Will Angel Ever Take Control of the Tower?

[mascaria]

Maybe some one with some military training can clean up the question for us.

When you're assigned guard duty (as Angel was) are you supposed to leave your station because an alarm goes off?

[Leedo2502]

I see Guard Duty entails security of the whole building. Army General Order #1 is "I will Guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly releived." So his post includes security of Burts Armory Angel did the right thin in leaving the Guard Room, and add to that I'm sure that he was getting help as well and that would entail sending someone back to the Guard Room.
So I'd say that Angel did nothing wrong... really the fault lies in not having two people in the guard room on the same shift. That would have curtailed the Kelly/Lizzy falling asleep issues as well (But also take away some of the needed drama and plot movers)

[HardKor]

Ra1th,
I agree with much of what you say. From an unbiased, rational point of view, Angel probably did what he had to do by leaving his post to investigate the alarm. The problem is, once everyone finds out what happens and shit starts to hit the fan, people aren't going to be rational or unbiased. There is going to be panic and chaos. And Angel is going to end up with the blame.
Someone, most likely Michael among others will probably stick up for him eventually, but people are still going to blame Angel for what happened. And Angel will probably end up blaming himself to some degree also. It might not be fair but its going to happen. People are going to look for a scapegoat to blame for this, and until the culprit is found Angel (assuming he isn't the culprit himself) is the easiest scapegoat.
And this is what puts another nail in the "will Angel ever become leader of the Tower" question. This sort of thing just keeps happening to him. He gets blamed for things that aren't necessarily his fault. He makes rational decisions that turn out to bite him on the ass (wanting to leave Burt behind, wanting to not let Lizzie and her boyfriend in because it was too dangerous, etc...) These are the sorts of things that on paper seems rational but make people angry. And now people are going to see him as failing to save Pippin and Hope (if Hope was killed). People just aren't going to want him as leader if that's the way they see him. Is that fair? Absolutely not! But whoever said life was fair?

[Ra1th]

Hahaha I coulda sworn you’d never be able to return but looks like you have, too bad I have the high ground this time.

Aww, you're so darling. And why are you bringing crowbar into this? He hasn't said anything about Angel recently. .

He was hatin too just in the 22 thread.

I don't know how he's chained. Do you know how he was chained? Have you never seen someone strangled with a chain? If he felt like it, he could have wrapped that chain around anyone's throat. According to the chapter artwork, he's handcuffed to the bed frame. If he had horrible intentions in his mind, being left with the 14 year old blind girl seems like a great time to make your move and break free by destroying the bed frame. Is it likely? No. However, simply being chained doesn't make you completely danger-free. Hey, don't get me wrong, my first reaction would have been to run and investigate, but you know what? I would have at least paused to consider the 14 year old blind girl in the room with me. Given her some instruction as to hide something. But he left a defenseless 14 year old girl by herself with someone nobody trusts. .

He was chained well enough that he was not considered a security risk by leader of the tower Michael. So if that was the issue, then blame him. You’re jumping to conclusions by assuming that he can just wrap the chain around someone’s throats. The next thing you should consider is that we the audience consider Pippin to be a bigger threat to the tower than the tower does. We have heard what scratch said about him. The tower has not, and because of that we are a lot more accusatory of pippin than the tower is. They do not trust him, they have no reason to, but at the same time they don’t believe him to be a stone cold killer. So what if he left Hope with alone with Pippin? It wasn’t pippin that killed her. Hell for all we know, pippin could have been good guy, probably wasn’t but no one can be sure, not yet.

Once again, 14 year old. Blind. In room. Man you no trusty. I understand that the alarm was tripped. And perhaps its more of an indictment of Michael/Burt (you know...the leaders of the Tower) than it is of Angel to say there isn't any system to get a hold of others in the Tower when something goes wrong. And if I'm not mistaken the guard room has been relocated to the 5th floor, along with everything else. So the store and armory would all be located in the same vicinity as the guard room. Remember, Lizzy fell asleep on guard duty and everyone in the Tower heard the fight because they were all right there. In theory, this means Angel wouldn't even have to like...leave the room to investigate the armory.

And what does he do once he's investigated the armory? Return to his post and wait for others to show up so they can all search. Why leave your post at all at that point? If they are all indeed located in the same hallway of this apartment building, they would have to pass you to escape because there's only one set of stairs, they balconies aren't an option because the ones below the 5th floor have been booby trapped, and you're 50 feet in the air and jumping out the window would have adverse health effects.

