Angel (Buffyverse)
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Angel (born 1727 in Galway, Ireland) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for the television programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The character is portrayed by David Boreanaz.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early history
Angel was born as Liam, to an Irish merchant, in 1727. By 1753, at the age of 26, he had developed a taste for alcohol, women and sloth. Though a good man at heart, Liam was a hedonist whose only real ambition lay in seeing the world. For the lazy Irishman, that seemed a laughable dream, especially after he was expelled from his father's household, but he had caught the eye of an affluent woman; actually a vampire; named Darla. She lured him into an alley, and, promising him a world full of excitement and travel, transformed him into a vampire.
The loss of his soul meant Liam no longer possessed any restraint over his darker impulses. On the night he rose from his grave, and in response to Darla's claim that he could have anyone in the village, he set about slaughtering the entire community. When he came to slaughter his own family, he found no problem in entering, his little sister inviting him in without hesitation or suspicion. Before killing his father, he would tell him mockingly, "[My sister] thought that I'd returned to her. An angel. She was wrong." For generations Darla and Liam, now known as Angelus, terrorized humankind, murdering and torturing anyone who crossed their path. Angelus sired the vampires Penn (who indulged his blood lust by becoming a serial killer), and Drusilla, a young woman driven insane by Angelus before he finally sired her. Drusilla, in turn, sired Spike, for whom Angelus largely served as a mentor and "role model." Spike would go so far as to call the elder vampire his "Yoda".
According to Angel in the episode "City of", he had been around for 14 wars, not counting Vietnam; "They never declared it."
[edit] Cursed
You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care.
—Angel
In 1898, Angelus slew the favorite daughter of a tribe of Gypsies, the Kalderash Clan. To avenge her death, they cursed him by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting him with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for what he did when he didn't have his soul. He tried and failed to resume his life with Darla. After he was unable to kill a baby during the Boxer Rebellion to prove himself to Darla, Angelus fled (presumably to the United States). There, he lived an isolated life avoiding humanity, and the temptation to feed, living in a dark apartment.
Angel arrived in New York via Ellis Island in 1902 (Angel Season 4 Episode 15 "Orpheus")
During World War II, Angel was recruited by The Demon Research Initiative who sunk him to the bottom of the ocean to rescue an American submarine crew from three Nazi captured vampires (including Spike). The American crew had stolen the German submarine. Angel was forced to sire Ensign Sam Lawson to save the crew.
In 1952, Los Angeles, Angel was a resident at the Hyperion Hotel, the building which would one day become the future base of Angel Investigations. During this time, Angel was attempting to stay to himself, avoiding interaction with other patrons and looking the other way when his help was required, even despite the numerous strange incidents of murders and suicides running rampant throughout the hotel. After his meeting with a young woman named Judy, he was forced to disarm a man chasing her, but then immediately ended any interaction with her soon after. However, her repeated attempts to contact him managed to help him build a, lukewarm at best, relationship with her while the hotel continued to become corrupted around him. Though he didn't understand why, Angel felt compelled to help the human residents of the hotel by defeating the Paranoia demon affecting them, but by the time he had obtained the items he required, the entire hotel had been overcome with paranoia and not only did Judy betray him in order to save herself, but the hotel residents beat and then hanged him. This was a turning point in Angel's life where he got close to a human and tried to selflessly help her and the other residents, but in the end decided it was not worth saving them, bitter at their actions against him. He returns many decades later to find Judy an old woman, having been trapped in the Hyperion all this time feeling guilt at Angel's apparent death by hanging because of her accusations. Angel forgives her and remembers her fondly as one of his first few friends.
In New York during the 1970s, Angel came upon a robbery at a doughnut shop. After the robber shot the employee and fled, Angel stayed with the man as he died. Unable to resist the urge to feed from a warm human, Angel fed on the man and then grew disgusted with himself. He exiled himself to a life of homelessness, living in alleyways and feeding off of stray rats. A shadow of his former self, a reclusive and emotionally tortured Angel eventually met a demon named Whistler in 1996, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly-called Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers. When he and Buffy finally meet in Sunnydale, CA, he introduces himself not as Angelus, but as Angel.
