Buffy or Cordelia, in terms of Angel

[yodii77]

I am a Whedon fan, latecomer. I came in with the avengers. Then I watched firefly, Buffy, and angel on netflix. loved them. Started reading after the fall. Buffy season 9 is gonna be intermingled. Buttttttttt(with exra t's) I wonder... who is Angel really for??? Buffy? or... Cordelia. In season 2 buffy causes perfect happiness thus causing Angeles to return. Butt only the thought of boning Cordelia brought on perfect happiness when the soul extractor came for Angel in angel season 4... I gotta say... Cordelia is winning it on those merits alone for me. I was wondering what others thought. I want to read others thoughts on the matter so let me know...

 

[Robb Stark]

Well...that might be one of the more unique debut posts I've seen, and while I'm not sure how long this thread is going to be open for, it's nevertheless a decent question.

They're both great for Angel, Buffy and Cordelia, but my pick goes to Buffy. There are a ton of reasons for it, but going with the "thought of Cordelia" giving Angel perfect happiness, he did moan "Buffy" when he...um...had his moment.

Either way though, I'm a huge fan of Angel with both of them.

 

[iShower4free]

I will always believe that Buffy and Angel belong together but Cordy was the one "relationship" either of them had outside of each other that I didnt hate. She could have made him happy although not as happy and Buffy would have. She gave him a well needed distraction and I thought they were great together, their little family with baby Connor.

 

[crazysoulless]

It wasn't even Cordelia in that dream in S4.

Cordy was already possessed by Jasmine. The person in the dream didn't exist since it wasn't Cordelia that had sex with Connor or was choosing between Angel & Connor. Angel thougt Cordelia chose to have sex with his son but she was possessed and sexually violated (not unlike Buffy by Faith in Who Are You).

Angel had no idea that the person he was interacting with was his future granddaughter and that by the time of that dream, she was already pregnant with herself. If he was dreaming of someone, it was Jasmine-in-Cordy. Making it him having sex with his granddaughter while being tricked into raping Cordelia's body.

So he was dreaming about someone that didn't exist and had just taken the virginity of his only child.

It wasn't just that faux Cordy in the dream that did it. It was the entire perfect day of him as the big hero, his friends solving their issues and getting along again, patching things up with his son, etc.

With Buffy in Surprise, it was her. The only good things that happened to him that day centered on Buffy. Exchanging claddagh rings with her, telling her he loves her, making love with her, sleeping beside her.

 

[Nix]

Hello and welcome 🙂

I think both of them, they were suitable for Angel at different times in his life.

 

[yodii77]

Wow, overwhelming Buffy vote lol. I'm on my second series run through with both Angel, and Buffy. Well I haven't started Angel just yet because I'm gonna start it season four, and alternate this time. (I'm on holiday from school btw) Thanks for the replies, especially crazysoulless, I really hadn't thought of the fact that it was Jasmine/cordy. though I was cognizant in the back of my mind, I never made the connection.

 

[TaylorSwift]

Well, it's always Buffy and Angel for me.
I won't get into why I don't like Cordelia and Angel cause it would be long and I might be banned LOL
No, seriously...they were better off as friends, they had a beautiful friendship. I never felt their love, it was something that just popped out at some point for me.

While with Buffy...it was and it is and will always be true love imho.

 

[iShower4free]

It wasn't even Cordelia in that dream in S4.

Cordy was already possessed by Jasmine. The person in the dream didn't exist since it wasn't Cordelia that had sex with Connor or was choosing between Angel & Connor. Angel thougt Cordelia chose to have sex with his son but she was possessed and sexually violated (not unlike Buffy by Faith in Who Are You).

Angel had no idea that the person he was interacting with was his future granddaughter and that by the time of that dream, she was already pregnant with herself. If he was dreaming of someone, it was Jasmine-in-Cordy. Making it him having sex with his granddaughter while being tricked into raping Cordelia's body.

So he was dreaming about someone that didn't exist and had just taken the virginity of his only child.

It wasn't just that faux Cordy in the dream that did it. It was the entire perfect day of him as the big hero, his friends solving their issues and getting along again, patching things up with his son, etc.

With Buffy in Surprise, it was her. The only good things that happened to him that day centered on Buffy. Exchanging claddagh rings with her, telling her he loves her, making love with her, sleeping beside her.

Since it was all in his head I think she would be considered Cordy prior to Jasmine.

 

[AmelRIOT]

For me it always be Buffy and Angel, every time Buffy had a bad relationship she always goes back to Angel she never stopped loving Angel and Angel never stopped loving Buffy, for me Cordy and Angel were close friends I am not saying more cause I be here for days why I didn't like Cordy and Angel together haha!

