A Love Story Though the Whedonverse An Amy Acker & Alexis Denisof Theory By Lauren Claydon
During an interview for Much Ado About Nothing, Joss Whedon was asked if he noticed the connection that Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof, playing Fred and Wesley have to Much Ado About Nothing. Joss’s answer was.“Not until literally screening it. And not even the first time. It was a couple of months ago, screening it, I suddenly went, ‘Oh, my God! Wesley and Fred went to Heaven and they got this! They’re kissing and neither of them is dying! This is delightful.’ There’s a reason why I throw those two actors into each other’s arms every chance I get.”
I have a theory and it’s not about bunnies. Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof have worked together many times since 2001. Over the span of about 5 months, I have connected some of the times that they’ve worked together into a multi universe theory. This theory includes the shows Angel, How I Met Your Mother, Dollhouse and lastly the film Much Ado About Nothing. The characters that Acker and Denisof have played are most of the time drawn closer or apart. That’s what I have connected here. There might not be a connection but I’ve found the possibility of one. I also set the plot line of this theory in order of the years these shows and movie aired or were released. This theory is the love story between Winifred ‘Fred’ Burkle and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. The timeline of this theory is mostly set in the Whedonverse, to explain the title of this theory.
In the spinoff of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel. We are introduced to Winifred ‘Fred’ Burkle and to a different side of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I’m leaving out most of what happens in the graphic novels because Fred and Wesley never ended up together for very long in them. Also it’s not the same without Amy and Alexis. Wesley played by Denisof was first introduced in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as the new Watcher for the slayers, Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane. Faith killed the deputy mayor of Sunnydale and went rogue, later causing her to befriend the evil mayor of Sunnydale. After Faith ends up in a coma after being stabbed by Buffy during a fight, the mayor becomes a snake-like demon on graduation day ending in Sunnydale High being destroyed. Wesley was a very inexperienced Watcher and because of what unfolded under his watch, he was fired by the Watcher’s Council. After being fired, Wesley became a self-proclaimed ‘rogue demon hunter’ who later joins Angel Investigations in the middle of season one of Angel after Doyle, a member of Angel Investigations died. Then in the end of season two of Angel, we meet Fred played by Acker was a girl from Texas who moved to Los Angeles to study to become physicist at UCLA but was sucked into a portal to another dimension called Pylea. Later to find out that she was sent there by her jealous professor. Fred lived in a cave in Pylea for five years, driving her a little crazy. She spent the five years hiding from the local demons that lived in nearby villages who treated humans like slaves and referring to them as cows. Throughout the five years Fred spent in Pylea she never gave up on trying to get back home, she would write all over the walls of the cave she lived in. the walls were filled with physics and the words she read that she thought caused her to end up in Pylea. After working with Angel and the Angel Investigations to get back to Los Angeles. Fred stays with them back home, but after living in a cave for five years she built herself another cave in her room at the hotel. She spent months in her room just writing on the walls, just like in her cave back in Pylea. Fred spent a lot of that time waiting for Angel to return from visiting the now alive Buffy. Fred then finally came to the conclusion that Angel wasn’t going to save her again, after she almost went home back to San Antonio with her parents. Once Fred started leaving her room more, she would go out with her new friends and be more social. A love triangle began when Wesley and Charles Gunn both fall in love with Fred, and Fred developed a crush on Gunn. Wesley was always just trying to do what he thought was best for everyone and Fred, which always ended badly for him and everyone else. This includes the way he acted around Fred. Even when Wesley was about to tell Fred how he felt about her. When he walked around the corner, Fred was kissing Gunn. Also in season three, after reading some books in his office Wesley thinks that Angel was going to kill his own son, Connor. Wesley thought this because he read that the father will kill the son. To stop what he thought was going to happen, Wesley stole Connor ending in Wesley getting his throat slit by a woman named Justine. She stole Connor from Wesley giving the baby to Holtz, who took Connor to a hell dimension called Quor’toth. After this happened Fred went to the hospital to visit Wesley and to give him his belongings from his office at the hotel. Well there Fred told Wesley to never come back to the hotel, that what he did destroyed everyone and that if he returns that Angel would kill him. Once time went by Wesley found ways to redeem to everyone because he was still always their for his friends at Angel Investigations, even when they weren’t there for him. Fred and Gunn ended up dating for almost two seasons but Wesley was still in love with her even though he was in a complicated relationship with the villainous lawyer Lilah Morgan, one of the shows main antagonists. It got really complicated after he cut off her head, but because she was a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart it was in her contract that she would come back to life for a little bit. Ever when Wesley was abandoned from his friends in season three to four, he would still drop everything he was doing to help them, especially when Fred asked him for help. Wesley read Fred’s theory when it got published and when he found out she was doing a lecture on it he went to listen to her.That lecture was also one of the