What happen's to the Angel side of Angelus?

[Funsmiley]

Hey guys,

This may be a confusing thread but its been nagging at me for a while and I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say on the subject.

So when Angel loses his soul ( yep soul talk again, sorry guys!) and is turned back into Angelus, what happens to the Angel side? We know Angel goes to hell after Buffy kills him In season 2 but when he is actually Angelus where does the Angel side go?
To hell? Or is Angel literally the soul? And Angelus the vampire and Liam the man?

It's something I've always wondered.

So what do you think happens?

[Scarygothgirl]

I think Angelus is the vampire, and Liam the man. But I don't see Angel as being the soul, he is ore the combination of Angelus with a soul. So without the soul he becomes more primal. The Angel part of him is not separate from Angelus, they are the same individual but only with the difference of the soul.

[bonnaleah]

I think Angelus is the vampire, and Liam the man. But I don't see Angel as being the soul, he is ore the combination of Angelus with a soul. So without the soul he becomes more primal. The Angel part of him is not separate from Angelus, they are the same individual but only with the difference of the soul.

I think Angel is Liam. A Liam who after being dead for a hundred and fifty years was shoved back into his body to find a demon in there too. He has memories of everything the demon has done and they feel like his memories....so although he is still Liam, he can no longer totally identify himself with the Liam he once was...and he certainly cannot identify with the demon...The mixing of his own memories with those of the demon changes him and creates a third personality....but it doesn't create a third entity. Angel is still the entity that was born "Liam of Galaway" and his soul is the only thing human in the body.

If Angel and Angelus are the same individual then there can be no "Liam the man" in the body... There can be no man at all. Just a demon who sometimes thinks he is a man. Aside from lingering memories there would be nothing left of Liam the man. Liam the man would still be as dead as he was the day he was buried in the ground.

So when Angel loses his soul ( yep soul talk again, sorry guys!) and is turned back into Angelus, what happens to the Angel side?

I think the soul and Angel were presented as synonymous all through the series...Angel is the soul...and when he leaves the body he ends up in a jar. His soul was supposed to have been retrieved from the ether....who knows what that means except for upper air. Sadly we were never shown what Angel's consciousness experienced when his soul wasn't in the body the way were were shown with Buffy.

[Scarygothgirl]

If Angel and Angelus are the same individual then there can be no "Liam the man" in the body... There can be no man at all. Just a demon who sometimes thinks he is a man.

This is pretty much what I think
But, of course, there is likely no true answer to this so we are all allowed to think different things.

[Skytteflickan88]

Two good theories:

"They're all the same person". Liam simply changed his name when his personality changed, which was due to his soul, some sort of energy(not a person in itself) coming into his body.

But the writers seem to think Angelus is a seperate person, which explains the season 4 fight Angel & Angelus had. Maybe the demon that enters might actually count as a person.

What's for sure is, is that some of the human remains, soul or no soul. Like in Illyria's case, I'm guessing that's due to the brain/memories. Also, since I believe the soul isn't a person in itself, "Angel" go nowhere when the soul does. It's just energy leaving the body and some of Angel remains in "Angelus".

[Kiki May]

I believe that Angel and Angelus are the same person.
I think that Angel is still there but he changes his behaviour, his point of view. For example, in the 4 Season of AtS, when Angelus is prisoner in the cage, he talks about Fred and Gunn's private moments. As Angel, he's maybe embarassed, as Angelus is more into manipulate these informations to hurt them and Wesley. It's about a change of prospective, in the end.

[bonnaleah]

I believe that Angel and Angelus are the same person.
I think that Angel is still there but he changes his behaviour, his point of view. For example, in the 4 Season of AtS, when Angelus is prisoner in the cage, he talks about Fred and Gunn's private moments. As Angel, he's maybe embarassed, as Angelus is more into manipulate these informations to hurt them and Wesley. It's about a change of prospective, in the end.

