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[[Headscratchers]] for ''[[Angel]]''. Spoilers abound.
== Heel face BLAM! ==
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== Angel's singing cell phone ==
* A good one pointed out by my girlfriend, in the episode were Groo first comes to L.A. and Cordelia sends he and Angel to get a potion for her Angel gets a phone call and Groo makes the comment, "Um Angel your coat is singing." The problem is that Groo is from Pylea same as Lorne, who considered the dimension hell because it had no music or singing...
** Maybe music and singing were introduced under the rule of Groo
*** Possible but that would have meant Cordy or possibly Lorne would have taken the time t teach Groo all about music while they were all in Pylea... a more likely scenario would have been that they had to explain music to him off camera when he heard some AFTER arriving in L.A. but before that particular scene.
** The joke as I saw it was that he was still unfamiliar enough with music/singing to tell them apart. That's why he referred to a musical ringtone as "singing." It's like when infants are first learning animal names and call anything with fur a cat.
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*** Dialogue such as "Oh yeah, and you eat people!" "The price was too high!" is 'up in the air'? Angel's final confrontation with Jasmine made it pretty plain what he considered her to be. He did offer her a final chance at redemption, yes, but when you are asking someone to change their ways and be good, that kinda hints that you think their current ways are ''not'' good.
**** Yes, but then Wolfram and Hart shows up to give them a big kudos for "ending world peace" and they wind up wondering if they did the right thing after all.
***** Gasp, the evil lawyers ''lied''?
***** Peace has a price, unfortunately (and it's not a Buck O Five). To have no more human failing because there was no more human free will? Wolfram and Hart is just exploiting moral greyness to rub salt in the heroes' wounds.
***** To wander around the rest of Joss's canon, Jasmine was the Alliance Utopia solution - in Angel, things went the 'Browncoat' way.
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** I think she was so enamored of her [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], that she took away a vital part of a person's humanity in the exchange. So, good intentions, but misguided means.
*** You can say that of any [[Knight Templar]] - Classic Chaotic Good, willing to sacrifice people and liberties for the good of the masses. The first thing a knight templar does is take away free will.
**** No, that's ''Lawful'' Good. Chaotic Good people tend to be libertarians. ''Someone'' hasn't been playing enough [[Dungeons
**** A lawful good character would be all for the taking of free will but would never use a something requiring [[Human Sacrifice]], killing innocents is a big no no. I figured chaotic works because they like to destroy old systems to replace them with their own "better one". Not that it matters - she is still a Knight Templar.
***** Slavery is an explicitly Evil act in the D&D classic alignment system. Lawful Good people want people to obey the laws and punish them (after a fair trial and in a proportionate manner) when they don't, but mind control is right out.
**** No, a Chaotic would want to destroy old systems and then replace them with ''nothing'', so people are free to follow the dictates of their own consciences.
**** That said, Jasmine wasn't particularly lawful, either. She was more neutral on the Law/Chaos axis. As to whether she was supposed to be good or evil...well, the characters thought she was evil, but the characters aren't Gods. Not all series attempt to use the actions of their characters as "this is what is right, anyone who disagrees is wrong".
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** I don't think that any definition of "good" or "evil" can apply to Jasmine. We can't apply human values to something that is that far away from being human.
*** Yes, we can.
*** I always assumed that she was Pure Good with capital letters, but pure unadulterated Good is so alien and inhuman that it is indistinguishable from pure evil from the point of view of a human, and can be just as destructive to humanity, which thrives on having both options available.
*** "Lawful Neutral" with her as The Law. She didn't move on from [[Bug World]] until it was as ordered as it was ever going to be. Them she moved on, to continue to spread order throughout the multiverse. A better question would be what aligniment the Senior Partners actually are.
*** The closest "canonical" thing the Buffyverse has to Pure Good -- i.e. the beings that everyone knows and acknowledges as being the source of Pure Good -- are the Powers That Be. Jasmine is a Power That Was, because THEY KICKED HER OUT. Does that remind you of any trope?
**** [[Word of God]] confirms that Jasmine was a PTB. She took over Cordelia while she was in the Higher Plane and so she willingly came down rather than be kicked out as you suggest.
**** And while we're on the subject: an impossible birth brings forth a heavenly being into the world who, after taking apostles to her side, embarks on a journey to save humanity from itself, but is betrayed by those close to her, humiliated, and ultimately murdered. You tell me; DOES this story sound familiar to you?
*** The Powers That Be aren't truly that close to being a force of uncontroversial pure good. Fans and characters both tend to have their doubts about them. I think they're not morally unambiguous enough that that proves anything. If anything, they seem more devoted to their own idea of 'Balance' than anything else... and just ask a Michael Moorcock fan how harsh and cruel and ungood the Cosmic Balance can get.
** The way Jasmine continues to lie more and more to manipulate Connor to go after Angel, and the cruel and mocking way she talks to the heroes when they're on the run ("Ha ha ha! I can seeeeee you!") seems to pretty strongly imply the whole Oprah thing is pretty much just a front to make humans line up to be eaten (to say nothing of all that stuff she did ''before'' arriving on Earth). Add to that her total narcissism ("Well...a temple would be nice") and it becomes pretty obvious she doesn't really have Man's best interests at heart. As Gunn puts it: "It's ''To Serve Man''! It's ''To Serve Man'' all over again!"
** Perhaps the best test of Jasmine's true "alignment" is what she does when her powers are done. In the same situation Faith was put in- i.e. having just fallen pretty massively and being offered redemption and a chance to make things right- Jasmine blows a gasket and tries to kill Angel. Even if she wanted to bring about World Peace, she clearly wasn't that fussed about it unless it was strictly on her terms.
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*** World Peace through mind control and mass murder is still World Peace. Imagine a world where everyone is kind to each other. There is no crime. There are no wars, and there never will be again. There is no discrimination, no hate, and no violence. All humans live together in harmony with each other, in total happiness for the rest of eternity. In short: the Christian Heaven, absolute peace and bliss forever. That's what makes it ambiguous.
**** But there still would be crime - she was ''eating'' people! A few at a time, and quite frequently... It wouldn't ''be'' a World Peace situation, as there would still be killing.
**** You may be happy with world peace via humanity being turned into happy, brainless livestock, but people that actually value their individuality and free will wouldn't be. The fact that they're not even given the choice to be cheerfully led to the slaughter makes her pretty unambiguously evil.
