Angelus And Angel

[Skanky Vamp]

he's being drunk and going after women and starting fights

Right.. now you add no remorse and strength unparalleled by anyone else and can you honestly say its not a far step from Liam to Angelus? His behavior would intensify. If I recall, (and I dont recall well) didn't Liam always get his butt kicked? All of a sudden he can be the kicker. I just dont see much different between Angelus and Liam..... except for the whole vampire thing.

 

[Flannen]

Right.. now you add no remorse and strength unparalleled by anyone else and can you honestly say its not a far step from Liam to Angelus? His behavior would intensify. If I recall, (and I dont recall well) didn't Liam always get his butt kicked? All of a sudden he can be the kicker. I just dont see much different between Angelus and Liam..... except for the whole vampire thing.

It's a possibility yes, but I think it's a pretty far fetched one and that was my point. So I guess I can honestly say it is a far step from Liam to Angelus.

My main argument is that it is not a case of 'his behaviour WOULD intensify' rather that it MIGHT. There is not enough evidence on screen or off to say that drunk, leering Liam was a small step away from being an evil psychopathic killer. It's a possibility yes but not definite by any means.

 

[BibliophileAnn]

Perhaps the best way to put is that there is Liam in both Angelus and Angel.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

'his behaviour WOULD intensify' rather that it MIGHT.

I just dont see how it could not intensify. If you have to change everything you do. He would have superhuman strength, hearing, speed.. it would change everything. It would have to intensify everything.... and I dont see where his behavior would not as well. I think its just human nature.

EDIT:
I am not saying intensify to be violent but would be as a result. Like Frankenstiens monster not knowing his own strength. Same thing.

 

[Flannen]

I just dont see how it could not intensify. If you have to change everything you do. He would have superhuman strength, hearing, speed.. it would change everything. It would have to intensify everything.... and I dont see where his behavior would not as well. I think its just human nature.

EDIT:
I am not saying intensify to be violent but would be as a result. Like Frankenstiens monster not knowing his own strength. Same thing.

I'm still not convinced and a lot of that is because I really don't think Liam was an awful person. The dude liked his ale, so what? Like I said, I am fully open to it being a possibility but it's just as likely that it wouldn't cause his behaviour to intensify. But Liam and Angelus are not similar enough for me for them to be so closely compared post-siring. And I'm not budging. 😛

 

[Kana]

To simplify this, there are two sides to this: the psychological and the metaphysical.

Now many have criticised for bringing Spike into the equation as many believe it's about Angel not about Spike but it seems nonsensical not to compare to soulled vampires. Remember, we not making a moral comparison, but rather attempting to find a consistent picture in regards to the Angel/Angelus dichotomy.

Now I more or less did the metaphysical debate to death in the IDW forums and I touched briefly on the psychological element on this very forum.

The Metaphysical:

The summary is very simple:
Theory 1: SouledSpike and Angel are seperate from Angelus and SoullessSpike. That is to say there are two spirits inside each of them: the demon who killed without remorse and the human soul which left the body upon vamping and is now in control while the demon is unable to act. For whatever reason the human soul remembers the actions of the demon as if they did them.

Theory 2: The soul is little more than a conscience so Angelus and Spike are just William and Liam with demon physiology killing, lacking the ability to feel guilty for their actions. Angelus was cursed with his conscience and Spike asked for his back and now they look upon their past actions with a different emotional perspective

The psychological

This disregards whether or not Angelus and Angel are metaphysically different individuals. The reason being is because we have to at least explain why Angel and Angelus are so different and soulless Spike and soulled Spike are not. The implies irrespective of the metaphysics, the reason for the Angel and Angelus divide is psychological in it's nature. This, I believe is the key into understanding the reason behind the man and the demon.

I wrote this in the Deconstructing Angel thread:

In a weird way Angel may have a form of DID (Dissociative identity disorder).. I'm not saying the are actually are two entities but perhaps two identities who share memories to a degree but are separate psychological personalities.

WA's third theory is a little like Connor's theory, that Angel is nothing but muzzle for Angelus but Faux Cordy's theory about Angelus being the disease and the Angel being the real deal could be equally true (a little like StarSlayer's concept)

Anyway let's look at theories

Liam was the person, Angelus was the demon and Angel was just the curse.