I understand I'm taking potshots at Angel after the fact. And as I said in my response to Kc I totally would have gone to investigate the alarm myself. But since I'm willing to admit that I would have made the same "mistake" Angel did, you have to admit that Angel fell for a distraction, and was lured away just as the Rat/Assassin intended him to be. He was chosen as the mark for this ruse, not Kelly who had been in that room with Pippin for the previous 6 hours.

When Angel gets to the armory, He might catch the culprit. We don’t know for sure just yet. Why leave your post? Because Angel is one of the few people who could make it to the guard room in time to catch the culprit who broke in. We don’t know how many others heard the alarm. We don’t know what’s happening right now. But we do know Angel is one of the most capable soldiers in the tower, and he has a duty to go check out the disturbance. Also here’s something to keep in mind, if the killer could just walk in and shoot Pippin, and walk away undetected, then that hallway must not have been very crowded at all. In hind sight, its easy to say oh there were better choices that he could have made, but these are split second decisions if you are to stand around and think about all the possibilities and the best course of action, then the culprit will slip away. Besides even if the culprit ran back down the hallway towards angel, then he still has to leave the guard room to stop the culprit or to get a good look at the culprit. Even according to your plan angel has to leave the room. How can you be sure that Angel was the mark for the ruse? There is no evidence to support that Kelly would not have done the same thing Angel did. It’s far more likely that the culprit was coming up with a plan, and Angel was the one in the guard room while the culprit finished the plan.

[nikvoodoo]

Hahaha I coulda sworn you’d never be able to return but looks like you have, too bad I have the high ground this time.

I'm so glad you can admit that every other time we've tiffed over Lt. Angel you've been fighting a losing battle. That's very big of you

He was chained well enough that he was not considered a security risk by leader of the tower Michael. So if that was the issue, then blame him. You’re jumping to conclusions by assuming that he can just wrap the chain around someone’s throats. The next thing you should consider is that we the audience consider Pippin to be a bigger threat to the tower than the tower does. We have heard what scratch said about him. The tower has not, and because of that we are a lot more accusatory of pippin than the tower is. They do not trust him, they have no reason to, but at the same time they don’t believe him to be a stone cold killer. So what if he left Hope with alone with Pippin? It wasn’t pippin that killed her. Hell for all we know, pippin could have been good guy, probably wasn’t but no one can be sure, not yet.

14. Blind. Girl. There's a difference between her and an adult. To an adult, he's not a security risk. Were you capable of fighting off a determined adult at the age of 14? While blindfolded so you couldn't see them coming? Look, I'm not a parent, but leaving a handicapped child alone with a man nobody trusts to me, reeks to high heaven.

And I think you make as many assumption to think he isn't capable of doing anything just because he's chained to the wall (or bedframe depending on what you want to believe). In fact, I even helped debunk my own dastardly theory because I saw the artwork. The SFX lead me to believe it's an actual chain and not handcuffs, but that's neither here nor there.

There are still people who don't know if he's a maller or not (Steven) there are those who want to let him loose back into LA (Victor), and Michael can't make heads or tails of it because his mind frame is/has shifted since his time in the colony. Scratch's words be damned, Michael's words are you aren't to let Pippin out of your sight and he's not to be left alone. Angel failed to follow orders. And I'll just go ahead and make your point for you because I know you think I think Michael is perfect: Michael is at fault for leaving the guard as a single person shift.

When Angel gets to the armory, He might catch the culprit. We don’t know for sure just yet. Why leave your post? Because Angel is one of the few people who could make it to the guard room in time to catch the culprit who broke in. We don’t know how many others heard the alarm. We don’t know what’s happening right now. But we do know Angel is one of the most capable soldiers in the tower, and he has a duty to go check out the disturbance. Also here’s something to keep in mind, if the killer could just walk in and shoot Pippin, and walk away undetected, then that hallway must not have been very crowded at all. In hind sight, its easy to say oh there were better choices that he could have made, but these are split second decisions if you are to stand around and think about all the possibilities and the best course of action, then the culprit will slip away. Besides even if the culprit ran back down the hallway towards angel, then he still has to leave the guard room to stop the culprit or to get a good look at the culprit. Even according to your plan angel has to leave the room. How can you be sure that Angel was the mark for the ruse? There is no evidence to support that Kelly would not have done the same thing Angel did. It’s far more likely that the culprit was coming up with a plan, and Angel was the one in the guard room while the culprit finished the plan.