[edit] Sunnydale
Angel's story before he met Buffy unfolds in flashbacks scattered among numerous episodes of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". They were not presented in chronological order. A guide to finding the flashback or flashbacks to a particular event is at Angel, Darla, Spike and Dru: Before 1997.
Over time, Buffy and Angel fall in love. Though they try to deny their feelings, they cannot resist the passion growing between them. When they finally consummate their relationship, Angel experiences the one moment of pure happiness needed to break his curse. Without the humanity and conscience that was instilled by his soul, Angel quickly returns to his former, evil self.
After Angel transforms back into Angelus, he allies himself again with Spike and Drusilla, who had recently settled in Sunnydale. Angelus finds immense pleasure in tormenting Buffy and her friends.
He goes on to kill Jenny Calendar, who had been a core member of Buffy's group, just after she manages to successfully decipher the lost Gypsy curse which would restore Angelus' soul. He then attempts to awaken the demon Acathla in an attempt to bring about the Apocalypse. Buffy, however, is determined to stop him despite their deeply emotional history. Fighting him in one-on-one combat, Buffy is able to overcome Angelus, but before Acathla consumes him, Angel is cursed again by Buffy's friend and comrade Willow Rosenberg, his soul restored moments before Buffy has to kill him and, in doing so, save the world.
Less than a year later, Angel is unexpectedly released from Hell, reappearing in his mansion in a feral state. Buffy aids him in secret, fostering his rehabilitation. Having regained his senses, Angel realizes that his return from Hell was not accidental, and that he must be meant to serve some higher purpose. Haunted by The First, taking on the appearances of those he killed as Angelus, Angel almost kills himself out of the guilt he feels, but when it snows on the day he was trying to expose himself to the sun, he begins to realize that he may have been saved for a good reason. He and Buffy tried to have an actual relationship, but, after a meeting with Joyce Summers, Angel makes the difficult decision to leave Sunnydale and Buffy, in an effort to protect them both and lend whatever normality to Buffy's chaotic life he can.
[edit] Los Angeles
He then moves to Los Angeles, where he attempts to redeem himself in the service of others. He finds support from Doyle, a half-demon sent by The Powers That Be, and Cordelia Chase, a former classmate of Buffy's who has moved to L.A. to find wealth and fame. The trio form Angel Investigations, a shoe-string operation with the mission statement of protecting those who cannot defend themselves and helping lost souls find their way.
Doyle, Angel's trusted friend and sole connection to the Powers, is killed in the line of duty, leading Angel to become even more protective of those he holds dear. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who had briefly served as Watcher to both Buffy and Faith in Sunnydale, arrives in L.A. working as a "rogue demon hunter," but stays to assist Angel and Cordelia in their mission (albeit mainly because he wasn't doing very well on his own). A few months later, they are joined by lifelong demon fighter Charles Gunn. The AI Team also enlists the help of demon karaoke bar-owner Lorne, known initially only as The Host, a demon who can read the futures of humans and demons when they sing. During this time, Wolfram & Hart attempt to have Angel killed by the rogue vampire slayer Faith, but Angel's influence, coupled with Faith's pre-existing self-loathing issues, encourage Faith to begin her own path to redemption, and she turns herself into the police to make up for what she did.
As Angel continues to help the helpless in Los Angeles, his good deeds begin to disrupt the plans of the evil inter-dimensional law firm, Wolfram & Hart. In an attempt to control him, W&H resurrect his sire and former lover, Darla, but bring her back as a human rather than a vampire. W&H then bring forth Drusilla, who turns Darla into a vampire again, causing Angel to feel that he has failed to save her. He then fires his crew and embarks on a bitter, ruthless vendetta against W&H (going as far as consciously allowing the murder of a very large group of W&H employees) and the newly reunited Darla and Drusilla. In a moment of perfect despair, Angel attempts to remove his soul by having sex with Darla, but instead finds a moment of clarity following the desperate act, realizing his purpose is still for good. Horrified at Angel's epiphany, Darla flees Los Angeles. After a difficult reconciliation that involves Wesley taking over the official position of leader of the group, the AI team then find themselves transported to Lorne's home dimension, Pylea. Eventually, after Angel defeats the undefeated Champion of Pylea, The Groosalugg, they return with a new team member, Winifred Burkle, in tow, and to the news that the love of Angel's life, Buffy, has died.