In the scene you are referencing the soul has left the body...in fact the the only reason Angelus is in the cage is because Wes, Gunn, Fred, Lorne Cordy, and Connor have planned and succeeded in separating the soul from the body. A big point is then made that Angel is gone....his soul is trapped in a jar. For Angel to only be fooling himself, we must then consider that all of the ATS characters are fooling themselves. The scene below is just the first of several scenes highlighting the fact that when the soul is gone ...Angel is gone.

Wesley walks up to the picture and opens it like a door, revealing a safe behind it. He twists the dial on the safe door to the right combination. Cordelia's standing behind him, holding the receptacle that's contains Angel's soul. Fred, Gunn, and Lorne are also in the room. Wesley opens the safe door, holds his hands out to Cordelia, and she hands him the receptacle. Wesley puts the receptacle in the safe, closes the safe door, then closes the picture over it, concealing the safe. [Wesley turns to face everyone] Angel is gone.

Wesley to Angelus: I'll put your soul back. You won't talk, no problem—we'll bring Angel back and be no worse off than we were. (again the soul synonomous with Angel)

The separation of Angel from Angelus by removing the soul is actually the focus of several episodes...begining at the end of "Long day's Journey, and continuing with "Awakening", "Souless", "Calvery", "Salvage".... "Release", in which the Beastmaster also references the separation of Angel/Angelus, and ending with "Orpheus" in which Angel and Angelus actually fight one another. We are given six consecutive episodes that drive home the fact that when the soul leaves the body..Angel leaves the body too.

Angelus: No, and I'll tell you why. One, because, you know, I'm evil, so—the friends thing—that's out. And two, if I did have any friends, they sure as hell wouldn't be living inside my head.

Beastmaster : Like you're forced to live inside Angel's? (chuckles) Because you're the voice in there, aren't you? Just beneath the surface, buried under all that goodness, fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on your desires. So thirsty, so helpless...it must be agony.

Angelus: I'm getting real bored with this game. (walks away)

Beastmaster: Then how 'bout a round of show-and-tell? (Angelus stops) Soul, soul, who has your soul? (the jar containing Angel's soul appears on a table in front of Angelus) Oh, right. Me.

Angelus lunges for the jar and tries to grab it, but his hands go right through it like it was a mirage.

Angelus: More smoke and mirrors?

Beastmaster: Only a glamour, yes, but I assure you, my sweet, this very moment I hold the real thing in the palms of my very corporeal hands, and I will restore it if you don't behave. I'll put you back in your box, Angelus, and bury you so far inside Angel, you'll never claw your way out again.

Angelus: (looks pained, stares at the ceiling) All right. What do you want me to do... (grits his teeth) master?

Orpheus" is also the episode in which Angelus is forced to relive Angel's good deeds....Angelus reacts much like the Beastmaster has suggested. He hates being trapped inside of Angel and feels like he is in Hell.

Angelus: Worse were the concerts. (a couple walks out past Angel, who looks at them longingly) You know what that's like? (Angel sits at the counter) Every time he gets close, I feel it. Wanting to tear their flesh apart. The hunger. It's like a blade in my gut.

Angel isn't in the body while Angelus is in that cage. That isn't my opinion, it's text.



@funsmiley200 : This text caught my eye while looking through the "Orpheus" transcript.

Fred: (holding a book) This is hopeless. The Orb of Thesulah is the only way I can find to restore Angel's soul, but that only works if it's moved on to an afterlife or something, not floating in a jar somewhere.

This still doesn't give a definitive answer to where Angel/the soul goes but it does seem to offer the possibility of an afterlife instead of the vague "ether" mentioned in "Passion

[Bunny Hearts]

Okay, I've been taking a breather from this topic since it was starting to overload me over in the Soul thread. But I just had a bit of an epiphany regarding the episode Orpheus from reading @bonnaleah 's post and reading the Mark Watches bit on it earlier. I had it on the brain.

