#Harm's Way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rock-and-compass · 5 days ago

Text

Angel 5.9 - Harm's Way

Precursor - I wrote about the fifth season of Angel many years ago - probably around the time that the season 8 comics were first being published. I originally published these meta essays over on LiveJournal and I've decided to re-post them (as written), mostly for archival reasons. I love season 5 of Angel. It's such a shame it got axed before it could get the envisioned 6th and 7th series

Written by Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft

Harm’s Way is an episode about perspectives. First and foremost, it showcases Angel’s new regime at Wolfram and Hart from a perspective outside the core ‘family’ unit. On a secondary level it is about how other people view those around them; a dramatisation if you will, of the old proverb that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Harm’s way is interesting mainly because it gives us an alternative perspective of Angel from the vantage point of a character we are familiar with and who was associated with Wolfram and Hart prior to the arrival of Angel and Co. Harmony functions as our protagonist for this episode and it is important to realise that the events are seen entirely through her eyes. If Angel and associates seem brutal and mean it is because this is how they are viewed by Harmony who is not one of the inner circle, and because their arrival at the firm has presented her with a whole set of new challenges which she must navigate in order to survive the dog-eat-dog world of Wolfram and Hart, Attorneys at Law. We knew Angel and his team have found the shift somewhat problematic, both personally and professionally but this episode demonstrates that the transition of power has been a testing experience for others as well.

The character of Harmony has been a fixture in the Buffyverse from the very beginning. Mercedes McNab, the actress who portrays Harmony, appeared in the unaired pilot production that was filmed in order to entice network interest in the proposed series. Harmony appeared sporadically throughout the first three seasons of Buffy as a friend (or more accurately, a rival) of Cordelia’s. She was one of the ‘in’ crowd who keeps her place at the top of the high-school food chain by relying on her looks, solidarity with others in the ‘popular’ echelon and a general expertise in bitchiness. Intelligence is certainly not one of her more prominent characteristics. In Graduation Day (part 2) Buffy leads an army of graduating students against the ascending Mayor and his vampire minions. In the midst of the melee, we witness Harmony being bitten by a nameless vampire. We assume that is the end of her, a casualty in the never-ending fight against evil. Not quite.

Harmony’s human life may be over, but becoming a vampire opens up a whole new realm of existence for her. In season four’s The Harsh Light of Day she makes her return to the series with an unsuccessful attempt to bite Willow and boast that her ‘boyfriend’ will seek retribution on her behalf. Her boyfriend turns out to be none other than Spike. The relationship is hardly romantic. Spike makes no secret of his contempt for her, even going so far as attempting to stake her when she gets too annoying even for him. And while Harmony might love her ‘platinum baby’ Spike is clearly only using her for convenience and to work through some ‘issues’ he has with women as a result of Drusilla’s betrayal. It’s no wonder the liaison is short lived, though they do have a brief reunion after Harmony makes a laughable attempt at embracing her inner evil by taking on the slayer aided only by some dubious minions and ill-thought-out plans.

After getting the final brush-off from Spike in Crush, Harmony heads to L.A. and tracks down her old pal Cordelia. In Disharmony she reveals how difficult she finds her vampiric existence. She craves a place to fit in, be someone, like she was in high school. She swears she can be part of the team, after all, Angel is a vampire and he’s doing OK, so she can too – if they just give her a chance. But she’s a soulless vampire with a natural inclination for evil so all her good intentions are ultimately useless. Inevitably, she turns on Team Angel and escapes, disappearing into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles until her reappearance as Angel’s secretary in Conviction.

Employment at Wolfram and Hart would have been the ideal solution for a little lost un-dead girl such as Harmony. After some years of futility, ineffectuality and disorientation it would have offered conformity and stability in an environment that was tolerant, even encouraging, of evil tendencies, didn’t care what you got up to in your off hours and was populated by like-minded beings. She would have finally found a place where she felt like she belonged. And then Angel arrived…

This episode opens with an ‘inspirational’ promotional video for the wonderful institution that is Wolfram and Hart, albeit with a few changes: (Maybe find a video of this – of there is one)

Welcome to the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. We're the oldest and most powerful law firm in the city. Founded in 1791 on ground deconsecrated by the blood of mass murderer Mathias Pavayne, Wolfram & Hart has put roots down in this glamorous city that grow deep, and branches that reach right into the heart of every major corporation including Yoyodyne, Weyland Yutani and Newscorp. That captain of industry? We own his soul. That fabulous movie queen? She owes us her first born. But times change, and Wolfram & Hart is changing right along with them. Under our new C.E.O., Angel, we're focusing less on power and more on using that power for good. We have a zero tolerance policy for killing, and that includes you, vampires. That better be pig's blood, mister. Yes, our esteemed president has made it clear that this is a new company for the new millennium, and he wants to work with you.