I never said the hallway was crowded. What I said was all it takes is to hide yourself in any other apartment near the guard room and the armory. Kick the door, set off the alarm, and hide. When Angel goes to inspect the armory by going inside to look for a thief, the assassin slipped by him, shot, and walked away before Angel knew what was going on (in theory. The chapter ends before we know this for certain). My point was, in order to escape the Tower if you are believing the armory was being robbed, they would have to walk/run past the guard room to get to the stairs (based off the assumption from the original guard room set up where it was by the stairwell door). If they were robbing the armory to keep things in the tower, they'd have to keep it on the 5th floor, and if they had people helping them on the street level Angel would have seen them on the monitors.

My plan? What plan? The plan where I said you wait for the thief to walk past you on the way to the stairs? Why would he have to leave the guard room if the thief ran into him to the stairwell door where he'd have to go to escape? Point a gun. Shoot. Thief dead. Angel hero, and a 14 year old blind girl isn't left alone with a man nobody trusts.

Maybe Kelly reacts the same way. But it's an awfully big risk if you're trying to take out someone out and you use a diversionary tactic like setting off an alarm. Now if you don't succeed, everyone is on high alert and you've made your job that much harder. I'd make sure the person working the guard room is guaranteed to leave to check out the room and not call for back up. Angel thinks he can handle everything. And if this person knows Angel well, they would know how to entice him away from a target.

All you have to do is admit Angel fell victim to a diversion that resulted in the death of at least one person and possibly two. Is that fair of me? Possibly not. But it's one more nugget of evidence against Angel and why he should never be the leader of the Tower.

[Ra1th]

"I'm so glad you can admit that every other time we've tiffed over Lt. Angel you've been fighting a losing battle. That's very big of you "



That’s Lt TUNUDO kthnxbai



“14. Blind. Girl. There's a difference between her and an adult. To an adult, he's not a security risk. Were you capable of fighting off a determined adult at the age of 14? While blindfolded so you couldn't see them coming? Look, I'm not a parent, but leaving a handicapped child alone with a man nobody trusts to me, reeks to high heaven. “

Once again crazy situation, shit’s going down, some douche is about to steal your supplies, screw the blind girl, she’ll be fine, what’s the worst that could happen? Ohhh noooo some dude with a gun is gonna show up and slaughter everyone in the room…. Oh wait… well shit. What was the chance of that happening one in a thousand?

“And I think you make as many assumption to think he isn't capable of doing anything just because he's chained to the wall (or bedframe depending on what you want to believe). In fact, I even helped debunk my own dastardly theory because I saw the artwork. The SFX lead me to believe it's an actual chain and not handcuffs, but that's neither here nor there. “





Why would he kill hope? What good does that do him? And even if it does. Stopping someone from breaking into the damn armory and stealing all their weapons and ammo again is worth more than the 1 in a thousand chance that pippin would kill hope. And you know what? Pippin didn’t kill hope.




“There are still people who don't know if he's a maller or not (Steven) there are those who want to let him loose back into LA (Victor), and Michael can't make heads or tails of it because his mind frame is/has shifted since his time in the colony. Scratch's words be damned, Michael's words are you aren't to let Pippin out of your sight and he's not to be left alone. Angel failed to follow orders. And I'll just go ahead and make your point for you because I know you think I think Michael is perfect: Michael is at fault for leaving the guard as a single person shift. “



Yeah I know YOU don’t think Michael is perfect, but every other person on this forum thinks he’s god’s gift to the zombie wasteland, so showing people that Michael the perfect soldier would have done the same thing makes it easier to say that Angel didn’t make a bad call.




“I never said the hallway was crowded. What I said was all it takes is to hide yourself in any other apartment near the guard room and the armory. Kick the door, set off the alarm, and hide. When Angel goes to inspect the armory by going inside to look for a thief, the assassin slipped by him, shot, and walked away before Angel knew what was going on (in theory. The chapter ends before we know this for certain). My point was, in order to escape the Tower if you are believing the armory was being robbed, they would have to walk/run past the guard room to get to the stairs (based off the assumption from the original guard room set up where it was by the stairwell door). If they were robbing the armory to keep things in the tower, they'd have to keep it on the 5th floor, and if they had people helping them on the street level Angel would have seen them on the monitors. “



Ok this is some crazy shiz, and I can’t concentrate on that level right now, so whatevers, I’m just gonna say it was a split second decision, no one thinks this far ahead in real life. So he did what his instincts told him to do.



