No
judgments on where you read, but for the sake of books everywhere,
please don’t bend the cover back like this! Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.com
Today is National Drop Everything and Read Day, which really should
be an international holiday, as far as I’m concerned. DEAR day happens
every 12 April, in honour of author Beverly Cleary’s
birthday, but can be celebrated all month and beyond. The goal is for
people to take time out of their day and spend it reading a book. Seems
like a great holiday to celebrate (I suggest your favourite warm drink
as the official accompaniment).
Looking for something you can read right now? I’ve got you covered…
If you prefer paperback, use this link to order Love Lies Bleeding from
Bookshop – a portion of each sale goes directly to independent
bookstores, as well as to myself. Thank you for supporting indie! ♥
I’m still (re-)watching Buffy and Angel, and there’s something that’s been bothering me about Angelus…
Spoilers Ahead
First, we need some backstory.
in Buffy and Angel mythology, a vampire is made
when a vampire exchanges blood with a human before killing them. The
human’s soul leaves the body (presumably going off to the afterlife),
and the soulless shell reanimates, inhabited by a demon that looks like
the human, and has their personality and all their memories, but with an
aversion to sunlight and a thirst for blood.
Angelus started out like any other vampire, but after killing the
wrong girl he was cursed with a soul. Suddenly his body housed a demon
and a human soul. This unnatural combination led him to spend a hundred
years wallowing in guilt and remorse over what he’d done as a vampire,
before finally deciding to become a broody, but useful, member of
society. Oh, and he also started calling himself Angel.
But the curse had a loophole. If Angel were to ever experience a
moment of true happiness, the soul would go and Angelus would return in
all his murderous glory.
Over the course of both Buffy and Angel, we get to
see both Angel and Angelus, and much as I enjoy the dichotomy, something
about it bothers me. Angel is solitary, reserved, and thoughtful, but
ready to kick ass when necessary. Angelus, on the other hand, is cruel,
revels in violence, and is as meticulous in stalking and torture as the
most evil serial killer. So how is this the same person?
The shows simply claim that it’s the difference between soul and no
soul, but I’m not sure I buy that. The presence (or lack) of a soul
doesn’t completely change your personality. At one point Angel claims he
was a bad person as a human too, but from flashbacks we see he was
mostly a shiftless, carousing layabout and terrible son. That’s pretty
far from a cold-blooded killer (not to mention the other major
personality shifts we see between Angel and Angelus). The Buffy episode “Doppelgangland” even tacitly confirms that a vampire’s personality is basically the same as the human they inhabit.
When vampire Spike gets his soul back (earned, not cursed), his
personality doesn’t significantly change. He might be less likely to
finish off a mortally wounded human once he gets his soul, but if you
watched an episode featuring him without knowing which season it was
from, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell whether he has a soul or
not. Another vampire, Harmony, never gets a soul, but shows no
significant change in personality before and after becoming a vampire.
She even loves unicorns.
In the Angel episode “Eternity,” Angel is drugged so that he
feels a chemical high (which they call “happiness” for the sake of the
plot), Until the drug wears off he’s right back to being Mr.
Murder-Death-Kill, as though a switch were flipped. You’d think he’d
still be able to exert his own will, at least a little, to keep Angelus
from completely taking over. He didn’t even lose his soul that time.
Yes, it’s a TV show about vampires and demons, but it doesn’t make any
sense. Not to me, at least.
Maybe having a soul forced on him was traumatic for Angel, causing
his personality to fracture. Maybe the demon inside him is particularly
strong and malevolent. Maybe it really is only human guilt that keeps
Angel from totally going off the rails. Maybe I’m way overthinking this.
What do you think about Angel/Angelus and his split personality? Do
you have your own theories about the difference a soul makes? Share in
the comments…
If you prefer paperback, use this link to order Love Lies Bleeding from
Bookshop – a portion of each sale goes directly to independent
bookstores, as well as to myself. Thank you for supporting indie! ♥
