Okay, I think I figured out part of why I like Angel so much. Mostly, I long for the hero tale. But there's another reason.
Among his other attractions, Angel is a tortured reflection of our shared heritage. A mythic substitute for our own glorious and horrific past. Like him, we were once mostly innocent, mostly irrelevant. Then we started touring the world. Empire, crusades, the evolution of the nation state, the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, raining fire down on noncombatant cities and wedding parties. But intertwined with that story is another one; one of progress and transcendence and mercy and belief in human dignity. We were called upon, and after a few stutter starts, like Angel, we stepped up. We saved the world and nearly destroyed it, again and again. No civilization that produced Shakespeare, Milton, and Twain is beyond redemption. No man who averted Armageddon so many times is beyond redemption. We've been the best and the worse. Like Angel. But most of the time, our history is paralyzing, ignoring parts lets us function,but dooms us to repeat the same tropes. Or we can be like Angel and seek redemption from our past.
Like Angel, once we stepped up, we ended up with power. And the meme of power perpetuates itself through our bodies, changing us. So we sit in our nice offices and sign the checks as the world slides towards entropy and degradation. And there's nothing else to do, within that paradigm. Keep our clients, avert what evil we can, recycle when we think of it, vote to approve school levies. There's no opportunity to rise up and slay the dragon . . .
So Angel gives us our catharsis. The good of it; he models progressive hero work. The bad of it; we identify with him and through that identification he relieves us of our own moral obligations.
Maybe this is too obvious? Thoughts, criticisms, other theories?
Eos Ratatosk