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In case anybody is interested in the paper I presented, I decided to post it here. It's about how awesome Angel is....so how could you not be interested?
A description of a quixotic character brings to mind a ragged, nutty old man, waving his rusty sword at windmills while insisting they are giants. Quixotic can denote delusional behavior and idealized expectations to the point of naiveté. There is also a resigned sadness to the image—tilting at windmills is the ultimate in fruitless, futile fantasy. But fruitless and futile are two words that should not be applied to Angel, the vampire with a soul from Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. There is a deeper purpose to his perceived madness, and a strong belief at its core. Angel’s belief that he can literally change the shape of the world through his own actions makes him a quixotic character. The principle of agency becomes paramount because agency gives meaning to his actions.
After a series of set backs and minor victories, both Angel and Quixote are given one final choice, and both options will destroy their mission and remove their agency. They cannot maintain their place in the world. A challenger tricks Quixote into a battle where his defeat will mean the renunciation of chivalry, and the return of Alonso Quixano, an old man living in exile. The ancient and powerful Senior Partners force Angel into battle where his defeat will mean the death of hope and justice. But in a final act of honor, they embrace their missions so completely they are willing to fight for them, regardless of the personal cost.
“If nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do,” Angel announces in Epiphany. His announcement is the epiphany referred to, and his new understanding gives Angel the strength to continue fighting for good. He is a vampire cursed with a soul that does not compel him to be good or righteous but rather to avoid evil. It acts as a conscience when he is tempted to return his days as the evil vampire, Angelus. Thus keeping his demonic force in check, the presence of a soul essentially shifts Angel to neutral—not particularly evil and not particularly good.
Flashback episodes, as well as Angel’s ability to commit murder, provide evidence of Angel’s neutral status. Gypsies cursed Angel in 1898 as punishment for torturing and murdering one of their favored daughters. He spent the following century drifting from Europe to China to America, alone and tormented. The few efforts he made to be good backfired in his face, and he never had the conviction or courage necessary to dedicate himself to fighting evil. But all of that changes with a girl. A Vampire Slayer by trade, Buffy.
In the first episode of Angel, “City of…”, Angel’s link to the Powers That Be, Doyle, provides an appropriate summary of Angel’s plight, ending with, “He takes off. Goes to LA. To fight evil - and atone for his crimes. He’s a shadow, - a faceless champion of the hapless human race.” Angel did not choose to be cursed with a soul— it is always referred to as a curse, not as a gift or an opportunity—but he did choose to be a champion. Angel’s critical decision to be a champion, or a knight-errant for the downtrodden, reflects Angel’s idealism.
Angel can choose to be a champion because he believes in atonement and true redemption. He cannot ask for his atonement. He is neither seeking nor expecting grace and mercy; rather, he chooses to devote his existence to winning forgiveness. At the beginning of his quest, Angel does not seem to know what forgiveness means, only that he must fight for it. What does it look like? What will it feel like? Who has the authority to offer forgiveness? Where can it be found? When will Angel know he can stop fighting?
Angel’s mission cannot be successful unless he lives in a world where atonement is not a nebulous ideal, but a tangible and attainable prize. Or, as Wesley, Angel’s friend and companion on this mission, explains, “The vampire with a soul, once he fulfills his prophecy, will Shanshu. Become human. It’s his reward” (“To Shanshu in LA”). An ancient prophesy with ambiguous wording in the Whedonverse is about as far from a guarantee as you can get, especially since prophesies are routinely manipulated, ignored, and contradicted. But it is enough for Angel to believe there is “a light at the end of the tunnel” (“Judgment”).
The first episode of the second season, Judgment, exemplifies his mission with a literal interpretation of what it means to be a champion. Judgment has all the trappings of a standard tale of chivalry. Angel is the knight, Wesley and Cordelia are his squires. He fights for a damsel in distress. Angel suffers a moment of personal crisis when his faith is shaken. He even fights a dark knight to the death. Angel, like his predecessor Quixote, is a reader and an author, alternately naïve and educated, hopeful and world-weary.
