BSV Forum - Writing - Canon

Redemption and Whistler

Dec 28 2007 03:11 am   #1smlcspike

Angel: was taken to see Buffy get called in Whistlers car, so in re-watching I believe the becoming part 1 in S2 the other night. But Buffy only meets him in S1 and she has already been the Slayer for 1 year in LA so where was Angel if he was suppose to be helping her like he did in LA?

smlcspike.

Dec 28 2007 03:17 am   #2Eowyn315

Angel was in a pretty rough state when Whistler found him - depressed, hanging out in alleys, eating rats, not much for personal hygiene. He may have helped Buffy in L.A. without her knowing, but if he was so in love with her, he probably wouldn't have wanted to show himself to her until he was less pathetic. By the time she meets him in season 1, he's cleaned himself up, got a little fighting experience under his belt, and perfected the suave, mysterious stranger routine.

Or, maybe, since Buffy moving to Sunnydale was fate, the PTB would've been directing it (or something... I've never been clear on how that actually worked). So, Whistler could have instructed Angel to go to Sunnydale and set up shop, knowing that Buffy would get there soon.

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 28 2007 07:33 am   #3Scarlet Ibis

Yeah--he was waiting for her in Sunnydale, knowing she would come.  We see this in "The Wish," where that AU Angel was shackled, and she finally comes...etc.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
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Dec 29 2007 09:24 am   #4Caro Mio

Whistler manages that they have to get Angel into shape, so I imagine training took place between that first glimpse and when Angel settled in SD to wait for Buffy. He also needed money for a place, etc.

What If I'm Not the Slayer? now updated with chapters 22 and 23.
Dec 29 2007 12:28 pm   #5SpikesKatMac

hey guys, does it ever mention in canon where Angel's money comes from??   I mean, he's got the mansion, the car, later the detective agency... 

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Dec 29 2007 02:06 pm   #6Caro Mio

The mansion was abandoned when they moved in. The car could be gotten for a couple grand if someone just wanted to be rid of it. His basement apartment in LA did have a lot of interesting knick-knacks and artifacts, as well as weapons.....I imagine he collected and sold stuff here and there before he got paying clients.

What If I'm Not the Slayer? now updated with chapters 22 and 23.
Dec 29 2007 03:44 pm   #7Eowyn315

It's never specified where his money came from before he started the detective agency. I guess it'd be fairly easy for a vampire to collect antiques - you just save old stuff until it becomes worth something. However, with Angel(us)'s nomadic lifestyle, it makes me wonder if he kept it in storage somewhere - he never seems to travel with a lot of baggage, but whenever he settles down, he does seem to have a lot of stuff.

Once he moved to L.A., he sporadically made money through Angel Investigations (it's very random... one episode they'll be complaining they're destitute, and the next episode Cordelia will show up with a shiny new laptop or something). There was a bag of money in the Hyperion Hotel from that bank robbery in the 1950s, which Angel went back and found, and I believe used that money to lease the hotel.

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 29 2007 03:54 pm   #8SpikesKatMac

See, that's the thing.  Would Angelus be really concerned with saving things until they were valuable, or even just saving money and living off the interest after 100 years?  I mean, the Scrouge just took want they wanted from whoever they killed; they had no reason to save anything.  But in the same breath, after Angel was cursed, what did he do for money?  We see him in that flashback in the Hyperion; obviously he's renting a room; and he's got an apartment in the flashback in the episode with Lawson, where the government breaks in to make him go on the sub...but at that point, since he's got the soul, I'm assuming he's not killing people and/or stealing from them.  Then when he drinks from the dead guy in the restaurant, his guilt is so bad he basically becomes homeless and sleeps in alleys and eats rats; then next we see him with the apartment in Sunnydale.  I know the writers had MAJOR issues with continuity on the show, but does this strike anyone else as just a little insane? 

Maybe you're right, E.  Maybe after the curse, that's when he started saving stuff, and he reaps the interest/benefits at the points in the show where we see him when he's not living on the street...  that's about the only explanation I can figure...

Or maybe... Angel wasn't too concerned with any of that, and DID steal what he needed to survive; maybe not killing people, but muggings/B and E, etc??  I certainly wouldn't put it past him...always thought it was kind of suspect that Angel didn't start "working for redemption" until a hundred years after his curse...

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Dec 29 2007 04:58 pm   #9Caro Mio

Well, he did save a puppy in the '20s. :D

Angel also mentioned, when they went to visit Lorne in Vegas, that he used to hang with the Rat Pack in the '60s on occasion. 

I think he kept being drawn to help people at times, but he'd either be too tempted by the people, or humanity would bite him in the ass, so he'd go into avoidance mode again. Angel needed a higher reason to take the extra step out there to *keep* interacting with people, or at least one person. He didn't know how to make friends, and wasn't sure he deserved doing it in the first place......equates to a guy with practically no people skills unless he pretends he's someone he's not.

But Angel isn't dumb. Until he's living in alleys in the '70s, he kept apartments, bottled blood, and stayed in fashion enough to blend in with the time - and I just can't see him stealing it all when his time is kept mostly brooding about guilt and watching TV. It'd eat him alive, and call too much attention to himself - which he really didn't seem to want. His father was a merchant....something about trade had to have rubbed off.....and Angel also had a lot of people owing him favors over the years.

