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Thoughts on Angelus
by DeborahMM
So I was thinking about Angelus – what? I do, don’t you? – and remembering that when TGiQ was shown, there was a bit of an outcry about the way he was depicted in that episode – and about the way Spike was too, but not as much - although personally, all other reasoning apart, I was so sick of the ‘Spike the idiot’ stuff by then that it made a refreshing change to get ‘Angelus the idiot’ instead. However, be that as it may, and no matter how much I might enjoy (which is actually not as much as you might imagine) thinking of Angelus as this broodingly handsome scary bloke in leather trousers who might creep into your room at night and ravish you – well, ravish you and then kill you, more likely – it actually didn’t bother me at all to see him being portrayed as a bit of a stupid git.
This is because I’d already long come to the conclusion that he was vastly overrated in most ways anyway. I’ve always found it hard to believe that we were supposed to think he taught Spike everything he knows – although it seems he did teach him to ‘guard his perimeter’, which is all we actually know for sure that he taught him, and I could have taught him that – let alone that he’s so frightening and dangerous and ‘all that’ where evil’s concerned. I came to that conclusion after watching AtS season 4, and then thinking back to BtVS season 2 and realising that it all fit together rather well, in that Angelus was never exactly the man with the plan, was he? Or rather, if he thought of a plan, he was monumentally bad at sticking to it, unless it involved concentrating for only five minutes at a time. So, yes, he was great at fucking with Angel’s friends’ heads in season 4, but let him out of his cage, and he goes wandering off, stumbling into ever more absurd and unplanned situations, although of course looking very cool while he does it. He’s all: “Let’s kill Lilah, oh, wait, she’s already dead, let’s kill Fred then – oh, that didn’t work, let’s kill the Beast – oops, bad move – let’s kill Faith, booring! Damn, you caught me bang to rights. I give up, guv’nor, now shove that soul back in.”
No wonder Evil Cordy got so pissed off with him. Who wouldn’t? He didn’t have a plan, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have stuck to it.
And then in BtVS season 2, he couldn’t even stick with his idea of mentally screwing with Buffy until her head exploded. No, he got bored of that and decided to go with Dru’s wacky notion of waking Acathla and ending the world – but at least he looked good doing it, yeah?
So, no, I think Spike probably pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, though dazzled on the way just like everybody else by the Leather Pants of Evil, and that Darla was very definitely the brains of the Darla/Angelus operation, and that it was Angelus’s very own idea to try and get into the Immortal’s party using the name Blood Vengeance. I mean, I ask you!
Angel of course, is another matter. He does stick to things, which I suppose one must put down to a lot of brooding bringing maturity - because Angelus is far more like the original Liam than Angel is – and his plans are usually –except for what was probably the last one ever – much, much better.
More thoughts in the comments of the original post.