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Author
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Topic: The truth about Angelus' re-emergence?
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Vox Scooby Gang Member
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posted 28-04-2000 11:10 PM
So... Eternity... what actually happened? Drug use => to re-emergence of Angelus. Why? 3 possible reasons ~ 1) Angel fights a constant internal battle with his inner demon, the intoxicating effect of the drug made him lose his grip on his self-control and allowed the demon to take control. But why shouldn't other intoxication have the same effect? What the hell was he doing drinking if a drunk Angel is a bad Angel? 2) The artificial state of 'bliss' (the effects of the Doximal) somehow partially triggered the happiness clause of the gypsy in a novel way so that the soul was repressed temporarily.
Which would mean that the happiness clause still exists (and that it wasn't removed by either Jenny or the entity that possessed Willow). But there are problems, the happiness clause seems a trigger, it's not a sliding scale thing, it kicks the soul out or it doesn't. 3) The chemical actually suppressed the soul itself.
Which would be backed up by the fact that when the influence of the drug wore off he was back to his angst-ridden self. But chemicals can affect our souls now? Huh? I think there's an important difference to be drawn between body + demon & body + demon + soul + intoxication I don't think Angel's soul was affected in anyway at all. The soul has to be more than an analogy for inhibitions which can be weakened by intoxicating substances. Think about it. When humans get intoxicated they do not lose their moral centre, they can feel guilt as much as the next person, in fact they seem to delight in that sort of wallowing maudlin guilt that can get so tedious for the people around them. What they do lose is some of their self-restraint (as well as some of their motor control). Impulse becomes action without the usual common-sense filtering. Happiness had nothing to do with Angelus' return, it should work with any other substance with similar properties. It was all about the loss of self-control and the surfacing of suppressed desire. As Angel keeps saying, this is, deep down, his true nature. [This message has been edited by Vox (edited 28-04-2000).] IP: Logged |
Keenangel Scooby Gang Member
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posted 28-04-2000 11:30 PM
Oohh Vox, sometime i think you think too much ( ).I pretty much followed most of that (the lateness of the hour, please forgive me! ) This is my thought and i am not really one for deep thinking and analysis Maybe the drug didn't release Angelus as such, just lowered his guard (as Rebecca said, and BOY was it lowered ) and it wasn't his soul that was released, it was his inhibition. After all the brooding and guilt and suffering that he is/was/has gone through was relieved by the drug, like alcohol, and Angelus returned. (* I think you may have already said all of this, so ignore if i have*) Usually Angel doesn't allow himself to be in a position where his self imposed barriers are breached in anyway, apart from the champagne in tonight's ep, and there was a brief shot of him breaking out the whisky in Batchelor Party, (which Doyle ended up drinking) I didn't think Angel touched alcohol at all, just stuck to soft drinks. Though I could quite possibly be wrong. IP: Logged |
Sententia Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 01:25 AM
I posted this in the "Eternity" thread, but it seemed relevant, so I thought I'd post it here also:I liked this episode but it does present problems with regard to the happiness clause: 1)How is it possible that an artificial drug could allow Angelus free? We all know that the demon is present even in good ol’ Angel. But then only time we have previously seen it being released, Angel’s soul supposedly went into the ether and had to be recalled by the curse. In the case of the drug, Angel’s soul must have remained, for he was still Angel when the effects of the drug wore off. No need for a spell of any kind. So presumably, the simulated “bliss” of the drug merely suppressed Angel’s soul till it wore off. But there’s no precedent in the curse for this. Where did it come from? 2) I suppose we have to assume he did sleep with Rebecca. This would vindicate those who hold the theory of the happiness clause that only true happiness (in the sense of sex with a loved one) can activate the clause. But then why can it be partially activated by a mere drug? The required activation for the clause seems to have been both strengthened and weakened. 3)Angel seemed to feel pretty strongly about Rebecca when they slept together, yet the happiness clause didn’t activate. So does that imply that perfect happiness isn’t judged subjectively, but requires some sort of objective, predestined, “true love”? IP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 03:24 AM
