Justine or be on his lonesome. Nobody anticipated what actually happened; that Connor would be staying with Fred and Gunn at the Hyperion. Possibly because Wesley captured Justine pretty soon after Angel's dissappearance, but I think the fact Connor did stay with them tells us more than that. He had lost both the one person he had loved and his one biological tie to the world, the later due to his own machinations; this didn't lessen the need for human company or something resembling family. When we meet Connor again in Deep Down after three months with Fred and Gunn, he's resembles nobody as much as Functional!Connor as we meet him in Origin. "The thing with the axe was cool" and the grin is mirrored by Mindwiped!Connor's delighted "That was awesome!" in the later episode. Of course, this version of Connor still has his quasi-parricidal secret buried under the sea and is willing to stake vampires who could reveal it (and to cut himself so Fred and Gunn won't suspect), but other than that? He's as normal a teenager as Connor ever gets to be pre-mindwipe, bratty to Gunn on occasion, but not over the top so. And no, I don't see it as sociopathic. As far as Connor is concerned, he has avenged the murder of his father on the monster who did it, and is now starting a new life.
Of course, Fred and Gunn don't see it that way once they get the happy news from Wesley. "He's Angel's son," Fred had said earlier to Gunn, "that's all that matters." And here we have a quintessential problem. For starters, Connor isn't just Angel's son. He's Holtz' son; he's Darla's son. Which everybody tends to ignore. Secondly, Fred caring for Connor because he's Angel's son, not because he's himself was bound to get her dissapointed even if he hadn't buried his father under the sea. It also doesn't help with Connor's problem of seeing himself worthy of any affection. Note that Fred using the taser on him is a shock (because he hadn't known she knew), but not really a surprise in the sense of him not having expected the treatment.
FRED: I would have done anything for him. Now all I wanna do is hurt him.
CONNOR: (overhearing) Go ahead. Hurt me some more, Fred.
FRED: Shut up!
CONNOR: You think I care? You get used to it.
FRED: You don't feel anything, do you? There's nothing inside.
CONNOR: Why don't you open me up and find out.
FRED: How could you do that to your father?
CONNOR: That thing is not my father.
I never can make up my mind during that scene if this is just bravado or whether he does want her to punish him. One thing I'm sure about, he's not kidding about being used to being hurt, and I don't think he's just referring to fights with Quor'toth demons. As we later find out, Holtz' methods of child raising included trying Connor to a tree at age 5 or so and leaving him on his own, challenging Connor get free himself from the ties and track down Holtz (which he "only" needed five days for). And then there was the precedent of Justine being taught patience by Holtz plunging a dagger in her hand.
Angel's "Daddy has not finished talking" scene is terrific afterwards. And fatal. From one pov, Angel did the right thing - Connor needed to be punished for what he did. It was tough love. From another pov, it was a disaster, because it seemingly negated what Angel had told Connor during the entrapment, that he didn't blame him and still loved him. One thing Connor is regularly blamed for is not recognizing that Angel loves him until it is too late, but aside from the entire being raised on the conviction that Angel was the worst thing ever factor, can we say Angel sends mixed signals? "I love you - now get out" being one of them. The irony is that Connor does internalize the entire speech about the harshness of the world and its need for champions Angel gives here; he can still recite it in Inside Out. He believes Angel this time. About ethics at any rate. He believes him enough to feel utterly betrayed when it appears Angel had been lying.
The glimpses we get of Connor on his own in the next few episodes show us him fighting vampires and saving people. As opposed to Sunny, the family he saves in Slouching towards Bethlehem does not respond with friendliness but is entirely creeped out by him. Connor returning to the Hyperion is obviously triggered by the desire to go to the only thing that passes for family in his knowledge, even if just to observe (I don't think he intended to make his presence known to Angel, Fred or Gunn), and there he finds someone else who needs his help, whom he can save, and who, like Sunny, wants to be his friend afterwards. Cordelia.
Much like the Sunny sequence in A New World was the counterpoint to the explosive mixture of hate, aggression and unwilling curiosity in the Angel encounter, Connor's early scenes with Cordelia serve a similar purpose. For the most part, they show Connor at his best. Yes, hormones come into play soon, but originally he responds to her distress and sadness. He doesn't lie to her, or tries to present himself in a better light. He tells her what he has done. And he tries to comfort her and be there for her, not just by fighting whoever attacks her but by helping her to regain her confidence. Not until Cordelia chooses to stay with him instead of returning with Angel - which Connor clearly hadn't expected - does a competitiveness with his father enter the picture when it comes to his developing feelings for Cordelia. (You can see the exact moment this occurs to Connor, because VK plays it so well.) Now because of Cordelia's relationship with Angel and the fact she knew Connor as a baby, the fandom at large responded to the scenes between Connor and Cordelia with a big "ewww" long before it was revealed Cordelia was possessed. As for me, I found (and still find) them moving, and they made me love Connor even more. There is nothing wrong or twisted from his side of the equation in falling for the beautiful woman who becomes his first real friend (and who, as opposed to Fred and Gunn, does not reject him after hearing what he has done). He is gentle and considerate when with Cordelia, and smitten as he is, still remains capable of putting her welfare before his own gratification. Hence, in Apocalypse, Nowish, his going to Angel - a definite first on Connor's part - begging him to come to Cordelia and talk to her, despite his awareness Cordy has feelings for Angel. What Connor feels for Cordelia will be used as a weapon by her possessed self; that doesn't mean said feelings - neither the sexual desire nor the tenderness and respect - by themselves are something perverse or something that should be held against him.
Of course, Cordelia isn't exactly herself. And becomes less herself the more the season progresses. But this is something not even her friends, who as opposed to Connor knew her before, notice. Connor reacts to the manipulation, the constant (literal) switch between Angel and him, her moving from Hyperion to his place and back, as expected; it heightens his rivalry with his father. But he's still capable of responding to Angel in a non-hostile manner as well. They definitely have a moment after their fight in Spin the Bottle, and in Habeas Corpus, Connor teases Angel for the first time (about the zombies; Connor in season 4 only rarely gets to display humour, but he does on occasion, and it's something post-mindwipe-Connor does far more often, for obvious reasons), and afterwards, when they're back the hotel, actually reaches out towards him. Literary. Connor makes a step towardas Angel, saying "Dad", Angel turns away from him, goes in his office and tells Cordelia to take her new boyfriend and get out of there. This second time Angel kicks him out is possibly even more fatal than the first, because the first time, the "punishment" concept was understandable to Connor. This second time, though? Not so much. And it pretty much settles Cordelia as the only reliable source of affection, the only one to believe in, for him.
Which doesn't mean the need for his father, surpressed and twisted as it is, ever lessens. It's there in Connor finding the dead family of priestesses with the others, reading the word "Daddy", and despite all the death he has seen throwing up, in Long Day's Journey into the Night (O'Neill, with his love-hate family relationships, would have loved Angel and Connor). It's there in my personal highlight of the episode Soulless, the encounter between Connor and Angelus. Again, VK and DB are both on top of their game, and the scene just bristles with intensity. Angelus is of course the version of his biological father Connor has been taught most about. So it's not surprising he needs to see him for himself. (Connor is the only one who goes into the basement without any pretense or excuse.) Angelus, master of verbal warfare, evokes a whole different degree of verbal viciousness from Connor in response. When Connor wants to insult Angel post-Deep Down, it usually goes along the teenage lines of "you are the reason my life sucks" in Awakening. With Angelus, it goes like this:
A: Is that my shirt?
C: Not anymore.
A: Looks good on you.
C: So did Cordy.
A: She looks good on everybody.
They each manage to suprise the other. Note that Connor does not react to Angelus "Greek play" taunt about Cordelia. For one thing, I doubt Connor has read Sophocles or Freud, and for another, he has no memories of Cordelia as a mother figure. But he does react, stricken and strongly, when Angelus speaks about his real mother, Darla, and uses her and Holtz both:
ANGELUS: Kind of unnecessary, don't you think? I mean, with your track-record, I'll be staking myself by the end of the day.
CONNOR: It's fine by me.
ANGELUS: Darla felt the same way. It made her sick, you squirming inside her. So, she jammed a stake in her own heart, just so she wouldn't have to hear your first whiny breath.
CONNOR: You don't know anything!
ANGELUS: Then there was Holtz. You disappointed him so much that he stabbed himself in the neck.
