Hasn't the shanshu technically BEEN fulfilled?

[white avenger]

[MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION],

Which would make him guilty of getting off track, not of being a power-hungry despot as [MENTION=11194]EVIL UU[/MENTION] makes him out to be. Losing sight of your goal (and as you said, his "real mission" wasn't about power) is hardly the same thing as seeking power. Having to have someone give you a pep talk isn't a character indictment.

True, I don't see Angel, or Angelus either, for that matter, as being power hungry just for power's sake alone, but I do see both personalities as having specific goals which are more easily advanced as their personal power grows. Angel succumbed to what was undoubtedly the Senior Partners' scheme to win him over to their side so gradually that he wouldn't notice until it was too late, and but for Cordy, they would probably have succeeded. They had him convinced that he could use evil, the W&H organization itself, to fight evil, and it almost cost him everything.

And did he really learn anything from the experience, and what followed? I would suggest that his behavior in Season 8, no matter how he tried to justify it, says otherwise.

But, yes, Angel DOES want power, the more the better, because he sees that as the way to fulfill his mission, and, along the way, achieve some degree of redemption for what he did prior to receiving his soul. His intentions are certainly pure, but that in no way excuses at least some of his methods of achieving that power.

 

[Robb Stark]

[MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION],

It's hard to even use S8 as an example for me, mostly because it makes zero (actually, scratch that, less than zero) sense. Seriously, this isn't meant to be an excuse, I'm just saying that I have absolutely no understanding of what S8 meant, was trying to say or, hell, what even happened to begin with. Angel is mind-controlled by Twilight, that much is made very clear (and is one of the few parts of the story that seems indisputable. They have a whole page where Twilight tests the control), but Angel obviously allows himself to be lured in by Twilight to even get to the point of mind-control. But then they say (far too late in the story to make it very coherent) that it was somehow connected to what happened in "After the Fall" (a connection I never made) and that for some vague, undefined reason that is what's going to happen to the rest of the world. I think. Maybe. There's no explanation for why things have to unfold how they do, and worst of all, there is zero explanation as to whether or not Twilight is even bad at all.

All of that makes it difficult for me to blame Angel, or to say that he is power-hungry. The entire storyline isn't even logical to begin with, there's no real reason to think that Twilight is even evil beyond it simply being the "big bad" at the end of the season (and while I do think Twilight was probably intended to be evil by the writers, it's plan didn't exactly reflect that).

I've read S8 twice now and am still totally at sea when it comes to Twilight 😛

 

[EVIL UU]

[MENTION=11975]Robb Stark[/MENTION] [MENTION=7585]Kean[/MENTION]
Look at Angel, what a good boy, he doesn't care about power, all that he left for himself are just some minor and obviously meaningless perks like inhuman strength and resistance, immunity to just about every known disease and immortality.

Angel had a chance to get rid of Angelus once and for all. He had a chance find a real redemption, to do some good, to share an actual life with a woman who loved him. As a human, the hard way. Instead Angel chose to continue to play on the easy difficulty.

 

[Robb Stark]

[MENTION=11975]Robb Stark[/MENTION] [MENTION=7585]Kean[/MENTION]
Look at Angel, what a good boy, he doesn't care about power, all that he left for himself are just some minor and obviously meaningless perks like inhuman strength and resistance, immunity to just about every known disease and immortality.

Angel had a chance to get rid of Angelus once and for all. He had a chance find a real redemption, to do some good, to share an actual life with a woman who loved him. As a human, the hard way. Instead Angel chose to continue to play on the easy difficulty.

But you're ignoring what the Powers (or their representatives) said to him. These are the people, supposedly, from which Doyle is getting his prophetic visions, visions which up until that point have never been wrong. Angel has no reason not to trust what they say, no reason to believe they're lying. So when they tell him that if he remains human Buffy will die protecting him, he believes them, and little wonder why. I'm not saying he made the best choice, because Glory kills Buffy a season and a half later, but with the information he had at the time he made the only decision he could have.