Post by stargazer1682 on Nov 3, 2018 16:47:06 GMT
There's a concept I've developed over the years, that I find myself apply more and more to with a lot of shows; which amounts to "the lie would have been better" - as in, whenever some premise is revealed to have been an elaborate lie, and then things go off in a tangent from the revelation of the truth; so often I find that it would have been better if whatever the lie was, would have made a better actual story than discovering it was pretense for something else.
"Hells Bells" is an instance of this, I feel. The idea of a past victim of Anya's vengeance coming back to hurt her, by hurting someone she loves is an interesting idea; especially if the catalyst for it were to turn out like I suggested in the Fan Theories thread, to have been orchestrated by D'Hoffryn, in order to bring Anya back into the fold as a vengeance demon. But I don't think enough time was dedicated to exploring the idea of there actually being fall out to Anya's time as a vengeance demon, which the concept sort of calls for. It's like any of the times they looked at Angel's past and explored what it would feel like to remember the pain he caused people for centuries; only in this case Anya hadn't given it any thought until a past mark confronts her, and even then she only thinks about how his actions are affecting her happiness, without consideration of what she had done to him. I mean, who knows whether or not his account was true of just being a philanderer who slept around and one of his fleeting dalliances who thought it was more became upset and wished Anya on him; or if the spurned lover was more justified in seeking vengeance. But even if he turned out not to have been as innocent as he claimed, it would have been interesting to find out there was at least one many who didn't actually deserve Anya's wrath, and she ruined his life anyway.
So there's definitely merit to the story idea, along with some unplummed depths, but there's another story that could have come out of Hells Bells that I think would have been even better - where a future Xander Harris travels back in time to alter history. Maybe it's me and my love of a good time travel story, but I was always disappointed by the fact that it was just a ruse; and Xander did not in fact get any kind of glimpse into the future. I think it would have been great if that turned out the be the real deal; and to give that story more attention where we see more than three or four very short looks at what's possibly in store, not just for Anya and Xander, but for all of the Scoobies. I definitely could have done with seeing less of Xander's family and more, longer looks into the future; with the story culminating in a definitive change that would lead to some alternate path, that could have wildly different outcomes. Some of those outcomes may have been good, but some of them could have been for the worse; especially if Xander only saw snippets of his future life, without full context or history of events in between and he's left guess what's still at play or when other things might happen.
"Hells Bells" is an instance of this, I feel. The idea of a past victim of Anya's vengeance coming back to hurt her, by hurting someone she loves is an interesting idea; especially if the catalyst for it were to turn out like I suggested in the Fan Theories thread, to have been orchestrated by D'Hoffryn, in order to bring Anya back into the fold as a vengeance demon. But I don't think enough time was dedicated to exploring the idea of there actually being fall out to Anya's time as a vengeance demon, which the concept sort of calls for. It's like any of the times they looked at Angel's past and explored what it would feel like to remember the pain he caused people for centuries; only in this case Anya hadn't given it any thought until a past mark confronts her, and even then she only thinks about how his actions are affecting her happiness, without consideration of what she had done to him. I mean, who knows whether or not his account was true of just being a philanderer who slept around and one of his fleeting dalliances who thought it was more became upset and wished Anya on him; or if the spurned lover was more justified in seeking vengeance. But even if he turned out not to have been as innocent as he claimed, it would have been interesting to find out there was at least one many who didn't actually deserve Anya's wrath, and she ruined his life anyway.
So there's definitely merit to the story idea, along with some unplummed depths, but there's another story that could have come out of Hells Bells that I think would have been even better - where a future Xander Harris travels back in time to alter history. Maybe it's me and my love of a good time travel story, but I was always disappointed by the fact that it was just a ruse; and Xander did not in fact get any kind of glimpse into the future. I think it would have been great if that turned out the be the real deal; and to give that story more attention where we see more than three or four very short looks at what's possibly in store, not just for Anya and Xander, but for all of the Scoobies. I definitely could have done with seeing less of Xander's family and more, longer looks into the future; with the story culminating in a definitive change that would lead to some alternate path, that could have wildly different outcomes. Some of those outcomes may have been good, but some of them could have been for the worse; especially if Xander only saw snippets of his future life, without full context or history of events in between and he's left guess what's still at play or when other things might happen.