 

[white avenger]

I have no problem in believing that Angel loved both Buffy AND Cordy, equally but entirely differently, and that, ultimately, he could be equally happy with either one.Having said that, I do have to say that, to me,and this has nothing to do with any other ship support, Angel and Cordy seemed tome to be the more mature of the two relationships.

 

[ladydorotea]

Cordelia is dead. Buffy is alive. The writers - evasive as Hell itself - specifically had time to say that while Buffy and Angel are both alive there is always hope. Enough said.

PS

I know this sounds harsh but Joss was the one to specifically kill all vestiges of Cangel, then allow Nina to happen to drive a stake into it. He was the one to write Chosen - while Cordy was still alive and in a coma. He was the one to plan and write S8 around Angel and Buffy erotic reunion. He was the one to make sure Buffy gloats over Cordy being dead in S8 After these Messages. He was the one to specifically say Bangel was the most important relationship on the show. I say, Joss has the privilege.

 

[crazysoulless]

I'm not attacking Cangel when I say this, I'm just commenting on the writing of it.

I do not understand how we are supposed to see it as romantic or erotic when Angel & Cordelia almost have sex in Waiting in the Wings. It was a forced possession. Had they had sex, it would have been no less violating than Faith's actions in Who Are You and Jasmine's actions Apocalypse Nowish. Angel & Cordelia literally had no control over their actions and it was at a time when Cordy wasn't aware of having any romantic feelings for Angel. In fact, by the end of the episode, she is with Groo and soon they are leaving to have lots of consensual sex together.

In the S3 finale Tomorrow, look at the way that Cordelia realizes she is in love with Angel. Seriously, ponder it for a second. She has a vision of herself saying "I'm in love with Angel." And that is how she knows it's true. And then a half an hour later the event in the vision comes true with her telling Skip "I'm in love with Angel." Except that, she has made the vision reality because she saw herself saying/feeling it in a vision. It's a chicken and the egg situation. Did she realize she's in love because it's true or because she saw it in a trusted vision that only came to pass because she saw it?

In Birthday, the fake world where she is a famous beloved celebrity might as well had a giant billboard anouncing its fakeness. Everyone knows that the real world is usually whichever one has the most amount of pain. She wasn't choosing to give up her happiness to ease Angel's suffering. It reminds me of how on XWP Caesar tried to rewrite history but deep down everyone still remembered the real world and couldn't live in the fake one because they would always know it was fake. An honest choice would've been on Doctor Who when they had to choose between two bad options. Or when Buffy in Normal Again had to choose between being a suicidally depressed demon huntress or a paranoid schizophrenic in a psychiatric hospital. When is the shiny life where you are rich and famous ever the real one? Cordy is a woman that hates tact because it's not saying true stuff, she wouldn't be happy living a big fat lie. And I do not believe that Angel would've gone crazy like that. He survived 100 YEARS in Hell. He could handle the visions. And if it got to the point that he was shut-in a room 24/7 out of his mind, they would've called Sunnydale.

To even things out I will list some very valid concerns about Bangel.

When Angel was directed towards Buffy, she was symbolic of his victims and of what he would never be; innocent, pure, good, full of light. He had tried to find redemption through her and realized how wrong it was to place something as huge as his salvation in another person. Angel ends up going from placing his redemption in the love and forgiveness of one girl woman to placing it in "helping the hopeless" whether that was saving randoms from demonic threats or putting someone on their own track to atonement. It was very unfair and way too much responsibility and pressure to place his spiritual welfare in Buffy. It reminds me of that Kelly Clarkson song Because of You "I was so young, you should have known better than to lean on me." Angel was so afraid of losing her love or trust that he tried to hide his past (and it would come back to bite her in the form of The Master, Darla, Spike, Drusilla, Angelus). And while that was happening, he was also romancing her one second while trying to scare her off the next, and just, in many ways, acting shady, because of how innocent, pure, good, and full of light she was. He didn't want to taint her.

While I always knew that Angel & Buffy would get back together and was hoping for it, I thought that it was a good thing he broke up with her in Prom. Angel was her first romantic and sexual relationship, and he completely traumatized her. She could find comfort and the fire of emotion with him, but she was constantly having to rescue him. He needed to become a person and then be with Buffy instead of Buffy having to help him become a person. It wasn't just psychologically or spiritually or emotionally she was saving him and he was putting her in danger. It was physical. He is needed for the sire restoration spell and so she ends up on the hit list of the Tarakan assassins. He gets hit with a poisoned arrow and so she gets drained nearly to death and then smothered in her hospital bed. And he knew the pattern since in IWRY he tells Doyle, "If things are going to work with Buffy I have to be able to do this on my own. I can't keep risking her life every time some minion of Hell...just tell me how to do the spell." He knew she would gladly sacrifice herself for him and needed to change things so that she wouldn't be put in that position.

I think that Bangel is unhealthy but Cangel is written badly. And I can ship something that is unhealthy (Chuck & Blair, Ares & Xena, Christian & Kimber) but no way can I ship something that just sucks in writing and defies common sense.

