A Woman Scorned - The Great Angelique/Barnabas/Josette Affair

[IluvBarnabas]

I just could never buy that declaration of love on Barnabas' part for Angelique in 1840.....I had been enjoying the storyline up to that point. It seemed to me too much of a quick-fix on the writers since they were wrapping up the storyline. It's almost as if they said, "hey let's have Barnabas decide Angelique was his true love and be done with it," completely ignoring their long, torturous, destructive history together.

Barnabas had been so obsessed with Josette all throughout the centuries, leading many of us to believe she was indeed the love of his life....and the writers decided to throw that away on a silly, contrite plot-device. Silly.

[Sunny_Collins]

Another point to be made here is, no matter how many times Barnabas tried, he invariably had to turn to Angelique for help with whatever he was doing. Her price, always, was his love -- his return to her. He was loath to do it, but again and again, he'd capitulate. Bottom line for me is, Angelique was always there for him, and he finally realized it. In 1840, Spoiler:
she finally helped Barnabas with absolutely no strings attached. This was irresistible to Barnabas. He could finally see her as the woman she was and not the witch.

As you point out, her help always came at a price, that Barnabas love her. IMO, that's emotional blackmail. Time and again she said she wanted Barnabas to love her by his own free will, but then she would turn around and threaten not to help him if he didn't promise to love her.

Spoiler:

I never saw her actions in 1840 as selfless. Yes, she helped him with nothing to gain, but she was still trying to prove to him that she could be unselfish, so that he would love her. And in that sense, she had everything to gain. JMHO, though. 

[loril54]

After 1795 when they were trying to make Barnabas good. Angelique used Barnabas' love for his family and friends to get his love. Also now that I think about it also in 1795. Angelique knew what to use to get her way. If Angelique helped Barnabas without that, she had some otoher irons in the fire. Quentin and Sky are two examples.  But when they fell apart she always said well there is Barnabas.

There is a difference between doing someting because it is right and doing somethng because you are going to get something in returen.  If you do amends, do you expect to get something in return?

[Brandon Collins]

I never saw her actions in 1840 as selfless. Yes, she helped him with nothing to gain, but she was still trying to prove to him that she could be unselfish, so that he would love her. And in that sense, she had everything to gain. JMHO, though. 

That's completely open to interpretation. I really do see your point here. I mean, Angelique was never selfless at all throughout her history, as we saw it, so we're just all of a sudden to believe that she's going to BE selfless for the FIRST TIME EVER just to prove something to Barnabas?

But, I'll ignore that little inconvienent point for the sake of the story, just beacuse I still think that in terms of B&A's overall storyline, the 1840 stuff wrapped it up nicely.

As for what Lori said, I do think that when someone makes amends that some, not all, expect something in return for doing that.  Usually in society, as children and then even as adults, we are rewarded for doing good things whether or not we want to, and whether or not we were supposed to do those good things.

Look at that guy who jumped on the guy having a seizure in a NYC subway. He was rewarded A LOT, from people like Donald Trump, Ellen DeGeneres, and even Oprah I think, as well as others, for something that he didn't have to do but still did.

And at many jobs we are given bonuses for doing paperwork or other things that are already a part of our job descriptions. Many times, these are called "incentives". So I think making "amends" as it were, strongly depends on the person's mindset before the action, and whether or not that person expects to be rewarded for what he or she has done.

[arashi]

Jumping in a little late to the discussion here, but here's my two cents.

Barnabas even in 1795 with his "modern" attitudes and seemingly gentle nature was not really that good of a guy. Sure he treated Ben well, looked after his family and was a nice 180 from the stodgy puritanism of his Father and the maniacal Reverend Trask he did have quite the list of sins stacked against him. Namely was his affair with Angelique, from the conversation he had with Angelique I thought it was pretty apparent that he had an affair with her while he was courting Josette. Sure social attitudes of the upper class at the time and all that, but if he really was in love with Josette he wouldn't have dallied about with her maid then gone and played the gentleman to her mistress. Even after he was engaged to Josette and she had arrived at the house he had a hard time fighting his physical attraction to Angelique.

I think Barnabas loved Josette, but somehow I think he held her up on a pedestal and saw her as something fragile and completely innocent. I can't quite get the wording right on what I'm trying to say here. Josette was a niave and sheltered and surely she and Barnabas would not have shared the kind of passion B & A had. Let's say none of the supernatural stuff went on and B&J got happily married as planned. Even then, after a while, I think Barnabas would have turned to Angelique for the kind of carnal passion that he was certainly not going to get from Josette.

