Angel's soul and NO soul!

[PrincessBuffy16]

First of all I don't want for this to be another 'ship fight, so please, no fighting! Best argument of all Spuffy fans is that Spike loved her without his soul, but when Angel lost his soul he wanted Buffy dead. This is what I think: Spike was never that big monster like Angelus was. Angelus was cruel, and he killed everyone who made him to feel like he was human. I think that was because, when Angelus was human, Liam, he was horrible man, but he had no excuse to be like that. But when he became vampire, he had an excuse, he was a demon. When he got his soul, he tried to redeem for his acts, fell in love with Buffy, and when he lost his soul monster in him was angry because she made him feel like a human. And Spike, well Spike loved that world, like he said in season 2, and when he got that chip he felt in love with Buffy. When Spike was human, William, he was romantic soul, a poet, but Liam was scum. Angel fell in love with Buffy because he could see her soul, and Spike fell in love with her because he spent so much time with her. But that is just mine opinion. What do you think? And remember, no fighting!

 

[fly on the wall]

I think the whole "But Spike loved Buffy with no soul and Angel didn't!" argument is incredibly flawed for one reason. Spike had four years of hating Buffy with no soul before he loved her. Angel barely had half a season with no soul. In fact, Angelus and Spike are very similar in a way...in the beginning, they are both obsessed with killing Buffy. I think, had Angelus' soul not been restored and assuming he lived, his path would have taken a very similar one to Spike's. I think his obsession of wanting Buffy dead would have turned into an obsession of wanting Buffy, just as Spike's did.

Basically, the two cannot be compared because of the amount of time they were soulless around Buffy.

 

[InsaneMystic]

I couldn't disagree more, fly on the wall. Angelus would never, ever, EVER develop an emotion that he could mistake for love. He was, in the terms of The Judge, too "pure" in his demon-ness for that.

While I'm firmly on the Spuffy side of the Bangel/Spuffy frontline, I don't support the argument that unsouled Spike loved Buffy. What he did develop was an erotic obsession, which, in spite of himself and struggling against it all the way, led to him liking Buffy and feeling the wish not to do "wrong" things that hurt her, leading to his plan of acquring a soul to be able to better "get" the difference between right and wrong. This is what sets him apart from other vampires, most of all Angelus, who is a paragon of his species. It's my firm convinction that a line of thought such as Spike's is totally and forever beyond Angelus' grasp. While he could well have developed a lustful obsession with Buffy like Spike did in S5, it would revolve about funny and creative ways to hurt her and drive her insane. He would never act in protection of her like Spike did in the key scene of "Intervention". Their personalities are completely different from each other, it has nothing to do with the time they spent around Buffy unsouled.

A chipped Angelus would found a gang of vampires to carry out his plans, giving orders of "make a cut here, a slice there" whenever mind games weren't enough, and most of the time just indulge in psychological torture. He is much more of an intellectual sadist, not a fighter as Spike... chipped or not, it's unthinkable that he could ever become anything near to a half-Scooby as Spike did, because the chip wouldn't impair him as much in his brand of evil as it did Spike.

 

[Flannen]

I think there are elements of both these arguments.

Angelus is much more cruel than Spike, and much more intelligent and manipulative. If he had been around Buffy for four years I think he might have succeeded in killing her. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he turned her actually. He was attracted to Drusilla for more than wanting to make her crazy so I think it's entirely plausible Angelus would do something like that to Buffy.

And referring to what the Judge said about both Angelus and Spike & Dru, I think you have to take into account here, how long they had been soulless. At this point Angelus has only just returned full of hate and rage towards Buffy. Of course, at this point he is going to be "pure" demon. Spike and Drusilla however have spent around a hundred years together, in love. Of course they're not going to be 'pure' demon, they've spent so long doing something which is largely considered human. I don't think that the Judge's comparison was fair considering the time scales and that it was about setting the audience up for how demonic Angelus could be, especially at that moment in time.