Judgment begins with the Host of Caritas singing “I Will Survive” and establishing the scene for Angel’s epic struggle. “In this city you better learn to get along. Because LA's got it all: The glamour and the grit, the big breaks and the heartaches, the sweet young lovers and the nasty, ugly, hairy fiends that suck out your brain through your face.” Lorne describes Angel’s world, and like Angel himself, it is a world of dualities. The oppositions he offers exist at the same time without contradiction, as do the oppositions at play within Angel. He is a vampire, so the demon is always present, but his soul is pure conscience. Angel’s soul is like the costume worn by that fine old gentleman from La Mancha: the armor rescued from a corner where it languished “eaten with rust and covered with mildew” and his helmet “a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion.” Like Quixote’s armor, Angel’s soul may not be strong enough for battle, but it is what he has to work with.
The opening scene ends with the Host assuring his audience that the oppositions are “all part of the big wacky variety show we call - Los Angeles.” Or, as Shakespeare put it, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It, 2.7). The world is a stage on which men’s souls are tried, with mankind as players and God as the ultimate audience. Angel’s world lacks a clear conception of a Christian God, or even a god who judges souls, but the belief in the Shanshu prophecy presupposes something, or somebody, with the ability to judge actions and offer rewards. Angel performs the role of champion for an audience.
The episode cuts to Angel’s friend, Cordelia Chase, and continues the theme of performance. She has moved to Los Angeles to be an actress, but the scene does not give any immediate indication that she is rehearsing a part. Her first line is, “But why, Johnny? Why?” A short dialogue then unfolds as Johnny insists, “It’s over.” Cordelia interrupts the argument by slapping Johnny, and Johnny exclaims, “Hey! Ow! She hit me!” Cordelia explains she added the slap because her character “seems so spineless.” Cordelia’s part in the performance is the “spineless” woman, begging her man not to leave her, but she immediately turns the concept of performance around by acting out of prescribed character. The necessity of performance does not overturn agency. In Angel’s world, a person can step outside of his or her role without difficulty, and can even be rewarded for the attempt. Cordelia’s director assures her, “That was just amazing. You were Eleanor, body and soul.”
The third scene shifts from literal performance on the stage to a different type of performance. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a rather unassuming British man in a yellow shirt and glasses, soft-spoken with a gentle, polished accent. He is throwing darts, and hitting the most difficult spot of the target each time. His companions’ faces betray shock—it can be assumed Wesley has hustled them. He confirms the assumption when he says, “Sorry lads. I’ll give you a rematch” before gathering a pile of money on the table. He does not explicitly lie to them, but allows them to believe he would be an easy target. They are naïve readers, and they take Wesley’s performance at face value, without any expectation that he would, or could, subvert his own role. Until the second season of the series, the audience was led to believe the same thing about Wesley. This scene marks the beginning of Wesley’s development away from the polished man without layers to a complicated character who possesses real depth.
Both scenes end with the characters being called away by Angel. They meet him at a busy gym, and the scene begins with the three of them sweeping into the room, Angel’s long coat flowing behind him like a cape. The music swells darkly in a reference to the pilot episode of Angel. The writers include an in-joke: Angel looks like Batman, a leather-clad Dark Knight. This is part of his performance. In order to be an avenger, he must look the part. Quixote did not change his name and assume the role of knight-errant until he assumed the clothes of one. The model for Quixote’s behavior came from the books he read, and the model for Cervantes’ novel came from those early romances of knighthood. Cervantes pokes light fun at these books, but they are no less influential on him. Angel is, in his way, behaving like the modern equivalents of knights—superheroes. But like Quixote, Angel is also completely serious and sincere about his mission.
They are at the gym because the Carnyss demon “loves muscles and mirrors.” It is at once entirely absurd and completely fair that demons dwelling in Los Angeles would be attracted to muscles and mirrors. Demons in LA would are as vain as the people in LA. Angel stops at a mirror, startling everybody around him. “No reflection. I’ll fix that.” He “fixes” it by smashing the mirror in to reveal the demons behind. This moment illustrates Angel’s place in Los Angeles. He moves among humanity, his invisibility among the living masses sets him apart. He has the ability to smash through walls to find all the demons lurking in the dark.