CONNOR: (angry) My fa— (catches himself) Holtz was a good man. All he ever wanted was for you to get the punishment you deserve. And you will.
He lies with the truth, Cordelia says about Angelus. And Connor believes him. On both counts. Presumably nobody has ever bothered to explain the manner of Darla's death to Connor, or say anything about Darla in general (other than Holtz, that is), and that backfires badly. There is no reason now not to believe Angelus, and both in Inside Out and in Home, we see Connor has become convinced his mother hated him. That he's responsible for the death of the death of his mother and other father both. The degree of self-loathing that takes is another thing that breaks my heart about Connor. And speaking of self-loathing, here is the one point where Connor manages to surprise Angelus:
CONNOR: (...) The truth is, Angel's just something that you're forced to wear. You're my real father.
Bear in mind here that Angelus in Connor's belief system is the worst monster that ever existed. It's a self accusation at the same time. Connor, walking towards Angelus at the end of this scene, is responding to the "don't dissapoint Daddy" taunt, but what does he really want from him at this point? A fight? Death? Or some more twisted kind of acknowledgement?
(Sidenote: that scene has a spectacular Bad Wrong vibe about it, if you ask me. Since it's something that comes up in fanfic on occasion - I think Angel would rather castrate himself than touch Connor in a non-paternal way. But Angelus, he whom Drusilla calls Daddy? Bad. Wrong.)
The entire Angelus interlude not only distracts the group from suspecting Cordelia, thus buying Jasmine time to gestate inside her, but further fortifies Connor's isolation from the group and exlusive concentration on Cordelia. And I don't think Connor was already unreachable at that point. When Faith dresses him down, he doesn't respond with a grudge but with admiration; he's obviously impressed by her. As the two have more than one thing in common (I'll get to that), it's a pity she doesn't stay around. Cordelia by this time is almost entirely taken over and busy doing her stint as an evil mastermind to enable Jasmine's birth. And yet there are moments between her and Connor which either are flashes of the Cordy of old - as when she teases him about the game face he makes in front of the mirror, or serve that same function their early scenes did, i.e. highlight Connor's capacity for love. Watching him doing that quintessential father gesture after Cordelia shows him how, feeling the movement of his child inside Cordelia's belly, being scared and delighted by this, sort of sums up this part of the tragedy for me. Yes, this is the big bad of the arc they are expecting, and he's falling further all the time. But he's also a child who is expecting another child, and so desperate for this last promise of a family to be true.
Possessed!Cordy could not have asked for a better present than no one in the group deigning to inform Connor about their suspicion of her in Players. Thus, he finds the entire bunch seemingly set on killing a pregnant Cordelia for no reason anyone has given him, saves her, and by the end of the day makes his fatal, fatal choice. Just that there is no misunderstanding: no matter the circumstances, background, etc., I do hold Connor fully responsible for the death of the young girl dressed in white. I also happen to think that both the writing and the acting show us how he got there, and why he makes that choice.
DARLA: They're scared because of what you've done, not because of what you are.
CONNOR: They wanted to kill me when I was still inside of you.
DARLA: But that changed when they saw you, held you in their arms, felt the warmth of your skin, the goodness in your heart.
CONNOR: And it will happen again when they hold my child. It's the only way.
DARLA: You have a choice, Connor. That is something more precious then you'll ever know.
CONNOR: What choice? They're hunting us like animals!
DARLA: Because you're acting like one. As a vampire I killed without mercy or remorse because I didn't have a soul. What's your excuse?
CONNOR: You think I wanna do this?
DARLA: Then don't.
CONNOR: (nearly in tears) I have to.
When Connor, after nearly letting the girl go, returns to his original choice and drags her to her death, he knows that he's helping commit murder. Just as surely as, say, Angel does when locking fifteen to twenty lawyers in a room for Darla or Drusilla, or Faith does when she kills a professor because the Mayor told her to (asked why, she says she has no idea). As with the other characters, I see it both as something they have to atone for and which I wish they hadn't done but which makes storytelling sense and illustrates how far they were gone at that point. (Faith further than Connor, as Connor knows why he kills/helps killing, but that doesn't make the murder less murder.) All of which doesn't mean I can't feel pity as well as horror. This is what tragedy is defined by. Ask Aristotle.
When Jasmine is born, we're not told Connor isn't under her sway the same anyone else is right away, but there are early signs to make an educated guess. Some subtle ones (it's Angel who actually kneels down first; Connor then follows suit), some larger ones. While Wesley and Gunn have no problem happily deciding Fred (whom they loved) deserves to die once Fred turns against Jasmine, Connor hasn't lost his awareness that he did things that do not predestine him for universal bliss:
JASMINE: You're troubled. Come in, Connor. Tell me what's bothering you.
CONNOR: I— I can't.
JASMINE: Of course you can. You can tell me anything.
CONNOR: Cordelia used to say that to me. It's just—having you here, I finally know why I was created. For you—to help bring you here.
JASMINE: That and so much more.
CONNOR: But, I don't deserve—I shouldn't be so happy. I've done things. I betrayed my Dad, hurt people...
JASMINE: I know... all of it. I've watched you—not just these past days—but all your life and before. Connor, you deserve all the happiness I can bring you.
Connor helping Jasmine voluntarily as opposed to everyone else highlights both sides of his nature, again. He finds out she eats people and accepts that, which is on a par with Faith being willing to help the Mayor consume Sunnydale High on his Ascension. The abdication of moral responsibility in trade for affection from a beloved person, or the conviction that anything that beloved person wants makes it right. (The Mayor? Would have loved Jasmine and her idea of how to create world peace.)
On the other hand, Connor's relationship with Jasmine also shows his capacity for love, again. He sees her as she truly is, and it doesn't matter; she is his daughter. He knows she uses him as an instrument, but that, too, is okay, because so did the other people he loved, Holtz and Cordelia. And because of Jasmine's effect on everyone else, he finally permits himself showing affection for Angel. Scenes like Connor telling Angel not to be so hard on himself or singing Jasmine to the tune of Mandy with him take on a new significance once we know Connor is not under the influence during that time. What Jasmine offers him isn't just her own love and the idea that his life had a purpose, the chance to enable world peace, but a way to live with his biological father. The look of utter betrayal at Angel once Connor realizes what happened in Magic Bullet is another example of VK adding even more impact to a scene with his acting, and the reason why instead of just feeling relieved Fred managed to free Angel from the brainwashing I feel incredibly sad.
This scene also marks the end of the interlude where we saw Connor smiling and more or less happy (another clue, pre-revelation, that he's not in Jasmine's thrall). Jasmine thinks it's because he hasn't surrendered his pain to her entirely, and the scene in which she makes him do this after healing him in its mixture of creepiness and tenderness sums up their relationship. Note that Connor, when embracing Jasmine, still doesn't smile, but she doesn't see it, only we and the camera do.
When Cordelia is hidden elsewhere, Connor starts to search for her. At this point, he certainly has crossed the line to "raging psychopath" (tm Cyvus Veil, sorceror), as evidenced by the (admittedly funny in the middle of all the angst) "tell me and I'll crush your windpipe" "you mean "or", don't you? Don't you?" dialogue. Was he still savagable? Hm. Perhaps the question, if you don't like Connor, is "was he worth bothering to save?" or "does he show any signs of being redeemable?" He certainly still was aware of right and wrong. In the first of the two Peace Out scenes which make me whimper each time, we finally get a big outburst on what goes on inside him:
CONNOR: I wanted to see you again. I had to, to know that you're still here... with me. I'm sorry I haven't— It's started, Cordy. The new beginning. Just wish you'd wake up and see it. Just what you wanted. I mean... it is what you wanted, right? Why you came to me? You know...what this was all about? Protecting our baby—Jasmine—so she can...be, and make this world the... the kind of place you wanted. And it is better. Not harsh and cruel—the way that Angel likes it so he has a reason to fight. (angrily) 'Cause you know that's what he's about, him and the others. Finding reasons to fight. Like that's what gives their lives any meaning. The only damn thing! (punches the lectern, smashing it) I'm not like them. I just... I want to stop. Stop fighting. I just want to rest. God, I want to rest. But I can't. (teary) It's not working, Cordy. I tried. I tried to believe. I wanted it. Went along with the... the flow. Jasmine, she's...she's bringing peace to everyone, purging all of their hate and anger. But not me. Not me! I know she's a lie. Jasmine. My whole life's been built on them. I just... I guess I thought this one was better than the others.