All right, first up, I'm still sorting through all this and coming to grips with who I think Angel is and how his dueling personae work. The way he makes the most sense to me as a character, as a representative of the nature of the soul in the Buffyverse and as the titular character in a show that revolves around noir themes and battling one's own darkness is if Angel and Angelus are essentially the same person, only one has a conscience and the other one doesn't. From season 3 of Buffy on through the majority of Angel's own show, this seems pretty consistently to be the case, which is why Orpheus sticks out like a sore thumb in how it handles the Angel/Angelus dichotomy. However, if you tilt your head and look at it a little deeper, it actually totally reinforces the idea that Angel and Angelus are the same person.

Now, taking into consideration that the entire walk through Angel's memories could only be possible if Angel were still present in the body (and by that point the soul was still trapped in the jar), and the highly metaphysical context of the entire idea (this is all happening in Angel's mind so the fallacy of memory is more in play than if this was presented as a straight-up flashback; Angel perceives himself as a splintered psyche and so could present himself as such in his own mind; dream logic could apply where the mind presents symbolic aspects of itself to represent internal conflict/anxieties, etc.), this information is almost purely subjective. It's all about Angel's self-perception because it's all taking place in his mind from his point of view and his recollections. To borrow Mark's analogy, it's presented in much the same way as Scrooge's guilt-trips through time were handled in A Christmas Carol, where he could only observe what was happening and not interact with it any way-- the people Angelus and Faith are watching aren't aware of them at all. Until the end. Angel's persona suddenly ceases to be simply a memory and begins interacting with them both-- physically he's presented as his past self but his attitude and knowledge are all representative of present-day Angel. He intimates that this journey down memory lane wasn't for his benefit but for Faith's, meaning that he deliberately chose the memories she'd seen as a way to help her get through the emotional space she was currently in. All this happens before Angel gets his soul back.

So yeah, I don't think this episode counters the idea that Angel and Angelus are the same person, I think it does quite a bit to confirm it, actually.

[bonnaleah]

Now, taking into consideration that the entire walk through Angel's memories could only be possible if Angel were still present in the body (and by that point the soul was still trapped in the jar),and the highly metaphysical context of the entire idea (this is all happening in Angel's mind so the fallacy of memory is more in play than if this was presented as a straight-up flashback;

Except it wasn't a walk through Angel's memories. It was a walk through Angelus' memories of Angel's good deeds. The flashback belonged to Angelus.

Angelus: Hey! (turns to watch Angel walk away) What is that about?

Faith: You tell me. It's your flashback.

Angelus: All right, Miss Blow-It-All. This is my flashback. Why are you in it?

Faith: Don't know. Must be the magic side-effects of my incredibly simple ruse.


You have to remember that whether Angel is in the body or not, Angelus is always there....fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on his desires. So thirsty, so helpless...in agony just like the Beastmaster said. So yes Angelus can remember Angel's life....he's been a witness to it all.

Angelus: I'm in hell. This is hell, and I'm in it.

Faith: We're reliving Angel's good deeds—you are in hell! Wicked! (laughs)

Notice also that Angelus acknowledges Angel by using the word "we".

Angelus: We haven't fed on a human in decades.

Angel's persona suddenly ceases to be simply a memory and begins interacting with them both-- physically he's presented as his past self but his attitude and knowledge are all representative of present-day Angel.

Yes, because Willow has finally managed to free him from the confines of the glass jar. Angel didn't interact with Faith or begin his fight with Angelus until the soul had been set free.

Fred: So... now Angel's soul is just floating around out there?

Willow: Yeah, until I can channel it into the Orb of Thessulah.

The timing of all the events was spot on...Angelus only flashback while the soul is confined...Angel fights Angelus when the soul is set free...and Angel and Angelus combine into one body at the exact time Willow completes the ensouling spell.

To borrow Mark's analogy, it's presented in much the same way as Scrooge's guilt-trips through time were handled in A Christmas Carol, where he could only observe what was happening and not interact with it any way-- the people Angelus and Faith are watching aren't aware of them at all.

I think Mark better watch the episode again.

[Bunny Hearts]

Except it wasn't a walk through Angel's memories. It was a walk through Angelus' memories of Angel's good deeds. The flashback belonged to Angelus.

