Because It’s not About Whether you Win or Lose. It’s how you Play the Game that Counts!
Angel's Journey: The Story of a Hero
by Stir of Echoes

My, what big teeth you’ve got.

My initial interest in Angel hinged on one thing and one thing only … well almost, after all, I’m not blind. Nevertheless, in all fairness to the character, it was the vampire aspect that originally caught my interest.

All right that’s not entirely true either. The first episode I watched was, ‘Never kill a boy on the first date’ and while Buffy adhered to that Angel managed to slay this viewer with one glance but still, it was only when I learned that not only was he tall dark and handsome but he was also a vampire that I decided to sit down and watch.

I’ve always been fascinated by vampire fiction, both on screen and in print, in fact it’s been the one thing that managed to hold my interest from a very young age, the one constant that never wavered. Show me a vampire and I’ll show you my undivided attention.

However, there has been much vampire fiction written in the past two hundred years and the legend of the vampire was around long before Bram Stokers Dracula.

Most of the early fiction portrayed them as monsters, evil creatures with a gaunt appearance and a hideous countenance, though they bore human form or a distorted version of human form, they were still monsters that were psychologically repulsive. Evil creatures devoid of humanity and as such morality, they fed off humans, drinking their blood to sustain themselves. Men, women and children alike where the source of their hunger, they stood outside of society, a threat to all.

I read Dracula several times and came away with the idea of the vampire as a creature that was immortal, unholy, ruthless, intelligent and extremely fascinating. A creature living solely by night, preying on humanity to feed its hunger.

I loved watching Bela Lugosi and his portrayal of the vampire, the way his eyes flashed, his movements and that wonderful Hungarian accent that added to the already wonderful way he delivered his lines. Certainly different to the hideous and grotesque appearance of Max Shreck.

I loved Christopher Lee, the way he captured the very essence of the vampire, terrifying yet attractive, powerful yet vulnerable, nevertheless, Dracula always appeared to me as Stoker originally wrote him. Evil, he never, for me, came across as a sexual predator, nor did I ever get the craving to jump his bones.

Vampire films have continued to develop as have the vampires themselves as many different actors took on the role and despite the addition of humour in certain portrayals, most have adhered to the traditional lore of the vampire.

The more popular modern day vampires must continually seek a place to rest from the sun lest they be destroyed. They are repelled by holy water and the crucifix, there has been much debate as to whether the object and what it is made of actually possesses the power to repel or whether it is so strongly symbolic of the triumph of good over evil that it alone repels evil in whatever form it takes. That in itself may seem impossible or difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics, religious items and holy places utterly repel evil people who oftentimes utterly delight in their sacrilege (as Angelus has shown repeatedly), however, supernatural evil supposedly shuns holy things.

Though it is hinted that the power of the crucifix exists it seems that its power when supported by faith is what repels evil.

Occasionally some of the older and less used of the traditional lore surfaces. Vampires must carry a little of their native earth with them wherever they go, they must have an evil assistant to watch over their sleeping bodies and do their work during sunlight hours. The latter lore is today still mostly attributed to Dracula himself, hence poor Xander’s newly found taste for flies in ‘Buffy v Dracula’ the season five opening episode of BtVS.

Most modern day vampires don’t need to sleep in coffins or carry their native earth around, nor do they have difficulty crossing water, times change and so has the idea of the vampire. On the other hand, it could be that times haven’t changed and it’s just a case of weeding out the fact from the fiction, if Louis is to be believed most of the latter is nothing more than the demented ravings of an insane Irishman and Angel mostly agreed in ‘Parting Gifts’ when he said, “Vampires don’t sleep in coffins. It’s a misconception made popular by hack writers and ignorant media.”

Most modern day vampire lore explores the vampire myth in new ways using only the core of the myth (sorry Angel) the symbolic value of the vampire being an evil creature feeding on mortals to sustain their own existence and as I grew from childhood to adulthood, my perception of the vampire also changed.

It became a fascination; I saw another side to these monstrous creatures. I saw remnants of what once a human life. A life filled with hopes and dreams that would now never come to fruition.

