Would you have forgiven Wesley?

AlphaFoxtrot said:
Well, I certainly wouldn't have tried to kill him. I would have given him the opportunity to explain himself, then kicked him out of the group. Because I can't trust him.
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I always think there is such an obvious link between what happens to Wesley and what Wesley threatened Gunn with at the end of 'This old Gang of Mine' - he specifically says 'it's never easy, the pull of divided loyalties - whatever choice we do end up making we feel as though we've betrayed someone ... if you ever withhold information or attempt to subvert me again, I will fire you. I can't have any one member of the team compromising the safety of the group, no matter who it is. If you do it again you will be dismissed bag and baggage out of a job and onto the streets.'

This speech can't be a coincidence - it fits too perfectly with everything that will ultimately happen to Wesley - he is the one who compromises the safety of the team - and by specifically saying 'no matter who it is' he is including himself, even if he doesn't know it. He is the one who - after telling Gunn off for doing this - then withholds far more important information, his loyalty is divided between doing what is right as he sees it and not wanting to hurt Angel, meaning he ends up betraying him ... and then he's dismissed bag and baggage out of a job and onto the streets.

This whole speech is a clear laying out of what happens to people who keep secrets and undermines the team - and then that person turns out to be Wesley himself. It can't be a coincidence ... and yet they never circle back to it or reference it again in any way. It's just left at the end of a forgettable MOTW episode near the start of the season and never mentioned again even though if this isn't foreshadowing I don't know what is.

And even if it wasn't purposeful at the time - how could they just leave it lying there when they got to the betrayal?

There's the scene in 'Spin the bottle' where Gunn asks Wesley what happened to him and Wesley replies 'I got my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me' - and it's treated like a mic drop line, but it isn't at all a mic drop line it's actually rank hypocrisy when you consider what he said to Gunn for a far lesser betrayal of the team - and Gunn would be totally within his rights to point that out.

Sometimes I think the show leans a bit hard on the 'poor Wesley' thing. 'He's so dark and tortured' ... yeah and he earned it all himself while holding others to a higher standard and not following his own advice.

I've never had a child, but I can't imagine I would forgive the person who kidnapped it, no - no matter how good they thought their reasons were. And especially if they then ended up in the hands of a psycho who hated me who took them to go live in a hell dimension.
I understand why Wesley does what he does, I know he does it for all the right reasons, but he is in the wrong and he ends up hurting the people he loves far more than he gets hurt. And if he'd only paid attention to his own words back in 'This Old Gang of Mine' he could have avoided it all. He brings everything on himself, what he suffers is well earned and his self pity about it does him no favours. I know they had to have Angel forgive Wesley in order to progress the story along and bring the team back together (the only other option would be writing Wesley out - and that was never going to happen, Joss likes Alexis too much) but I don't really think it's realistic that Angel forgave him - especially as it became more and more clear just how damaged the Connor who returned to him was.
 
I can see both sides, actually. I can understand how Wes felt, and how resentful he was that Angel wouldn't forgive him. We all know Wesley meant well.

But even though Angel knew this in his heart, he couldn't help how he felt.

I don't, however, believe Angel was justified in trying to kill Wes over it.
 
I agree with what @Myheadsgonenumb said . " I can't have any one member of the team compromising the safety of the group, no matter who it is". Wesley said that & then does something a lot worse & we supposed to cut him some slack ?

He had good reasons I agree with that but he thought he was better then everyone else & did something that was a crime . And I guessing her
didn't pay attention to the old say " The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions .
 
ChaseRules said:
I agree with what @Myheadsgonenumb said . " I can't have any one member of the team compromising the safety of the group, no matter who it is". Wesley said that & then does something a lot worse & we supposed to cut him some slack ?

He had good reasons I agree with that but he thought he was better then everyone else & did something that was a crime . And I guessing her
didn't pay attention to the old say " The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions .
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Sorry, genuinely curious here, but where in that scene did Wesley say that he was better than everyone else? All he did was inform Gunn of the consequences if he did something like that again. He never said, "I would never do something like that." Also, in a show known for its extreme (at times) use of foreshadowing, why is anyone surprised that Wesley's words come back to bite him on the ass just a handful or so of episodes later?
 
Sorry . Meant to imply that he told off Gunn for something he did & then did the same thing making it look like he though he was better .
And I not surprised since that had happened to him on Buffy so totally not surprised .
 