reasons why Fred and Gunn broke up. After learning that it was her old physics professor who sent her to Pylea, Fred wanted to kill him for all the pain he has caused people. Fred wasn’t the only student that was sent to other dimensions, but Fred was the only one who survived and returned back to Los Angeles. Fred knew he would keep trying to kill her and others. She told Angel and Gunn what she had found out, and that she wanted to kill him. They told her not to and that she would never learn to forgive herself for killing him. Fred lied and said she wasn’t going to kill him and that she was going to that she was going to her room, but she really went to see Wesley. Fred knew that the only person that would help her would be Wesley. With the help of Wesley, Fred had a plan. She was so close to sending her professor to another dimension to show him what she had to live though for five year, if he survived that long. Fred’s plan wasn’t going so well for her though. This ended with Gunn killing the professor so Fred wouldn’t have to live with it for the rest of her life. After this there was a problems in their relationship. Fred always went to Wesley for help and Gunn was jealous. When Fred and Gunn were still dating, Wesley was asked by Fred to help them with Angelus. Angelus was Angel without his soul, he was a murderous vampire. Who didn’t care about what he did or what it took to do something. Angelus said terrible things about Fred to her and Gunn, but Angelus also said them to Wesley. Angelus ended up attacking Fred, Gunn tried to save her but he couldn’t. Wesley was the one to save Fred in the end. After that Fred went to thank Wesley for what he did. This ended with Wesley kissing Fred in the hotel’s office, Gunn walked in right after and knew what had just happened. Gunn and Wesley then begin to fight over Fred, their fight ended when Gunn accidentally hit Fred. Their relationship ended after that, when Gunn broke up with Fred. Fred did have feelings for Wesley but when she found out that he had been sleeping with Lilah, Fred saw him differently. Fred still did have feeling for Wesley though, it was very obvious by the way the two looked at each other. In the fifth season of Angel, Angel Investigations take over the Los Angeles branch of the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart. Wolfram & Hart were the main antagonist throughout the show. Fred became the head of the Practical Science Division and Wesley became the head of the Supernatural Research and Intelligence Gathering Department. After two seasons of Fred and Wesley not being together. In season five, we see that Wesley stills cares for Fred and that Fred cares about him. After Wesley thinks he killed his father to protect Fred because he loves her, Fred goes into his office to talk about what happens and they have a really cute moment together only for Knox to come in and ruin everything like always. Wesley told Fred that he really thought he killed his father without even hesitating because he was going to hurt Fred. The two finally get together after Fred tells Wesley she wants to be with him and that he had been kind of clueless, but Wesley never stopped loving Fred since he met her and got to know her. Wesley was just surprised that she loved him back. In the next episode they were happy together and I loved seeing the two of them finally happy again, but it is very short lived they only got one day together. After Knox, one of the scientist at the Wolfram & Hart’s Practical Science Division, who worshiped a goddess named Illyria. Knox wanted Fred to be the vessel for Illyria, which he accomplished. With Fred being the head of Wolfram & Hart’s Practical Science Division she went to check an ancient sarcophagus, unknown to her that Knox had sent it to the lab to turn her into Illyria. When Fred placed her hand onto the sarcophagus touching one of the crystals on it, some air came out of the sarcophagus, That is what caused Fred to become infected, later becoming the vessel for Illyria. Everyone loved Fred that’s why when Fred got sick because of Illyria nobody knew what to do. Her organs were shutting down and she was dying slowly and painfully. No one knew what was wrong with her, so they all eventually had to watch her slowly die. Angel and Spike went to try to find a way to save her, and Gunn was even willing to give up his life to save hers because he saw how happy her and Wesley were together. But nothing would have worked. Fred said that she was going to be okay and beat whatever it was that she was sick with. She Always gave a powerful speeches but in my opinion this one was one of her best and most powerful. Fred said, “ I am not the damsel in distress. I am not some case. I lived in a cave for five years. In a world where they killed my kind like cattle. I am not going to be cut down by some monster flu. I am better than that.”
Fred was dying and Wesley stayed with her the whole time up until her last words which were “I’m not scared. I’m not scared. I’m not scared. Please, Wesley. Why can’t I stay?”
Before Fred died Wesley told her that always loved her and that he had loved her from the moment he got to know her. Lastly Wesley told Fred that he would never stop loving her. After Illyria took over Fred’s body, she didn’t speak like Fred or act like Fred. Also Illyria was blue. Wesley was very bitter and hated the demon goddess, but what hurt him was how Illyria would change into the appearance Fred. She would always try to remind him of how he lost the love of his life. Wesley loved Fred so much, so after Fred died Wesley didn’t have anything left to live without Fred. Illyria was one of the Old Ones, a powerful pure-breed demon. She plagued the world before the time of man and was one of the most feared and worshiped demons of that time. Before Fred became Illyria’s vessel she walked through many worlds. Illyria told them. “ I traveled all of them as I pleased. I walked worlds of smoke and half truths, intangible. Worlds of torment and of unnamable beauty. Opaline towers as high as small moons. Glaciers that rippled with insensate lust. And one world with nothing but shrimp. I tried of that one quickly.”