Yes, they were terrifying but they were also attractive, they were powerful but, as Christopher Lee once portrayed them to be, they were also vulnerable and they weren’t indestructible. They could be destroyed, just like any other from of life, they could die.

Then came the biggest realisation of all, they were capable of and could feel emotions … they could love.

The vampire of modern fiction is no longer some old dead guy with a weird accent prancing about in a cape and sleeping in a box of dirt. Now he’s a brooding, attractive not to mention much better dressed lonely figure of a man that people can and do relate to. It’s now so very easy to look at how fascinating they are with their billowing coats and tales of love lost and found and then lost again and forget about all the stuff that goes bump in the night.

Modern day films have emphasised this facet, Francis ford Coppola’s version starring Gary Oldman brought to the character a poignancy of lost love. A creature tortured by the loss of his beloved Elizabeth and the passionate search to re capture that love and regain some semblance of renewed humanity. A terrifying creature to be sure but one capable of the strongest of human emotions, love.

Suddenly, the hideous creature of old is transformed from monstrous to romantic, a creature once portrayed as the thing that stalked humans in the night intent on evil now portrayed as sympathetic, to be almost pitied rather than feared, all set against the backdrop of tragedy and lost love, a love story that has endured time.

Each new portrayal of the vampire brought a new dimension to the character, it became almost childlike in the fact that the older it became the more it evolved.

And so it once again evolved with ‘Interview with a Vampire’ and Brad Pitts portrayal of the man broken by tragedy and weary of life. Louis the immortal who shunned the vampire’s need for human blood, who was reluctant to indulge his vampire nature, a vampire with the soul of a mortal, the love of a mortal and the passion of a mortal, a vampire that constantly battled against the need to take human life. A vampire tortured by guilt who reflected “the broken heart” of the century.

Vampire fiction continues to evolve, as do the vampires themselves. Now they are to an extent, heroes, romantic, fierce, strong, desirous of change, innocent, angst-ridden, introspective and again, better dressed- in other words, humanised.

With the introduction of Angel, I saw for the first time that the monster was no longer a monster; he was a vampire with the soul of a human. Capable of all the emotions and emotional suffering of a human, he invited empathy that wasn’t hard to identify with. Angel displayed almost every façade and dimension ever brought to the vampire over the many years of its existence in fiction, and once again, I was hooked.

The vampire akin to Louis, the vampire with a soul, both sides of the coin. The monstrous fiend striving to be everything it was meant to be and more in the form of Angelus and the tortured soul within desperate to cling to every shred of humanity it once possessed, a hybrid between human and vampire. Nevertheless, I never once forgot he was a vampire, I was constantly aware of the demands of his vampire nature but I also saw the struggle to overcome those demands.

However, though he appeared hero like, the romance and good looks, his ability to love and be loved in return didn’t ultimately make him a hero. He had the qualities of the heroic archetype, a mixture between the lost soul on the path to becoming the warrior, a sensitive being, tortured, secretive and brooding but also vulnerable, the outcast unaccepted by either side. The loner rejected by other vampires and distrusted by mortals.

He didn’t possess ‘heroic virtue’ yet he was larger than life, he appeared more the ‘Byronic hero’ in the early years, isolated from society, moody by nature but passionate with the ability to act on his desires, defy authority and successfully confront obstacles in his path. He didn’t have to bow down to institutional power or oppressive forces for he had both the supernatural abilities and the attitude to fight them.

However, he was tortured with the guilt of his early vampire self and the destruction of countless numbers of mortals. Because of that nature, he showed admiration of ordinary human values, while still maintaining the bad boy appeal of the charismatic villain. He was an unattainable ideal, someone who inspired awe but couldn’t be emulated, couldn’t be re integrated in to society even if he had benefited that society and that made me want to delve deeper in to his darkness, explore his emotions, his passion that triggered the imaginations expanse. I wanted to feel it, touch it, sense it and explore it until it became real, tangible.

It wasn’t hard to associate Angel as a hero, unlike Spike he entered the Buffyverse with his soul intact, already humanised, maybe to make the audience more comfortable identifying him as a hero but it wouldn’t be fair to assume, that because of this, Angel was, already a hero.

