It's not hopeless if they win.

Indeed, indeed.

For someone who claimed to have "pretty handwriting," Angel's signature on the Shanshu prophecy scroll was a nasty scrawl. Was he trying to fudge?

It's supposed to be a triumphant ending, one way or the other.

For some reason, these two quotes keep coming to mind:

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings;" (Richard II)

and (arguably more appropriately) this:

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. " (Henry V)

'Scuse the length of the post. But I could hear him as Henry V. Henry V won against terrible odds. Angel hasn't any such hope. But he fights the good fight nonetheless, and so the speech resonates.

Now I'm thinking:

SPIKE
Not exactly the St. Crispin's Day
speech, was it?

GILES
(sardonic agreement)
"We few..."

GILES/SPIKE
"we happy few…"

SPIKE
"We band of buggered..."

broken

didn't think I would be... but I am.

That was a heroic tale.

Buffy was a twisted/fracture fairy tale. the helpless tiny blond saves the day.

Angel was every western/police drama/space opera rolled up with just enough twists so you forgot which way you were looking. and it ends with the last stand.

I would be crying but the WB pissed me off.

Out, out brief candle!

Do not go gentle into that good night...

(well, bad night, but still)....

dcp, he'd just had a pen run through his hand -- no one can do perfect copperplate under those conditions.

So I'm reading the spoiler thread since there is nothing left to be spoiled for (sniff) and am at the part where everyone is nervous because they think the puppet episode is going to suck. Hee! I love reading spoilers after the fact (I tried being spoiled at the beginning of the season and my nerves couldn't take it). And even though I know I can't be spoiled, I still feel all nervous just reading it - such a spoiler phobe I am. Or was, I guess.

D'oh! On re-watch, I realized that the whole Anne/Gunn scene was a reiteration of the "...if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do...if there is no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world" theme.

Y'all probably got it the first time.