Who's in control? Jasmine or PTB

[buffymanic]

ok this post on BW got me thinking:

I was thinking of everything that happened to Angel/Angelus/Liam and whether there a higher power behind everything he did.

We are lead to believe that Angel was recruited by something (possibly the PTB) before he came to Sunnydale and that those said same people brought hm back from Hell after Buffy sent him there.

He himself isn't entirely sure, but at least sees the sense in it (saving the world against evil is quite a fulfilling task I would imagine) When Skip comes into play he says that everything was decided long ago and we have no choice in how our lives play out.

This being the case, is it possible that it goes back further - to Liam being vamped by Darla - a vampire that is dusted by Angel, brought back to life to drag him to the dark side and then has a child by him (an event that was impossible before this). Could it be that all of this was planned long in advance?

Or even further? Maybe the reason Liam was a drunken scoundrel likely to go off and find something evil, was purely because some higher power was ensuring that this happened?

If this is true then who did the planning?

It would appear that the PTB had they're eye on Angel pretty early after he was ensouled and seemed to throw missions his way (e.g. the submarine caper and the Thesulac demon) as if to tempt him into the good side. When it didn't work they threw Whistler and Buffy into his path.

Were the PTB aware of his ensoulment and then started taking an interest, or had they planned all of it from the very beginning, knowing that this would lead to the very first vampire with a soul?

Does Jasmine highjack the plan, or was she pulling the strings all along?

I think that what she says is a good idea, personally I think that Jasmine may have originally been fully onboard with the PTB and was involved from the begining with Liam, maybe even right down to when he was a child which produced the man he bacame and so on. But at some point her agenda changed and she manipulated certain events to her advantage.

The question then has to be asked why did the PTB do nothing to stop her or we're they totally oblivious to Jasmines plan until Cordy assended?

[Paul]

i think none of it was planned, it would be so hard to plan and manipulate all those events, it would take just one tiny thing to go wrong and all the planning would go out the window, imagine if angel was 20 seconds late in episode 1 and couldnt save cordy from russell,
i think jasmines followers had various plans to bring her forth, and the oppertunity with cordy and conner arose first, and she used that situation to her advantage

[Kana]

The moral ambiguity surrounding the PTBs is an interesting subject. The irony plays out as Angel complains that PTBs didn't do anything about the Beast Master (unbeknownst to him that it was PTB) but when Jasmine actually comes and 'gets her hands dirty' Angel understands that too much intervention from the higher powers can undermine the human condition.

This all a side point because we are still at a loss as to why the PTBs didn't do more to stop Jasmine, or whether or not they could.

Maybe PTBs aren't all powerful or all knowing just very power and extremely knowledgable. Also we don't know how powerful Jasmine is compared to the others and if she was working alone.

I would say that PTBs are sentient beings each with their own agenda but perhaps most of their agendas happen to coincide much like Angel and his crew. They are all inviduals but they all fight the good fight.

Perhaps Jasmine has a certain set of abilities which allowed her to do what she did and the others without her particular abilities couldn't interfere directly with what she was doing or perhaps they tried but failed.

Another school of thought is that there are rules even the PTBs follow but they can break rules to a limited degree. Jasmine broke the rules in just the right way to get her out of there but perhaps the powers were not willing to cross the line enough to stop her.

Anyway, we could go on with theories but it's best to accept that they are all morally ambiguous. One went as far as taking away free will to save humanity, the others are distant and only provide information (in the form of vague visions). I do believe however that the PTBs have the human race's interests at heart but they may disagree on how to make the world a better place, just as humans do. We can't always agree what is right, so it makes sense that this moral relativism could transcend into the higher powers.

Anyway as for Liam etc, I agree with Gunn that humans aren't chess pieces. I think every being has an influence and an ability to manipulate. Holland Manners was an excellent manipulator and he was only human so it would make sense that the powers or demonic counterparts would have similar abilities, only to greater degree due to power, knowledge and age. I see Jasmine as calculating what certain people will do or are likely to do. I don't think Jasmine's knowledge is absolute because she would have known what was going happen to her.

I just think Jasmine is a skilled manipulator, she seized certain opportunities and calculated individuals and their choices (Cordy, Angel)

[buffymanic]

Yeh I agree that there has to be a certain degree of free will for the characters but I still believe that Jasmine had this planed for a long time. I guess by the end of season 4 it showed use that even if you are being guided/controled that if your strong enough in the end free will can prevail.

I just find the ambiguity of the PTB interesting. The thought has crossed my mind that we don't even know for sure that they are on the side of good, could be they're just using Angel under the guise of doing good to disrupt the power of the Senior Partners. Could be that when Angel and the gang launched their final in NFA that they had fulfilled their purpose for the PTB who could have also been launching an attack personally on the Senior Partners

[Kana]

Oh Jasmine planned it for a very long time. She planned it well before Liam was born as we see from the Insectazoid dimension who worshipped her before our kind was.

[buffymanic]

Ah true I'd forgotten all about that. But still the PTB must have know part of Jasmines plan and did nothing so I don't believe they're this big shining light of good out to save mankind

[Deleted]

I've never thought that the PTB predetermined events. I always thought they could see only into the near(ish) future and what results the events in that near(ish) future would cause at the very, very end. Therefore, they simply try to manipulate what's currently happening. Also, prophecies don't come from the PTB, but the PTBs do know about them, so they can factor them into their "plans." (If there was ever a prophecy decreed by the PTBs I've forgotten.) OK, OK, so I realize that makes no sense. I don't always use my brain while watching TV, and it can result in some interesting theories.

Given the above (wacky as it is), it is possible that the PTBs never foresaw the arrival of Jasmine and once she had already found a way to manipulate Cordy there was nothing the PTBs could do to manipulate or stop her (as they don't appear overly powerful to me), leaving it up to Angel and the gang who would hopefully figure it out.

[Allan]

I always thought that the PTB "watched" events, rather than planned them. More that they were observers, and never really interfered, no matter how much they they postured.

And how do the Senior Partners in season 5 affect all this?

[Kana]

Yeah, PTBs barring Jasmine mainly watched and occasionally intervened remotely, mainly through visions.

I think the Senior Partners, like Jasmine, are very skilled manipulators. They didn't make Angel sign up, they merely took advantage of a particular situation and made it work in their favour. If the SPs were a bunch of very clever humans I think they could have done the same thing.