The dictionary defines a hero as a man renowned for his courage, his feats of valour, someone with an admirable character but a true hero is more than that. A true hero has heart, he stands up for the things he believes in, he’s brave and because of that it wouldn’t be just to call anyone a hero.

A hero is a champion, a hero is special.

A hero has true goodness within, and goodness does not come naturally, goodness requires something more, it’s an achievement, it requires maturity, it requires the ability put aside one owns interest in favour of the interest of others. It requires the belief that ones own needs are best served when the needs of others are also taken in consideration. Goodness requires living in a social order with others, it’s about possibility; it’s something to strive toward.

That being said, I believe Angel displayed not only qualities of the archetype hero he also displayed the possibility of maturity, the possibility to put aside his own interests, to do good for unselfish reasons, because again in all fairness there are many who adhere to the theory that Angel did good for selfish reasons. However, it’s also fair to recognise that deferred selfishness as a stage of moral development. Not all goodness is purely altruistic.

Angel wasn’t perfect, he made a lot of mistakes, as did many of his counterparts and as Warren proved, evil is not restricted to those who possess no soul, or who appear to be creatures thought as inherently evil.

Angel was a moral complexity in his representation of good and evil. On the one hand there was a real sense of evil that went beyond remorse or any other human emotion and yet on the other a need to be/do good, to atone, a caring side to an uncaring monster. Two sides of a creature that contradicted each other yet managed to make it appear more human, a creature full of possibilities, a creature striving to become … someone.

He had within him the possibility to become a hero.

There are moments in your life that make you that set the course of who you’re gonna be. Sometimes they’re little subtle moments, sometimes they’re not.

Myth’s are an integral part of most every society on earth and like the myth of the vampire there are some myths that are so powerful they are incorporated into almost every culture that has existed, the hero’s journey is one of them.

In addition, as most heroes begin their journey by being separated from their familiar ground, family, loved ones and everything he knows or holds dear and is transformed through extra ordinary ordeals. Everything he once knew either altered or destroyed creating the way for a new level of awareness, Angel proved no different. When in 1753, he took his first steps into the alley and the waiting arms of Darla he was transformed. But that wasn’t the start of his journey, not for me.

Every element of the journey should have a purpose; every event he goes through should teach him a lesson. The only lesson Angelus learned throughout his time as a soulless vampire and as he told Faith in ‘Salvage’, “people like them try to bury the pain but you can never get the hole deep enough, there’s only one way to make the pain stop. Hurt something else.”

And he did, terrorising town upon town as he and Darla ate their way through Europe, transformed others and increased their numbers with the additions of Drusilla and Spike. Angelus met the French poet Baudelaire and quiet possibly Monet, cried at the opera and generally had a ball until in 1898 in Romania , he was plunged back into the original society he was plucked from in a new role … with the addition of his soul.

However, I never thought Angel possessed a particularly good soul. Liam was far from the epitome of goodness, he was best described as a drunken, whoring layabout, which made me wonder if ‘the curse’ actually did bring into play ‘the good soul’ and as he told Faith in ‘Orpheus’, He’s not perfect, that ‘even with a soul’ he’s done things he wished a thousand times that he could take back.

Moreover, after Angel fed on the already dead body of the doughnut shop assistant Angelus makes the comment that his hell is not private.

Soul or no soul he’s deep within Angel and no matter how much good Angel does the demon is still deep within him, whispering in his ear in an attempt to bend him to his will.

That I think is what separated Angel from other vampires, what made him special and showed the possibility of what was to come. Seeing Angelus in season two of BtVS, seeing the evil sadistic monster he struggled to contain and learning of the man Liam once was. Yet Angel seemed to be neither of the two. He wasn’t Angelus, yet he bore little resemblance to his former self, it seemed somehow that the addition of his soul created within him a conflict and that Angel chose to do good despite his soul not just because of it. He struggled to make the right choices for the greater good, to walk the fine and unenviable line between man and monster and suddenly the possibility of the hero shone that much brighter.