If he didn't have time between LA and Sunnydale to fund the apartment, perhaps he called in one of those favors, and got the money that way. It doesn't seem odd to me, really, since he basically had a year, or most of one.

What If I'm Not the Slayer? now updated with chapters 22 and 23.
Dec 29 2007 06:39 pm   #10Scarlet Ibis

I don't think Angel saved stuff until they became antiqued--Cordelia mentions something in season one about her boss not knowing to save for the future, or something like that.  But, I will say this: however Angel aquired his money before Angel Investigations started bringing in cash, he liked to live in nice conditions.  Granted he used to rub rat filth on his face, yada, yada, yada, but for the most part, that remained constant.  He liked his own clean, um, "living" space (like Angelus...).  He gets pissed at Cordy for invading said space when she briefly moves in with him, and her untidiness.  And some of their cases carried their expenses for awhile--that is, if the client was rich, which did happen every so often.  He was able to keep two people on the payroll, and one guy on retainer before he too became full time, so they had to have been making good money.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
https://www.facebook.com/FangirlNovel
Dec 29 2007 08:11 pm   #11Eowyn315

I don't think Angel saved stuff until they became antiqued--Cordelia mentions something in season one about her boss not knowing to save for the future, or something like that.

He may not have done it on purpose. He may just have collected things for years, and then sold them when he needed money. If you look at the decor of his apartments (both the one in Sunnydale and one in L.A. in Angel season 1), he definitely likes to collect things from various time periods and cultures. The primary purpose wouldn't be to make money, but it'd be an easy source of cash if he was strapped. And I agree with SKM, he probably wouldn't have done it until he was cursed, because when he was evil he could just steal whatever he wanted.

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 29 2007 08:49 pm   #12SpikesKatMac
Granted he used to rub rat filth on his face, yada, yada, yada

ROFLMAO

Seriously tho, I like Caro's theory that maybe he had favors that he could call in (like the mafia!  Herb Saunders! LOL!)  I think that makes the most sense; granted, you're right E; Angel definitely liked the softer side of Sears *snickers*; that was just one of the many traits he shared with Angelus, liking the creature comforts; but I don't see either one of them having the patience or the foresight to store this stuff for future use, or packing it up to move it from one location to another; can you see Angel on the phone to United Van Lines, getting movers to pack his stuff??  *snort*  I can see him starting over in each new place; I think Angel likes to reinvent himself a lot, but that just goes back to the whole where is the money coming from question? 

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Dec 29 2007 09:45 pm   #13Eowyn315

Yeah, my problem with the "favors" idea is that he'd have to, y'know, interact with people. Every time we see him in flashbacks with the soul, he's doing his best to keep to himself until something comes along and *forces* him to interact with people (either the military in WWII or the paranoia demon in the '50s). And once that's over, he retreats back to his solitude, usually even more turned off by human interaction than he was before. So, I don't see him making enough friends with whom he could cash in favors to really sustain him financially for a hundred years. Maybe a few times, but there'd have to be some other source of money, I think.

You do have a good point, SKM, about not really picturing him moving his stuff. Maybe he collects a bunch of stuff while he's in one place, and when he moves, he sells it all, earning himself a nice wad of cash to use to purchase/rent and furnish his next dwelling. Then, he sells *that* stuff, and so on. It wouldn't explain where he got the money for the original purchases, though. 

He doesn't seem to have much of anything when he gets his soul - I think Darla kicks him out with the clothes on his back. He finds her two years later in China, and then shortly after comes to America, again with nothing but the clothes on his back. So, whatever wealth he had, he probably built up between then and the 1940s, when he's gotten himself a decent apartment.

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 29 2007 09:56 pm   #14Scarlet Ibis

You know...favors don't automatically mean people ;)  And, he did interact with humans from time to time before going to Sunnydale--he just wasn't consistent.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
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Dec 29 2007 09:58 pm   #15SpikesKatMac

 usually even more turned off by human interaction than he was before

Very true, E.  He never did seem to have a lot of success interacting with people; I think Angel is a lot like some alcoholics; they're the life of the party when they're drunk, but when they're sober, they have no idea how to relate to people without the cushion that alcohol gives them.  I think without Angelus, cruel manipulative bastard that he is, Angel has no ability to really connect with people, hence the need for Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley, etc.  Either that, or ironically enough, the Champion of the People, just plain doesn't like the people!

 

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Dec 30 2007 12:46 am   #16Eowyn315

You know...favors don't automatically mean people 

Do you think Angel with a soul would want much to do with demons, either? I don't think we ever saw a flashback where he had a favorable interaction with demons, until Whistler came along. There are some non-evil demons, but for the most part, I think Angel would steer clear of demons, because the evil hurts his soul... :) 

Or maybe he's just damn antisocial.

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 30 2007 01:13 am   #17Spikez_tart
season 1, he's cleaned himself up

Yes - and he saved up to buy that velvet jacket he wears in S1.  Gag.