Sure, they could just as easily have been Angelus's memeories but then why would he be reliving the ones he considers to be hellish? Faith sure isn't the one in charge of what's being remembered and there was certainly a pattern in what memories they were reliving.

You have to remember that whether Angel is in the body or not, Angelus is always there....fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on his desires. So thirsty, so helpless...in agony just like the Beastmaster said. So yes Angelus can remember Angel's life....he's been a witness to it all.

I was addressing the argument that Angel (or Liam) is the essence of the soul and when the soul is outside the body Angel would have to be as well. Isn't that the argument? That Angel exists in the soul, so if the soul isn't in his body then neither is Angel, right?

Notice also that Angelus acknowledges Angel by using the word "we".

.... yeah, I'm not sure how that goes against anything I've said. Angelus's viewpoints are just as subjective as anyone's.

Yes, because Willow has finally managed to free him from the confines of the glass jar. Angel didn't interact with Faith or begin his fight with Angelus until the soul had been set free.

Okay, again, the soul is not in Angel's body. Floating in the ether is where it would normally be when it's not in the body so I'm not sure how Angel's mind can be present there without it. Unless I'm misunderstanding the argument.

The timing of all the events was spot on...Angelus only flashback while the soul is confined...Angel fights Angelus when the soul is set free...and Angel and Angelus combine into one body at the exact time Willow completes the ensouling spell.

At this point I'm guessing I don't understand your argument. I still don't see what the status of Angel's soul (trapped in a jar vs floating in the ether) outside of the body has anything to do with what's happening in his mind. If that were the case then wouldn't he have been able to mentally fight Angelus when his soul was lost in Buffy season 2? Isn't the whole point of the soul being gone is that it's not there anymore? If Angel as a personality exists in his soul and his soul is not in his body, how can Angel be orchestrating what memories to show Faith (and by proxy Angelus) and how can he be there fighting Angelus and urging Faith to keep fighting for herself before the soul is put back? I'm very honestly confused.

I think Mark better watch the episode again.

How was the analogy incorrect? Angelus and Faith were walking through crowded streets, having conversations, arguing, sitting in an otherwise secluded diner, etc. with no one paying them any mind, unable to interact with any one even if they wanted to. That sounds like how the three episodes in A Christmas Carol were presented.

[Kiki May]

The fact that Angelus (or Angel, for the matter) talks about his other side in third person doesn't really resolve the problem. It's about subjective perception. Schizophrenic people, for example, describe themselves using the third person: doesn't mean that they actually are many people.

[bonnaleah]

Sure, they could just as easily have been Angelus's memeories but then why would he be reliving the ones he considers to be hellish? Faith sure isn't the one in charge of what's being remembered and there was certainly a pattern in what memories they were reliving.

Angelus wasn't in charge of what he was remembering anymore than Faith was. The hellish memories were a result of the drug Orpheus.... or as the text describes it, magic side-effects of Faith's incredibly simple ruse.


Lorne: That's what makes it so dangerous. Orpheus isn't entirely physical. It's an enchanted drug.

Connor: Magic. This is what it gets you.

Lorne: That, plus the biting, makes for some serious psychic psychedelia. And the more you take, the deeper you sink.

Wesley: It leads you down to hell. And leaves you there.

I was addressing the argument that Angel (or Liam) is the essence of the soul and when the soul is outside the body Angel would have to be as well. Isn't that the argument? That Angel exists in the soul, so if the soul isn't in his body then neither is Angel, right?

I believe you were saying that there was no way Angel's memories could be accessed while the soul was locked up in a jar. Your quote...

Now, taking into consideration that the entire walk through Angel's memories could only be possible if Angel were still present in the body (and by that point the soul was still trapped in the jar),

My argument is that the soul/Angel isn't needed in the body for Angelus to relive Angel's life. Angelus is always present, soul or no soul. He remembers Angel's life because he has been a captive witness to all of it. Angelus is the life force that animates the body and is always in the body.

.... yeah, I'm not sure how that goes against anything I've said. Angelus's viewpoints are just as subjective as anyone's.

