This is crossposted from my LJ, apologies to repeaters. Also a bit stream-of-consciousness.
I keep thinking about alleyways and how they're outside the civilized spaces. About how by the end Angel has taken them back out of the ambiguity, removed them from the grey area. Which is why Lindsey had to die: Angel's last act as head of Wolfram and Hart was to reject all the compromises -- but in order to do that, he had to accept into himself the evil he was fighting, by killing Drogyn and Lindsey. It's a mobius strip of morality, twisting into darkness and back into the light.
But that last moment: despite the darkness, and the blood, and the looming disaster, it's all glittery with light reflected and broken by the rain. With the MoG seizing control of their own destinies again -- oh, that word. Maybe I mean fate? No. I mean, I think, that their armor and their honor has been tarnished by their willingness to listen to the whispering lies of compromise, of accommodation. Get along, go along: have some perspective. Consider the big picture. Let this demon live to keep the peace, set that one free because he balances the other, kill Drogyn or you'll both die.
Individual morality was chained by Wolfram and Hart, trammelled for its own purposes. Gunn with his secret deals, Angel with the cutting of his losses, with the loss of the respect of Buffy and her new Council, Wes held in place despite his suspicions. Keeping Harmony around because she's a familiar face, if a soulless one.
That's all gone at the end: things are simple again. And that's all Angel ever really wanted. Simple choices: Kill or die. Kill and die. Love Buffy, look after his friends, protect the world.
This is why, maybe, Wes had to die. Gunn, now, has stepped back to the world of absolutes. No more deals. Illyria has no room for subtle distinctions, or even human morality at all: she's all about personal loyalties, personal preferences. (Angel rejects the possibility of redemption for Lindsey -- perhaps because he only trusts Lindsey when he's in the room with him? But Lindsey doesn't have it in him to commit to a cause, or so Angel would see it.) The others could come back into an either/or world, the realm of black and white. But Wes? No: Wes has, for years, been the most subtle, the most concerned about the slippages, the ambiguities. The most aware of the greyness.
Even if Wes had survived, he has too great an awareness of the big picture, despite his Big Pile O Angst. And I don't think he would have fit in that last image, the picture of the heroes going out swinging. Standing in the light, making their own light, holding torches to keep the dark at bay just a little bit longer. Fighting because it's all they can do -- Wes can always find something else to do.
Civilized spaces are grey. Civilization is getting along, yeah? Lawyers and contracts and compromises. Biting your tongue ("Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass."), ignoring your itchy conscience, keeping your eye on the bottom line.
Barbarians and primitives have no sense of perspective, no appreciation of subtlety. (My friend Minnow noted here the astronaut/caveman discussion.) Reject the lawyers, reject the ambiguities, stand with the light at your back, facing the shadows. Fight and die, go out with a bang.
The end of season 5 is a rejection of everything that they were forced to bear in season 5: working and living in the belly of the beast. Taking Fred's death and continuing to fight from within the creature that killed her. Being a grownup. But the ones who survived aren't grownups: Illyria's eight weeks old, Gunn is still sort of the guy who traded his soul for a truck, Angel's emotionally 17, and Spike is basically 12. (Well, maybe 13.)
Works for me.