What is the most 'evil' thing that Angel does?

[Mr Trick]

No - it's part of the script - the Thessulac intensifies the normal human feelings. Yes, they had all the normal range of feelings and insecurities but this was a feedback loop designed to make the paranoia turn into hatred and violence.

Thesulac: "Well, I don't know about you (laughs) but I'm stuffed! God I love people! - Don’t' you? (Laughs) they feed me their worst and I kind of serve it right back to them, and the fear and prejudice turns to certainty and hate, and I take another bite and mmm-mmm-mmm! (Laughs) What a beautiful, beautiful dance! (Moves down from the landing towards Angel) Oh, you got your feelings hurt, didn't you? See now what happens when you stick your neck out for them? They throw a rope around it! (Angel starts to walk towards the door) And you thought you'd made a friend. News flash! You *had*! (Angel stops but doesn't turn around) That's what made her the *yummiest* morsel of all. (Laughs) You reached her, buddy! Restored her faith in people. Without you she would have been just another appetizer. But you plumped her up good! Now, she's a meal that's gonna last me a lifetime! (Laughs then drifts closer towards Angel's back) Hey, you know what? There is an entire hotel here just full of tortured souls that could really use your help. - What do you say?"
We hear some indistinct whispering, then nothing but the sound of the demons tentacles whipping back and forth as it waits for Angel's answer.
Angel without turning around: "Take them all."

They humans were as much under the influence of the demon, as Angel was under the influence of his. At least he knew what was going on - they didn't. But Angel was as vulnerable to the Thessulac as they were. He looked for a way to kill the demon, but once Judy turned against him - even knowing what was going on and why she did - he acted on his own worst impulses, instead of doing what was right.

Wesley: "The hotel officially closed its doors on December 16th 1979. On that morning the concierge, Roland Meeks, made his morning wake-up calls with a twelve gauge shotgun, room to room. It's been empty ever since."

The hotel closed in 1979 - and Angel was there in 1952. That's 27 years worth of murder he could have prevented with gasoline and a match.

Did he though? I agree he may have known that something was a foot, but I'm not totally convinced that he knew the details per say, at least not before the demon revealed himself to Angel post-lynching. I still think blaming in on demon mind control/powers is passing the buck. If the demon is drawing on already existing human emotions then the humans themselves have to take some responisbility.

 

[white avenger]

The hotel closed in 1979 - and Angel was there in 1952. That's 27 years worth of murder he could have prevented with gasoline and a match.

A lot of people either forget or overlook this entirely. Angel didn't just leave the people who had tried to hang him there in the demon's power, but also every person who came to the hotel from that point until it closed, almost 30 years later, people who had done him no harm whatsoever. Men, women, and children who he never so much as met, had their lives destroyed because of his actions that day.

Still not as bad in scale as Twilight, but terrible, all the same.

 

[Mr Trick]

A lot of people either forget or overlook this entirely. Angel didn't just leave the people who had tried to hang him there in the demon's power, but also every person who came to the hotel from that point until it closed, almost 30 years later, people who had done him no harm whatsoever. Men, women, and children who he never so much as met, had their lives destroyed because of his actions that day.

Still not as bad in scale as Twilight, but terrible, all the same.

This is fairer crique, but my only question is that didn't he leave pretty much after the Lynching incident? Was he even around for any of those deaths? Like I said in a previous post there is nothing he could have done to have got rid of demon or stopped him. And another thing why didn't hotel close post-the original events if there had been all these deaths and the owner at the time didn'r survie?

 

[Iwearthecheese]

Then Faith should have staked Angel. Faith is a complex character, and I love the way she and Angel are together. Bit I can't whitewash either of them. If her chosen way of gaining redemption is jail, then having her choose never to go back is kind of important.

Faith went to jail as penance- very much like Angel moping for a hundred years or Willow willingly going with Giles to England at the end of S6, but then she helps Angel and has another choice; to just die or to try and set things right because 'her time is never up' and she has more work to do.

