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Buffy/Angel Questions about Angel's past (Spoilers for aired shows)

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Buffy/Angel Questions about Angel's past (Spoilers for aired shows)

Old 03-15-03, 08:33 PM
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Buffy/Angel Questions about Angel's past (Spoilers for aired shows)

Okay, I've seen Buffy S1-3 and Angel S1, and I have a few questions about Angel's past.

In Buffy S1:

we find out that Angel is a vampire cursed with a soul by Gyspies about 100 years ago, in 1898.

Angel and Darla have a history, and that she seems to know about the curse.

The Master knew Angel.

The last time Angel saw Darla she was wearing kimonos.

In Buffy S2:

We find out that Darla vamped Angel in the 1750s.

Angel was homeless in 1996, wandering through NYC. The implication is that he spent the past century in this state.

Angel "sired" Spike (though I've heard that this was retconned)

Angel, Spike, and Dru knew each other quite well at some point.

Angel vamped Dru in the 1860s on the day she was to become a nun.

Angel S1

Darla was with Angel when he killed the Gypsy princess. She also knew he was cursed with a soul.



Okay, let's examine this.

The Angel/Darla history holds together pretty well, EXCEPT she wasn't wearing a kimono when Angel last saw her. Maybe, unless he saw her again. I'll address this later in this post.

Are we to presume he saw her again at some point AFTER gaining a soul? The dialog seems to imply this, as in "Angel" (Buffy S1) Darla knew that Angel had a soul, so we can presume she saw him at some point afterward. But we saw this in Angel S1, unless he saw her AGAIN after that.

And I'm a bit unclear how Spike and Dru fit in.

Since Darla vamped Angel and was there when he was souled, it implies that they were always together during the Angelus' lifetime -- 175x to 1898.

So, was Darla present when Angel made Dru? From what I've seen, it's sort of implied that Angel made Dru to have a female companion, maybe to replace Darla.

And if Spike and Dru were around when Angelus was "souled," wouldn't Angel have assumed in "School Hard" that Spike knew about his condition? It was implied that Angel didn't think this was the case. There's less than forty years between Angel vamping Dru and Angel being souled, which doesn't seem like much time for immortals, I'm presuming that Spike and Dru stuck around with Angel for a good portion of that time.

Also put an interesting two and two together. It was said that Spike killed a slayer during the Boxer Rebellion, which was in China in 1900. Two years after Angel was souled, in fact. Angel told Darla that he last saw her wearing a Kimono. Can I then assume that Spike,Dru, Angel, and Darla were all at the Boxer Rebellion?

Can anyone fill in the blanks for me if this has been addressed somewhere? Don't worry about spoilers too much, as I don't generally go out of my way to avoid them.
Old 03-15-03, 08:47 PM
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A lot of what you're asking will be explored in a "two parter" from Buffy Season 5/Angel Season 2. If you're watching these for the first time on DVD you may want to wait for those to come out and find out yourself. I believe the episodes are (from Buffy) "Fool For Love" and (from Angel) "Darla".
Old 03-15-03, 08:48 PM
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Suspension of disbelief. Joss Whedon -- the creator of the show -- isn't too concerned about things such as dates and years. Nor the very basics of vampirism -- if Spike can't breathe, how does he smoke? And why do we see and hear them breathing? Try figuring out Buffy's birthday sometime, it pops up all over the calendar.

Buffy fans have been questioning the show's various timelines since the inception of the series and nobody really has any concrete dates. We don't even know for sure if Angel sired Spike. He's referred to Angel as his sire, but SEASON 5 SPOILER:
Spoiler:
Dru was shown performing the actual "deed" on him.


There was a season 5 episode called, Fool For Love, that addressed the Boxer Rebellion. It showed Spiking bagging the Chinese Slayer. And it was definitely Angelus who was there, not Angel.

Joss laughs in the face of chronology.

