When Angel gets happy...

But isn't it odd, then, that kumshucking Buffy did result in perfect happiness, when the not-so-little anxiety factor called The Judge was out and about at the same time?

Well, if you think about it he was completely in love with Buffy. Not like the other two. Plus, he hadn't *ahem* kumshucked for about 100 years or so. I think that one might have been extra-special and mindwipey.
 
It's possible that he has to be directly worried about the thing giving him happiness in order to keep him from having perfect happiness. Sure, the Judge was running around, but at that moment, he was with Buffy and content and happy and not worried about losing his soul. So . . . poof! Soul gone.


Though I think having everything around him solves makes it easier. Remember Awakening? He didn't only do it with Cordy, before that he settled pretty much all the matters that were still hanging there losely...killing the beast, making up with Connor, something with Weasley (sorry, it's early, can't be bothered with remembering what exactly was going on there)
 
There is some good debate on this board about this... but no one will change my mind - he could only have achieved perfect happiness with Buffy end of story! 😛 I don't think he would (or should) have had happiness with Cordy because the only person he truly loved was Buffy. That doesn't mean that he can't still have relations with other people in the mean time 😉

I dunno what would have happened if he and Buffy hooked up a second time.... In my mind they will end up back together eventually so there has gotta be some way.. I'm still thinking that one through.

Although I do wonder, does Buffy being a virgin before Angel factor into it at all?
 
Tueuse de Vampires
Tueuse de Vampires
lol only truely loved Buffy? Get out of here :p
S
Superstar
Hey, good point on the virginity. Sex and blood. Now if Buffy had just been a Nun as well...
L
Lou
Darn Bangel people! To think, one small hang up ruins SO MANY perfectly fabulous people on these boards! Where's Glory with the Brain Sucking when you need her? And I really love Aussie!
To start off I am an avid Bangel fan, always and forever. I adamantly remember and forever be haunted by that particular season 4 episode where Angel whispers Buffy's name when he's having sex with Cordelia. If we all look back to the season 2 episode of 'Buffy' where Jenny is talking with her uncle about Angel, he explains the curse and why he cannot achieve perfect happiness. Buffy loved him so much that even though he was a vampire and had committed these horrible atrocities that weren't in 'Angels' control, she still loved him. Because of that Buffy made Angel feel human, in that moment of perfect happiness. She dulled the pain that was his past that he had to forever live with. Thus, she made Angel completely happy that his soul was no longer suffering. No matter how much I hate or would like to admit it, Angel did love Cordelia. But when Cordelia got her memory back in the later part of season 4 and remembered that she was able to experience Angel's past; she couldn't bring herself to be able to stay at the Hotel...she chose to stay with Connor. When we know that and look back at Buffy's relationship with Angel after he had come back from Hell in season 3, she still loved him and wanted to be with; whether she wanted to admit it or not. In the end she still got back together with him, knowing that even just months before hand Angelus had tried to kill her and all her friends. Unlike Cordelia...Buffy's love for Angel was strong enough to put Angelus' past aside that Angel was in zero control of and in the end loved him just the same. Because of Cordelia's hesitation of those matters concerning Angel, she could never dull the pain that Angel's soul was made to suffer; she could never make him feel human and no longer a vampire that's cursed with a soul.
 
But when Cordelia got her memory back in the later part of season 4 and remembered that she was able to experience Angel's past; she couldn't bring herself to be able to stay at the Hotel...she chose to stay with Connor.
But I thought all that was a ruse; it was the higher power thing that attached itself to her. Did not the higher power in her become 'active' once she got her memory back? The higher power wanted to knock boot with Connor (so she could come into flesh) and make Angel go all grrr-argh.. I never thought that was actually Cordy talking from that point on. (in retrospect I mean.) Even when she was "playing dumb" in the alley with Connor, saying 'this is where you were born' in an effort to give him doubt as to his relationship with the Beast. I mean, I even thought she feigned surprise when she found out Angel knew she and Connor bumped uglies.

SIDE NOTE: what is "Cangel shipper" you young hipsters with your wacky phrases! I tell ya
 
palabravampiress
palabravampiress
I thought it was all a ruse, too.
Unlike Cordelia...Buffy's love for Angel was strong enough to put Angelus' past aside that Angel was in zero control of and in the end loved him just the same. Because of Cordelia's hesitation of those matters concerning Angel, she could never dull the pain that Angel's soul was made to suffer; she could never make him feel human and no longer a vampire that's cursed with a soul.


