Characters Bible

[Drew]

In this thread go the approved bios, histories, and arcs for each character this season.

Note: This is a writer's resource and it may or may not contain spoilers. Read at your own risk!

[Drew]

Character history and bio

GRACE: (UPDATED 8/11 - see bottom of post)

A former PTB. She sent the “Black Thorn” vision to Angel in “You’re Welcome” (Ep 5.12), thus setting Angel on the path to kill all the members of the Black Thorn and upsetting the Senior Partner’s power in this dimension. She effectively gave the okay to the ensuing chaos.
But this is not what the other Powers wanted. When they discovered what she had done, they moved to destroy or imprison her (or something - doesn’t really matter). But she was quicker. She made herself human with the understanding that that was the only way she could continue to help Angel.
Newly human, she has little memory of who she once was. She is graceful, British, solemn, and silent.
She is an older woman. Picture Helen Mirren.
She still has remnants of her former power. Echoes. Humans, demons, etc. can feel these echoes, and it frightens all of them.....except Alan because he has these echoes bouncing around in his head 24/7. He’s used to them. He doesn’t even feel it coming off of her.
The remnants of her power are uncontrollable. She has no sway over them. But they are subtle powers such as projection of emotion. When she gets sad, those around her feel despondent. When she gets angry, people nearby start bickering. And when she’s happy, everything’s sunshine (possibly literally).
Also, when she’s sad, it rains (possibly).
But most importantly, she can’t remember who she is. She knows her name but little else. She knows she has lost something great. She knows she is on a mission. She knows that she is on a different agenda than the other Powers, that they are there to balance things - always. She is there to nudge Angel down the path to tip the scales a little towards Good. She knows that there is something that the Powers are hiding from the people in this dimension, and she knows that if it is revealed, things will get a little easier for the Good guys. The Fight will never end, but it may get a little more bearable.
Except, she doesn’t know who the Powers are. She has a foggy idea that she used to be a part of something great, but she’s not sure what. She knows that there is a puzzle she is supposed to put together, but she’s not sure where or what it is - or how to put it together. Her new human brain simply cannot fathom what she knew as a Power. All she has are her emotions and her confused instincts to guide her. And some characters - friend and foe - are going to be putting lots of obstacles in her path.

Here be some attributes of her character:

Talks in her sleep.
Weeps occassionally.
Stares into space but hears every word said.
Very laconic. (this is a MUST)
Is able to scare violent demons away by doing - well, nothing.

Oh, and let’s not spend any time dealing with Grace’s adjustment to being in a corporeal form - to being in a body. She was a Power. She can handle it just fine. She will NOT be walking around saying things like “Fingers are so inadequate” etc. Been there, done that. Bored.

Here’s some sample dialogue I just came up with:

(Grace is sitting at the table, holding a spoon, staring into her cup of tea.)
Angel: What are you doing?
Grace: I’m marvelling at the emptiness a moment can hold. The thick vacuum a single point in time is capable of bearing. (beat) But that I am not.
(long pause)
There.
(turns to Angel)
Did you feel it?
Angel: Feel what?
(still looking at him)
Grace: Nothing...

The thinking behind the above dialogue is that, as a Power, her Power-mind was probably so much faster, able to understand and process things infinitely quicker than we are. So each human moment will be so empty to her.
So I guess I’m saying, let’s not deal with her new human body, but we can deal with her new human mind - which is a big part of this season, since it holds the clues to the Good Apocalypse.

And that is the amazing Grace.

UPDATE: Regarding Grace's Memory

1) Grace remembers EVERYTHING. She has memories of the past, the present, and the future. The problem is these memories are not locked into place. She has no idea when they took place - whether they have already happened or will happen at some point in the future.

2) She is trying to order these out-of-time memories in her very confused mind.

3) She can function in the present because she is able to place the correct memories around her present experience based on similarity.

