Amends

[Updated April 30, 2013]

This is a long post. I’m going to deal first with some very important features of Amends before I discuss the issue which I’ve been saving for this episode, namely Angel’s culpability, if any, for the actions of Angelus. I’m covering a lot here and I hope I haven’t tried to do too much.

Suicide is Painless

I mentioned in my post on Lie to Me that Joss describes himself as an absurdist in philosophy and talked about the way existentialism influenced the story lines. For purposes of that episode I didn’t need to make any distinction between absurdism and existentialism, but now I do. The reason is that Amends raises a question which absurdists believe is fundamental: why shouldn’t one commit suicide?

This may seem like an odd question, so let me explain how they (specifically, Albert Camus) get there. Camus starts with the proposition, which he shares in common with Jean Paul Sartre, that there is no inherent meaning in life. The universe is meaningless, therefore the human search for meaning in the universe is what Camus calls “absurd”. What he means by this is that it’s humanly impossible to find any meaning, such that the search itself is pointless: “it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none.” (Quote from link.)

Camus’s discussion of the absurd in his most famous work, The Myth of Sisyphus (see below), begins “with an implicit reference to Sartre's novel, Nausea” (Id.). That was the novel in which Sartre explained the inherent meaninglessness of the uncaring world. In Lover’s Walk we saw Angel reading that novel, the novel Joss described as the most important book he ever read. In my view, this was no accident – it was the implicit reference which began the discussion of the issues raised by Camus. Let’s see how this plays out in the subsequent episodes.

The next episode after Lovers Walk was The Wish. It presented us with a stark picture of a meaningless, uncaring world. That’s the world the absurdist sees. Recognizing the absurdity of the world triggers the existentialist crisis, which Angel articulated to Giles here in Amends: “I need to know why I'm here.”

Given this crisis, that is, the recognition that the world is absurd, Camus identified 3 possible ways to react in the face of absurdity (see here). One possible solution was that proposed by the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who is sometimes called the founder of existentialism. Kierkegaard was a devout Christian who argued that in the face of the absurdity of the world the path to one’s true self required a “leap of faith”.

“A leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence.” (Quote from link.) In essence, the idea is that you escape the bleakness of the world as it appears to be by an act of faith, even though such faith appears to be irrational. Faith “imagine[s] and live[s] for a life beyond this life.” (Quote from Camus link, above.) Faith reveals to those who have it that the apparent harshness of the world is merely an illusion. Escape from the WishVerse came when Giles took a leap of faith: “Anyanka:  You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this? Giles:  Because it has to be.”

This “leap of faith” is something Kierkegaard described in the phrase “subjectivity is the truth”. What he meant by this is that there is no objective certainty of God’s existence – we can’t prove it by reason or any other reference to the outside world. We can only believe subjectively, that is, in our own minds. I may be reading too much into this, but an additional reason I see The Wish as a reverie or a daydream is because I see it as exploring Kierkegaard’s proposed “subjectivity” solution.

Camus, however, rejected any “leap of faith” because he was an atheist. I should emphasize that this doesn’t mean that faith can never alleviate the meaningless of the world – those who have faith do (subjectively, at least) believe that the world has meaning. But this won’t work for an atheist like Camus – Camus believed that those who accepted faith were fooling themselves. Similarly, Angel can’t really follow the path of faith because he’s a demon (“vampires aren’t that big on Christmas”). Others might find the leap of faith satisfying, but Angel can’t and neither did Camus. Since Camus couldn’t accept faith, that left two remaining logical possibilities in his mind and Joss explores those other two in Amends and the following episode, Gingerbread.

The first of those two remaining options is suicide. Logically speaking, one can escape the absurdity of the world by ceasing to exist. Because Camus rejected faith, he had to take seriously the possibility of suicide. “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.” (Quote from Camus link, above.) The real debate for Camus, and the one Joss explores here, is between suicide and option 3, which I’ll describe below.

Camus explained his reasoning in his most famous book The Myth of Sisyphus. For those who don’t remember it, the story of Sisyphus in Greek mythology is that he was condemned by the gods to push a large stone up a hill. Just as he got to the top the stone would escape his grasp and roll back to the bottom. Sisyphus would therefore have to start all over again. For eternity.

