History Characters / BuffyTheVampireSlayerAngel

!!Angel, né Liam
[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c2f119b4ee8ede31b3be4d5676c7ee1c.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:''"I got two modes with people, bite and avoid."'']]
!!!'''Played By:''' Creator/DavidBoreanaz

->''"For a hundred years, I offered an ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart."''

Angel is a vampire, one of the most evil and sadistic on record. Born "Liam" in Galway, {{Oireland}} during the 18th century, he was sired by Darla circa 1753. Adopting the name "Angelus," he wreaked havoc across Europe for almost 150 years until he angered a Gypsy clan by killing one of their beloved daughters. The Gypsies cursed him by returning his soul, filling him with immense remorse for the countless crimes he had committed.

After a century of living in squalor and feeding off rats, Angel is recruited by the PowersThatBe and sent to watch over Buffy Summers, the newly-called Slayer. He serves as a Scoobies' contact in the demon world and Buffy's first LoveInterest, but loses his soul in Season 2, becoming a formidable BigBad with a love of torture (both physical and [[MindRape psychological]]).

Even re-ensouled, the threat isn't over. Should Angel achieve even a moment of pure happiness, the gypsy curse is automatically lifted; their code of vengeance holds that it's better for him to become evil again than to do anything to ease his suffering. Realizing that he's a danger as long as he's around Buffy, he packs up and leaves Sunnydale for Los Angeles, where he gets his own show, ''Series/{{Angel}}'', continuing to fight demons as a form of penance for his crimes.

He returned to Buffy in the Season 8 comics, and co-stars with Faith in the comic series called ''Angel and Faith''.
----
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Tropes related to both Angel and Angelus]]