 

[white avenger]

Cordelia is dead. Buffy is alive. The writers - evasive as Hell itself - specifically had time to say that while Buffy and Angel are both alive there is always hope. Enough said.

PS

I know this sounds harsh but Joss was the one to specifically kill all vestiges of Cangel, then allow Nina to happen to drive a stake into it. He was the one to write Chosen - while Cordy was still alive and in a coma. He was the one to plan and write S8 around Angel and Buffy erotic reunion. He was the one to make sure Buffy gloats over Cordy being dead in S8 After these Messages. He was the one to specifically say Bangel was the most important relationship on the show. I say, Joss has the privilege.

Cordy isn't dead, she is just a higher being in another realm of existence, and in IDW's "After The Fall" arc, one of the few sections of their series acknowledged ac canon, Angel says that he can sense her still watching over him. So if the fact that someone is still alive is a sigh of continued hope, there is still just as much hope for Cordy and Angel to ultimately be together, or perhaps even more, since,of the three,Angel and Cordy are both immortal. Cordy will still be going strong, young and beautiful, when Buffy is a pile of dust.

And as for Angel and Buffy's "erotic" reunion, how is it any more an indication of romantic feelings than Buffy and Spike bringing the house down in "Smashed?" That was pure animal lust, nothing more.

I fully realize that Joss has said that Angel and Buffy were "meant to be," but "meant to be" and "will be" aren't the same thing, and he has also said that he wouldn't hesitate to change canon if doing so resulted in a good enough story. Just about the only thing that we can be certain of is that there never has been a "happy ever after" in a Whedon story, and there almost certainly never will be.

 

[crazysoulless]

I never understood why the writers decided that Cordelia should be turned into a "Higher Power." Her possession, sexual violation, coma, and death resulted because she was tricked by a fallen PTB (Jasmine) and tricked into thinking she was now a PTB and so they decide to make it up to her by actually making her one? Why would she get rewarded for something bad happening to her? When does that happen in the Buffyverse/Whedonverse?

Buffy ascended because she was quite literally the most influential person in the world. She was the reason Angel decided to join the fight, lost his soul, started an apocalypse, gave back his humanity. She was the reason Spike decided to get a soul. It was meeting Buffy that was the catalyst for Willow eventually becoming a powerful sorceress. It was Buffy's deaths and resurrections that caused the anomaly in the Slayer line. She found the Scythe. She came up with the idea to activate every Potential. She founded the Slayer Organization. She was at the center of so many apocalypses, including her death stopping an interdimensional one. She was Guardian of the Hellmouth (the most powerful one on Earth, which housed the Seed) She met the Shadow Men, a Guardian woman, the first Slayer (Seneya) the first Slayer in 200 years (Melaka), worked with the United States governement, etc.

Cordy is dead. Her physical vessel/body stopped working. Dead doesn't mean that she ceased to exist. Her soul spirit being somewhere else now doesn't mean that she isn't dead in the way that we know it. All beings leave behind a physical body that decays while their soul-spirit makes the transition to a spirit dimension/realm. Anybody that has died could be leading an extraordinary life in a noncorporeal plane.

Don't most people who lose a friend or loved one feel that they can still feel them watching over them?

The S8 "erotic reunion" did mean something to Angel just as it meant something to Spike. On Buffy's end, in both situations she was angry and upset with the guy to the point that it was extremely enjoyable hate sex. But since she already loved Angel and wasn't pissed at him prior to the unmasking, she could tap into that for the sex to mean something unlike the Smashed sex when she had never yet been in love with Spike. The energy levels with Angel (due to their new powers) were so intense when they merged that it did turn into a mystickal experience for her. Listen to the way she described it to Spike.

 

[ladydorotea]

Cordy isn't dead, she is just a higher being in another realm of existence, and in IDW's "After The Fall" arc, one of the few sections of their series acknowledged ac canon, Angel says that he can sense her still watching over him.

That part was Brian Lynch added - and it was mentioned specifically by him that it was his own idea/addition. On other hand in S8 ATM Buffy has a dream in which she rather gleefully and specifically tells dream Willow that 'she will be dead and you will be the most powerful witch of the world'. And that was all Joss. So, I say JW has Cordelia dead, and dead she stays.

So if the fact that someone is still alive is a sigh of continued hope, there is still just as much hope for Cordy and Angel to ultimately be together

It is my understanding that Cordy's soul passed into another plane, but her body died in You are welcome. So, no, she is not immortal. She is spirit, cut off from this plane, same as (sniff) Wesley.

And as for Angel and Buffy's "erotic" reunion, how is it any more an indication of romantic feelings

Er, Buffy telling Angel quote 'You are not only the love of my life, you are also the man I want to spend it with!' 'You have my heart - so what can I do ? But.. but he has the ship, so what can I do?' Written by Joss himself in issue #36 of S8.