Angel, Wesley, and Cordelia slay the demons quickly and efficiently, and then turn around and walk out with all the dramatic menace and professionalism they entered with. These scenes unfold in the first four minutes, acting as a teaser for both the episode and the rest of the series. Cordelia acts outside of the script, yet manages to “embody” the character “body and soul.” Wesley is able to win money, and the attention of a beautiful woman, by acting against script and behaving opposite of audience expectations. Angel turns his role inside out, becoming a champion by acting like a champion, even if he is a vampire with centuries of murder and blood behind him.
After the teaser, the first act of Judgment opens with Angel, Wesley, Cordelia, and a whiteboard. They use the whiteboard to keep track of the cases, leads, progress, and status. The cases are alternately closed and pending, and they discuss possibilities before marking their decision on the board. Angel tries to impose order on his chaotic world through the use of text. But he cannot simply write, or will, order into existence.
While Wesley and Cordelia discuss demons, Angel muses about the possibility of joining a gym. “The thing about a gym is that you're not alone. You've got people around. That encourages you to work out.” In Angel’s view, joining a gym is effective because he will be inspired to perform for everybody around him. He also implies people only work hard if somebody is watching, like a distant audience. When Cordelia reminds him he is immortal, he immediately responds, “I might not always be.” His reward looms in his mind, and the whiteboard in the scene takes on an additional dimension. It is not only the imposition of order and but also the proof of his good deeds, or an authentication. The authentication he desires is a major source of anxiety in the second book of Don Quixote, as it begins with Cervantes’ chastisement of the imposter who wrote the “fake” sequel to Don Quixote. An imposter who, incidentally, “does not dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but hides his name and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some lese majesty.” The whiteboard is Angel’s proof that he is in charge of what he does. He is not a false author, or an imposter. His deeds are not disguised.
Cordelia aids Angel as “vision girl,” or Angel’s link to the Powers That Be. They send her visions of where Angel should go and what he should do. She receives a vision of a Prio Motu demon, and they realize it is bred to “maim and massacre.” Angel does not talk to the Prio Motu, and after a vicious fight in the defense of a pregnant woman, he kills the demon. The pregnant woman he thought he was saving begins to cry, demanding to know what Angel has done. Through tears, she says, “He was my protector!” The Prio Motu was bred to be a killer, but he chose to be her Champion. The knowledge devastates Angel and confuses Wesley: “That's what Prio Motus are! They hunt. They kill. What, we're supposed to think a creature like that can suddenly change its modus operandi overnight? Turn into some noble protector and defender of... Oh, God” (“Judgment”). The scene drives home the point that who you are is not as important as what you do. Angel resolves to take over the Prio Motu’s mission, because it is the only honorable choice.
The introduction of Charles Gunn echoes the introduction of Wesley to the episode, as well as the role of the Prio Motu. A white character panics when he sees a gang of African-American and Hispanic youths approaching him. He shouts, “take the car” and tries to run away. They are walking quickly with aggressive postures, and they do not appear to be noble or defenders. Until they kill the vampire waiting to grab the man running from them. Charles Gunn is a dangerous man, but only when it comes to vampires and demons. It is funny when the man shouts they should take his car. The audience would be tempted to the same in a bad area of Los Angeles, even as the audience recognizes it is a ridiculous way to assess danger.
Action and agency remain heavily emphasized throughout the rest of the series. “All that matters is what you do” becomes the driving principle of Angel’s world. Every character is judged based on their actions. Characters have the ability to completely refashion who they are by shifting their behavior. Wesley, Faith, Gunn, Illyria, Spike and even Angel can travel the spectrum between good and bad, but their bad deeds are always weighed in accordance with the good they have done, or are capable of doing. The greatest conflict of performance is introduced at the end of the series, when Angel must be willing to sacrifice his mission in order to keep fighting for what he knows to be right. Angel must act wrongly in order to accomplish the greater good.