And I have to disagree with you IM, on your absolute comment that Angelus would never, ever mistake something for love. For one, fly on the wall, is very correct in pointing out that both Spike and Angelus have a very similar obsession with Buffy and wanting her dead, so it's not too crazy to think that Angelus may trundle down the same road, especially as it has been argued many times that you can see how Spike feels towards to Buffy because of how much he wanted to kill her, so why could it not be the same for Angel?

I do think that Angelus isn't quite as 'emotional' as Spike and Drusilla are, he is much more like Darla. However, your absolute dismissal of Angelus experiencing a weakness such as love seems strange when you think back to 'I Only Have Eyes For You'. Even once the poltergeists of James and Grace have left them, Buffy and Angelus remain in their clinch. Angelus looks at her as they pull away and Buffy realises that something of Angel is still there, Angelus does still hold some kind of unspecified positive feeling towards Buffy, and she attempts to try and appeal to his remaining humanity. Angelus is very much disturbed by this and flees back to the mansion. As he stands there rinsing himself under the fountain, the look on his face shows that he is not as far as away from experiencing feelings of 'love' and you say he is.

I'm not saying that Angelus would absolutely follow the same road and fall in love with her exactly the same way as Spike did, far from it. But I don't think that Angelus is completely void of love, especially a love towards Buffy. But as fly on the wall said, we were only given half a season of Angelus, and the possibilities of what could have happened had it been longer, are endless.

Also, Angelus and Buffy would have some 'scenes' that would have blown Spike and Buffy's out of the water, had it been him in season six...😛

 

[Emzzie]

I highly doubt that souless Angel would fall in love with Buffy. Even if they both did not have the same amount of souless time around Buffy, I could never see Angelus falling in love with Buffy. Angel as a human was a jerk so when he became a vampire, he just got jerkier. Spike on the other hand, was a sensitive romantic and when he became a vamp, he turned into a sensitive romantic jerk because of the demon. How else would he be able to be in love and be so dedicated to Dru if that part of him was still there? Even more proof is when he starts crying after Buffy tells him that he is "beneath her", reawakening the hurt he felt from a girl he loved before he was a vampire. Spike still cared about that girl and still felt the hurt, even after he was a vampire. He loved Dru alot as well. If you look at Angelus and Dru, they just didn't give a hoot and they truly did not love eachother. Spike still had that part of him and he was able to love Dru, so why not Buffy? The difference between Dru and Buffy was that Dru was a vampire but Spike did not love her just because she was a vampire. He loved her for her. Angelus could never do that, because he couldn't even truly love Darla who was a vampire as well. So when Angel got a soul, I think he fell in love with Buffy because his soul did. But with Spike, I think whatever escence that was left of his romantic self did.
And that m'dears concludes, why in my world at least, Spike is the best!

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

First of all I don't want for this to be another 'ship fight, so please, no fighting! Best argument of all Spuffy fans is that Spike loved her without his soul, but when Angel lost his soul he wanted Buffy dead. This is what I think: Spike was never that big monster like Angelus was. Angelus was cruel, and he killed everyone who made him to feel like he was human. I think that was because, when Angelus was human, Liam, he was horrible man, but he had no excuse to be like that. But when he became vampire, he had an excuse, he was a demon. When he got his soul, he tried to redeem for his acts, fell in love with Buffy, and when he lost his soul monster in him was angry because she made him feel like a human. And Spike, well Spike loved that world, like he said in season 2, and when he got that chip he felt in love with Buffy. When Spike was human, William, he was romantic soul, a poet, but Liam was scum. Angel fell in love with Buffy because he could see her soul, and Spike fell in love with her because he spent so much time with her. But that is just mine opinion. What do you think? And remember, no fighting!

*starts fighting and screaming* SHIP FIGHT! SHIP FIGHT!

LOL Just kidding.

Anyway, great points, Princess Buffy. I agree with most of what you said. Angelus and Spike are different. Spike has always been an anomaly in the Buffyverse. The face that he remains relatively the same person, give or take some empathy, with or without a soul, proves this.

