Angel (vampire)

"We live as though the world is as it should be, in order to show it what it can be."

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Angel is a fictional character on the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel played by David Boreanaz.

Related Topics:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Angel - David Boreanaz

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Angel was born "Liam", to an Irish merchant, in 1727. By 1753, at the age of 26, he had developed a taste for alcohol, women and sloth. Though not an evil man, Liam was a hedonist whose only real ambition lay in seeing the world. For the lazy Irishman that seemed a laughable dream, especially after he was expelled from his father's household, but he had caught the eye of an affluent "woman" named Darla.

Related Topics:
Irish - 1727 - 1753 - Hedonist - Darla

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Darla lured the young human into an alley and promised him a world full of excitement and travel; a world in which he could take anything he wanted.

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Angel: "Never been anywhere, meself. Always wanted to see the world, but..."

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Darla: "I could show you."

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Angel: "Could you then?"

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Darla: "Things you've never seen. Never even heard of."

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Angel: "Sounds exciting."

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Darla: "It is. And frightening."

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Angel: "I'm not afraid. Show me. Show me your world."

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Darla: "Close your eyes..."

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But this gift came with a price, for Darla was a vampire. And in her deadly embrace, Liam was transformed into a demon. Soon after he would take the name Angelus, the latinate for "Angel", and he would become most savage vampire the world had ever known. Though as a mortal Liam had not been evil by any stretch of the imagination, deep within his psyche, he had a great capacity for it and the loss of his soul combined with his new demonic nature meant he no longer possessed any restraint over his darker impulses.

Related Topics:
Vampire - Angelus

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His potential for evil was confirmed the night he rose from his grave, and in response to his sire's claim that he could have anyone in the village, he responded:

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"Anyone...? I thought I'd take the village."

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He was as good as his word, decimating his former home within days. When he came to slaughter his own family, he found no problem in entering - his little sister inviting him in. He would tell his father mockingly, "She thought that I'd returned to her. An angel. She was wrong" before killing him.

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For generations, Darla and Angelus terrorized humankind, murdering and torturing anyone who crossed their path. A family of gypsies finally found a way to stop Angelus, however, cursing him for killing their favorite daughter.

Related Topics:
Murder - Torturing - Gypsies

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Angel: "The elders conjured up the perfect punishment for me... they restored my soul..."

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This condemned him to an eternity of remorse and guilt. Unknown to him however, was that if by any chance he was to escape his terrible sorrow and achieve even a moment of perfect happiness, the vengeance inspired curse would no longer hold and his soul would be taken from him once again.

Related Topics:
Remorse - Guilt

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A shadow of his former self, a reclusive and emotionally tortured Angelus eventually wandered across the path of a demon named Whistler, who persuaded him to join the fight against the evil that had corrupted him and to help the newly called Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers. When he finally came face to face with her, he introduced himself as Angel.

Related Topics:
Whistler - Evil - Buffy Summers

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Over time, Buffy and Angel fell in love. Though they tried to deny their feelings, they could not resist the passion growing between them, and consummated their relationship, giving Angel the one moment of pure happiness needed to break his curse. His soul was torn from him and without the humanity and conscience that it represented, he quickly returned to his former, evil self. This time, however, Buffy was there to stop him. In a battle to undo the evil that Angelus had unleashed on the world and to save humankind, Buffy killed her lover. But before the Hellmouth consumed him, Angel was cursed again and his soul restored.

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When Angel was unexpectedly released from Hell's clutches, he knew it was for a reason. Departing Sunnydale, Angel left the woman he still loved in the hopes that she could find another with whom she could have a normal life and moved to Los Angeles to find his purpose and to redeem himself in the service of others. He found support from Doyle, a half-demon sent by The Powers That Be, and Cordelia Chase, a fellow Sunnydale transplant on the road to fame and wealth. They formed "Angel Investigations," protecting those who cannot defend themselves and helping other lost souls find their way.

Related Topics:
Hell - Sunnydale - Los Angeles - Doyle - Demon - The Powers That Be - Cordelia Chase - Wealth

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After losing Doyle, his trusted friend and connection to The Powers That Be, Angel became even more protective of those who meant the most to him. Wesley, a former Watcher, came to town as a rogue demon hunter, but stayed to help Angel and Cordelia, who were then joined a few months later by the formidable Charles Gunn, an unlikely partner and self-proclaimed Slayer. Extending their sources further, the AI Team also regularly enlist the help of Lorne aka The Host, an Anagogic demon who could read people's futures when they sang karaoke.