Why you came to me. He doesn't believe any longer that Cordelia came to him because she loved him. He certainly doesn't believe anyone else loves him. What Connor did during the last third of the season, the crimes he committed, they weren't to get himself something. What did he personally gain? Family, for a brief time, and then it started to fall apart again. A taste of a better, peaceful world, but it was one he could only see, not participate in, as his intact free will also ensured he would not feel the Jasmine bliss. This does not make the death(s) he caused less criminal, but I think it does put him in another category than the Wolfram and Hart lawyers, who do what they do for power, or Angelus, who gets off on the pain he causes, or for that matter Holtz, who in the end chose vengeance as his ultimate and only purpose. And yes, it makes him redeemable.
When Jasmine, stripped of her power to enthrall and experiencing universal hate and rejection, calls for him - "Father, I need you. Help me. Please" - Connor starts running, without hesitation. Season 4 is very much a tragedy of fathers and children, and the power of parental love. Obviously Angel's love for Connor, but also Connor's love for Jasmine. Whyever you think he does what he does when he finds her about to kill Angel, I think there is no doubt that he means what he says:
JASMINE: Connor, I still have you. Angel's ruined everything. But he can't defeat both of us. You still believe in me, don't you? You still love me?
CONNOR: Yes.
Killing someone you love is the cruelest thing the Jossverse can do to its characters, and it changes them forever. Buffy has to do it to Angel in Becoming, and it's immaterial that he later returns from the hell dimension she sends him to. Holtz does it to his turned little daughter Sarah. Later, he makes Justine do it to him, no matter how she cries and pleads with him not to. Angel will do it to Connor, soon, in a manner of speaking. And here, Connor does it to Jasmine.
The utter brokenness of Connor afterwards still permits him to save the cop about to commit suicide in Home. The fact that Connor, in this state, still has it in him to care about helping a stranger tells me he's not completely lost. Of course, this isn't the end of the scene. The cop makes the mistake of mentioning his family. And this, not Jasmine's death, but this point, is where Connor snaps and loses it entirely. The cop being revealed as a parent who was about to commit suicide - like Holtz, like Darla - was just an unfortunate coincidence, but it brings forth an outburst of rage and violence that we never saw him display against a human being before. And the next thing we hear about him is that he is about to blow himself and a lot of innocent bystanders up in a mall.
(BTW, obvious plot hole - how on earth has Connor learned to use explosives?)
yhlee, in her great Connor, Angel, Wesley and Darla vid paralleled this via cross cutting with Angel losing it and leaving everyone in Holland Manners' wine cellar to be eaten. ashylogic drew another parallel, to Faith in Five by Five, who in the process of seeking death and making Angel kill her hurt (and tortured, in the case of Wesley) a lot of people to achieve this. But Connor is Angel's son, and so he reacts differently as he did with Faith. What would have happened if Angel had after saving the innocent bystanders led Connor back the Hyperion? Who knows. Connor and Faith might have parallels, but they are two different people. Maybe Connor would have gone the way Faith did - maybe this would have been the turning point for him, and he would have started the road to atonment by accepting responsibility for his past. Or maybe he would have found another method to kill himself. We don't know. We do know that Angel didn't want to take the risk. He made his Faustian pact with Wolfram & Hart to save his son before going into the mall.
ANGEL: Connor... you have to believe that there are people who love you.
CONNOR: Jasmine believed you when you said you loved her, but it was all a lie.
ANGEL: Jasmine was the lie.
CONNOR: (yelling) No! She knew if you found out who she really was that you'd turn against her, and she was right. That's just what happened. People like you. People like this. None of you deserve what she could give you. (sighs) She wanted to give you everything.
ANGEL: I know how that feels. 'Cause I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over.
CONNOR: We can't start over.
ANGEL: We can. I mean, we can change things.
CONNOR: There's only one thing that ever changes anything... and that's death. Everything else is just a lie. (cries) You can't be saved by a lie. You can't be saved at all.
(...)
ANGEL: I really do love you, Connor.
CONNOR: So what are you gonna do about it?
ANGEL: Prove it.
And he does. Connor, when we see him next, in the final scene of the season which echoes the very first scene in Deep Down, has no memories of what happened and is reconstructed from scratch. It's a wonderful, terrible thing. In essence, Angel has done what Jasmine did to her followers, his own words about free will notwithstanding, and he did it to save his son. Which left the question hanging for the fifth season: can you be saved by a lie, after all?
When I finished season 4, I had no idea whether or not we would see Connor again. I hoped so, but I had no way of knowing. If there hadn't been a fifth season, however, I don't think I would have felt cheated in regards to Connor's storyline. I would have hoped he would one day remember again, since I do believe that in the long term, he needed to confront what he had done, but I would also have thought that the mercy granted to him by Angel's fatal deal was just that, mercy. And as Connor is a character I love, who had been battered, twisted and broken throughout his previous existence, I would have concluded that yes, he should have that mercy.
But we got season 5. About which I've written elsewhere at length, including how the theme of Connor creeps up again and again, so I'll concentrate on his two actual appearances.
In Origin, we get presented with the result of Angel's mindwipe in a more thorough manner than we did at the end of Home. Mindwiped Connor gets along famously with his parents, thinks Angel is the epitome of cool, and displays a deadpan sense of humour and knack for teasing Angel. In short, he is the ideal son Angel wanted. (Even though he still likes strong women older than him, and really, Angel, who are you to talk?) There are subtle echoes of the earlier version - as I said, his "awesome!" reaction mirrors "that was cool!" in Deep Down, he is extremely protective of his family and ready to kill someone for them, with no other reason given than that this will stop someone else from threatening them (for all Functional!Connor knows, Sahjahn is as innocent as the girl in white), and of course Veil neatly illustrates by the little example of a fake memory he recites how he must have worked - Mindwiped!Connor remembers being lost in a supermarket at age five, not tied to a tree deliberately by his father, and he remembers being found again by his parents and swept in to the arms of his mother, not needing five days to track down his father. It probably really is Connor as he would have been without the childhood from hell.
And then the Orlon window breaks, and his memories return.
It's a great bit of physical acting (again) by VK, because you see the difference at once, and of course Sahjahn promptly gets dispatched with. At which point Connor has a choice. Between the old self and the new. His immediate choice is to drop the bloody axe, the symbol of the death and violence that marked his real life, and tell Angel that this wasn't for him. He does not tell Angel, yet, that his memories have returned, but he gives him a hint and the one thing nobody else could offer Angel throughout the season - absolution. Tone subtly changing from the way he talks post-mindwipe to the earlier season 4 tones, he ends his goodbye scene with:
CONNOR: You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
It's a moment of grace. You can debate whether Angel (who in his Faustian deal changed everyone else's memories as well) deserves it just as much as you can argue whether Connor deserved to be protected and saved earlier, but I think what it comes down to is what Giles said in season 2 of BTVS. You don't deserve mercy. It is given. Wesley, trying to cope with the return of his original memories, sums it up in his conversation with Illyria earlier:
WESLEY: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
ILLYRIA: To hide from the truth?
WESLEY: To endure it.
Connor now knows the truth, but, as opposed to the state he was in by the end of Home, can endure it. The last time we see him on this show, in the finale, he has started to process. Note "started" - I don't think we're meant to assume this will be the end of his story. He is able to interact with Angel in a cautious but affectionate way, and, in an echo of Habeas Corpses in season 4, shows up at Wolfram and Hart to save him. The series finale has been called unnecessary nihilistic, but I can think of few more optimistic choices than letting Connor, that utterly damaged, screwed up child of two vampires who served as his father's punishment, become the symbol of Angel's hope, of forgiveness and salvation. Other than Lorne, Connor is the only one who we know survived the story, and as opposed to Lorne not in a bitter, isolated way. Does he still have a lot to do in regards to his past, present and future? Absolutely. But that is how great stories end. How the story of Angel and Darla ended, several seasons back. With a new story beginning.
selenak sees in the hellspawn. All quotes courtesy of the Buffy Dialoge Database.Firstly, if you had told me ca middle of season 3 that Connor would become my other favourite character on AtS - after Darla - I would have been massively surprised. Because the entire baby storyline was one of the reasons, back then, why I grew disenchanted with the show and started to resent the third season. Or rather: I was okay with the baby right until it got born - Darla's death, as mentioned earlier, was a suitably epic and moving conclusion to her storyline - but then it seemed Angel the show had turned into a whacky sitcom about Angel the vampire Dad. The fact that they knocked us over the head with how wonderful and suitable Angel and Cordelia were for each other every other second and that I wasn't interested in the Fred/Gunn/Wesley triangle didn't help, either. And let's not mention the entire St. Cordy desaster. By the end of Provider, I was ready to throw things at the tv, except when Holtz and Justine were on screen, who seemed to have wandered in from another show entirely. Then of course we got Loyalty and Sleep Tight, and the fantastic Wesley storyline, and I could see how the previous ubercuteness of Angel & baby Connor was justified, but I still wasn't emotionally invested in Connor himself.