In your theory everyone in the story is misinformed and fooling themselves. Not just the protaganist but all of his sidekicks....and even his enemies. It becomes a story about a group of misfits who don't know up from down.

Okay, again, the soul is not in Angel's body. Floating in the ether is where it would normally be when it's not in the body so I'm not sure how Angel's mind can be present there without it. Unless I'm misunderstanding the argument.

Angel's mind is never shown to be in the body.

At this point I'm guessing I don't understand your argument. I still don't see what the status of Angel's soul (trapped in a jar vs floating in the ether) outside of the body has anything to do with what's happening in his mind.

And again my argument is that what we were shown while the soul is confined in a jar wasn't coming from Angel's mind. All the flashbacks that we were shown were coming from Angelus' mind. The text makes a point to come out and say it. There's nothing ambiguous about it. I think you are trying to make sense of it through the framework of what you already believe is true about Angel/Angelus.

If that were the case then wouldn't he have been able to mentally fight Angelus when his soul was lost in Buffy season 2? Isn't the whole point of the soul being gone is that it's not there anymore? If Angel as a personality exists in his soul and his soul is not in his body, how can Angel be orchestrating what memories to show Faith (and by proxy Angelus) and how can he be there fighting Angelus and urging Faith to keep fighting for herself before the soul is put back? I'm very honestly confused.

The episode has shown us that Angel as a personality exists by showing us the fight scene. We are shown Angel and Angelus duking it out....both say they have been waiting for this. Angel showing up coincides with his soul being released from the jar. He doesn't interact earlier because he was locked up in a jar and impervious to magic.

Willow: Soul trapped in a glass jar, impervious to magic. It is complicated.

Willow has already explained that she will have to make contact with the spirit world before doing the spell....and Connor voices that Willow's spell must've opened a gateway to something. Then
when Angel shows up Angelus mentions that he had a feeling the rules had changed. Angel showing up and taking a mystical brain tour with Faith and Angelus is no different than Angel and Buffy taking a brain tour, which has happened on BTVS. The writers don't have to give complicated explanations for how everything is possible....we've already seen angel interact with Buffy remotely...laying precendent for being able to interact remotely with Faith and Angelus.....who were both laying unconscious during the entire thing and yet we accept that their brain tour is possible.

How was the analogy incorrect? Angelus and Faith were walking through crowded streets, having conversations, arguing, sitting in an otherwise secluded diner, etc. with no one paying them any mind, unable to interact with any one even if they wanted to. That sounds like how the three episodes in A Christmas Carol were presented.

Your quote...

It's all about Angel's self-perception because it's all taking place in his mind from his point of view and his recollections. To borrow Mark's analogy, it's presented in much the same way as Scrooge's guilt-trips through time were handled in A Christmas Carol, where he could only observe what was happening and not interact with it any way--

Incorrect because it isn't about Angel's self perception, and it isn't taking place in Angel's mind. It's all taking place in Angelus' mind.

The fact that Angelus (or Angel, for the matter) talks about his other side in third person doesn't really resolve the problem. It's about subjective perception. Schizophrenic people, for example, describe themselves using the third person: doesn't mean that they actually are many people.

See for me it's extremely hard to believe that Joss Whedon has been telling a story about a Schizophrenic... that the hero of the story he is telling suffers from a serious mental disability...that he isn't just fooling himself... No he is successfully fooling everyone he comes in contact with. Friends, enemies, two slayers, you name it, he fools everyone.

[janas]

@Bunny Hearts : The answer to all your questions is: Orpheus. The perceptual distortion temporal, and double vision, as well as the presence of Faith, is determined by the effect of the drug mystical.
And this is also the reason why, Angelus (in spite of himself) is forced to relive the good deeds of Angel. Why Angelus is under the influence of psychedelics of Orpheus and is reliving his own personal hell (the good deeds of Angel) "It leads you down to hell. And leaves you there."

That one real, is Angel (in the sense that it is he who performs the actions and interacts with the world), while Angelus and Faith are just passive spectators, because they were not actually there when it happened what they see. But, while Angel there moves in time, showing his actions, Angelus and Faith live in the present (their clothes never change). So Angel is as a sort of guide used from drugs, to conduct Angelus in the hell. This to me shows that they are two separate entities. What they share is the body and the memories. But as we see, the way they act is different. Because is the soul makes the difference.