**** As Lois Bujold's famous quote goes, "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart." World peace is indeed a laudable goal... but that still doesn't grant a universal license for methods towards that goal. If you destroy that which makes us human in the name of allegedly making life better for humanity, you've defeated yourself. There is a reason that the series finale is based on the concept that the greatest power of people is the ability to ''choose''.
** Aside from the issue of the virtues of free will (which are easy to proclaim when you live in a warm spacious broadband connected home and don't have to worry about some bullshit warlord coming and brutalising your family just because), my whole problem with that arc was that the characters, Angel specifically, spent four seasons bitching about how the Powers That Be never do anything to help them. When one finally does, they bitch even more because she doesn't do it quite how they would like. If I were Jasmine I would have pounded a hole in his ungrateful ass too.
*** Angel is trying to stop people from being victimized by creatures more dangerous than them. Jasmine
*** Furthermore, Jasmine ''is'' "the bullshit warlord coming along and brutalizing your family just because". If she's feeling hungry and happens to be in the neighborhood then she's going to walk into your house, drag your wife or your kid out into the street, and chow down on their soul... and you're not only going to be completely helpless to stop her but floating so high on her magic valium that you won't even care. This idea isn't even a ''little'' horrifying to you?
** Morality is subjective. But let's not go all fake philosophic ambiguity here and pretend that an entity that tries to enslave the world in a cult and stops at NOTHING to achieve this is anything but evil by common social convention. You can point out various religions as evidence for the contrary, but even these ancient institutions are under a great deal of pressure to de-emphasize their totalitarian claims and play nice with each other. Because even most brainwashed members of religion A nowadays feel it comes across as a little evil to say cultists of religion B must convert or die.
** Let's not forget that when the spell is broken- people don't suddenly hate Jasmine. They MISS what they have lost. They miss it enough that they want to kill themselves at first. The closest OTHER thing to that in the Whedonverse is Buffy going to heaven and being brought back to earth. Skip points out that Jasmine (Cordy) and Buffy were both in paradise and the conversation implies without stating that it's the same paradise. So Jasmine really MAY have been making people feel truly "heavenly" bliss.
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** Which also brings up another question: if the insect priest knows Jasmine's name, he shouldn't still be under Jasmine's spell. If not, why has he not told the rest of his people the name so that they won't be under her spell either. (The actions of the minion sent to Earth indicates that most of them are.) Also, how did the insects get her name in the first place?
*** The insect priest knowing her name rather effective proves that he ''is not'' under her spell at all, and legitimately sees Jasmine as being something better for their world. Which does not necessarily mean that she is; remember, Connor was never under her spell either, and he's hardly a reasonable judge of what's good for everyone. But it is interesting.
== Jasmine's grandpa gets no respect ==
* Cordelia and Connor (and anyone who came in contact with their or Jasmine's blood) were immune to Jasmine's control because of the whole blood connection. By this logic, shouldn't Angel have been immune to Jasmine's control because he's her grandfather?
** They came into contact with actual red blood from her body--not the metaphorical blood of inheritance.
** Then why couldn't Angel blow Jasmine to pieces with a single punch like Connor?
*** Did he ever try to? I think the main thing was that Connor caught her by surprise.
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*** The duct tape was probably just for laughs because Angel's 200 years old and duct tape would be fairly new to him.
*** It's a different form of exertion. Kicking down a door with your full potential for movement is one thing, straining against being tied up is quite another.
*** Also, have you ever ''tried'' to break duct tape? Remember, we're not talking about Angel tearing it here, we're talking about him being tied up in loops of it and straining hard enough to stretch it to the breaking point.
*** Mythbusters did a segment on duct tape. Using only 99 strips of duct tape, they suspended a ''car'' off the ground for ''over a minute''. It's also worth noting that when the duct tape finally tore, it was the fabric part of the duct tape that failed, not the adhesive. The duct tape was holding a car up for quite awhile, and that was with the weight of the car and gravity pushing down. It's pretty hard to exert any significant amount of force when you're tied up. Angel not being able to break the duct tape is perfectly realistic.
*** Good luck finding someone a vampire would trust to cut open their chest and install a metal plate over their heart.
== Vampire driver's ed ==
* Where, exactly, did Angel and Spike learn to drive? How do they avoid being pulled over by every traffic cop in the state when they drive around with a blacked out windscreen? How the hell do they manage to get a driving license and insurance? Or anything else that requires dealing with government and/or ID ... like renting a building for example?
** I don't recall either of them having license or insurance so they just drive without those. As to the blacked out windows, cops don't actually pull people over for that as often as you might think. As for the building, I think it was rented by the humans in Angel's name. It's a mystery how Angel learned to drive but maybe it happened offscreen in season 1 of Buffy?
** Around Sunnydale, you don't -want- to pull over anything weird.
*** I'm highly amused at the idea that Spike would bother with car insurance.
** The explanation for Spike doesn't seem too hard, he was active and sociopathic across the twentieth century, and driving very much suits his style. Probably he saw more and more people driving along the roads, thought it looked fun, stole the car from some hapless victim he'd eaten, and practiced until he was decent. It's not like he'd care if his early trial and error ran over a lot of people, as long as he didn't get decapitated or set on fire in any accident he could recover fairly easily. Angel is a little harder to answer, but flashbacks eventually showed he was living a relatively conventional and civilized, if solitary, life up until the 70s. It wasn't until he feasted on the cooling corpse of a gunshot victim that he transitioned over to living in alleys eating rats. Plenty of time for him to get adult driving lessons, albeit lacking valid documentation would make main channels a bit tricky. Alternatively, Whistler taught him. I could actually picture him giving that as a start of his new life from the Powers. 'Now Angel, the most important thing is you'll need to learn to drive a convertible. For your duties as a champion.' Or Angel could have even learned post Buffy S3 before he really settled in LA. He is smarter than he looks. Even if he never mastered computers or cell phones.
*** Except, of course, for the very first episode of the series, where he seems to be a master of computer based research.
** For the original office, Doyle may have been able to front for Angel. But with the hotel, there's a whole subplot with Gavin Park plotting to ruin Angel because of his lack of compliance with building codes, credit history, insurance, identification, and so on, and Lilah arranges for Angel to get a complete set of all the paperwork he needs just to screw Gavin.
** A driver's license program didn't exist until 1910 in Prussia, and the first recorded instance of one was simply a letter authorizing Karl Benz to drive his noisy automobile on the streets in 1888. The Model T was invented in 1908. That's plenty of time for someone to learn how to drive. And cars became less complex over time.
** Driving isn't exactly complicated. You can learn to drive almost competently just from arcade video games. Frankly it's more impressive that he can type.
