#i dont hate bangel but its complicated as u can see

[atlasshrugd]

i'm sorry bangel shippers, but i just cannot GET OVER the fact that angel is such a bad person without a soul.

like. hear me out. it has been proven that a vampire without a soul (aka a normal vampire) isn’t necessarily pure evil, shown through spike. a vampire is made when the person gets bitten, their soul leaves their body, which then gets re-animated by a demonic energy, which rises it from the dead with vampire powers. it retains characteristics and personality traits of the person who died, but is mainly overcome with a perpetual thirst for blood, coupled with a lack of empathy. yes, it is true that the only reason spike didn’t kill anyone through s5/6 is bc of the chip. but it is also true that he DOES feel empathy, remorse, guilt, and even love.

spike may be more human than most vampires, but that has never actually been confirmed mythologically. he is still a vampire without a soul. yet, he can still experience love and loyalty enough to withstand the worst torture in order to protect dawn. he can still feel immense guilt when he failed. and while his motives are usually selfishly-based, he can still be selfless, shown in spike looking after dawn even after buffy is dead. this shows that he is not just protecting dawn to get closer to buffy, as that was obviously impossible. he did it because of his enduring love for buffy, because dawn is a part of buffy, because buffy died to protect dawn, because spike respects buffy and her wishes, because dawn is a part of buffy. spike does not have a soul throughout all of this. that begs the question: what does having a soul truly mean?

as dawn mentions, people with a soul can still do terrible things, and people without one can still do noble and good things. this obviously means that a soul does not equate to goodness. mortal murderers and rapists still exist, and they have souls. yet they are capable and find pleasure in the most evil of actions. we even see some demons, like clem, who are good ordinary people, despite the fact that they are a demon without a soul. from this i maintain that:

a soul cannot create goodness, it only amplifies what is already there.

so. when spike goes through the trials and earns his soul back for buffy, he comes out the same man reborn. he is spike the vampire, and he is william pratt, and he is none of them, and he is both of them. he is not completely different from before, but there is something irrevocably changed. he can now feel the full embodiment of human emotions without them being obstructed and twisted by a demonic inhabitance. the soul didn’t give him a personality transplant. it only amplified and de-obstructed the goodness that was already there; already in his heart — the goodness that showed itself in glimmers when he didn’t have a soul, but could not full actualize.

this is why i have a bit of a problem with angel (not as a character, but as the soulmate of the hero). angelus is completely estranged from angel. angelus does not conceive and in fact is revolted by human emotion, and any empathy, guilt, remorse, or love is completely erased from him. this means, if we are going to apply the facts, that there was not much there to begin with. there was not enough goodness to amplify with a soul; for as soon as it is taken away, any and all goodness is eviscerated. i am not saying souled-angel is a bad character, and he definitely did his penance and does good, but this post isn’t really about that. this isn’t about what souled angel did. this is about what angelus did, and why the man beneath the soul was not worthy of a soul and did not fight for one. angel was cursed with his soul. spike, without a soul, fought for his. this shows that soulless beings have the capacity to desire and achieve ultimate redemption (if they are worthy).

i am not saying bangel shippers are wrong or that it is a bad ship. i don’t hate it. but i am expressing why i cannot get on board with angel as buffy’s soulmate or her “best boyfriend” or whatever. there are too many factors that don’t get considered when it comes to buffy and angel’s relationship. the reality is largely clouded by her strong feelings for him that derived out of him being her first love. she will never love anyone the way she loved angel, because when you are 16 years old, everything is huge and important and unique and end-of-the-world stuff (pun intended). knowing and seeing the sheer horrors that angel  commits as soon as he loses his soul is...worrying. even with all his time repenting as angel, i still can’t imagine loving someone who shifts into a complete psychotic evil serial killer any time they are truly happy, when i KNOW what soulless vampires can feel and do. idk thanks for reading