The dark side

[bespangeled]

Not giving him a pass, like I said, I don't condone his actions at all.
But as far as having a dark side goes: Giles and his gang seemed pretty well aware that what they were doing was dark and destructive; that's what they were into.
Xander genuinely seemed to think he was summoning a happy, non killing, music demon... he was a massive dumbass and I personally think he should have been chastised for it a hell of a lot more than he actually was, but I don't think it was indicating that Xander had darkness deep within him.

Xander gets a pass because he isn't seen as anything but an idiot. I can't give him one because he knew better in each case and still did what was easiest. Even with leaving Anya at the altar - he had doubts and never expressed them, he literally refused to face Anya and left her alone to deal with the aftermath, and then he complained about how miserable he was. His darkness was more in the reckless endangerment because he took chances knowing possible consequences and never took responsibility for his choices.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Did he rescue Oz because he was a friend

No. He rescued him because Buffy said he was good. He didnt know Oz until then. He never knew there could be good monsters.

 

[VisionBoy]

Xander gets a pass because he isn't seen as anything but an idiot. I can't give him one because he knew better in each case and still did what was easiest. Even with leaving Anya at the altar - he had doubts and never expressed them, he literally refused to face Anya and left her alone to deal with the aftermath, and then he complained about how miserable he was.

I guess it depends on how we define darkness... because to me, I don't really see that as darkness, I see it more as weakness and naivety. With darkness I think more along the lines of unnecessary danger seeking and malicious intent.

 

[bespangeled]

You cant murder a blood sucking fiend as they are already dead.

I guess I just have a different definition of dark side.


"Giles took apart Ethan" I dont know to what you are referring. "he killed Ben because" he needed to save the world.
"He also stood by while his slayer was kicked out after calling him on it, and embraced the more insecure and easily led Faith." that doesnt mean he has a dark side, just common sense

"Xander knew what summoning a demon cold result in" I think half the time Xander doesn't know what day of the week it is lest he look at his underwear.
"he pretended not to know" sometimes pretending is easier for someone like Xander. He didnt really excel at speaking his mind. Again, hardly a dark side.

"Buffy tried to kill a human" If it were a normal human I could agree it was a dark side, but it was only Faith. That doesn't count.

"Spike is proably the least culpable" I did not include him on the list for the same reason I did not Angel. You cant really fault a vamp for being a vamp. I mean.. vampires are SUPPOSED to be evil.

Huh? When did I talk about blood sucking fiends?

The Halloween episode. I would say that Giles has darkness inside that peeks out in some situations. I agree and understand why he killed Ben, but it was - according to what he told Ben - because of a danger Ben might become. Keeping Buffy occupied by telling her that she needed to become a general while he was trying to have Spike murdered was pretty dark - and give Spik over for vengeance rather than staking him was also dark. Giles has a strong ruthless streak - he's able to control his darkness and use it but is is there. As for kicking out Buffy, do you really think he would not have done that had Buffy not rejected him the night before?

Doing something that is dangerous and results in deaths is pretty much what Xander does. Either Xander is such an idiot it was a danger for him to be considered a Scooby or he was responsible for the results of his choices but refused to assume that responsibility. I see what you said as the problem, not the excuse. Xander had seen the results of summoning demons more than once. He knew the dangers. He just closed his eyes to that.

Why would Faith not count? Warren did, and he did far worse.

Angel had a soul - a moral compass - and he still ushered Darla and Dru into the room and locked the door. Even he knew he was going dark - it was a deliberate choice, and why he fired everyone. Spike did nothing of his own volition once he was souled. Knowing he could be a danger he was truthful with Buffy and kept himself under her control. 

No. He rescued him because Buffy said he was good. He didnt know Oz until then. He never knew there could be good monsters.

He never knew because he didn't want to know. It was easier to just go along. Even if he changes his mind to please Buffy his choices before that show a darkness. He's much like Xander in that he chooses not recognize any wrongs he committed. There were demons who were not dangerous there. Being complicit in their torture or death is a nice example of the banality of evil. 

I guess it depends on how we define darkness... because to me, I don't really see that as darkness, I see it more as weakness and naivety. With darkness I think more along the lines of unnecessary danger seeking and malicious intent.

I see it a doing evil even if you hide behind naivety - and both Xander and Riley knew or should have known the reality. Here's the question for me - were low level nazis evil even though they claim that they didn't know what was going on? I have a friend whose father was in the SS - she has his picture on the mantel. She says he had no idea that there was anything evil going on. If so then he closed his eyes and did what he chose to do while not taking responsibility.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

As far as dark sides go, I think it does depend on how you define it and what you consider dark. Is it having bad thoughts and acting on them? There's a few characters that I think have a clearer dark side than others. Angel, Faith, Willow and Giles. Angels is a result of his demon I think and constantly dealing with that duality. I wouldn't say that having a dark side means that you have to enjoy the bad things you do. I don't think Angel enjoyed the things he did in s2. Giles doesn't enjoy killing Ben. Willow's dark side comes in the form of power. She wants to be powerful like Buffy or more so. In 'Fear Itself' she says that she's not Buffy's sidekick. When Buffy is resurrected she wants some thanks or it and even threatens Giles. If anyone should be upset that they are under-appreciated it should be Xander, but I don't think he has a clear defined dark side, just moments of stupidity and acts like a douche. With Faith, we see from the first episode that she enjoys slaying a little too much and can be reckless with it. Once she accidentally kills a man because of her actions, she is unable to take responsibility and so she just embraces her dark side. But it was also motivated by the mayor giving her things too.