One of them being a world with nothing but shrimp, that was a running joke in the Buffyverse. The joke was started by Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she was telling her friends that there was a world without shrimp and one of nothing but Shrimp. The joke went on for many season, but now back to the theory. Illyria hated everything about humanity and the world, she just didn’t really care about anything but herself at first. After Illyria found out that her army had been destroyed a long time ago. This broke her a little bit, but she was Illyria nothing could stop her. Over a short period of time Illyria showed her new allies that they could trust her and that she would fight with them. They all trusted Illyria but they also didn’t. No one knew what kind of power she had. She knew that her new allies trusted and cared about Fred, and I think that because Fred was always apart of Illyria subconscious. Fred was in a way telling her to trust her friends and to help them. Even though Wesley hated being around Illyria most of the time, he still saw her as being his responsibility. In the last episode of Angel out of all of the members of what was Angel Investigations, Wesley didn’t survive. Before his death Illyria came to help him, but Wesley was fatally wounded. Him and Illyria both knew he was going to die, so Illyria changed into the appearance Fred to comfort him. Illyria would often ask Wesley if he wanted her to look like Fred for him, but every time he declined her offer, expect for this time. Illyria told him that everything was going to be okay and that he was going to be with Fred again. Before the final battle, Wesley had said to Illyria that there is no perfect day for him, not anymore. Ever since he lost Fred, he lost himself as well. After Wesley died Illyria was never the same because she see what Fred and Wesley’s life together would have looked like if it wasn’t for Knox and her. In the Angel graphic novels the characters that are alive at that point start talking about Fred and Wesley, saying that they are together and are happy. Also Angel names a wing of a public library the Burkle Wyndam-Pryce wing, which I found really sweet. There’s more in the graphic novels with Winifred coming back to life but I’m not going to touch on that now. Also Angel wasn’t the last show to have Amy’s characters be killed off and turned into a god only episodes before a show ends, I’ll talk more about that later on in this theory.
This is the only show in this theory that’s not in the Whedonverse, but I think that my theory connects it in someway. In Come on, the season one finale of How I Met Your Mother. Ted wants to stop Robin from going on a camping trip with her co anchor Sandy Rivers, played by Denisof. Sandy is a recurring character on the show, was a news anchor who was always hitting on Robin and other women. After asking Robin out many times, Sandy finally got a yes. They were going to spend time together at the networks camping trip. To cancel the trip, Ted wants to change the weather for the weekend by making rain. For help Ted goes to meet Penelope, played by Acker. Penelope was a girl that had history with Barney and had a PH.D in native american studies. Penelope at first is offended and laughs at them about the idea. Then Ted tells her that Sandy is the wrong for Robin. She agreed to help Ted by teaching him a rain dance because she asks him if Sandy is an ass like Barney and he says yes. After hours of dancing on a roof, Ted finally makes it rain canceling the camping trip. I see this as Wesley and Winifred being brought closer by stopping Robin going on the camping trip with Sandy. I found a detail that I think connect to Fred and Wesley. I added How I Met Your Mother to this theory because when I was first putting together this theory the plot line of Amy and Alexis being on the same episode, and in this episode their characters have an important impact on the rest of the show and the outcome of the main characters lives. This is also what made me start looking at more shows showing how Wesley and Fred were torn apart and then brought closer.
In Dollhouse Acker and Denisof both play Dolls in the show, also at some point in the show they learn that they are Dolls. Denisof’s character Daniel Perrin was a third-generation United States senator who was kidnapped by the Rossum Corporation and turned into a Doll. The Rossum Corporation used him to get into the government. As a senator, Daniel’s goal was to uncover that the Dollhouses were real, but only to end by him finding out that he was a Doll. Learning that he was one of the people he was trying to help. Acker’s character is first introduced as the Los Angeles dollhouse’s general physician Dr.Claire Saunders who was scarred both mentally and physically. Later in the show Claire learns that she’s not a doctor she’s a broken Doll. Claire had a chance to learn who she really was but she didn’t want to die. If she wanted to become herself again she would in a way be killing Claire, the person she had become. We don’t learn a lot about her past other than that her name as a Doll was Whiskey and that she was the number one active in the Los Angeles dollhouse. Whiskey became Claire after Alpha another Doll in the Los Angeles dollhouse, wanted Echo to become the number one active. To make Echo the number one active, Alpha grabbed a pair of scissors and began repeatedly slashing Whiskey’s face leaving her with scars across her face. After Alpha was done cutting up her face he was brought to Topher to be put in the Attic, when the chair used to imprint the Dolls with had a problem causing every personality that he had ever been imprinted with be in his brain at once, causing him to go crazy killing almost everyone in the Los Angeles dollhouse including the original Dr.Saunders. Causing them to need a new general physician, they imprinted Whiskey as Dr.Claire Saunders. She was imprinted her with computer skills beyond those of a physician and a wide range of phobias. It suggests that she suffered from Agoraphobia; Anthropophobia; Heliophobia; Ligyrophobia/Phonophobia; Social phobia; Zoophobia. In Dollhouse we learn that two Dolls can fall in love, but when it happens they separate the Dolls by moving them into different dollhouses. Dollhouse had a five-year and plan but it got cancelled after `season two, so all we have is what could have happened and questions about characters past that were never answered. I think that maybe Whiskey used to be an active in the Washington Dollhouse. Then Whiskey and Daniel when not imprinted in their childlike blank states fell in love causing Whiskey to be moved to another dollhouse. Moving her to the Los Angeles dollhouse. We never learn much about what happened in the past while in their blank childlike states. Causing me to think that was Wesley and Winifred to be torn away from each other again.