This changed with A New World.
Whoever cast Vincent Kartheiser as teenage Connor deserves my eternal gratitude. I happen to think the writing for Connor was good throughout the show, but VK didn't just sell it, he took it to another level, as the best actors on Joss' shows are wont to do. What struck me at first was that they actually picked someone who looked as if he could be the child of David Boreanaz and Julie Benz - he shares traits with both of them, and does a great thing with the body language resembling Angel's - but that soon became the least impressive thing. Connor's arrival and initial fight against Angel quickly get the superpowers, bent on killing his biological father point across; then the Sunny sequence allows us to see Connor from another side. His reaction to observing somene being bullied and abused is to help this person. (We also get to see Connor is ruthless with people other than Angel, with his penchant for slicing off the drug dealer's ear; this is not a nice boy.) The shy, grateful way he responds to her friendly overtures afterwards showcase he has a gentle side, very capable of affection. (Oh, and that he's at first puzzled by the kiss which in all likelihood is the first he ever got - I don't think Holtz, 18th-century-man that he was, ever kissed him - and then responds would indicate he has inherited something of his parents' sensual nature.) Then, after Connor finds Sunny dead, comes the scene which didn't just seal the Connor love for me but made me reconnect with Angel the character for the first time since season 2's Epiphany: the second father-son encounter.
I feel for both of them each time I watch that, and discover new aspects, like this time that Connor doesn't attack Angel for a good long while here, probably both because he's distracted due to finding the drug dealer who he knows is responsible for Sunny's death and because Angel this time starts by giving him orders and pressing him against walls, and Connor, raised by Daniel Holtz, responds to orders. He also always has an easier time to connect with Angel physically; both in the fighting against and the fighting with him against someone else sense. This second encounter sets a pattern there. And it shows how deeply Connor can hurt Angel, from "my name is Stephen" onwards. The "show me your true face!" demands make the scenes with baby Connor being comforted by Angel going into game face all incredibly poignant all of a sudden. And acting wise, DB has an intensity and chemistry in his scenes with VK which he has with few of his fellow co-stars.
As
ashylogic put it recently, there was no way that Connor, child raised in a hell dimension on a daily diet of demon fighting and being told his purpose in life was to avenge his biological parents' wrongs, would turn out stable. What I find amazing is that he has something other than hate in him, and can respond to Angel in more than one way at all. This second encounter ends with Angel yelling at him to leave and getting shot for his trouble, and Connor - not leaving, but staring at Angel in disbelief. Angel has to push him through the window. This is where Connor starts to doubt, something he won't forgive himself for only a day later. Benediction presents us with Connor's other father, the one who raised him. The scenes between Connor and Holtz further cemented my affection for the character, even before the final twist, because they made the dilemma he was to be in clear already. He loves Holtz. He comes across as an obedient, affectionate son with him, and the eerie recital in between their conversation gives you an idea of what he must have heard day in, day out throughout his childhood:
HOLTZ: I've always told you the truth about what you're parents were, how you and I came to be together.
CONNOR: God gave me to you.
HOLTZ: Yes. God delivered me to you, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children.
CONNOR: Because he took them from you.
HOLTZ: That's right.
There was no way in which Connor could have loved one father without betraying the other. He obviously is ashamed of having had non-hostile feelings during his second and third encounter with Angel - the third one ending with Connor actually smiling and laughing when sparring with Angel, and unbeknowest to him being observed by Holtz - and tries to hide them, assuring Holtz he still hates Angel completley. Which is when Holtz makes his final gambit. Sending Connor to Angel, then getting himself killed by Justine in a manner that frames Angel ensures not just that Connor will actually continue to hate Angel and love Holtz but that Connor will blame himself for having responded to Angel earlier.
"Or maybe vengeance is what I do now," Holtz tells Angel, "giving back what I took," and Angel utterly misses the significance of this. As Tim Minear said, Holtz does not lie in this episode. He just uses the truth in an economical way. Does he love Connor, as he tells Justine? Probably yes. As a cut line in another Minear script, Home, says, he just doesn't love him more than he hates Angel, and so he ensures that Connor's love for him will make Connor into the ultimate weapon.
The revenge Connor takes for the presumed murder of his father ironically is something that marks him entirely as the child of his biological parents. Locking Angel in a box under the sea for all eternity (as he thinks) is the kind of thing Darla or Angel himself would have done. (For canon proof of this on Angel's behalf, see season 5 and Hellbent.) And the smile when he comes back to the Hyperion, bent on deceiving Angel into showing him his fighting moves, saying "let's give it a try"? Utterly a Darla smile. I don't love Connor just because of what was done to him or his good sides. What makes him such a compelling character to me are his dark sides as well, and they are certainly on display in Tomorrow after he has beheaded and burned Holtz.
(Flippant sidenote: Connor kissing dead Holtz on the forehead, promising to atone for having been deceived, and then beheading him makes it clear why he doesn't understand why on Earth Wesley takes so long with Lilah in Salvage.*g*)
In the fanfic written between seasons 3 and 4, everyone assumed Connor would either stay with Justine or be on his lonesome. Nobody anticipated what actually happened; that Connor would be staying with Fred and Gunn at the Hyperion. Possibly because Wesley captured Justine pretty soon after Angel's dissappearance, but I think the fact Connor did stay with them tells us more than that. He had lost both the one person he had loved and his one biological tie to the world, the later due to his own machinations; this didn't lessen the need for human company or something resembling family. When we meet Connor again in Deep Down after three months with Fred and Gunn, he's resembles nobody as much as Functional!Connor as we meet him in Origin. "The thing with the axe was cool" and the grin is mirrored by Mindwiped!Connor's delighted "That was awesome!" in the later episode. Of course, this version of Connor still has his quasi-parricidal secret buried under the sea and is willing to stake vampires who could reveal it (and to cut himself so Fred and Gunn won't suspect), but other than that? He's as normal a teenager as Connor ever gets to be pre-mindwipe, bratty to Gunn on occasion, but not over the top so. And no, I don't see it as sociopathic. As far as Connor is concerned, he has avenged the murder of his father on the monster who did it, and is now starting a new life.
Of course, Fred and Gunn don't see it that way once they get the happy news from Wesley. "He's Angel's son," Fred had said earlier to Gunn, "that's all that matters." And here we have a quintessential problem. For starters, Connor isn't just Angel's son. He's Holtz' son; he's Darla's son. Which everybody tends to ignore. Secondly, Fred caring for Connor because he's Angel's son, not because he's himself was bound to get her dissapointed even if he hadn't buried his father under the sea. It also doesn't help with Connor's problem of seeing himself worthy of any affection. Note that Fred using the taser on him is a shock (because he hadn't known she knew), but not really a surprise in the sense of him not having expected the treatment.
FRED: I would have done anything for him. Now all I wanna do is hurt him.
CONNOR: (overhearing) Go ahead. Hurt me some more, Fred.
FRED: Shut up!
CONNOR: You think I care? You get used to it.
FRED: You don't feel anything, do you? There's nothing inside.
CONNOR: Why don't you open me up and find out.
FRED: How could you do that to your father?
CONNOR: That thing is not my father.
I never can make up my mind during that scene if this is just bravado or whether he does want her to punish him. One thing I'm sure about, he's not kidding about being used to being hurt, and I don't think he's just referring to fights with Quor'toth demons. As we later find out, Holtz' methods of child raising included trying Connor to a tree at age 5 or so and leaving him on his own, challenging Connor get free himself from the ties and track down Holtz (which he "only" needed five days for). And then there was the precedent of Justine being taught patience by Holtz plunging a dagger in her hand.