Not fully understanding. What do you mean Angel is the curse? How the soul fit into your theory?

Though in the first seasons there was no distinction between 'angelus and angel' the watcher book Giles read from called killer vampire Angel and not Angelus, so it depends on if you are talking the original version of Angel or the revised version.

The naming process seems more like a practical convenience more than anything else and it certainly helps for the purpose of this discussion. I'd prefer that there is a consistent metaphysical truth, regardless of what anyone chooses to call him.

Also can we have a quote about Giles books?

Giles: There's nothing about Angel in the texts, but it suddenly occurred to me that it's been ages since I've read the diaries of any of the watchers before me.

Giles: There's mention some two hundred years ago in Ireland of, of Angelus the one with the angelic face.

My conclusion that I've drawn from watching all these arguments is that Angel is a split personality of Angelus. Angelus the person was so racked with guilt after being cursed with his soul that the only way his psyche could deal with the trauma was to have a psychotic break and create two distinct personas.

I think you might be onto something here, I wrote something similar here:

It could be that morality was categorized in a very black and white way to Liam, and despite his rebellion, like most sons, he partly internalized it. As Doug Sanders pointed out in Disharmony, most, if not all vampires have "˜ghosts' of the human lives that are always prevalent. It can be past feelings and emotions that get in the way of their evil doing. Angelus managed to suppress this successfully (Doug would have loved him as a guest speaker), however as Angel the trauma and shock of past sins, fragmented his persona. Most have a potential for darkness or what many consider dark. Even the mere concept of evil, can arise in our minds but our constraints, socially or morally hold us back, but without this we are free to explore these thoughts and allow them to become actions. This darkness has a manifestation in Angel as Angelus. Angelus always has to good in him and I think this explains Orpheus. Even if Angel and Angelus are separate entities, Angel wouldn't have been there when he began helping Faith. I'm one of the fringe theorists who believe that even inside Angelus, the "˜ghost' Angel's or Liam's heroism resides.

Like Scobro said, Liam was the person, Angelus the demon and then there's Angel who is a mixture of them both.I never viewed them as completely different people because Angel still has Angelus in the back of his head and vice versa (Angelus couldn't just shake the good deeds Angel had done)

Is that what he meant. Apologies. Essentially this is closer to theory 2 in a way, meaning that Angel is merely Angelus cursed with a conscience. This doesn't mean that Angel is merely a "˜container' rather that the soul or lack of brings out different sides in the single entity.

I always saw it as Angelus was the demon that replaced Liam, or the demon side of Liam.

Then Angel was the demon Angelus with Liams soul, so I think they are 2 separate parts of the one person, but they are 2 completely separate personalities.

Sounds closer to theory 1.

Good way to put this.

It's so interesting to compare Liam/Angel with and without a soul and Spike with and without a soul. Angel is more like 2 completely different persons, whereas Spike is not. Spike is more of an "evolution". Weird that Joss chose to display 2 ensouled vampires so differently. But that goes to the question of the nature of vampires in general in the Buffyverse, and I'm going to formulate a question about that on another board.

This is exactly what I posed on the other forum. I refuse to believe there any metaphysical differences between Spike and Angel so, it's more a case of Angel's "˜issues' lol.

He was only "bad" because he had power and no soul or remorse. If Liam had no remorse and vampire strength he would have been just like Angelus (save the fact he wouldnt have to drain peoples blood to live) when he got the soul he got remorse about what he WAS (a monster) not what he did. He was 'bad' man before becoming a vampire; the vampire just perfected it.

I think Flannen's kind of on this but I also addressed this as well"¦

"Liam is a jerk so therefore Angelus is the worst vampire ever to exist"

The problem with this is that by the same logic Liam would have to be the worst human being ever to exist. From what we see I wouldn't say that's true. For most part, when he was growing up he was a nice polite young man. Who knows, if he had a better relationship with his parents, like William, he may have not become the drunken whoring layabout we see in most of the flashbacks.

