I promised you I wasn't going to go at you blow by blow this time, and I'm keeping that promise. So I'm just gonna cherry pick instead of going after all your points.

Quote Originally Posted by Ra1th View Post
You say calculated risk, the show says acting without thinking. If you recall after that scene, Angel pulls Michael aside and yells at him for jeopardizing the safety of the entire tower to save one person. To which Michael responded,†what was I supposed to do? “let them die?â€, and angel’s response was yes. Because had Michael failed, everyone would have died. After this saul intervenes, and he says, don’t listen to angel, he’s a prick. Michael takes a moment to calm down and thinks for a second then regretfully replies.†He was right, I put the entire tower at risk by opening that door†basically he admits he acted on instinct, to save someone because that’s his training as a soldier. Then saul gives his speech on hail mary passes. This is the difference between a soldier and an officer. As a soldier Michael’s job was to do everything to keep everyone alive, officers have to make difficult decisions on who lives and who dies.
Just ignore the fact that we're talking about Angel for the moment. Soldier A has the respect of a small group of civilians and has been acting as a leader despite having Officer B there too. In the eyes of everyone there (except Officer B), Solider A is in charge, not Officer B. Leadership is determined by actions and those who follow those actions. And in this case Solider A (though not expressly told he's in charge or having some large ceremony saying he's in charge) is in charge. Ok, back to the story.

With the breakdown of society, so too go the titles associated with the old guard. Angel may have once been the defacto leader by title at the start of the story, but he was not the leader in practice by the time of Lizzy's admission into the Tower. Michael was because everyone around him made him the leader by their actions.

I know what Michael said, of course (I'm not going to prove your points for you my good sir, Ra1th! You must do your due diligence!). His reaction worked two fold: 1. It showed Michael was capable of understanding his reactions have severe consequences thus making him a deeper character and 2. It was done to show the audience that Angel isn't viewed as a total asshole by Michael. If Michael reacted any other way to Angel's tirade, the perspective of Angel's character to the audience changes drastically.


When you ask, if the leader has the right to decide who lives and who dies by the virtue of their perceived valueâ€, I say yes, that is a leader’s choice, and that is the leader’s burden.
And this is again getting down to the crux of the argument between you and the Angel fans, and the others on this board: Angel is not perceived as the leader. It wasn't his decision to make. And might I point out, Angel was all about letting both Todd and Lizzy and would have if he had the key on him at the time. One could argue that Angel reacts the way he does on Michael out of guilt. One could indeed argue that.....but I'm just baiting you because I don't actually believe that.

So I suppose that's my question to you: At the moment Lizzy arrived at the Tower who was the perceived leader of the Tower group? Not who claimed leadership, who was the true leader? That will get to the heart of this particular argument we're having today.