Angel's "Daddy has not finished talking" scene is terrific afterwards. And fatal. From one pov, Angel did the right thing - Connor needed to be punished for what he did. It was tough love. From another pov, it was a disaster, because it seemingly negated what Angel had told Connor during the entrapment, that he didn't blame him and still loved him. One thing Connor is regularly blamed for is not recognizing that Angel loves him until it is too late, but aside from the entire being raised on the conviction that Angel was the worst thing ever factor, can we say Angel sends mixed signals? "I love you - now get out" being one of them. The irony is that Connor does internalize the entire speech about the harshness of the world and its need for champions Angel gives here; he can still recite it in Inside Out. He believes Angel this time. About ethics at any rate. He believes him enough to feel utterly betrayed when it appears Angel had been lying.
The glimpses we get of Connor on his own in the next few episodes show us him fighting vampires and saving people. As opposed to Sunny, the family he saves in Slouching towards Bethlehem does not respond with friendliness but is entirely creeped out by him. Connor returning to the Hyperion is obviously triggered by the desire to go to the only thing that passes for family in his knowledge, even if just to observe (I don't think he intended to make his presence known to Angel, Fred or Gunn), and there he finds someone else who needs his help, whom he can save, and who, like Sunny, wants to be his friend afterwards. Cordelia.
Much like the Sunny sequence in A New World was the counterpoint to the explosive mixture of hate, aggression and unwilling curiosity in the Angel encounter, Connor's early scenes with Cordelia serve a similar purpose. For the most part, they show Connor at his best. Yes, hormones come into play soon, but originally he responds to her distress and sadness. He doesn't lie to her, or tries to present himself in a better light. He tells her what he has done. And he tries to comfort her and be there for her, not just by fighting whoever attacks her but by helping her to regain her confidence. Not until Cordelia chooses to stay with him instead of returning with Angel - which Connor clearly hadn't expected - does a competitiveness with his father enter the picture when it comes to his developing feelings for Cordelia. (You can see the exact moment this occurs to Connor, because VK plays it so well.) Now because of Cordelia's relationship with Angel and the fact she knew Connor as a baby, the fandom at large responded to the scenes between Connor and Cordelia with a big "ewww" long before it was revealed Cordelia was possessed. As for me, I found (and still find) them moving, and they made me love Connor even more. There is nothing wrong or twisted from his side of the equation in falling for the beautiful woman who becomes his first real friend (and who, as opposed to Fred and Gunn, does not reject him after hearing what he has done). He is gentle and considerate when with Cordelia, and smitten as he is, still remains capable of putting her welfare before his own gratification. Hence, in Apocalypse, Nowish, his going to Angel - a definite first on Connor's part - begging him to come to Cordelia and talk to her, despite his awareness Cordy has feelings for Angel. What Connor feels for Cordelia will be used as a weapon by her possessed self; that doesn't mean said feelings - neither the sexual desire nor the tenderness and respect - by themselves are something perverse or something that should be held against him.
Of course, Cordelia isn't exactly herself. And becomes less herself the more the season progresses. But this is something not even her friends, who as opposed to Connor knew her before, notice. Connor reacts to the manipulation, the constant (literal) switch between Angel and him, her moving from Hyperion to his place and back, as expected; it heightens his rivalry with his father. But he's still capable of responding to Angel in a non-hostile manner as well. They definitely have a moment after their fight in Spin the Bottle, and in Habeas Corpus, Connor teases Angel for the first time (about the zombies; Connor in season 4 only rarely gets to display humour, but he does on occasion, and it's something post-mindwipe-Connor does far more often, for obvious reasons), and afterwards, when they're back the hotel, actually reaches out towards him. Literary. Connor makes a step towardas Angel, saying "Dad", Angel turns away from him, goes in his office and tells Cordelia to take her new boyfriend and get out of there. This second time Angel kicks him out is possibly even more fatal than the first, because the first time, the "punishment" concept was understandable to Connor. This second time, though? Not so much. And it pretty much settles Cordelia as the only reliable source of affection, the only one to believe in, for him.
Which doesn't mean the need for his father, surpressed and twisted as it is, ever lessens. It's there in Connor finding the dead family of priestesses with the others, reading the word "Daddy", and despite all the death he has seen throwing up, in Long Day's Journey into the Night (O'Neill, with his love-hate family relationships, would have loved Angel and Connor). It's there in my personal highlight of the episode Soulless, the encounter between Connor and Angelus. Again, VK and DB are both on top of their game, and the scene just bristles with intensity. Angelus is of course the version of his biological father Connor has been taught most about. So it's not surprising he needs to see him for himself. (Connor is the only one who goes into the basement without any pretense or excuse.) Angelus, master of verbal warfare, evokes a whole different degree of verbal viciousness from Connor in response. When Connor wants to insult Angel post-Deep Down, it usually goes along the teenage lines of "you are the reason my life sucks" in Awakening. With Angelus, it goes like this:
A: Is that my shirt?
C: Not anymore.
A: Looks good on you.
C: So did Cordy.
A: She looks good on everybody.
They each manage to suprise the other. Note that Connor does not react to Angelus "Greek play" taunt about Cordelia. For one thing, I doubt Connor has read Sophocles or Freud, and for another, he has no memories of Cordelia as a mother figure. But he does react, stricken and strongly, when Angelus speaks about his real mother, Darla, and uses her and Holtz both:
ANGELUS: Kind of unnecessary, don't you think? I mean, with your track-record, I'll be staking myself by the end of the day.
CONNOR: It's fine by me.
ANGELUS: Darla felt the same way. It made her sick, you squirming inside her. So, she jammed a stake in her own heart, just so she wouldn't have to hear your first whiny breath.
CONNOR: You don't know anything!
ANGELUS: Then there was Holtz. You disappointed him so much that he stabbed himself in the neck.
CONNOR: (angry) My fa— (catches himself) Holtz was a good man. All he ever wanted was for you to get the punishment you deserve. And you will.
He lies with the truth, Cordelia says about Angelus. And Connor believes him. On both counts. Presumably nobody has ever bothered to explain the manner of Darla's death to Connor, or say anything about Darla in general (other than Holtz, that is), and that backfires badly. There is no reason now not to believe Angelus, and both in Inside Out and in Home, we see Connor has become convinced his mother hated him. That he's responsible for the death of the death of his mother and other father both. The degree of self-loathing that takes is another thing that breaks my heart about Connor. And speaking of self-loathing, here is the one point where Connor manages to surprise Angelus:
CONNOR: (...) The truth is, Angel's just something that you're forced to wear. You're my real father.
Bear in mind here that Angelus in Connor's belief system is the worst monster that ever existed. It's a self accusation at the same time. Connor, walking towards Angelus at the end of this scene, is responding to the "don't dissapoint Daddy" taunt, but what does he really want from him at this point? A fight? Death? Or some more twisted kind of acknowledgement?
(Sidenote: that scene has a spectacular Bad Wrong vibe about it, if you ask me. Since it's something that comes up in fanfic on occasion - I think Angel would rather castrate himself than touch Connor in a non-paternal way. But Angelus, he whom Drusilla calls Daddy? Bad. Wrong.)
The entire Angelus interlude not only distracts the group from suspecting Cordelia, thus buying Jasmine time to gestate inside her, but further fortifies Connor's isolation from the group and exlusive concentration on Cordelia. And I don't think Connor was already unreachable at that point. When Faith dresses him down, he doesn't respond with a grudge but with admiration; he's obviously impressed by her. As the two have more than one thing in common (I'll get to that), it's a pity she doesn't stay around. Cordelia by this time is almost entirely taken over and busy doing her stint as an evil mastermind to enable Jasmine's birth. And yet there are moments between her and Connor which either are flashes of the Cordy of old - as when she teases him about the game face he makes in front of the mirror, or serve that same function their early scenes did, i.e. highlight Connor's capacity for love. Watching him doing that quintessential father gesture after Cordelia shows him how, feeling the movement of his child inside Cordelia's belly, being scared and delighted by this, sort of sums up this part of the tragedy for me. Yes, this is the big bad of the arc they are expecting, and he's falling further all the time. But he's also a child who is expecting another child, and so desperate for this last promise of a family to be true.
