Continuity glitch?

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

I just noticed something.

So, Angel was moping around for like, what, 90 years after he was cursed by the gypsies, right? And...didn't he snap out of this when he saw Buffy in 1996?

...so, in 1952 wasn't Angel moping around in the sewers eating rats? Not chilling in the Hyperion Hotel looking all normal joe?

I think I missed something.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I think what we're supposed to believe is that everytime Angel tried to join the human world his differences were so great he could not fit.

However Buffy changed that.

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

That's also how I got it. He didn't just go moping for eternity, he had a troubled past in which he tried fitting in, but he never did. Eventually he gave up and went rat eating.

 

[nerd4hire]

As I understood Orpheus it was drinking from that soda-jerk guy in the 70s (Angel played Mandy on the juke-box, and he went to Manilow concerts) that sent Angel into the back-alleys to eat rats. In fact he said...

ANGEL
Faith, listen to me. You saw me drink. It doesn't get much lower than that. And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing.

Before that he'd saved a flapper's dog (20s), did work for the allies in WWII (40s), wound up at the Hyperion (50s), hung out with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in vegas (60s).

 

[The_Final_Cylon]

Yeah, before this episode I had just assumed he had been living on the streets eating rats until meeting Buffy but after this episode they expanded a lot more on the idea that he wasn't just rat eating vampire man for, like, 90 years or however long it was...

 

[Silum]

Yea i remember noticing that. Often the timline gets a little sidetracked. In the 50's he was a badass, then hes a gimp little tool perving after 15 year olds...what gives?

Another thing that bothers me is when he talks about his age, or others reference his age. ALL throughout the series he calls himself 200 odd, and others do too...it defines who he is...when in actual fact (in one episode, i cant remember) its revealed that he lived in hell (after buffys sword action) for around 150 years. So hes nearing 400-450 at this stage, not 250. In my mind thats a big deal, it puts him older than Darla, and not far off the Master, hardly a small goof.

 

[Fusions2]

Another thing that bothers me is when he talks about his age, or others reference his age. ALL throughout the series he calls himself 200 odd, and others do too...it defines who he is...when in actual fact (in one episode, i cant remember) its revealed that he lived in hell (after buffys sword action) for around 150 years. So hes nearing 400-450 at this stage, not 250. In my mind thats a big deal, it puts him older than Darla, and not far off the Master, hardly a small goof.

I used to think about that a lot when it cropped up in Buffy & Angel but then in retrospective to us Angel is still 200 odd years old. He may have been in hell a good few years but because time moves a lot slower in Buffyworld he never really counted than a few months. I think from that Angel just decided to stick to the age he was before he went as it wouldn't make much difference either way as he still looked the same.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

I guess in our time he's 200 odd years old, but he's lived for 400 odd, if that makes sense?

 

[white avenger]

I think that basically, Angel's rat eating alley dweller periods were the equivalent of an alcoholic falling off the wagon. After awhile, he would more or less get his guilt back under control, clean himself up, and try to be a part of human society, if only an isolated part, until something would happen to trigger the guilt once more, and he would be back once more in that alley. Buffy was the first person to actually see him for his potential rather than his crimes, and, with first her support and later that of Cordy, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn, he has managed, at least so far, to keep his problems under control. If you look at it that way, Buffy was Angel's AA. (BA? Blood-aholics Anonymous. Catchy phrase. Joss should be able to develop a storyline around it)

(That also provides the reasons both why Spike didn't go through a century of self loathing and mental torture AND why Spike without a soul and Spike with a soul are so similar. Buffy believed in Spike, cared for him [loved him, too, but that's a different issue entirely] even to the point of defending him from her friends, plus assuring him that the old, dangerous Spike could be just as big a bad for good as he had been for evil.)

 

[Buffyverse Fan]

Yea i remember noticing that. Often the timline gets a little sidetracked. In the 50's he was a badass, then hes a gimp little tool perving after 15 year olds...what gives?

Another thing that bothers me is when he talks about his age, or others reference his age. ALL throughout the series he calls himself 200 odd, and others do too...it defines who he is...when in actual fact (in one episode, i cant remember) its revealed that he lived in hell (after buffys sword action) for around 150 years. So hes nearing 400-450 at this stage, not 250. In my mind thats a big deal, it puts him older than Darla, and not far off the Master, hardly a small goof.

Joke answer:
As Cordelia would say, 450 candles on his birthday cake would violate all kinds of fire codes.

Real answer:
That's always bothered me too. What makes it even worse is that with Connor, they DO count his years in a Hell dimension towards his age.

Technically though, Angel has only lived 200+ years on Earth, and that's how everyone else counts their age 😛 .

I always thought maybe his extreme age could be a fanwank excuse for him looking a heck of a lot older than 27...

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

I think that basically, Angel's rat eating alley dweller periods were the equivalent of an alcoholic falling off the wagon. After awhile, he would more or less get his guilt back under control, clean himself up, and try to be a part of human society, if only an isolated part, until something would happen to trigger the guilt once more, and he would be back once more in that alley. Buffy was the first person to actually see him for his potential rather than his crimes, and, with first her support and later that of Cordy, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn, he has managed, at least so far, to keep his problems under control. If you look at it that way, Buffy was Angel's AA. (BA? Blood-aholics Anonymous. Catchy phrase. Joss should be able to develop a storyline around it)

(That also provides the reasons both why Spike didn't go through a century of self loathing and mental torture AND why Spike without a soul and Spike with a soul are so similar. Buffy believed in Spike, cared for him [loved him, too, but that's a different issue entirely] even to the point of defending him from her friends, plus assuring him that the old, dangerous Spike could be just as big a bad for good as he had been for evil.)

I really, really love this theory. It wouldn't let me give you any more reputation so here it is 🙂

 

[clemsgirlfriend]

Another thing that bothers me is when he talks about his age, or others reference his age. ALL throughout the series he calls himself 200 odd, and others do too...it defines who he is...when in actual fact (in one episode, i cant remember) its revealed that he lived in hell (after buffys sword action) for around 150 years. So hes nearing 400-450 at this stage, not 250. In my mind thats a big deal, it puts him older than Darla, and not far off the Master, hardly a small goof.

It's an interesting point - i hadn't thought about that before. Maybe he's translating for earth people so that they will understand, like when you're re-telling a story that you heard someone say in a different language, or tell someone how much you spent on something in another country, but you translate it first to the local language or currency so that the person you're talking to can understand it better?

So, for example, talking to earthlings who have never been to the hell dimension, if he tells them that he is 200-something, they assume he lived through the 1700's on earth and since then. If he said 400, they'd assume he was around during 1600, when Darla was being made, but he wasn't, and would have to explain - 'no, 150 years of that was in this hell dimension - you wouldn't know it'.

Whereas since Connor was a baby when he left and came back as a teenager, so that seems to me more about distinguishing between an infant who cannot take care of himself and someone with a strong free will and sense of independence, whereas with Angel he was pretty already a fully-developed adult, so maybe it made less difference? Kinda like a 17-year old dating a 30 year-old is a huge age difference, but a 42 and 55-year-old, not as much of a difference, developmentally speaking?