“My plan? What plan? The plan where I said you wait for the thief to walk past you on the way to the stairs? Why would he have to leave the guard room if the thief ran into him to the stairwell door where he'd have to go to escape? Point a gun. Shoot. Thief dead. Angel hero, and a 14 year old blind girl isn't left alone with a man nobody trusts. “
Who the hell expected the raid on the armory to be a distraction? What are the chances that the whole thing was a set up so that someone could go shoot Pippin? This is ridiculous, you’re saying that when Angel heard the alarm go off, instead of going to check on it, he should have stayed in his room, and waited out because he psychically knew that the rat would come in and shoot pippin. You’re taking into consideration facts that Angel did not know, and facts that YOU did not know during the time of the attack. When that alarm tripped, the best decision was to go check it out. Pippin was not a threat to Hope, Pippin never attacked hope. Someone else attacked THEM. To expect angel to have stayed in the room and waited for the attacker to come is just plain stupid

“Maybe Kelly reacts the same way. But it's an awfully big risk if you're trying to take out someone out and you use a diversionary tactic like setting off an alarm. Now if you don't succeed, everyone is on high alert and you've made your job that much harder. I'd make sure the person working the guard room is guaranteed to leave to check out the room and not call for back up. Angel thinks he can handle everything. And if this person knows Angel well, they would know how to entice him away from a target.

All you have to do is admit Angel fell victim to a diversion that resulted in the death of at least one person and possibly two. Is that fair of me? Possibly not. But it's one more nugget of evidence against Angel and why he should never be the leader of the Tower”





I’ll admit Angel fell for a diversion, But Michael would have done the same thing. Burt would have done the same thing. Saul would have done the same thing. You can’t blame angel for something like this because when this was all going down, when you first heard that alarm go off, did you think, oh I think angel should stay here and protect hope? NO! you thought oh shit someone is raiding the armory get on it angel. And THEN the rat shoots pippin, and maybe hope. This isn’t a bad leadership call for Angel. That was the best decision to make at the time.

[nikvoodoo]

That’s Lt TUNUDO kthnxbai

Well....technically that's not right. At least not until the canon of the show gets fixed....till then, Lt. Angel!

Once again crazy situation, shit’s going down, some douche is about to steal your supplies, screw the blind girl, she’ll be fine, what’s the worst that could happen? Ohhh noooo some dude with a gun is gonna show up and slaughter everyone in the room…. Oh wait… well shit. What was the chance of that happening one in a thousand?

And here's where you and I differ on Angel left and right. Angel does not think of the people around him. "Screw the old guy. Screw Lizzy and Todd. Screw Saul. Screw the 14 year old. I've got to go to something else instead!" You know what, all this stuff would be fine with me if he simply said, "Hope, keep your head down", "Hope, get under the bed", "Hope, hide in the closet", or "Hope, stand over here away from that guy that no one trusts" before he left. He left a child out in the open when something potentially dangerous was going down....with a guy nobody trusts.

Angel does not seem to think of human beings as people. He think of them as something else, and that is disturbing to me. At least he's been consistent. If this was a sudden thing, I would just be confused instead of annoyed. He's now seen how people react when he makes those decisions (leaving Burt and Saul) yet he continually does it. The circumstances from when he first arrived at the Tower have changed. From the military point of view, he probably has done nothing wrong, but he's not being judged by the military. He's being judged by civilians, who can't disassociate people from being instruments of war he can view them as.

Why would he kill hope? What good does that do him? And even if it does. Stopping someone from breaking into the damn armory and stealing all their weapons and ammo again is worth more than the 1 in a thousand chance that pippin would kill hope. And you know what? Pippin didn’t kill hope.

So it's ok that he left Hope alone with the person no one trusts because he got shot before he could potentially do anything? And once again, my point is if the guard room is outside the door to the stairwell, you don't.... have to leave. You can wait for the thief to walk down the hall to the stairs because there are no other options available to them. They can't escape any other way. He didn't need to leave the guard room unguarded. They could take all they wanted, but they can't get anywhere because Angel is there. There are other options available....other than doing what I've ended just about every paragraph on the last two pages with involving an untrustworthy Pippin and a 14 year old girl who is visually impaired.

Yeah I know YOU don’t think Michael is perfect, but every other person on this forum thinks he’s god’s gift to the zombie wasteland, so showing people that Michael the perfect soldier would have done the same thing makes it easier to say that Angel didn’t make a bad call.

Hell, I said I would do the same thing....but after I protected the 14 year old blind girl. I think most everyone's instinct would be to check the alarm. I just think most people with a soul would protect a child first, then check on the alarm. If someone is really rooting through the armory. It's going to take longer than the 10 seconds it takes to safely stash Hope and run down the hall.