To defeat the Senior Partners, the controlling powers of the law firm Wolfram and Hart, Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society made up of the most powerful and influential demons in Los Angeles. Angel is aware of the terms of the battle. If he wants to defeat the Circle of the Black Thorn, he must gain their trust through his actions. He kills Drogyn, another champion, in cold blood. But murder is not proof enough. The Circle expects Angel to renounce his name, and demands Angel renounce his right to the Shanshu prophecy. “Oh, good. Then you won't mind signing that pesky future away. Through that document, the prophecy can be undone. Your signature there will remove any opportunity that you will ever earn your once-precious humanity. Will you sign it?” (“Not Fade Away”). Angel calmly answers, “Of course” and signs away his mission. Like Quixote, he cannot fight unless he is prepared to be defeated and lose everything. Angel acts honorably and submits to the terms of the battle.
The act of signing away the mission is an interesting one. Angel signs a contract, and given his company, it is very much a legal agreement. But how can one sign away redemption or hope? It amounts to no more than a symbolic act of Angel’s commitment, to either side, but it is another attempt to use text to impose order on a chaotic world. It is a form of enchantment, as though it will become true if both parties believe in the act. Ultimately, the writers leave the promise of reward or the threat of damnation entirely ambiguous. It is enough that Angel is willing to believe and make the sacrifice.
Don Quixote faces a similar challenge towards the end of the second book. The Knight of the White Moon challenges Quixote to a duel by stating his “lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea del Toboso” (LXIV). This insult cannot be borne by Quixote, as a self-respecting and honorable knight-errant. In the chivalric tradition, Quixote is bound by honor to serve his Lady. The stated challenge leaves him no choice but to agree; however, the knight offers the challenge with a galling stipulation: “if thou fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that, laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year” (LXIV). Thus, if he fights and he loses, he must renounce his mission, which includes the disenchantment of his fair Dulcinea. If he refuses to fight, he has proven himself, and his Lady, dishonorable. Unfortunately, the opposing knight defeats Quixote, and this defeat ends his glorious adventures. When faced with an impossible choice, Quixote acts honorably. Even though the Knight of the White Moon was really the Bachelor, Samson, sent to trick him, Quixote lays down his arms and returns home.
Angel initially chooses to be a champion because he believes himself to exist in a world where justice and atonement also exists. He fights because there is an unknown observer and objective goals. He makes his final stance as a champion because he refuses to believe his idealized world does not exist. Like Quixote and his Giants, Angel creates his world by fighting for it.
A description of a quixotic character brings to mind a ragged, nutty old man, waving his rusty sword at windmills while insisting they are giants. Quixotic can denote delusional behavior and idealized expectations to the point of naiveté. There is also a resigned sadness to the image—tilting at windmills is the ultimate in fruitless, futile fantasy. But fruitless and futile are two words that should not be applied to Angel, the vampire with a soul from Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. There is a deeper purpose to his perceived madness, and a strong belief at its core. Angel’s belief that he can literally change the shape of the world through his own actions makes him a quixotic character. The principle of agency becomes paramount because agency gives meaning to his actions.
After a series of set backs and minor victories, both Angel and Quixote are given one final choice, and both options will destroy their mission and remove their agency. They cannot maintain their place in the world. A challenger tricks Quixote into a battle where his defeat will mean the renunciation of chivalry, and the return of Alonso Quixano, an old man living in exile. The ancient and powerful Senior Partners force Angel into battle where his defeat will mean the death of hope and justice. But in a final act of honor, they embrace their missions so completely they are willing to fight for them, regardless of the personal cost.
“If nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do,” Angel announces in Epiphany. His announcement is the epiphany referred to, and his new understanding gives Angel the strength to continue fighting for good. He is a vampire cursed with a soul that does not compel him to be good or righteous but rather to avoid evil. It acts as a conscience when he is tempted to return his days as the evil vampire, Angelus. Thus keeping his demonic force in check, the presence of a soul essentially shifts Angel to neutral—not particularly evil and not particularly good.
Flashback episodes, as well as Angel’s ability to commit murder, provide evidence of Angel’s neutral status. Gypsies cursed Angel in 1898 as punishment for torturing and murdering one of their favored daughters. He spent the following century drifting from Europe to China to America, alone and tormented. The few efforts he made to be good backfired in his face, and he never had the conviction or courage necessary to dedicate himself to fighting evil. But all of that changes with a girl. A Vampire Slayer by trade, Buffy.
