More thoughts on Angelus as a Bully and Angel's motivations
by DeborahMM

Anyway, during the course of trying to catch up with my flist this morning, I came across chase820 getting annoyed with Angel for not buggering off like a good vampire and letting her get on with other stuff in her wonderful story The Man Who Wasn't There, and so of course I got to thinking about poor old Angel again myself. chase820 was saying that his motives are hard to understand, unlike Angelus's; something with which I'd very much agree.

Angelus is a simple fellow. All he requires is to be the biggest bully in the playground and for everyone else to be scared of him and admire him, because for him, it's all about Me! Me! Me! So I see Angel's behaviour as, in many ways, being a reaction against this, trying to deny the Angelus in him access to the surface, which is why, when I do write Angel, I tend to have Angelus as a sort of 'voice-off' putting another point of view that Angel isn't at all comfortable with and wishes would go away. Ironically, it's when Angel acts more like Angelus in some ways - such as with that Drogyn business and setting Dru and Darla on fire - that he seems to become more integrated as a person. He's very much in denial about the more unpleasant aspects of his personality, for which you can't really blame him.

I've written Angel's POV a few times - although of course Furnitureverse Angel is quite bonkers, so I know some people would dispute that he's Angel at all - and I feel I understand the bloke fairly well in a way, in that I'm more like him - or at least, certain aspects of him - than I am like any of the other characters in the Jossverse (can't find a single female character with whom I identify, unless maybe it's poor Joyce). My starting point - just as it was the starting point for the Furnitureverse - is that scene from She in AtS season 1, where Angel is lurking in the kitchen at Cordelia's party, with this quote from Cordelia describing him so well: "You know how parties are, you're always worried that no one's going to suck the energy out of the room like a giant black hole of despair. But there you were in the clinch."

Not saying that I do that to people at parties (at least, I hope not), but I can very much sympathise with Angel's lurking in the kitchen and his sheer terror of making a fool of himself if someone asks him to dance and I can only admire Wesley for getting stuck in and making a complete prat of himself, even if Cordelia would probably rather he'd lurked like Angel.

This behaviour of Angel's seems to me like a reaction to Angelus, because I just can't imagine Angelus lurking in the kitchen at a party (unless the kitchen maids looked particularly tasty, of course). No, he'd be out there in the middle of the room, surrounded by silly young ladies (and probably some silly young gentlemen too) all shrieking with appalled laughter at his rather risqué jokes (which they put down to his being Irish and a bit wild, like the Irish are - literally beyond the Pale) and saying: "Oh, Mr Angelus, what a card you are! And, pray, what is that poking me through my enormous hooped petticoat/crinoline/bustle/skin-tight silk knee breeches? Why did you not leave your oddly shaped walking stick/cucumber/enormous banana at the front door like all the other gentlemen?" Etc, etc. Meanwhile, Darla is lurking off in a corner somewhere, smiling to herself behind her fan as she watches him and shakes her head indulgently.

Oh, yes, Angelus loved to be noticed all right. As some of you may know, I don't for one minute believe that his Yoda role towards Spike extended much beyond showing off in front of him, leaving young William with the desire to be as 'cool' and look as good in front of the girls. I don't see Angelus as having either the patience or the inclination to ever really sit down and 'teach' William stuff unless someone made him. Why should he? What profit would it be to him? He'd far rather 'perform' and have the applause, and all the scenes that Angelus and William have in Destiny and TGiQ confirm this for me, such as when Spike says: "Dru sired me, but you made me a monster!" Well, it doesn't take actual lessons in anything to make someone a monster - just continual bullying interspersed with taking the bullied person into your confidence and treating them like a friend and showing off to them and making them want to be almost as big a bully as you - something that Spike did indeed learn, as we saw from the way he treated his minions, when he had any. Destiny shows us both sides of that, with first the laughing together and William's admiration of the way Angelus destroyed the wedding, and then Angelus's bullying of William over Dru. TGiQ shows us more of the hero worship, with William following behind Angelus like a puppy/awestruck younger brother and seemingly thinking it quite reasonable for them to try and enter an exclusive party under the name 'Blood Vengeance' if Angelus says so, and indignant for Angelus's sake about the nuns.

I can just see it now: a hushed and almost empty theatre, with Angelus on the stage, finally despatching his victim with a flourish after a mammoth three day torture session. He bows and from the front row, where Spike and Dru are sitting, comes rapturous applause.

Dru: "Bravo, Daddy! Encore! Encore!

Spike is also clapping, if a little less enthusiastically than Dru, and with many a sideways glance at her, thinking that he'll have to get the hang of this torturing thing if he's going to get Dru to look at him like that. Then suddenly, Angelus meets his eye and grins and he can't help grinning back, feeling all included and special suddenly. Daddy/Grandpa/Angelus/adopted sire/big brother/whoever-the-fuck the bloke is has noticed him and it makes him feel all warm inside.

Meanwhile, at the back of the theatre, Darla is also sitting. She applauds a little but then opens her fan to hide her unladylike yawn of boredom, thinking that, still, he does look magnificent doing what he does best, her dear boy.

So Angel, in his desire to run away and hide - to brood and not be noticed - is kind of like the anti-Angelus, and for the most part this works very well and he can suppress all that nastiness. However, in season 5, when Spike comes back on the scene, all his bullying instincts suddenly come to the surface again and he can't help treating Spike horribly, and calling him stupid - which is something Angelus did from the very first day he met William and is a very good way of lowering people's self-esteem, as I know personally - in an attempt to put him back in what Angelus considers is 'his place.' When it doesn't work, it's a sign of the good man that Angel has become that accepts this and accepts Spike (although he goes on wishing he'd just shut the hell up and leave him in peace - and I know how he feels, as I think my instinct on seeing Spike coming the other way would be to try and hide somewhere too, because Spike is loud and embarrassing and being with him gets you noticed and so on). And is this post going anywhere? Probably not.

Maybe the key to understanding Angel is that he's trying very, very hard not to be a bully, because he was once the worst one going. He desperately wants to be a good man, and mostly he can manage it after a fashion - unless someone (like Spike) provokes him, and then it gets nasty.