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See, Spike's feelings for Buffy, in my mind, play out the increasingly obvious idea that, as Fly says, the Watchers' Council lied to everyone - or (as is possibly more likely) that, as an ancient body of historians and thinkers divorced from much of the outside world and harking back to more prevalent religious ideas from back when they may have been more cryptopolitically powerful, they've never really given it a great deal more research since. After all, if it rises from the grave to murder innocent Christians, it has to be from the Devil, right?
A dissenting voice might come with the portrayal of the Scourge in Angel, who despise vampires as not being 'pure' demon... Remember how the leader called Angel a 'halfbreed'? However, the actual explanation for this comes from someone else, who may not know exactly what they're talking about... and most 'demons' seem to have a fairly relaxed idea about what constitutes a 'demon' (the term is either used by humans a little like la imperialista used to use the term 'coloured' - which covered a wide variety of races and society, a lot of whom had no real connection to one another geographically or culturally - or by 'demons' who have submerged themselves to a greater or lesser part in human society and language (specifically Western, of course), and who might therefore use it a similar, catch-all way). Cordelia, for example, was made part-demon in order to survive the stress the visions placed on her human body. Which part? Which demon? Dunno, but it's placed within the text as simply being imparted with a sort of non-human magical essence, much as the Slayer is supposed to possess. Which again raises the question of whether Buffy is 'part-demon', by the way...
All of which is moot if you take the text as read, in which Whedon and others have gone on record as saying that vampires are as posited in my opening post, not as Fly and I would like to posit them. But then this thread was kind of about treating the text as secular rather than sacred, and the characters as real rather than finite textual beings, so there with knobs on.
On another note, it's also been demonstrated (as if it needed to be) that having a soul deosn't necessarily make you good, and lacking one doesn't necessarily make you evil. Whistler was a 'demon', right? Working for the Powers That Be... I figure that 'the soul' is the essence of a person that migrates to whatever afterlife exists for humans. If demons, as these mystical alien races are referred to, don't have souls, that would imply they have nothing to pass on after death, always assuming it's possible to kill them in the way we understand it.
So what about Angel (and to a certain extent, Spike, although we have yet to see how that plays out)?
Newsflash: Angel is not Liam, his irresponsible younger (living) self. Liam was turned into a vampire, and christened Angelus (we'll leave the reason for the name change, as that's another whole can o' worms relating back to the 'what are vampires' schtick). Angelus is cursed by gypsy sorcerers and landed with his soul, at which point he becomes Angel. All three are demonstrably separate personalities, caused by events and patterns over a long angsty life - 'Angel' is not what happens when 'Liam' regains his soul, 'Angel' is what happens when, after a century or so of bloodshed and torture, 'Angelus' is afflicted with the return of his soul. It's not the loss or return of the soul per se (that's just a major catalyst for change) - all three are part of a linear progression of character development over time for a two-hundred-and-forty year old man. Angel has Angelus' sudden vicious temper, his fascination with nuns, his creativity when it comes to intimidation, threats and violence, and his capacity for the same, amogst many other things. Angelus, on his second outing in Season Two of Buffy, has many of the same feelings for Buffy that Angel has, but seen through a glass darkly. And, moving further back, Angelus displays a hedonism and love of the good life (as he sees it) that mirrors the promiscuous and hellraising lifestyle Liam had.
Remember Darla, his new 'father-lover' figure following his murder of his own father? Angelus finally found a sire-relation who approved of his appetites in Darla. Remember Angel season two, with his obsessive, violent, twisted pursuit of Darla and Drusilla? She said it herself, words to the effect of "Not Angel. Not Angelus. Someone new..."
Incidentally, this theory also (scarily) explains why taking the equivalent of weapons-grade MDMA in the Season One episode 'Eternity' only temporarily releases Angelus... his curse is a conditional thing, based on attaining actual 'true happiness', and can tell the difference between that state and the false euphoria caused by the drug. Angel, however, as a person, cannot. He released Angelus that night on the actress, Wesley and Cordelia - it wasn't effected by the removal of his soul.
Item Three
It may have been said before, but what a shit curse. Not in the usual way people dislike it - I'm all for singleminded vengeance without fear or favour and if the above theory's right, Angel should blame himself for all the bloodshed - but in its execution. See, I may be wrong, but they don't appear to have told Angelus/Angel about the conditional. Wasn't that kind of half the point? Give him his soul back, fill him with angst and guilt over the murders, and then tell him that the evil will fill him again if he ever gets a single moment's bliss? Doom him to eternity wandering the earth in torment, never to allow himself to be happy again, right? Doesn't really work if they don't tell him about the actual conditions of the curse, though. What if he'd fallen for someone six weeks after regaining his soul? Bit of a short purgatory, and then Angelus is released upon the earth again, even more pissed off than before. Clearly bollocks. Badly thought through. What do you think? |
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