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Essay on Angel's Name
by Annasbeta
Originally a post on LJ

It has to be the freakiest thing that a demon that was known as the Scourge of Europe now goes around with the name ANGEL.

And yet, I think that all teasing aside about the girliness of his name and it's inaptitude, he must have deliberately chosen to use the monicker "Angel". And despite what Darla may have called him or what press the Watchers Council put out about him, I very much doubt that choice had anything to do with his current choice of names.

Let's examine it shall we?

He was born LIAM, which according to this source (http://www.behindthename.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?terms=william), is the Irish version of WILLIAM, [that you must admit is both cool and creepy, when you consider Angel and Spike's relationship]. At any rate WILLIAM and LIAM are both words that mean "PROTECTOR". Food for thought at any rate, since both Spike and Angel now act as protectors and champions for the Powers That Be.

Joss makes it clear that when he rose as a vampire, his sister Kathy invited him in, thinking he had risen from the dead as an angel. And doubtless, Joss wishes us to implicitly believe that ANGELUS is the latin form of angel, and so that way the monicker that he has chosen is a pet form of the old nom de guerre.

However, LIAM was both Irish and CATHOLIC. Which leads me to make the following propositions, which you may consider at your leisure.

The Angelus in Catholic dogma is a bell that rings three times in a twenty-four hour period. Once at sunrise, once at noon, and once at midnight. The bell rings to call the congregation to church for prayer services. Also, the word Angelus is derived from the Greek word angelos, which means messenger. It was later taken by the church to define a specific messenger; a messenger of God.

ANGELUS=CALL TO PRAYER=MESSENGER OF GOD.

Considering when and where the future Scourge of Europe was, I find it VERY unlikely that both he and Darla were unaware of the implications of his taking the name ANGELUS. This is after all the same demon who did say that nunneries "were like big cookie jars". By taking the name ANGELUS, he was making a statement; that he was both a call for prayer, for which there would be no answer until he ended it, and he was the messenger of God, which gave him the freedom, the right? possibly, to do as he saw fit, without reprisal.

What then of the monicker "ANGEL"? Is it just a pet name? An attempt to walk away from his past, but not too far away? Hmmm.

The Book of Revelations speaks of a war in HEAVEN in which Lucifer, an archangel and God's right hand, fights against God because he no longer wishes to serve humans. There are two interpretations for Lucifer's decision and subsequent war.

There's the Kevin Smith version, which states that Lucifer and his followers chose to war with God because while Angels had more power, more brains, and more understanding than humans, they were not ever granted their freedom from their servitude to GOD. The implication is one of slaves overturing their MASTER.

Then there is the interpretation that Lucifer rebelled because he was sick and tired of watching humans fuck it up. In Milton's Paradise Lost, Lucifer says something to the effect that "it were better to be a prince in hell, than a servant in heaven".

At any rate, any and all of Lucifer's fellow angels were thrown out of heaven at the end of the war. Yep, angels were thrown out of Heaven, to become demons on earth, to be hated and reviled by all of God's righteous and his creations.

FALLEN DEMON=ANGEL.

There is no doubt in my mind that ANGEL is well-aware of both interpretations of the Book of Revelations.

I think he really hates himself, does our Angel. I think he deliberately chose a name that reminds him of his "exile" from "heaven", the nature of "his fall". For there is no proof that, unlike Spike, ANGELUS would have ever tired or chosen under any circumstance to stop killing, maiming or torturing. We know that it is only after he gains a soul that he does take up the name "ANGEL". He never denies what he has done in the past or that his past actions are NOT a part of who he is today.

When he's cursed with a soul,he's just been cast out of heaven. The heaven and haven of being to do whatever he liked without consequence. A veritable "Prince" of darkness. But unlike Lucifer, when he is cast out, ANGEL attempts to gain redemption for his presumption in acting as a messenger of God whilst he was nothing but a demon.

Anybody got any ideas on who LIAM was? What drove him to become so terrifying, so brutal once he rose?

I mean you can see through Joss, that Angel is deliberately attempting to do everything that ANGELUS would NOT, from working with his food to protecting those he used to hunt on.

But we know so very little about Liam, so we have no way of knowing what drove him to slaughter his entire village, his family, and then went on to scourge Europe.

Joss uses Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, Darla, Vampire Willow and Vampire Xander to mirror the darkness that all of us have inside. When you look at Vampire Willow and then Season six Willow and parts of season seven, you realise that it's a very thin knife's edge in the Jossverse from being a monster. What we have yet to be shown on either show is what the knife edge is for Angel. Some would say it's his soul, but I maintain that that stance is too simplistic.

I invite any and all comments.

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