Angel can have Sex with Buffy without losing his soul again

AngelAmongUs

AngelAmongUs

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The time he did lose his soul he was swept up in the melodrama of it all. He probably had not been with someone since Darla broke up with him. She somewhat resembled Darla. He had been watching her from afar for 2 years and was fixated on her to an unhealthy degree.(Which he tends to do with or without a soul.)

She was pure and made sweeping poetic emotional statements of !True Love! at him. He had killed Darla for her. They were in the middle of trying to stop the world as they knew it from ending. Adrenaline was at an all-time high. There might not be a tomorrow! So they forget about the rest of the world, the past, the pain, the chaos to come, and she gives him her virginity.


All of this combined gave him his moment of peace that caused him to lose his soul. That would be hard to replicate.

Which they did in Angel (magically) to get him to lose his soul again. This basic formula was his perfect day with Cordelia .
 
This is a good question, because I've always wondered it too. Wesley does say that achieving perfect happiness is like a once in a lifetime thing and it's unlike;y that he will achieve it with anyone except Buffy. I don't think Angel would be willing to take a chance. I do think that now that he's aware of the curse he's more cautious and it's probably in the back of his mind every time he did have sex. And just knowing that might prevent him from achieving perfect happiness. I agree that it's all about the circumstances and they will never be the same as they were the first time.
 
I wonder. I think you might have a point, when Angel lost his soul it wasn't just about sleeping with Buffy. It was a combination of a lot of factors. It's possible it might never happen again, or it's possible it would, really hard to tell without having any type of proof.
 
I've often wondered about the wording of the curse. If Angel experiences a moment of perfect happiness, why would that moment only be found in Buffy's bed? There are many more forms of happiness, even the perfect kind, than mere sexual fulfillment. Remember, the second time that he was tricked into losing his soul, it was caused, not by a repeat performance with Buffy, but with an entirely different, and just as strongly yearned for, experience, the idea of himself, Cordy, and Connor together as a happy family. Whatever he whispered at that last moment could have been "Buffy," "Cordy." or "chili dog," it was no real indication of anything. That particular moment of perfect happiness did not involve Buffy in any manner.

And, no, before anyone raises a cry to have me thrown to the ubervamps, I am not saying that Angel no longer loved Buffy at that time, I am simply saying that Angel, just like everybody else in the Buffyverse, is perfectly capable of loving someone else just as much, or, (should I dare suggest it?) even MORE, as he loved Buffy.
 
I agree that its unlikely that Angel would lose his soul again just being around Buffy, but that really wasn't the only reason (or in fact the main reason) that he couldn't be with her and so left her.
It was made clear in 'Enemies' that Angel could control himself around Buffy and even stated that it felt good 'just to feel' those emotions around her.

Angel felt that just being around Buffy made him complaicent about his place in the world, too at ease with all the evils that his former persona had done. He was returned from Hell, for reasons he didn't understand, and thought that he should maybe follow a path that was more than just 'Buffy's vampire boyfriend'.

Add to that the fact that a human dating a vampire is fundimentally unhealthy (not going out during the day, blood diet, unaging as you grow old together), which the Mayor brought up between the two of them, and Angel left Sunnydale so Buffy could find somebody more normal.

This fact is still true and (presumably) why Angel still stays away throughout all the seasons. It seems that only he's the only soulled vampire who realises this whereas Spike does not.
Spike seems to be convinced (and seemingly has always believed) that Buffy needs a supernatural paramour- which surprise, surprise would put him front and centre.
But really, slayer with a vampire would still be romantically toxic as a relationship.

I also agree that Angel could find love with another woman and perhaps love her even more than Buffy (human Darla was a good candidate imo), it's just that he and Cordelia never believable on a romantic level which is why I found his 'moving on' unconvincing.

white avenger said:
If Angel experiences a moment of perfect happiness, why would that moment only be found in Buffy's bed? There are many more forms of happiness, even the perfect kind, than mere sexual fulfillment.
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I agree with this. To me Angel seemed happiest in life when Connor was a baby- and even after his return from Quortoth Angel is delighted/excited to have his son back in his life and staying with him- Fred even makes a joke that Angel 'better be careful about getting too happy'.
 
thetopher said:
I agree with this. To me Angel seemed happiest in life when Connor was a baby- and even after his return from Quortoth Angel is delighted/excited to have his son back in his life and staying with him- Fred even makes a joke that Angel 'better be careful about getting too happy'.
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I thought the same. In fact if he had been perfectly happy and lost his soul at that point, it'd really highlight how much the curse impacts on all parts of his life; which I think would have made the curse a lot more heart wrenching than just making it about sex. Angel having to leave Conner to keep Angelus away from him could have led to the same hatred and confusion from teen-Conner and would have interpreted the curse in a new way on Ats to how it was in BtVS, highlighting that even with Buffy not in the picture, the curse is still horribly relevant for him.

I often wonder, with everything that has happened in their respective stories since BtVS season 2... if they were to have sex again; would it be perfect happiness? Somehow I can't imagine it would be. But I definitely think there is something to the circumstances before hand needing to be just right; I think the way it happened in Ats season 4 definitely put that across.
 
While I agree it does seem like this moment of "perfect happiness" requires a perfect storm type alignment of factors, I think being with Buffy would still trigger the curse. The way I've always understood that moment in Surprise/Innocence is that for the first (and perhaps only) time in his life, Angel experienced what it was to love someone completely, and to be completely loved in return. If Angel were to be with Buffy again, I think it's entirely plausible he would experience this again.

thetopher said:
To me Angel seemed happiest in life when Connor was a baby- and even after his return from Quortoth Angel is delighted/excited to have his son back in his life and staying with him- Fred even makes a joke that Angel 'better be careful about getting too happy'.
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I always thought this as well, although the way I've rationalized why the curse was never triggered with Connor was because for Angel, every moment with Connor was a combination of both happiness/love and fear.
 