ANGEL: If you don't kill, we won't kill you.

That's right, no more employee sacrifices. At Wolfram & Hart, you're part of a family now. You can work your way up the ladder, and there will always be a hand to help you up it. Every life and unlife is as important to our new management as their own. So go ahead, relax, and enjoy your new Wolfram & Hart family, because at our firm, everyone matters. You matter. Buddy, you're going places.

The episode begins in earnest with a montage of our ‘working gal’, Harmony, as she goes through her morning routine to prepare for a day at the office. Apart from the usual ablutions and clothes choosing, there are a few things that remind us that Miss Harmony is not a regular girl. As she brushes her teeth she adopts her ‘game face’ in order to brush those fangs, she uses her super vampire strength to lift her dresser by one leg so she can retrieve her missing shoe and neighbour, Mrs. Jacobi’s spunky little dog growls at her because it recognises her as the evil un-dead. Once she arrives at the office Harmony looks the part; every inch the perfect secretary, the very definition of efficiency and reliability as she hangs up Angel’s dry cleaning and goes to get his morning cup of blood. But in the lunchroom things aren’t so rosy. She is excluded from conversations and can’t quite seem to make a connection with her fellow ‘grunts’. They want nothing to do with her and are openly contemptuous of her attempts to be social. At the microwave Harmony jumps the queue and interrupts another person, lording over the disgruntled other with her status within the company:

Harmony: Oh, I know. It's so unfair. Just because my boss is your boss's boss, his needs coming first and all.

Harmony might be a ‘grunt’ but in the ‘grunt heap’ she’s top of the pile and she likes everyone to know it. Hmmm… not such a mystery why she can’t make any friends after all.

Back at her desk, Harmony is still being quite impressive. She’s on top of Angel’s schedule, knows exactly where he should be at what time and with whom. She goes above and beyond the call of duty. She’s everything a good personal assistant should be and Angel doesn’t even notice. He doesn’t notice her good work, he doesn’t notice her. From Harmony’s perspective her job is a thankless one, recognition is never given, and gratitude is never offered. Buddy, you matter? Not bloody likely!

It is time for Harmony’s random blood sample, just to make sure she, or any other employee, is not on the 'juice':

Harmony: Oh, come on, Rudy. You know I've been off the human blood for months

She’s making an effort in playing to the new set of rules, trying her hardest… And then we meet someone who’s not. Eli is a decayed looking fella from accounting who has been called up to see Angel (with complete disregard for Harmony’s scheduling!) He’s hopeful his good work is going to be recognised. He thinks he’s going places. But no – rather it is his extra-curricular activity of dismembering virgins that has garnished his reputation. His reward for flouting office policy is a good and thorough beheading. Harmony can’t help but protest the harshness and is reminded in reply:

Angel: Called a zero tolerance policy, not a "maybe this once" policy. Nobody in this office gets away with murder, not anymore

Well, nobody except Angel ;)

Spike turns up just as the entire team has assembled in the foyer. Apparently he’s been missing in action since the re-corporialisation. He had a fair bit of drinking to catch up on but now he’s come to say his good-byes to them all, seeing as how he’s got "someone" waiting for him (much eye-rolling from Angel here). Wesley cautions against his departure as the whole Shanshu prophecy thing is still unresolved. But Spike is non-responsive telling Angel:

Spike: You're welcome to that heroic destiny, whether you deserve it or not. Me, I got better things to do than wait around for the four bloody horsemen

Life is for living, not brooding. Angel can keep his ‘destiny’. Spike demonstrates that the quest for the Cup of Perpetual Torment in the previous episode was never about claiming a destiny he believed was his, it was about claiming a destiny because he could. He gives it to Angel because he can. And it irritates Angel because he contravenes all the ‘rules’ that he’s so carefully put in place and adhered to for so long and makes all of his efforts worthless.