** And while driving ''schools'' aren't open at night, you can get driving lessons from, oh, ''anyone else who knows how to drive''. Even soulless vampires know people. Like human-appearing demons, or evil humans, or just some guy who doesn't mind being paid a few hundred bucks to give someone a driving lesson at night. (And then the vampire doesn't pay at the end of the night and eats him. But that's vampires for you.)
== Anybody know a good demon shaman? ==
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** Also, simple caution. Magic is very seldom reliable, and (especially when you have Wolfram & Hart for an enemy) you can never be sure if they've got to some strange demon shaman or not. So even though we know that the demon shaman's magic is reliable and trustworthy, Angel doesn't, and so he has to consider the possibility that the ritual will either backfire or be deliberately sabotaged. Remember that Spike was already soulless when he sought the shaman's aid... his worst-case scenario is that he'd simply get killed, and Spike was willing to risk his life to obtain the prize. Angel, on the other hand, has his worst-case here being not simple death, but the return of Angelus. Without significantly more assurances to the bona fides of the demon shaman than we saw on-screen (assuming Angel even knows this guy exists at all), the risk-vs-reward calculation here says "Stay the hell away, and try to avoid excessively happy moments."
*** Which brings up another question: Wouldn't the fear of Angelus returning and the knowledge of what happened the last time he did prevent any happiness from being "perfect" anyway?
**** I thought this myself. When he had "perfect happiness" with Buffy he didn't know about this part of the curse. Now that he's afraid of turning into Angelus that should be enough to make him at least a little unhappy whenever he feels good. But I also thought this was why he didn't change into Angelus when he had "perfect happiness" with Darla or Nina.
***** No, that was because Darla was, as he actually said, "perfect despair," whereas, while he liked Nina, he didn't love her. Sex wasn't perfect happiness, sex with Buffy was. The problem with the idea that it wouldn't be perfect because he'd worry about Angelus is that if he worked that out he wouldn't worry. So it would be perfect.
***** The happiness clause is at best unreliable and Angel is stupid. As much as he loved Buffy he had a moment of perfect happiness after they lost a fight that resulted in the resurection of an unkillable (or so they thought) demon who could kill humans by mere proximity? And at the end of season three he was rushing off to lose his soul on a moonlit beach?
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** Angelus and Angel ARE the same person. According to Joss Whedon, "soul" represents the feelings, conscience, the guilt, etc. It is NOT a different entity. Angelus IS Angel without guilt and human feelings. Angel even says the BTVS S3 that is the human inside him that needs to kill, not the demon. The "demon" is not a different character. The demon allows the vampire acquires the vampires characteristics and unleashes the person's dark side, but is not a different entity itself. If the demon was a different entity, Angel's quest for redemption wouldn't make sense. Scooby and Angel's (and, sometimes, even Angel himself) gang refers to Angelus as a different character because it is easier for them to deal with Angel's atrocities in his past if they do that (plus, this is a result of some bad writing at Angel's Season 4). If you pay attention, when Angel is with Spike by Season 5, he talks with him about his past as Angelus in first person. There is no "Angelus a different person" thing. It was Angel who did that, and Spike knows. There is no need for word play with Spike and Angel knows this.
*** I don't know what you're citing, but the series have made it pretty clear that the vampire is not the original person, it's a demonic imitation of them...
{{quote|
'''Giles''': You listen to me! Jesse is ''dead!'' You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him.
'''Buffy''': Well, I've got a news flash for you, brain trust. That's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you. }}
*** Because the show doesn't treat it like that. Angel feels guilt for the crimes of Angelus and Spike feels guilty for the sins of well Spike. If it's not you then you should feel all the guilt of owning a car that was used to run down children. It was your car but you weren't driving. Both men however are attoning for their crimes and believe it will never be enough.
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** Angel and Angelus seem to receive all the memories of the previously active persona within seconds of taking control. Or, at least, that's how Angel described how it worked. Angelus described to Faith that he watches what Angel does, experiences what Angel does, but is trapped inside and cannot take over, and is tortured by having to watch everything Angel does. Angelus' explanation seems to be the more plausible one, whereas Angel's seems to be a cop-out.
*** Then again, the demon, Angelus, is in the body at all times, whereas the soul, Angel, is only in the body during the times in which Angel is active. But if you think about it that way, it just looks ridiculous.
**** The soul isn't Angel. The soul is the Angel's conscience, his ability to love. Angel is the person, and so is Angelus. They are the same person. Angelus is Angel's dark side, his dark desires, his darkness in general (we all have a dark side). The demon allows the person's comes to fruition.
***** Here's how I see it: Angel isn't the soul OR the demon. Angel is the person. He is made up of one part Angelus and one part Liam, both of which exist in some form within his subconscious, but neither of which are individual entities unto themselves. They're just parts of who he is. Think of it this way: Angelus is his id and Liam is his superego. Angel can feel guilty for Angelus's crimes because even though Liam wasn't there for them, Angel was - AS Angelus. Additionally, Angelus talks about being trapped inside Angel because he is, in a sense. Without Liam's soul, Angel reverts to being PURE Angelus, unrestrained id incarnate; with the soul, Angel gets the control his superego provides, and becomes a better person for it. Angelus isn't consciously trapped inside Angel's body, raging against his choices; he's an integrated part of the complete whole.
*** The real reason Angelus wasn't affected is not because he wasn't there. He was there, albeit dormant in Angel. He was unaffected so that Jasmine, who must have set up the Beast-amnesia, would have a reason to unleash him as a distraction.
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** When did Angel ''have'' detective abilities?
*** Angel's always been able to find rare books and stuff on demand. He has contacts, despite spending most of his ensouled years moping about in a sewer.
*** Having contacts is not the same thing as having detective abilities. 90% of the time he (and the rest of the team) failed at basic reasoning skills.
**** But he had a good memory and was able to pick up on small clues.
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*** I think that was more for visual effect. The pilot and other episodes empasize the fact that Sunnydale is rather small.
**** Although apparently it had space for several parks, a lake, a dock, a university, a military base, a train station, a bus station, an airport, a zoo, a museum, 12 cemetaries, and 43 churches!!
***** Sunnydale had a population of 38,500 as of the second season. (Check the sign Spike crashes the
****** Can't be the actual population, just the resident one. That number barely covers the number of STUDENTS in a UC campus, let alone staff and faculty, and the population base that would cover the demographics of Sunnydale High.
****** That's not entirely true. Several of the [[U Cs]] had enrollments of 10k-15k students ten years ago. That would put it at around the size of (school and town) of Santa Cruz, CA.