Camus saw Sisyphus’ condition as a metaphor for that of modern man striving to find meaning in the world: constantly engaged in pointless striving to achieve something which has no meaning. His solution (option 3) was that embracing and accepting this fact ends the absurdity of it. By facing the true state of mankind, people can overcome the sense of absurdity they experience when seeking meaning that isn’t there. Once they recognize that there are no universal absolutes, people free themselves to create their own meaning out of life. Wikipedia phrases it like this:

“The freedom of humans is thus established in a human's natural ability and opportunity to create his own meaning and purpose; to decide (or think) for him- or herself. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as he or she represents a set of unique ideals which can be characterized as an entire universe in its own right. In acknowledging the absurdity of seeking any inherent meaning, but continuing this search regardless, one can be happy, gradually developing his or her own meaning from the search alone.”

With this background in mind, let’s examine the dialogue between Buffy and Angel on the hilltop (that’s intentional, of course, in direct comparison to Sisyphus). Angel wants to commit suicide not because of what he did as Angelus, but because he perceives himself a failure as a person: “Angel:  Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.” Buffy begs him not to, telling him that if he ends things now, then all he’ll ever have been was a monster. Angel then responds with a key point: “Am I a thing worth saving, huh? (shakes her) Am I a righteous man? (shakes her) The world wants me gone!”

That last phrase, “the world wants me gone”, is a description of the uncaring nature of the universe as it appears to someone who assumes there’s meaning in it. If you operate under the assumption that there is meaning in the universe, and if the universe seems hostile to you, then the natural conclusion is that the universe “wants” you out of it. Suicide is an obvious solution.

Buffy then tries the argument that she herself wants him to stay, but he won’t accept that: “Buffy, please. Just this once... let me be strong.” And this is when Buffy gives him the real answer: “Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together.” Quoting again from the Camus link, “What then is Camus's reply to his question about whether or not to commit suicide? Full consciousness, avoiding false solutions such as religion, refusing to submit, and carrying on with vitality and intensity: these are Camus's answers.”

The fascinating thing about Amends, though, is that Angel knows she’s right but doesn’t formally choose to accept her statement. Instead, the miracle snow spares him the need to choose, at least at that moment. As I’ve mentioned so often before, it’s the power of choice which defines existentialism and absurdism, yet Angel didn’t choose. I’ll let Joss himself explain:

“I'm an atheist but it's hard to ignore the idea of a "Christmas miracle" here... The fact [is] the Christian mythos has a powerful fascination to me and it bleeds into my storytelling. Redemption hope purpose Santa these all are important to me whether I believe in an afterlife or some universal structure or not. I certainly don't mind a strictly Christian interpretation being placed on this ep by those who believe that -- I just hope it's not limited to that (joss Dec 15 22:17 1998).”

Like most of us, Joss incorporates multiple concepts into his view of life. As he mentions here, one of those concepts is redemption; he is, as we say in Buffy fandom, a redemptionista. It’s a theme which we’ll see repeatedly throughout the remainder of the series. Just remember this: redemption is a process, not an event. Nobody gets redeemed by a single act or even many.

The snow, miracle or no, doesn’t mean Angel is forever off the hook. It just means that the snow bought him more time to contemplate the meaning of his existential crisis. We next see Angel and Buffy, no longer on the hill, but walking along the street in contemplation. “After the rock comes tumbling down, confirming the ultimate futility of his project, Sisyphus trudges after it once again. This ‘is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights…, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.’” (Quote from Camus link.) It’s on the downward journey that Sisyphus recognizes “the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent”. (Id.) I’ll explain the result of that contemplation and put it in context next episode.

Three quick points before I move on to the bulk of this essay:

1.     There are two stories being paralleled here, Angel/Buffy and Willow/Oz. Neither guilty party actually makes amends, but both are given the opportunity to do so by the power of love. In other cases where amends might be necessary, Buffy does start to make amends to Faith (and vice versa), but the one who tries the hardest is Giles. Xander hasn’t always been Angel’s mostest best friend, but he puts that aside in the Chanukah spirit. 

2.     Willow’s attempted seduction of Oz is a great scene, but why does she believe that sex is the way back to him? I think Willow heard two bits of conversation as suggesting that. In Lovers Walk, after Oz gave her the PEZ witch, we get this dialogue:

“Willow:  (suddenly disappointed) Oh... I don't have anything to give you.

Oz:  (smiles at her) Yeah, you do.”

I took this as referring to sex and I think Willow did too. In addition, here in Amends Buffy told her, “I guess now it's just about showing Oz that he comes first.” Again, the wording is ambiguous but certainly could be read to suggest sex.

3.      Amends is a very important episode for purposes of Season 7, so keep it in mind. I’m holding off discussing some features of the episode for this reason (and because this post is long already).