After gaining the donation of a set of wheels from Angel (who will do anything to hasten his departure) Spike saves some genuinely kind and appreciative words for Fred; her belief in him, her efforts on his behalf mean more to him than just about anything. Harmony witnesses the departure from the vantage point of an outsider. He doesn’t have any special words for her despite their previous connection. She voices a tearful objection but receives no reassurance, but rather, just a derogatory piece of advice to ‘keep it simple’ because it suits her. No good-bye, no apology, nothing. She’s very firmly reminded she’s not one of the gang.

Meanwhile, Angel is mediating a long-running feud between two particular demon clans, the Vinjis and the Sahrvin. Angel hopes to broker a truce; just part of the services offered by the new and improved Wolfram and Hart. Success will ensure that the demon world knows that Wolfram and Hart mean business and are to be taken seriously in their drive to use their power for good. There’s a lot riding on it and if things don’t go according to plan the new Angel regime will be left with little credibility, and so put the whole rationale for taking over Wolfram and Hart into jeopardy. As the group confers, Lorne’s personal assistant arrives with the seating plan he’s working on. Lorne is full of praise and admiration. Harmony, sitting in on the meeting taking notes, takes the opportunity to try and impress with her freshly researched knowledge of superstitions held by the clans only to be bought sadly to earth:

Harmony: You don't know the half of it. I've been doing a whole bunch of research on these guys, their customs and stuff? Did you know that they think poodles are wicked bad luck?

Wesley: Harmony, I'm glad you're here . . . We'll be needing lunch.

While Lorne’s guy gets recognition Harmony is told to get lunch. Yep, at Wolfram and Hart everyone matters! Harmony? She’s going places… as long as it’s the local take-away… but not Thai again – they want something a bit lighter. Contrasted to the implied group lunch attended by Angel’s inner circle is Harmony eating lunch alone in the communal lunchroom. Again she tries to break into a conversation being had by others, again she is unceremoniously rejected, her observation that Wesley has a crush on Fred dismissed outright. Lorne’s assistant arrives with a muffin basket courtesy of his boss. The other workers openly admire him and the way that Lorne is grooming Dan for success. Harmony tries desperately to compete:

Harmony: Angel grooms me, too. Office girl #2: Explains the haircut. Harmony: I'm his right arm. He's taking me places. We're so connected

Only to be completely undone when Angel calls to demand her presence and asks with loud fury, why she can’t do anything right!

Turns out Harmony, after researching the cultural practices of the feuding demons, has ordered a live camel. The meat is considered a delicacy and as host of the festivities, Angel would get the honour of slicing off the hump and plunging a red-hot poker into its heart which would then be followed by the demon leaders ripping the carcass apart with their bare hands. She suggests that it would be an excellent way to get the summit off to a promising start. But Angel is having none of it. He doesn’t want a live camel in his foyer, and he certainly doesn’t want to butcher it! He just wants Harmony to answer the phone, make appointments and anticipate his every need. Which to be fair to Harmony is what she’s been trying to do. Just because Angel doesn’t fancy a camel sacrifice doesn’t negate the fact that Harmony did the research, found out about their particular customs and had good intentions even if the actual live camel was not the best idea in the world. Fred diplomatically suggests chips and dip as a viable alternative, but Harmony decides that Angel has rejected the suggestion because Angel hates her. That everybody hates her. Fred contradicts this and before she knows what’s happened she’s been roped into a ‘girl’s night out’.

Fred and Harmony are at a bar, having a cocktail and Harmony confides that she can’t quit her job because she has nowhere else to go:

Harmony: I tried being out on my own, all independent and evil. I'm just no good at it

She desperately wants her and Fred to become ‘gal pals’, so that Fred can teach her about life, and she can teach Fred about fashion. In essence she wants a relationship that is reminiscent of her high-school friendships, the last she knew as a human. Harmony still craves high-school type ‘popularity’ rather than real friendship. Her emotional stagnation is, in part, related to her being a vampire, but also because the person she was before she was sired had little understanding of true human connections that are not based on popularity, looks, clothes and cliques. Like both Spike and Angel, the human she was is highly influential on the vampire she became.