So she fights back, stops Connor from killing Angel and follows Willow into another apocalypse simply when asked. Then she goes to work a the nearest hellmouth after.
This is active atonement, like Angel going to Sunnydale in S1, Spike putting on his coat and going to fight demons instead of avoiding them, Willow having the courage to cast her biggest spell ever.
Just because it isn't a BIG moment doesn't mean it isn't acknowledged or swept away.

Faith paid for what she did and then went on to try and balance out the scales- my point is that most characters on the show (especially by S7) entirely skip the penance part and go straight onto the second part 'oop I messed up, that won't happen again I'm all better now, Sorry!'.
Faith should get credit for knowing full well the magnitude of the wrongs she commited, getting herself better so it won't happen again and then doing the right thing simply because its right; no reward, no welcoming back into the fold, no acceptance, no real forgivness to speak of, and not that much credit to be honest.

Anyway, this is a topic about Angel so I'll leave it there, but I might start a thread (My first!) 🙂
 

Angel didn't just leave the people who had tried to hang him there in the demon's power, but also every person who came to the hotel from that point until it closed, almost 30 years later, people who had done him no harm whatsoever. Men, women, and children who he never so much as met, had their lives destroyed because of his actions that day.

Isn't there a difference there between action and simply inaction? I understand Angel's inaction here- he'd just been called a monster by the woman he tried to help and 'murdered' by a mob of 'iinfluenced' individuals.
Walking away from something can be seen as evil but most of the time its not.
I mean, Buffy 'allowing' Angelus to run rampant from 'Innocence' through to 'Belonging Part 2' or Buffy compleely walking away from her calling in S2- was those evil acts? Are all the deaths caused by vampires over those months on Buffy? (I could make that argument but I wouldn't call it evil)

What about her choice to sacrifice herself in S5? Buffy knew that no new slayer would be called and Faith was in jail. One could say that she was being selfish leaving the world without a mystical protector because she couldn't survive without her sister. Was that an evil act? Knowing that evil would go unchecked without her there (we saw that the Scoobies were a poor substitute).

No, it wasn't. It was understandable. Same here imv.

 

[bespangeled]

Nope, Season 7.

Oh - the conversation went from Twilight to Spike being triggered - got confused

There isn't any such thing as mind-rape.

Everyone had made their choice before Angel took their memories of Connor away. And like I've said before there's no evidence that Angel did that or asked for that. More likely that W&H made it a condition of Connor's release.

Not in our universe. And I find plenty of evidence so we disagree.

Uh, some people I'm guessing. There are such things as 'informed choices', people who know or are told the risks/consequences of something. How else do people make complex moral choices?

So no one told him what could happen, and he never thought it through?

Did he though? I agree he may have known that something was a foot, but I'm not totally convinced that he knew the details per say, at least not before the demon revealed himself to Angel post-lynching. I still think blaming in on demon mind control/powers is passing the buck. If the demon is drawing on already existing human emotions then the humans themselves have to take some responisbility.

He went to the bookstore - found out what the demon was and what it did - got all the materials he needed to get rid of the demon - and had them in a bag when the crowd lynched him. He knew what the demon was and what it did. It's how he had the supplies and knowledge to kill it when he took over the hotel. It was why he turned on the electricity - the lightening strike.

Angel: "No! - This Thesulac demon, how do I kill it?"
Denver: "You don't. You run away from it."
Angel: "There's got to be a way to kill it."
Denver: "Well, - first you got to make it fat - corporeal. But that only happens after it's had a nice big feed - or if you raise it, but *that's* tricky and dangerous."
Angel: "How?"
Denver: "The incantation's there in the book, but you're gonna need an orb of Ramjarin. Now I have one I can let you have for cheap."
Angel: "For free."
Denver goes to get it: "For free. (Sets the orb next to Angel) Uh, you'll also need (adds them to the orb) sacred herbs - divining powder (adds that) and - something really big to hit it with."
Angel: "And that'll kill it?"
Denver looking around his shelves: "Well, it might. Wouldn't hurt to have a lightning strike, you know, finger of heaven kind of thing. But short of that (pulls out a fighting ax) I'd go with something big and heavy."
Angle takes the ax: "Pack it up."
Denver as he bags the supplies: "A vampire wanting to slay a demon in order to help some grubby humans? I just don't get it."
Angel grabbing the bag: "To be honest, I'm not sure I do either."