Possessed!Cordy could not have asked for a better present than no one in the group deigning to inform Connor about their suspicion of her in Players. Thus, he finds the entire bunch seemingly set on killing a pregnant Cordelia for no reason anyone has given him, saves her, and by the end of the day makes his fatal, fatal choice. Just that there is no misunderstanding: no matter the circumstances, background, etc., I do hold Connor fully responsible for the death of the young girl dressed in white. I also happen to think that both the writing and the acting show us how he got there, and why he makes that choice.
DARLA: They're scared because of what you've done, not because of what you are.
CONNOR: They wanted to kill me when I was still inside of you.
DARLA: But that changed when they saw you, held you in their arms, felt the warmth of your skin, the goodness in your heart.
CONNOR: And it will happen again when they hold my child. It's the only way.
DARLA: You have a choice, Connor. That is something more precious then you'll ever know.
CONNOR: What choice? They're hunting us like animals!
DARLA: Because you're acting like one. As a vampire I killed without mercy or remorse because I didn't have a soul. What's your excuse?
CONNOR: You think I wanna do this?
DARLA: Then don't.
CONNOR: (nearly in tears) I have to.
When Connor, after nearly letting the girl go, returns to his original choice and drags her to her death, he knows that he's helping commit murder. Just as surely as, say, Angel does when locking fifteen to twenty lawyers in a room for Darla or Drusilla, or Faith does when she kills a professor because the Mayor told her to (asked why, she says she has no idea). As with the other characters, I see it both as something they have to atone for and which I wish they hadn't done but which makes storytelling sense and illustrates how far they were gone at that point. (Faith further than Connor, as Connor knows why he kills/helps killing, but that doesn't make the murder less murder.) All of which doesn't mean I can't feel pity as well as horror. This is what tragedy is defined by. Ask Aristotle.
When Jasmine is born, we're not told Connor isn't under her sway the same anyone else is right away, but there are early signs to make an educated guess. Some subtle ones (it's Angel who actually kneels down first; Connor then follows suit), some larger ones. While Wesley and Gunn have no problem happily deciding Fred (whom they loved) deserves to die once Fred turns against Jasmine, Connor hasn't lost his awareness that he did things that do not predestine him for universal bliss:
JASMINE: You're troubled. Come in, Connor. Tell me what's bothering you.
CONNOR: I— I can't.
JASMINE: Of course you can. You can tell me anything.
CONNOR: Cordelia used to say that to me. It's just—having you here, I finally know why I was created. For you—to help bring you here.
JASMINE: That and so much more.
CONNOR: But, I don't deserve—I shouldn't be so happy. I've done things. I betrayed my Dad, hurt people...
JASMINE: I know... all of it. I've watched you—not just these past days—but all your life and before. Connor, you deserve all the happiness I can bring you.
Connor helping Jasmine voluntarily as opposed to everyone else highlights both sides of his nature, again. He finds out she eats people and accepts that, which is on a par with Faith being willing to help the Mayor consume Sunnydale High on his Ascension. The abdication of moral responsibility in trade for affection from a beloved person, or the conviction that anything that beloved person wants makes it right. (The Mayor? Would have loved Jasmine and her idea of how to create world peace.)
On the other hand, Connor's relationship with Jasmine also shows his capacity for love, again. He sees her as she truly is, and it doesn't matter; she is his daughter. He knows she uses him as an instrument, but that, too, is okay, because so did the other people he loved, Holtz and Cordelia. And because of Jasmine's effect on everyone else, he finally permits himself showing affection for Angel. Scenes like Connor telling Angel not to be so hard on himself or singing Jasmine to the tune of Mandy with him take on a new significance once we know Connor is not under the influence during that time. What Jasmine offers him isn't just her own love and the idea that his life had a purpose, the chance to enable world peace, but a way to live with his biological father. The look of utter betrayal at Angel once Connor realizes what happened in Magic Bullet is another example of VK adding even more impact to a scene with his acting, and the reason why instead of just feeling relieved Fred managed to free Angel from the brainwashing I feel incredibly sad.
This scene also marks the end of the interlude where we saw Connor smiling and more or less happy (another clue, pre-revelation, that he's not in Jasmine's thrall). Jasmine thinks it's because he hasn't surrendered his pain to her entirely, and the scene in which she makes him do this after healing him in its mixture of creepiness and tenderness sums up their relationship. Note that Connor, when embracing Jasmine, still doesn't smile, but she doesn't see it, only we and the camera do.
When Cordelia is hidden elsewhere, Connor starts to search for her. At this point, he certainly has crossed the line to "raging psychopath" (tm Cyvus Veil, sorceror), as evidenced by the (admittedly funny in the middle of all the angst) "tell me and I'll crush your windpipe" "you mean "or", don't you? Don't you?" dialogue. Was he still savagable? Hm. Perhaps the question, if you don't like Connor, is "was he worth bothering to save?" or "does he show any signs of being redeemable?" He certainly still was aware of right and wrong. In the first of the two Peace Out scenes which make me whimper each time, we finally get a big outburst on what goes on inside him:
CONNOR: I wanted to see you again. I had to, to know that you're still here... with me. I'm sorry I haven't— It's started, Cordy. The new beginning. Just wish you'd wake up and see it. Just what you wanted. I mean... it is what you wanted, right? Why you came to me? You know...what this was all about? Protecting our baby—Jasmine—so she can...be, and make this world the... the kind of place you wanted. And it is better. Not harsh and cruel—the way that Angel likes it so he has a reason to fight. (angrily) 'Cause you know that's what he's about, him and the others. Finding reasons to fight. Like that's what gives their lives any meaning. The only damn thing! (punches the lectern, smashing it) I'm not like them. I just... I want to stop. Stop fighting. I just want to rest. God, I want to rest. But I can't. (teary) It's not working, Cordy. I tried. I tried to believe. I wanted it. Went along with the... the flow. Jasmine, she's...she's bringing peace to everyone, purging all of their hate and anger. But not me. Not me! I know she's a lie. Jasmine. My whole life's been built on them. I just... I guess I thought this one was better than the others.
Why you came to me. He doesn't believe any longer that Cordelia came to him because she loved him. He certainly doesn't believe anyone else loves him. What Connor did during the last third of the season, the crimes he committed, they weren't to get himself something. What did he personally gain? Family, for a brief time, and then it started to fall apart again. A taste of a better, peaceful world, but it was one he could only see, not participate in, as his intact free will also ensured he would not feel the Jasmine bliss. This does not make the death(s) he caused less criminal, but I think it does put him in another category than the Wolfram and Hart lawyers, who do what they do for power, or Angelus, who gets off on the pain he causes, or for that matter Holtz, who in the end chose vengeance as his ultimate and only purpose. And yes, it makes him redeemable.
When Jasmine, stripped of her power to enthrall and experiencing universal hate and rejection, calls for him - "Father, I need you. Help me. Please" - Connor starts running, without hesitation. Season 4 is very much a tragedy of fathers and children, and the power of parental love. Obviously Angel's love for Connor, but also Connor's love for Jasmine. Whyever you think he does what he does when he finds her about to kill Angel, I think there is no doubt that he means what he says:
JASMINE: Connor, I still have you. Angel's ruined everything. But he can't defeat both of us. You still believe in me, don't you? You still love me?
CONNOR: Yes.
Killing someone you love is the cruelest thing the Jossverse can do to its characters, and it changes them forever. Buffy has to do it to Angel in Becoming, and it's immaterial that he later returns from the hell dimension she sends him to. Holtz does it to his turned little daughter Sarah. Later, he makes Justine do it to him, no matter how she cries and pleads with him not to. Angel will do it to Connor, soon, in a manner of speaking. And here, Connor does it to Jasmine.
The utter brokenness of Connor afterwards still permits him to save the cop about to commit suicide in Home. The fact that Connor, in this state, still has it in him to care about helping a stranger tells me he's not completely lost. Of course, this isn't the end of the scene. The cop makes the mistake of mentioning his family. And this, not Jasmine's death, but this point, is where Connor snaps and loses it entirely. The cop being revealed as a parent who was about to commit suicide - like Holtz, like Darla - was just an unfortunate coincidence, but it brings forth an outburst of rage and violence that we never saw him display against a human being before. And the next thing we hear about him is that he is about to blow himself and a lot of innocent bystanders up in a mall.