Harmony spies a good-looking man at the bar and with Fred’s encouragement, goes to talk to him. She pretends to find his personal details interesting and thus demonstrates that she is really quite incapable of any kind of meaningful interpersonal relationship. Though not so bad that she can’t get a little action. Harmony wakes up with the man from the bar but is unable to remember his name. Very embarrassed she tries to rouse him only to discover that he’s dead with fang marks in his neck. Oops

Harmony disposes of the body down her garbage shoot and goes to work trying to act au naturale. The blood testing guy, Rudy, is doing his rounds so Harmony slouches down in her chair trying to look inconspicuous but only succeeds in getting chewed out by Angel for being late and not getting his morning blood. While waiting for the blood to warm she tries to remember the events of the previous evening but can’t recall a thing so decides to blame Fred who ‘made’ her talk to the guy in the first place. She has a drink from her unicorn sticker-covered thermos and guzzles greedily; stress eating she decides.

The police call Angel and tell him about a body that they found in the city dump that just happens to be owned by Wolfram and Hart. The dead man is Tobias Dupree, and he, unfortunately is the demon rights activist who brokered the idea of the summit in the first place. Angel, Gunn and Wes are worried that the peace treaty will be derailed or that someone is deliberately trying to sabotage it. Harmony is just worried about her own neck.

The clans are upset. They demand vengeance before the summit can proceed. Angel gets on it, bringing the body back to the lab. Harmony panics and rushes to see if Fred knows anything that implicates her in Dupree’s death but Fred hasn’t put two and two together. She tries to engage Harmony in gossip about the previous evening, and even suggests they go out again sometime. Harmony has too much on her mind to be responsive. While contemplating a flight to Mexico, Harmony is caught unawares and has her blood tested by Rudy. She tests positive for the consumption of human blood. Harmony responds by knocking Rudy out and stashing him in the utility closet. She happens across Lorne and questions him as to what happens to the blood test results and is dismayed to discover that they are automatically sent to the lab. A noise from the cupboard alerts Lorne that something is up and necessitates his unconscious storage in the closet too.

She heads straight to the lab where Fred, having already seen the test results starts backing away. Harmony tries to explain. She thinks she was drugged and that she can’t have bitten him because he was bitten on the wrong side of the neck…and that someone must have spiked her thermos. Fred is dubious and tries to call Angel. She advises Harmony to just come clean and confess all to the boss. “Zero tolerance policy” Harmony protests, sure that the revelation of her positive test will result in her decapitation. Fred insists that Angel will understand, gets knocked out and added to the growing pile of bodies in the janitor’s storeroom. Harmony promises to buy them dinner once she clears her name.

As Harmony hides from Angel she hears that the demon clans are demanding a substitute blood sacrifice if they can’t have blood of the killer. The confab is in jeopardy and Harmony fears for her life, worried that Angel would happily sacrifice her in the name of progress for demon communications, particularly with the fate of Eli fresh in her memory and the corporate spin of Wolfram and Hart ringing in her ears – ‘if you don’t kill – we won’t kill you’

Angel asks her to go find Fred and Harmony detours to the lunchroom to get herself together. She finds Dan rifling through the fridge and instantly accuses him of tampering with her blood supply. Dan has no idea what she is talking about and is quite terrified until another girl steps in and knocks Dan out. But rather than helping, she reveals that she wants Harmony to get the blame, wants her to get fired. Harmony is incensed:

Harmony: Why would you want to? Hey! It was you! . . . Who are you?

Turns out, this girl, Tamika, has a real thing about Harmony. Tamika used to sit next to Harmony in the steno pool, for all of about five weeks. Then Harmony was pulled out of obscurity to the best desk in the building and gets to hob-knob with the in-crowd while Tamika, who types 80 words per minute and has been with Wolfram and Hart for five years gets nowhere! Resentment issues indeed. Harmony is bemused but from Tamika’s perspective she’s on the A-team. She’s at all the important meetings; she’s on the fast track. She’s going places.

It’s a strange thing, perspective; strange how the same situation can look completely different to two different people. To Fred, Angel is a helper. He helps the helpless, that’s what he does. To Harmony, he’s a chopper; a chop first, ask questions later kind of guy. Same bloke; different perspectives. Harmony sees herself stuck on the outside of team Angel, Tamika thinks she’s securely ensconced within.