Just about the only thing that we can be certain of is that there never has been a "happy ever after" in a Whedon story, and there almost certainly never will be.

Wrong and wrong again.

There were per date two moderate happy endings in Joss' stories : Sierra and Victor finally getting to be reunited after years apart in Dollhouse Epithaph 2 - these two wanted to be with each other from the first time they laid eyes on each other, and no amount of mind-wiping etc. could erase that.

Kaylee and Simon kissing in the end of Serenity the movie is another example. Also, Joss has a penchant for ultimately separated lovers but meant for each other to get united in the end - although sometimes it happens in death together (Wesley-Fred). I will take that one too, if that's where he is going with Bangel.

 

[This Year's Girl]

Cordelia and Angel belonged together. They had a great friendship that grew in to something deeper. I think Buffy and Angel were cute too, but I feel like they had that overly dramatic teenage love that doesn't last. All feelfeelfeel and no think. They didn't know each other like Cangel did. Don't kill me Bangels. 🙂

 

[BuffyElevated]

I love Cordelia and Angel together. Their romance grew into something so beautiful and organic, and I just thought they were so incredibly sweet and right for each other. Their romance was mature and we didn't get that teen angst vibe like we did with Buffy and Angel.

 

[ladydorotea]

I adore Angel with Cordy as friends, but there was IMHO no romance between the two, not mature, nor immature one. They kissed once under influence of a spell, once as a parting gift - and that was not even Cordy in a flesh and that was it. So, while it was sweet and friendly, there was virtually nothing of a true romance. Sorry. And no harsh feelings for Cangels. I respect you guys, I just don't see much of either passion or maturity in a relationship that was never meant to be.

 

[crazysoulless]

I just do not understand why so many non-Bangel shippers think B/A is immature or a teen romance. Yes, Buffy was a teenager. But she was also a bloodied soldier that fought demons and averted apocalypses. People call her mature when it comes to risking her life every day to battle the forces of darkness but then act as if anything she feels romantically at her age could only be puppy love. The relationship covered redemption, forgiveness, the soul, Hell, sanity, betrayal, guilt, suicide, murder, destiny, salvation, and so much more.

Buffy may have been Angel's first love but it didn't change the fact that he had been with hundreds of women. He had lived for centuries. Buffy being the first person he had ever truly loved in his unnaturally long life doesn't make what he feels for her "young love."

Was it a joke? Make me feel for you and then...I've killed a lot of vampires. I've never hated one before.
Feels good, doesn't it? Simple.
I invited you into my home and you attacked my family!

Do you love me?
What?
Do you?
I love you. But I'm not sure if I trust you.
Maybe you shouldn't do either.
Maybe I'm the one that should decide.

I hate that it's so hard. And that you can hurt me so much. I know everything you did because you did it to me.

You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil did bring you back but if it did it's because it needs you and that means that you can hurt it. Angel, you have the power to do real good. To make amends. But if you die now then all that you ever were is a monster.

Strong is fighting. It's hard and it's painful and it's every day. But it's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that then burn. If I can't convince you you belong in this world than I don't know what can. But don't expect me to watch and don't expect me to mourn.

You deserve to be with someone that can take you into the light. Someone who can make love to you. And kids....You have no idea how fast it all goes. Before you know it, you'll want it all.

 

[white avenger]

I just do not understand why so many non-Bangel shippers think B/A is immature or a teen romance.

Buffy and Angel IS an immature teen romance. But why is that Bangel supporters feel that they have to get defensive when that is mentioned, or see it as necessarily derogatory, condescending, or an accusation? Speaking strictly for myself, I've called Bangel all of those things, but I've never once seriously said or implied that it wasn't at the same time sincere. If we're going to be asking "Why is it?" questions, why is it that so many Bangels seem to feel that either Buffy or Angel is incapable of ever loving anyone else? Monster or not, Angel is just as human, emotionally, as Buffy, and both are fully capable of loving more than one person, romantically and equally, but in totally different ways.

Angel loves, and is in love with, both Buffy AND Cordy, and I suspect that, if the series had lasted a few seasons longer, he would have also been in love with Nina or some other girl, eventually, just as Buffy was sincerely in love with Riley AND Spike, and might yet be in love with someone else.. That's how love works. Yes, Bangle is special, VERY special, and absolutely necessary for a very important reason. It's first love, and without first love, there can never be second love, or third love, of twenty fifth love, if someone lives long enough,the way that an immortal being like Angel could.

Buffy and Angel may, if Joss ever decides to allow it, end up in as close to a "happily ever after" relationship as the Buffyverse ever has, but if they don't, if one or both of them end up with someone else, that in no way means that, actually, for all these years, they never have really loved each other.