Angelus was the worst vampire in history. Giles says so, right? He was the most cruel, heartless monster that had ever been recorded by the Watcher's Council. He tortured people for fun on numerous occasions for a hundred years. Sure, it is implied Spike also enjoyed torturing (His behavior in "In The Dark" and his comment to Buffy regarding "girls Dawn's age" illustrates this) but he was never has bad as Angelus we are lead to believe.

Although I do believe Angel fell in love with Buffy because he saw her pain, her unusual maturity, and could relate to her struggle, I don't believe Spike fell in love with Buffy only because he was spending so much time with her. He became infatuated with her at first because she was unattainable, because he wanted to kill her, because she was a Slayer. After all, he came to Sunnydale originally to kill her. She was just another conquest for him, another desired notch on his belt. It wasn't until later, when he got to know her better, when he saw the find of person she was, that he fell in love with her. As he says in 'Touched' - he'd seen her strength, he loved what she was, what she did. She became his hero. He looked up to her. This is why he was so surprised ('Oh God, No.') in "Out Of My Mind" when he realized he was indeed in love with her. This screwed up everything for him, the "order" of how the Slayer/Vampire dynamic was supposed to be was reversed.

And yes, although sone of us Spuffies argue that Spike loved Buffy without a soul - not all of us believe he had the capacity to love her at that point. I do, personally, believe he had the capacity to love without a soul (part of his "exception" to the general mythology) but not all fans do. Just sayin'.

And I get what you're saying about Angelus/Angel hating his human self. I'd agree with that. He also hated his father. He felt like a useless waste of a human, drinking and whoring and all that. William was more or less content with his life, I'd imagine. His mother loved him, he lived in a nice house, enjoyed writing poetry. He never knew what he was missing until Drusilla came along and sired him. Until Angelus turned him into the monster he became. Do you remember that conversation Angel and Spike have in "Damage", when Spike is lying in the hospital healing from his hands having been cut off by Dana? Spike says that Dru sired him, but that Angelus made him a monster. Angel says, regarding his victims:

"I couldn't take my eyes off them. I was only in it for the evil. That was everything to me. It was art... the destruction of a human being. Jeez, I would've considered Dana a masterpiece."

Spike says he just liked killing because it was a "party" and "liked the rush." I think this conversation is a great illustration between how different the two vampires were, pre-soul. Both enjoyed killing, but for very different reasons. Perhaps, subconsciously, Angelus was "punishing" his victims for how much Liam hated himself, and perhaps Spike was "living it up" as a killer like he never had as a human.

Buffy taught Spike how to be human. Over the course of knowing her, he came to see that it wasn't so bad to be human, to have compassion and a purpose. I see Spike's journey as similar to Anya's in that way. Both learned to enjoy the company of humans and eventually, to enjoy fighting for their lives.

Regardless, I think you've brought up a very interesting topic, PrincessBuffy. I'm curious to see what others have to say.

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

Thank u very much. And when I said Spike fell on love with her because he spent so much time around her, I mean he really get to know her, but Angel fell in love when he first saw her. And once I read that Joss said that he think Spike fell in love with Buffy in School Hard, so I find that intersting.

 

[BuffyElevated]

In my opinion, I firmly believe vampires are very sexual beings and that their feelings are rooted in lust. I believe Spike did grow to love Buffy, because he loved the idea of taking her as his lover. He wanted Buffy for sexual reasons at first, and I think this led him to care about her wellbeing so he could get to that point with her. I think that if Angelus had been given more time, the same would have happened with her. And maybe he still would have snapped her neck in the end, because he was so completely evil, the way Spike never really seemed to be, but I do think if we had seen Angelus for more than the time we did on BTVS he would have had a similar reaction to Spike's. So basically, for me, a vampire's "feelings" for anyone are rooted in the fact that they want to screw them. I mean, look how all the vampire relationships on the show were portrayed... Drusilla and Spike, Darla and Angel, Harmony and Spike, Vampire Willow and Vampire Xander...
Just my opinion. 😀

