What is the
nature of hell?
Spike and Angel discuss a number of types of hell.
We've explored a few in the past with Angel.
Pylea. A place that stripped away one's humanity and was organized in such a way
as you toiled at a job you didn't seek, purchased by overseers you didn't
choose, maintained in conditions you couldn't stand and unable to protest
because it's just been barred from you.
Cordy was in hell in Pylea. And by that definition, in "Rm w/A Vu" as
well. Pylea was a hell dimen-sion, but for Angel it was a paradise. There was a
clear delineation of right and wrong, he could be in the sun, he could see his
reflection. What made our plane of existence a hell of eternal penance for him
-- the loss of his humanity, the lack of moral certitudes -- was in some degree
restored to him there.
It only became a hell for him when he could not control what also made him a
demon.
We witnessed his demon's hell in "Orpheus." The lack of volition,
the ongoing witness to destruction that was not taking place, to the redemption
that was, forced to remain confined to Angel's skull, with only the most
limited expression of Angelus possible.
How about Darla's hell? The soul she felt growing inside of her, the love it
shared with her, the emptiness she knew was coming. A hell of imminence, an
unrelenting ticking clock that this was
going to be taken away. She couldn't experience the love inside her without
confronting its fragility.
Wesley's hell was similar. A realization, after so much loss and darkness, that
true love and happiness was finally within his grasp, only to have it wrenched
from him as he began to experience it.
Spike's hell was a two-parter -- beyond the lost love of Dru, which we as
humans can't entirely access, and the chip itself, which was a prison
installed. With the soul he fought so hard for -- which he couldn't
understand, being a demon -- (and I just right now got that what he was drawn
to in Buffy might've been her demon infusion -- wild) -- he got to experience
all the remorse Angel did for all of
his past crimes and sins. But then he had to deal with the realization
of crimes he'd committed while ensouled. Sure, he was brainwashed, but
reflecting on these murders, he recognized his lack of control and opened his
heart for the staking.
Pavayne's hell was a bit more flowery, storytellingwise. He was desperately
perched on the very mouth of destruction, and to maintain the volition he'd
wrought for himself in his twisted evil madness, flung other lost souls into it
as a kind of eternally insufficient appeasement. His reality became a hell
Spike described as he was experiencing it, as straddling two edges of an
ever-widening abyss with no end in sight.
So in "Underneath," why his poet's brain was only able to come up
with "fire hell" and "ice hell" -- expanded on by Angel with "toy poodles on parade
hell" -- truly a horrific image -- is a bit of a mystery.
LINDSEY IN HELL
Hell as discussed in this show is a dynamic place -- as heaven, if Buffy is to
be understood correctly, is more static. Hell is a place of continuous,
struggling effort as opposed to a place of completion, of rest.
Lindsey's hell was one I think lots of people experience, in all reality. We wake
up in the morning with our perfect, undemanding days with people we think we
know. We form connections, we limit our per-ception to the people we come into
contact with. We wave and smile and we get by. But in the private-most
basements of our lives our hearts are being ripped out by the sheer meaningless
repetition of it all, the lack of direction, the traps we've laid so carefully
for ourselves and in which we find ourselves ensnared.
Hell is meaninglessness.
Angel's meaningless meeting meaninglessness. That was a nice introduction to
the episode -- Angel at an empty
table. With Cordy and Fred both dead, that's where we were as fans as well. Wes
was babysitting the Blue Meanie, Lorne was off someplace getting hammered, Gunn
was still in recovery and Harmony and Spike were about as much help as Harmony
and Spike ever were.
Hell is meaninglessness.
Gunn had a headful of legal knowledge that was useless to him. He'd been
skating along blissfully unaware of the price he was paying for it, and now that
it was there, he couldn't make himself use it. It was dead to him. There was no joy in it. Fred's smiling face
was gone and he had demon languages and strategies.
Hell is meaninglessness.
Buffy felt at peace in her version of the Elysian fields. More to the point,
she never felt like there was any
action she needed to take. She felt warm and safe and loved, secure in the
knowledge that everyone she loved was going to be OK.
Her existence was a peace that she'd earned.
Lindsey's sunny, bright and shining, seemingly perfect day was interrupted
regularly by obligation -- meaningless in itself -- that ripped his chest open.
Punishment for defiance. And with a rule -- it can never exist as a null set.
Someone had to relive that same glorious day every day or there'd be a tear in
the universe.
The basement was confrontational. The layers of illusion were torn away and the
person in the basement was confronted with their crimes, with who they were.
It's interesting that the hell dimension was designed by a Japanese agent of
W&H. An Asian punishment I'm aware of releases a convict to a normal,
happy, potentially fulfilling life, with the nagging understanding in the back
of his mind that one day, an executioner will step out from behind him and end
his life without warning.
This may be misremembered on my part, but in practice it consigns the convict
to that basement, because hearts are not mystically restored, and every day is
potentially one's last.
Like a certain otherwise anonymous security guard who'd clearly been guilty of
the crime of functioning in any capacity for W&H.
As an introduction to Hamilton, the episode rocked. As discussed in the
commentary, Hamilton did not have to play his character at all evil -- although
Adam Baldwin said he'd have loved to play it more sinister. If you do an evil
thing, you don't have to present yourself as evil. Hamilton arrived with
an earthquake that shook Eve from her hiding place and ripped out a heart and
threw Harmony across the room (yay!) on his way to calmly serving Eve with her
mortality papers.
Angel (I think): You said you were gonna die!
Eve: And now someday I will.
This was a good
move, storytellingwise. In a spinoff from a series all about the empowerment of
women, the final showdown between Angel and the representative of the Senior
Partners would've had him battling Eve,
who we'd been suspecting for a while was no more mystical than a doily
with a long shelf life. Angel
smacking Sarah Thompson around wouldn't have been entirely satisfying. That's
not to say it wouldn't have been scads of fun, but not series finale
fun.
Essentially, it would look like Angel beating up a little girl, and I don't
think that's the image Joss wanted heading into that alleyway.
It took Angel to spark Gunn out of one circle of hell -- a situation he had no
voice in creating -- to one he could choose, a penance he could take on. Angel
prompted Gunn to lead them to Eve, and Eve led them to Lindsey. And, knowing
the rules, Gunn took on his punishment -- freeing them at the expense of his
own well-being, taking on the literal pain of getting his heart ripped out to
address the more metaphorical way he'd found himself in that situation.
"Underneath" is not an especially satisfying episode. Angel already
knows everything he learns from Lindsey -- that The Apocalypse is coming --
because he's already seen it in the visions he gained from Cordy.
But it does open a window on the pain of loss, and of love.
And also, on the nature of hell.