This was a moment of choice - whether he would do the moral thing even though the humans attacked him. He could react with his emotions, or with moral conviction but he wasn't there yet. It was his first chance at redemption, and he almost made it. But he didn't - he wasn't strong enough to overpower the Thessulac as it mocked him, and inflamed his own insecurities and anger. There is human responsibility for human emotions - and those emotions are shown in all their ugliness - but what the Thessulac can and did do is canon. He took in their feelings, amplified them, and fed them back. It was a feedback loop that increased with each cycle.

The symmetry is in the fact that where he failed before, he now turned that failure into a force for good. Angel's path was not an easy path - he had to learn the hard way.

This is fairer crique, but my only question is that didn't he leave pretty much after the Lynching incident? Was he even around for any of those deaths? Like I said in a previous post there is nothing he could have done to have got rid of demon or stopped him. And another thing why didn't hotel close post-the original events if there had been all these deaths and the owner at the time didn'r survie?

He was completely prepared to kill the demon. Even if he couldn't, gasoline - match - pounding on doors to warn people to leave. He might not have been able to kill the demon, but he could have saved the people.

 

[white avenger]

Isn't there a difference there between action and simply inaction? I understand Angel's inaction here- he'd just been called a monster by the woman he tried to help and 'murdered' by a mob of 'influenced' individuals.
Walking away from something can be seen as evil but most of the time its not.
I mean, Buffy 'allowing' Angelus to run rampant from 'Innocence' through to 'Belonging Part 2' or Buffy completely walking away from her calling in S2- was those evil acts?

The original question was about Angel's actions, not Buffy's, but, yes, Buffy's inaction in not stopping Angelus because of her personal feelings for his ensouled counterpart should place at least some of the responsibility for the resultant deaths on her, just as Xander should be held responsible for the deaths caused in "Once More With Feeling," and Willow should answer for her crimes in Season 6. The Buffyverse abounds with crimes gone unpunished simply because the perpetrators were the stars of the shows.

 

[Mr Trick]

Oh - the conversation went from Twilight to Spike being triggered - got confused



Not in our universe. And I find plenty of evidence so we disagree.



So no one told him what could happen, and he never thought it through?



He went to the bookstore - found out what the demon was and what it did - got all the materials he needed to get rid of the demon - and had them in a bag when the crowd lynched him. He knew what the demon was and what it did. It's how he had the supplies and knowledge to kill it when he took over the hotel. It was why he turned on the electricity - the lightening strike.

Angel: "No! - This Thesulac demon, how do I kill it?"
Denver: "You don't. You run away from it."
Angel: "There's got to be a way to kill it."
Denver: "Well, - first you got to make it fat - corporeal. But that only happens after it's had a nice big feed - or if you raise it, but *that's* tricky and dangerous."
Angel: "How?"
Denver: "The incantation's there in the book, but you're gonna need an orb of Ramjarin. Now I have one I can let you have for cheap."
Angel: "For free."
Denver goes to get it: "For free. (Sets the orb next to Angel) Uh, you'll also need (adds them to the orb) sacred herbs - divining powder (adds that) and - something really big to hit it with."
Angel: "And that'll kill it?"
Denver looking around his shelves: "Well, it might. Wouldn't hurt to have a lightning strike, you know, finger of heaven kind of thing. But short of that (pulls out a fighting ax) I'd go with something big and heavy."
Angle takes the ax: "Pack it up."
Denver as he bags the supplies: "A vampire wanting to slay a demon in order to help some grubby humans? I just don't get it."
Angel grabbing the bag: "To be honest, I'm not sure I do either."


