Deaths-on-tv Meme

[selenak]

frenchani created a new meme and applied it to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, here, so I couldn't resist applying the various categories to Angel the Series as well.




The most heroic death

Gunn volunteers for an eternity of getting his heart ripped out, literally, in Underneath, to allow his friends (and Lindsey) to escape. As atonments go...

The most iconic death

My darling girl, of course. Dying is an art, like everything else, to quote Sylvia Plath which I did in my first story about Darla, and Darla did it spectacularly well. Repeatedly. Followed by magnificent comebacks, which makes Lady Lazarus such a great poem for her. Her original death as a human, death-by-Buffy, death-by-Drusilla, those were big moments, but the last one, by her own hand, is the one I'm thinking of for this category. As opposed to certain male members of her family who shall remain Spike and Angel, Darla, once she's resolved on staking herself, goes through with it competently and without hesitation, as opposed to waiting for someone to talk her out of it. Also, she doesn't do it out of despair but out of hope, for her child. Darla dissolving into dust in the rain, giving birth to Connor this way, is one of the enduring images of the show to me.


The most poetic death

I'm tempted to go for Darla again, this time her re-siring by Dru while Angel watches helplessly, which is the exact reverse and yet same constellation of how Drusilla was created as a vampire, with Angel and Darla having sex in front of her before she's killed. It's poetic in the sense of karma, irony and tragedy, and poetic in the way it is filmed. But if I can't pick the same character twice, my alternate choice would be Wesley dying with Illyria next to him in Not Fade Away. All the Wes/Illyria scenes had a poetic grandeur, and this had, too.


The most tragic death

The blond girl from Inside Out, sacrificed so Jasmine could be born. Tragic both for what happens to her (assaulted by vampire, kidnapped by staker of vampire, dragged to her death by same after he talked into thin air for a while, slaughtered by ax), and for being the point of no return; this is what makes Connor a murderer. (Never mind he didn't yield the axe, he delivered her to her death, and as the show makes clear both here and in Peace Out, he knew what he was doing.) That's why my AtS/Sandman crossover centers around Connor having to deal with just this action, courtesy of the Furies (the Sandman-and-mythology ones, not the AtS ones).

The most cliched death

Doyle in Hero and Fred in A Hole in the World are competing for the honor. Which isn't to say I don't like the characters themselves or didn't feel sorry they were gone, but Doyle's demise was Heroic Sacrifice (tm), and Fred's death was Tragic Death Bed (tm), so...


The tearjerking death

Both Doyle's and Fred's were build up as big tear-jerkers, but they didn't work that way on me, though Doyle's definitely did on most of the audience if online reactions were anything to go by. Conversely, the one which did it for me involved one of the least popular characters, so I'm speaking strictly for myself here: but the scene between Angel and Connor in Home makes me cry every damn time, and it is a death scene (like his parents, Connor dies and gets reborn more than once). If Tim Minear's audio commentary is anything to go by, this was true for the AtS crew as well.


The death the audience didn't really care about

Depends on which part of the audience you're talking about. There was a lot of Fred hate, but she also had her fans. I don't think anyone mourned for Gavin in Habeas Corpses ?

The death that looks so real it makes you think of death in RL

There is no equivalent of The Body on AtS. But if we're talking about exploration of the aftermath of death beyond the immediate first day, then actually the aftermath of Doyle's death, both in season 1 (the attempt to move on while there is lingering sadness we see from both Angel and Cordy and Wesley finding his place with them in this emotional atmosphere reminded me a lot of some events in my own family) and in the several seasons later scene where Cordelia watches Doyle's video again and Angel comes in, which, again, in the way it was handled resonated a lot.

The most expected death

Lots and lots. Let's start right at the pilot with Tina, shall we?

The death that wasn't that much of a surprise but that turned out to happen in a surprising yet sense making manner:

Connor kills Jasmine in Peace Out. Wesley had speculated an episode earlier that Jasmine - proven unkillable and invulnerable (though the instant-adoration reaction to her could be broken) - might be vulnerable to Cordelia because of the biological link between them; therefore, it makes sense that the same biological link would make her vulnerable to Connor as well, but it still was one of those unexpected-until-just-a-minute-before-it-happens deaths. For reasons of tv cliché (Jasmine was the ultimate foe of the season, and it's usally the show's lead who gets to defeat the Big Bad), but that's the least of the reasons why the manner of Jasmine's death was surprising. More importantly, because the episode leaves Connor's motives ambiguous. Does he do it to save Angel? Or because of Jasmine's inability to cope with a world that hates her? As the ultimate nihilistic gesture? All of the above? It also is a parallel to the earlier mentioned scene with Angel and Connor in Home, an episode later, in the way it combines a declaration of love by the parent with the death-by-parent of the child.