Of course he didn't have the best relationship with his father. Now I'm not blaming his father, as he most likely thought he was trying to steer his son in the right direction. However he did this by finding fault in everything he did and rather than being supporting and loving, he was cold and autocratic. Was this normal child rearing at the time in Ireland? I'm not sure but Liam certainly didn't respond well to it. His frustration came from the fact that his bullying father, has also done his share of sinning.

Even as a vampire (Spin The Bottle) Liam is awkward at best and is a reluntant killer. His actions come out rebellious spite although (like Spike) he does enjoy the power that vampirism gives him, but with a soul he's not a sadistic killer.

This causes a problem. If we take the Gorch brothers, they killed even before they got a soul, yet neither one of them reached the notoriety that Angelus reached so how can relatively normal Liam become the worst vampire in the world and two mass murdering humans become a couple of shempires? I've always stated we shouldn't judge the vampire by the preceeding human and vice versa and I think this is good example of the unpredictability of the siring process and vampirism itself.

Of course we know that Liam became a womanizing drunkard but still, he wasn't really doing much harm. He was just a somewhat self-involved kid getting back at his father. I've struggled to find a bar without one of those in there, hell even I was one of those kids to a degree. So if Liam isn't the evil sociopath akin to Angelus then why did his base personality provide what was needed to create on of the vampire legends"¦

I'll leave it there for the time being but I'll most likely be all over this like cheese on a burger 😉"¦

 

[VisionGirl]

"Liam is a jerk so therefore Angelus is the worst vampire ever to exist"

The problem with this is that by the same logic Liam would have to be the worst human being ever to exist. From what we see I wouldn't say that's true. For most part, when he was growing up he was a nice polite young man. Who knows, if he had a better relationship with his parents, like William, he may have not become the drunken whoring layabout we see in most of the flashbacks.

Of course he didn't have the best relationship with his father. Now I'm not blaming his father, as he most likely thought he was trying to steer his son in the right direction. However he did this by finding fault in everything he did and rather than being supporting and loving, he was cold and autocratic. Was this normal child rearing at the time in Ireland? I'm not sure but Liam certainly didn't respond well to it. His frustration came from the fact that his bullying father, has also done his share of sinning.

Even as a vampire (Spin The Bottle) Liam is awkward at best and is a reluntant killer. His actions come out rebellious spite although (like Spike) he does enjoy the power that vampirism gives him, but with a soul he's not a sadistic killer.

This causes a problem. If we take the Gorch brothers, they killed even before they got a soul, yet neither one of them reached the notoriety that Angelus reached so how can relatively normal Liam become the worst vampire in the world and two mass murdering humans become a couple of shempires? I've always stated we shouldn't judge the vampire by the preceeding human and vice versa and I think this is good example of the unpredictability of the siring process and vampirism itself.

Of course we know that Liam became a womanizing drunkard but still, he wasn't really doing much harm. He was just a somewhat self-involved kid getting back at his father. I've struggled to find a bar without one of those in there, hell even I was one of those kids to a degree. So if Liam isn't the evil sociopath akin to Angelus then why did his base personality provide what was needed to create on of the vampire legends"¦

I'll leave it there for the time being but I'll most likely be all over this like cheese on a burger 😉"¦

I really enjoyed your whole post. I think you're onto something with this part especially. Someone else already mentioned that Darla made him who he was, which is a good point. We also have to remember that she was sired by The Master, I wonder if that had a lot to do with it. Plus, the Fab Four (Angelus/Darla/Spike/Dru) working together might have made a big impact on who he was a vampire as well.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

So if Liam isn't the evil sociopath akin to Angelus then why did his base personality provide what was needed to create on of the vampire legends…

Alpha maleness at it's finest? If you look at his personality and personality type, not his behavior, you can see where the notion would not seem too far off base.

 

[Wesley]

Alpha maleness at it's finest? If you look at his personality and personality type, not his behavior, you can see where the notion would not seem too far off base.

\


You know that's a good point. Liam was a drunk oaf, but his favorite activity was going to the pub and trying to assert his dominance over men and women alike physically.

Once he turned into Angelus he got a bit smarter and started to assert his dominance in other ways, emotionally and mentally. He ran the fab four, and he made sure he was the #1 Vampire in all the world.