Last edited by elise; 03-15-03 at 08:50 PM.
Old 03-15-03, 09:48 PM
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There was a season 5 episode called, Fool For Love, that addressed the Boxer Rebellion. It showed Spiking bagging the Chinese Slayer. And it was definitely Angelus who was there, not Angel.
Thats not the way i remember it. I remember Angel trying to fake being Angelus or maybe trying to be a "real" vampire when they were in China, but i remember Angel having his soul and it going badly...i think thats when they all went there seperate ways (as far as Angel is concerned anyway).
Old 03-15-03, 10:04 PM
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Angel WAS there at the Boxer Rebellion, not Angelus.

Dru sired Spike.

Whedon doesn't care about continuity and has said so in many interviews.
Old 03-16-03, 12:17 AM
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Actually, the continuity holds together pretty well -- especially when you consider that neither Darla nor Angel were supposed to live beyond Buffy's first season. The only major glitch was on the question of who sired Spike. When he meets Angel in "School Hard" he says that Angel was his sire. Later, it turns out that it was Dru, so Angel is actually his Grand-sire.

The aforementioned episodes ("Fool for Love" and "Darla") will fill you in better, but you've got the basics.

Yes, Angelus and Darla pretty much hung out together most of time, and she was around when he vamped Dru. (Guess you could say that Angelus and Darla weren't "monogamous".) Dru actually sires Spike because she feels like a third wheel around Angelus and Darla, and wants a companion of her own.

After he was souled, Angel disappeared for a couple of guilt-ridden years. When he met back up with Darla, Dru and Spike in China during the Boxer Rebellion, he was trying to go back to being his old, bad self, but in the end he couldn't pull it off. (I though it was pretty ingenious of them to take Angel's "kimono" comment from Buffy Season One and make it pay off in Angel Season Two.)

FYI, The Master was Darla's sire, way back in the Virginia Colony in 1609.

Last edited by Skorp; 03-16-03 at 12:24 AM.
Old 03-16-03, 12:44 AM
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Thanks, guys. That's pretty much what I was looking for.

As to some of the other issues and my takes:

Vampires breathing. It seems like vampires do breathe, though they don't have to in order to survive. If you don't breathe, you can't talk. It might just be a reflex of their bodies or something, or they keep drawing air and expelling it in order to be able to speak. This struck me as odd as far back as "Prophecy Girl" when Angel told Xander he couldn't give Buffy M2M because he didn't have any breath. But he obviously must be drawing in and expelling air in order to talk, and should've been able to perform M2M on Buffy. Maybe he didn't know how, and didn't want to admit it? Or just thought he couldn't pass breath from on person to another? Or just felt sorry for Xander and let him cop afree feel.

I also learned that it's best not to pay too close attention to dates. I remember Giles saying Spike was "barely 200" years old, when he was, in fact, much younger. Or maybe the Watcher's Diaries aren't wholly accurate.

Buffy's birthday seems to be sometime in January, as it falls between Christmas and Valentine's Day. And leave it at that, despite what her school files might say.

Spike might consider Angel to be his sire, since he was probably the one who showed him the vampire ropes. Dru seems a little loopy to be anybody's teacher, and Angel sort of became a surrogate "sire."

I know that Joss has said something to the effect of "continuity is for wusses," but I haven't really encountered any particularly glaring errors (except for the issue of ages and dates).
Old 03-16-03, 04:06 PM
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Originally posted by joefrog91

Whedon doesn't care about continuity and has said so in many interviews.
You would think somebody wanted some sort of consistency in their stories. Oh well, at least he acknowledges he doesn't care instead of just popping it out there with no comments at all like other people who write storylines for Fox presentations and actually make it to the big screen. *cough* George Lucas*cough*
Old 03-16-03, 04:42 PM
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Angel was homeless in 1996, wandering through NYC. The implication is that he spent the past century in this state.
You'll find out later on that Angel definitely wasn't homeless and depressed for an entire century. He was a loner(aside from a few trips to Vegas apparently), but he didn't hit rock bottom til the 1990's. I guess the end of centuries aren't too good to the guy.

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