** Also protecting all of L.A. wan't their job. They just helped people they got visions about.
** "Patrolling" has obviously never covered the entire town, even in Sunnydale. It probably just consisted of going around to various parts of town where they're heard rumors consistent with vamp activity or that vamps just liked to congregate. (Which are probably the same as likely mugging/rape spots, places where you can grab and drag a victim where they'll be out of sight for a few minutes.) Angel probably was doing something similar in as much of LA as he could cover in a night, but then he met Doyle and decided that the visions sent by the Powers That Be took priority... an understandable decision. If you're out stopping a random vamp attack and you let a demon consume the final soul it needed to ascend to godhood, you're not managing priorities very well.
*** Another main 'patrolling' activity in Sunnydale was staking out graves that were likely to contain fledges that would be rising that night. This was possible in Sunnydale by having Willow hack the local databases to correlate recent deaths with certain signs on the autopsy markers, such as 'barbecue fork attack' and 'blood found in mouth'. In Sunnydale this is feasible due to the small scale of the problem; In LA this would be almost entirely futile, given the sheer amount of deaths both reported and unreported every week.
== Being human, who needs it? ==
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**** Which came true, in that if he had stayed human he wouldn't have been able to top Jasmine, or that time stop thing in season 2 or jumped in to stop Caleb in season 7 of Buffy. Any of those might have ended the world and/or resulted in a dead Buffy.
*** Though considering how many "end of the worlds" there are in this universe, what's the point of even bothering? After whatever "end times" results in him turning human, wouldn't it be likely for another apocalypse to come about, which he would fail to prevent?
**** No, the Shanshu specifically states that it's THE end of the world. Not an area specific apocalypse like the one's that the series usually shows, but a giant universe ending [[Gambit Roulette]] of doom. It was destined to be the final one and Angel would help or hinder it for the reward.
**** Of course when you take that into account, it's obvious what the outcome will be. If Angel helps the apocalypse there would be nothing left and the lack of existence might hinder him getting his reward. If there is something left, then becoming human would be a punishment because he would be at the mercy of all the evil forces that conquered the universe. So the only logical outcome is that he has to stop the apocalypse to get the reward.
***** That's assuming that it's a reward. The Shanshu never states that Angel is rewarded by becoming human; simply that he plays a pivotal role and then he becomes human. It may well be a punishment; stripping Angel of his vampiric abilities and rendering him a powerless human being, at the mercy of whomever he fought against. After the Fall tinkered with something like this, and This Troper once wrote a fanfic to the same effect; wherein Angel plays the villain in the Shanshu, and is defeated by restoring his humanity, rendering him powerless. As the series has shown countless times, prophecies are deceitful creatures that tell you one thing and then give it to you, but never in the way you expect.
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*** Maybe the normal way that vampires kill humans: drink their blood. Ironically, that would've actually given Harmony strength on par with Hamilton's.
**** Question: did they even know Hamilton was human? I can't remember anyone saying anything that would indicate that Hamilton was human.
** Angel also knew full well that Harmony was untrustworthy, and was going to betray him sooner or later. Counting on her to risk herself in fighting any type of opponent would be stupid, doubly so with one as dangerous as Hamilton. And I'd opinion that Harmony isn't capable of seduction with disguised malevolent intent because she has no capacity for convincingly lying. The Buffybot could probably tell she wasn't being sincere in a given lie even before she started stammering. As a final point, I don't believe Angel knew she was sleeping with Hamilton.
** Moreover, Angel didn't even think he could take Hamilton. His original plan was just to keep Hamilton busy long enough for the other members of Team Angel to finish their assignments. Angel was going to play a little game called self sacrifice.
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*** But Angel and Darla never actually ''tried'' to enter. There's no way to know if they could have or not, they were probably making absolutely sure they could before they tried as to not tip her off. Besides, a general invitation not aimed at the vampire counts (such as a flyer inviting everyone to a party), so why not a veiled invitation actually meant for him?
*** I think it's because an invitation has to be verbal, and gestures don't count.
*** If an invitation needs to be verbal flyers wouldn't count either (and vamps got into a party on Buffy once because of flyers). And mute people would be unable to invite them in. I think the person just needs to make a conscious decision that they want that vampire to enter and it counts. I also think most vampires are ignorant of this fact and assume you need a verbal invitation.
*** It's possible that the invitation needs to be a definite, ''explicit'' invitation. There's ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|BtVS]]'' season 4 episode where Angel asks if he can come into Buffy's dorm room, and she tells him "I guess". He says that's not enough, and doesn't come in until she directly says he can. Hence a written invitation works, responding "yes" to the question "Can I come in?" works, but a gesture that can be interpreted as allowing entrance doesn't. And no, it is incredibly unlikely that a "call for help" that isn't stated explicitly and makes no mention of him coming in anywhere would negate the threshold. Otherwise just shouting "Help" would count as a general invitation to anyone nearby.
**** I think that was Angel not wanting to intrude against the wishes of the love of his un-life particularly when she wasn't exactly thrilled with him at the moment. Spike didn't need an invitation to get in the room and unsuccessfully attempt to bite Willow when he escaped from the Initiative.
***** He did, actually. He knocked at the door, and Willow responded, "Come in." Then Spike entered the room and attacked Willow. Willow really should have known better before blindly inviting someone into her dorm room.
**** Don't forget Vampires got into Sunnydale High because the entrance sign said "Enter if you seek knowledge." Or something like that.
***** I always figured that was just Angelus being a wiseass, since a school is a public building anyway.
***** In an early season of ''Angel'' a bookshop owner threatens to start sleeping on a cot in the back of his store to keep vampires from coming in. Maybe Giles and the others occasionally sleeping over at the school while they're in the midst of research (or some janitor who occasionally catches catnaps on a cot in the boiler room) is enough to classify it as a residence that vampires need an invitation to enter, and Angelus is the one who noticed that there's a convenient one right outside the school itself.
* Keep in mind, though, that most vampires really can't set out to test exactly what constitutes an invitation; you'd need some cooperative mortals (to establish and invite past the anti-vampire threshold) who are also able (and willing) to muck with the magic necessary to rescind the invitation and really try to find the boundaries. And a vampire who guesses wrong about what counts and what doesn't who bounces off the threshold has pretty much given the game away.
* For that matter, IIRC, we don't hear the entire phone conversation, who knows what she might have said on the phone. Or for that matter, we could simply interpret it as it was intended; the powers that be interfering.