Angel’s existence is constantly thrown in to turmoil and he’s been beset by one crisis after another, the return of his soul led to a hundred years of shunning the world, hiding from society in an attempt to cope with his guilt until Whistler set him on his path. However, though Angel appeared to be on the right path, he didn’t seem to know in which direction to tread and instead ambled along doing what he thought was right, helping Buffy fight the forces of evil. He wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t totally selfless, he made mistakes along the way and however many noteworthy qualities he seemed to possess he had his faults. But all heroes possess faults and Angel proved no different, heroes make mistakes as they are suddenly thrust back in to the world and their pedestals become broken and are discarded as they consciously try to create meaning to their lives.
I think Angel’s first real attempt to create meaning to his life came when in 1999 he realised that as long as he remained a vampire his relationship with Buffy would never work. That his place in Sunnydale, however familiar wasn’t where he needed to be, he came to terms with what he was and made a decision that not only benefited Buffy but that set him on his true path and brought him face to face with the challenge of navigating new boundaries and his own motivations and desires.

His journey had begun…

Most heroes are prepared; when the time comes for them to re enter the world, they have already learned valuable life lessons that better serve them in their new role. Nothing could have prepared Liam for what happened the night he met Darla, or for what was to occur after that fateful night or the return of his soul for that matter but I believe that Angel’s time in Sunnydale was a valuable life lesson for his journey ahead. He was ready to step out from the comfort he had found there and become someone.

His arrival into the City of Angels brought him into contact with the half human and half demon, Doyle, who like Whistler gave Angel renewed reason to believe he had a purpose, to protect the innocent, help the helpless and, in embracing this destiny Angel’s life lessons increased until once more his existence was thrown into crisis with Doyle’s death. Yet, however tragic Doyle’s death seemed to be he taught Angel one of the most valuable life lessons so far, “Fight the good fight, yeah, you never know until you’ve been tested. I get that now.”

Doyle died a hero, he gave his life for something bigger than himself, he faced the test and made the choice for the greater good but for me at least Angel’s test was to come much later, that’s not to say he hadn’t taken a huge step forward in the hero stakes because he had. He’d realized several things that “We don't belong to ourselves. We belong to the world, fighting…”

He lived and loved and lost and fought and vanquished inside a day, He become a real live flesh-and-blood human - had the one thing in his unnaturally long life that he wanted and he gave it back. He showed courage and honour, he learnt you fight the good fight whichever way you can because he was part of the good fight. Finally, he was someone.

He was not only a vampire with a soul, he was, as we later learned a vampire with a destiny, with the introduction of the ‘Shanshu Prophecy’ the notion of heroic virtue was thrown into jeopardy, there became a doubt that his actions from that moment forward were the actions of a possible hero. Had the habit of good conduct that had become almost second nature to him been given a new motive? A power stronger than all other, a new reason to fight the good fight? It’s often been speculated that this may have been the case even by those who knew him best. As Spike noted in ‘Hellbound’  “Oh, put your martyr away, Mahatma. Fred told me all about your great, shining prophecy. Pile up all your good deeds and get the big brass ring handed to you like everything else.”

I don’t think it’s fair to blame Angel for wanting to believe in the prophecy, he’d had a taste of what it felt like to be human again in ‘I Will Remember You’ for a brief moment he had everything he wanted and he alone carried the memory of that day. He remembered what he’d had, what he could have had, had he not given it up for the greater good. And for a while, it seemed he did fight not only to help the helpless but also to gain redemption until once again his world was thrown into crisis with the re emergence of Darla and seemingly the desertion of the Powers that Be.

Angel turns away from his mission and his friends but then so did Buffy turn away from the Council of Watchers in ‘Graduation Day’ but unlike Buffy, Angel’s choice didn’t seem bring him closer to finding himself or finding his place in the world. Angel’s choice brought him closer to the darker side of his nature, closer to Angelus but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Angel do this. We’ve seen this side of Angel before in ‘Are you Now or Have you Ever Been’ Angel came close to crossing the fine line between Angelus and his better self. He appeared detached from the humanity he so struggled to cling to just has he did when he prepared to take on Darla and Drusilla, something Drusilla recognised in ‘Reunion’ when Angel locked the lawyers of Wolfram and Hart in the wine cellar and left them to the mercy of Darla and Dru. Drusilla called out to the retreating Angel, referring to him as ‘Daddy’ a term used to identify Angelus possibly because Drusilla saw Angel’s actions as the actions of Angelus.