I think Wesley's reaction to it is kind of annoying, the way he's very annoyed about being abandoned by everyone and for nobody trying to see his side but I think he should understand what he cost Angel and Connor outweighs the fact that he didn't mean anything to go like it did. I don't think Wesley acknowledges how bad he screwed up but that's kind of in character.
 
Athene said:
I think Wesley's reaction to it is kind of annoying, the way he's very annoyed about being abandoned by everyone and for nobody trying to see his side but I think he should understand what he cost Angel and Connor outweighs the fact that he didn't mean anything to go like it did. I don't think Wesley acknowledges how bad he screwed up but that's kind of in character.
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I think they really missed a trick not having some Wes/Connor scenes. It’s hard for me to hugely empathise with Wes when you can see that Connor (as much as I despise him 😂) is deeply troubled and Wes’ mistake has had such hugely negative effects on him and the trauma it’s caused. I’d have liked Wes to acknowledge that and show him feeling some responsibility and trying to reach out to Connor a bit
 
Athene said:
I think Wesley's reaction to it is kind of annoying, the way he's very annoyed about being abandoned by everyone and for nobody trying to see his side but I think he should understand what he cost Angel and Connor outweighs the fact that he didn't mean anything to go like it did
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In Wesley's defence, from his perspective nobody even bothers to see his side other than Angel and Fred, and both of them outright condemn him. Angel visits him in hospital, tells him that he understands why he did what he did and still 'tries to kill him' and makes various threats on his life if he ever sees him again. Then Fred comes to visit him in hospital and angrily tells him he was wrong and is basically on his own.

Meanwhile Gunn and Cordelia- Wesley's closest friends- never ever bother to come visit him (Gunn visits but makes it clear that its only because he needs his help, there's no friendship left)

Is Wesley prideful and bitter? Yes, because he feels that he was unfairly treated by his friends.
I think his reluctance to apologise to Angel stems from that. It becomes obvious that he knows that he was wrong and regrets what he did, but with nobody on his side, who can he confide in?
Say if Cordelia had come to see him, full of her no-bullshit 'you done screwed up but I'm here for you' attitude I think Wesley's attitude would've been different, softer. And he wouldn't have let his own bitterness drive him down a darker path.
 
Faded90 said:
I think they really missed a trick not having some Wes/Connor scenes. It’s hard for me to hugely empathise with Wes when you can see that Connor (as much as I despise him 😂) is deeply troubled and Wes’ mistake has had such hugely negative effects on him and the trauma it’s caused. I’d have liked Wes to acknowledge that and show him feeling some responsibility and trying to reach out to Connor a bit
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Agreed . I dislike Conner a lot myself but it seemed to me that Wesley never acknowledge the fact that it was his fault. It would shown a different side
to Wesley if he had instead of refusing to admit he screwed up in a non attention getting way .
 
When I rewatched series 3 as a whole recently, I think Wesley ends up being a hypocrite and a bit of aa idiot given the issue that comes up with Gunn and how it escalated because Gunn wasn't open in telling his fellow AI members what was going on.

I get Wesley's great worry about the prophecy and the possibility of it's outcome but to not even share the information with ANYONE?

So it's certainly understandable in that one moment that Angel completely loses it and attacks Wesley even though Wesley is already suffering in pain from his injury. because all he sees at the time is that Wesley is responsible for his son being taken away.
It's not about being the right and wrong acceptable behaviour, Angel is in utter torment and Wesley is the one who is going to bare Angel's rage.

I think if Angel had never got his son back (even in the circumstances that he did) then I'm not sure Angel would have ever got pass what Wesley did and this is where I stand on the situation as well.
Angel knows of all that he has not only done as his soulless side but also bad choices he made with his soul so he can somehow relate to Wesley even though his feelings towards Wesley are never the same after the events of the disappearance of Connor.

So yes, ultimately knowing my own flaw history and having my child eventually return safely then yes I would forgive Wesley but I know that it won't ever be the same with us again.
 
Wesley never take any responsibility for what Connor becomes in season 4, or the teenager boy he is in general. He sees That Angel and Connor relationship is quite difficult, and complex, that Connor have resentment against Angel that is not always fair and he does nothing. Angel takes a lot of the blame on him when it comes to Connor while it’s true that his relationship with his son would be different if his friends hadn’t kidnapped his son to gave it to his enemy ( though that last part was not intentional).
 