If we want her to be exactly she'll never be exactly I know the only really real Buffy is really Buffy and she's gone' who?
Dec 30 2007 02:00 am   #18GoldenBuffy

DO you think after getting the sub back the government paid him? Or maybe paid him off? So he could have lived off tha tmoney for a while along with the things he sold for cash.  A though just dawned on me. WR&H. I know they had to have kept an eye on him over the years, know the loop hole to his curse and looking for a way to break it. Maybe in some way the "helped" him without his knowing. Could that be possible?

And on the topic of money. What about Spike. Yeah, I know he was broke and hit up the Scoobies and Giles. But when he was alive what happened to his money. Did England take it after he and his mother die? Would it still be sitting in a bank collecting intrest? Could he or did/does he have free access to it, but likes living the way he does? If he did have access he couldn't use it to help Buffy because she never would have allowed it. If if he did it on the DL, I'm sure sh eowuld have figured it out since everyone around her was straped for cash as well.

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along
Dec 30 2007 03:57 am   #19SpikesKatMac

Spike, being the adorably evil demon that he was up until the end of S6, wouldn't have given a damn about money; as part of the Scourge, he took what he wanted.  Once chipped, he mugged people, or stole from Xander, got the Scoobies to pay him; didn't he also hustle pool??  and he gambled.  Again, evil.  Little evil, maybe.  Cute, adorable evil, but still evil. 

The only time where money could have made an important difference in Spike's life was when Buffy needed the money, and even then, I think we all probably agree that harboring the demon eggs was Spike's attempt to get her money.  He didn't try to contact his old bank, or his old estate, or anything like that.  The estate was probably seized by the English government, or (I know some fics postulate that Spike's family was titled, a minor baron or something; know this isn't canon, but go with me on this one!) if the family were titled, a search would have been made by the lawyers so the estate would be passed to another branch of the family.  Even if Spike and his mother were never reported dead, the estate wouldn't languish indefinitely; eventually it would return to either the gov't or another branch of the family tree.

And then of course, in S7, he was living in either the basement of the school, with Xander, or with Buffy, and didn't really need any money. 

Do you think after getting the sub back the government paid him?  That's an excellent question; does anybody remember in that episode if the gov't offered him anything other than a non-dusty ending???

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Dec 30 2007 07:57 am   #20Scarlet Ibis

In "Angel" season 1, he does have the ability to call in favors.  In the ep where Doyle dies, Angel calls in a favor with the guy who runs the ship in order to save the demons who were going to be executed.  I know there's another favor somewhere...I just can't recall (I'm almost done watching s2, and on my way to s3).

As for "Why We Fight," I highly doubt they paid Angel.  In fact, he mentions about going underground, and jumping off the sub before they...dock or whatever, so he won't be found by them.  Also, I think they were the early stages of the Initiative, and the info they wanted from the Germans was about chips, or something along those lines, implanted in demons.  That's why that old vamp went crazy, and then Spike burns the papers.  I have to watch that s5 again...

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."
https://www.facebook.com/FangirlNovel
Dec 30 2007 09:25 am   #21Caro Mio

That's correct about WWF.

And Angel does have a demon "friend". In "Blood Money", Season 2, it turned out that he and the demon weren't really going to kill each other, and were double crossing W&H. And David Nabbit becomes a friend to them all and helps them keep the hotel.

What If I'm Not the Slayer? now updated with chapters 22 and 23.
Dec 30 2007 04:22 pm   #22Eowyn315

Also, I think they were the early stages of the Initiative, and the info they wanted from the Germans was about chips, or something along those lines, implanted in demons. 

Yeah... didn't they even call themselves the Demon Research Initiative? All this talk of favors just led me to a hilarious, though improbable, connection: Angel, decades after saving the sub, calls in a favor with the Initiative. "Hey, listen. There's this vampire who's been driving me nuts... name's Spike. Chip him, would you?" /crackfic

Writing should feel easy, like a monkey driving a speed boat.
Dec 30 2007 05:55 pm   #23SpikesKatMac

Hmmm.  E, I think you may be on to something there!  'Cause wasn't it the next episode after Spike tortured Angel that he got captured by the Initiative??  I'm sensing a conspiracy!! :lol:

A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain - Matthew Arnold
Jan 01 2008 06:31 pm   #24JoJoBird

whistler set him up with some dosh to "clean himself up" and sort him short time. Spending that much energy on pointing out how sad angels life has  become would be a bit for moot to just drop him off without anything what so ever . Then the finer things well like everyone else he probably did some "wheelin and dealin" on a low scale and continued to do so until he dropped out of buffys life in s3. i cant see it in any other way unless he alsow pulled in favours.

everything else just seems too much of an effort story-wise and the simplest, until im told otherwise - is usually the right one and just beause we didnt see angel wheelin n dealin doesnt mean he wasnt doing so since when it came to angel we didnt get much out of the writers when it came to what angel does but read watch buffy and sleep. It was a miss, on the production teams part, i mean who wouldnt ask their boyfriend after years  umm honey how you do about money?

as for seeing Angel hanging out in dark alleyways  -oh yeash    

especially angel S1                       

 

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