Anya is difficult. She was a vengeance demon with a soul, so does that mean like Angel, she has a conscience and knows what she is doing is wrong and just doesn't care? She also thinks that she is doing a service to women by punishing their men. So in her mind, it's all justified. I wouldn't say that Anya has a dark side that is separate. Whatever makes her think turning men into trolls is ok, that is just who she is, dark side or not. That seems to be just who Anya is, where I think other times it is a bit more circumstantial.

 

[bespangeled]

Yet Anya is the one who probably did the most evil in her life. And I think they all thought their actions were justified. Even Willow at her darkest was able to justify trying to kill Buffy.

As for Faith - it occurs to me that all slayers have that demon essence, and the job of the slayer may well be to help them direct it. Faith hid while her slayer was killed, even though she seemed to care about her. Then she was betrayed by her next watcher, and finally assigned Wesley. Whether or not her background encouraged acting out - which I really find an almost bigoted assumption - Faith had no reason to give up her power or redirect it. The council and the watchers had done nothing at all to prove themselves trustworthy.

I'd say that Angel really enjoyed everything he did in season 2, until he was re-souled. And putting Dru and Darla in with the lawyers gave him satisfaction at least. In fact I'd say all of them at least got some satisfaction from their choices. But having bad thoughts and acting on them is enough for me.

As for Xander, I see a dark streak from the start but he expresses it in a very passive aggressive way. There are times - more than a few - when he is downright mean, particularly to Cordy. I'm one of the few who holds Xander at least partially responsible for the hyena rape scene. The question to me is, did a hyena try to rape a human, or did Xander try to rape Buffy? Given what he says, I see Xander there. Yes, the hyena took him over, but what he said was pretty much stuff he had said in bits and pieces before. Being possessed gave him the fierceness to act on those thoughts - those thoughts were not given to him by the hyena spirit. .

 

[AnthonyCordova]

All humans have a "dark side", believe that. It's part of the human condition. But it's different for everyone.

But some of the characters from Buffy and Angel actively and continually struggle with a dark side, and some don't.

I'm out on the town, I'll post more later; I really want to. 
And @bespangled you keep saying Angel for S2, and I don't want to rehash that old argument, but I think it is important to distinguish Angel from Angelus. Why else would the show make so much effort to distinguish one from the other? You blur the lines too much on it in my opinion. Angelus killed Jenny, not Angel. But I'm not sure I'm up for another ten rounds on the topic. Not right now, maybe later.

 

[Silverspike]

Thing is the show didn't show any other vamp that felt the need to name his unsouled self and look upon it as a completely separate person. We didn't have a Darlaus did we? I find the whole thing quite badly thought through really.

 

[bespangeled]

All humans have a "dark side", believe that. It's part of the human condition. But it's different for everyone.

But some of the characters from Buffy and Angel actively and continually struggle with a dark side, and some don't.

I'm out on the town, I'll post more later; I really want to. 
And @bespangled you keep saying Angel for S2, and I don't want to rehash that old argument, but I think it is important to distinguish Angel from Angelus. Why else would the show make so much effort to distinguish one from the other? You blur the lines too much on it in my opinion. Angelus killed Jenny, not Angel. But I'm not sure I'm up for another ten rounds on the topic. Not right now, maybe later.

If you want to name the demon part Angelus that's fine. Angel himself doesn't and that surprised me. I can agree the demon was the part that did all the bad things. However, by what Angel said it's obvious that the demon, at this stage, considers itself to be Angel. He doesn't mind the name - he doesn't use another name. He identifies as an entire being, not as being a demon half named Angelus.

So - short answer - demon killed Jenny and did all that bad stuff, and some name/identity question for another thread 

Thing is the show didn't show any other vamp that felt the need to name his unsouled self and look upon it as a completely separate person. We didn't have a Darlaus did we? I find the whole thing quite badly thought through really.

Until recently there was only one souled vampire - and not much known on him.

 

[Firstina]

Darla didn't have ehough time to do anything especially to change her name. Who knows, maybe she would want to, eventually?
And I can't quite recall from which time period Angel started to call himself by this name - was it 70s?
It's only natural to want to change a name - vampires do that after the turning so why not change it after gaining a soul?

 

[nightshade]

Thing is the show didn't show any other vamp that felt the need to name his unsouled self and look upon it as a completely separate person. We didn't have a Darlaus did we? I find the whole thing quite badly thought through really.

Darla couldn't remember what her real name was, maybe if she did know it she might have wanted to use that when she was human

 

[EVIL UU]

Thing is the show didn't show any other vamp that felt the need to name his unsouled self and look upon it as a completely separate person. We didn't have a Darlaus did we?