 

[InsaneMystic]

However, your absolute dismissal of Angelus experiencing a weakness such as love seems strange when you think back to 'I Only Have Eyes For You'. Even once the poltergeists of James and Grace have left them, Buffy and Angelus remain in their clinch. Angelus looks at her as they pull away and Buffy realises that something of Angel is still there, Angelus does still hold some kind of unspecified positive feeling towards Buffy, and she attempts to try and appeal to his remaining humanity. Angelus is very much disturbed by this and flees back to the mansion. As he stands there rinsing himself under the fountain, the look on his face shows that he is not as far as away from experiencing feelings of 'love' and you say he is.

Funny how you take the same scene I would choose as proof for my view of the matter to prove yours, which is totally opposite of mine, lol.

I definitely do not see any kind of "unspecified positive feeling towards Buffy" in that moment. Those two seconds of still being "in their clinch" to me are nothing else than a feeling of dislocation and confusion fading... like waking up from a dream and not immediately finding your bearing, that you are in fact lying in your bed. Clinging to this as support for some Bangel love left in Angelus seems to me like pretty desperate grasping for straws. 😉

The very moment that Angelus comes back to his senses when the possession fades, he's utterly shocked and disgusted by the fact that he was abused as a vessel for emotions of love, caring, and forgiveness, and reacts to it as any rape victim would - by fleeing the scene and starting to obsessively clean himself. The very look on his face shows that he could not be farther away from experiencing feelings of 'love'. Just like I said he is. 😛

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

I couldn't disagree more, fly on the wall. Angelus would never, ever, EVER develop an emotion that he could mistake for love. He was, in the terms of The Judge, too "pure" in his demon-ness for that.

While I'm firmly on the Spuffy side of the Bangel/Spuffy frontline, I don't support the argument that unsouled Spike loved Buffy. What he did develop was an erotic obsession, which, in spite of himself and struggling against it all the way, led to him liking Buffy and feeling the wish not to do "wrong" things that hurt her, leading to his plan of acquring a soul to be able to better "get" the difference between right and wrong. This is what sets him apart from other vampires, most of all Angelus, who is a paragon of his species. It's my firm convinction that a line of thought such as Spike's is totally and forever beyond Angelus' grasp. While he could well have developed a lustful obsession with Buffy like Spike did in S5, it would revolve about funny and creative ways to hurt her and drive her insane. He would never act in protection of her like Spike did in the key scene of "Intervention". Their personalities are completely different from each other, it has nothing to do with the time they spent around Buffy unsouled.

A chipped Angelus would found a gang of vampires to carry out his plans, giving orders of "make a cut here, a slice there" whenever mind games weren't enough, and most of the time just indulge in psychological torture. He is much more of an intellectual sadist, not a fighter as Spike... chipped or not, it's unthinkable that he could ever become anything near to a half-Scooby as Spike did, because the chip wouldn't impair him as much in his brand of evil as it did Spike.

Excellent. I agree about Angelus, and agree that it's a bad argument that if Angelus had more time with Buffy he'd fall for her as Spike did. I can't see that.happening. I think the issue here is that people want to compare the two, because they're both vampires who got a soul/lost a soul as a result of meeting Buffy - but they'e very different and that's about where the similarity ends.

---------- Post added at 10:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 AM ----------

Thank u very much. And when I said Spike fell on love with her because he spent so much time around her, I mean he really get to know her, but Angel fell in love when he first saw her. And once I read that Joss said that he think Spike fell in love with Buffy in School Hard, so I find that intersting.

Yeah, like I said earlier and in agreement with MisMrs; Spike (pre-soul) functions on a sexual level in everything he did. When he saw Buffy for the first time, he not only wanted to kill her, he wanted her. The scene in the Bronze when he's watching her dance is very, very sexual. So, yeah, I'll admit he wanted her. I think what Joss meant was that Spike fell in love with her on some level when he saw her, but wasn't really aware of it until 'Out Of My Mind'.