"I always thought this as well, although the way I've rationalized why the curse was never triggered with Connor was because for Angel, every moment with Connor was a combination of both happiness/love and fear. "
I agree, part of being a parent is constantly worrying about their wellbeing. When Connor was "born" Angel could not be at peace because of Darla's death, the threat of Wolfram & Heart and Holtz.
 
Aud said:
I always thought this as well, although the way I've rationalized why the curse was never triggered with Connor was because for Angel, every moment with Connor was a combination of both happiness/love and fear.
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Angel was certainly happy to have a son, but it was far from perfect bliss. After the birth of Connor, Angel was constantly vigilant, never relaxed. He didn't trust anyone, not even his friends and how he also said Lorne, he was incredibly anxious since Connor was born.

Probably what happened with Buffy it's unrepeatable, but if it were to happen again, for Angel the perfect happiness will be always Buffy ...and that happiness wasn't mere sexual fulfillment, just saying!
 
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Something that has to be remembered is that, now that Angel knows about the curse, he will almost certainly, without some sort of manipulation such as happened in his Season 4, never attain that level of pleasure again, simply from dread of what might happen. He will always be holding back, looking, figuratively, over his shoulder to make sure that Angelus isn't about to pop up. That was part of my point earlier. With Buffy, Angel had no idea that there was any risk, so he could give himself totally to the moment, no questions, no fears, no consideration of her youth or inexperience. Afterward, once his soul was restored and he no doubt spent a century or so in Hell to brooding and pondering his fate, knowing about the curse, and what he stood to lose, whatever pleasure and happiness he might feel at the moment would always be tempered by the knowledge of the risk involved.
 
Fuffy Baith
Fuffy Baith
I agree. The curse is always in the back of his mind.
Just knowing about the curse makes it unlikely to happen again. How can you achieve perfect happiness with that nagging at you. Besides, I don't believe it was sexual pleasure that did the trick - I mean c'mon over 100 years without any release? It was the fact that Buffy was so pure, and she trusted and loved him so completely. I doubt sleeping with her again would trigger the curse.

Besides, there is some contrivance there - they have to be separate for the sake of the show. Otherwise, in universe, I am sure that a determined Angel could find some way to anchor his soul.
 
I agree that the whole experience from season 2 was too traumatic to ever not be in the back of their minds if they ever did the deed again. I think they could screw each others brains out and not have to worry about Angelus cockblocking them. That being said, I'd rather they just wait until Angel Shanshus or whatever; corpse sex is kind of gross.
 
For me to offer my own answer to this question, a preliminary explanation is required, so bare with me, sorry.

I don't mean to imply that no one here knows what true love really is, but my experience interacting with people and discussing the topic with people around me is that they don't really know what true love and perfect happiness really is (in the context of an intimate relationship). My opinion of it is that it is an incredibly rare thing in its highest form. Most people experience romantic love in the more everyday or 'garden variety' sense of the word. I know, because I've experienced forms of 'garden variety' love as well. Once you've truly had the kind of love that makes it impossible to envision a substitute for that lover of any kind and the experience of her/him is such that it forever colors (and devalues by comparison) the appeal of any other lover, when you get to the point that there is no replacement and if you lose them it's likely you'll be single afterwards the rest of your life because you literally don't have as much interest anymore in anyone else, when you get that warm beating feeling in your chest and your heart physically soars and skips beats when you think of them and it feels like an orgasm in your chest every time you touch in a real, physical sense...the more casual versions of love that we talk about don't seem like love anymore by comparison...more like infatuation, or great compatibility, or "you know, she's a really attractive girl" etc.

I understand this is my extremely subjective expression and description of love, but I think you get my point. There is (romantically) love...and then there is LOVE. And I'm just being honest when I say I really don't think many (if any) people I have spoken to about it have had an experience of LOVE. I get the impression for a lot of reasons, but one telling reason is because people can let go so easily of their love and love another person so quickly. They seem to fall in love a dozen times in their lives or more...and with me, I had love, I lost it, and I know I'll never get it back again like that. I might find someone who makes me truly happy, but that's different. Same thing with the conversation of soul-mates that people like to discuss so much. Anyway, I relate to Angel deeply in this way. I always imagined that Angel had THAT kind of once-in-a-lifetime if you're EXTREMELY lucky type of love. And so it was easy for me to understand how that experience could push him into becoming Angelus because of the curse and not just any run-of-the-mill experience of 'love' he could have with any number of attractive and good, deserving people.

So yes, I agree with the OP that this would be hard to replicate (the perfect blissful experience) but not for any of the reasons that the OP listed. True love doesn't need some contrivances to explain it, and ordinary love doesn't turn into the highest kind by virtue of the arrangement of perfect circumstances (e.g. the world's coming to an end, blah blah blah). The kind of love I imagine Angel had for Buffy (at least what I think the makers of the show had in mind) is not cheap and easy like that. That is why it would be so hard to replicate. And maybe at this point in the comics that love has passed between them and it is done forever now, I don't know.

What I do know is that if the show meant to communicate that Angel and Buffy had that rarest form of love between each other, than it certainly wasn't the result of favorable circumstances such as the world coming to an end, or heightened senses, or because she resembled Darla (really, you think so?) but because she might really have been the most perfect woman in all the world (and in all possibility even) for Angel, as hard as it is for many people without such an experience themselves to imagine and believe. I know mine is, and a million different Earths would never produce anyone better in my eyes, not ever.
 
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