In ‘Redefinition’ where we saw Angel seemingly even further withdrawn from humanity, remaining in the shadows and smoking, ( a pastime usually attributed to Angelus,) Darla noticed that he wasn’t displaying the vampire side of his nature but he didn’t appear entirely human either. Angelus would have revelled in the destruction Angel was creating throughout the episode and the smoking and callous behaviour would have suggested Angelus was at the forefront of his actions but the quiet and subdued almost brooding representation of the man who lit the fuse suggests otherwise. To quote Jekyll and Hyde,“man is not one but two, he’s evil and good and he walks a fine line.”

Throughout his time as a soulled vampire Angel has walked that line, however, I think this is the turning point for Angel as Darla recognised when she said, “That wasn’t Angel, that wasn’t Angelus either … who was that?”

Until now, I think Angel had been a product of his guilt, partly because of his soul but partly because when Whistler set him on his path he was, as heroes usually are thrust back into the world and had to struggle to live up to society’s predefined image of what man is. Only Angel wasn’t a man, he told us in the season one episode ‘Angel,’ “I can walk like a man but I’m not one.”

Instead of being what he is, a vampire with a soul he bore the mask of a man. He tried to always walk the right side of the line, sometimes coming close to crossing it but mostly trying to fit in with society’s predefined image of something he wasn’t.

He wasn’t free to find his place in the world, among society when he struggled to live up to the image of what he thought society wanted him to be. He only overcame this when he dropped society’s mask in ‘Redefinition’ and along with it the notion that he wasn’t good enough.

Darla, in a sense was right when she told Angel, “For a hundred years you haven’t had a moment’s peace because you will not accept who you really are. That’s all you have to do, accept it.”

He wasn’t Angelus but in that moment he wasn’t exactly Angel either, he was neither but somehow he was both, a vampire but with the soul of a human. All he had to do was overcome the notion that he wasn’t good enough, to drop the mask, he didn’t need to overcome Angelus, to rise above or even move beyond him. All he had to do was allow himself to be who he truly was, he wasn’t an evil soulless monster but he wasn’t a man either. He was a vampire with soul.

Every individual has within them uniqueness, the ability to be themselves, to believe themselves worthy, to be capable of learning right from wrong regardless of their usefulness to society, regardless of their strengths or weaknesses, to act as a member of society with a sense of humanity. Angel proved with his love for Buffy and his growing affection for other humans that he displayed a sense of unity with humanity, that he was conscious of it, which I believe separated him from the monstrous side of Angelus’ nature but not Angelus himself.

However, he became the one in charge of who he was and what he did, he admitted his mistakes by expressing his guilt and trying to make amends, he learned by trial and error, yet when once again hurled into crisis he resorted to old habits. Angelus however minimal or not, I think was present in ‘Redefinition’ but he wasn’t in charge, having faith in your own worth, feeling like you belong means seeing yourself as deserving regardless of circumstance. Finding your self-image not on what you once were or what you have achieved but on your own worth.

Something Holland Manners later reiterated in ‘Reprsise’ after Angel attempted to destroy Wolfram and Hart, Holland asked Angel what destroying them would achieve in the larger scheme of things and when Angel tells Holland he doesn’t give a crap, Holland replies,“Now I don’t think that’s true, be honest you have the tiniest amount of ‘give a crap’ left.” Otherwise you wouldn’t be going on the Kamikaze mission.”

Angel then tells Holland, “You won’t win.”

Moreover, when Holland tells him he has no intention of winning, that winning isn’t the object of the fight, Angel questions him, asking him, why fight and Holland replies…
“That’s really the question you should be asking yourself, isn’t it? See for us there is no fight, which is why winning doesn’t enter into it, we – go – on – no matter what. Our firm has always been here. In one form or another. The Inquisition. The khymer Rouge. We where there when the first cave man clubbed his neighbour. See, we are in the hearts and mind of every living being and that friend is what’s making things difficult for you.”