My theory ends with Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. Acker and Denisof play Beatrice and Benedick the main characters. Beatrice is the niece of Leonato, who is trying to find the positive side of things but it come across as sad and bitter. Benedick is a lord of Padua, who has just returned from war and is seen as a fool to the people around him but he doesn’t seem to notice. Beatrice and Benedick have a history together which has caused the two to have some hatred towards each other. With the first scene in the kitchen, Beatrice explains to Leonato’s Aide that her and Benedict her not on good terms. Throughout the movie she explains her and Benedick’s relationship to almost everyone, and she was tells them how he’s a joke. It’s also very clear between the pairs interactions that they have hurt the other and that this has caused them to have strong opinions about each other. They don’t want to get hurt again. They often make it clear to each other that they know what the other one is like, because they’ve known each other for a long time and the history they have together. Which causes the other characters to make a plan to have the two of them fall in love with each other. After the other characters tricked Beatrice and Benedick into loving each other, they finally admit that they love the other. Once Beatrice and Benedick say they love each other it causing an argument between the two because Beatrice asks Benedick to kill Claudio if he really loves her. When they end the argument Benedick tells her again that he loves her. Later the two met up again to talk about what they love about the other but then Ursula rans in to tell them news that the wedding between Beatrice’s cousin Hero and Claudio is back on, and that it was Don John who set it all up. After Claudio unknowingly marries the presumed dead Hero, Benedick and Beatrice read the poems that they wrote about each other and somewhere in that time they got married, I think. The movie ends with the two of them standing together in the hallway, the party still going on behind them. This last scene represents Fred and Wesley finally ending up together and being happy together after all being apart for so many lifetimes. A lot of people see this movie as Fred and Wesley being reunited in another life, so I’m not the first person to make that connection. Joss Whedon and the cast of Much Ado About Nothing have said that after watching the movie they saw it as the end of those characters love story ending. This was only after seeing the reactions to the audience at a screening and people pointing it out to them.
The first scene that Amy and Alexis ever did together was a Shakespeare inspired screen written by Joss Whedon for Amy’s audition. Joss was wanting to add someone new to the cast of Angel and was wanting to see if Amy could be that new cast member. Since 1999, Joss and his wife Kai have been hosting Shakespeare readings at their house. The readings began during season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer after cast members started talking about Shakespeare on set. Over the years more actors and actresses from more of Whedon’s shows, and other people starting to join the weekly readings. Joss has always said that he loves the work of Shakespeare and that’s what drove him to make Much Ado About Nothing in between editing The Avengers. In an interview Amy said that she played Hero once, they all joked around that Much Ado is the only play that Amy does and that she would be performing it again in the next few years. This also wasn’t the first time that Amy and Alexis had played Beatrice and Benedick. At one of Joss’s Shakespeare readings the two also played the characters together.
Over the years the Whedonverse has expanded since the start of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon has close group of actors and actresses that he has repeatedly worked with since 1997. Different actors and actresses have joined the Whedonverse over the past nineteen years but many of them Joss still works with today. Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof have been apart of the Whedonverse since 1999 and 2001. The two of them being apart of this has given them many roles and possibly more to come. Amy has been in such Whedon projects as Angel, Dollhouse, The Cabin in the Woods, Much Ado About Nothing and Agents of S.H.I.E.l.D. Alexis has also been in many Whedon projects such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, The Avengers and Much Ado About Nothing.
After I finished watching these shows, most of them left so many unanswered questions that I wanted that I wanted answers to. I feel like for me this theory has answered some of these questions. That it all connects together here. With the many months that I’ve spent working on these, connecting everything that I could but to still have it make sense. Will make sense to maybe someone who has watched these shows and movie, to anyone else I think this might look a little crazy. The questions I still have can be summed up by one question, What happened to some of these character after the show ended or after they were last seen? Most of these shows didn’t answer that for me and if then did it was in books that I haven’t read. Like in the last episode of Angel we are left with a cliffhanger, did the main characters survive the last battle with what looked like to viewers an endless sea of demons. Another example is what happened to Amy’s character Whiskey. In the season one finale of Dollhouse we see Whiskey as a Doll again and with her scars gone, in season two we learn a little bit about what happened but at that point no one knew. The episode ends with her sitting by the railing of the upper level of the Los Angeles Dollhouse as the building fills with toxic gas and people start to swarm into the dollhouse. I may never get my answers to some of these questions but i have my ideas. I know that everyone survived at the end of Angel and I think that Whiskey probably died after that scene. I seen these works as something that just keeps viewer thinking and caring about the characters that they are being introduced to.
Recently with this theory not being able to leave my mind I’ve seen how anything can relate back to these characters. With music, movies, television shows and even just going through a normal day. I’m reminded of the characters and the plots of these shows, and movie that I’ve written about in this theory. It’s weird that even in my day to day life that these characters still mind a way to pop into my head whenever possible. I think that it really shows what an impact these shows and characters can leave on people.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but with a lot of Amy Acker’s characters libraries are always apart of her character’s introduction, Like Fred, Root and Penelope. It’s kind of weird that a lot of her characters have that thing in common. Fred was first seen in a library in Cordy’s vision and also Fred worked at a public library in Los Angeles, that’s where the portal to Pylea opened. Also Amy’s audition for Angel was set in a library. As I said earlier in the How I Met Your Mother part of this theory, Penelope was first seen in a library when Ted and Barney came to talk to her. In season two of Person of Interest we got to learn the backstory of season one’s villain, Root. Her real name was Samantha Groves and like every night she was at the library in Bishop,Texas with her friend Hanna. That same night she saw Hanna get into a car, she was never seen or heard from again. The young Samantha Groves tried telling the librarian but she was in love with The man who abducted and killed Hanna. She told Samantha that she was a liar and no one would ever believe her about what she saw. Being one of the last people to see her friend Hanna alive caused Samantha became Root. With her very advanced computer skills, she was able to avenge Hanna’s death and have the murder killed. A year after the murder, Root left Texas becoming the reformed killer for hire that everyone loves. Later in the show, during season three. Harold locks up in a library because he thought she was crazy, but she ended up being right about everything. It’s kind of funny how this one detail has been used for her characters, that and her being from Texas. I think by now we get it Amy’s from Texas and has something to do with libraries.