This was a moment of choice - whether he would do the moral thing even though the humans attacked him. He could react with his emotions, or with moral conviction but he wasn't there yet. It was his first chance at redemption, and he almost made it. But he didn't - he wasn't strong enough to overpower the Thessulac as it mocked him, and inflamed his own insecurities and anger. There is human responsibility for human emotions - and those emotions are shown in all their ugliness - but what the Thessulac can and did do is canon. He took in their feelings, amplified them, and fed them back. It was a feedback loop that increased with each cycle.

The symmetry is in the fact that where he failed before, he now turned that failure into a force for good. Angel's path was not an easy path - he had to learn the hard way.



He was completely prepared to kill the demon. Even if he couldn't, gasoline - match - pounding on doors to warn people to leave. He might not have been able to kill the demon, but he could have saved the people.[/QUOTE]


Okay, I'm going to sound like the dumb guy outside of the movie theater who couldn't keep track of the plot here😀 But I thought that Angel going to the bookstore
was in the present part of the story, and that is how he was able to do the right thing later, or at the very least he was ready with the help of Gunn, Wes and Cordy. I mean would that bookstore the guy had been there all 50 years before?😱

Damn, if your right about this point I might just have to conceed defeat and admit that Angel is an unredeemable jack arse!😉

 

[bespangeled]

@Mr. Trick - Okay, I'm going to sound like the dumb guy outside of the movie theater who couldn't keep track of the plot here😀 But I thought that Angel going to the bookstore
was in the present part of the story, and that is how he was able to do the right thing later, or at the very least he was ready with the help of Gunn, Wes and Cordy. I mean would that bookstore the guy had been there all 50 years before?😱

Damn, if your right about this point I might just have to conceed defeat and admit that Angel is an unredeemable jack arse!😉

Nope - wearing the wife beater, and carrying the bag when he got back to the hotel.

Cut back to the past, downtown Hollywood, night.
A bookstore owner is sitting listening to a radio program with a laugh-track.
Denver: "They keep calling her a zany redhead. Could be a brunette for all *I* can tell. I guess I'll just have to take their word for it."
He looks up and there is Angel standing on the other side of the counter.
Angel: "You Denver?"
Denver: "No other cat but me. What can I do you for?"
Angel: "I need information on demons."
Denver gets up and walks around the counter: "Do you now, daddy?"

Flashback - very much. But he isn't irredeemable - just was not ready yet for redemption yet. 😉

 

[Mr Trick]

But then how is the bookstore owner still around in 2000 LA? Angel revists him in another episode😉 I might just have to watch the episode again, which I don't mind because it is great!🙂

 

[bespangeled]

But then how is the bookstore owner still around in 2000 LA? Angel revists him in another episode😉 I might just have to watch the episode again, which I don't mind because it is great!🙂

No idea - but he did know about magic and demons - and I believe he was much older. I can't see why someone with a knowledge of how to do spells wouldn't be able to slow their own aging process.

Enjoy - I wouldn't know as much if I wasn't doing my own rewatch! The more I find the context, the more I love this one.

 

[thetopher]

Not in our universe.

Unless in this other universe 'rape' means something other than something sexual then no, it isn't rape of any sort. Words have meanings.
'A violation of somebody's mind' is still a bad thing, but I suppose it doesn't have the emotive heft of 'mind-rape' I get that, but its still an inaccure term.

So no one told him what could happen, and he never thought it through?

You asked if anybody is ever really informed. I happen to think there are degrees of culpability in the choices we all make. Agree to disagree maybe.

 

[Iwearthecheese]

The original question was about Angel's actions, not Buffy's, but, yes, Buffy's inaction in not stopping Angelus because of her personal feelings for his ensouled counterpart should place at least some of the responsibility for the resultant deaths on her, just as Xander should be held responsible for the deaths caused in "Once More With Feeling," and Willow should answer for her crimes in Season 6.

But you said it was an 'evil act' and equated it with Twilight (an actual evil act) which seems harsh. Inaction in not in the same league as action. It can be seen as a sort of moral cowardice or character weakness or, at best malicious but its not, really, evil.