Something we’ve heard before, the notion that evil isn’t something to be fought and won, it’s something that has always been there and will continue be there in one form or another, even within ourselves, a lesson Buffy learned in 'Amends'.“You think you can fight me, I am not a demon little girl, I am something you cannot even conceive, the first evil. Beyond sin, beyond death, I am the thing the darkness fears. You’ll never see me but I am everywhere, every being, every thought, every drop of hate.”

Human nature is a mixture of a sham and the truth, of kindness and cruelty, of good and evil. In each of us, there are two natures, the primitive duality of man, and a mixture of good and evil. Something, again best described by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde.

If each could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable. The unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of the extraneous self.

So, if man is the embodiment of both good and evil than Angel is neither Angel nor Angelus but the embodiment of both. When Angelus committed acts of atrocities Angel bore the brunt of the guilt and as Angelus later tells Faith in ‘Orpheus’ of the torment he suffers because of Angel’s close proximity to humans, “Do you know what it’s like? Everytime he gets close, I feel it. Wanting to tear their flesh apart. The hunger, it’s like a blade in my gut.”

Or as Holland went on to say, “Well, you know how it is – you know that better than anyone. Things you’ve seen. Things you’ve – well done. You see if there wasn’t evil in every one of them out there, why, they wouldn’t be people –they’d all be Angels.”

This, I think was the beginning for Angel, when he finally began to realise that his existence in the world had meaning, some would see it as a destiny but at this point it seemed Angel had been struggling alone. He’d abandoned his friends and in turn had seemingly been abandoned by ‘the Powers that Be’ but in doing so Angel had begun his journey and was beginning to understand his place in the world and the nature of good and evil. A curse not only suffered by Angel but humankind itself, the constant struggle between the two, to walk the fine line but by embracing the fine line between Angel and Angelus he redefined himself. Something that seemed more apparent when he later began referring to Angelus’ acts as his, in ‘Just Rewards’ when Wesley explains Spike’s appearance as, “William the Bloody. He's a vampire. One of the worst recorded. Second only to…”

He’s cut off my Angel’s response of, “Me!” and later in ‘’Not Fade Away’ Angel tells Lindsey, “I happen to be the greatest mass murderer you ever met.”

Moreover, the moment he stopped fearing he’d become Angelus, stopped paying attention to him, withdrew his will from him, evil lost its hold over him.

What appeared as Angel’s fall from grace was, for me the emergence of a completely new being, a being with the awareness of morality, the possibility of the hero. He achieved what Angelus failed to do and we bore witness as he ascended, as he become…

I think Angel was finally on the road to believing he belonged, that he was somebody and that belief transcended what had become his social identity and gave him a new understanding of his past and present identity and opened up a whole new world of possibilities. In one of his darkest times and feeling the most despair he suddenly found a new sense of reality, a new paradigm and his personality, identity if you will was transformed because of it.

Angel, I think became his own self, no longer bound by what society expected Angelus or Angel to be, something later reinforced in ‘Reprise’ when Angel demands Cordelia hand over the book he needs to help him in his fight against Wolfram and Hart and she comments, “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

To me, he was the embodiment of both identities and as he replies to Cordy, “I’m a vampire, look it up.”

Not only was he in charge of who he was but he’d learned one of the most valuable lesson all hero’s need to learn as he told Kate in ‘Epiphany’ when she attempted to explain that if she’s not part of the police force then nothing she does means anything. Angel tells her it doesn’t and Kate questions him asking it doesn’t what? “Mean anything, in the greater scheme or big picture, nothing we do matters. There’s no grand plan, no final win.”

Kate responds with, “You seem chipper about that.”

And Angel replies, “Well, I guess I kinda –worked it out. If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if –nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do, now today – I fought for so long. For redemption – for a reward – finally just to beat up the other guy but … I never got it.”

And he was right, he didn’t get it but as he goes on to explain, “All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because I don’t think people should suffer, as they do. Because if there is no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness – is the greatest thing in the world.”