Despite Buffy's miraculous resurrection a few months later, Angel finds that his previously platonic love for Cordelia has grown to be romantic. Before he has a chance to confess his feelings, however, Darla returns, pregnant with his son, to be named Connor. False prophecies, time travelers and betrayal lead to Angel losing his infant son to an old enemy, Holtz, who abducts Connor soon after his birth, taking him to a hell dimension (Quor-Toth) where time passes differently. When Connor returns days later, he is a young man who has been raised by Holtz to believe that Angel is still a soulless monster. Connor vows to make Angel pay for the suffering he had once caused (made even worse when Holtz set up his own death to make it appear as though Angel had killed him), and he acts out his retribution by sending his father to the bottom of the ocean in a steel coffin. At the same time, Cordelia ascends to a higher plane, the feelings shared between her and Angel still left unspoken.
Rescued by Wesley from his watery prison, Angel's relationship with Connor is strained. It is complicated further by the return of an amnesiac Cordelia, who prefers to stay with Connor because he told her the truth while the others lied to her (albeit because they thought it was for her own good). When a very powerful demon known only as the Beast arrives and begins an attempt to bring forth an apocalypse, Angel's worst fears are realized when he has to strip himself of his soul and revert to his evil alter ego in order to defeat it. Angelus does indeed overcome the Beast, and is also deft enough to realize that the Beast was a mere "flunkie" serving an even deeper evil; the Beast he knew was only interested in smashing and slaughter, and it was unlikely that the Beast would have become smarter since Angelus fought him.
Although he is momentarily free to wreak a little havoc of his own, Angelus is recaptured and re-ensouled with the help of Faith (who almost dies in her quest to capture Angelus) and Willow, culminating in a brief but violent mental battle between Angel and Angelus. After his soul is restored, Angel figures out that the enemy he has been battling is a little closer to home than the group had previously considered, realizing that whatever the Beast's "boss" is, it is using Cordelia's body to carry out its plans. After battling and defeating the divine being known as Jasmine, Angel is offered the L.A. branch of W&H on the grounds that he ended world peace (despite the fact that "world peace" meant no free will and the sacrifice of thousands of lives at the hands of Jasmine, who had to literally devour people to stay alive). Angel acts against all of his instincts and makes a deal with his sworn enemy, in exchange for W&H erasing Connor’s memories and giving him a normal life.
Angel's year spent running W&H is one marred with challenge and self-doubt. Trying to battle evil from within the belly of the beast proves to be more difficult than even he imagined, with the lines of good and evil becoming ever more grey with every action taken. Shortly after Angel assumes control of the law firm, matters are further complicated when Spike appears as a ghost, emerging from a familiar amulet sent to Angel in the mail. Sharing a complicated history of murder and mayhem, they had spent more than a century as rivals in everything. Now both possessing souls, and both still in love with Buffy, they had evolved into very different heroes in the war against evil. Forced to co-exist, they wage a protracted, insidious battle of wits, ending when they finally come to an understanding and acceptance of their unique brotherhood on their journey to redemption.
In the episode "Destiny," when they prepare to do battle over the Cup of Perpetual Torment, Spike tells Angel "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Then Spike defeats Angel for the first time in their century plus association. Despite this, Spike and Angel come to an understanding that lets the two of them operate as a lethal team when the two end up fighting side-by-side, using their long experience of each other's skills to operate in near-perfect tandem.
Angel finally understands that he will never be able to completely stop the forces of evil, but that he can temporarily sever the Senior Partners' hold on Earth. Together with his comrades, Angel prepares to suicidally incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners as a way of going out in a blaze of glory. They assassinate the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners' instruments on Earth for pulling all the political and economic strings. In this effort, Gunn is badly wounded, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is killed. Gunn manages to make it to the meeting point, the alley behind the Hyperion Hotel, and together with Angel, Spike, and Illyria, proceeds to engage in battle with the dark armies that the Senior Partners have sent against them.
Series creator Joss Whedon has stated that he had originally intended Angel to survive this battle and go on into a sixth season. However, this was his original intention prior to the show being cancelled and prior to his writing the final episode. Early previews of the Buffy season eight comics have revealed that Angel and Spike will appear sparingly- suggesting both survived the battle (although death has not stopped either character from coming back in the past and another dead character from the Buffy series Anya Jenkins is reported to make an appearance)
[edit] Powers & abilities
This is no ordinary vampire. If there is such a thing.