Through Angel’s Eyes

I’m going to take two controversial positions in the remainder of this discussion of Amends. In both cases what I say is almost certainly a minority view among fans and may very well be unique to me.

First, as I mentioned in discussing POV in The Wish, I see Amends as a POV episode. That is, we see the world as Angel sees it himself – feeling guilty and a bit sorry for himself. We also see, though, what we might call Angel’s fantasy version of events. Angel wants others – whether the Scoobies or the Powers That Be – to notice him, to forgive him, to accept him, and to give his life meaning and purpose. He gets all of these here. Giles and Xander more or less accept him, Buffy begs for his life and gives him the “comfort” of existentialist purpose, the PTB grant him miracle snow. If nothing else, the episode allowed Angel to put aside thoughts of suicide and begin to address his past.

Did it really happen precisely this way? That’s up to you to decide, but keep the question in mind as we get to the other POV episodes I mentioned and see how you answer for other characters.

Angel’s Responsibility For The Crimes Of Angelus

The second controversial position involves the merits of Angel’s moral case. I’ve held off till now any discussion of a very important issue in the Buffyverse: what does it mean to be a vampire? I’m referring to moral culpability here, not genre details such as whether they breathe or not. The key question, as we’ve learned from Angel’s story over the last 2.5 seasons, is whether we should consider him guilty of the crimes of Angelus.

I could have brought this up earlier, in Passion maybe or certainly in Becoming or Revelations. I could also wait till later because future episodes bear on this issue. While raising it here is somewhat arbitrary, any other time would suffer from the same problem unless I waited until the very end. That’s too long to hold off discussing such an interesting issue. My excuse for choosing Amends as the focal point is that we now have enough evidence to make the discussion productive and the episode itself does bring the issue to the forefront. I will, though, limit the arguments to those which don’t rely on spoilers, so those who haven’t seen the remaining episodes may want to hold off coming to any final conclusions until you’ve seen them all.

I’m going to set up the debate by letting Masq frame it. Masq used to be a philosophy professor (she has a real job now J) and she ran the ATPO site which I mention regularly. This is from a post on June 3, 2002:

“There are two major theories for the vampire-human relationship, both of which emerge out of the text of the shows themselves:

(1) Vampire as spiritual and physical infection, the vampire is a different "person" from the human predecessor and
(2) Vampire as physical infection only, the vampire is the same "person" as the human predecessor, minus conscience

-----//-----

(1) The first theory comes from bits of dialogue that have been scattered through BtVS … over the years. We've seen these quoted many times before. Just off the top of my head, I can think of these instances (there might be more).

Giles in The Harvest: "The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul.

Giles to Xander in The Harvest: "Jesse is dead! You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him."

Buffy in Lie to Me: "Well, I've got a news flash for you, braintrust: that's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you."

This view depicts the vampire demon as an infection of body and most especially of spirit--a replacement for the outgoing human soul. It states outright that that vampire is not the same "person" as the human predecessor, and in doing so it implies that the soul that has been lost is something more than mere conscience, it is a unique spiritual aspect of the human person, their self, and that all that is left behind of the person we knew is a body, memories imprints in the brain, and habits of walking and talking. The person we knew is gone, banished to the ether. All else is appearances, 'cause someone else is driving the machine.

(2) The second theory appears not in dialogue (at least not directly), but in ME's writing in general, most especially the behavior of the characters themselves.

Basically, this theory posits that the "vampire" is not a spiritual infection, but a physical one only. The original demon who bit a human (see Giles quote above) gave them animal-aspects of the demon such as blood lust and violent tendencies. It altered their physiology to make them stronger and give them vamp-face when they feed. The vampire is a brute animal; everything else about the vampire is supplied by the human: intelligence, personality, love, family issues. The only thing missing from human predecessor is the conscience.

Theory #2 has its support in the long history of vampires resembling and amplifying the traits their human hosts, from Jesse's inept stalker tendencies blooming full-grown in VampJesse to ….” 

In considering Masq’s two options, we have to start by recognizing that Angel certainly feels that he is guilty. In that way, he’s on the same side as Xander. Buffy, however, takes the opposite view. Indeed, it may very well be essential that she do so: if she really believed that Angel – not Angelus but Angel – murdered Jenny and tortured Giles, even her formidable power of forgiveness would be challenged. Yet the moment Buffy saw Willow’s spell take effect in Becoming 2 she recognized that something essential had restored Angel and she could tell him she loved him.

