Shanshu NOT you. Spike's rebuttal.
Penned: 12/01/03

The original argument is italicized

Here's where Angel's case gets shot all to heck by the pro-Spike contingency. Go ahead and add your two cents worth.

First of all, Angel has had it extremely rough. He's lost Buffy. He's lost Cordelia. He's lost Connor. He's lost Doyle. That's quite a bit of loss right there. He should have something to assuage all that, shouldn't he?

Boo and hoo. The universe doesn't have a great big karma scale, at least not on this side of things.

He's been fighting the good fight for quite a while. Technically, he joined the forces of good in 1996, but he'd at least been non-evil since 1898.

Right. And let's see, what exactly did Angel do with all that time? In 1900, he tried to become evil again. In the fifties, he sicced a demon on an entire hotel full of people. He became a self-pitying schmoe who lived off of rats until Whistler grabbed him and took him on a trip to California where Angel fell instantly in love with the Slayer... WHO WAS 15! Angel's entire do-gooder mentality was based, technically, on romantic feelings for a juvenile! The guy is Michael Jackson! And, as I recall, he has slipped up in the past few years, hasn't he? Killing dozens of lawyers, for instance? Firing Gunn, Wes, and Cordy? Attempted suicide via Darla? Don't need to lose your soul to be evil, do you?

He's sorry for all the bad things Angelus has done. Angel's been accused of brooding by the others, but I can understand why he gets down and unhappy so often. He has a lot of bad memories he's had to deal with, both old ones and recently. No one really understands what he's gone through.

Well, no one understands what he's gone through because Angel never tells anyone his problems! He prefers to keep them to himself and let things fester. If he tried to actually connect with his friends more often instead of pulling the brooding-I'm-so-much-worse-than-you-I'm-better-than-you card all the time, he might have a happier life, but that's not what he wants.

Angel has known about shanshu for a while now, and there have probably been times when it's the only thing he's had to keep him going. Not receiving it would be very hard on him.

No one ever promised Angel shanshu. In fact, Angel has at various times either stated he doesn't believe in it or, as in his epiphany, that doing what's right should be it's own reward. Is that just a load of malarky or did he really mean that he doesn't expect a reward?

Angel has had some very hard odds going against him for a long time now, and yet he's still managed to keep himself pretty well aligned with doing what's right. He's even done what's right when it's extremely difficult, such as having Connor forget him or leaving Buffy because he believed it was really in her best interests. That deserves a reward.

Yeah, Angel's had bad times. A lot of them are his own making. For example, leaving Buffy was his choice, not hers. He decided he knew what was best for her and that she did not. That doesn't exactly come up as being a poster sentiment for trusting your loved one's judgement, now does it? That makes Angel indirectly responsible for Riley! As for Connor, do you really expect to give the guy kudos for killing his son? Because that is exactly what he wound up doing.

The guy got a ticket to hell thanks to stupid Angelus's actions. He spent centuries being tortured (or a century depending upon when you're quoting him) because of a plan to end the world that he did not consent to do. The universe owes him one.

First of all, the idea that the timeline on this changed makes it extremely suspect. There's a difference between many centuries and one hundered years. And who says Angelus's actions are separate from Angel's completely? If Angelus really is Angel's id, then he's a part of Angel, so Angel was technically guilty and deserved what he got.

Angel is the lead character in the show. He should have the shanshu simply because he is the center of the AtS universe and is the person the story is about. Something of this magnitude should only happen to the true protagonist.

Right. Because every story has to hinge on Angel. Balogna. Obvious is rarely the best choice.

Angel becoming human would allow him to find Buffy and help her bake those metaphorical cookies, and Buffy is also in serious need of being cut some slack.

Sure! As long as he wasn't too busy baking cookies with Cordelia! He didn't have any problem with Cordelia not being able to walk in the sunlight with him. Face it. Angel loved Cordelia. He picked her over Buffy. He got over Buffy and would prefer to be with Cordy if she were not comatose.

It would be interesting to see if Angel being human would completely alleviate his guilt or if his guilt would remain in spite of his regenerated state.

It would be far more interesting to see how Angel would react to someone else getting the shanshu and whether or not he still believed he could accomplish anything through his continued persistance in the cause of good.

For the last several years, the show has been at least partially about Angel's journey to shanshu. Changing that now would be a major upheaval and feel like a cheat.

Bah. It would be exactly what Joss has done in the past and is so good at doing: making us look one way when he's really doing something else behind our backs.

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