Who the hell expected the raid on the armory to be a distraction? What are the chances that the whole thing was a set up so that someone could go shoot Pippin? This is ridiculous, you’re saying that when Angel heard the alarm go off, instead of going to check on it, he should have stayed in his room, and waited out because he psychically knew that the rat would come in and shoot pippin. You’re taking into consideration facts that Angel did not know, and facts that YOU did not know during the time of the attack. When that alarm tripped, the best decision was to go check it out. Pippin was not a threat to Hope, Pippin never attacked hope. Someone else attacked THEM. To expect angel to have stayed in the room and waited for the attacker to come is just plain stupid

I am simply presenting an alternative. Besides, as I've said over and over again: I/you/Angel/Michael/Everyone on this forum/Everyone on the facebook page would check the alarm. Its just in my opinion, the blatant lack of regard for the safety of a child is disturbing. Sorry to beat the same drum on the same note repeatedly.

And what else is there to know about Pippin other than nobody trusts him? I'm not even considering what happened with Pippin and Scratch because I don't know who or what Pippin was or what his purpose might have been. His story could have been completely true for all we know. I don't consider Scratch's scene about Pippin in terms of the trust because quite honestly, I never expended the brain power to figure it out. There wasn't enough information to draw a conclusion from it, and it was swamped among coded talk so Lizzy wouldn't understand what was being said. I've tried to take Pippin at face value, and on his face (or whatever might be left of it) was nobody trusted him, and I didn't trust him from his answers in the interrogation scene in the last episode.

I’ll admit Angel fell for a diversion, But Michael would have done the same thing. Burt would have done the same thing. Saul would have done the same thing. You can’t blame angel for something like this because when this was all going down, when you first heard that alarm go off, did you think, oh I think angel should stay here and protect hope? NO! you thought oh shit someone is raiding the armory get on it angel. And THEN the rat shoots pippin, and maybe hope. This isn’t a bad leadership call for Angel. That was the best decision to make at the time.

Yup. I would bet everyone in the Tower (barring the assassin of course) would have fallen for this ruse. And someone should have learned a lesson from the initial betrayal and instituted team guard duty (both Burt and Michael) because its harder to do something dastardly if someone is there with you. Sadly, this wasn't a lesson learned. I betcha one of the first lines Michael says when he finds Pippin dead is to attack Angel for leaving him alone despite being told he isn't to be left alone. If you can't follow orders, you sure as hell can't give them.

[cupcakezombie]

And here's where you and I differ on Angel left and right. Angel does not think of the people around him. "Screw the old guy. Screw Lizzy and Todd. Screw Saul. Screw the 14 year old. I've got to go to something else instead!" You know what, all this stuff would be fine with me if he simply said, "Hope, keep your head down", "Hope, get under the bed", "Hope, hide in the closet", or "Hope, stand over here away from that guy that no one trusts" before he left. He left a child out in the open when something potentially dangerous was going down....with a guy nobody trusts.

Angel does not seem to think of human beings as people. He think of them as something else, and that is disturbing to me. At least he's been consistent. If this was a sudden thing, I would just be confused instead of annoyed. He's now seen how people react when he makes those decisions (leaving Burt and Saul) yet he continually does it. The circumstances from when he first arrived at the Tower have changed. From the military point of view, he probably has done nothing wrong, but he's not being judged by the military. He's being judged by civilians, who can't disassociate people from being instruments of war he can view them as.

The reason he has the position he has is because he has the military training. People in high ranking military positions always get judged by civilians, but if as you say he is making the right decisions from a military position then it shouldn't change the decisions that he makes or will have to make. There could come a time where his type of choices become critical to the survival of the tower.

In regards to leaving Hope without saying anything to her, would saying Hope stay here have made any difference? Then on the flip side, taking Hope with him could potentially have been more dangerous. Someone breaking in to get guns is not where you should take a blind girl. We still don't actually know what has happened down at the armory, there could be all hell breaking loose, and Hope staying in the guard room, even with a prisoner is safer. In fact that is probably the first place people will go when they come to check out the alarm.

[COsurvivor]

I hope the irony of your last sentence is not lost on people...

[mem]

Ra1th to hell with Angel. let Skittles take over the tower. Think of all that candy left alone to ruin in all those stores. If Skittles was there he'd rescue it all! *puts out the Skittles signal* Where can that candy munching freak be ???