There’s a big debate between fans of the show Angel. Who was better together Fred and Gunn or, Fred and Wesley? I think that Fred and Gunn were really cute together, but that Fred and Wesley were meant to be together. I think I lot of people think this as well. Fred and Gunn dated for from season three to four, they were always being cute together, but they also made me sad a lot. They broke my heart when he broke up with Fred in season three because years earlier Gunn sold his soul. He sold his soul for a truck and if he fell in love with anyone the demon he sold his soul to would kill him. That’s what made this sad is that Gunn planned to give Fred the best day of her life, but it ended with him breaking her heart. She could tell that their was something wrong because of the way he was acting. When Fred confronted him about it at lunch, Gunn got defensive and lied to her. He told her that there was someone else, but apart of Fred knew that this wasn’t true. By the end of the episode they had gotten back together and everything was okay for a little while. Until Fred wanted revenge for being sent to Pylea and almost being by the same person for the same reason twice, and to help her get revenge she asked Wesley for help. Fred always asked Wesley for help and Gunn hated it. He blamed Wesley for everything bad that had ever happened to Angel Investigations. They continued dating until the end of season four, after Wesley kissed Fred and Gunn accidentally hit Fred when she was trying to separate the fight between the two of them. When started living with Angel, after leaving Pylea. Wesley and Gunn did often show Fred that they cared about her. Nothing ever worked out for Wesley and all he wanted was for that to work out for him, for him and Fred to be together. For me all I ever wanted was for Fred to be happy and I hated it when she wasn’t, she deserved an amazing life. Fred and Wesley were meant to be together, if soulmates are real that’s what they were. Wesley loved her so much and eventually she loved him back. They should have had more time together and I wish they did get the time together that they deserved. They both deserved so much better. I’m not saying I didn’t love Fred and Gunn together, it’s just that For me Fred and Wesley will always be the best relationship on that show. This theory gave me a reason to think that maybe Fred and Wesley dying wasn’t the end. Maybe it was just the beginning of something even more beautiful. Personally I’ve always been very divided on these relationships but I think that they were both beautiful in their own ways. People have their own opinions this is just mine, really I think that a lot of this theory is just me stating my opinion.
Illyria wasn’t the last time that one of Amy Acker’s characters was killed off and turned into a god only a few episodes before a show was about to end. In the show Person of Interest Acker plays Root, a hacker and reformed killer for hire. She started off as the season one big bad. Just like in Angel after seasons of a will they won’t they between Root and Shaw, Root dies and the Machine takes her voice. The Machine is a god like AI that gives the main characters of Person of Interest the numbers that they use to help the people that are viewed as irrelevant by the government. Root’s relationship with the Machine was one that no one else had. Root was the only person that the Machine would talk to, she was the Analog Interface. She would speak for the Machine and She would give her different numbers then the rest of the team. When Root and Shaw first meet it wasn’t in a way that said that they were going to fall in love with each other. Root was posing as a woman named Veronica Sinclair, Shaw was supposed to be meeting the real Veronica but Root tied her up in the bathroom of the hotel room they were in. Shaw realized the woman she was talking to wasn’t the real Veronica, but she was too late. Root had put her taser to Shaw’s neck right when she found out. Root tied her to a chair and was going to torture her with an iron. It was clear that there was something going on with the two of them, but I don’t think anyone expected such a beautiful relationship to start from almost torturing someone with an iron. After two seasons of Root flirting with her coworker Sameen Shaw and things being hinted at, but never showed. Root and Shaw’s relationship consisted of Root flirting with the sociopath causing her to alway get angry with her, but she secretly grew to love it. After some time Shaw started to enjoy Root’s company and cared about her. Later Shaw realized that Root made her feel feeling and was her safe place. Shaw kissed Root only for her to sacrifice herself for Root and the rest of Team Machine seconds later, Shaw was shot and captured by Samaritan who tortured her for a little more than nine months. Root never stopped looking for Sameen over those months, she knew she was alive somewhere. This was just like how Wesley never stopped loving Fred. Once Shaw escaped from Samaritan and got back to New York. She eventually ran into Root one night, but just like Fred and Wesley they didn’t get much time to be together before Root was shot and killed protecting Harold. Every character that deserved to be happy on Person of Interest died protecting Harold in the last season, which left me frustrated with the show and Harold. This always makes me really sad because I wanted both Fred and Wesley, and Root and Shaw to be happy together, but it seems like every time they were happy, one of them is taken away or killed. It’s also makes it a lot more painful to watch these shows when your favourite character dies but their still around as someone or something else. Root might be alive and Fred did end up coming back to life, but it’s still very heartbreaking how similar these two relationships because I loved these characters together. I also find it interesting that Root was always eating apples and the first time we saw Fred in Cordelia’s vision, she’s wearing a necklace with an apple on it. Also Root makes herself a room in the abandoned underground subway station that they work in. I think that is cute because in the episode of Angel, Fredless. In Fredless, while walking through the sewer with Angel. She says how much she likes the sewer and that she wants to build an underground condo. When I first saw Root’s room I said that Fred finally got to build her underground condo. don’t think that was planned but I think it’s still kind of a cute little easter egg hidden in the show referencing Amy’s first show as a main character. Thinking about it now, I think Amy’s characters just can’t make it through a fifth and final season. This doesn’t have anything to do with Person of Interest, but there is also a reference to Fred’s death in the movie, The Cabin in the Woods. Amy’s character, Lin’s death. Her death made me cry because Fred’s death affected me so much. Lin was killed by a giant tentacle that crashed through the roof and grabbed her. She was killed by Illyria once again, the tentacle might have been Illyria’s full form when not in a vessel. There were a lot of references to some Whedonverse shows in that movie it’s kind of funny in a way that Joss has managed to have the same demon goddess kill Amy twice. Also with everything Amy does there’s always something that leads back to Fred.