Once he gets his soul and recovers he establishes himself as (more or less) the greatest Champion in the world. Not only that but he puts himself at the top of the pyramid with the Fang Gang, even quickly undermining Wes' role as leader in S2/S3 just by naturally attempting to lead situations.

Liam does seem to have an alpha male streak in him, always trying to be the #1 in whatever he is doing at the moment.

However that has us no closer to determining who Angel actually is.

 

[white avenger]

It's so interesting to compare Liam/Angel with and without a soul and Spike with and without a soul. Angel is more like 2 completely different persons, whereas Spike is not. Spike is more of an "evolution". Weird that Joss chose to display 2 ensouled vampires so differently. But that goes to the question of the nature of vampires in general in the Buffyverse, and I'm going to formulate a question about that on another board.

(I swear, folks, it was never my intention to turn this into a Spike vs Angel comparison. However...)

Probably the reason that there is so little change in Spike's personality with or without a soul is simply that his character had been slowly evolving from Season 4, when he first became a regular on the show, from reluctant ally, to mercenary, to friend, to hero, to lover, (okay, and attempted rapist) without the benefit of a soul. Moving from soulless hero to ensouled Champion was just a small step.

There was never that sense of evolution shown with Angel. He went from soulless monster (in the flashbacks) to, when we first meet him, mysterious hero. No evolution, no development. Angelus one minute, Angel the next. Granted, we saw some of his suffering in a few flashbacks, but even most of those were pure evil Angelus, not evolving Angel. That the evolution occurred goes without saying, but we never actually saw it the way that we did with Spike. Therefore, the drastic difference between Angelus and Angel as opposed to the only slight change from "Spike-ous" to Spike. Compare Season 2 Spike to Season 7 Spike and the change is just as drastic as the change between Angelous and Angel.

 

[Kana]

(I swear, folks, it was never my intention to turn this into a Spike vs Angel comparison. However...)

Probably the reason that there is so little change in Spike's personality with or without a soul is simply that his character had been slowly evolving from Season 4, when he first became a regular on the show, from reluctant ally, to mercenary, to friend, to hero, to lover, (okay, and attempted rapist) without the benefit of a soul. Moving from soulless hero to ensouled Champion was just a small step.

It's an interesting question. For me, I've often compared the two, simply because it makes sense to do so. However, I rarely argue moral superiority etc because when it comes to soulless vampires, it becomes murky. I'd argue that Spike was more externally motivated, i.e. more influenced by outside factors rather than inner conviction , aside from love of course.

There was never that sense of evolution shown with Angel. He went from soulless monster (in the flashbacks) to, when we first meet him, mysterious hero. No evolution, no development. Angelus one minute, Angel the next.

Not in terms of his soullessness to soulled persona, however whoever Angel was subtly influences Angelus and his evil.

Granted, we saw some of his suffering in a few flashbacks, but even most of those were pure evil Angelus, not evolving Angel. That the evolution occurred goes without saying, but we never actually saw it the way that we did with Spike.

That's true but part of it is of course circumstancial. Spike, presumably didn't change much before he was chipped and Angel did go through some changes after he was soulled. I'd certainly agree that Angel was less of a product of his environment than Spike was but he was also more comtemplative about the meaning of existence, probably to the point of analysis paralysis. I wouldn't expect Angel to become a champion without a template nor reason or inspiration to do so.

Therefore, the drastic difference between Angelus and Angel as opposed to the only slight change from "Spike-ous" to Spike. Compare Season 2 Spike to Season 7 Spike and the change is just as drastic as the change between Angelous and Angel.

It's definitely due to both circumstances and difference in personality. It's possible that Angel simply had suffered from a form of DID, which wouldn't necessarily be his fault, just a psychological ailment as result of vamping and unexpected re-ensoulment.

As I said before, I wouldn't judge any soulless vampire in the same way I would a being with a human soul. I mean Anne was a loving mother but for some reason wasn't able to retain those feelings of love. I'm more concerned, morally, what they do with a soul. That is of course if the soul has such importance, but if it doesn't, why would Spike get a soul in the first place?