BECAUSE she remembers EVERYTHING she can't place what memories are hers and which are not. This is why she doesnt "know" who she is. Being a power comes with a certain clarity that she has lost in becoming human. This loss of clarity is why she can't place her self correctly in her remembered timeline. She didn't realise this at the time and this is why she is "amnesiac". It was all a huge mistake. Also because she remembers everything she will be living in a constant state of deja vu, and this is why she will feel slightly uncomfortable at times. She can only place her memories in the correct order as she experiences them, in the moment, so to speak; and the longer she does this the more her memories make sense. At some time she will reach a point where enough of her memories are in the correct order for her to remember her purpose here. It's like taking all of your family snap shots from all of the years and jumbling them up, then having to re-organise them. The longer you are at it, the easier it becomes.

[Drew]

ANGEL'S SEASON ARC

ARC I:

Eps. 1-4: Angel adjusts to a world where he may have "won", where he may have seriously set back the Evil "system". He is also coming to terms with the immense amount of loss he has endured and caused. In episode 4, he reopens Angel Investigations. The attempt is a failure, and he realizes that he cannot go back to the way things were. The world is different now.

ep 5: Angel takes Tobit up on his job offer at the Demon Shelter. He feels that this is a place where he can still help the helpless (and still kick someone or something's ass each week). He also meets Grace who, at the end, tells him (quite vaguely) that "Chaos is coming. It means the end is near." This conflicts with the sunny report Tobit has been giving him. Who should Angel trust?

ep. 6-7: Still settling into the new job.

ep. 8: Fred's soul is found to be reemerging in Illyria. The cause: an increase in the fundamental chaos of the universe. "Hmm," thinks Angel, "Didn't that Grace chick say something about chaos?"

DECEMBER BREAK

ARC II:

ep. 9: Fred and Illyria are split. That should keep him busy.

ep. 10-16 (or so): Angel has settled into his job, etc. He starts to go through the motions of atonement. He signed away Shanshu, and the fight will never end. There is no prize at the end of the day. So he tells himself "This is it: I'm going to be atoning for the rest of my immortal life. This is my path." And so he just does his job...but without much enthusiasm. It's like fitting yourself into a groove, a rut, for the rest of your life. One set path. And the Powers and Tobit are setting this path out for him. Angel does not veer from this path. He takes orders from Tobit and the Powers and he doesn't think too much for himself. Of course, this works very well into the Power's favor.

SPRING BREAK

ARC III

Ep. 17-22: Grace's mission will free him from this rut. And something else will, too. Something more personal. Perhaps something to do with Groo's arrival. Not sure yet. Will modify when known.

Arc III will really be Angel accepting that he can't just fight because it's "right." He has to fight because he cares.

[Drew]

FRED:

(the vague character arc)

Ep. 9: She's back! And she is mortally linked with illyria. If one of them dies, the other dies. There are also other links. (vague)

Ep. 11 or so: Fred loses her soul to some pesky Soul Stealers, but Illyria has no soul to lose. Illyria does nothing but try to help her. We think this means Fred might warm to Illyria, but instead Fred dismisses her as a "soulless" thing.

Sometime towards the end of Arc II: something happens to make the rift between Fred and Illy start to heal.

Arc III: It becomes clear that they will be starting a Good Apoc. This means change. It means stability will be lost. Fred fears this. Tobit convinces her to help him stop the others. Her tells her that everything will go back to the way it was. Wes and Gunn will be alive, and Lorne will still be here. Fred will kill Illyria by either killing Illyria or killing herself. Either way, both die.

[Joss]

Character History and Bio:

Entry 245607
a.k.a.
Tobit

Tobit is the new "Big Bad". But he is not always that. In the start of the season he will be a good guy that will later betray Angel and the others.

When we first meet Tobit he is working in a demon center, a place where ill and unfortunate demon come looking for asylum. We soon learn that Tobit is the new being that the Powers that Be have chosen to be Angel's liaison to them. But he is not just a common link.