We viewers see the actions of Angel's and hear comments of Angelus. Do you think that Angel and Angelus are the same person? you think that the two of them have the same perception of life? even musical tastes are different. (Angelus hates Mandy)

Kiki May: The fact that Angelus make fun of Fred, talking about his sexual performance, shows how are different Angelus and Angel. The only thing they have in common is the body and memories. Angel hears Fred and Gunn from his room, but him certainly does not use this to hurt them (in fact, I think Angel feel embarrassed). Instead Angelus uses everything he knows, to weaken them. Why this difference in behavior? Because Angel is not Angelus.

EDiT:

@bonnaleah has done before me, we are saying the same things (I did not see his post)

[Kiki May]

See for me it's extremely hard to believe that Joss Whedon has been telling a story about a Schizophrenic... that the hero of the story he is telling suffers from a serious mental disability...that he isn't just fooling himself... No he is successfully fooling everyone he comes in contact with. Friends, enemies, two slayers, you name it, he fools everyone.

Joss Whedon loves to portray complex characters and he doesn't write them fully aware of their strengths or their weaknesses. As far as I know, Whedon's first source of inspiration to portray Angel/us was alcool addiction: the addict changes his behaviour but basically he's the same person. Also, all the characters can actually achieve some truths after believing the opposite for an entire narrative arc. Angel's ability to fool himself and the others can be motivated by his peculiar state (he's the only vampire with the soul) except that everything changes after Spike became also a vampire with a soul and this can be a intelligent way to challange Angel's informations and convinctions about the soul, without streaching too much the narrative.

Angel's interpretation of Angelus, even in the third season of BtVS, was quite convincing. He didn't have any trouble to find himself in Angelus' shoes. It's always makes the audience wonder: he's really a different guy?

Moral and psychological ambiguous characters are one thing you can find in all Whedon's works.

[Scarygothgirl]

Can I just say that when you're discussing Angel being 'schizophrenic' here, you are actually referring to Multiple-Personality-Disorder (MPD) rather than Schizophrenia. They are quite different. Schizophrenics do not tend to refer to themselves as 'we', and do not have multiple personalities.

[janas]

Angel's interpretation of Angelus, even in the third season of BtVS, was quite convincing. He didn't have any trouble to find himself in Angelus' shoes. It's always makes the audience wonder: he's really a different guy?

Exactly as we had no difficulty in believing that "the other vampire with a soul" really worked for Magnus Hainsley in "Just Rewards" he's really a different guy? because to me, has remember the dear old "Deadly, amoral, opportunistic" Spike. Angel and Spike were reciting a script that both know well, because their past is still inside them (and this applies to any other human being)

[Kiki May]

Okay, let's report some quotes.


Buffy 1x07

I killed mine. I killed their friends... and their
friend's children... For a hundred years I offered ugly death to
everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart.


Angel, 4x10

Angelus says, whatever he does—remember, he's not your father. I am.


Angel 4x15

We haven't fed on a human in decades.



First person, third person, first person plural. How exactly is reliable Angel's point of view?
I was using the schizophrenia example just to make clear that a person can be unreliable because of his subjective perception. I'm not saying that Angel is schizophrenic, but I'm saying that even he doesn't have a clear perception of Angelus and himself.

[bonnaleah]

As far as I know, Whedon's first source of inspiration to portray Angel/us was alcohol addiction:

Yes, although the main gist of the idea has been lost through the years. I used to have the interview explaining what was meant by the alcohol addiction comparison on my hard drive, so I'll try to find it. But the idea was that Angel, even with a soul was still a vampire who needed blood to survive. As his series was beginning, Angel had just left Sunnydale after feeding on Buffy, which had re-awakened his blood lust....similar to an alcoholic falling off the wagon after years of being on the wagon. So the original idea wasn't about Angel fighting to keep from turning into Angelus...it was about the struggle to not give in to his blooddlust. Which I might add wouldn't have turned him into Angelus anyway.

