A thought on AtS...

[deird_lj]

It just occurred to me:

- Kate finds out that her buddy, Angel, who's helped her out several times, used to be all evil and soulless, and promptly decides he's horrible and couldn't possibly have changed.

- Justine finds out about this vampire, Angel, who's apparently good now, even though he used to be all evil and soulless, and promptly decides he's horrible and couldn't possibly have changed.


...and for some reason, I'm cheering Kate on, and think that Justine needs to grow up and stop deluding herself.

It's a weird contradiction.


Does anyone else do that?

Comments

[obiwahn.livejournal.com]

I had the exact opposite reactions as you, which is interesting. I really didn't like Kate at all. I did, however, empathize with Justine.

[deird1]

Yeah, I mean if you think about it, Justine's got much more of a good reason to be biased against Angel.

And yet somehow, I still sympathise with Kate much more...

[obiwahn.livejournal.com]

They are definitely both in the wrong most of the time (and both interesting characters for that same reason).

I guess, to me, Kate seems to know better, which I think is why I don't like her. She also has that self-riotous streak.

[elisi]

Hmmm.

I think Justine is (what with her sister having been killed by a vamp) hugely prejudiced against vampires - then you add Holtz to that and she gets that fundamentalist outlook on the world, where things like logic don't really apply.

Kate is shocked, and pissed off that he lied to her, and really why *should* she trust him? If he was Angelus still, he might have treated her just the same to win her confidence. That said, I think it all gets tangled up in her issues around her father, and rejecting Angel outright - even when she knows he's *good* is about her, not him.

[next_to_normal]

I think the difference is that Kate's a skeptic, whereas Justine's a zealot. I don't know about you, but I have no patience for zealots. (Which is why the entire Holtz plot line annoyed the crap out of me.)

[fangfaceandrea.livejournal.com]

Well Justine does side on with the Vengeful baby kidnapper so she doesn't get much sympathy whereas Kate's dad gets killed by vamps, and Other than being annoying about Darla in S2 Kate doesn't really harm Angel.

[rahirah]

What they said. Justine, wrong as she was, had far more reason to be wrong than Kate did. (I liked Kate quite a lot before the writers decided to have her eaten alive by Daddy Issues. I get so tired of Daddy issues.)

OTOH, I would have found Justine far more sympathetic had she been portrayed by a better actress.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

needs to grow up and stop deluding herself.

I felt the same way about Kate, though, even though I sympathized with her, she needed to grow up and stop deluding herself.

here from friendsfriends

[clevermonikerr.livejournal.com]

Well, Kate doesn't go around slashing throats and participating in any bad-napping schemes either. I also think the actor who plays Kate is more empathetic.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Eh. Kate bothered me a LOT the first time I watched Angel, but this time 'round she's grown on me.

I like Justine. I empathized with her pretty bad from the start. Plus I've seen that actress in The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love and The L Word. :P

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

I love Kate to death, so I'm a bit biased, but she never participated in schemes that got innocent people hurt. Her vendetta hurt herself more than anyone.

And she did start to come round before her dad was killed, which shook her up and shot her rationality to pieces. She was too consumed with grief and vengeance and anger at a whole lot of things to deal with the complications of her relationship with Angel, so she just shoved him away. Easier to blame than accept.

(We never actually saw Angel explain why he was different than every other vampire ever, either. I ficced it, obvs, but who knows if it happened.)

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Kate annoyed the crap out of me, and I was glad when she was officially gone. Thing is, yes, Angel's had this wacky past of bad, but he's saved her life and helped her with cases, so to do a 180 on him when he hasn't given her a reason to was...weird.

I initially sympathized with Justine, but yeah, at the end of the day she was a zealot, which annoyed the F out of me. And then the attempted murder and stealing babies and actual murder...yeah, didn't care for that one.

[kerkevik.livejournal.com]

Hi,

well... for me, it comes from the fact that Kate Lockley was written as a complicated, flawed, INTERESTING character; whereas Justine was written as a manipulated, one-track-minded, BORING victim.

Tragic that it should be so, but in dramas, victims are usually the boring characters, whereas the ones who fight back, and try to take control of their lives, no matter how imcomprehensible they may seem.

In my mind, I'm also seeing a Spike v. Angel dynamic here as well. Angel was always giving in to his destiny, where Spike was fighting it; just as Kate & Justine were doing.

It's one of the reasons that S5 of AtS despite all the wonderful Spike-itudiness (& the Big Fight Win!!! & Smile Time), really doesn't work, because it seemed as if their roles were almost completely reversed.

Not scientific, but it's the way my brain works on the subject.

Still under Willow & Tara's spell,
Ray.