In the first episode of Angel, “City of…”, Angel’s link to the Powers That Be, Doyle, provides an appropriate summary of Angel’s plight, ending with, “He takes off. Goes to LA. To fight evil - and atone for his crimes. He’s a shadow, - a faceless champion of the hapless human race.” Angel did not choose to be cursed with a soul— it is always referred to as a curse, not as a gift or an opportunity—but he did choose to be a champion. Angel’s critical decision to be a champion, or a knight-errant for the downtrodden, reflects Angel’s idealism.
Angel can choose to be a champion because he believes in atonement and true redemption. He cannot ask for his atonement. He is neither seeking nor expecting grace and mercy; rather, he chooses to devote his existence to winning forgiveness. At the beginning of his quest, Angel does not seem to know what forgiveness means, only that he must fight for it. What does it look like? What will it feel like? Who has the authority to offer forgiveness? Where can it be found? When will Angel know he can stop fighting?
Angel’s mission cannot be successful unless he lives in a world where atonement is not a nebulous ideal, but a tangible and attainable prize. Or, as Wesley, Angel’s friend and companion on this mission, explains, “The vampire with a soul, once he fulfills his prophecy, will Shanshu. Become human. It’s his reward” (“To Shanshu in LA”). An ancient prophesy with ambiguous wording in the Whedonverse is about as far from a guarantee as you can get, especially since prophesies are routinely manipulated, ignored, and contradicted. But it is enough for Angel to believe there is “a light at the end of the tunnel” (“Judgment”).
The first episode of the second season, Judgment, exemplifies his mission with a literal interpretation of what it means to be a champion. Judgment has all the trappings of a standard tale of chivalry. Angel is the knight, Wesley and Cordelia are his squires. He fights for a damsel in distress. Angel suffers a moment of personal crisis when his faith is shaken. He even fights a dark knight to the death. Angel, like his predecessor Quixote, is a reader and an author, alternately naïve and educated, hopeful and world-weary.
Judgment begins with the Host of Caritas singing “I Will Survive” and establishing the scene for Angel’s epic struggle. “In this city you better learn to get along. Because LA's got it all: The glamour and the grit, the big breaks and the heartaches, the sweet young lovers and the nasty, ugly, hairy fiends that suck out your brain through your face.” Lorne describes Angel’s world, and like Angel himself, it is a world of dualities. The oppositions he offers exist at the same time without contradiction, as do the oppositions at play within Angel. He is a vampire, so the demon is always present, but his soul is pure conscience. Angel’s soul is like the costume worn by that fine old gentleman from La Mancha: the armor rescued from a corner where it languished “eaten with rust and covered with mildew” and his helmet “a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion.” Like Quixote’s armor, Angel’s soul may not be strong enough for battle, but it is what he has to work with.
The opening scene ends with the Host assuring his audience that the oppositions are “all part of the big wacky variety show we call - Los Angeles.” Or, as Shakespeare put it, “All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It, 2.7). The world is a stage on which men’s souls are tried, with mankind as players and God as the ultimate audience. Angel’s world lacks a clear conception of a Christian God, or even a god who judges souls, but the belief in the Shanshu prophecy presupposes something, or somebody, with the ability to judge actions and offer rewards. Angel performs the role of champion for an audience.
The episode cuts to Angel’s friend, Cordelia Chase, and continues the theme of performance. She has moved to Los Angeles to be an actress, but the scene does not give any immediate indication that she is rehearsing a part. Her first line is, “But why, Johnny? Why?” A short dialogue then unfolds as Johnny insists, “It’s over.” Cordelia interrupts the argument by slapping Johnny, and Johnny exclaims, “Hey! Ow! She hit me!” Cordelia explains she added the slap because her character “seems so spineless.” Cordelia’s part in the performance is the “spineless” woman, begging her man not to leave her, but she immediately turns the concept of performance around by acting out of prescribed character. The necessity of performance does not overturn agency. In Angel’s world, a person can step outside of his or her role without difficulty, and can even be rewarded for the attempt. Cordelia’s director assures her, “That was just amazing. You were Eleanor, body and soul.”