Any explanation we give therefore has to account for the fact that (a) Angel perceives himself as guilty; but (b) Buffy, the hero, does not. I do have a way to account for these facts, and it’s probably best if I disclose that up front. I’m going to do that by copying a dialogue I (Sophist) had with Rahael (of ATPO) on her livejournal page. As you’ll see, Rah disagreed with me and I’m sure others will too. I’ll get to some of the disagreements afterwards (spoilers removed):

“Recently, Sophist and I have been having a discussion concerning two quite differing ways of viewing souls & personalities in BtVS …on my livejournal. We thought the Board [ATPO] might like to read/comment on the exchange, so here it is. It was quite lengthy, so I might split it up into parts.

It's part of a longer thread, and so it might start a little abruptly, but bear with us!

Sophist
it is argued that when Vampires kill people, it can't be classified as 'murder'.

I haven't seen many people make this argument [Note today: I probably was wrong about this]. A much more common argument, and a better one (hey, it's my own), is that Angel is not responsible for the killings of Angelus…. It's the only way I personally can justify Buffy's behavior in S3….

Rahael
We have to segment all kinds of actions that require thought & emotion in order to make the show's metaphysics work, as far as vampires are concerned - we are forced to jump through hoops.

Oh, and I must just mention another complicating factor. … If he acts as if he should receive redress for ill treatment, or act as if it still matters to him, then, doesn't that complicate the whole thing where he's a completely different person?

Sophist
… I don't think it's surprising that the souled vamp would feel responsibility for "his" previous actions. All the memories and feelings are there; psychologically, there appears to be only one "him". That is how I understand the torment of the gypsy curse to affect Angel -- all the more poignant because it's not strictly rational. I don't think it complicates the moral issue, I think it deepens the psychological one.
…

Rahael
…

I agree it deepens the psychological moment. I think the show hangs around this paradox. Sometimes it works really well, this faultline. Sometimes, it breaks the suspension of belief.

Because if you have such psychological realism, it renders the soul/no soul distinction as increasingly troubled.

There was an excellent Babylon 5 ep called "Passing through Gethsamene" where a murderer had his mind wiped clean, and programmed to have positive impulses towards society. He became a monk, a very holy man. When his memories came back, it was induced by the angry relatives of his victims. They then crucified him.

That ep was all about vengeance and forgiveness. The person who led the crucifixion subsequently had his mind wiped, and became a monk, taking the place of the man he crucified. He was offered the same chance of forgiveness and redemption.

At no point were the crimes excused, despite the fact that the 'mindwiped' men felt like a totally different person. Different personalities, no memories.

Forgiveness was offered, and it was a very strong theme in the ep, but I felt in no way that the crime was diminished. …

Sophist
…

There was an excellent Babylon 5 ep called "Passing through Gethsamene" where a murderer had his mind wiped clean, and programmed to have positive impulses towards society. He became a monk, a very holy man. When his memories came back, it was induced by the angry relatives of his victims. They then crucified him.

This is, in some ways, the mirror image of the situation in BtVS. Based on your description, in B5 the person felt different but was the same. In BtVS, the person (Angel…) felt the same but was different (at least in my view of it).

I've never seen the B5 episode, but from your description I don't believe it has the psychological or moral complexity of BtVS. I don't personally believe that memories alone are important enough for us to treat the same person as though we had also forgotten the past. If, for example, Josef Mengele showed up today claiming amnesia, I would have no trouble trying him for war crimes. And I would hardly watch a show in which the heroine falls in love with him.

In contrast, the soul canon on BtVS, at least in my interpretation, separates the person (in his "essence", not physically) and the deed while preserving the memories. That solves the moral dilemma, in no way diminishes the previous crimes, and still allows for a very complex exploration of psychology, both for the (former) killer and for his victims. YMMV….

Sophist
I think I can justify Buffy's behavior in S3 under my view of the show's metaphysics, but I can't do it under any other. If I believed Angel to be the same "essence" as Angelus, I'd have been with Xander in Revelations (and we know that could never happen!). I'd also have to have even more problems with Amends, since it would then appear to let Angelus off the hook not only with Buffy but with Giles and everyone else. My view avoids this problem.

Rahael
hahaha re Xander.

Well there might also be this: that both meanings are possible, and that the credibility of one or the other rises and falls depending on the ep, the theme, the arc.

Sophist
I quite agree. However, let me reprise the B/A arc in your terms by removing the metaphor:

Buffy meets a man who seems attractive and mysterious. She begins to develop feelings for him. After shared experiences which awaken in her a physical desire for him, she learns that he is living incognito but was previously a concentration camp guard who tortured and murdered a large number of innocent people. (I'm not treading on Godwin's Law here; the portrayal of vampires leaves us with only a few plausible real life examples.)