Angel is somewhat culpable for the deaths in the 50'- its why he's got his own show about redeeming his past failings and trying to do good- but it wasn't an evil act imv.
Julie called him a monster, just like the gypsies did when he first became aware of himself and his actions, just like Darla did, just like that girl he attacked in the alley, just like the US government called him in the 40's when they used him for their own ends.

Now if he hadn't been betrayed, beaten up and 'murdered' but instead had known the extent of what was happening and said 'nothing to do with me' as he walked away, that would've been moral cowardice.

 

[white avenger]

But you said it was an 'evil act' and equated it with Twilight (an actual evil act) which seems harsh

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmond Burke

By not stopping the demon, or even attempting to rescue its victims, when actually knowing what the consequences of his inaction would be , Angel allowed an act of evil to continue. That makes him, at the very least, an accessory after the fact.

 

[RomanticSoul]

A lot of people either forget or overlook this entirely. Angel didn't just leave the people who had tried to hang him there in the demon's power, but also every person who came to the hotel from that point until it closed, almost 30 years later, people who had done him no harm whatsoever. Men, women, and children who he never so much as met, had their lives destroyed because of his actions that day.

Still not as bad in scale as Twilight, but terrible, all the same.

Well then were was the Slayer? Where was the Watchers Council? Where were the PTB? Where were other supernatural beings whose duty is to fight evil? They could have stopped this as well. So where were they?

 

[bespangeled]

Unless in this other universe 'rape' means something other than something sexual then no, it isn't rape of any sort. Words have meanings.
'A violation of somebody's mind' is still a bad thing, but I suppose it doesn't have the emotive heft of 'mind-rape' I get that, but its still an inaccure term.

A hostile invasion doing permanent and irreparable damage committed for personal gain with no regard as to how it will effect the victim...to plunder or despoil is one of the meanings of rape.
( Rape dictionary definition | rape defined )

de·spoil
dəˈspoil/
steal or violently remove valuable or attractive possessions from; plunder.

Done by Angel:
CORDELIA
Where is Connor? Why did Gunn ask—

ANGEL
(walks into the living room)
They don't remember him. It's part of my agreement to take this job. The senior partners altered reality. They gave Connor a life, a real family, and a childhood. Something I could never give him. He's got no memories of us. And no one remembers him.
(sits on a chair arm)
Except me and you. And Eve, for some reason.

CORDELIA
So, not only did you strike a deal with your worst enemy to give up your son, you let them rape the memories of your friends who trust you?

ANGEL
He was about to kill you. And himself. He was so torn up. I didn't have any other way to stop him, any way to help him.

Interesting that Cordelia uses the term rape. Either she uses it colloquially, or she needs to learn that words have meanings.😉

You asked if anybody is ever really informed. I happen to think there are degrees of culpability in the choices we all make. Agree to disagree maybe.

You originally said - Again, Angel made a choice without knowing all the consequences or costs.
My point is that in this type of situation it is impossible to know all the consequences and costs. There is no one who can explain them - there is no previous experience exactly like it. He did know that they were evil, ruthless, and unpredictable - and they desperately wanted him to go dark. He also did have the life experience to know that he was going into this blind and that there would be costs. He made that decision plus the decision to have his friend's minds plundered and despoiled in order to get what he wanted. I can't see how he could be less culpable on the grounds that he didn't know what the future held.

Julie called him a monster, just like the gypsies did when he first became aware of himself and his actions, just like Darla did, just like that girl he attacked in the alley, just like the US government called him in the 40's when they used him for their own ends.

Yup - Judy did all that. Was that reason enough to let so many people die? Would the Angel of today do the same thing - because to me this is how the person we know as Angel evolved. That 100 years alone and disconnected had to be incredibly painful. I realize this - but it doesn't excuse mass murder.

Now if he hadn't been betrayed, beaten up and 'murdered' but instead had known the extent of what was happening and said 'nothing to do with me' as he walked away, that would've been moral cowardice.