Angel's interpretation of Angelus, even in the third season of BtVS, was quite convincing. He didn't have any trouble to find himself in Angelus' shoes. It's always makes the audience wonder: he's really a different guy?

Angel was acting a role in "Enemies". A role he would have no trouble playing, not because he is really Angelus, but because he was cursed to remember every evil thing Angelus had ever done...right down to every single killing. Remembering every single killing is a pretty remarkable feat considering that there was 150 years of it. He's smart but he's not that smart. The curse and a century of remembering allows him to convincingly pretend to be Angelus. And as @Janus has pointed out, Spike also has no problem making Magnus believe he is evil vampire Spike.

[Bunny Hearts]

First off I feel the need to say that the schizophrenia analogy has the potential to tread onto some personal territory for me. There's a lot of misinformation about it out there, especially in entertainment media, I get that, I'm not offended by that, I had to unlearn a lot of stuff too. What does get my back up is the idea of a character displaying qualities that are in sync with a form of mental illness somehow makes them inferior as a person. Not saying anyone was doing that but there's kind of a tone. Maybe it's all my perception but I just wanted to put that out there. Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) is not schizophrenia and neither one of them makes a person inferior or less worthy of empathy or a heroic story.

Angelus wasn't in charge of what he was remembering anymore than Faith was. The hellish memories were a result of the drug Orpheus.... or as the text describes it, magic side-effects of Faith's incredibly simple ruse.

Right, no real disagreements there except for a few of Angel's lines toward the end of the dream sequence. He told Angelus that none of the flashbacks had been about him, they were for Faith, implying both that any hell Angelus may have experienced was a bonus but not the point, and that Angel was the one in charge of showing them what they were seeing. It's implicit, he never comes out and says it, but he does directly imply that there was a specific, intended purpose for everything they were seeing, all for Faith's benefit. That could only be accomplished through Angel's will since he's the one who wants to help Faith and Angelus certainly wouldn't do that to himself on purpose.

My argument is that the soul/Angel isn't needed in the body for Angelus to relive Angel's life. Angelus is always present, soul or no soul. He remembers Angel's life because he has been a captive witness to all of it. Angelus is the life force that animates the body and is always in the body.

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing that Angelus would have the same memories and those could be the ones on display here. My argument isn't against that, it's questioning how Angel's persona could be in the dream if his soul isn't in his body. His personality is clearly there as soon as he starts talking to them in the alley, which is before Willow performs the ensouling spell. He also implies he's been manipulating the flashbacks to help Faith realize that redemption is a never-ending path and she needs to keep fighting. To me, this can only be possible if Angel's persona is still present in his body without the soul. That's it.

In your theory everyone in the story is misinformed and fooling themselves. Not just the protaganist but all of his sidekicks....and even his enemies. It becomes a story about a group of misfits who don't know up from down.

I'm really not sure where you're getting the idea that I think everyone is stupid. I don't, I think that everyone experiences the world through the bias of their own perceptions. None of us ever know the clear, unvarnished Truth because all the information we take in through our senses is processed according to our experiences, our unique perspectives, our beliefs, our ideologies, our aesthetics, our culture, everything that informs how we interpret that information. To that end, we color reality with our beliefs, our hopes, our fears, our sense of our place in the world, with who we believe ourselves to be, with our sense of who others are, all of it. None of us have all the information, ever. That's what subjective means, it's subject to our biases and interpretations. Much like this debate.

Personally, I don't believe Angel truly thinks of himself as two separate people. I do suspect that he might let other people believe that because he's afraid his friends will think less of him if they knew Angelus was really him, just like I suspect his friends already know this and go along with it to spare his feelings. Granted, it's not terribly consistent in its portrayal and there's lots of pronoun mixing going on, but that's my sense of where things are at with them. (I don't know, maybe they do it because it makes it easier for themselves too. People are complicated.) I honestly find that touching.