—Rupert Giles
Angel has the usual powers and weaknesses of a vampire, along with some abilities which may be unique to him. Some of his vampiric powers are greater than average, because of his age and perhaps his bloodline. His talents may be divided into three main categories: physical, sensory, and mental. He is also skilled in a number of different areas.
Angel’s entire physiology is of superhuman quality. His strength, though ill-defined, surpasses the average vampire: he can punch through wooden walls, leap 15 feet straight up, rip apart bicycle chains, throw a man across the lobby of the Hyperion when angered, and so forth. His motor skills and reflexes far surpass those of humans, for example he once spun around and caught a crossbow bolt fired at his back from no more than fifteen feet away and has evaded multiple point-blank shotgun blasts. He also has standard vampire durability against most forms of mundane physical damage; he once jumped down from a four-story rooftop without sustaining any apparent injury, stood up instantly with no ill effects after an uncontrolled fifteen-story fall, and has described being shot as feeling "like a bee sting." Nonetheless, Angel is not indestructible. He has all the vulnerabilities of a Buffyverse vampire: direct sunlight will cause combustion that would eventually kill him if he stays out in the sun's rays for more than a few seconds. A stake through the heart and decapitation would instantly kill him. In addition, certain objects of religious significance to Christians — specifically Bibles, crucifixes, and holy water — can burn his flesh. He can be rendered unconscious by poisons and tranquilizers, though he has survived dosages that would be fatal to a human. Also, Angel, like all Buffyverse vampires, cannot enter a person's home unless he's invited by one of the occupants, though this rule does not extend to the home of non-human entities, public facilities, and temporary lodgings like a motel room or an abandoned house.
At least two of Angel’s senses — his smell and hearing — are also superhumanly acute. On many occasions, he has tracked people through the streets (or even sewers) of Los Angeles by smell alone; his olfactory talents are apparently superior to dogs, as he does not need to sniff the ground to track in this manner. Like all Buffyverse vampires, Angel can also smell fear. He can also tell when two people have had sex; in the episode "Ground State", he tells Lilah Morgan, "I can smell you and Wesley all over each other." He, at one point in the series, was also quickly able to smell that Wesley had sex with a bleached blonde the night before. His hearing is so sensitive that he once was able to eavesdrop on a conversation happening in the lobby of a hotel while confined in the hotel’s basement. As vampires are primarily nocturnal, his sight may also be of superhuman quality, though this is less certain; he has been noticed using night-vision goggles, for instance. Even still, few other vampires display this ability. As per example, Spike was incapable of seeing in the blacked-out Initiative ruins or when in Robin Wood's garage. Angel threw a knife into a fast-moving object in near pitch-blackness and could see in the powered-down Sunnydale cafeteria. This might be an aged ability or an ability through his bloodline, but also the situation may simply be that Spike is particularly inept at this ability as few other vampires are seen in situations that would require use of sight over smell. Through Angel and Spike, the viewer learns the differences between human and vampire senses of taste: while the episode "I Will Remember You" reveals that a vampire's ability to taste conventional human food is dulled, we also learn that vampires can easily taste subtleties in blood (fear makes a person's blood taste pleasantly salty; Slayer blood is an aphrodisiac and stimulant; cold, hot, and warm blood all have different tastes; human blood is preferable to otter blood, which in turn is preferable to pig blood, etc.) According to Spike, blood smells "metallic, sorta", like pennies ("Damage") .
Angel possesses at least two superhuman cognitive abilities. One is a photographic memory; he is able to recall visual impressions in great detail and fidelity. Angel also once displayed a receptive "psychic connection" to Penn, a vampire he had sired, experiencing dreams of Penn's activities when he was close. This link was not shown to occur with any of Angel's other progeny.
Angel is a highly skilled combatant. Generally he prefers to fight unarmed, using a style that seems to blend several different disciplines and to take advantage of his superhuman strength and speed. Angel uses a lot of circular attacks such as spinning kicks and spinning back hands. He, unlike Buffy, likes to stay grounded in his attacks and rarely does any jumping moves. However, he does often use his strength to close the distance between himself and his target with a quick leap. Angel has a love of bantering with his opponents, which is a trait he carries over from his days as Angelus.