Or, unlike Buffy, Cordy was able to accept the fact that Angel and Angelus were simply two aspects of the same man, and that there really wasn't anything to have to "put aside" in order to love him. I think that that was what her character was there for: to help Angel finally accept the fact that HE, not some fictitious entity known as "Angelus," had committed all of those atrocities. To finally see that he had evolved into a better man not because of a soul (Hitler had one of those things, too, as did any one of the other human monsters throughout history. A soul in and of itself doesn't make someone good), but because of a genuine desire to become a better man.

Whether Angel loved Cordy as much as he did Buffy is something that we can, and have, argued here dozens of times, never to any real conclusion, but there can never be any doubt that Cordy loved Angel, and she loved him the way a mature experienced woman loves a man. She drug him out of his self imposed isolation and refused to let him sit around brooding. She even forced him, despite his best efforts, to have fun occasionally.
 
i am growing to really like the cordelia/angel relationship possibilities as i move through angel (i'm in the middle of season 3), but i really believe that that moment of perfect happiness could only ever happen once and with one person. angel and buffy were, in some ways, so innocent together, so oblivious and so...perfect, really. i love buffy and spike--i am the biggest spuffy shipper, but angel was the first and angel in some ways will always be the only for buffy. i love them together. angel didn't know that sleeping with her would make him lose his soul, so he never thought about it or worried about it. that orgasm with buffy and that intensity of feeling could only ever happen the one time, because all the times after he would be thinking about his soul and the curse, etc. buffy and angel really believed for a while they could make it work, that they could be together. that kind of hope and that kind of "clearness" of thought and intensity of feeling doesn't happen very often in one's life. usually only once. even if buffy and angel slept together again (with angel as a vampire with all the baggage, etc), he wouldn't lose his soul again because they know that that pure, blinding love can't exist anymore in the world in which they live. their climax together would never match the first given what they now know. sorry, that was long, but that's my opinion. only with buffy, only the one time.
 
E
EveryNiteISaveU
Im in the middle of season 3 too!!!! :)
This is a great question. I think that he would have gone all evil fo sho. As his feeling towards Cordy increased it was evident that he loved her. I dont think it was a lust thing at all.
 
Ha, since I am an old B&%($, I have a different view. The buffy/angel relationship was about angel hoping for redemption - and who is a more powerful figure to gain forgiveness in the form of sex, than your most mortal enemy - ie vampire + vampire slayer. The whole idea of the sex scene is giving yourself totally to the other person - the abscense of fear, and that angel was worth something - or more importantly, worthy of redemption. That was the realization which gave him his perfect happiness.

With Cordy in the spell state, since she HAD SEX WITH HIS SON at this time, and managed to forgive her totally - that is true love.

And for him calling out to buffy, note it was after the sex. He was calling out to the one person he could rely on to do the right thing - Kill him.

The guilt if he had harmed cordy would be to much to bear, faith would try to restore his soul, but buffy (in jealousy or understanding) would destroy him.
 
I just breezed through this thread but I'll throw in my 2 cents all the same. Personally, I think Angel's moment of true happiness has little to nothing to do with sex, least of all with climaxing. In fact we are shown quite clearly in 'Suprise' that it is post coital that Angel's soul is ripped from him. I think we have to ask why Angel lost his soul in the first place? What made him so blissfully content? The simple answer is Buffy and what she meant to him but more importantly what he meant to her.

Angel, both as a mortal and as an ensouled vampire had no reason to ever hope he could become someone of merit, someone righteous. A hundred years rehashing every act of cruelty committed at his hand had consumed him in utterly hopeless dispair. When you are that lost, when you hate yourself that much and have no reason to expect the next hundred, hell the next thousand years of your existence to be any different, how do you come out of it? What do you live for?

If you ask Angel, it is Buffy's name that you will be given in answer.

At the most basic level she gave him hope and a purpose. I don't know if you can really understand how truly meaningful that is until you have been lost yourself and had someone give you a reason to live again.

He fell in love with her, she gave his heart a reason to feel something more than sorrow. I don't for a second believe that Angel, in those early days at least, even entertained the thought that she would love him back and that is that is the crux of Angel's moment of true happiness. As unprepared as he was for his own feelings for Buffy he was shook to his core by her feelings for him. That changed his entire universe.