The Buffyverse includes such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The Whedonverse is made up of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse, The Cabin in the Woods, Much Ado About Nothing and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. How I Met Your Mother is not apart of these universes, but a lot of the actors and actresses that were on How I Met Your Mother are in the Buffyverse and Whedonverse. I think because of a lot of those actors and actresses being in the Whedonverse and HIMYM, it gives a connection that would make it a weird shared universe. With so many television and movie shared universes this could be a possibility, so if it is then this theory could be possible and Fred and Wesley could have gone through all of this just to be together again. There are also so holes in this theory because of How I Met Your Mother having nothing to do with the Whedonverse and Buffyverse, also it could just be crazy but I would like to think that this shared universe exist. I have nothing to confirm or deny this so I can only hope that maybe I’m right.
One of the things I noticed when watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel was how much some characters developed throughout both shows. I especially enjoyed the character development of Fred and Wesley. Fred went from being a crazy girl in another dimension who was living in a cave and wearing a potato sack, to later becoming a blue demon goddess. Right before Fred became Illyria she was a strong member of the team who had became a badass after learning how to stick up for herself. Wesley went from being a spineless watcher on Buffy the Vampire Slayer to also being a strong member of the team on Angel. Wesley changed a lot throughout the shows, but his character changed dramatically at the end of the fifth of season Angel from being happily in love to next caring if he lived or died. Wesley broke my heart after Fred died because he had gone through so much already and nothing would ever go right for him, then the one time his life was getting better. He was happy and in love, but it was all taken away from him. Before his death Wesley would try to drink away the pain of Fred’s death, it made the pain that he felt a million times worse. After Fred he was never the same. Most of characters on these shows did show major character development throughout the shows, but not as much as Fred and Wesley characters in my opinion.
For the next three paragraphs I’m going to explain the three television shows I wrote into this theory. These paragraphs are just going to be quick summaries of the shows. If anyone isn’t familiar with Angel, How I Met Your Mother and Dollhouse, these paragraphs might help understand my theory and what I talked about through the plot line of it.
Angel was the spinoff of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show was about Buffy’s vampire ex boyfriend, Angel. It revolved around vampire with a soul Angel, former Sunnydale mean girl Cordelia Chase, a half demon named Doyle,the former Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, vampire hunter Charles Gunn, Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan also known as Lorne and The Host, the insane lovable genius Winifred ‘Fred’ Burkle, Connor the human son of two vampires, and Spike the other vampire with a soul that Buffy also dates. In season one Angel, Cordelia and Doyle start a private investigator business. They clients were either paying customers or people that they saw needed help. Doyle had the visions first but before his death he passed his visions on to Cordy. The visions showed them people in the Los Angeles area that needed their help. Mainly the problems were magic and demon related. They helped the helpless, as it said on their cards. As time went on their had to face more and more problems. Wolfram & Hart causing many for them, but then Angel Investigations ends up running the Los Angeles branch of the evil law firm. The show mainly focused on the ongoing trials of Angel, a vampire whose human soul was restored to him by gypsies as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. After more than a century of murder and the torture of innocents, Angel’s restored soul torments him with guilt and remorse. During the first four seasons Angel Investigations was restoring the faith and saving the souls of those who have lost their way. Typically, this involves doing battle with evil demons or humans allied to them, primarily related to Wolfram & Hart. Angel also had battle his own demonic nature. A lot of the show’s plot line was based around Angel and his quest to redeem himself from his dark murderous past as Angelus. According to an ancient prophecy called the Shanshu Prophecy. This prophecy said that if Angel redeemed himself, he would become human again. In season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was now another vampire with a soul that could fulfill the Shanshu Prophecy. Spike had gotten a soul for Buffy. That meant that Spike could also have a chance to become human again. That caused the two vampires to fight about the prophecy.
How I Met Your Mother was about in the year 2030 Ted telling his son and daughter about how he met their mother. The show was about Ted and friends. The show mainly revolves around Ted as he looks for love in New York. Ted’s quest to find true love would often fail and leave him heartbroken, for me that part of the show got old quick. The show tells this story flashbacks while Ted tells this story.