He has mastered many varieties of weapons, favoring broadswords and axes. He also once demonstrated proficiency with a shotgun.
He also possesses some skills in magic, on several occasions demonstrating impressive ability in spells and wizardry, albeit on a basic level.
As Angelus, he displays a considerable skill in manipulating others emotional states to devastating affect, able to provoke full blown arguments with a few carefully chosen words and, with time and effort, drive the emotionally unstable to insanity. He is also an expert at both physical and psychological torture; he was once described as knowing how to 'lie with the truth'.
In the episode "You're Welcome", Cordelia passed on her visions to Angel in the same way that she had originally been granted them by Doyle. Angel was given a psychic connection to the Powers That Be, allowing him a precognitive vision that he utilized in the last few episodes of the series.
As he told Connor, he has "very nice handwriting." During the episode "Lovers Walk", he is also seen reading La Nausée by Jean-Paul Sartre in the original French. Throughout the series he demonstrates his fluency in several languages including Korean, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and German.
Angel is a real artist with regards to drawing portraits. He can use both charcoal crayon or China ink: he is skilled in depicting people, even from memory. He's not good as well in singing, but that's not a vampire thing: Spike and Darla can sing very well.
Angel is fully aware of his incredible abilities. In one episode, he tells an opponent "If you're lucky, you'll last ten minutes, tops. Really lucky, you'll be unconscious for the last five."
[edit] Angel vs. Angelus
Whilst Liam is human and Angelus is a vampire, Angel is a third, unique persona, a demon burdened with a human soul. A hybrid of man and vampire, he constantly deals with vampiric urges, and the human conscience that prevents him from ever forgetting his past misdeeds. Though the early seasons of Buffy expressed the view that when a human becomes a vampire, "You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old home; it walks like you and it talks like you - but it's not you" ("Lie to Me"), later seasons of Buffy and Angel had the relationship between Angelus and Angel far more intertwined. Angelus once referred to himself as "Angel" during Season Two of Buffy (possibly to torment Buffy). Angel had almost always said "I" when speaking of Angelus; they share the same memories, and Angel never resumed the name of his human original, Liam (except while amnesiac in "Spin the Bottle"). Also, in Season One's "Eternity", Angel reverts back to his evil self without even losing his soul, when he is drugged and enters a state of 'bliss' that allows Angelus to regain control. This suggests that in a subconscious state that Angel's true nature is allowed to appear, although it may have been that the drug-induced state of bliss 'tricked' Angel's body into thinking that the curse had been broken.
- Angel: Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.
(Episode 3.10 (Buffy) "Amends")
- Angel: ...there is no guilt, there is no torment, no consequences... It's pure. I remember what that was like. Sometimes I miss that clarity.
- Cordelia: But not the trying to kill your friends and family part, right? Just checking!
(Episode 1.21 "Blind Date")
- Cordelia: What I remember when I was a higher being... I remember seeing you. Your past. When you were Angelus.
- Angel: I've never tried to hide who I was. Or what I've done. You already knew.
- Cordelia: Knowing's different than living it. When I was up there, I could look back and see everything you did as Angelus. More than see. I felt it. Not just their fear and pain. I felt you. And how much you enjoyed making them suffer...
(Episode 4.07 "Apocalypse, Nowish" Note: Since the above was said by the entity that would become known as Jasmine while posing as Cordelia, this specific example of Angel being just a different aspect of Angelus comes from a questionable source to say the least.)
The relationship between Angel and Angelus has been described and depicted in numerous ways. Both personas are shown battling for control inside Angel's mind in the episode "Orpheus". In Season Four, Jasmine threatens Angelus by telling him that she will lock him away inside Angel forever, where he will be forever watching, forever thirsty, forever longing to escape his prison. Angel does occasionally refer to Angelus as a separate individual, and when the two confront each other in "Orpheus", they clearly appear to be different people, albeit almost evenly matched due to their long experience of the other's abilities. Angelus also believes that he is separate from Angel and is disgusted with what Angel does when he is in control, particularly resenting Angel's two decades of eating rats after he succumbed to temptation and drank from a murder victim. The fact that Angelus' memory was unaffected by the spell that erased all reference to the Beast in this dimension while Angel totally forgot the confrontation supports the idea that they are distinct personalities rather than different aspects of the same person. As seen in "Becoming, Part One" and "Becoming, Part Two", it takes a few moments for Angel to remember the events of Angelus' life after the curse comes into effect.