For starters he does not operate via visions, he is a little more evolved than that. This is the first of the liaisons that has a two-way connection to the Powers. Whenever he needs it he can contact the Powers and "talk" to them. He can close his eyes and enter a room inside his mind where he can talk to the Powers. Kind of like a white room inside his mind. But for a long, long time we only see his side of the dialouge. Later we begin to hear like a slightly eerie whispering, like the wind. Near the end we will be able to fully comprehend what the Powers are saying.

Tobit is a demon who was tortured and tormented by humans. They meant to kill him, but they only killed most of him. What we mean by this is that he is a demon that dies in pieces. Parts of him die. If all the parts die - he dies...completely. Most of his body parts from his feet to his neck have been killed. The only reason he can still use those parts of his body is that the Powers stepped in and gave him a mission, and they gave him back the use of his body. Now he wears full clothing, even gloves, to cover the hideous dead parts of his body. So you'd never know that anything was wrong unless he took his gloves or his shirt off. We don't have to go as far as pants.
He hates humans for what they did to him, and he's willing to go with the Power's plan of starting a war between demons and humans. He's the perfect candidate for the job, really. He knows what humans can do when they have too much of the power, when Good is a little too good. That's what the conditions were like when they hurt him. They hurt him because they could.

On the outside, he does everything to mask the pain. There's the clothes and the gloves. But there's also his demeanor: cheerful, sarcastic, jokey. He acts like someone who's not cut out for the job of conduit to The Powers That Be....but he is - and when he finally shows Angel how cut out for the job he really is, it's gonna hurt.

If the Powers restored his dead body parts, then something that will progress through the season is that occassionally Tobit will not be in control of some of the things he does. Basically, the Powers reanimated his body, but they can and will also work through that body. They can make him fight even if he doesn't want to. They can make him not fight when he feels he should.

It is posible and quite probable that after her resurrection Fred will grow farther away from the gang and closer to Tobit, to the point of a romantic relationship.

By the end of the second arc Tobit will take a drastic turn. When Angel and the others first learn his true intentions.Tobit is there to help the Powers re-establish the balance of the universe. If that means killing angel, Spike, Grace, and even his new love Fred so be it.

Of course Tobit still has some feelings but the Powers don't like that. By the end of the season the powers will control him most of the time, like a puppet, to ensure that these emotions don't get in the way.

UPDATE: When Tobit goes into his mind to talk to the Powers, it is as if The Powers take up residency in his head - his eyes will glow like the sun - there is a light inside of him

[Drew]

ILLYRIA's Arc

Well, part of her arc.

Ep. 1-7: Her internal entropy progressively worsens as Fred's soul emerges in her.
Ep. 8-9: 2 ep. arc where Fred and Illy are split. We learn that they are mortally linked and also linked in other ways.
Ep. 10-11: Angel bans Illy from doing any fighting because it will endanger Fred. Illy is bitter over this.
Ep. 11 (probably): The soul collector episode. Fred will lose her soul, but Illy will not because she does not have a soul. Illy will only try to help Fred throughout this episode so that by the end, we think some kind of healing between Fred and Illy has taken place. But this expectation is shattered as Fred still pushes herself away from Illy, calling the Old One a "soulless thing", etc.

Then, Fred and Illy will grow closer, the rift between them will seem to heal. Then both will die due to some action Fred takes.

[Drew]

Grace UPDATE:

In the first half of the season, Grace will be very afraid of all the chaos in her head, very afraid of all the memories and images that she can't order - so she ignores it. She avoids it all costs. She focuses on other things - mundane things. Like someone who - instead of sitting down and writing their episode of Angel - re-orders their CD collection. Grace just wants to enjoy life, but she's enjoying it in a very empty way. She's enjoying life by giving up on life. So this is why she collects porcelein elves and cleans her apartment and has tea and talks with people. She sees Angel and Spike as friends, two good looking men she can flirt with. Yes, she's a boring, sardonic, crazy, horny, seductive old woman. That's Grace.

Until she stops fucking around and gets serious.