Angel realises there is no war to win just an endless battle, the struggle to fight the good fight, to try to make a difference. You may never be able to win the war but you can make a difference in it if you forego self-interest and work for the common good. He achieved some semblance of heroic virtue and I learned that heroism is an act of kindness with many faces … even a scary one.

Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change. Not really. But it does. So what are we? Helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are...

I think from that moment Angel’s strength and belief in his place in the world continued to grow, he continually faced one crisis after another yet throughout it all, he continued to learn new lessons, to develop his sense of self. The birth and subsequent loss of Connor, his torturing of Linwood Murrow and even his attempt to kill Wesley, actions that at times seemed closer to the darker side of himself but all distinctly human traits, the entire array of emotions, beliefs and behaviours that make us all human. The assumption of free will, however right or wrong his choices, desire for approval and respect, fear of rejection, pride, envy, admiration, desire for revenge, ambition, anxiety, shame, remorse, sacrifice and love. In short all of the emotions that make up the glue that holds social groups together.

In addition to that, there was also the realisation that prophecies can have a duplicitous nature, a single prophecy can be interpreted in many different ways, there is no proof that there isn’t a manipulative hand involved and that there is a risk involved when acting on prophecy rather than personal choice.

Something that Angel recounts to Spike in ‘Hellbound’ “The prophecy's a bunch of bull. They all are. Nothing's written in stone or fated to happen, Spike. You save the world, you end up running an evil law firm. You think any of it matters? The things we did? The lives we destroyed. That's all that's ever gonna count. So, yeah, surprise. You're going to hell. We both are.”

This in a way discounts his earlier epiphany of, if nothing we do matters than all that matters is what we do but later when Spike asks Angel why bother to fight at all then, to try and do the right thing, to make a difference, Angel replies, “What else are we gonna do.”

It seems that Angel is once again in the midst of a crisis but there are many other things he could do, most of which don’t involve fighting the good fight at all, he could give up but instead of giving up, he continues to stand up, to be someone. However, that stand seemed to be in jeopardy at the beginning of season five when Angel took the position of CEO of ‘Evil Incorporated’ and with the introduction of Eve, who tempted Angel with, what else, an apple, “This is a crazy time of fun. The most powerful evil around has given a pivotal position over to its sworn enemies. You're not scared, are you?”

Angel’s response is to take the apple and bite into it.

It is impossible to taste the sweet without having first tasted the sour.

Angel’s willingness to take the proffered forbidden fruit could be seen as selling out, albeit not without good motive but it can also be seen as an attempt to taste the knowledge that is perhaps more important and therefore more closely guarded than life. To use that knowledge and its resources to fight the evil of the world from inside the belly of the beast. Though knowledge is not more significant than life, but that life that cannot be appreciated without first possessing knowledge of both good and evil and how it worked. A lesson Angel had previously learned and later shared with the others in ‘Power Play’ when he said, “You wanna know the truth, the truth is there’s only one of us who truly understood how things work. Lorne … you didn’t judge, you didn’t spend your life obsessing with good and evil. You do that you get swallowed, good bad, Angel, Angelus. None of it makes a difference, I wish it did but you know an ant with the best intentions or most diabolical schemes is just exactly an ant.”

Whatever the reason, Eve offering Angel the apple and Angel’s subsequent acceptance, I think shows Angels’ free will, his right to choose, something that allowed Angel to play a significant role in his own fate.

It is said, that the day you eat from the ‘Tree of forbidden Knowledge’ your eyes will be opened, and honestly, if you plant a tree anywhere then sooner or later someone is going to come along and eat from it and what is knowledge…

Knowledge is power…

In addition, as we later learned in ‘Not Fade Away’ when Angel tells the others,“There is one thing in this business, in this apocalypse we call a world that matters, power. Power tips the scale, power sets the course and until I have absolute power … global power, I have nothing.”

The English philosopher (and ironically lawyer) Francis Bacon held the belief in the boundless possibilities of knowledge, that knowledge is the one thing to herald the greatest changes in the world. He was convinced that knowledge would one day solve all of humankind’s problems.

To quote Buffy in ‘Lessons’  “It’s about power, who’s got it, who knows how to use it.”

