It just crossed my mind that characters were treated better on Angel...

[King of Hell]

I was reading through the pages of the topic "characters u used to hate & now u like..."

I noticed that, each character that appears on both shows, is treated better on Angel, & given the credit they deserve:

-Angel
even though he was "the meanest vampire in all the land", he was too weak, can barely take 1 vamp

-Cordy
she was always treated like the bad side of the coin, even if she wasn't at fault

-Wesley
pretty obvious

-Faith
the B-slayer who never got credit for being a slayer, & was treated like an outsider, she was A LOT more fun & respected in Angel

-Willow Orpheus (compared to her character in Buffy S7)
she was really annoying in Buffy S7, yet I liked her guest appearance on Angel S4

-Andrew
I can't think of 1 ep in Buffy S7 that I didn't wish he'd die, in Angel S5, he was funny & not bad to watch

-Spike
Whiny, still living his grandsire's shadow, everyone hated him & disrespected him, a soulless vampire helping a slayer isn't something easy any vampire can do, so he got his soul, yet he was boring & annoying, & never got the respect he deserved...on Angel he was treated waay better, & I liked his character more, & liked his chemistry with Angel & Illyria

those are the ones I could think of, feel free to add.

does anybody agree with me?

 

[dan k]

On reflection i'd have to agree and say you make an excellent point.

Angel's role in BTVS was limited in comparison to how the character developed in Angel.

Cordelia was seen by all of the Scoobies in Buffy as annoying and whiny yet in Angel she matures and is someone who everyone wants to be around.

Wesley is treated with respect in Angel which isn't the case in Buffy.

The treatment of Faith is much more laid back in Angel. She clicks with Gunn straight away and also forms a great friendship with Angel. In Buffy she's very much an outsider and forms no friendship with the Scoobies except for Buffy.

Spike is similar to Faith in terms of being an outsider in BTVS yet in Angel its a sifferent story. Unlike in Buffy Spike doesn't just click with the main character in Angel. His relationship with Fred and even Gunn to some extent show this. He ends up being extremely close with Fred whilst the fact that Gunn respectfully declined an invitation to go and have a drink with Spike shows he was respected.

However it has to be said that there are signs in season 7 of Buffy that people other than Buffy are warming to Spike. Xander starts to accept his involvement yet it can't be compared to how Spike is welcomed into the team in Angel.

Willow's appearance in Angel reminded me of the fun, naive Willow we saw in the early seasons of Buffy. Willow in season 7 is quite isolated from Buffy and Xander yet in Angel she immediately has a pleasant conversation with Fred like they've known each other for years.

 

[King of Hell]

Willow's appearance in Angel reminded me of the fun, naive Willow we saw in the early seasons of Buffy. Willow in season 7 is quite isolated from Buffy and Xander yet in Angel she immediately has a pleasant conversation with Fred like they've known each other for years.

she felt right at home the first time she walked in, my guess is that the way she's been apart from Xander & Buffy made her closer to Fred & Angel than to Buffy & Xander, not "closer" closer, but u get my point...or maybe seeing Angel & Wesley made her remember her old self & started acting it out

 

[BuffyElevated]

I see your point... I think that the reason being for this is that Angel was the "adult" show of the two. While BtVS started out in high school, "Angel" started out in the grittier, more adult world of life post-high school and it was a much darker show. I think the reason the characters were treated "better" on "Angel" was mostly because it was a more adult show and hence the characters were written as more mature.

 

[King of Hell]

I don't think the dark theme was the reason, imo, Btvs was all about Buffy, even though she's self-centered & a control freak, everything was about her. on Angel however, the show was about redemption & fighting the good fight, it wasn't centered around Angel, it was centered around the circle of Angel investigations.

if any character got as good treatment as Buffy had in Btvs, it would undermine her character, Angel however gives every character exactly what they deserve, no more, no less, acknowledging every character's faults. Angel wasn't the strongest fighter in the world in his own show, nor was he the only one to stop everything they encounter, that's why every character shines in Ats.

 

[caitaintdead]

I would explain these like this:

Angel - Was not the protagonist of Buffy, Buffy was. The BtVS story would not have been the same if there was a male that was stronger then her. Once AtS started he was now the protagonist and therefore needed to be stronger.

Cordy - Was never a major character in Buffy and therefore her growth in Buffy (dating Xander, becoming poor, hanging out with the scoobs) was stilted as attention was being paid to the Faith storyline, and the Angel storyline. Cordelia was never directly close to Buffy so there was no need for her growth to be followed. Once she joined AtS the writers understood that they needed her character to grow for her to be a main character.

Wesley - See above. He had no time at all on Buffy for growth, but I like to think that if he had stayed on BtVS he would have showed some growth.

Faith - Was introduced to represent the dark side of Buffy, whereas on AtS she was introduced for the viewers to see how understanding Angel could be. 'helping the helpless'. Then later she was introduced to be the hero.

Willow - A lot of Season 7 sucked. I can't explain that one... But hey, there was no Kennedy!