That said I really do not see Barnabas and Angelique as a loving couple at all. I do not see Barnabas actually loving Angelique at all. He never ever showed any sincere signs of it EVER save that one moment after she died in 1840. Back in 1795 after he had married her he told her he would always love Josette, not her. He used Angelique for his own physical gratification and time and time again demonstrated that he didn't think of her beyond that.

Angelique on the other hand was quite the fool for believing that her affair with Barnabas was going to be her stepping stone to high society. I think in the beginning she may have loved Barnabas or thought she was in love with him. Later after he rejected her her pride couldn't take it and she sought out means to MAKE him hers despite her insistence that she wanted Barnabas to come to her of his own free will. She made it so he had nowhere to turn for comfort save her. That's not free will at all. Maybe she convinced herself that it was. Warning bells should have gone off for Barnabas the MOMENT she told him she would cure Sarah if he married her. What kind of bargain was that? If he didn't agree would she let his little sister die? If she truly did love him she would have brewed the tea and cured Sarah selflessly. (Save the fact that she was the cause of Sarah's "illness" in the first place.)

There's still the little scene where Ben comes into her room and sees Angelique modeling a hat she stole from Josette in the mirror. She tells him that everything Josette has she will one day have too. That's not a declaration of love for Barnabas, that's a declaration of jealousy on the class difference between she and Josette and she sees Barnabas as the tool to make her equal to those she has served. She may have thought she was killing two birds with one stone, by marrying Barnabas she netted her "Love" and made herself a Lady at the same time. The only problem she didn't see is that she would forever be looked down upon by those in her "circle" if she had married Barnabas. Despite all the finery she draped herself in others would never see her as a "Lady" but only a hired hand that had somehow moved herself up the social ladder.

Now Barnabas chased after Josette throughout the series for the most part, the problem is he was chasing after his image of Josette after 172 years without her. His ideals of her character and such were undoubtedly raised to such an unattainable level in a real human being, she became almost like a Saint to him and as such no real woman would be able to replace her, and yet he was willing to try so many times just to have her again. He remembered her as a beacon of purity and in his tainted state he was looking for something pure to cling to and remind him of his humanity.

So all in all I don't see Barnabas & Josette or Barnabas & Angelique as good pairings in the long run at all.

[loril54]

Look at that guy who jumped on the guy having a seizure in a NYC subway. He was rewarded A LOT, from people like Donald Trump, Ellen DeGeneres, and even Oprah I think, as well as others, for something that he didn't have to do but still did.

If you do something good. Money or a reward is nice. But you should do it because you know it is the right thing to do.

If you do good things, good things will come back to you.

[michael c]

did barnabas love the women he was involved with or was it more infatuation than love?

it's very hard to get a read on his relationship with josette because we actually only see a few episodes of them together before angelique takes over and then we never see them in a normal state again.he puts josette on a pedestal but other than being pretty we don't learn much about her.

then as barnabas begins to drift through time and space he conveiniently runs into one woman after another who looks exactly like josette and falls for them instantly before he knows anything about them.is that "love" or infatuation.

as for roxanne he was smitten the minute he saw her lying on the slab in a bullet bra.she couldn't even speak for heavens sake.

as for vicki it starts out as infatuation(and envy)but after 1795 he does do a few supremely unselfish things in her regaurd so she's a tough call.

[arashi]

That's the word I was looking for - infatuation.

[Gothick]

Arashi, this is a really great exposition of the emotional/sexual dynamics involved in the Angelique/Barnabas/Josette triangle.  Excellent work!

I think it is interesting to compare the pre-1795 version of Barnabas' romance with Josette with the way the relationship is depicted as we see the events unfolding during 1795 and then how it plays out afterwards.  When I finally got to see all the original 1967 Barnabas episodes in order, I remember being very disconcerted by just how creepy Barnabas' obsessive need for Josette seemed.  There's a scene soon after Maggie has taken up "residence" in the OH where she's been dolled up in Josie drag and Barn is grinning like the cat that copped the cream and ranting on and on about how she will be his very own living Josette doll come to life again... it gives me gooseflesh to watch.  I actually find it one of the most disturbing things they ever did on DS--perhaps THE most disturbing.  I find it much more unsettling than the Cyrus/Maggie kidnapping scenario later on in 1970 even though by the time of the latter story they could be somewhat more sexually explicit (but only somewhat).  The ruthlessness with which Barn pursues erasing Maggie's own identity and substituting a weirdly distilled simulacrum of Josette's own personality is very creepy.