Although Angelus' bodycount was vast, his capacity for psychological intimidation was substantially above contemporary real-life serial killers. During his time with Darla, he committed some of the most atrocious and despicably evil acts of his time. He is prone to brutal displays of what he would see as affection, one such incident involved him nailing a puppy to a wall, though a full explanation of this was never given as Buffy interrupted Giles with "Skip it, I don't have a puppy. So skip it." Another example of Angelus' brutal acts was when he brought Dru a still warm human heart on Valentine's Day. Angelus' mean streak does not stop there. He always had an obsession with death being an art form; every kill a work of art to be savored and appreciated. When he captured Giles for torture in "Becoming, Part Two", he mentions in passing that the last time he tortured someone, they hadn't even invented the chainsaw. In the episode "Amends", The First Evil references him killing a man's three children, then propping them up in bed so that they appeared to be sleeping. It was only after the father kissed one of them good night that he felt how cold they were. This is similar to when Angelus placed the recently killed body of Jenny at Giles' apartment, making Giles believe she had set up a romantic evening for them.
Angelus also had a weakness in that he was prone to excessive talking, and had a need to attempt psychological destruction of his victims before physically killing them. This streak of sadism sometimes gave potential victims time to either possibly escape or attempt to fight back (although it made little difference as he almost always got them in the end). Spike once observed to Angel "you bloody well talk them to death before you kill them!"
[edit] Romantic interests/Intimate liaisons
- Darla: Angel was sired by Darla. The pair were lovers until Angelus' transformation into Angel drove them apart, although he briefly tried to stay with her. She was regarded by Angel as his 'obsession', and even with a soul, knowing what she was and what she had done, he was still attracted to her in some way. During Darla's brief moments of humanity - when she is resurrected by Wolfram and Hart - the two retain a close bond, with Angel risking his life to give her a second chance. When Darla becomes pregnant with her and Angel's son, Connor, Darla stakes herself to allow Connor to be born, asking Angel to tell the child that their son was the only good thing they ever did together.
- Drusilla: Angelus tormented the human Drusilla, sired her and kept her on as a companion afterwards; Angelus regarded her as his greatest work. The two also have a sexual relationship many years later during a period when her lover, Spike, is wheelchair-bound.
- Spike: Spike mentions in the fifth season episode, "Power Play", that "Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one--" Whedon has confirmed in numerous interviews and forum posts the possibility of at least a one night stand between the pair. In the DVD commentary to the episode "Hole In The World" he says: "You know, um, I just wanna say Angel and Spike, they were hanging out, uh, for years and years and years, they were in, you know, all kinds of deviant, they were vampires... Are we thinking they never...? Come on, people! I'm just sayin'. I'm just sayin'. You know, they're open-minded guys. They may be evil but, you know, they're not bigoted or closed-minded."
- Buffy Summers: Angel's "first love." When he first sees Buffy, he realizes that he wants to be someone, without even realizing she is the Slayer. When they sleep together for the first time, Angel loses his soul, becoming Angelus. Buffy is forced to kill him, to save the world, even though Willow has just ensouled him. After he returns from Hell, he and Buffy still love each other, and attempt a relationship. After realizing this relationship is unfair to Buffy, he leaves. Buffy comes to L.A, and for a brief time, Angel becomes human. He has to rewind the day, because being human will eventually lead to Buffy's death without him able to fight at peak performance. After Buffy dies in the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel spends months away at a convent in Asia. He comes to help Buffy in the Buffy finale, and they have an emotional conversation. Angel provides aid to Buffy in the final fight against Caleb, gives her an amulet that proves important in the final confrontation with the First, and goes to seek Buffy out in Italy during the last season of Angel, albeit unsuccessfully. He feels that he and Buffy share a "forever love."
- Kate Lockley: Kate serves as Angel's contact in the police force as he starts his private detective business. The strong possibility of a relationship is hinted at, but ultimately doesn't materialize as she is unable to accept her discovery of his vampire nature, blaming him for the death of her father when her father was killed by vampires and wouldn't invite Angel in to help.