Of anyone, it was Buffy who shouldn't have loved him. She was supposed to look at him and see all the evil he had brought unto the world and recoil. Instead she looked at him with pure love, even when he wore his demon face. That must of shell shocked him, when he was at his most ugly, she didn't even notice. That's a kind of love that people dream about, how moving must that have been for Angel who lived in a world of nightmares.

I think that ultimately Buffy made Angel feel like a man and that was his undoing. When they made love in 'Surprise' it was a true expression of their love. They had been holding back in fear of their new and unknown feelings for each other. The joy in realising that the person that you adore, your reason for being feels the same way about you and you can finally express those feelings? No wonder he lost his soul. For the first time in his entire existence, human and vampire, Angel had reason to hope of heaven. Maybe he could make up for his past...if Buffy could love him, then anything was possible. He was a normal man, falling asleep in the arms of his normal girlfriend. It was perfect.

I don't see how he could have recreated that with Cordelia. He cared for her, deeply, but not on that level. She wasn't his entire universe, she wasn't his reason for living, she wasn't his hope. I don't think expressing his feelings for her physically would have touched his very soul. It just wasn't there.

As for the Buffy question, I'm in two minds with it. In season 3of Buffy I think he would have lost his soul with her because all the reasons that caused him to originally lose his soul were still there. Buffy loving him unconditionally and openly would still have moved him to perfect bliss.

Later on in their lives I'm not as sure, so much pain had befallen them both but I think that when they come together and can freely express their dept of feeling for each other it is perfect emotion. So, I'm going to take a leap of and say yes, that Angel could still lose himself in Buffy, simply because what they share is that strong and that meaningful.
 
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GrrArghx
[No message]
I don't think that he would have experienced it with Cordelia. I agree with AngelDork and Kean. Despite having different relationships, they will never fully love anyone else except for each other. Everyone Buffy has been with has acknowledged that she has never given them all of her heart, she has always loved Angel and he has always loved her. He's always gone back to her when she needed him most (Joyce's death and the off-screen meeting when she was resurrected). Plus he's clearly still waiting for her, he said himself at the end of Season 7. He ain't getting any older. Other than that I would have said what AngelDork said about feeling human - plus this is the main reason that Angelus wants to kill her so much - she made him feel like a man.
 
I am certain that the one moment of true happiness could also be given by other things ,not only sex...but Angel goes through so many hard periods in his life...and just his guilt for everything Angelus had done is enogh to keep him away from his broodiness!

I am a Bangel fan,i know Angel loved Cordelia but to me their love was more like a very strong friendship,a strong bond but not an erotic one.
Cordy has been working with Angel for 3 years,they know each others' habits,they have been through hard times(season 2,Angel going dark)Cordelia is the link to the PTB and has matured very much as a character...
Still i can't compare this love to Buffy and Angel's love...Buffy and Angel in my personal opinion,are soulmates...Angel fell in love the first time he saw Buffy back in L.A when she was called to be a slayer...when Buffy saw him for the first time she knew immediately that he was gonna play a big part in her life...
Angel sacrificed his one day of human life to protect Buffy of fighting for both of them,Buffy willingly gave Angel her blood to cure him even though they were getting ready to fight against the Mayor...I am not gonna make a list of their actions which prove their epic love...i just believe they are soulmates

Angel could only experience that moment with Buffy not only because he loved her so much,but because he was loved back...just being with Buffy made him happy...it made him human...so making love to Buffy made him "super happy"...but his curse means that he had to spend an eternity of remorse...so BOOM!he loses his soul...But when he has that dream with Cordy he says "Buffy" in the end...i mean if the writers wanted us to believe that Cordy could potentially give him the "moment of PURE happiness" why did Angel mention Buffy???
I have to say...that if Angel remained a vampire with that curse...everytime he and Buffy would make love, he would lose his soul...that's my opinion...Buffy is the love of his life...she gave him PURE happiness not just orgasm...

KEAN i couldn't agree more with you!you express my BANGEL thoughts so romantically...
Alsoi don't think he forgave Cordy for sleeping with his son...i think he understood finally that Cordy was possessed so that wasn't real Cordy...still he was angry...yes he loved her...but not so purely in my opinion
 
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