He knew exactly what was happening - what the demon was, what the demon did, and why the people were behaving as they were. He just didn't care - and I think that was at least in part the effect the demon had on him. That was Angel in 1952 - that was part of his journey. To excuse allowing/encouraging mass murder on the grounds that someone called him names and people tried to hurt him is not something Angel would do in the present. Angel is fallible, but he is all about redemption - not ignoring or excusing the evil he did.

I love Angel - he fascinates me. That's why I don't whitewash or excuse his choices. To me he's not nearly as interesting when he is stuffed in a hero suit.

 

[thetopher]

A hostile invasion doing permanent and irreparable damage committed for personal gain with no regard as to how it will effect the victim...to plunder or despoil is one of the meanings of rape.

The term 'rape and pillage' is a common one to distingush between two different types of action. One is rape- sexual violation and the other is pillage, as in despoil possesions and property.

Mind-rape in not a thing, no matter how much you twist dictioiary definitions when there are other perfectly good words that describe what was done.
Again if you're trying to be accurate and not emotive.

Interesting that Cordelia uses the term rape.

I prefer Tara's 'how could you violate my mind like that'. More accurate and Tara was an actual victim of memory stealing, whislt Cordy was just an observer.

He made that decision plus the decision to have his friend's minds plundered and despoiled in order to get what he wanted.

I see no evidence that Angel said that or made that decision, that was merely the consequence of his deal with W&H. More likely that W&H took those memories because its in their nature to do that sort of thing, it's not in Angel's. But again, agree to disagree.

 

[bespangeled]

The term 'rape and pillage' is a common one to distingush between two different types of action. One is rape- sexual violation and the other is pillage, as in despoil possesions and property.

Mind-rape in not a thing, no matter how much you twist dictioiary definitions when there are other perfectly good words that describe what was done.
Again if you're trying to be accurate and not emotive.

Twist dictionary definitions? 🙄
Sorry - I think that people interpret dictionary definitions, not twist them. Your interpretation is different from mine - that doesn't mean you have twisted it to suit your purpose. Since the term rape - in regard to the removal of memories without consent - is actually used in the series, I have no reason to twist definitions. I did try to explain why I saw that as a valid choice by the writers. I am being accurate and not emotive here - the writer's chose the word, probably because there are strong connotations, but I can see you don't like the choice they made.

I prefer Tara's 'how could you violate my mind like that'. More accurate and Tara was an actual victim of memory stealing, whislt Cordy was just an observer.

Cordelia calls it as she sees it and she calls it rape - Tara ends to be more circumspect so she calls it violation. But then again, Tara knows what happened and is able to take action and remove herself from the person who chose to violate her mind. Wesley, Fred and Gunn have no idea that their memories were - as Cordelia says - raped. Since they don't know what happened then they can't take action, can't even see the evil done to them by someone they trust.

I see no evidence that Angel said that or made that decision, that was merely the consequence of his deal with W&H. More likely that W&H took those memories because its in their nature to do that sort of thing, it's not in Angel's. But again, agree to disagree.

I can't say whether it was at Angel's instigation or W&H - but either way there was a choice. Angel agreed to it. He told Cordelia that he didn't have any other way to stop or help Connor. He allowed it to happen in order to serve his own interests, and he hid it from the victims. To me this is a key point because it shows that as soon as W&H found the right bait, Angel gave them everything they wanted. He was corrupted just by making that choice.

Perhaps Fred, Gunn and Wes would never have had buyers remorse - they never had a chance to find out though because their loss of memory created a separate reality for them. Again - accurate, not emotive, using canon.

WESLEY
Reality's being changed.

ILLYRIA
Define change. The world is as it is.

WESLEY
Not necessarily.

ILLYRIA
You are a summation of recollections. Each change is simply a point of experience.

WESLEY
We are more than just memories.

ILLYRIA
And yet Fred changed the moment her memory did.

WESLEY
(shocked)
Fred's memories were changed?

ILLYRIA
In places.

WESLEY
Can you see what they were before?

ILLYRIA
No.
They're gone.
(Wes grabs a file out of the drawer and stands to read it)
Does this change your view of Fred? Is she still the person you thought she was?