Turns out Tamika is a vampire too, so the whole murder and frame-up plot – not so surprising. And hey, Harmony has learnt a few moves since her bitch-slap fight with Xander in The Initative (B4.07). So they fight, with chopsticks; quite dangerous for a couple of vampires really.

Meanwhile, the conference is not going so well. Tempers are frayed on all sides and there is a substantial amount of hissing and growling and clicking going on. Oh, and they are still demanding that sacrifice. Suddenly Tamika and Harmony crash through the office window, landing on the conference table. Harmony stakes the other girl with a chopstick instantly turning her to dust. Angel looks startled but the demon clans are satisfied, ready to sit down and talk at last.

In the aftermath, Fred, Rudy and Lorne have been liberated from the closet and Angel tells Harmony that she should have come to him for help. She assumes that she’ll be fired but Angel gives her another chance – perhaps it was her saying that she has to work twice as hard at being good because she doesn’t have a soul. It must have resonated, even just a bit. It’s been damn hard for Angel to do the right thing at times, and he does have a soul.

Later Harmony is sitting alone in the bar pouring out her woes to the bartender, lamenting the fact that she got no thanks for saving the summit, just a demand for coffee. Spike appears; he’s not gone to Europe after all:

Spike: I was on my way, had a boat ticket and all. Then I put a little thinking into it. A man can't go out in a bloody blaze of glory, savin' the world, and then show up 3 months later, tumbling off a cruise ship in the south of France. I mean, I'd love to, don't get me wrong, but, it's hard to top an exit like that … I expect Buffy would be happy enough to see me. It's just, I gave up my life for her, the world, and if I show up now, flesh and bone, my grand finale won't hold much weight. All of it... won't matter.

So, Spike has fears and worries and for the first time ever we see them stand in the way of what he wants. Perhaps the soul also allows him to hear that little voice in the back of his head that cautions and stresses and vocalises fears and makes him think of all the reasons why he shouldn’t and all the things that could go wrong. Maybe the idea that Buffy would certainly remember him fondly is too precious to give up. Maybe those words spoken, those words denied in the Hellmouth are too terrifying to even contemplate. What if what she said was not true? . . . What if it was? And so we discover, if we didn’t already know, that Spike is not all bravado. It’s all an act. He’s scared. Scared about seeing Buffy, worried that his sacrifice will be diminished in her eyes, unsure if he will be loved – and thus, this determines his underlying motivation for a good portion of the remainder of the series. Spike makes a conscious decision to stay away from Buffy and see what he can make of himself without her.

Harmony can sympathise with the fear of not mattering but here we are shown the vast amount of distance that separates the souled and unsouled vampires. Spike is able to balm Harmony’s wounded sense of self-worth by pointing out that she does matter because someone tried to frame her for murder; that because others are envious of her, she matters. Yet the same explanation does not satisfy him. By his own logic, the fact that he mattered enough for someone to go to all the effort of retrieving the amulet, sending it to Angel and then re-corporialising him should have Spike feeling pretty pleased with himself. But it doesn’t. He wants to matter, not to an anonymous mass of envious co-workers, but to a blonde slayer somewhere in Europe and, one suspects, to a frequently grumpy grand sire. He wants to matter for the right reasons and so, he stays.

Next up: Soul Purpose

#angel #Spike #harmony #angel season 5 #Angel the series #harm's way

3 notes · View notes

tofixtheshadows · 6 months ago

Text

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

#Dungeon Meshi #Delicious in Dungeon #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Laios Touden #Dungeon Meshi meta #you can have him in the tags too. as a treat.#Dungeon Meshi spoilers #this was directly inspired by livelaughlaios's post about Kabru self harming but I decided it got too long to make it a direct reply #this is a theory I've been working on for weeks because I kept noticing this while skimming for screencaps #I'm hesitant to trigger tag this because of the way certain subcultures on tumblr operate #but if anyone needs me to add a content warning please let me know #also I included image descriptions! I did my best #I think they even help illustrate my points but my god were they sad to write. Kabru is so fucking sad you guys #musings with Dea

17K notes · View notes