Dollhouse is a very confusing show, so I thought that I should maybe clear up some things. Dollhouse revolved around the Rossum Corporation running numerous underground establishments all around the world. The program involved individuals referred to as Actives or Dolls with temporary personalities and skills. Wealthy clients hire Actives from Dollhouses at great expense for various purposes, including heists, sexual encounters, assassinations, expert counsel, and all manner of unique experiences. The series primarily follows the Active known as Echo, played by Eliza Dushku, on her journey towards self-awareness. The Dolls are imprinted by a chair that wipes their minds making it that they don’t remember anything. The only things that they can remember are their names, the people around them in the Dollhouse, basic things in the Dollhouse and to trust their handlers. Topher who imprints the Dolls, created the personality that the Dolls were imprinted with. He made this by creating whole human personalities and adding in the personalities of dead people. The Actives at the Los Angeles Dollhouse were named after the NATO phonetic alphabet. Other Dollhouses were shown to use other naming systems. Dollhouse was filled with so many plot twists over its short run. This includes the reveal that Claire was a Doll and in season two the reveal that she was a sleeper active. That was known after she walked into Topher’s office after being gone from the Los Angeles Dollhouse for a while, and shooting Bennett in the head. Bennett imprinted the Dolls in the Washington Dollhouse and she wanted Also that she was imprinted as the CEO of the Rossum Corporation. For it’s season finales Dollhouse would jump to a near post-apocalyptic future. This future was caused by the Rossum Corporation and the Dollhouses. All of the shows main characters return in this future, but they aren’t Dolls anymore. They were themselves again, well except for Whiskey. In the season one finale, they wanted to make it look like after all of those years Claire was still in the Dollhouse waiting for Boyd to return for her. In season two, we learned that he was never going to return to her because he was dead. He died after Claire was turned into a Doll again. I think there was some part of Claire that was still in Whiskey’s mind. I think that she was telling her to stay and wait for Boyd to come back for her. I think this because Claire didn’t know what happened to him, she was gone before his death. Also in a way he kind of killed Claire, with him working for the CEO of Rossum and Whiskey was imprinted as the CEO. When describing this show to people. I’ve just said that the easiest way to explain it is that the show is about these people called Dolls, and that they are like secret agent prostitutes. For me this is the easy way explain the show without getting into all the confusing details that made up Dollhouse.
The characters that Joss Whedon writes are ones that people including me care about and that’s why I wrote this theory. The characters in the Whedonverse are ones that are very different from most characters from the other shows and movies, in my opinion. To the way these characters are introduced to the way they’re killed off or if not killed then leave the show. The characters that Acker and Denisof played in Angel are the reason I started this theory. Amy Acker’s performances in anything she’s ever been in have always amazed me and leave me wondering what’s next or what happened to her character. Her roles over the years Whedonverse or not are what drove me to write this. Death in the Whedonverse is very common ask any Joss Whedon fan and they will tell you what deaths are the saddest. This theory wouldn’t be a thing if it wasn’t for two of those saddest death in the Whedonverse, no one wanted Fred or Wesley to die but then the characters that they played later on wouldn’t have had that connection back to them. Will you know other than the fact that the actors playing the characters are same. This whole theory may look really crazy, but I feel like if you look past the craziness of it all. I’ve made a connection though these works that I’ve also supported with facts from the works themselves. I always hear people talking about the shows they like and saying that their favourite characters are dead. This always makes me want to say to them that they don’t know a sad character death before watching a Joss Whedon show, or that they don’t know what it’s like to be an Amy Acker fan because her characters are always killed off or are in pain.
Angel covered more of there being other dimensions in the Buffyverse. They talked about dimensions on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but not as much as they did on Angel. Throughout Angel they were always talking about other dimensions or they went to other dimensions. Two of those dimensions were Pylea and Quor'toth. Pylea was the home dimension of Lorne, also Cordelia was the Queen of Pylea. But most importantly Pylea was where we first met Winifred “Fred” Burkle. Living in a cave hiding from demons wanting to kill her, Fred was driven crazy by this dimension. Quor’toth was a hell dimension that was introduced in season 3 of Angel. When Quor’toth was first introduced, Angel’s son Connor had just been sent there. In this dimension people twice as fast as they do in the real world. They expanded on this dimension more in the graphic novel by explaining the demons of the dimension.
Fred is one of my favourite characters of all time and that’s why her death causes me so much pain. After having to deal with Fred’s death then Wesley’s really made me think that this couldn’t have been the end for those characters. Later I find out that maybe it wasn’t and like the final words said by Amy’s character, The Machine on Person of Interest. “And maybe this isn’t the end at all.”
