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Wednesday, February 4th, 2004 11:03 pm
Well, that was interesting.

It seemed to me that we got the Mary Sue Platonic Ideal of Cordelia Chase, and everybody got to experience her exactly how they would have wished to remember her. The Powers that Be gave her a gift.

In the meta-sense, it's exactly as the fan would want to have remembered the character - the PtB at Mutant Enemy giving the fan a gift.

But, of course, it wasn't real. The real Cordelia Chase never left her bed, never awoke from her coma, never talked to the MoG, and died quietly offscreen.

Take her out of every scene, and nothing in the episode changes. Cordelia only voices ideas they're each thinking, but would need to hear from another source. Things we'd want them to acknowledge, but have told to them, rather than hear them say it themselves. But again, it's not Cordelia. It's a fantasy.

But I'm left asking once again - how much, if any of this, is real? Were the "Powers that Be" that benevolent force that Angel, Doyle, Cordy and Wes wanted to believe they were back in S1 - or are they something far murkier - as Jasmine led us to question?

It would have been interesting to see Cordy confront what her life was, rather than everyone else's life. But this episode was never really about Cordy's story. It was all about Angel & the MoG holding on to the fantasy that they can be confident in doing the PtB's mission while running W&H. And getting to remember Cordy exactly the way they (and we) would want to remember her. Except that the PtB is bogus, and W&H isn't really under their control. And that's not really what Cordelia's life was like for the past few years.

And you can't be saved by a lie.

So is "Cordelia" setting Angel on his path, or is this a new manipulation down the primrose path?
Thursday, February 5th, 2004 19:43 (UTC)
Funny! You and I seem to be on the exact same page, and I hadn't even read this post til just now. Though, your comment in my journal is what got me rolling :) You even used the words "Conspiracy Theory", too.

In short, I pretty much agree, though I'm not sure if it's TPTB or the SP... though I am beginning to think that perhaps those two are one in the same? They'd have to have a balance of good and evil, right?

I don't think that was Cordelia, but more than that, I also don't believe that the real Cordy is dead. Could be denial on my part, but it's just a little too convenient to the plot at this point, and a little to perfect with its timing in the episode for me to believe it was real.
Thursday, February 5th, 2004 19:48 (UTC)
Well, she doesn't have to be dead. Angel just has to think she is.

Which, fits in just fine with the comments I made about last week's episode (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dlgood/17112.html#cutid1).

It doesn't matter whether anything that happened in "Damage" was the truth. For all we know, it's all an elaborate charade set up by the same folks who sent the amulet, who sent Robot Roger Wyndham-Pryce. What matters is what the MoG wind up believing