- Rebecca Lowell: A short-lived potential love interest introduced in the episode "Eternity", Rebecca is an actress who hires Angel as her bodyguard. Learning about his vampire nature, she tries to convince him to turn her, not wanting to become old and unattractive, but her attempts only result in Angel briefly reverting to Angelus when she drugs his drink, inducing a feeling of bliss. After this, she leaves the office and is never seen again.
- Winifred Burkle: After he rescues her from the Pyleans during their first meeting, Fred develops a childlike crush on Angel for a time; she gets over it after learning more about the curse, but later kisses Angel as part of a ruse to escape Jasmine's followers. She remains the only person to have seen Angel's demonic side before she knew who he was and not been scared by it, creating a close bond between the two of them even without a romantic relationship.
- The Transuding Furies: The Furies are the three beautiful, powerful beings who cast the anti-demon-violence spell on Lorne's bar, Caritas. When Angel needs the spell removed to fight Gunn's rogue former gang, the Furies tell Cordelia that they will require 'payment' for such an act, and only Angel is 'equipped' to repay the debt. The general tone seems to imply a past sexual relationship between the Furies and Angel.
- Cordelia Chase: Friends for years, Angel and Cordelia eventually realize that they have fallen in love with one another, only to be torn apart by her ascension and transformation and his imprisonment underwater by Connor before they can tell each other. Upon their subsequent returns, they do not pursue the relationship; Cordelia instead, under the control of Jasmine, forms a relationship with Angel's son, which results in her falling into a coma when Jasmine uses her body to create an independent host for itself. Later, Cordelia returns to put Angel back on track to stopping the Apocalypse. She does this and just before she dies, Cordelia and Angel share their first and only real kiss. In doing so, one last vision, that shows Angel who the true power holders are, is passed to him, helping him to stop the Apocalypse from the inside. The visions can only be passed if the previous owner is in love with the recipient. Even though they never properly tell each other, they both know how each other felt. Cordelia died knowing that Angel knew her feelings and that he loved her in return.
- Gwen Raiden: A thief with command over electricity, Angel shares a kiss with Gwen after she gives him an electro-shock that (temporarily) reawakens his dead heart. He subsequently flirts with her to make Cordelia jealous while they are trying to protect the Ra-Tet from the Beast, but later seems to develop a slight affection for her; he almost appears jealous when she asks for Gunn's help over his.
- Nina Ash: A werewolf who Angel saves from being eaten, she develops feelings for Angel and he is eventually convinced to give a relationship a shot. This relationship establishes that Angel is able to have positive sex (unlike his "perfect despair" moment with Darla) and still keep his soul.
- Eve: Angel's liaison to the Senior Partners, she and Angel have a one-time encounter at Wolfram & Hart's Halloween party, when Lorne loses control of his empathic powers and he begins to unintentionally write destinies instead of reading them (he tells Angel and Eve to "get a room", saying that "you could cut the sexual tension with a knife"). When Angel thinks they should talk about it, Eve remarks, "It's not as if this is the first time I've had sex under mystical influence. I went to UC Santa Cruz". After this, however, their relationship becomes increasingly hostile due to Eve's relationship with Angel's old foe Lindsey, particularly following her attempt to infect Angel with a dream-inducing parasite.
[edit] Other
- Faith Lehane — When Faith first crosses the line by killing a man, Angel is the first person to attempt to rehabilitate her. However, he is interrupted when Wesley tries to hand her over to the Watchers Council. While working for Mayor Wilkins Faith attempts to remove Angel's soul by seducing him. At this point Faith harbors a primal sexual attraction to Angel, but this is never elaborated on after she falls into a coma. After awakening from her coma and fleeing Sunnydale Faith goes to Los Angeles. Shortly after her arrival Wolfram and Hart hire Faith to kill Angel. After torturing Wesley, Angel confronts Faith, and during the fight he realizes what Faith really wants; she wants Angel to kill her. He refuses, and again tries to help her, defending her from both Buffy and agents of the Watcher's Council. Thanks to Angel's help Faith starts down the path to redemption by confessing to her crimes and going to prison. He visits her to make sure she is alright and prison is where she stays for several years. She later breaks out, but only because Angel needs her help, due to Angelus having been restored. Despite the difficulties involved in such a task, Faith makes sure he is brought in and protected so he can be re-ensouled by Willow, even defeating Connor to prevent him from staking his father. The two share a strong bond based on their mutual desire for redemption; Faith also states that Angel is the one person that has never given up on her, a factor that doubtless plays an important role in her decision to fight so hard to save him.
