Angel/Human Question

[SlytherinAngelic]

I suck at giving a thread a title, but whatever. On to the question, let's all pretend that the controversial of the Spike VS Angel soul thing and the whole comic version of ATS does not exist, becaue I don't want to get to far into those details, topics that I can't discuss because I never picked up a comic book in my lifetime. Not saying I will never tomorrow or whatever. If and only if, Angel becomes human. Would he be Liam again? I mean, I know this might sound stupid. But everytime he loses his soul, we call him Angelus, and everytime he gains his soul back, we call him Angel. We come to see Angelus as the soulless vampire and Angel as the vampire with a soul. Would the human version become Liam again or refer to himself as Liam? Sorry, me and my randomness is dumb sometimes.

[samsmom]

I think he'd still be Angel, only human. I can't see him calling himself Liam ever again.

[SlytherinAngelic]

Thanks, I'm on a sugar high, so just bizarre and out of whack questions come to mind. I'm literally drinking a bottle of Hershey Sundae Syrup, it's disgusting, without ice cream ~which I just finished off a pint~. But no more ice cream and I'm still craving sweets! I can totally see him just being... Angel.. nxt time, I'm just going to keep questions like that to myself.

[wereleopard]

Just a random thought here but i think to much emphasis is put on the soul. Look how many humans go around killing and have a soul. Just because you have a soul does not make you automatically good, so if you don't have one does that mean you have to be bad.

I am tempted just to write a story about that, where Angel loses his soul but still remains Angel because that is just who he is.

OOOppppp sorry rambling maybe i shouldn't have posted it here sorry

[Bert]

Essentially Liam and Angel are one in the same.

Liam is the foolish, selfish young human.
Angelus is the evil, soulless entity.
Angel is Liam, but bearing the guilt of what Angelus did.

Liam is to Angel as a baby is to a pensioner.

[Lysa]

I don't see a human version of Angel going back to being called Liam. There is too much he's experienced as Angel for that. Plus, I'm not sure that he really respects 'Liam' anyway. Besides...'Liam Investigations' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

[Dathan]

Maybe it's a poor example, but when Darla is brought back as a living human with a soul...she's still Darla with a soul. She can't even remember what her human name was.

[Cordy's Bitch]

I think the actually important question to ask is why there is such a drastic difference between an ensouled Angel and an unsouled Angelus.

The soul, obviously, right? No.

Look at Spike. He's essentially the same character he was, with and without a soul. He suddenly didn't stark speaking with his original accent, or lose his bravado.

Darla was still conniving, out for herself, as a human or as a vampire.

So why did the writers make such a distinction only with Angel/Angelus? There is no Spike/William dichotomy anymore, is there?

[wereleopard]

That is what i think, they made such a thing of it. Then changed for each character

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Cordy's Bitch

So why did the writers make such a distinction only with Angel/Angelus? There is no Spike/William dichotomy anymore, is there?

Well you can't really have you super special heroine in love with a sadistic, amoral, weak willed whore master, now can you? I think they deliberately set them up as two different people to make it easy for the audience to love Angel while hating the big bad Angelus and how he treated poor little Buffy.

That’s one (of many) issues I had with ATS S4. The big return of Angelus was just pathetic after seeing how cold and callous Angel (with a soul) could be in S2. It was pretty much a joke.

[samsmom]

Originally Posted by Cordy's Bitch

I think the actually important question to ask is why there is such a drastic difference between an ensouled Angel and an unsouled Angelus.

The soul, obviously, right? No.

Look at Spike. He's essentially the same character he was, with and without a soul. He suddenly didn't stark speaking with his original accent, or lose his bravado.

Darla was still conniving, out for herself, as a human or as a vampire.

So why did the writers make such a distinction only with Angel/Angelus? There is no Spike/William dichotomy anymore, is there?

I think the simple answer would be that the Angel/Angelus split was such part of Angel's backstory before Spike got his that it would be retconning it a bit if suddenly the soul didn't make much of a difference to him and his personality just because the same held true for Spike.

I also think that they minimized the impact of the soul on Spike because certain fans were already screaming that he was Angel 2.0 so having him go through his crisis of soul vs. no soul would be a tired retread of Angel's tale.

Within each character, I think Spike was more accepting of the way things were than Angel. Angel can't accept what he did when he was soulless without having the fall back of distinguishing Angelus as a separate entity (this is more from the later seasons than the earlier ones when he didn't so much think Angelus was separate). Spike, having always had a certain amused contempt for Angel's guilt ridden angst boy routine, probably thought it was a tremendous waste to let guilt shackle him to such an extent. All he can do is go forward, try and make his souled state make a difference to the slayer and later on, to the world. So I think it did make Spike different, but it was understated because no one wants TWO soulled vampires wearing hair shirts and flogging themselves.

[Cordy's Bitch]

Originally Posted by samsmom

I think the simple answer would be that the Angel/Angelus split was such part of Angel's backstory before Spike got his that it would be retconning it a bit if suddenly the soul didn't make much of a difference to him and his personality just because the same held true for Spike.

Yes, this is true, but I think it would have been far more adventurous if they came out and actually said that there WAS no difference between Angel and Angelus. That Angelus is just Angel without inhibitions. That Angel IS that cruel and violent, in his heart.

But that probably wouldn't have flown, would it?

[samsmom]

Would have flown like a thing that doesn't fly and falls to the ground.

You can't have the hero be the villain. I would *loved* if they'd stuck to Angel being Angel with or without the soul - Angel can kill innocent people and torture and maim without a soul because a soul equates conscience in the Buffyverse. With a soul he's just sorry but he's still capable.

I think other fans would have loved it too, no?

But there's a reason that Angel was in vamp face when he killed Jenny Calendar and a reason he was never really shown killing anyone during Ats s4. They (Whedon, ME, the network) was too afraid of having their hero look bad. So it's okay if he made great puns, shredded his friends verbally and maybe throw an arrow into a woman's thigh but to actually have him kill when he's already such a hero? Nah.

Even when they had him close the doors on those lawyers in s2, they still gave him an out later on when Lorne said that was destined to happen with or without him. It absolved him of the one horrible thing he could be credited with.

I think maybe, just maybe, the writers should have trusted us more.

[Cordy's Bitch]

Yeah.

People seem to forget that Angel as Liam was an immature, womanizing asshole. Is Angelus that far off?

[cherelli]

Originally Posted by Bert

Essentially Liam and Angel are one in the same.

Liam is the foolish, selfish young human.
Angelus is the evil, soulless entity.
Angel is Liam, but bearing the guilt of what Angelus did.

Liam is to Angel as a baby is to a pensioner.

I agree with this assessment. My goodness, Angel had his on Holy Trinity, going.