Andrew - His growth occured in Buffy, by the end of Season 7 he had already learnt to use his storytelling for the good of the others.

Spike - Okay, this is one that I do slightly agree with. Spike in Season 5 Angel was awesome.

 

[Kelsey]

I think Spike was treated quite well on Buffy, thanks, and he was neither boring nor annoying in my opinion.

But I agree with everything else.

 

[King of Hell]

you missed my point, I didn't say the characters had no development, every character was developed quite well in Btvs, my problem is the way they were treated.
see Xander, 7 years fighting alongside Buffy, if I see Fred beating him up I wouldn't be surprised. its not just about them being weak, but nobody gets the credit they deserve. everything is about Buffy.
& I don't hate Buffy if that's how it sounded, she's my second favorite character (sometimes its Spike, I keep changing my mind), she deserves a lot of attention, she's the slayer, but she absorbs everything from the other characters, they should be somebody.
in Ats, everyone is important almost equally, everyone gets what they deserve, give the other characters some credit...they've earned it.

say Giles was made a series regular for Angel S5, would you see him the way he was in Btvs? I bet he'd be a bit stronger & more experienced, smarter, respected, & treated like a man who had a lot of experience.

I hope this clears it up.

EDIT:

I think Spike was treated quite well on Buffy, thanks, and he was neither boring nor annoying in my opinion.

But I agree with everything else.

I can see how you relate to him in S7.
me on the other hand, I hated how he was in S7, he was a whiny weezle who couldn't pull himself together, & a not so strong vampire considering he's the 2nd worst vampire recorded in history...watch him in Angel, he was almost equal to Angel, he had a cool personality, & he finally stood up to his old grandsire, in the end they worked things out & became best friends again.
he was pretty amazing in Btvs S2-4 though, that's the Spike I knew & loved.
come to think of it, as soon as he joined the scoobies (kinda) he lost his charm, ok this actually adds extra points to my theory.

 

[dan k]

For me i liked the fact that the show was cented around Buffy. The show was about her, she was why the show was such a success and i felt it was right that she dominated the storylines seen in the shows.

Although i earlier wrote a post about the limitations of characters in Buffy in comparison to Angel i don't think it was a bad thing that they had limitations.

The character of Cordelia for instance needed to move to LA to become a more central figure. If you make her a more prominent character in Buffy it wouldn't have worked. Like you mentioned she didn't get on with Buffy and there was nothing else you could do with her character in terms of Buffy.

Moving to Angel gave her a new sense of life and allowed her to move into the spotlight because Angel wasn't such a dominant character. The reason that was the case was because of how he was represented in Buffy. When i think about it Angel and Spike in Buffy had similar roles that were very effective.

Angel was an outcast, he never really had a relationship with anyone other than Buffy, the same could be said of Spike. Both these characters however were immensely popular and i don't see how you could have got them more invovled with the other characters without detracting away from what their characters stood for.

Angel moving away from Buffy allowed him to conenct with other characters. Before that his thought process was all about Buffy, it didn't make sense for him to have greater involvement.

What i'am trying to say is that characters were treated better on Angel but that's not me saying i don't agree with how they were treated on Buffy. Angel simply allowed them to move into the limelight because like you mentioned before, Angel didn't dominant the show like Buffy did.

Personally i liked how Buffy dominated the show, her journey interested me and i liked how the other characters linked in with her.

Angel was a more adult show, it stood for something different. Consequently characters had different roles to play. That doesn't mean i was angry about how those characters were treated on Buffy though. I may sometimes have felt sorry for them like i did with Wesley, but i understood it.

 

[purpledreams]

Interesting point, and i'd have to agree. The characters that appeared on both shows definitely seemed to be shown in a much better light on Angel. Good observation. 🙂 Although, when i saw the title of this thread, the first thing i thought of was the body count. Angel suffered the loss of, count 'em, four members of the fang gang. Yet the core four of Buffy remained in tact. Now, I love my Scoobies as much as anyone else, but that is just messed up man. I don't wish that a core four had died by any means, but the death toll of Angel's main characters really gets to me. 🙁 I guess that goes along with Angel being the darker, more mature show, but man it just sucks that we had to lose so many. 🙁 But anyway to the OP, when you said that the characters were treated better on Angel, at first i was just like wait a second they all got killed off! But now I see what you meant, and I definitely agree. 🙂

 

[Bungle Jerry]

Well, it's tough to make a complete generalisation, because while there are a huge number of characters who crossed over from BtVS to AtS, either to become regulars or only as guest appearances, there were precisely none the other way around. So we can't say if an AtS character, transplanted on BtVS, would have been treated in a kinder light. Imagine if, for example, David Nabbitt became a BtVS regular after AtS S1. It's pretty obvious that he'd develop as a character, since he's Wesley-style one dimensional on AtS.