He admits to her that this is the case (note that he did not tell her this before she learned it on her own), but says that he has reformed his life and no longer behaves as he did in the past. Rather than turn him over to the authorities, she kisses him and tells him she nevertheless can't continue to see him. She avoids reading books which are available to her which describe his earlier crimes.

Circumstances, however, continue to throw them together. He proves to be loyal and trustworthy. Her feelings, perhaps never entirely subdued, re-awaken and she falls in love. They sleep together. After she does so, he goes through a psychotic episode in which he reverts to the torture and murder of innocents, including people she knows. Forced now to act, she is able to have him committed to a mental hospital for treatment of his psychotic episode.

Under circumstances which are unclear, he leaves the mental hospital and returns to her, claiming again to be cured. He again performs actions which indicate he is trustworthy.

Stopping the narrative at this point, let us ask some questions.

1. Is it plausible that a girl in such a case would not think some punishment was in order for the man?

2. Is it plausible that she would continue to express love and concern for him?

Now, I think I have given an entirely neutral and impartial (;)) summary of S2-3 which follows your metaphor but puts it in real life terms. I can't make it plausible. I think the soul must mean something more essential in order for Buffy's behavior to be justifiable.” 

To summarize, I opt for Masq’s option #1, though incorporating some elements of her #2, because I see the soul in BtVS as providing an “essence” to a person. Angel with the soul is essentially different than without it, i.e., when he’s Angelus. When I say “essentially different”, I’m limiting that difference to the soul. It’s obvious that the demon retains basic personality traits of the departed human. Thus, when Buffy tells Willow in Passion that Angel’s “not the same guy”, Willow can respond that he is in one sense because “all he ever thinks of is you”. The specific obsessions and character flaws remain those set by the dead victim. As writer David Fury put it in a Zap2it interview on February 9, 2001, “We feel like there's a ghost of the person you once were inside them -- a philosophical ghost, not an actual spirit. It is, in fact, a demon, but the demon is infused with some of the characteristics of the people that they possess.”

It’s the human substrate which guides the crimes committed. That is what causes the demon to pick this victim over that one, to artistically torture and murder rather than to face a mob with just fists and fangs. But though the specific characteristics of the vampire’s actions can be traced to the human, the fact of the act itself cannot. It wasn’t Angel’s human self which murdered his family (Angel), it was the vampire Angelus. Angel didn’t torture Drusilla and drive her insane, Angelus did. The essence of Angel, the soul which restrained his evil desires, wasn’t there.

In my view Angel is not responsible for the crimes of Angelus. However, Angel feels responsible because he shares the same body and memories as Angelus, and because Angelus exploited precisely those weaknesses that Angel knows he has. The body, including the brain, contains the memories and emotions. The soul is immersed in the body and therefore is privy to those memories and emotions, whether it was present to create them or not. Angel remembers the crimes of Angelus as his own and the emotional impact of Angelus’ crimes would affect Angel; that’s what the gypsy curse was all about: “You have no idea what it’s like to have done the things I’ve done and to care.” (Angel)

In comments, State of Siege makes an excellent point about Angel’s feeling of responsibility: “One of the things I love about Amends is that it shows that while the ensouled vampire might feel responsibility for—and indeed deeply regret—his past crimes, he can still feel their pleasures... I would argue that what Angel flees, what tortures him the most during the episode is not the reminder of his crimes—he lives with them daily, hence the trademark brooding—but the revivification of their pleasures through the magicks of the Bringers (not that he does not otherwise remember them, but that the spells make them inescapably vivid). That he did them he knows—but that he enjoyed them and, on some level, continues to enjoy them, the demon not being dead, only kept in check—that is for him the thing insupportable.”

Ok, that’s where I’m coming from on this, but remember from my post on Revelations that I also believe Buffy takes this same position. I’ll get into some arguments pro and con below, but I need to be very upfront about one important point first. My theory that the soul provides an “essence” directly contradicts the fundamental premise of existentialism. Existentialism was designed to be the exact opposite of the philosophy of “essentialism”, which argues for an “essence” which makes us human from the beginning. Existentialists deny the existence of any such “essence”. For them, we exist first and create our own “essential self” by the choices we make in the life we live. The phrase used to express this is “existence precedes essence”.

After all the emphasis I’ve put on Joss and existentialism in these essays, I’m now in the position of saying that Joss created a “soul canon” which undercuts his own philosophy at its most fundamental point. And that his hero is the biggest proponent of this essentialist doctrine.

