The Three Faces

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Nikkolas

Glory/Dawn Shipper.......
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The two most prominent vampires on Buffy are of course Angel and Spike. Comparing and contrasting them is inevitable.

William, Soulless Spike, and Ensouled Spike are all basically the same person. They vary in their level of evilness but they don't vary much at all in personality.

Then there's Liam, Angelus, and Angel.

Liam was...just kind of a guy. The result of his father's lifetime of abuse, he acted out like many people would. Drinking, whoring, brawling. "If I'm such a disappointment, I'll BE a disappointment." There's nothing to indicate any really remarkable qualities like intelligence.

Then we get to Angelus. Angelus the cerebral manipulator. The charismatic showman. The pinnacle of evil who, according to Angel, only ever killed for the pleasure of killing. He was an artist of cruelty.

And finally, we have Angel. Loner. A man who prefers to spend time in the dark. Even when he has friends and loved ones, I think I'd still characterize him as an introvert. Hè's certainly not a spotlight hog like Angelus. If Angelus is the epitome of selfishness, Angel is the opposite. He will gladly give up his happiness for others. From a pinnacle of evil to a (literal) Champion of Good.


Some people want to say there are underlying similarities between all three, or at least two. Maybe. Are Liam, Angelus, and Angel still basically identical in personality like Spike? No. Absolutely not. There is a clear partition between the three of them, not seamless continuity.

I just always wondered why.
 
Its a good topic and one always fun to discuss. Especially Liam vs Angel.

Nikkolas said:
And finally, we have Angel. Loner. A man who prefers to spend time in the dark. Even when he has friends and loved ones, I think I'd still characterize him as an introvert. Hè's certainly not a spotlight hog like Angelus. If Angelus is the epitome of selfishness, Angel is the opposite. He will gladly give up his happiness for others. From a pinnacle of evil to a (literal) Champion of Good.
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I'd call him as a masochist. Especially looking at the catholic life of Liam, his whole existence as Angel seems to be self flagellation for past wrongs, including the past wrongs of Angelus. Perhaps punishing himself for the sins of his flesh, when his own soul was not in charge.
 
Angel owes a lot to Angel Fantasy, as the character was apparently going to be a Fallen Angel looking for redemption to get back into heaven. So, there is a heavy Catholic influence in that type of literature.

Regarding Spike, you can make a good argument that Spike represents a Protestant idea of redemption, but in all likelihood, the writers wrote themselves into a corner, and making Spike less of a monster, but still the wacky amoral neighborhood we all kinda don't hate, mostly?
 
I would say what all three faces of Angel have in common is a high intelligence. However, I'm just assuming it in the case of Liam, because he was too drunk to know for sure. Between Angelus and Angel is an intelligence being used for evil vs. good.

No question, though, that there is a big difference between Angel's facets and Spike's. I think maybe it's because, in becoming a vampire, William is given what he wants, to seem fearsome and cool. Liam, on the other hand, is still pursuing his desire to be as horrible as he can be. Angelus has more to prove (to himself or his father), Spike doesn't.

It may also be about their women. Darla goads Angelus to ever greater acts of evil, whereas Drusilla more just needs to be protected.

I also agree with @AlphaFoxtrot that Catholic vs. Protestant is a factor.
 
When it comes to Angel, I don't think he has really changed in terms of intelligence, it's just a matter of experience, maturity and wisdom.

Liam was a bum who never cared to make any effort and try being a good person, he was just an immature young man who reveled in living a pointless life and partying constantly. That's often what young people do, they just want to enjoy life and short-term pleasures without really thinking about their future.

Angelus was basically just an amoral, confident version of young Liam who cared about making people suffer, so he made a conscious effort to be a master of evil. He tried hard for the first time in his life, but for the wrong reasons.

Angel is essentially Liam, but an experienced, responsible and mature version of Liam who learnt from his mistakes and lives with constant remorse. It's not really surprising that he's so different from his human version because that's what happens to people in life, we change a lot as we grow older and gain life experience. And Angel lived for centuries. As you gain maturity and wisdom, you try harder, you avoid making the same mistakes and you appear to be more intelligent as a result. It's espcially true for Angel because his mistakes are bigger than anyone else's, so he tries harder than anyone else (but for the right reasons, this time). He's what human Liam could have been if he had the chance to live and grow as a person.

As for Spike, it's true that his soulless version and his ensouled version are very similar (due to season 7's bad writing), but I wouldn't say William is similar to them. Spike is an edgy, vulgar, impulsive thug who gets his kick from sex and violence. William was calm, sweet and sensitive. And that's probably why he turned the way he did as a vampire: he felt humiliated because of the way his peers treated him and he became the very opposite of what he was as a human. The only common trait between his different versions is his ability to love because that's the thing he values the most. Angel never valued anything in particular and that's probably why evil became his whole world as Angelus.

When it comes to the reason Ensouled Spike is so similar to Soulless Spike, the only explanation I can think of is that Spike was always more accepting of his past and mistakes, compared to Angel. I think the most telling evidence of that is the way he acted toward Wood when he found out he killed his mother: she was a Slayer, he was a vampire, she knew the rules. This encapsulates his whole perspective. Ensouled Spike is remorseful, but he has a simpler, more practical view when it comes to good and evil, so he doesn't really feel the need to act differently and distance himself from his soulless version as much as possible. He did terrible things, but he can't do anything about it, he was what he was and he can now do good without going out of his way to prove to himself he's different.
 
I would say there is a definite difference between William and both Spikes, although Spike is something William could have easily been turned into, even without becoming a vampire. However, vampirism gave him the power being human could not. I could see William, if Dru was not there, after Cecily's abuse turning to dark magic.

Spike, both souled and unsouled, was a narcissistic sociopath. It wasn't so much being accepting of his past as being unable to see he did anything wrong. It took seeing hell (with a soul) and having his hands chopped off for him to start treating others as being more than just things there to serve his own needs, seeing that they were people in and of themselves (there was the, extremely occasional, glimpse of this at times, such as in "Family"; perhaps a relic of William).
 
William and Soulless Spike differ greatly but that is because Soulless Spike is partially an affectation. But Soulless Spike goes after what he wants while William is hesitant about it
 
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