'Cause Angel's a nutcase.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Since this is not exclusively BtVS, I would say Wesley. Sex with Lilah while Justine was tied up in a closet behind him? Doesn't get much darker than that. Then threatening to take away Justine's bucket? Hope he bought the bucket on MasterCard because as their ads say, that was priceless!

 

[SiegePerilous02]

Thing is the show didn't show any other vamp that felt the need to name his unsouled self and look upon it as a completely separate person. We didn't have a Darlaus did we? I find the whole thing quite badly thought through really.

In the episode "Darla," Darla refers to her human self (first time around) as if she was another person, which is easy to do considering that person had a different name that she no longer remembers. When she's resurrected by Wolfram and Hart, she has a serious identity crisis, and even refers to her vampire self as another identity ("Darla would tear you in half. Is that who I am?"). The seeds for stuff like this are also planted as early as "the Harvest," where Giles tells Xander that Jesse is now a demon wearing a human form and not the boy he remembers. Buffy later tells Ford that a demon sets up shop in his corpse, but it isn't him.

So a distinction is between the souled and unsouled entities is actually consistent with the show's mythology, and not the other way around. Also, outside of season 4, Angel never looks upon Angelus as a completely separate entity, even if logically he wouldn't be entirely wrong in doing so.

 

[thetopher]

I don't see the confusion with the naming thing: Angelus is simply the latin version of Angel- its the same name.

In S2, when all the writers figured that Angel was going to be killed off at the end, they don't make any effort to distinguish between the two versions by name.

Spike calls Angelus 'Angelus' both in 'School Hard' and 'Innocence'. Angelus calls himself 'Angel' in 'Innocence' when he says 'No, I am Angel, at last.' in response to Buffy's pleas. It goes back and forth.

But in S3 and beyond there's a clear distinction in the name calling. Angel and everybody call him Angel and the demon Angelus.

What I found much stranger- we know that Angelus took his 'new' name because that's what Darla did (Darla wasn't her real name in life, simply her vampire name).
But Drusilla, Spike's sire, was always called Drusilla, in life and death.
So when Spike got his soul back he maybe should've started calling himself 'William' a bit more, or at least something to distinguish himself from the murderous demon 'Spike' he once was.

 

[white avenger]

But in S3 and beyond there's a clear distinction in the name calling. Angel and everybody call him Angel and the demon Angelus.

So when Spike got his soul back he maybe should've started calling himself 'William' a bit more, or at least something to distinguish himself from the murderous demon 'Spike' he once was.

There was time for Spike's gradual evolution from the Slayer killing monster in "School Hard" to the man who Buffy chose to wear the amulet in "Chosen." There really wasn't any reason for a name change. We knew who he was, we knew what he had done, so it was pretty much accepted, at least by the majority of the fans. With Angel in "Loss of Innocence," there had to be a sudden, dramatic change. One minute, he's Buffy's love interest, the next, he's the Season Big Bad, with a mission to destroy the world. Putting an "us" on the end of his name simply made it easier to differentiate between what were in essence two totally different characters, and it also made it easier for the fans to not hold Angel responsible for what Angelus had done.

 

[bespangeled]

There was time for Spike's gradual evolution from the Slayer killing monster in "School Hard" to the man who Buffy chose to wear the amulet in "Chosen." There really wasn't any reason for a name change. We knew who he was, we knew what he had done, so it was pretty much accepted, at least by the majority of the fans. With Angel in "Loss of Innocence," there had to be a sudden, dramatic change. One minute, he's Buffy's love interest, the next, he's the Season Big Bad, with a mission to destroy the world. Putting an "us" on the end of his name simply made it easier to differentiate between what were in essence two totally different characters, and it also made it easier for the fans to not hold Angel responsible for what Angelus had done.

But Angel didn't put an (us) there. The demon didn't recognize any difference - it truly believed this was the real Angel, and the soul was a handicap. I believe it was Giles who made the distinction - Angelus is back.

 

[white avenger]

But Angel didn't put an (us) there. The demon didn't recognize any difference - it truly believed this was the real Angel, and the soul was a handicap. I believe it was Giles who made the distinction - Angelus is back.

Of course not. The "us" on the end of his name was just a literary device that the writers used to differentiate between the two personas.

In fact, I think that I recall Giles saying something about "Angel, the monster with the angelic face" right after it was revealed that he was a vampire. No "us" attached to his name at that point in Season 1. It didn't come about until Season 2.

 

[bespangeled]

Of course not. The "us" on the end of his name was just a literary device that the writers used to differentiate between the two personas.

In fact, I think that I recall Giles saying something about "Angel, the monster with the angelic face" right after it was revealed that he was a vampire. No "us" attached to his name at that point in Season 1. It didn't come about until Season 2.

Doylist! Angel cam with one tension - the fact that he could lose his soul. They had to make a much bigger separation in AtS - hence Angelus and Angel. As far as Watsonian goes, the AtS crew needed the facade of complete separation.