Well, yeah. Sartre and Camus were atheists; they rejected the very concept of “soul”. Once Joss reintroduced the soul into the show, it became impossible to follow existentialism on every single point. I want to emphasize that this is not a criticism of Joss. For all I know, Joss doesn’t consider himself an existentialist on this particular point. The show Dollhouse might suggest that he doesn’t, though I don’t want to get too far into the brambles of philosophical debate about a different show (I’m in too far on this one).

Even if he does take that view in his personal life, he isn’t Jean Paul Sartre or Albert Camus, who were philosophers writing novels in order to communicate an intellectually rigorous philosophical system. Joss is a storyteller who has been influenced by philosophy. He makes use of the philosophy, but it doesn’t bind him. If the story requires it, I expect the philosophy to yield (just as the plot sometimes does in his works). And there’s no denying that he told a wonderful story indeed in S2. The fact that Joss is a storyteller means that he contains multitudes within him. If the immediately preceding episode can feature a leap of faith which absurdist philosophy rejects, and if an atheist can write a Christmas miracle, an existentialist can write an essentialist story.

Philosophy aside, it’s time to consider the evidence from within the show and the arguments on either side. I’ll begin with what the text gives us. Following are the relevant passages from the episodes we’ve seen thus far so you can see them all in one place:

“Xander: So vampires are demons?

Giles: The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul.” The Harvest.

“Xander: We've gotta get in there before Jesse does something stupider than usual.
Giles: You listen to me! Jesse is dead! You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him.” The Harvest.

Buffy: (to Giles) Can a vampire ever be a good person? Couldn't it happen?Giles: A vampire isn't a person at all. (clears his throat) It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway.” Angel.

“Angel: When you become a vampire the demon takes your body, but it doesn't get your soul. That's gone! No conscience, no remorse... It's an easy way to live. You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care. I haven't fed on a living human being since that day.
Buffy: So you started with my mom?
Angel: I didn't bite her.
Buffy: Then why didn't you say something?

Angel: But I wanted to. I can walk like a man, but I'm not one.” Angel.

“Ford:  …I will become immortal.

Buffy:  Well, I've got a news flash for you, braintrust: that's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.” Lie to Me.

“Buffy:  Angel, there must be some part of you inside that still remembers who you are.

Angelus:  Dream on, schoolgirl.

Xander takes the cross from Jenny and starts toward Angelus.

Angelus:  Your boyfriend is dead. You're all gonna join him.” Innocence.

“Buffy:  Do you remember my ex-boyfriend, the vampire? I slept with him, he lost his soul, now my boyfriend's gone forever, and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends.” IOHEFY.

I believe I’ve now quoted all the relevant passages from the series to date, and they all say exactly the same thing: the vampire is no longer the person s/he once was. The vampire may be affected by the personality of the dead victim, but there’s something missing which differentiates the two.

In the context of the show, this must be true. If a vampire were “the same” as the person s/he once was, then having Buffy automatically slay every vampire would be problematic, to say the least. It would be as if she were to slay Oz, something both she and Giles agree would be wrong. If it weren’t true, then Buffy would love Angelus just as she does Angel. I take it that no one would argue for that.

That’s one side of the coin, of course. The other side is whether the souled vampire is “the same” as the vampire. Obviously Buffy doesn’t think so, otherwise she’d have slain Angel herself as Xander told her to do in Angel, and she wouldn’t have phrased it the way she did in the passage from IOHEFY which I quoted.

The issue goes beyond Buffy’s view, though. It’s absolutely critical to the storyline since the episode Angel that Angel be seen as in a separate category. If Angel were exactly identical to Angelus, then Buffy should slay him, not fall in love with him, and the whole storyline would fall apart. If Angel is not exactly identical to Angelus, then we have to decide where the difference lies. He’s not human; on that we can agree. But he’s not vampire either.

Given these two facts, it seems to me that the only available conclusion is that the souled vampire has an essential difference from all other vampires. The obvious difference is the soul, which Joss has described as functioning like a conscience. That is, the presence of the human soul enables someone to distinguish right from wrong. Without it, and having a demon soul instead, the vampire can’t make that distinction. To me, this means that the souled vampire can’t be held morally responsible for the acts of the unsouled creature he was before his soul was restored – the feature which makes moral choice possible was missing.

The argument on the other side, as I understand it, relies on two key points. One is the storyline, as Masq alluded to in her description of the two sides. Angel wants to do something to be redeemed; that was why he followed Whistler in Becoming. If he doesn’t actually need redemption, then this story isn’t all that compelling. My explanation – that the need is psychological rather than moral – strikes some people as detracting from the power of a redemptionist story.