(BTW, obvious plot hole - how on earth has Connor learned to use explosives?)
yhlee, in her great Connor, Angel, Wesley and Darla vid paralleled this via cross cutting with Angel losing it and leaving everyone in Holland Manners' wine cellar to be eaten. ashylogic drew another parallel, to Faith in Five by Five, who in the process of seeking death and making Angel kill her hurt (and tortured, in the case of Wesley) a lot of people to achieve this. But Connor is Angel's son, and so he reacts differently as he did with Faith. What would have happened if Angel had after saving the innocent bystanders led Connor back the Hyperion? Who knows. Connor and Faith might have parallels, but they are two different people. Maybe Connor would have gone the way Faith did - maybe this would have been the turning point for him, and he would have started the road to atonment by accepting responsibility for his past. Or maybe he would have found another method to kill himself. We don't know. We do know that Angel didn't want to take the risk. He made his Faustian pact with Wolfram & Hart to save his son before going into the mall. ANGEL: Connor... you have to believe that there are people who love you.
CONNOR: Jasmine believed you when you said you loved her, but it was all a lie.
ANGEL: Jasmine was the lie.
CONNOR: (yelling) No! She knew if you found out who she really was that you'd turn against her, and she was right. That's just what happened. People like you. People like this. None of you deserve what she could give you. (sighs) She wanted to give you everything.
ANGEL: I know how that feels. 'Cause I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over.
CONNOR: We can't start over.
ANGEL: We can. I mean, we can change things.
CONNOR: There's only one thing that ever changes anything... and that's death. Everything else is just a lie. (cries) You can't be saved by a lie. You can't be saved at all.
(...)
ANGEL: I really do love you, Connor.
CONNOR: So what are you gonna do about it?
ANGEL: Prove it.
And he does. Connor, when we see him next, in the final scene of the season which echoes the very first scene in Deep Down, has no memories of what happened and is reconstructed from scratch. It's a wonderful, terrible thing. In essence, Angel has done what Jasmine did to her followers, his own words about free will notwithstanding, and he did it to save his son. Which left the question hanging for the fifth season: can you be saved by a lie, after all?
When I finished season 4, I had no idea whether or not we would see Connor again. I hoped so, but I had no way of knowing. If there hadn't been a fifth season, however, I don't think I would have felt cheated in regards to Connor's storyline. I would have hoped he would one day remember again, since I do believe that in the long term, he needed to confront what he had done, but I would also have thought that the mercy granted to him by Angel's fatal deal was just that, mercy. And as Connor is a character I love, who had been battered, twisted and broken throughout his previous existence, I would have concluded that yes, he should have that mercy.
But we got season 5. About which I've written elsewhere at length, including how the theme of Connor creeps up again and again, so I'll concentrate on his two actual appearances.
In Origin, we get presented with the result of Angel's mindwipe in a more thorough manner than we did at the end of Home. Mindwiped Connor gets along famously with his parents, thinks Angel is the epitome of cool, and displays a deadpan sense of humour and knack for teasing Angel. In short, he is the ideal son Angel wanted. (Even though he still likes strong women older than him, and really, Angel, who are you to talk?) There are subtle echoes of the earlier version - as I said, his "awesome!" reaction mirrors "that was cool!" in Deep Down, he is extremely protective of his family and ready to kill someone for them, with no other reason given than that this will stop someone else from threatening them (for all Functional!Connor knows, Sahjahn is as innocent as the girl in white), and of course Veil neatly illustrates by the little example of a fake memory he recites how he must have worked - Mindwiped!Connor remembers being lost in a supermarket at age five, not tied to a tree deliberately by his father, and he remembers being found again by his parents and swept in to the arms of his mother, not needing five days to track down his father. It probably really is Connor as he would have been without the childhood from hell.
And then the Orlon window breaks, and his memories return.
It's a great bit of physical acting (again) by VK, because you see the difference at once, and of course Sahjahn promptly gets dispatched with. At which point Connor has a choice. Between the old self and the new. His immediate choice is to drop the bloody axe, the symbol of the death and violence that marked his real life, and tell Angel that this wasn't for him. He does not tell Angel, yet, that his memories have returned, but he gives him a hint and the one thing nobody else could offer Angel throughout the season - absolution. Tone subtly changing from the way he talks post-mindwipe to the earlier season 4 tones, he ends his goodbye scene with:
CONNOR: You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father.
It's a moment of grace. You can debate whether Angel (who in his Faustian deal changed everyone else's memories as well) deserves it just as much as you can argue whether Connor deserved to be protected and saved earlier, but I think what it comes down to is what Giles said in season 2 of BTVS. You don't deserve mercy. It is given. Wesley, trying to cope with the return of his original memories, sums it up in his conversation with Illyria earlier:
WESLEY: Try to push reality out of your mind. Focus on the other memories. They were created for a reason.
ILLYRIA: To hide from the truth?
WESLEY: To endure it.
Connor now knows the truth, but, as opposed to the state he was in by the end of Home, can endure it. The last time we see him on this show, in the finale, he has started to process. Note "started" - I don't think we're meant to assume this will be the end of his story. He is able to interact with Angel in a cautious but affectionate way, and, in an echo of Habeas Corpses in season 4, shows up at Wolfram and Hart to save him. The series finale has been called unnecessary nihilistic, but I can think of few more optimistic choices than letting Connor, that utterly damaged, screwed up child of two vampires who served as his father's punishment, become the symbol of Angel's hope, of forgiveness and salvation. Other than Lorne, Connor is the only one who we know survived the story, and as opposed to Lorne not in a bitter, isolated way. Does he still have a lot to do in regards to his past, present and future? Absolutely. But that is how great stories end. How the story of Angel and Darla ended, several seasons back. With a new story beginning.
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Date: 2005-12-05 03:36 pm (UTC)God, I'm all broken up now remembering and I want to rewatch all of it again and thank you thank you thank you, I'm not very coherent now but I am overcome.
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Date: 2005-12-05 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:55 pm (UTC)Although reading the comments hurt me.
He is - and I do not do favorites easily - my favorite Jossverse character, for every reason you mentioned and VK did such an amazing job.
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Date: 2005-12-05 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 06:05 pm (UTC)Wonderful essay; you really dealt fully with Connor, what he meant to the other characters and what the other characters meant to him.
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Date: 2005-12-05 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 06:09 pm (UTC)And thank you!
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Date: 2005-12-05 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 08:21 pm (UTC)HOLTZ: Yes. God delivered me to you, that I'd keep you safe and lavish upon you all the love that I could never give my first children.
CONNOR: Because he took them from you.
MIRANDA O the heavens!
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?
PROSPERO Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.
Everything is "The Tempest," dude. Everything. (BTW, am finally almost through Sandman -- reading delayed by my brilliant move of losing the library's only copy -- I finally read the end of "Kindly Ones" and the "Tempest" section of "The Wake" yesterday; now I need to go back to your Connor & Lyta fic.
Anyway, great job covering the bases on Connor -- you've probably had enough meta from me today so I'll leave it at that; I'll jsust add that your essay also proves that so much of acting is subjective, because I doubt I'll ever be overly excited about VK -- he's very well cast, physically; I don't dislike him, and I think he's particularly good in "New World" and "Origin" -- but VK will never be one of those characters who makes me squee whenever he's on screen (see Denisof, Alexis; Sackhoff, Katee; and Jackman, Hugh)
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Date: 2005-12-05 10:29 pm (UTC)There's some Tempest there, but the literary vibe I get from Connor is Peter Pan. It's complicated, because at the start Connor is Peter and Holtz and Angel are both Hook and Mr. Darling (the duality that's made explicit by the traditional doubling of the roles on stage) and then at the very end Angel ends up as Peter looking in through the window at family life.
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Date: 2005-12-06 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 04:52 am (UTC)That is in a way the purpose of this essay -
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Date: 2005-12-06 05:00 am (UTC)I finally read the end of "Kindly Ones" and the "Tempest" section of "The Wake" yesterday;
Yay! Wasn't that amazing? NG is the only one with the chuzpe to use Shakespeare's poetical farewell as his own from the Sandman saga and actually to pull it off.
now I need to go back to your Connor & Lyta fic.
Though that one also references The Furies by Mike Carey (a one shot spin-off, and one of the very few well written Sandman spin-offs), which is about what happened to Lyta after The Wake. But it's more important that you've read the encounter between Lyta and the new Dream King, her son, in the first section of The Wake.