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. (he kills her)

vs

Angel: I really do love you, Connor.
Connor: So what are you gonna do about it?
Angel: Prove it. (he strikes)


The least expected death

Had I been unspoiled until the beginning of Hero (the episode itself is really obvious about this), it would have been Doyle since this really was unplanned, he had the magical in the title credits of a new show protection, and his departure was due to actor circumstances, but the news about Glenn Quinn were hard to avoid so I knew Doyle wasn't around to stay for long before I even started to watch the show. I was, however, unspoiled for Lilah's death, so that was a genuine shocker.


The most shocking death

Argh, I can't decide between:

a) A cellar full of lawyers in season 2's Reunion (the shock being not so much that Darla and Dru killed them but that Angel closed that door to let them; my jaw, it remained dropped when I first saw it)

b) Holtz commits suicide-by-Justine in s3's Benediction and sets up Angel as his killer in Connor's eyes, thereby completing his revenge

c) Lorne kills Lindsey in Not Fade Away in s5 (again, the shock not being in Lindsey's death - sorry, Lindsers, but if you thought you'd make it out of this show alive, you weren't paying attention - but in who kills him, and the way this at once explains and gives a new layer to Lorne's framing narration from season 4's Spin the Bottle)

Comments

[chani]

I don't remember Ats enough to do it, and the show isn't in the same league as BtVS in my book, but I like your choices, and I totally agree with you regarding the tearjerking/cliched deaths of both Doyle and Fred. Fred's death was especially cringe-worthy.

But I know that for the most poetic death I would have picked Cordelia's in "You're Welcome". I loved it, it was very Egyptian in a way, her double (ka) walking and fighting beside her friends one last time, while she was dying. An exit full of grace for the character.

[selenak]

I have some issues about We're Welcome, though not about the manner of Cordelia's death in it. To quote from this old post of mine: It's a love letter to the character and the actress, but I can never be quite as charmed by it as most other people seem to be. I'm extremely grateful that in this episode, the writers finally remembered she cared about people other than Angel. It was lovely to see her "kicking it old school" with Wesley (and having the wish to do so for her last few hours on Earth, just as much as she wants to help Angel), and to tell him how sorry she is about Lilah). But as much as I enjoy the Cordy lovefest, I don't think the premise works out. So supposedly TPTB owed her (for the visions, for Jasmine) and granted her this last favour... to reinspire Angel. The effect of Cordelia's intervention was that Angel remained at W&H instead of calling it quits and, as we discover later, finds out about the Black Thorn Circle, so he can take it out. Okay, fine. I can see that working within the mythology of the show and the war between TPTB and the Senior Partners. But the way this inspiring works seems to be mainly via winning a slashy duel with Lindsey, and given Lindsey never was much of a threat to Angel (a foil, yes, but the most devastating blow Lindsey ever landed against Angel was bringing in Dru to sire Darla, and that plan seems to have been something Holland Manners had come up with), I don't quite see why this convinces Angel again he's fighting the good fight at W&H's. I suppose you could say that Cordelia's presence, her affection and honesty inspires him, but given she never says anything about W&H being a good idea (rather the contrary), I still don't see how this connects to staying at W&H. I suppose we really have to use the vision transfer and the awareness of the Black Circle as an explanation, and this news arrives so much later I can't tie it emotionally with the episode. And of course, it never fails to jar me that Cordelia can just cheerfully ask Angel where Connor is. I can fanwank it - she's already dead, ghosts deal with trauma in a different way, or maybe that question is part of her attempt to bring Angel back to himself - but it still makes me blink each time, because what happened between Connor and Cordelia, and the results for both of them, was just too much for her to blithely ask about him as if he had never been anything but that baby from s3 to her.

Re: AtS in general: while I agree BTVS is the superior show in totem, at times I may love AtS a bit more. It's probably not a coincidence that most of my Jossverse fanfic is AtS rather than BTVS. (Then again, fanfic usually hails from a sense of having something more to say and if the show itself already gives you all you want, you don't.) You can't really explain emotion; and the Darla and later the Connor storyline in particular triggered in me something that made me go above and beyond in my fannish love.

[sydpenguinbunny.livejournal.com]

Mind if I steal this and do it for BB? :D

[selenak]

Go for it!

[sydpenguinbunny.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Has been posted. I'm Friends Only but I think I have it set up so you can view my LJ posts. Still trying to get a grasp on OpenID :D

[timetravellingbunny]

Linwood Morrow's death for "The death that the audience cheered". I don't know if that's how the fandom felt, but I remember that was the one time I felt like that. The character seemed to be created to be really annoying, unlike Holland Manners, who had a certain affably evil charm, while Gavin was neither annoying enough nor charming enough, so he's more in the "do not care" category.

a nitpick:

Her original death as a human, death-by-Buffy, death-by-Drusilla

It was death-by-Angel, not death by Buffy.

Come to think of it - she was killed by a vampire each time she died.

[selenak]

Oh, Linda decapitating Linwood was definitely bringing out the cheers galore.:)

And of course, you're right about death-by-Angel!