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** I'm pretty sure that for something to be "standard operating procedure" the possibility of maybe adhering to it has to be at least brought up. Like the Prime Directive on ''[[Star Trek]]''. Do they follow it? Hell no. But they do note what action it would dictate, while there's no evidence for Angel's team that killing him was even considered. So maybe they could have used a reminder given that they were embarking on a course of action with a staggeringly high probability of requiring that policy.
*** It ''was'' brought up. Here's one instance from the end of Season 3 Episode, "That Old Gang Of Mine"
{{quote|
'''Angel:''' No. You'll prove that I can trust you when day comes that you have to kill me, and you do. }}
*** Brought up when it was ''relevant''.
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** That explains the cross pretty well. But that raises the question of how Holy Water has the power to hurt vampires.
*** Because it's blessed with a crucifix.
** The Ethros demon did recoil from a crucifix and was affected by a Catholic exorcism. But then that whole thing was an Exorcist reference.
*** Pre-Christianity the [[wikipedia:Christian cross|cross]] was a symbol for both fire and the sun. It would be that symbol and not the religious one that has the effect and it wouldn't transfer to other faiths symbols.
* As another point, a Star of David is not a '''religious''' symbol. It's a racial - or, perhaps, a cultural - symbol. the appropriate holy symbol for a person practicing the religion of Judaism would be a Torah.
** As a side note, it's been implied - though never [to this troper's knowledge] out-right stated - that other Holy Symbol's DO work... it's just that the only "Non-Christian" around is Willow, who happens to start Jewish and end up Wiccan. The history, in-universe, of the Cross would apply to any other Holy Symbol associated with the Sun [i.e. a Symbol of Ra, for Helios and/or Apollo, etc]. The Cross is just the most well-known and most common, as well as being the easiest to mock up. And is ''known'' to work - if you were fighting a vampire, would YOU risk using a Holy Symbol that wasn't PROVEN to work? Kind of chancy... But this troper would dearly love to see SOMEONE use a different Holy Symbol.
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** I see you are unfamiliar with the use of the phrase "End of the world" in the fantasy genre. (Also, becoming human was his reward for stopping the end of the world).
*** The Shanshu never said Angel would stop the end of the world. His role in the Shanshu was heretofore unknown to the protagonists, and they just all assumed it means he'll be the hero. {{spoiler|After the Fall reveals that no, Angel will be the villain bringing about the end of the world, which raises all manner of questions about why he'll become human after it.}} Additionally, keep in mind that the Shanshu never said he'd become human either; that's just Wesley's interpretation of the word "shanshu", which represents the cycle of life and death. Prophecies are tricky, deceitful creatures. Never take them at face value.
*** Close but not quite. It is most definitely '''not''' set in stone that Angel will be a villain in the Apocalypse, merely that that is what the Senior Partners have foreseen and would prefer to have come to pass. Visions of the future do not necessarily come true; they can be changed, as evidenced by ''every single vision that Doyle and Cordelia have throughout the series.'' The point of visions is that they give you a preview of what can happen in the future, allowing the viewer to take action to change or ensure the outcome.
**** Visions, yes. But I can't think of a single prophecy in either Buffy or Angel that has ever not come to pass.
***** The father shall kill the son? Unless you're gonna go WAY out on that limb and claim that when Connor's memories were erased that counted as killing him or Angel killed him and had Wolfram & Hart ressurect Connor with new memories.
****** "The father shall kill the son" was never a real prophecy. That was merely a failed attempt by Sahajin to rewrite the ''real'' prophecy, "The son of the vampire with a soul shall kill Sahajin". Sahajin is a time travelling demon who has painstakenly rewritten all texts quoting, mentioning, or vaguely alluding to this prophecy throughout history, but literally the only thing he's accomplished is that there is no transcribed record of the real prophecy in the current world. The prophecy itself still stands, and his fake version was never a prophecy. This also explains why Angel never actually kills Connor, but Connor does successfully kill Sahajan.
******* But that's the whole point. If ''that'' prophecy is fake, then who's to say there aren't other fake prophecies? [[Because Destiny Says So]] becomes a lot shakier once some of its messages turn out to be false.
****** Angel '''did''' "kill" Conner though, at least symbolically. In "Home" Angel takes a knife and slashes Conner's throat right before the spell takes effect and rewrites history. [[Word of God]] on the DVD commentary even states that this was done as an allusion to the "The Father Will Kill The Son" prophecy.
******* But the show flatout said that it wasn't a real prophecy. So even if Angel did kill Conner, it's just a coincidence, unless traveling back in time and vandalizing a prophecy to make it say something different can warp the future into even making the fake prophecy come true.
******** The point is both prophesies did come true. One can clearly see Angel slit Connor's throat before the Senior Partners warped reality, and because of his efforts to change the future, Sahajan changed the prophesy and forced his own death to occur at the hands of Connor, leading to both prophesies, the fake one and the real one, to come true. [[A Wizard Did It|It was probably all set up by Jasmine anyways]]
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** The same way Gwen Raiden can hit Angel with enough electricity to fry a human being like a bacon strip and just annoy him, but a cattle prod will knock Spike unconscious. Sloppy damn writing.
** Of course vampires have a circulatory system. They bleed all the time. They just don't die from [[Fate Worse Than Death|lack of blood.]] Or being unable to breathe.
*** Yeah, well, that cheeses me off too.
*** I'm sorry, how does one have blood moving through their veins when their heart isn't beating? Vampires have a circulatory system in that they have veins and arteries with blood in them, but the blood isn't moving. It's like how if you cut a dead body, they bleed a lot less than if you cut a living person in the same place. They are, however, still bleeding. Digressing, without blood circulating through his body, there is absolutely no way that a tranquilizer dart would work on Angel, or any other vampire.
**** The heart doesn't do all the work pumping blood around the body, obviously it isn't enough to keep you alive without one; but muscle expansion and contraction also help to push blood through your veins. Particularly when the blood is back en-route to your heart. Perhaps this is enough to give vampires a small amount blood flow. And there's also the obvious level of showmanship that goes in; bleeding is always unrealisticly excessive in television and movies, for dramatic effect.
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== Single PTB seeks bad vampire ==
* So why did Jasmine need Angelus?
** ''No one knows.''
** To keep Angel Investigations busy dealing with him so they'd be less likely to notice the details of her scheming, all the while making them think he was integral to her plans in some other way as a form of misdirection was what I gathered from it.
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** Because magic demands sacrifice. Something quite horrible would have happened, even if the spell worked.