When I heard her say those words it reminded me of this crazy theory that I had made up in my mind months earlier. It reminded me of the painful deaths of Fred and Wesley. How after Wesley wanted to be with Fred from the moment he met her. Only after he finally got to be with Fred, who he had loved for so long. Dies, she died in his arms. After telling her that he loves her, she dies. Why did this happen to them? A lot of people want to know this. But after writing all of this, it makes me think that their deaths weren’t the end. I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife but these are fictional universes, and in a fictional universe anything is possible. With that, maybe they did get to be together after all. That’s all I’ve ever wanted was for Fred to be happy and, throughout Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel I wanted to see Wesley be happy as well. I’ve heard some people say that because of what Wesley did to Faith he deserved to have Fred, the love of his life taken away from him. Faith is also one of my favourite Whedonverse characters, but I think that she is the reason why a lot of the bad things that happened to her. Faith caused many problems on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. After time passed she also fixed a lot of the problems for her eventual friends but earlier in those shows she was just causing problems and blaming other people for her problems. Wesley didn’t deserve Fred’s death, no one deserved Fred’s death. My heart is still broken from watching the fifth season of Angel. It doesn’t help that almost every other show or movie that I watch that Amy’s in she dies. It’s taking to the point now that I just think to myself. When will this stop? When will I get to see a character that I’ve grown to love played by Amy not die. Not all of her characters die but most of them do. This just brings me back to what I was saying earlier with the maybe this isn’t the end that at all thing. That was said because the show was pending being canceled, the show ended up being canceled but they wanted to give the chance to not be over. Basically saying maybe this is just the beginning. This brings me back to Fred and Wesley, maybe their story wasn’t over and they just had to figure out how to find each other in other lives. I like that idea, that after their tragic fate they found each other and when it didn’t work out they would find each other again, or try to. Every life they lead had an effect on the outcome of their story and how they finally met again. How these characters fell in love again and maybe even more times. This theory could be their story or it could just be nonsense, but maybe it could be.
Many of Joss Whedon’s work has been turned into graphic novels in the past few years, this is good for fans like me who wanted more from these shows. Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and spin offs of these works were made into graphic novels. These have been able to show more to some of these show because some did get cancelled after a short time on air and they’ve also been able to show other sides sides to some characters. With bringing these series back into graphic novels we’ve seen many beloved characters be killed off and also some brought back to life, Fred was one of those characters that was brought back. After Illyria sacrificed herself for Buffy and the Scooby gang as well as to to bring back magic, Illyria thought about Fred and Wesley as she died. Fred was brought back to life after Illyria died, but Illyria didn’t really die. When Fred comes back she says to Angel that Illyria is still apart of her and that she remembers some of the things that Illyria did when using Fred’s body as her vessel. The part of this that’s the saddest is how Fred saw and remembers watching Wesley’s death. Fred is one of my favourite characters in the Whedonverse and Buffyverse, so seeing her return meant a lot to me. I think that the shows will always be better than the graphic novels but there are some moments like Fred’s return that make these worth reading. Also Fred and Faith become best friends like Buffy and Willow, so that fact alone makes me want to read more because they are my favourite characters. Fred’s still Illyria but it’s better than not having Fred come back at all. But I will still never get over Fred’s death for as long as I live. One of the saddest things I’ve ever seen has to be when Fred says that everything reminds her of Wesley. The graphic novels also answer a lot of questions that were left unanswered by the shows. I’m still reading these series and can’t wait to finish them but from what I’ve read so far a lot has been answered for me. I have to say, the only downside of Fred coming back to life is that it puts a hole in this theory.
Theories have always been apart of the Buffyverse, either as jokes or just character saying that they have one. Throughout Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the characters were always talking about how they have a theory about what going on in that episode or episodes. Fred was always saying that she had a theory about how to fixed something or she would talk about theories. I think that the best thing about Fred and theories was that in the Angel season four episode, Spin the Bottle. We learned that Fred is a conspiracy theorist. In the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once More With Feeling. There is even a song where the cast sings about their theories on why they think everyone’s singing. There are also many theories on the Whedonverse and Buffyverse, so I know this is one of many. I find that very interesting that theories just play such an important role in these shows and can sometimes show the outcome of it. There are many fan theories in the Whedonverse, Joss has said before that he agrees with some of these theories and has confirmed some. It’s weird but theories have an important part in this theory.
In conclusion, I think this theory has a strong possibility of being real in these fictional universes. I really would like to think that Fred and Wesley got to be together after being torn away from each other. It would have been a really cute to have them end up together in other lives, because of the way they were tragically taken away from each other in Angel. Ever since I started really thinking about these shows and characters, putting these connections together, it wouldn’t leave my mind. Now almost everything I do I can find a connection back to these characters. It took two months with some sleepless nights of just me thinking about the plot of these shows and the characters and how it could all connect. This theory has also made me really relate to Amy’s character Fred. Fred was always talking about theories and even in one episode she gave a lecture on her physics theory, it didn’t end very well for her but still. I guess that’s one of the reasons I wrote this. Seeing Fred so proud of herself because of her theory, feeling like she had the world. I wanted to feel like I was like Fred. As someone who is inspired by Amy Acker everyday, this means a lot to me to be like Fred. I hope to one day be like Amy, an actress. My dream in life is to work with her. Thank you to anyone who made it through reading all of this crazy mess. That’s amazing if you did and that means a lot to me. I would also like to thank my friends and family who had to hear me talk about this theory for so long. Lastly I would like to thank Amy, Alexis and Joss for being the reasons why I wrote this to begin with, their work is amazingly brilliant and some of the best I’ve ever seen. It also has changed the way I see and listen to everything now. I hope that this theory changed the way you see these show, like the way it changed the way I see them. If you are reading this now, this is the fifth version of this theory that I’ve written. When I first posted this on my Tumblr I got so many nice comments and messages. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed this, it means the world to me.p>
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