- Willow Rosenberg - Angel shares deep affection and mutual confidence with Willow. And not just because she restored his soul not once but twice. In several occasions he asks for her help, looking at her as a reliable ally and friend. At the end of episode "Orpheus" (the last time they meet onscreen) they hug as very good old friends.
[edit] Appearances
Angel has made more appearances in canon Buffyverse programs than any other character (including, ironically, Buffy herself.) He appeared in:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Angel became a series regular in the show's second and third seasons, although he did not appear in "Inca Mummy Girl"; he was also technically absent from "Innocence" to "Becoming" when his curse was broken and he reverted back to Angelus. Whether as himself or as Angelus, he appeared in 56 episodes in all, including guest appearances in the episodes:
- Season 1 (1997) - "Welcome to the Hellmouth"; "The Harvest"; "Teacher's Pet"; "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date"; "Angel"; "Out of Mind, Out of Sight"; "Prophecy Girl".
- Season 4 (1999, 2000) - "Pangs" (he returned to Sunnydale after Doyle had a vision of Buffy); "The Yoko Factor" (He followed Buffy back to apologise for their recent confrontation).
- Season 5 (2000, 2001) - "Fool for Love" (flashbacks); "Forever" (he came to Sunyndale to comfort Buffy after her mother's funeral.
- Season 7 (2002, 2003) - "End of Days"; "Chosen" (he came back to Sunnydale to help Buffy in the final confrontation with The First Evil.)
Angel — As the star of the series, Angel appeared in all 110 episodes of five seasons; however, he was technically absent in "Soulless", "Calvary", "Salvage", and "Release", as his soul was extracted and he was Angelus for the duration of these episodes.
[edit] Trivia
- Angel was supposed to be a one-time character until David Boreanaz was found.[1]
- Boreanaz said that when he auditioned for the role of Angel, the role was described to him: "He may get hit, but he'll always come back. He has the grace and movements of a boxer, and he's mysterious".[2]
- In the Angel season three episode "Carpe Noctem", in which Angel was victim of a bodyswitch with an old man seeking younger bodies, he was played by Rance Howard.
- Angel has a tattoo on his shoulder-blade of a griffin from The Book of Kells,[3] with the addition of the letter 'A' beneath it.[4]
- The first time it was planned that Angel would lose his soul, Joss Whedon was doubtful of David Boreanaz being capable of portraying the cruelty of Angelus.
- Also, Angel seems to be a "Fanilow" (a fan of Barry Manilow), particularly loving the song "Mandy". As he quotes, "I think it's kinda pretty". During his mental battle with Angelus, his demon stated that he particularly hated Angel's visits to Manilow's concerts.
- Angel has appeared in by far the most episodes in Buffyverse, for a total of 166 episodes. Buffy and Willow are next, with 146 and 147 episodes respectively. He has also appeared in the most seasons of Buffyverse (all seasons of Buffy and Angel except for Buffy season 6) for a total of 11. He is also the only actor to appear in the premieres and finales of both Buffy and Angel.
- Angel is a fan of ice hockey (he watches the game in "Life of the Party") and he hoped Connor would grow up playing ice hockey, one of the reasons being that it is a sport where most games are played indoors, and at night (allowing for vampires to spectate).
- According to Cordelia Chase, Angel has a "thing" for petite blondes. She most likely drew this conclusion from his romantic relationships with Buffy Summers and Darla.
- Angel makes something very clear: "There are three things I don't do: tan, date, and sing in public" (although he has broken the last two rules on occasion, such as when he sang in Caritas and later dated Nina).
- The poet Baudelaire supposedly wrote the poem Le Vampyre about Angelus ("She")
- The car Angel drives for the first four seasons of the series is a black 1967 Plymouth GTX convertible.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ bbc.co.uk interview
- ^ Stokes, Mike, "Soul Man", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #1 (UK, October 1999), page 13.
- ^ maquisleader.com - tattoo
- ^ cityofangel.com - tattoo