Or ‘The First’ in the form of the Master, “Look at you trying to do what’s right, just like her. You still don’t get it, it’s not about right, it’s not about wrong … it’s about power.”

Back in the day knowledge was frowned upon, it was said to be the work of the devil and not even the monks of those times who cloistered themselves away in their monasteries would understand the concept, that knowledge is power. Knowledge was something protected and locked away out of fear, anyone expressing profound knowledge was generally accused of being in league with the devil. Knowledge belonged to the magicians, the alchemists; it wasn’t something to be sought after.

Times change and so have people’s beliefs in the power of knowledge, now it’s know your enemy and know yourself, in a world now dominated by information, knowledge is power.

So, what’s the power and how does it work?

It is the ability to act, the ability to consciously affect outcomes, and as Lorne stated in ‘Not Fade Away’, power can corrupt but it can also reveal and there are different kinds of power. Power over, power with and the power within.

Humankind lives in a culture of power over, and at that moment in time Angel didn’t have enough power to create the world he wanted but when he began to understand how the power worked, when he gained the knowledge of who the true powers were he could organise to get more.

The real powers where able to govern themselves because no one had the power to stop them and all those who govern or keeps the wheels turning derive their power from the consent of the governed. Something Angel reiterated in ‘Power play’ “The senior partners will always exist in one form or another because mankind is weak, we are weak. The Powerful control everything, except our will to choose.”

Heroes don’t accept the way the world is. And he was right, heroes don’t. Heroes take a stand, they take a stand because, "nothing in the world is how it should be. It’s harsh and it’s cruel but that’s why there’s people like us. Champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done or suffered or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world was what it should be. To show it what can be…"

The world co-operates, it goes along with because it is afraid of what will happen if it doesn’t. The real powers have demonstrated what the cost can be and in most cases, it has been the cost of life. It’s not the punishment, which kept the world obedient it was the fear of the punishment. But obedience is not inevitable, not if you organise in ways that over come fear by taking one step at a time, building support and knowledge as Angel did, to make withdrawing your co-operation possible but as Angel tells the others in ‘Power Play’ you have to understand the consequences…

“Ten to one we’re gone when the smoke clears, they will do everything in their power to destroy us. So I need you to be sure. Power endures. We can’t bring down the Senior Partners but for one bright shiny moment we can show them that they don’t own us. You need to decide for yourselves if that’s worth dying for.”

I think if they were truly willing to assume the consequences, then nothing the Senior Partners did would be able to stop them. And that’s the source of their power, the ability to choose what they will do and when, they began to see their power, the choices and consequences, that every moment gave them the opportunity to exercise that power and choose whether they do as power over or power with.

They took what they had and worked as a team because in Angel’s perfect world that’s the real power, he showed that in ‘Awakening’ as part of the illusion of perfect happiness, “Not for me. I have to do this. You made a difference. Each of you. Not just to me but to the world. We’ve been pushed to edge so many times, done things we’re sure can never be forgiven, but we’re always there for each other when it counts. We’ve never let the darkness win. And it’s not because of the Powers That Be or the super strength or the magickal weapons. It’s because we believe in each other. Not just as friends or lovers but as champions. All of us. Together."

He also proved by signing away the ‘Shanshu Prophecy’ that it wasn’t for a reward either, there was nothing in it for him anymore but none of that mattered in the end because what lies behind us and what lies before us are nothing compared to what lies within us.

And just like Beowulf, Angel prepared to take one last stand against a super powerful adversary, always the enemy of the hero. Angel went out to slay the dragon, the one thing generally used to represent malice, greed and destruction, the symbol of the power of evil. A timeless foe that represents the eternal evils man must fight to preserve good.

Warrior, Champion, Knight in Shining Armour, call him what you will, all I know is he was noble, tenacious, relentless and always fought for the under dog, he didn’t buckle under rules and he didn’t go along just to get along.

What stood in that alley and prepared to face his possible final battle wasn’t a monster with a dead heart…

Nor was it a vampire with a soul…

What stood in that alley was the heart and soul of a hero.

He may not have fulfilled his prophecy but sure as hell fulfilled his possibility.

Discuss!