VK: oh yes, acting is subjective. I've got a bit of a reverse reaction to Katee Sackhoff - imo, she's got presence but acting-wise is the weakest member of the cast, though she's improving. I doubt, for example, that she could pull off something like what Tricia Helfer (model background or no model background) did in Home when Six became sort-of-Starbuck in her "I'm your psychosis" messing with Baltar.
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Date: 2005-12-06 05:06 am (UTC)I think "presence" is what I'm talking about more than acting ability, anyway. Like, I really have no concept whether Katee Sackhoff or Hugh Jackman can act; of course, Alexis can, but I figured that out a long time after I went "ooh, my, look at the red shirt of heartbreak and moral ambiguity."
*is feeling very very shallow tonight*
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Date: 2005-12-06 05:08 am (UTC)Was that the Angel section of the Cross & Stake? If so, I had a somewhat similar reaction. Due to having several Connor fans on my flist, I had almost forgotten how widespread Connor dislike still is until
Peter Pan: Definitely. The outfit Connor has in A New World makes it obvious, and I think slicing off the ear of the drug dealer is also a nod (Peter was responsible for cutting off Hook's hand, after all), and Sunny is very much Wendy for a while. Like you say, the final image of the season reverses this for Angel.
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Date: 2005-12-06 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 05:13 am (UTC)Can you link it? I'm always on the prowl for new Connor fanfiction.
Also, the third season really tested my fannish loyalty, to be sure, but in the end I was glad I had kept up with it. I remember watching Deep Down, the season 4 opener, and going Yes! That is the show I fell in love with again!.
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Date: 2005-12-06 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 09:38 am (UTC)In temrs of the reversal, I meant Home, just in case you were thinking of Tomorrow. Of course, in Season Four you can stretch it and compare Jasmine to the darker aspects of Tinkerbell ;-)
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Date: 2005-12-06 03:26 pm (UTC)Nothing profound to say. This is a fantastic essay, and it does my fannish heart good to see intelligent celebration of characters that were reviled. I got antsy watching the third season baby arc, but the addition of VK to the show (fantastic casting decision) made up for it.
Connor certainly wasn't always likeable, but he was fascinating as hell.
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Date: 2005-12-06 04:52 pm (UTC)Seriously, I'm glad I stuck with the show trough my period of resentment, and even gladder I could write the essay.
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Date: 2005-12-06 04:54 pm (UTC)No, I knew you meant Home with the image of Angel as Peter looking in from the outside and leaving again. Love the idea of Jasmine as Tinkerbell.*g*
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Date: 2005-12-07 03:40 am (UTC)I know some on my flist had a really, really hard time with Angel's choice in Home..but I thought that Connor really was broken beyond repair at the end, and that Angel chose the only option he could see to save his son.
I agree that the ending of NFA is somewhat nihilistic, but I also think it's hopeful; Connor lives, and remembers both his lives, and has found a way to acknowledge that Angel loves him. As Angel says, as long as Connor lives, they can't destroy Angel.
Brilliant essay, and thank you for it.
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Date: 2005-12-07 04:14 am (UTC)I completely agree here.
Connor kissing dead Holtz on the forehead, promising to atone for having been deceived, and then beheading him makes it clear why he doesn't understand why on Earth Wesley takes so long with Lilah in Salvage
Good point!
it is what you wanted, right?... I just... I want to stop. Stop fighting. I just want to rest. God, I want to rest
I remember thinking at the time, and both scenes took place in a church, that there was a resemblance to the scene earlier that season with Spike and Buffy in "Beneath You."
I agree VK did an amazing job with this underrated character. Interesting read.
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Date: 2005-12-07 07:46 am (UTC)"Beneath You" parallel: yes, I can see that.
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Date: 2005-12-07 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-07 03:59 pm (UTC)It was so nice to be able to come back to Angel in S4 and love it. Angel is what brought me to Buffy, not the other way around, and comparing Angel S1 to Buffy S4, I always preferred the spin-off to the original. There was something about the adult focus and the themes that resonated more with me.
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Date: 2005-12-07 06:11 pm (UTC)Absolutely! Highly encouraged in fact :>
I found the parallels interesting, and assumed that in part they were saying something about the role of women in men's lives. Of course from a fan meta perspective they might also be saying something about Angel's legacy.
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Date: 2005-12-09 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-09 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-10 11:02 pm (UTC)How you mentioned Angel's parenting methods, "I love you... now get out" I can see that completely, Angel himself didn't have a well adapted father figure, I see time and time again Angel acting like his own father from the small glimpse we recieved in AtS 1. Isn't the "I love... now get out" really what Liam's father did to him?
Angel's method is present through all his children (biological and vampiric alike) but mostly you can see it in Spike. Some major parallels there, especially with Connor's speech to the comatose Cordy, he just wanted to stop fighting and how the others looked for reasons to fight. I think Connor fought for the sake of helping and not because of the harsh, cruel world. You highlighted this with Sunny and the other cases where Connor just helped. I feel Spike is the same, once he saved the world he just wanted to stop, but he saved the world because he knew it was right and at that point he had moved past doing it to get into Buffy's pants, in my opinion anyway.
I think Angel can take the credit for both Connor and Spike's attitudes towards fighting thanks to Angel's parenting difficulties. The both try to be Angel's opposite, learning from his mistakes, but end up paralleling him unintentionally.
Thanks a lot for this! Very insightful!
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Date: 2005-12-13 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-08 02:39 am (UTC)Excellent post. Thank you for writing it. You really managed to clearly and concisely sum up Connor's character better than I've seen done before.
You did throw me for a loop at the end, however, when you said that "the series finale has been called unnecessarily nihilistic", because I didn't see it that way at all. I absolutely adored the finale, especially in comparison to Chosen. The Angel finale managed to sum up the entire premise of the show: it's not about the reward; it's about continuing to fight for what you believe is right. Yes, Angel was a tad high-handed by making the decision to take on the Black Thorn on his own and only asking the others for their support when the decision was a fait accompli, effectively pre-empting actual choice on thir parts, but it was very true to the arc of the show. (Unlike Chosen, in which Buffy, who spent years railing about being 'chosen' for a job she didn't want and who only ever wanted to be a 'normal' girl, decided to foist that same responsibility on hundreds or thousands of girls, who in the normal sceme of things would never have been chosen and would have gone on to live normal lives, but that's a whole different rant. *g*)
I'm putting this in my memories, and do you mind if I friend you?
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Date: 2006-01-08 06:08 am (UTC)We'll have to agree to disagree on Chosen (in short: as opposed to Buffy, the hundreds of girls do not have to be the Slayer just because they have the physical power to be so, precisely because there are now hundreds or maybe even thousands about - not ONE girl who has to do it all - any of those girls can, but doesn't have to, fight the good fight, or can continue with their normal lives, an option that Buffy or Faith for that matter, or any of the Slayers before them did not have), but I didn't see NFA as nihilistic, either, and think it was perfect for the show. Still, the charge has been made. (If you're interested,
Uncle Enyos and Holtz: quite true, and I'd give the advantage to Holtz, because he actually lived through these losses, whereas Enyos was carrying out a tradition, but had not known the dead girl himself.
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Date: 2006-03-03 07:35 pm (UTC)The "show me your true face!" demands make the scenes with baby Connor being comforted by Angel going into game face all incredibly poignant all of a sudden. That's an excellent connection.
He had lost both the one person he had loved and his one biological tie to the world, the later due to his own machinations; this didn't lessen the need for human company or something resembling family. That's what makes Connor such a heart-breaking character to me, his need for family and love which he frequently doesn't have.
Killing someone you love is the cruelest thing the Jossverse can do to its characters, and it changes them forever. Good point, and nice connection to Buffy, Holtz and Angel.
It's a great bit of physical acting (again) by VK, because you see the difference at once Agreed, VK is brilliant in this episode!!
It's a moment of grace ... You don't deserve mercy. Excellent point - I love that scene so much! Excellent acting on both VK & DB's parts.
Excellent excellent essay!!!! *g*
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Date: 2006-03-04 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 02:31 pm (UTC)I wonder what canon Connor is doing now.
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Date: 2006-03-08 05:52 pm (UTC)Thank you. Does that mean you're willing to beta the
I wonder what canon Connor is doing now.
Not living in New York with Harry Osborn, that's for sure.*g* I wrote my own post-NFA guess (my story Ouroborous), and I really liked
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Date: 2006-03-09 03:05 am (UTC)