*** Nothing horrible happened when Willow re-souled Angel in "Becoming" or "Orpheus".
**** Willow's entire character arc over four seasons is about slowly falling further and further into a dark magic power trip, then rock bottoming, then trying to destroy the world, then ''finally'' climbing out of it. 'Becoming' is widely regarded as the ''start'' of that descent into dark magic. So, the "nothing horrible" claim is, shall we say, disputed.
*** That spell set Willow on the path to becoming a witch, leading to the absurd "magic addiction" storyline in season 6 of Buffy. There's your sacrifice.
*** Alternatively, remember that Willow wasn't "sticking a soul" in Angel, nor was she casting a new spell requiring a new sacrifice. She was ''reactivating'' the gypsy curse, and the sacrifice for it had already been made by the gypsy's murdered family.
** Best guess: Darla's even older than Angel. He may have done things that are more horrible, but she's done more horrible things. Angel took a century to even begin to get over what he'd done before he was ensouled--it's entirely possible he considers it a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. (Not that anyone on the show ever seems to think of ensouling ''any'' vampire but Angel.)
** If that's the case, that's quite poorly thought out by Angel and crew. Clearly the resurrected, human Darla remembers everything of her vampire days. The mere fact that she recognizes Angel and talks about their history should prove that, since she only met Angel when she was a vampire for a couple hundred years or so. She also knows more siring vampires than one who had been around for 20 years (granted, that vamp at the bar was clearly a couple splinters short of a stake, but still), and she's clearly unimpressed when he mentions his age. Giving her a soul would just put her back to where she was when W&H brought her back, except without the pesky "dying of syphilis" part. Angel should really have just built a cage (like they had for him a few seasons later) and contacted Willow. By this point (concurrent with season 5 of Buffy), Willow is advanced enough to do the restoration spell without suffering excessive harm (plus she would have had a talented which like Tara to help out). With a soul, Darla would have been an incredible asset. Vampires are like scotch...they strengthen with age. So as strong as Angel is, Darla could have mopped the floor with him. Remember, she only died because she never even considered the possibility that Angel would kill her, and he snuck up and impaled her from behind (which sounds dirtier than it is). So worth the trouble of a phone call and a 45 minute drive from Sunnydale? Absolutely. At this point, Team Angel and the Scoobies are in contact and on good terms. (And also, it's pretty early in the season, so Glory wasn't an imminent threat yet.)
{{quote|
'''Angel''': <s>Sure, we'll get Willow to ensoul you to make sure you don't screw it up.</s> No! I'll never allow it... okay, Cordy wants you in, so I'll let you betray us to prove how impossible it is. }}
* Well, it's possible that for Harmony the spell wouldn't be too effective. She doesn't have the history of centuries of evil. Sure she's killed some people, but human Harmony didn't have the strongest conscience ever. She would probably brood for a while, maybe a few months or a couple years, sure. But to assume the soul would be constantly plaguing her thoughts and causing her suffering seems a stretch. All she needs is to be happy and she's back to the (evil) way she was. On the other hand, it could be argued that Harmony isn't a deep enough person to experience "a moment of true, perfect happiness."
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***** It's not fanon when it's directly stated in canon. "The curse. Angel is meant to suffer, not to live as human. One moment of true happiness, of contentment, one moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts, and that soul is taken from him." Enyos's own words make it pretty unambiguous that the purpose of the curse is to inflict suffering upon Angel. See also: the definition of the word "curse": "A solemn utterance to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something."
**** That doesn't mean curses can't be designed to inflict a ''specific'' harm or punishment.
**** Additionally, don't forget that Jenny Calendar needed an Orb of Thessala (spelling?)to be a receptacle for the soul on its way into Angel(us). She has a little exchange with the shop-keeper that makes it pretty clear that the spell that Jenny is translating and planning to use is strictly a spell for souls. And as mentioned above, the wording of the spell is even less ambiguous.
** Regarding why they never ensoul any other vampire but Angel (with the exception of Spike, who ensouled himself), remember that the ensouling curse is a horrible, brutal thing. The act of providing a soul to a vampire does not benefit either the vampire or the soul in any conceivable way. The vampire obtains the conscience and moral compass that it had in life, which it now has to apply to everything it's done since its siring. If, in life, the person was someone with a strong moral compass, this is a horrible and traumatic form of torture. If they weren't, and are just going to wind up killing more people, then the act of ensouling them probably wouldn't be such a great alternative to the stake anyway. Meanwhile, the human soul you've placed in them gets the heavy load of, "So, hey, here is everything your body's been doing while you were gone," taking them along for the traumatic emotional torture ride. The ensouling curse is probably the most absolutely terrible thing that could be done to a vampire, and the only reasons to perform it on a vampire are purely selfish. Ensouling Angel can be excused because the original ensouling curse was not done by our protagonists; it's not a fresh ensouling, but restoring the Angel they've grown to know and love. Any new ensouling doesn't have this; it would simply be an act of cruelty.
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**** We are not told how long it took him to make the leap to cars or landline phones. Angel may well not have been an "early adopter".
**** There's a little bit of inevitable memory loss as you get older, but senility isn't inevitable or even the norm and some mental processes actually keep growing throughout one's lifetime (like social skills and empathy, according to some recent research). Most elderly people aren't huffing and puffing over new stuff because they can't learn it, but because they don't ''want'' to learn it; they're already comfortable with what they have and don't think it'd be worth the effort. The same thing applies to Angel, especially since his definition of normal has included barn stables and tavern wenches (and he's said as much).
**** I had a perfectly tech-savvy friend who was not at all old who resisted getting a cell phone for the longest time for a multitude of reasons. Once he got one it quickly became an indispensable necessity (as most such things do for people who originally thought they were stupid), but he held out longer than my ''grandparents'' did about getting one. Some people are just like that. But probably the biggest reason he didn't have one is for the same reason so many people in sitcoms and drama shows don't seem to have them... the writers then have to put in extra effort to write around "Why didn't they just call?"
== Hands off the gem of amarra ==
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*** Thats not true, the relationship comes up at least once in season 5. Cordelia apologizes to Wesley for killing Lilah, and it seems like he is still broken up about it.