Antho said:
Wesley never take any responsibility for what Connor becomes in season 4, or the teenager boy he is in general. He sees That Angel and Connor relationship is quite difficult, and complex, that Connor have resentment against Angel that is not always fair and he does nothing. Angel takes a lot of the blame on him when it comes to Connor while it’s true that his relationship with his son would be different if his friends hadn’t kidnapped his son to gave it to his enemy ( though that last part was not intentional).
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While it might not have been intentional Wesley still thought he knew better then everyone else And you know the saying about what the road to
Hell is paved with
 
I understand why Wes didn't feel he could go to anybody else with the prophecy information.

Angel has proven that he lets emotion rule over reason (and over his "nobody is beyond redemption" mission statement) when something personally affects him. See his "dark turn" during season 2 of the Darla storyline and how overprotective he is of baby Connor. He would have gotten angry at the insinuation that he was capable of hurting his own son and shut the conversation down.

Cordelia is unflinchingly loyal to Angel at this point in the series. She has never shown any particular reverence or respect to Wesley. She would have shut the conversation down.

Fred is such an oblivious lapdog at this point. She would have deferred any difficult decisions to Gunn.

Gunn, still feeling guilty over the events of That Old Gang of Mine, would be eager to prove his loyalty to Angel. He would shut the conversation down.

Lorne would have been willing to listen. But what could he do, besides read Angel? And to read Angel, he would have had to inform Angel why he needed to read him.

Wesley thought he was the only one willing to do what was necessary--hurting Angel now to avoid the much larger pain prescribed by the prophecy. Was that arrogant of him to think? Maybe...but given the way the rest of AI is acting and how irrational they all have proven to be lately, I think he's just being realistic.

For all Wesley knows, one wrong word to the wrong person sets in motion a chain of events that ends in Connor's death. His position is pretty tenuous. That pressure causes him to act rashly (but not entirely without cause--the Hamburger God confirmed the prophecy, although I don't recall if the writers ever explain why he did so?). There were risks to telling AI about the prophecy and risks to not telling them. Given that Wesley obviously has a history of being shouted down when he advocates for the tough choice, he decided on the course of action he viewed as less risky. Personally I don't view arrogance as having had anything to do with it--old wounds and vulnerabilities, maybe, but not arrogance.
 
T
thrasherpix
Wonder how old one has to be before he can read them (that is, read Connor's future). But this is a Wes thing to do (as he did with Faith), and yet seems to fail to learn from his (sometimes understandable) grievous mistakes.
I think I personally could never forgive Wesley. But I think Angel should. He's done far worse things as a soulless vampire, and he's all about redemption, for himself and others. Wes had good intentions and wanted to protect Connor, for whom he also cared deeply. I just thought Angel was entitled to do so in his own time, not be pushed by Fred or anyone else, mere days after the kidnapping.

However, I agree with others that Angel wasn't trying his hardest to kill Wesley in the hospital. Three ordinary humans pulled him off, and no way could they have done that if Angel was really intent on murder. So I think there was already some part of Angel forgiving Wes, or at least considering it.
 
Stake fodder said:
However, I agree with others that Angel wasn't trying his hardest to kill Wesley in the hospital. Three ordinary humans pulled him off, and no way could they have done that if Angel was really intent on murder. So I think there was already some part of Angel forgiving Wes, or at least considering it.
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I have a theory That Angel didn’t really want to kill Wesley. If he really wanted To kill wesley, he would be dead ! Maybe he just want to hurt him, to let understand wesley that they are no longer friends, that forgiveness he will never receive, and that it is in his interest to not stay around Angel 😅.
 
Stake fodder said:
I think I personally could never forgive Wesley. But I think Angel should. He's done far worse things as a soulless vampire, and he's all about redemption, for himself and others. Wes had good intentions and wanted to protect Connor, for whom he also cared deeply. I just thought Angel was entitled to do so in his own time, not be pushed by Fred or anyone else, mere days after the kidnapping.

However, I agree with others that Angel wasn't trying his hardest to kill Wesley in the hospital. Three ordinary humans pulled him off, and no way could they have done that if Angel was really intent on murder. So I think there was already some part of Angel forgiving Wes, or at least considering it.
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Awhile it true that Angel has done far worse things as a soulless vampire Wesley had a soul when he did that . And there two kinds of forgiving .
One is I forgive you & never talk to me again . And second is I forgive you & you need help moving in . I would forgive Wesley but never want to see or
talk to him again no matter what he says .
 
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