The other key point is that, as I’ve agreed, the demon which takes over builds on characteristics which were already present in the individual. Since those characteristics were already present in the human, the souled vampire will see that his former human self bears responsibility for the evil done in pursuit of those ends. I’ll let shadowkat explain this in more detail (edited to remove spoilers):

“Also, we're talking metaphor here, so I don't see why the physical should equate so strictly. Vampires are a metaphor for unrestrained hunger, desire, id. While the id does have a role in terms of creating identity, and is certainly necessary at a certain level for survival, when not balanced by other parts of one's identity, problems result -mainly immaturity. That is what the vampires represent.
Id gives the motivation to live - the desire to eat, drink, take pleasure etc. Those things aren't intrinsically bad, they just are. It's when those desires are frustrated in some way, or we refuse to grow out of that stage that id becomes a problem. If vampires could feed without hurting humans, would they be evil and would there be a need for a slayer? …

In terms of the growth of identity, accomodating one's darker impulses, containing them without harming others is an important part of learning who one is. To be unconscious of our impulses or deny they are a problem, as a vampire usually does, stymies the process of self-knowledge. …Choice is important and operative here. Choice means becoming conscious, not being a victim of one obsessions and compulsions. He got back his 'moral compass' in Joss' terms, but that does not mean he lost the identity of the last 100+ years ... I don't see why his soul would negate the identity he created as a vampire. … Soul does not equal identity.

I believe it is possible to change and transform oneself. One can become the person one wishes to be by changing what one does every day to ensure that it conforms to that person. Living and being (to me) are conscious decisions -one's desired identity is won and lost every day with a myriad of actions. Part of the reason that I find BtVS so compelling is because it shows us every episode that it is a struggle and that it is possible.”

If you find the metaphor compelling in the way she explains, the identity of the two creatures makes for a gripping storyline.

Since I let Masq set up the problem, I’ll let her have the last word (here SPOILER WARNING for link; spoilers removed from quote below):

“Angel's dilemma is both compelling and perplexing. In one respect, his situation is not so hard to understand. He has a conscience and human emotions, but a demon physiology drives him, and he must fight it. In another respect, Angel's situation raises confounding questions about guilt and responsibility. The show has been fairly clear that upon siring, Angel's human soul was banished to the Ether. Nevertheless, in Lie to Me, Angel "confesses" to Buffy the truth about "his" siring of Drusilla. Does this mean he thinks the human soul is responsible for this horrible act? But how could that be so, since the human soul wasn't even present at the time? In Amends, Angel distanced himself from the acts of the demon when he told the First Evil that "It wasn't me."

“And there lies the rub: "It wasn't me" "It was me"--who is the "me" doing the talking? The "Angel" we know is both the demon who did the bad deeds and the human soul that didn't. So what is their relationship to each other? Are we talking about

1. two consciousnesses in one body taking turns being in control, like some sort of multiple-personality guy?, or
2. a single, combined consciousness at once both demon and human? or
3. a split consciousness, two consciousness both aware simultaneously, just not of each other, or
4. one consciousness--the human's--spurred on by the mindless drives of a vampire physiology?

“Angel has "memories" of his mortal life (as Liam of Galway), of Angelus' deeds, and of his days as a souled vampire. This would seem to indicate the second of these choices. But it's not quite that simple. Option number four is also close to the truth, and fits well with Joss' "drug addict" analogy for Angel's condition:

“Whedon said that the character of Angel … was intended as a metaphor for an alcoholic in recovery. Angel, like many recovering addicts, is making amends for what he did "under the influence" (Hercules, Ain’t It Cool News, March 4, 2001).

“I always thought of Angel's "soul" as the conscience and goodness of a person or put another way his "control" over doing the evil within all of us, so to speak. The "demon" that comes with being a vampire is what he is controlling and denying the light of day (pardon the pun). So, Angel is always there, regardless of the "demon" aspect pushing towards the commitment of horrible things (i.e. killing Ms. Calendar) ...but when he gets his soul back, he realizes how horrible the things he did are and thus feels all the guilt. I don't think the soul ever goes away, it just gets locked up inside, out of a controlling position (W. R. Terrell 4:17pm Oct 19, 1999).

“The "soul" that left Liam of Galway's body upon death/vamping (and Angel when the Gypsy curse was reversed) was just one part of his personality--namely, his conscience. Everything else that made up the human Liam's personality remained behind. Which means that "Angelus" is merely Liam of Galway with a demon physiology and without a conscience (and the same would be true for all other vampires). This is supported by the fact that Angelus was sadistic and sociopathic, in other words, he lacked empathy.