Did he love her without a soul? That's a tough one but in my opinion, signs point to yes. As Insanemystic mentioned, what he did in 'Intervention' is a strong indicator. Letting himself get tortured by Glory to protect Dawn. And also, how he acted with Drusilla. It was clear how much he cared for her. Remember when Drusilla says in 'Crush' that vampires are capable of loving?

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

Yeah I know. And I know Spike loved her, for sure. I think she loved him. I know it's not usual for Bangel fan to admit that, but Buffy is in first place for me. I just want to see her happy. And that is the first reason why I'm a Bangel fan. I think she wasn't happy with Spike. She wasn't happy for a long, long time. But like I said, I don't want another 'ship war here 🙂

 

[Kana]

I suppose we can never know what would happen if Angelus had been chipped etc but the thing is, Angelus has rarely if ever shown a capacity for love in general whereas Spike has. He has forgone his own self-interest for that of another (Drusilla) or at the very least shown concern for their wellbeing. Angelus was willing to give up Darla without a moment's thought.

Can Spike love without a soul? It depends how we define love. Joss himself believed that soullessSpike loved Buffy but it was more of selfish kind of love. Some don't define that as love at all, but the love he felt for her wasn't all that different from the love many a human might feel, however morally, I wouldn't judge him for any of his actions as I would a soulled being (a being with a human soul).

As for Liam being a jerk? It doesn't quite follow as simply as that. Liam wasn't comparatively that bad as human. Especially in his teenage years he was quite tame. He didn't drink until later and was quite shy around girls and was quite well behaved but even then his father belittled him and never failed to drive home that he was a disappointment. If nothing else Liam became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My point is that we had vamps like the Kralik and the Gorch brothers who killed while human, (and we assumed Liam didn't) yet none of them reached the notoriety that Angelus had acheived. I always felt Liam wanted to be more than himself. As soullessvampire he was the worst and soulled vampire, he ended up being a champion and a leader no less. I think that is part of what drives him.

 

[Eleftheria]

first of all i have to say i haven't seen all seasons of Buffy...i am currently watching the 3rd...i also have seen four seasons of "Angel"...i have read a lot about Spuffy and i have seen videos on youtube...i know i am not experienced enough in the Buffyverse...but here is my opinion...

I agree with HisMrs about vampires being sexual beings...i don't think they are capable of love...real love is unconditional...it means sacrificing yourself to make your partner happy...i have seen Spike and Dru's relationship...it is certain that he cares about her...but i don't think he loves her...yeah he wants her as his lover...he feels protective of her...i just don't belive that a soulless vampire can feel love...that is my personal opinion...soulless vampires can have partners but they can't feel love...Angelus and Darla had been together for what?150 years? still, Angel admitted that he never loved her and that she never made him happy...she introduced him to many things but there wasn't love...they were like Bonny and Clide...an evil couple obsessed with killing and with each other
I know Spike protected Buffy's sister...i know that he had that chip...but he was Buffy's enemy for 4 years...Spike is a person who enjoys pain in my opinion...i have seen Chosen's last scene(i know BIG SPOILER COMING!!! and he KNOWS that she doesn't love him...maybe she cares about him a lot because he stood by her...because he understands her...he had seen buffy and angel together and he knows the truth deep inside him...not to mention the rape...if a guy really loves a girl...he would never try to rape her...)


Angelus,if he had been around long enough to develop some kind of relationship with Buffy, it would be more like an obsession...Angel fell in love with Buffy the very first time he saw her...besides he wants a strong determined woman...not the boring girls of his age(that's what he said in Halloween right?)
when he was human i know he was getting drunk and sleeping with women all the time but he was lying to them...but i think he had some serious issues with his father...when he becomes the ensouled vampire his personality is dramatically different...he is serious,shy,brooding...and most of the time he knows right and wrong

that was my opinion