Yeah, in Unleashed he leaves a guy to be cannibalised.
Actually he doesn't. He takes Nina out of there and makes an offhand comment about them eating the new werewolf next full moon, but then at the very end of the episode - when the gang are all up in his penthouse - they specifically reference the fact that the dinner club has been put out of business and will not be reconvening. The guy did not get eaten - whether it was Angel himself or he sent operatives to do it, that guy got rescued.
Time was literally turned back, so people's minds weren't messed with/violated, and everyone in the world other than Buffy will repeat the same day's experiences as before.
This isn't true though. In one version Buffy stays with Angel and goes to fight the Mohra demon, in the other she walks straight back out and lives a completely different day.
Every single person she has contact with in that time is also now living a different day. Which will then effect the people they go on to have contact with and so and so on. There will be a huge ripple - butterfly flapping it's wing - effect throughout the city (at least).
We know for a fact it will impact Doyle and Cordy's day. In one version they come back to the office and Angel is human, Doyle goes to the oracles, him and Cordy get drinks, Doyle goes to fight the Mohra and who knows what happens to them after he gets back? In the other they comeback to the office, Buffy is gone, Angel is brooding and they presumably just stick around the office all day.
So all the people they interacted with in the first timeline are now living a different day as well.
Have you ever had that thing or heard of it happening where if you were a moment/earlier later you would have been killed or injured but you literally just missed out on disaster by a split second? It certainly happens on the roads a lot. Well imagine Cordelia bumps into someone in the parking lot of the bar, it delays them for a fraction of a second. They get in their car and drive to the exit and are just pulling out when a truck speeds past, had they been a second earlier they would have been hit. The second time around, Cordelia is not in that parking lot, she doesn't bump into anyone, they get into their car a second earlier, they reach the turning a second earlier ... and they're dead now because Angel turned back time.
Every interaction - now matter how small - effects what happens next. Just Angel and Doyle in the car going to the oracles will have an impact on which cars get through the traffic lights which will impact people's days - making them late/ meaning they got there on time and the consequence of that. There will be Sliding Doors all over L.A.
There can be know 'it just effects them' unless in both versions the person making the decision spent all day by themselves not leaving the house or talking to anyone. And Angel had no right to unilaterally alter the world this way.
What? Are you talking about this line:
"That was your idea, remember? We stay away from each other."
This is such a gas lighting line. Because it was his idea to break up with her and his idea to leave town. So actually not being together and spending time apart is entirely his idea that she had no choice but to agree to. Then he made the decision to return to town but not tell her and she came to remind him of his plan. So did she say those words? maybe - but - they weren't
her words. They were his that she was repeating back to him.
It's interesting that in his head her turning up and reminding him not to diverge from his own plan becomes her telling him they need to be apart. He's only in L.A and they only need to be apart because he made that choice for them. And now he is refusing to take ownership of it and actively placing the decision on her. He's lashing out and being completely unreasonable - and the reason for that is he is pretty much entirely in the wrong and knows it but doesn't accept it.
-I'm constantly surprised about IWRY and people's reaction to Angel's choice. It's HIS body and his destiny, no one else's. They also tend to forget that he does tell Buffy what he did and, though clearly upset, she understands. The forgetting is mostly bad for him, not her.
I have no problem with Angel deciding he would rather be a vampire, or that he doesn't deserve to be human yet and so going back (although I've pointed out above why this can never be a consequence free decision, it's just he never once stops to think about the consequences for anyone else). Just like I have no problem with Angel breaking up with Buffy if he doesn't want to be with her anymore.
My problem is that he doesn't make these decisions about his life for himself, he makes them for her. And he makes them without ever consulting her until it's done. He gives up his humanity because the oracles tell him she will die sooner without him there, not because he wants to be a champion, not because he wants to save other people, not because he wants to earn his forgiveness but literally 'then I'm here to beg for her life.' Just like he breaks up with her because she will want the normal things he can't give her.
He doesn't let her be a part of the decision, even though it is a decision that will massively effect her. All the things he tells her about why he needs to be a vampire again after the deal is done - he needed to say that
before he went. If he made a choice for himself and had the respect and courage to tell her about it beforehand then I would be fully supportive of his decision. But doing it in secret shows a fundamental disrespect to Buffy and doing it for her shows a belief that he knows better and has a right to make decisions about her life for her.
And as for him telling her after the fact - that's even worse! She isn't going to remember any of it anyway so why upset her? Why not let her have those last few seconds? He didn't wake her up to kill the demon in order to allow her her moment of normality, so why the change of heart now? He tells her for himself, to share the burden with someone else even if only for a moment. He tells her so he gets a goodbye.
If he doesn't respect her enough to let her be a part of the conversation, or even to not have a discussion but at least tell her outright before the deal is done - then the heroic and noble thing to do after the fact is slap a happy face on and give her one last minute together and never let on that he is anything but as blissfully happy as she is.
What he chooses to do causes her unnecessary pain for absolutely no reason. It is the worst of all possible worlds.