“As for memories being what's left of the person controlled by the demon, aren't memories what make up who we are? Someone i forget who said that we are the sum of our memories. ...(16:53:24 ) I think [Angel's memories] had an effect on the "person" Angelus was. ...The person Angel was had, through the parts left when the demon took over the first time, an influence on how the demon acted. The "person" Angel was when he lost his soul in Surprise had an influence on the demon Angelus and his acts (Lady Bathory, Dec 20 16:14 1998).

“If this is the proper view of the Buffyverse soul, then the received story about vampires being "a human body possessed by a demon 'soul'" in The Harvest would have to be dismissed as Watcher mythology, and everything we've learned about vampires would have to be explained according to such a view, …. This theory does have the merit of being a simpler, more elegant understanding of complex metaphysical situations like Liam-Angelus-Angel….”

So, the official philosopher disagrees with me too.

If you take my view, the issues of redemption and forgiveness simply don’t arise. If you disagree with me, though, they do. In that case the show is raising important questions about the nature of redemption. Among those questions are: (1) Can atonement ever be made for crimes which are so horrifying and numerous? (2) What form would that atonement take? After all, nothing can restore Angelus’ dead victims. Does saving others count?

Another way to look at the problem is from the point of view of forgiveness. We might see forgiveness in the Christian tradition in which Jesus forgives all our sins when we declare moral bankruptcy. By that I mean that we declare bankruptcy, discharge our debts, and start “over”. The show may very well be making a statement about the power of forgiveness, since Buffy has and will demonstrate remarkable forgiveness over the years. I’ll argue that religious comparisons in her case are fully justified (at the very least as part of the Hero’s Journey), and of course forgiveness is a big part of that in the Western tradition.

Then there’s the question of the point in time at which forgiveness is offered. In the Christian tradition, that would be “always”. At any point in time an acknowledged sinner can come to grace. The issue of atonement complicates that somewhat, because it suggests that atonement is a necessary pre-condition for forgiveness. In Christianity that’s not the case, but it might be on BtVS.

Going one step further on the forgiveness theme, we see that Buffy is not the only one to forgive Angel, as we might expect if religious imagery were the only factor. Willow is also quick to forgive Angel, Xander not really, and Giles is doubtful but ambiguous. Perhaps we can explain Willow in metaphorical terms: she’s Buffy’s spirit and it is, after all, the spiritual aspect of forgiveness which is crucial in the Trinitarian tradition.

It’s also possible there’s a point being made here about gender and forgiveness (h/t Cait), which I’d urge you to consider as we go forward. If Buffy and Willow go one way and Xander the other, does this mean women take a different view than men? Or is this simply specific to their characters? There will be more evidence to come on this, so hold the issue open for now and think about what the consequences might be if there were a gender difference.

Now let me throw out a suggestion that will probably make everyone unhappy. As I noted above, I see Amends as a POV episode. Suppose we extend that idea and treat the whole soul canon not as an objective fact, but as something dependent on POV. In this interpretation, Xander sees Angel and Angelus as one person; so does Angel. Buffy sees them as two, and probably Willow does also. Giles is simply pragmatic. Each of them is right for himself/herself. The whole issue is an attitude, not a fact.

In the end, I don’t think there’s a way to answer these questions definitively, whether within the show or outside it. I hope I’ve laid out both sides enough for everyone to understand that BtVS does raise these issues and to judge for him/herself how they should be resolved. I’m sure the tiny bit of extra space given to my own argument doesn’t affect that at all. J

Trivia notes: (1) There’s no explanation ever given on BtVS for why Angel returned or what caused the snow. Feel free to speculate. (2) “The Lord is my Shepherd…” (Daniel’s prayer when Angelus corners him) is Psalms 23. (3) Oz asks Willow “You ever have that dream where you're in a play, and it's the middle of the play and you really don't know your lines, and you kinda don't know the plot?” That was Willow’s nightmare in Nightmares. (4) The Sun is a British tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch. (5) “He’s a Rebel” (and he’ll never be any good…) was a song by the Crystals. Giles used the phrase to describe the Bringers. (6) The phrase “dead by sunrise” has two possible meanings: dead by the time the sun rises; or dead because the sun rose. That’s how Buffy could find Angel on the hilltop. (7) Joss obviously had Christmas on the brain this season, since The Wish seems based on It’s A Wonderful Life and Amends rather loosely on A Christmas Carol.