I'll go with the drug releasing Angel's inhibitions (along with maybe a tiny bit of him starting off trying to scare Rebecca, before totally losing it). Remember, with his vampiric mental faculties, his mood would change in a flash, and even intoxicated people *with* souls can be nearly as bad as Angelus, and just as helpless to stop themselves.IP: Logged |
AxB Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 02:27 PM
So Angelus' capacity for evil and destruction is more to do with his physical powers and abilities than his actual personality? He was the ultimate in evil because he had a greater capacity for evil acts, rather than just being fundamentally a nastier person than, say, Spike? I would disagree. When Liam was intoxicated, he was not Angelus-esque in his evil. He was a brawler and a braggart, not a torturer/murderer. IP: Logged |
Keenangel Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 02:35 PM
Liam was pre-vamp Angel, therefore he didn't have the demon inside of him. It was the demon inside of Angel(us) that made him the vicious killer that he was before he was souled. IP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 03:05 PM
Precisely, Liam was not a vampire, with an ingrained propensity for naughtiness.IP: Logged |
AxB Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 06:23 PM
But Joe, you said people with souls can be nearly as bad as Angelus while intoxicated. That's why I brought up Liam's drinking habits. I was going to ask if a drug for humans would affect a vampire in the way it would affect humans, given that the two species' have radically different physiogonomy, but I think I would be merely setting us all up for another round of because Joss says so. But given that humans and Vampires are different species, logic suggest that drugs for a human might not have the same affect on a Vampire, the same way that a human never got high from Catnip.IP: Logged |
Keenangel Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 07:40 PM
Sententia, you mentioned in paragraph no 3: "Angel seemed to feel pretty strongly about Rebecca when they slept together, yet the happiness clause didn't activate"Angel and Rebecca did not sleep together. Yes Angel stayed at her home when she discovered what he really was, but they didn't "activate the happiness clause" because when Cordelia visited, she made a quip about evil Angel never wearing those pants,(lame, i know) plus Angel is so aware of the curse and its consequences that he wouldn't have dared to have slept with her! And I think we would have gotten to see Angelus a whole lot sooner than we did. Rebecca gave him a drug to simulate bliss and eventually it wore off, if it had been the sex that had released Angelus, then Angelus would still be on the loose. This is my opinion anyway, but there wasn't even a kiss between the pair, never mind any sex IP: Logged |
SKYFIRE Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 10:37 PM
Vox seems to be right. I will have to go through it myself but the argument seems sound.My first instinct was that the Angelus story was just a case of lets ignore the rules so we can have a good story. However I am prepared to look at possibilities. Firstly I must assume Angel never lost his soul since once it is gone only a curse can restore it. That implies that two the happiness clause was never invoked since that would lose his soul for good. This leaves was with the possibility that Angel kept his soul but not his conscience. Now lets assume that the soul allows Angel to her his conscience and it is his guilt or desire to be good which keeps him from attacking humans. As in last weeks episode, his instinct was to fight but he did his best to keep control and not give in to that instinct. It is possible for a drug to affect the ability to deny your instincts without removing the soul. I am not keen on the argument as it is too much of a plot devise for my liking since a depressent should have been more effective (IIRC alcohol is a depressent which depresses your self control and makes you act to your instincts). The best explaination I have read so far though. IP: Logged |
Vox Scooby Gang Member
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posted 29-04-2000 11:32 PM
quote: Originally posted by AxB: But given that humans and Vampires are different species, logic suggest that drugs for a human might not have the same affect on a Vampire, the same way that a human never got high from Catnip.
