I would quibble that Angel's "it's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy, it's the man" is about him seeing himself as bad in addition to being weak. Even before AtS branched out Angel's backstory and characterisation, you had that moment in the third season of BTVS where Buffy, trying to cheer up Willow who is still disturbed by Vamp Willow, says that vampires are always completely unlike their human selves, and Angel says "actually...", falling silent when she gives him a look.
Mind you, a few years later when Angel and Spike have their little chat at the end of Damage about Dana and themselves, they agree that they were both innocent, "once upon a time". Which is also interesting because I would argue that outside of BTVS, both Faith and Spike aren't written as Buffy's alter egos anymore, but as Angel's. If there is a Buffy alter ago on AtS, it's Darla, only the narrative of AtS turns it around and declares Buffy to be Darla's avatar, with Darla as the original. (Not that BTVS didn't play with that a bit: Becoming opens and but for one scene closes with a blonde woman telling Angel to close his eyes before killing him/sending him to another world. But it's just an allusion there.)
Note that I don't say "shadow self" because the very premise of AtS is that Angel is his own shadow self, but Five by Five deliberately parallels Angel immediately post soul with Faith after her shattering Who are you? experience, and Spike throughout season 5 is both in a playful and a serious manner the road not taken for Angel. And one more thing: is it coincidence, or not, that both Faith and Spike have their life-after-the-big-death-moment-of-redemption not around Buffy, but Angel?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-01-04 12:29 pm (UTC)Mind you, a few years later when Angel and Spike have their little chat at the end of Damage about Dana and themselves, they agree that they were both innocent, "once upon a time". Which is also interesting because I would argue that outside of BTVS, both Faith and Spike aren't written as Buffy's alter egos anymore, but as Angel's. If there is a Buffy alter ago on AtS, it's Darla, only the narrative of AtS turns it around and declares Buffy to be Darla's avatar, with Darla as the original. (Not that BTVS didn't play with that a bit: Becoming opens and but for one scene closes with a blonde woman telling Angel to close his eyes before killing him/sending him to another world. But it's just an allusion there.)
Note that I don't say "shadow self" because the very premise of AtS is that Angel is his own shadow self, but Five by Five deliberately parallels Angel immediately post soul with Faith after her shattering Who are you? experience, and Spike throughout season 5 is both in a playful and a serious manner the road not taken for Angel. And one more thing: is it coincidence, or not, that both Faith and Spike have their life-after-the-big-death-moment-of-redemption not around Buffy, but Angel?