Related Topics:
Charles Gunn - Lorne - Karaoke

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As Angel continued to help the hopeless in L.A., his good deeds continually disrupted the plans of evil law firm Wolfram & Hart. In an attempt to control Angel, W&H resurrected his sire Darla, but brought her back as human. When Drusilla once again turned Darla into a vampire, Angel felt he had failed to save her and after firing his Angel Investigations crew, embarked on a one-man vendetta against W&H. In a moment of perfect despair, Angel attempted to remove his soul by bedding Darla but instead found a moment of clarity realizing his purpose was still for good, not evil. Darla fled, and, after a difficult reconciliation, the AI team then found themselves transported to Lorne's home dimension, Pylea. Eventually they returned with a new team member, Winifred "Fred" Burkle, in tow and to the news that the love of his life, Buffy, was dead.

Related Topics:
Wolfram & Hart - Drusilla - Dimension

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Despite Buffy's miraculous resurrection a few months later, Angel began to suspect that his previously "brotherly" feelings towards Cordelia had matured into something else altogether. Before he had a chance to confess his feelings (or figure out what to make of them), however, Darla returned, pregnant with his son, Conner. False prophecies, time travellers and betrayal led to Angel losing his son to an old enemy who abducted Connor soon after his birth, taking him to a hell dimension where time moves very differently. When Connor returned, he was a young man who was raised to believe that Angel was still a soulless monster. Connor vowed to make Angel pay for the suffering he had once caused and as he acted out his retribution by sending Angel to the bottom of the ocean in a steel coffin. Cordelia ascended to a higher plane, the feelings shared between her and Angel still left unspoken.

Related Topics:
Resurrection - Pregnant - Conner - Prophecies - Time travel

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Rescued from his watery prison, Angel's relationship with Connor was strained, and was complicated further by the return of an amnesiac Cordelia. When the latest big bad known as The Beast and his Boss arrived to bring chaos to the Earth, Angel's worst fears were realized when he had to strip himself of his soul and revert to his evil alter ego in order to defeat it. Although he was momentarily free to wreak a little havoc of his own, he was recaptured with a little help from Faith the Vampire Slayer and Willow, who restored his soul, after which Angel realised that the enemy he was battling was a little closer to home. After battling and defeating a divine being, Angel was offered the L.A. branch of W&H as a reward for ending world peace. Angel acted against all of his instincts and made a deal with his sworn enemy, in exchange for W&H erasing Connor?s memories and giving him a normal life.

Related Topics:
Amnesia - Alter ego - Willow - Divine - Instinct

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Angel's year spent running W&H was one marred with challenge and self-doubt. Trying to battle evil from within the belly of the beast proved to be more difficult than even imagined with the lines of good and evil becoming ever more gray with each decision made. The situation became even more complicated when shortly after assuming control of the law firm, his old enemy (and Buffy's ex-lover) Spike shockingly materialized from a familiar amulet sent to Angel in the mail. Sharing a complicated history of murder and mayhem, they had spent more than a century as rivals in everything. Now both possessing souls, and both still in love with Buffy, they had evolved into very different heroes in the war against evil. Forced to co-exist, they waged a protracted, insidious battle of wits, ending when they finally came to an understanding and acceptance of their unique brotherhood on their journey to redemption. Equally as important for Angel was his chance to say a proper good-bye to Cordelia, who upon "waking" from a coma set the champion back on his true path. With her final gift of a vision through a kiss and an act of unselfish love, Angel got a clear look at how to strike against the Senior Partners. He finally understood that he will never be able to stop the forces of evil, but he can destroy the Senior Partners' hold on Earth (which, if continued, will give them the power to bring on the Apocalypse) by decimating the Circle of the Black Thorn, a secret society made up of Earth's most powerful evil beings. In his quest to overthrow them, he even signs away his chance of Shanshu, the ultimate reward of forgiveness and humanity he hoped one day to attain. So together with Spike, Gunn, Wesley, Illyria, Lorne and an opportunistic Lindsey, Angel sets in motion his final stand against the forces of evil, walking bravely into a battle where some fall and the final outcome for the others is unclear.

Related Topics:
Spike - Redemption - Coma - Apocalypse

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Angel is a Champion and L.A. is his city. He knows by experience that the true path to redemption is a hard one full of sacrifice and loss and every day he walks a fine line tempted by the two desires he can never fulfill, mortality and pleasure. His courage of conviction and belief that the world can be a better place will one day lead him to humanity and to the one thing he desires most ~ forgiveness.

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