** Memory isn't as strong as people like to believe it is. Entire events have happened to you that you just don't remember because they aren't important, or they didn't leave a lasting enough impression. You can remember DOING something without remembering WHY you did it, and if you try hard enough to remember, your brain can even go so far as to INVENT a reason that never happened. Memory is an extremely fuzzy and blurry thing that changes with the wind. It's very likely that removing everyone's memory of Conner changes NOTHING about the events people remember occuring, just whitewashes Conner out of them. So Wesley betrayed the group and shacked up with Lilah, that's memorable, but the reason for WHY he did it isn't. And before you start thinking that they would notice they're missing memories, memory just doesn't work that way. The only time, for example, that the absence of Conner in the betrayal memory would come up is if someone asked Wesley, "So, hey, why DID you betray us anyway?" and even then, his spotty memory would fill the holes with whatever it needed to, perhaps, "I was upset over the fact that Fred decided she wanted to be with Gunn instead of me." Memory is terribly unreliable as a source of factual information.
** Wouldn't it work much like Dawn's entry into Buffy? All they did was alter their memories so that they were the exact same person, just with memories of Dawn in there. It would act on the same principle, with the difference that they would be simply removing Connor from most people's memories.
*** Or the time that Jonathan cast the Superstar spell. Everything still happened, but everyone remembered Jonathan as being the big hero instead of Buffy.
== Donkey Kong for the [[
* I know it's stupid and a tiny thing in comparison to the others listed here. But still. Season 5 Ep 12. Spike is playing a video game on what is CLEARLY an Xbox. What game is he playing? ''[[Donkey Kong]]''. Need I say more?
** Is there any chance there was some sort of collection thing that made that possible? If not, maybe it was a magical Xbox. Still, it seems like ''[[Halo]]'' would be more up Spike's alley.
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**** If you know what you're doing (or how to look it up) you can emulate the ''arcade'' version of Donkey Kong on the XBOX
***** If you know what you're doing (which my guy does) you can emulate virtually any game prior to the XBOX for the XBOX. As a non-specific example, my guy's XBOX plays every NES, SNES, N64 AND arcade game that he had available at the time for uploading. Which was, of course, a ton of games... INCLUDING but not limited to Donkey Kong Country (all three), Donkey Kong 64 AND the original Donkey Kong where you played as Mari.. err... 'Jumpman', I believe it was.
*** Perhaps making an illegal copy of DK for the [[
*** Note this is the episode right after Andrew made a guest appearance. If anybody knew how to rig an Xbox, it'd be him, and he'd be happy to do it too. Especially to help out Spike, whom he obviously has a crush on.
***** While I would easily believe that Spike would be completely fine with piracy, I can't really imagine him caring enough to go to all the effort (nor being tech savy enough) of setting up the Donkey Kong emulation. Nor is it particularly feasible that he would care enough to ask Andrew to set it up. Unless Andrew crashed at Spike's and set the game up for himself or something.
*** Andrew is in love with Spike. He probably rigged the Xbox up as a gift.
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* In the episode "Hero" Doyle transfers his visions to Cordelia by kissing her. Then in the episode "Birthday" Cordelia enters an alternate reality when she never met up with Angel in L.A. At the end of the story, she saves Angel from the torment he is getting from obtaining the visions, by kissing him (thus transfering the visions from Angel to her). So in that alternate reality, where Angel got the visions after Doyle died... how did Angel get the visions?
** Answer:
{{quote|
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== Five years ago, who can remember back that far? ==
* In the [[Grand Finale]], Angel mentions not remembering what it was like to be human. Because he never turned into a human for a day in season 1, just a few years earlier... Oh wait, this is ridiculous.
** Yeah, for one day, five years previously. How well can you remember the details of one specific day five years ago? Alternatively, what Angel was asking Harmony was whether she remembered ''living'' like a human, leading a normal life, which he didn't get a chance to do during that one day five years previously, and hadn't done for centuries.
*** Depends on the day. If it were the one day I could feel what it was like to have a beating heart, feel the warmth of sunlight on my skin, and to taste food, then I'm fairly sure I'd have a pretty vivid memory of it. And those are the sensations Angel was asking Harmony about; "What was it like, being human?" going on to say it's been too long for him to remember. Not the actions, the sensations. Also, its a plot point that gets used sparingly, but Angel has a near perfect memory, able to recall codes he saw being put into the WR&H elevators only once, a year or so earlier, to get to the white room, among other cases.
** This is what bugs me about Harmony's reply to the question. He's not asking what it physically feels like to be human, but what it feels like to care about others- to emotionally be human, which he's forgotten.
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** Also, he's shown on multiple occasions to have plenty of money, like buying a hotel despite never getting paid by his clients. Sure, he's not absurdly rich, but that's harder than it sounds.
*** He did get paid by his clients. He didn't initially, but after enough needling by Cordelia, he finally consented to her writing up invoices. Not a lot of fuss is made of it, but Angel Investigations did become a For-Profit agency, if only for people who could afford to pay (customer-by-customer basis). People like billionaire David Nabbit, who not only paid a significant amount of money to Angel Investigations after his case was finished, but also came back to organize all the finances and teach Angel how to manipulate the system in order to get the hotel at an affordable rate.
** Explained in vampire crime novels: [[Blood Books]] "Oh, sure, I could have bought IBM for pennies back in nineteen-oh-something, but who knew? I'm a vampire, not clairvoyant."
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== Side effects may include losing your soul ==
* So in Eternity, Angel gets drugged and turns into Angelus, and then turns back when the drug wears off. But isn't it perfect happiness that causes Angel to lose his soul, thus releasing Angelus? Shouldn't they have had to go re-ensoul Angel at the end of the episode?
** He didn't really lose his soul, it was more like a hypnotic suggestion. The drug made him ''think'' he'd experienced perfect happiness, and then his drug-addled brain ran with the assumption that that meant he was Angelus again and should be acting accordingly. Once it wore off, the confusion did too.
** If his soul was really taken from him, it wouldn't have self-restored. The drug probably just lowered his inhibitions, that's what they do in humans. And it's mentioned frequently in the show, that Angelus is always there and the soul has to work extra hard to keep him in check.
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** Also, its possible that Lindsey's end goal involved immortality in some fashion; if so, that means they'd get to live together forever.
** Much is mysterious about Eve. She was created by the Senior Partners. Why would the capacity for love even be part of her makeup? Further, you would think her creators would keep close tabs on her. How on earth did she even manage to meet Lindsay beneath their notice in the first place?
*** The same way Lindsay kept the Senior Partners from finding him at all, his clairvoyance-blocking magic tattoos.
== Hey Fred, have you seen Illyria around? ==
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** Well everyone knew that Fred had turned into Illyria cause, you know, she looks exactly like a blue Fred. If the ancient superdemon wants to pretend to be its human host, are you going to blow its cover?
