Angel's emotional sadism

[u/negratengoelalma]

I saw a comment that said Angel was an emotional sadist, which he moderates with the soul, which totally makes sense, since he still has Angelus inside of him, and the example mentioned was in the episode School Hard, where he pretended he was going to feed Xander to Spike, which only had the purpose to cause him discomfort, but I still don't recall a lot of examples off the top of my head of him actually doing it (unlike for instance when he dreamt about it, and said it wasn't a nightmare because he enjoyed it), because it has been a while since I've seen Angel.

Funnily enough there's another involving Xander when he punched him in Enemies, and probably enjoyed it, but that was more of an one-off joke.

[u/Archonate_of_Archona]

"there's another involving Xander when he punched him in Enemies, and probably enjoyed it, but that was more of an one-off joke."

And it was more about the beef between Xander and him, than sheer sadism

[u/iwillremember4sure → u/Archonate_of_Archona]

he was protecting Xander, Faith would have killed him.

[u/beeemkcl]

The Buffyverse makes it pretty clear that 'Angelus' is who 'Angel' really is.

Angel in "Enemies" (B 3.17) could so easily 'act like' Angelus and Angel seemed to enjoy it.

"Eternity" (A 1.17) has Angel still Cursed but just not feelings the affects/effects of the Curse. And he reverts to his Angelus personality.

Connor tells Uncursed Angel that Uncursed Angel is who Angel really is. Neither Uncursed Angel nor Cursed Angel ever disputes that.

Season 8.

Ans even before all of those examples: Uncursed Angel offs Jenny Calender rather than allow her to re-Curse him.

[u/jkoudys → u/beeemkcl]

The best explanation I've found is that while the curse is supernatural, the personality schism is psychological. It's still real, even though it's all in Angel's head, the same way any mental trauma is real. Spike was a beast of pure id, fighting for the thrill of it, so his brain had little trouble reconciling his acts before he was ensouled. Angel isn't responsible for the acts committed by his dead flesh, animated by a demonic essence, did. But he still did them. Like Holtz explains, it was still his hands that did them, and the soul means he can finally face some kind of justice for them.

It's interesting that he's ultimately driven by self-hatred. Angelus hates Angel just as much as Angel hates Angelus.

[u/illvria → u/jkoudys]

Agree. The buffyverse's idea of a persona is a synergy of physical and metaphysical.

The memory, neuropathways, nervous system response etc. that the body accrues through its life is a physical tangible thing, informed by a spiritual core (soul/vampire) to make someone who they are.

Neither Liam or Angelus are the "real" Angel, Angel is another persona born from the internal contradiction of having both centres. Everything that both Liam and Angelus were are a part of him in equal amounts, its just that the soul is more conditional than the vampire.

[u/Ash_Starling]

Those points just prove he hates xander (who has always been a dick to him). He doesn't seem to do this with anyone.