 

[King of Hell]

dan k
I know what you mean, but to me, the price was too high, let her dominate the show, but imo, she overdominated everything, they should've set some kind of limit, it annoys me to see other characters that way, it forces me to blame Buffy, but I try to block those feelings cause I like her, & I feel sorry for everybody.
it also doesn't make much sense when only Buffy can take care of those things in the whole world, every time there's an apocalypse, I keep thinking, is Sunnydale the only place in the world where something like that happens? of course not...so if Buffy is the only one capable of such things, who takes care of the rest? every time I rewatch the show, it bugs me even more.

purpledreams
it was really sad, I think their point was that Angel will always be alone, & he'll always lose the ones he cares about, & he'll be the last man standing.

Bungle Jerry
that's why its just an opinion, & we analyze the shows the way we interpret them, lets use imagination, say Gunn made a guest appearance in Btvs somehow, would he take down a room full of vampires like he did in "not fade away"? would he be treated like "the muscle"? ok this one is hard to imagine, lets say the slayer-wannabe, Justine, she can handle herself quite well in Ats, do you see her handling herself the same way in Btvs?

& I only used fighting skill as an example because its the only way I could theorize the guest appearances, I can't imagine how Gunn or Justine's personality or position in the show could be, so I used fighting skill.

 

[Bungle Jerry]

I was actually going to use Justine as an example, but then I realised I wasn't sure what the answer would be either.

Gunn's an interesting question, and I kind of have to think that you're right. BtVS doesn't really have much room for a Gunn-like character, and I'm sure he'd have been underutilised (even more than he was on AtS).

I think for whatever reason characters on Angel are given more opportunity to evolve than on Buffy. Willow and Spike evolve a lot, but Giles, Xander, Tara and Anya hardly evolve at all bu comparison.

 

[Kelsey]

I can see how you relate to him in S7.
me on the other hand, I hated how he was in S7, he was a whiny weezle who couldn't pull himself together, & a not so strong vampire considering he's the 2nd worst vampire recorded in history...watch him in Angel, he was almost equal to Angel, he had a cool personality, & he finally stood up to his old grandsire, in the end they worked things out & became best friends again.
he was pretty amazing in Btvs S2-4 though, that's the Spike I knew & loved.
come to think of it, as soon as he joined the scoobies (kinda) he lost his charm, ok this actually adds extra points to my theory.

Well, Angel spent a hundred years rolling around in the garbage after he got his soul, so Spike struggling for a few weeks doesn't make him weak or weasely to me. I watched him in Angel, and I loved him, but he wouldn't have been that character without six years of development on Buffy. I agree, though, that once you take Buffy away, the characters are much more able to stand on their own. I'm glad Spike did get that time on Angel, where he got to figure himself out apart from her. Same with Angel. It definitely enhanced his character, but I wouldn't say he was necessarily treated better. Especially considering he came as a villain in S2 and stayed and received a whole redemption plotline that wasn't even planned.

 

[TheVoid68]

I agree with the OP. I think that the higher levels of maturity seen on AtS meant that every character was treated with respect, and I preferred that.

Well, Angel spent a hundred years rolling around in the garbage after he got his soul, so Spike struggling for a few weeks doesn't make him weak or weasely to me.

I think what's important isn't what happened in the show's timeline, but what we actually saw on-screen. We only had one flashback to Angel rolling around in garbage, whereas we sat through a whole season (or at least up until Get it Done) of Spike rolling around in a basement. No, objectively it's not fair, but that's the reason for it.

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

I see your point. But I think that was the point. Angel was the new begining. Remember Cordy in the first episode of Angel? She was still not that good, with Angel saying "It's nice to see her grow as a person." And Wesley, he came as this clumsy person, as he was in Buffy. Angel was about growing, and giving the characters the meaning. The minor characters on Buffy were given a chance to become something more.

 

[Five]

I quite agree, but I think the main reason for this is due to chronology. As we all know, character evolution is one of the greatest things in the Whedonverse. The characters you've listed all debuted in "Buffy", then moved on to "Angel". It's only understandable that through time, they'd evolve in a better, more mature way, and it's what happened. I'm sure if, I don't know, Gunn or Fred had moved on to "Buffy", we could say the same thing, because their evolution, like every other character in the verse, was logical and well brought. It just happened that the characters that were talked about here first lived in "Buffy" then went to "Angel"... so their changing followed them there.

 

[Kelsey]

I think Buffy's boyfriends do better in general when they're without her. Don't get me wrong, I love Spuffy, but Spike never got to stand on his own once he fell in love with her. It wasn't about who Spike was; it was about who Spike was in relation to Buffy. Angel is more or less the same.

 

[caitaintdead]

Well, the show was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I can understand why a lot of characterisation revolved around Buffy 😉

 

[Kelsey]

Well, the show was called Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I can understand why a lot of characterisation revolved around Buffy 😉

Haha, well, of course. But in terms of Buffy's boyfriends, she's usually the stronger, more important one in the relationship, leaving the other as a sort of sidekick. It makes sense, but there is a point where it doesn't allow for as much character growth.

In your way of thinking, it's also obvious that a show entitled Angel would treat Angel better. 😉