 

[white avenger]

As far as Liam is concerned, we only ever saw him as a drunkard, a brawler, and a debaucher, whose own father considered him lazy and worthless. He was never shown as being cruel or evil, so I don't think we can really say that he and Angelus were all that similar. In his case, I think we see an almost total human personality loss to the demon who inhabited his lifeless corpse.

 

[Kana]

As far as Liam is concerned, we only ever saw him as a drunkard, a brawler, and a debaucher, whose own father considered him lazy and worthless. He was never shown as being cruel or evil, so I don't think we can really say that he and Angelus were all that similar. In his case, I think we see an almost total human personality loss to the demon who inhabited his lifeless corpse.

It would seem so. Perhaps the the thing that carried over was the need to become someone. As Liam, he was always told by his father that he would never amount to anything. This haunts him in his unlife. As a soulless vampire he had to be the worse (and without a conscience, that works just fine) and as a soulled vampire, he eventually becomes a champion and a leader no less. His father will still never approve, though, oh well.

 

[sharona1981]

First of all, let me just say that I ALWAYS preferred Angelus to Angel-I'm a sucker for a good villain,LOL. While I liked Angel in Buffy, he had become unbearable to me by the time the final season of Angel rolled around. Whiny, selfish Angel compared to sarcastic, manipulative and badass Angelus? No contest folks. 🙂
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[Kean]

Maybe I haven't gotten to those episodes in AtS (I'm beginning s3), but it's hard for me at this point to separate Liam and Angel. I think Angel is really Liam, just more mature, grown-up, and responsible.

I agree with this.

Liam was the soul. Angelus was the demon, and when Liam's soul was returned to his body with the memories of everything that he had done, Angel was who Liam became. Same soul, different stage of the journey.

 

[white avenger]

I agree with this.

Liam was the soul. Angelus was the demon, and when Liam's soul was returned to his body with the memories of everything that he had done, Angel was who Liam became. Same soul, different stage of the journey.

You may be right about this, but I have a hard time seeing it. To me, other than the residual memories of his human life, Liam left the picture permanently the moment that Darla turned him. We've already seen Angel regain his mortality once, and I didn't see any of Liam in the human he became, just as I would not expect Spike to revert back to William if he were to become mortal.

 

[Kana]

You may be right about this, but I have a hard time seeing it. To me, other than the residual memories of his human life, Liam left the picture permanently the moment that Darla turned him. We've already seen Angel regain his mortality once, and I didn't see any of Liam in the human he became, just as I would not expect Spike to revert back to William if he were to become mortal.

I depends what you mean in terms of personal identity. Our memories inform who we are. The human we see in IWRY is a product of everything Angel(us)/Liam has been through. The crazy thing is, the propensity for supreme villainy and heroism was all part of Liam's potential.

 

[Kean]

You may be right about this, but I have a hard time seeing it. To me, other than the residual memories of his human life, Liam left the picture permanently the moment that Darla turned him. We've already seen Angel regain his mortality once, and I didn't see any of Liam in the human he became, just as I would not expect Spike to revert back to William if he were to become mortal.

If Liam had been put back in his body without a single memory of what Angelus had done then I think you'd have a point. He would have been disorientated but ultimately the same man who had been killed in that alley.

However, Liam was put back in his body with Angelus' entire back catalogue on replay. He would experience every single thing Angelus had done...killing his family just being one of them. Liam was a rake but he did have love in his heart and there is no way he wasn't going to be irreversibly changed by the demon's memories.

 

[Brandonxx93]

I see them as two completely different people. I dont consider "Angel" being a curse.

I believe that "Angelus" is technically the curse because he was forced into Liam's human/innocent body. Once Angelus received his soul and becomes Angel I think he should be considered an innocent once again because the actions that he did was not his fault. It was the demons fault.

Like Angel said on Buffy, "the demon takes over your body but it doesnt get your soul."

 

[Tranquillity]

I'm mot a fan of the 'seperate entity' theory - Angel and Angelus are the same person, same being, same entity - just one has a soul and the other doesn't. The quest for redemption wouldn't make sense if they were seperate.