Spike is an example of a vampire who's been under the influence on a couple of occasions. 1) He 'tripped' after feeding off a flower-person. ~ this could follow, the impurity was in the blood itself, its introduced into the vampire in a way that means he assimilates it into his system 2) We see in drunk in Lover's Walk drinking directly from the bottle. ~ this is comparable to Angel's doximal experience and is more difficult to explain. We know that vampires can eat but it's not assimilated into their body in the same way that if we started eating dirt we wouldn't gain any nutrition from it. But alcohol can get around the body very well on its own, thank you, and I assume so can doximal so it wouldn't have to be introduced through a foodstuff. We already know that vampires use the host brain to control and sense (that's why Drusilla's insanity carried over into her vamp form) (I think Billy Fordham's brain cancer would have still affected him, but perhaps its progress would have been halted). If they use the brain then the brain can still be affected by such things as oxygen deprivation (Spike's strangulation of Dru in Becoming (and let's not get onto the whole 'Do vampires breathe?' topic again) and drugs, whether they come in through the blood or directly.
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Sententia Scooby Gang Member
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posted 30-04-2000 02:00 PM
quote: Originally posted by Keenangel: Angel and Rebecca did not sleep together. Yes Angel stayed at her home when she discovered what he really was, but they didn't "activate the happiness clause" because when Cordelia visited, she made a quip about evil Angel never wearing those pants,(lame, i know) plus Angel is so aware of the curse and its consequences that he wouldn't have dared to have slept with her! And I think we would have gotten to see Angelus a whole lot sooner than we did. Rebecca gave him a drug to simulate bliss and eventually it wore off, if it had been the sex that had released Angelus, then Angelus would still be on the loose. This is my opinion anyway, but there wasn't even a kiss between the pair, never mind any sex
I didn't mean that the reason that we got to see Angelus was because they slept together. Of course, that was the drug and unconnected. Rather, I think that they may have slept together without the curse being activated. I think the rules regarding the curse have been changed by the last episode. Previously we've always been given the impression that the curse would activate if Angel had sex, with the moment of "perfect happiness" being used as a euphemism for orgasm. However Wesley seemed to imply in Eternity that perfect happiness meant more than just sex, that it could only be found if there was true devotion/love involved (as with Buffy). Thus I think it's perfectly possible that Angel did sleep with Rebecca without the curse activating. It's logical that the show's writers would want to change this rule so that Angel could have more of a romantic life (so long as he doesn't actually fall for someone ). [This message has been edited by Sententia (edited 30-04-2000).] IP: Logged |
Vox Scooby Gang Member
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posted 30-04-2000 02:38 PM
Re: the happiness clauseThe characters in the show are just as ignorant about what might activate the happiness clause (and whether or not it still exists) as we are. Our guess is as good as Wesley's. But, Sententia, I agree with you anyway... IP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 30-04-2000 05:28 PM
I think it's futile to speak of 'activating' the curse in this instance (and I'm stamping my foot on this one!). Angelus is still a part of Angel, but usually kept under control, because of the soul, or approximation thereof, that he now possesses. On this occasion, Angel became intoxicated and lost, not his soul, but control of himself. Sociopathy ensued. Or, as Wesley put it 'You walk a fine line, Angel'. IP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 30-04-2000 05:32 PM
Another way to look at the curse is that while most vamps are like cats, Angel has been transformed into something like a dog, a pack animal, by the curse. He's connected to humanity in a way that most vampires aren't, but he still remembers being a 'cat'.IP: Logged |
Keenangel Scooby Gang Member
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posted 30-04-2000 05:52 PM
Joe, about Angel and theloss of control and not his soul, I agree with you totally, I think that was what i have been trying to say, but not very well probably.Sententia, i still think the activation of the curse would mean any and all sex that Angel would have, meaningless or not. Sorry  IP: Logged |
StuStuStu Watcher
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posted 30-04-2000 05:52 PM
Well, in either case he knows how to stick his leg in the air and lick his own testicles  Or am I missing the point  IP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 01-05-2000 12:24 AM
lolIP: Logged |
Joe Scooby Gang Member
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posted 01-05-2000 03:07 AM
Actually, contrary to what I thought about the loophole not being invoked, Wesley seemed to think that true or, at least, artificial bliss was the problem. However, as has been suggested, Wesley probably isn't much more knowledgable about cursed vampires than the rest of us.IP: Logged | |