And again my argument is that what we were shown while the soul is confined in a jar wasn't coming from Angel's mind. All the flashbacks that we were shown were coming from Angelus' mind. The text makes a point to come out and say it. There's nothing ambiguous about it. I think you are trying to make sense of it through the framework of what you already believe is true about Angel/Angelus.

I could say the same thing about your argument, or anyone else's argument in here. The things that make sense to us are different based on our biases and perceptions. That doesn't mean my argument can't be backed up by examples from the text. Angel's persona is shown to be in the dream sequence before the soul is returned to the body: the entire fight sequence in the alley is Angel fighting Angelus (metaphorically, a person fighting their own inner demons/dark side while he's urging another person to do the same). This Angel is not a memory, nor is he probably a figment of Angelus's subconscious because he speaks things Angel would say and his primary concern is with Faith, not Angelus. To me, this is Angel's persona confronting them directly to finish making the point he started making indirectly with the flashbacks. Again, this only makes sense to me if Angel's essence does not exist exclusively in his soul because it isn't present while his persona is. I don't know how else to put this but that's all my argument is.

Angel showing up and taking a mystical brain tour with Faith and Angelus is no different than Angel and Buffy taking a brain tour, which has happened on BTVS. The writers don't have to give complicated explanations for how everything is possible....we've already seen angel interact with Buffy remotely...laying precendent for being able to interact remotely with Faith and Angelus.....who were both laying unconscious during the entire thing and yet we accept that their brain tour is possible.

Who's arguing against the magical brain tour? Buffy got a taste of Angel's dreams in Amends, implicitly because of The Powers That Be intervening on Angel's behalf to set him on his path to LA and Shanshu and all that. Faith's experience here is slightly different but is still largely the same because of the magical mind-melding drug. I'm really not understanding what point you're trying to argue here.

So Angel is as a sort of guide used from drugs, to conduct Angelus in the hell. This to me shows that they are two separate entities. What they share is the body and the memories. But as we see, the way they act is different. Because is the soul makes the difference.

Okay, wait, are you arguing that the "hell" here is a literal hell? Because I was thinking of it as a metaphorical hell, the psyche torturing itself, not traveling to an actual hell dimension for external torment and misery. Since Angel and Faith are both still alive at that point I'm more inclined toward the metaphorical hell, but that's just me.

We viewers see the actions of Angel's and hear comments of Angelus. Do you think that Angel and Angelus are the same person? you think that the two of them have the same perception of life? even musical tastes are different. (Angelus hates Mandy)

I think Angelus represents a part of Angel, the parts of himself he doesn't like, that he doesn't want to admit are there, that he's afraid of. You've never experienced self-doubt? That metaphorical voice in your head telling you you're pathetic, out of fashion, sentimental, unrealistic, wasting your time on an impossible dream? That part of yourself that thinks it'd be so much easier to give in to temptation, take the easy way out, stop caring, stop trying? The part that thinks unkind things about people, even the ones you love? That resents them for the things they take for granted, for how hard they make you have to try, even when you know it's better for you to have them there? That part of yourself that wants to push all that stuff aside and just think about yourself and your own happiness and let them fend for themselves? That part of yourself that secretly hates you for feeling all this? We all have our own Angelus in us, the difference is we don't tend to call them by a separate name.

That's what makes the most sense to me, that's what I find to be a rather poignant emotional truth, and that speaks to the heart of Angel's ongoing existential crisis. If other people find more meaning in another interpretation then I'm certainly not going to tell them they're wrong. That's the great thing about art, it allows for so many interpretations.

[Kiki May]

Thank you for your post, @Bunny Hearts . I was the first to use the schizophrenia analogy and I'm sorry if it leaded to a real discussion about this mental illness. Mine was just an example, to explain why Angel's point of view can be questioned by the audience. That doesn't make him any less heroic or fascinating that the other characters. Even if Angel was really a schizophrenic, to me that wouldn't change a thing. Season Six of Buffy was a great meta for depression: Buffy, the hero protagonist, was affected by it and I loved her much more.
So far Angel talked about Angelus with third person and first person.