2.22 Becoming Part 2
“You live as long as I do, eventually you lose everyone. It’s what happens. I’m not sayin’ you get used to it but you expect it, you deal.”
Darla: We did so many terrible things together. So much destruction, so much - pain. We can’t make up for any of it. You know that, don’t you?
Angel: Yeah.
Darla: This child - Angel, it’s the one good thing we ever did together. The only good thing… You make sure to tell him that.Season 3, Episode 9 - Lullaby
I have never forgiven Wesley for betraying Angel. Even after he came back and was part of the team again I could never look at him the same.
If he acted like he was sorry for what he did I would have forgiven him. But he didn’t, instead he blames others and doesn’t take responsibility for what he did. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, it would have been nice if Wesley acknowleged the hell his good intentions caused.
I dunno, I don’t really feel like Wesley can be held accountable for his actions considering the circumstance. In that light, I can’t think of a single thing I would have done differently. I can’t blame Angel for being so violent toward him, either. Fraternal instinct. That was his son. But it REALLY bothers me how the rest of the gang were so unforgiving.
I don’t think Wesley’s situation had anything to do with the usual misguided good intentions people typically have. The facts were there. Irrefutable. He spent weeks racking his brain trying to find another way. Another reference. He found none. He knew how the others would react to them. Doubt. Complete and total faith in a very flawed person (despite how much I love Angel, it’s true). He had a life to save.
It wasn’t just idiotic impulse Wesley acted on. He took his time. Made sure. And no one else saw or cared how many sleepless nights, alone, he spent, after it all went down. All they saw was the black and white, “You did x, it was wrong.”
So they completely abandoned him in his vulnerability.
…It just wasn’t fair.
Warning, this is going to be very long and rambly. (There’s a reason my Wesley tag is ‘I have Wesley issues’). I also feel the need to point out that Wesley has a great arc and he is written and performended very well. I just hate his fucking guts. Also, there might be some repetition.
Wesley did not do all he could do and he did not research every option. You know why? Because he did it all alone. The AI team is supposed to be a family, but Wesley showed zero trust in anyone that wasn’t him. He betrayed them by not trusting them when it mattered, he trusted the wrong people (Holtz and Justine) and then on top of everything he fucked up and lost the baby. Wesley isn’t infallible. They made a point of it by mentioning his Shanshu fuck up in Offspring. He should have asked the others for help and not do it all alone. I don’t think people’s trust in Angel is infallible and certainly Angel’s trust in himself is almost none existent, so that doesn’t work for me.
*He didn’t tell Angel, even though he asked about the prophecy and how Wesley was doing at least twice. Angel doesn’t trust himself, if Wesley had told him about the prophecy, Angel would have done everything he could to make sure Connor is safe. Wesley should know that. In addition, Wesley was not around for Angel’s more questionable behavior, the only things he was around for was Angel’s odd joke at the end of Loyalty and Angel being hyper in Sleep Tight. He wasn’t there for Angel’s brutal attack on those demons, Angel’s breakdown, the blood thing, he knows nothing about these things. He took Connor because he trusted a translation of a translation of a translation and a talking hamburger that talked about Angel eating Connor but not killing (Angel drank Connor’s blood, hence the Loa was legit).
* He let his feelings for Fred and Gunn to decide that he can’t tell them what was going on. Fred could have helped him with reseach and Gunn was pretty much the only one who could have held his own against Angel if things got bad. Seriously, just ten episodes before Wes chewed Gunn out for keeping secrets and then does the same, in a way worse way? Ugh, he pissed me off so much. Especially how he handled the Fred/Gunn relationship. If he was a healtier person he would have dealt with F/G like an adult. The only reason he doesn’t tell F&G is because he can’t get over his broken heart. Grow the fuck up! (I told you, issues)
*They had Cordelia’s phone number. He has absolutely no excuse for not calling Cordelia about this. She has all these crazy new powers, and she is very good at making Angel realize his mistakes. Besides, they were close friends, he should have confided on her about this. That’s why I have no problem with Cordelia’s reaction; Wesley betrayed her by not contacting her, and stealing the child she probably considered partly hers. Besides, her reaction to betrayal has consistently been ignoring the person or making nasty comments (Angel is S2, Xander after cheating).
* He almost killed Lorne. He knocked him out with lots of force and he had no idea whether it was enough the kill him. That thing Wesley hit Lorne with looked like it could cause a lot of damage, but he had to stop Lorne so thinking wasn’t something he was doing at that moment. He hit him and was going to leave. Also, I find Wes not telling Lorne the hardest to stomach because they have established Lorne as a basically babysitter/therapist for the gang, so I can’t think of another reason why Wesley didn’t confide in Lorne other than Wesley thought he had to do it alone. You would think that having an empath demons as a friend would help you in finding out whether or not a mutual friend is about to eat his child, but apparently Wesley doesn’t agree.
* Then there’s the whole ‘I trust Justine and Holtz and not my friends’ thing. He trusted Justine enough to let her get in throat slitting distance. This is more than he gave his friends. I hate that.
* And he’s why his ‘poor me, MY SIDE!’ act does not work for me: he threw.away.his.notes. Throwing away his notes shows me that for some reason he had no intention of letting his friends know why he did what he did. I have no idea why, since after he fucked up, he was all about telling his side of the story. But guess what? No one needs to know his side of the story! Everyone understand the situation so much better than Wesley ever does at the end of Forgiving that to hear him whine about not getting to tell his side is just stupid. They know why he did what he did, they know why he felt he had to do it, I’m sure they understand that it was a hard decision (to be honest I think that’s why he did things that way, because it was the hard way). They also know the prophecy was fake, why Angel was acting weird, that Angel would do anything for his son and that Angel doesn’t trust himself. But Wesley was working on a translation x3 (at least!), he was borderline imsomniac, had a broken heart (yawn!) and he has daddy issues so he needs to prove himself. None of these things lead to good things. He thought the only way to safe Connor was take him away from Angel, but the truth is, he had lots of other choices, he just didn’t look for them.
Like I said in my first post, I could have forgiven all those mistakes he made during the kidnapping arc if he had shown some regret afterwards, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t deal with what happened to Connor because of him (later, his justification is ‘He survived’ and once cavalierly mentions kidnapping Connor again (‘I’ve done it before’), he still resents Fred for not ‘choosing’ him, Gunn for being the one she ‘chose’, Angel for reacting realistically (he has the nerve to act like Angel’s apology in Ground State isn’t good enough), well, he doesn’t react to Cordelia at all and as for Lorne, there’s a reason Gunn’s first instinct when hearing W from Lorne is to think Wesley. He never acknowledges his actions and what happened because of them. If he had any sleepless night because of what he did and caused, the series didn’t show them. Instead he seems like just self pitying, self rightous prick. And that is what I can’t forgive.
I’m agree with you, nocticola!!!
Ohh nocticola you’ve described so well what I feel for Wesley :)