Thinking about the series as a whole, Josette comes across almost as a blank-check character to me.  I'd never thought about this before, but I guess the energy of KLS' own personality in the various forms and manifestations of the character helped give her a phantasmal unity that otherwise isn't really there.  How do you reconcile the original version of Josette as a kind of spectral guardian of the Collins family with the image we get from Barnabas' own distorted memories (I do love the scene late in 1967 where Julia forces Barnabas to admit that Josette in real life never did return his love, even though this was almost immediately changed with the 1795 "flashback"), and then subsequent "incarnations" in later storylines?  Will the real Josette Collins please stand up?

cheers, G.

[Brandon Collins]

Not to be nit picky or anything, but this plays into the discussion as a whole.

Gothick said that Barnabas told Julia that Josette never returned his love. Well, what if he meant that she never returned his love the way he wanted her to? I mean, quite a few have mentioned here that perhaps what Barnabas was seeking from Angelique was the womanly passion that Josette seemed to have lacked because she was so "fragile" and such. So maybe not loving him back meant that she didn't love him as fiercely as he loved her, or as hungrily as he loved her.

(Of course, we can probably surmise that this was just something the writers wrote and then decided to back track on like so many other plot points throughout the series, but what if that's what he really meant?)

[loril54]

I think before they got to 1795 in  the story they were just bloing smoke. Did they ever really think that they would go back in time and visit Pre Vampire Barnabas. I don't think so.  With Barn and Angelique it was just SEX. With Barn and Josette it was his ideal of what his proper wife should be. Just think if Josette was the maid, and Angelique was the heiress, how things might have changed. Would Barn still want Josette if she was the docile Maid.

[michael c]

i agree that josette is something of a "blank check" character in her actual manifestation as opposed to someone's ideal of her.

during the 1795 storyline she's only around for a few days before she gets put under a spell and then spends the rest of the storyline under some sort of influence.

the rest of the characters are very well defined for a story that only lasted about four months.even "secondary" characters like abigail and ben are very well thought out.we actually know very little about who josette is.

p.s. i love gothick's use of the phrase "phantasmal unity".

[Nancy]

And at many jobs we are given bonuses for doing paperwork or other things that are already a part of our job descriptions. Many times, these are called "incentives". So I think making "amends" as it were, strongly depends on the person's mindset before the action, and whether or not that person expects to be rewarded for what he or she has done.

Yes, workers often gripe they don't get any "thanks" for their work but the paycheck is the return you're supposed to get as the thanks.  Bonuses are incentives, sure.

On a totally different note, when reading these excellent posts on this subject, I wanted to add that it was always difficult for me to understand Angelique's obsession to get back at Barnabas.   She was hurt, sure, and it's a natural initial reaction to want to return the hurt.  But this going on and on for decades and even centuries is hard to relate to in any way.  I don't know about others here but it's difficult for me to stay that deeply angry with someone even if the person has really screwed me over.  It's so much work to keep that level of anger up, not to mention how unhealthy it is emotionally.    And to think constantly of new ways of getting at someone is more than my addled brain could possibly handle.  I won't go back and allow myself to get hurt a second time by that person but I certainly won't continue for centuries to make sure my curse is working.

Nancy

[arashi]

Gothick, thanks for the comments! I too think Barnabas' obsession with Josette in 1967 is damn creepy. It's true that later on in the show they could get away with more, but it's what's implied that makes it worse. Look how much James Hall made everyone's skin crawl as the first Willie Loomis. (Well mine anyhow.)

Barnabas at the time of his release in 1967 was a monster, pure and simple, and I love him is those episodes. There was hardly a shred of humanity left within him. He wants Maggie to fit the distorted image of Josette that he remembers and when she can't he's unbelievably cruel to her.

If they hadn't made the jump back to 1795 and made Barnabas a sympathetic character I wonder where he would have ended up?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Look how much James Hall made everyone's skin crawl as the first Willie Loomis. (Well mine anyhow.)

Mine as well. He most probably could never have been able to bring a tenth of the vulnerability that John Karlen brought to Willie, but Hall played the sleaze to perfection.

If they hadn't made the jump back to 1795 and made Barnabas a sympathetic character I wonder where he would have ended up?

As dust in his coffin or as dust blowing in the wind. If Barn had continued to be as depraved as he was in 1967, there would have been nowhere to go but eventual destruction.