The third scene shifts from literal performance on the stage to a different type of performance. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a rather unassuming British man in a yellow shirt and glasses, soft-spoken with a gentle, polished accent. He is throwing darts, and hitting the most difficult spot of the target each time. His companions’ faces betray shock—it can be assumed Wesley has hustled them. He confirms the assumption when he says, “Sorry lads. I’ll give you a rematch” before gathering a pile of money on the table. He does not explicitly lie to them, but allows them to believe he would be an easy target. They are naïve readers, and they take Wesley’s performance at face value, without any expectation that he would, or could, subvert his own role. Until the second season of the series, the audience was led to believe the same thing about Wesley. This scene marks the beginning of Wesley’s development away from the polished man without layers to a complicated character who possesses real depth.
Both scenes end with the characters being called away by Angel. They meet him at a busy gym, and the scene begins with the three of them sweeping into the room, Angel’s long coat flowing behind him like a cape. The music swells darkly in a reference to the pilot episode of Angel. The writers include an in-joke: Angel looks like Batman, a leather-clad Dark Knight. This is part of his performance. In order to be an avenger, he must look the part. Quixote did not change his name and assume the role of knight-errant until he assumed the clothes of one. The model for Quixote’s behavior came from the books he read, and the model for Cervantes’ novel came from those early romances of knighthood. Cervantes pokes light fun at these books, but they are no less influential on him. Angel is, in his way, behaving like the modern equivalents of knights—superheroes. But like Quixote, Angel is also completely serious and sincere about his mission.
They are at the gym because the Carnyss demon “loves muscles and mirrors.” It is at once entirely absurd and completely fair that demons dwelling in Los Angeles would be attracted to muscles and mirrors. Demons in LA would are as vain as the people in LA. Angel stops at a mirror, startling everybody around him. “No reflection. I’ll fix that.” He “fixes” it by smashing the mirror in to reveal the demons behind. This moment illustrates Angel’s place in Los Angeles. He moves among humanity, his invisibility among the living masses sets him apart. He has the ability to smash through walls to find all the demons lurking in the dark.
Angel, Wesley, and Cordelia slay the demons quickly and efficiently, and then turn around and walk out with all the dramatic menace and professionalism they entered with. These scenes unfold in the first four minutes, acting as a teaser for both the episode and the rest of the series. Cordelia acts outside of the script, yet manages to “embody” the character “body and soul.” Wesley is able to win money, and the attention of a beautiful woman, by acting against script and behaving opposite of audience expectations. Angel turns his role inside out, becoming a champion by acting like a champion, even if he is a vampire with centuries of murder and blood behind him.
After the teaser, the first act of Judgment opens with Angel, Wesley, Cordelia, and a whiteboard. They use the whiteboard to keep track of the cases, leads, progress, and status. The cases are alternately closed and pending, and they discuss possibilities before marking their decision on the board. Angel tries to impose order on his chaotic world through the use of text. But he cannot simply write, or will, order into existence.
While Wesley and Cordelia discuss demons, Angel muses about the possibility of joining a gym. “The thing about a gym is that you're not alone. You've got people around. That encourages you to work out.” In Angel’s view, joining a gym is effective because he will be inspired to perform for everybody around him. He also implies people only work hard if somebody is watching, like a distant audience. When Cordelia reminds him he is immortal, he immediately responds, “I might not always be.” His reward looms in his mind, and the whiteboard in the scene takes on an additional dimension. It is not only the imposition of order and but also the proof of his good deeds, or an authentication. The authentication he desires is a major source of anxiety in the second book of Don Quixote, as it begins with Cervantes’ chastisement of the imposter who wrote the “fake” sequel to Don Quixote. An imposter who, incidentally, “does not dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but hides his name and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some lese majesty.” The whiteboard is Angel’s proof that he is in charge of what he does. He is not a false author, or an imposter. His deeds are not disguised.