** Besides, between the moody and amoral [[Humanoid Abomination]] and the brooding alcoholic prone to shooting people for asking him the wrong questions, I think most of the office staff had learned to give the two of them a wide berth.
** You can imagine that Wolfram & Hart is a place where the employees learn very quickly that if the boss doesn't want something talked about then you don't talk about it, on pain of PAIN. Besides, its Wolfram & Hart, helping lie to a young woman's parents about her being still alive when she's actually dead won't be even the millionth most evil thing the staff has done.
== Where do bad vampires go when they die? ==
* Question; what part of the person goes to whatever afterlife there is after they die? Their soul, right? Then...why are Angel and Spike going to hell for everything they did as vampires, again? They didn't have souls then, their souls had already (presumably) passed on. All of Angelus' crimes were committed by a demon animating a husk of meat into walking around and killing people for his personal amusement. There's nothing there to, for lack of a better word, judge after said meat has been dusted. Does the soul get retroactively blamed for everything the body did while it was gone after being put back in?
** If you believe Pavayne, that's exactly it - the soul's tainted by the vampire's crimes:
{{quote|
*** Then again, the portal in "Hellbound" might have been opening ''just'' for Pavayne, and he was playing on Spike's soul-embued guilt to try to break his will. Angel and Spike might not be going to Hell at all, and they just assume they are because they remember their crimes and feel like they deserve it.
**** Except that when Angel died in Season 2, he went to Hell.
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** We're talking about an OLD MAN who takes over lots of bodies, with different abilities and sense levels. What he's going to compare any new ability/sensation to is HIMSELF - and his inability to do those things. I can actually relate, in a large way. If I were to wake up in a vampire body, I'd spend ''hours'' reveling in the fact that I ''don't hurt''. An old person - even one used to taking over young bodies off and on - would be in the same boat, overjoyed that he can walk normally, his brain is as sharp as it used to be, all the pain is gone... being old means a LOT of pain and suffering, even in the most healthy, as bodies are constantly breaking down. Add in the above logic about breathing being automatic, the fact that no one ''believes'' in vampires, and the fact that there ''are'' perfectly "normal" people with, for example, extremely advanced sense, and it's not surprising. In fact, it would probably be ''more'' surprising if the guy had noticed it instantly.
*** Exactly, he takes over bodies a lot. The fact that he's old is irrelevant; he should know exactly what it feels like to be in a human body, and it what it feels like to not be in one. Also, considering his experience with the mystic arts, there's every reason to believe he that he knows of vampires (even he's no expert on them, hence his need to study up).
** A simpler explanation is that Marcus is actually starting to go senile. It isn't until his mind has been in Angel's healthy young brain for a while that he actually starts being ''able'' to put one and one together again, instead of simply doing the same thing over and over out of habit.
*** Furthering this line of speculation is the part where temporarily stealing young bodies for pleasure is less of an intelligent plan than using your time in those young bodies to research methods of either making the swap permanent or finding some other necromantic youth-restoring method, rather than choose to remain in your very very old body that's one stiff breeze away from dying of a heart attack. Looking at his whole scheme overall Marcus comes across as a one-trick pony that's either senile or just plain stupid, and either one explains his inability to grasp Angel's situation immediately.
== Why don't you shoot her already? ==
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** The only humans Angel kills are in the heat of battle and not often then. If he can avoid killing humans he will. [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]] sure, but that is how he operates. Lilah is smart enough to never actually fight, well, anyone, but least of all Angel.
*** If that is the case then Angels reasoning has a pretty healthy dose of [[Good Is Dumb]], which is jarring since he was mostly pretty good at avoiding that.
*** Angel has a demon inside him continually urging him to murder, torture, rape, and pillage human beings. He spends his entire souled life continually repressing this demon and denying its suggestions. Not surprisingly this also leaves him reluctant to murder human beings even when its his souled self prompting him to, and he's only willing to do it when ''extremely'' provoked.
** In series 5, Lindsay realises that Angel is the type to tolerate "the devil he knows". Although Angel had a hidden agenda on that occasion, it's been pointed out many times that Angel is a very bad liar compared to Angelus. He tends to do best when he lies with the truth (something Angelus is a master at). The chances are that Angel let Lilah live because he was confident he could handle her and he generally knew what sort of thing to expect from her. Killing her would simply replace her with another lawyer and possibly one that was worse. It may not be so much [[Good Is Dumb]] as [[Combat Pragmatist]] - stick with the devil you know you can beat rather than making room for one you might not be able to.
** He spent the middle part of Season 2 doing essentially what you're suggesting. For the first part of the season, Wolfram and Hart was screwing with his head using Darla and flaunting it. Then they re-vamped her and he'd had enough and went on the offensive against Wolfram and Hart and decided to send a message when he showed up at Holland's wine-tasting, where a terrified Lilah begged him for her life. He responded by walking away and locking the door behind him, leaving her and her colleagues with a pair of vampires and she survived only because Dru and Darla thought her little rivalry with Lindsay served their agenda. His team all gave him a giant [[What the Hell, Hero?]], he fired them, and before it was all over, he learned that all of that was meaningless, killing a W&H lawyer doesn't get rid of them for good, and that sure, Lilah and the other individual W&H lawyers and the Senior Partners were evil but the firm really consisted of the evil in the world. And oh, yeah, he tried to lose his soul by sleeping with Darla. After that, Angel pretty understandably doesn't really go on the offensive against Wolfram and Hart - it takes him to a dark place, and ultimately it doesn't matter. And it even fits into the Senior Partners' plans for him - Lilah and Lindsay were flat-out told to their faces that they're being told to screw with Angel's head but can't kill him because of his place in the prophecy and the Senior Partners would consider it a great victory if Angel went dark fot real and killed them both. He'll fight them when he runs into them in the course of what he normally does, he'll try and stop the terrible things they do, and he'll go after them to help people he cares about, but that's about it.
== Magic Windows from the 80s? ==
Small thing (very minor gripe): when Lorne's having his W&H halloween party Angel makes the windows to his office obscure. Spike calls them "magic windows"-- does this really need to be magic (and yes I get that Spike is just being a sarcastic jerk): LCD glass that does that has existed since the 1980s.
* Not to mention that necro-tempered glass seems to be a commercial product, and Wolfram & Hart seems to make a fair amount of money selling it to rich vampires (Russell Winters had some on his building as well), so Spike might simply have seen it before. Angel wouldn't because before coming to Sunnydale he spent the last century mostly hiding out, but Spike's been travelling the world and active in vampire society up until very recently.
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