WESLEY
(his jaw drops as he reads the file)
No. None of us are.

 

[white avenger]

Well then were was the Slayer? Where was the Watchers Council? Where were the PTB? Where were other supernatural beings whose duty is to fight evil? They could have stopped this as well. So where were they?

None of those beings or organizations had direct knowledge of the situation as far as we know, so they are no more responsible for what happened in the Hyperion Hotel than they were responsible for any other demonic attack in the world where they were not present or had forewarning that it was going to happen. Angel definitely knew what was going to happen, he had the ability to stop it, and he walked away rather than interfere. Furthermore, he made, as far as we know, no effort to even report it to any of those groups or individuals who would have probably tried to do something. That makes him at least partially responsible for everything that happened.

 

[RomanticSoul]

None of those beings or organizations had direct knowledge of the situation as far as we know, so they are no more responsible for what happened in the Hyperion Hotel than they were responsible for any other demonic attack in the world where they were not present or had forewarning that it was going to happen. Angel definitely knew what was going to happen, he had the ability to stop it, and he walked away rather than interfere. Furthermore, he made, as far as we know, no effort to even report it to any of those groups or individuals who would have probably tried to do something. That makes him at least partially responsible for everything that happened.

Last I checked the PTB are on a higher plane seeing pretty much everything that happens on Earth. And they can certainly influence where a slayer goes(see Buffy). The Watchers Council knows witches, they are after all the ones who sensed Willow's power and juiced up Giles.

If you pay attention to the episode, not every person that has ever stayed in the hotel died. There are a few deaths here and there but not hundreds every year, otherwise the hotel would have been out of business long before it was. And that's because only those who give into their fears, that little devil on their shoulder, are the ones that die or kill. But all the demon does is to act as that little devil, the people retain their free will through it all. They have a choice and they chose to act on those fears, whether it's to blow their own brains out or to hang a man. Angel's opinion of himself and humanity wasn't very high at that point, and him helping someone only to be betrayed and the other hotel guests so easily giving into their fears and hanging someone, why bother saving them (and most of them didn't die because we see the reports). They couldn't even be bothered to at least try to save themselves by not giving into that little devil.

 

[Iwearthecheese]

By not stopping the demon, or even attempting to rescue its victims, when actually knowing what the consequences of his inaction would be , Angel allowed an act of evil to continue. That makes him, at the very least, an accessory after the fact.

Okay, so if Angel is evil in 1950 then Buffy is ten times evil-er in 1998, simple as that.
At least Angel has the excuse that he thought he was a monster and didn't know to be any better. He didn't know what he was even.
Buffy was the chosen one, selected by destiny to fight the forces of darkness and she gave up twice (or possibly three times)- knowing full well the consequences of her inaction. She knew better but didn't care a bit. People died because of her, she didn't do her job.
If you think that makes Buffy evil then I guess I can see that.

Yup - Judy did all that. Was that reason enough to let so many people die?

Judy is also a murderer since she had Angel 'killed' (she didn't know that it wouldn't work, done of the mob did). So boo-hoo if she ended up feeling bad about it.
She is as much to blame as enabling the Thesulac as Angel is, since she turned on the one person who was helping her and she knew it was wrong.
In fact alomsot all the mob did as soon as they'd hung Angel, so I don't think they were under that much control. Influence sure, but they sure changed their minds after- so not control.

I realize this - but it doesn't excuse mass murder.

I'm not excusing mass murder, but Angel didn't kill anybody. There is a distinction.
Did Buffy commit mass murder when she left Sunnydale at the end of Season 2?
No, she simply got fed up with her lot and left. Angel did the exact same thing.

I love Angel - he fascinates me. That's why I don't whitewash or excuse his choices.

Oh, I loathe Angel and what he becomes. He's scum. Yeah he's interesting but i can't stand him in later seasons. I sympathize with the start of his journey precisely because he doesn't make excuses for his choices. He does that alot the time later.
I don't white-wash a single character, but I do hold them to the same standard whether i like them or not.