Cordelia aids Angel as “vision girl,” or Angel’s link to the Powers That Be. They send her visions of where Angel should go and what he should do. She receives a vision of a Prio Motu demon, and they realize it is bred to “maim and massacre.” Angel does not talk to the Prio Motu, and after a vicious fight in the defense of a pregnant woman, he kills the demon. The pregnant woman he thought he was saving begins to cry, demanding to know what Angel has done. Through tears, she says, “He was my protector!” The Prio Motu was bred to be a killer, but he chose to be her Champion. The knowledge devastates Angel and confuses Wesley: “That's what Prio Motus are! They hunt. They kill. What, we're supposed to think a creature like that can suddenly change its modus operandi overnight? Turn into some noble protector and defender of... Oh, God” (“Judgment”). The scene drives home the point that who you are is not as important as what you do. Angel resolves to take over the Prio Motu’s mission, because it is the only honorable choice.
The introduction of Charles Gunn echoes the introduction of Wesley to the episode, as well as the role of the Prio Motu. A white character panics when he sees a gang of African-American and Hispanic youths approaching him. He shouts, “take the car” and tries to run away. They are walking quickly with aggressive postures, and they do not appear to be noble or defenders. Until they kill the vampire waiting to grab the man running from them. Charles Gunn is a dangerous man, but only when it comes to vampires and demons. It is funny when the man shouts they should take his car. The audience would be tempted to the same in a bad area of Los Angeles, even as the audience recognizes it is a ridiculous way to assess danger.
Action and agency remain heavily emphasized throughout the rest of the series. “All that matters is what you do” becomes the driving principle of Angel’s world. Every character is judged based on their actions. Characters have the ability to completely refashion who they are by shifting their behavior. Wesley, Faith, Gunn, Illyria, Spike and even Angel can travel the spectrum between good and bad, but their bad deeds are always weighed in accordance with the good they have done, or are capable of doing. The greatest conflict of performance is introduced at the end of the series, when Angel must be willing to sacrifice his mission in order to keep fighting for what he knows to be right. Angel must act wrongly in order to accomplish the greater good.
To defeat the Senior Partners, the controlling powers of the law firm Wolfram and Hart, Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society made up of the most powerful and influential demons in Los Angeles. Angel is aware of the terms of the battle. If he wants to defeat the Circle of the Black Thorn, he must gain their trust through his actions. He kills Drogyn, another champion, in cold blood. But murder is not proof enough. The Circle expects Angel to renounce his name, and demands Angel renounce his right to the Shanshu prophecy. “Oh, good. Then you won't mind signing that pesky future away. Through that document, the prophecy can be undone. Your signature there will remove any opportunity that you will ever earn your once-precious humanity. Will you sign it?” (“Not Fade Away”). Angel calmly answers, “Of course” and signs away his mission. Like Quixote, he cannot fight unless he is prepared to be defeated and lose everything. Angel acts honorably and submits to the terms of the battle.
The act of signing away the mission is an interesting one. Angel signs a contract, and given his company, it is very much a legal agreement. But how can one sign away redemption or hope? It amounts to no more than a symbolic act of Angel’s commitment, to either side, but it is another attempt to use text to impose order on a chaotic world. It is a form of enchantment, as though it will become true if both parties believe in the act. Ultimately, the writers leave the promise of reward or the threat of damnation entirely ambiguous. It is enough that Angel is willing to believe and make the sacrifice.
Don Quixote faces a similar challenge towards the end of the second book. The Knight of the White Moon challenges Quixote to a duel by stating his “lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea del Toboso” (LXIV). This insult cannot be borne by Quixote, as a self-respecting and honorable knight-errant. In the chivalric tradition, Quixote is bound by honor to serve his Lady. The stated challenge leaves him no choice but to agree; however, the knight offers the challenge with a galling stipulation: “if thou fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that, laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year” (LXIV). Thus, if he fights and he loses, he must renounce his mission, which includes the disenchantment of his fair Dulcinea. If he refuses to fight, he has proven himself, and his Lady, dishonorable. Unfortunately, the opposing knight defeats Quixote, and this defeat ends his glorious adventures. When faced with an impossible choice, Quixote acts honorably. Even though the Knight of the White Moon was really the Bachelor, Samson, sent to trick him, Quixote lays down his arms and returns home.
Angel initially chooses to be a champion because he believes himself to exist in a world where justice and atonement also exists. He fights because there is an unknown observer and objective goals. He makes his final stance as a champion because he refuses to believe his idealized world does not exist. Like Quixote and his Giants, Angel creates his world by fighting for it.
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