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: To Spike, both as a hero and a villain. In "Just Rewards," Wesley and Angel outright state that Spike's reputation for evil and bloodshed is second only to Angelus's.
** Averted a few episodes later in "Destiny", where Spike becomes determined to prove that it might in fact be him, and not Angel, who is the "champion" featured in the Shanshu Prophecy. This culminates in an all-out brawl between the two over who should get to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment, and while both get in a good deal of damage (physically and verbally), Spike definitively wins the fight. Although the Cup proves to be a fake, the result is enough to shake Angel into wondering whether or not he truly is the subject of the Shanshu Prophecy, and he admits to Gunn later on that Spike was stronger and truly wanted to bear the burden more than he did.
** Subverted in the comics, where in season 10, [[spoiler:Buffy makes it clear to Spike that she chooses him over Angel and Willow tells Angel she thinks Spike is more capable than Angel of being in a relationship with Buffy due to his greater capacity for change]].
* AndIMustScream:
** He was DraggedOffToHell at the end of ''Buffy'' Season 2, and spent the hiatus between that season and season 3 trapped there suffering horrific torture; due to the [[YearInsideHourOutside difference in the flow of time between dimensions]], what was only a few months on Earth was, at the very least, a hundred years for him. By the time he manages to escape, he's suffered major SanitySlippage and is little more than a feral animal, requiring Buffy to rehabilitate him.
** Spent the hiatus between seasons 3 and 4 of his show locked in a metal coffin and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. He was fully conscious the whole time, and went mad from his bloodlust and isolation. He's suffering from nightmares and hallucinations by the time Wesley fishes him out.
** [[EnemyWithin Angelus]] describes his very existence as this in ''Angel'' season 4. He reveals he's fully conscious and aware of what's going on while Angel is ensouled, and is essentially forced to spend eternity looking out through Angel's eyes; unable to harm anyone or taste human blood, forced to watch as Angel saves the world and [[WeHelpTheHelpless helps the helpless]], and listening to Angel's endless brooding and angst.
* TheAntiChrist: It's ambiguous whether he's this or the AntiAntiChrist. The Shanshu Prophecy was not explicit on which side Angel would be fighting on during the end times. At the start of ''Angel'', the idea of Angel willingly cooperating with the Senior Partners seems unthinkable. By the end of Season Four, Angel has darkened enough and his circumstances have gotten hazy to the point where he joins them. According to the comics, the jury's still out on whether the Shanshu prophecy spells doom for mankind in general. Wesley's father, Roger Wyndam-Pryce (or at least [[spoiler:a close facsimile thereof]]) warned that Angel is "more dangerous than you realize."
* BadBoss:
** As Angelus in ''Buffy'' Season 2, he constantly needles a wheelchair-bound Spike and outright flaunts his relationship with Spike's lover Drusilla. Spike eventually turns on him out of both revenge and [[EvilVersusOblivion self-preservation]].
** Became this when he became [=CEO=] of Wolfram & Hart in ''Angel'' Season 5, though in his defense, most of the employees are bad guys in servitude to the Senior Partners, his sworn enemies; by the time of the sixth episode of the season, it's noted that Angel has killed several of the employees, as well as their clients, and that all of the other employees are terrified that Angel's going to off them next. In the episode "Harm's Way," he called a demon employee into his office and promptly chopped his head off with an axe because said employee violated the zero-tolerance policy on killing humans that Angel had instated.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Liam always wanted to get out of Galway and see the world so naturally, he jumped at Darla's offer to see it together. Then he was vampirized but still didn't regret it until the gypsies forced his soul back inside him.
* BeenThereShapedHistory: He was in China during the Boxer Rebellion, and apparently knew Elvis and The Creator/RatPack personally. He also implies at one point that Charles Baudelaire's poem "Le Vampire" may have been written about him.
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Angel unwittingly causes a time paradox and the birth of a powerful demon in Season Eleven as he tries to change his past, a decision not helped by the past version of Angelus he runs into.]]
* BigFancyHouse: A creepy, art deco mansion on the edge of town. Angelus moves into the abandoned residence along with Drusilla and Spike. When he comes back from hell in Season 3, Angel stays there until the end of the season.
* CulturedBadass: A skilled artist, voracious reader, fluent in multiple languages (including demonic ones), and [[RealMenWearPink a ballet enthusiast]] -- even from his days as the evil Angelus.
-->[[RealMenWearPink "I cried like a baby]]. And I was '''evil'''!"
* DaddyIssues: As a human, Liam had serious problems with his father, who took a ToughLove approach that led to any relationship they might have had disintegrating. After becoming a vampire, Angelus decides to exceed his father's low expectations of him by becoming the most vicious, brutal, sadistic vampire he can be.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Season 2 of ''Buffy'' sees "Angel" and "Angelus" be used interchangeably by friend and foe alike to refer to Angel's evil side. Later seasons are [[InsistentTerminology much more particular about differentiating the two names]], with "Angel" exclusively being the good half and "Angelus" the evil one.
* EveryoneLovesBlondes: If you look at Angel's history, he has a taste for for [[HugeGuyTinyGirl petite]] blondes - Darla in the Victorian era, Buffy throughout the show's run, and Nina Ash in the show's last season. This is lampshaded when Fred testifies she saw Angel having sex on his desk with Lilah Morgan, a sworn enemy.
-->'''Fred:''' Brunette. She was a cheap brunette.\\
'''Cordy:''' ''(alarmed)'' You're right. [[NotHimself This isn't like him]].
* ExpansionPackPast: Two hundred years leaves gaps to fill in. Angelus grumbles that it was mostly puppy rescues and Manilow concerts.
* {{Expy}}:
** Angel is [[FanNickname occasionally referred to in fan-circles]] as "Vampire!Franchise/{{Batman}}", and he more than earns the comparisons, with his [[ByronicHero endless brooding]], [[PragmaticHero morally grey methods]], and [[TheCowl status as a nightly-defender of the innocent]].
** On the flip-side, with his [[{{Sadist}} unspeakable sadism]], [[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor sick sense of humor]], and [[TheDreaded feared reputation among the supernatural community]], [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Angelus]] is essentially a Vampire version of ComicBook/TheJoker.
* FightingIrish: He is of Irish origin and is a very skilled fighter. Liam caught Darla's eye when he fought off several men in a bar brawl while drunk.
* FlashStep: When he wants to, he can and does move absurdly fast, crossing considerable distances in the blink of an eye. He often uses it for the purposes of intimidation.
* {{Foil}}: For Buffy (see ContrastingSequelProtagonist), Spike, and [[SplitPersonality himself]].
** Like Spike, Angel is a vampire with a blood-soaked past who gets a soul and becomes a champion. They also share a love for Buffy and a certain childishness (especially around each other), and a desire for a purpose in life. They contrast in their demeanors (Angel's dark-haired brooding melancholy vs. Spike's platinum blond extroversion) and tastes (Angel likes classical literature and Music/BarryManilow, while Spike prefers poetry and punk rock). Even as evil vampires, they stood out as polar opposites, with Angelus being a sadistic SerialKiller who drew out his victims' deaths for as long as possible and relished the experience afterwards, while Spike was a feckless BloodKnight who just loved to fight and kill for the fun of it. As they themselves put it in "Damage", Angelus couldn't stop looking at his victims, while Spike never looked twice at them.
** Angel and [[EnemyWithin Angelus]], despite technically being the same person, stand out as complete opposites. Angel is endlessly brooding, deprives himself, and dwells on the human condition, while Angelus is a gleeful sadist who indulges every whim and considers the only purpose of humanity to be suffering and death. Angelus also despises some of Angel's habits, such as drinking pig's blood, listening to Barry Manilow (and especially going to his concerts), and saving puppies (Angelus, by contrast, once [[KickTheDog nailed a puppy to a tree]]), while Angel regrets and abhors Angelus' shameless cruelty.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He was just a [[LazyBum jobless, drunken, 18th-century Eurotrash lout]] before Darla sired him. It turned out that he had a huge capacity for depravity which surprised even his maker.
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Smokes cigarettes as Angelus, as well as during his KnightTemplar phase in ''Angel'' Season 2.
* TheHedonist: Liam was a drunken womanizer before he was sired, and Angel is well aware that these human weaknesses are still part of him. Tasked with protecting Buffy by the Powers That Be, he romances her instead, despite Buffy being only sixteen at the time (seventeen on the day he sleeps with her). Angel's subsequent CelibateHero status isn't entirely due to a need to repress his evil side.
-->"It's not the demon that needs killing. It's the man."
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In every sense of the word. Buffy [[spoiler:runs him through with a replica of his own blessed sword, which in turns sucks him through his own hell portal]]. Putting a damper on this irony is the knowledge that [[spoiler:Angel suffers the fate reserved for Angelus, because he regained his soul moments beforehand and that brief vulnerability may well have been what allowed Buffy's victory]].
* {{Hunk}}: By 2004, he was essentially [[Series/{{Bones}} Seeley Booth]] looking like he belongs in Franchise/TheMatrix. (Because he ''is'' [[ActorAllusion Seeley Booth!]]) His attractiveness is how he got his nickname: A monster with "the face of an angel".
* IfItsYouItsOk: Angel only shows attraction to women onscreen, but Spike admits the two of them slept together once.
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: He's done this more quite a bit, as both Angel and Angelus.
** In "Becoming," he tortures Giles for information on how to resurrect Acathla. It's a mix of both this and ColdBloodedTorture, since Angelus freely admits that he hopes Giles ''won't'' talk because he ''wants'' to torture him.
** In "Forgiving," he kidnaps Linwood Morrow to torture him for information on Sahjhan. All he has to do is take a spindle and threaten Linwood with an EyeScream, and Linwood caves.
* JekyllAndHyde: Angel (good guy) and Angelus (bad guy).
* MisplacedRetribution: The gypsies didn't really think that through. ''Angel'' has to spend all of eternity suffering for the crimes of ''Angelus''? Liam was a womanizing jerk at worst, but Darla murdered him and a demon spent two centuries murdering and marauding with his face.
* TheNoseKnows: Vampiric super-senses, particularly centered around blood. The creepiness of this is [[LampshadeHanging frequently pointed out.]]
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Angelus' Irish accent tends to come and go in flashbacks. Furthermore, having lived in America for the past hundred years, Angel speaks with a flawless American accent, though he states that he ''could'' speak with an Irish accent again if he wanted to. When he loses his memory in "Spin the Bottle" and thinks he's a teenager, he still uses an American accent, and briefly [[DoIReallySoundLikeThat wonders why he lost his Irish brogue]].
* {{Omniglot}}: He's had a lot of time to practice, and after a while places run out of people to murder, so you move to the next one and learn another language there.
* OneSteveLimit: An interesting aversion: "Liam" is the Irish form of "William", meaning he and Spike technically have the same (human) name.
* RealMenWearPink: He's fond of ballet, [[{{Music/BarryManilow}} Barry Manilow]], and [[spoiler: Spike's poetry.]]
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: He'd already had a bicentennial by the second season of ''Buffy''. Then, thanks to the events at the end of that season, he spent several centuries trapped in a hell dimension being tortured. So he's one of the oldest vampires "alive".
* RedOniBlueOni: Blue to Spike's red. Spike's embrace of punk music, as opposed to quieter, more emotive music (Angel is a closet Fanilow as well as an ex-[=RatPack=] groupie) is indicative of his distaste for brooding intellectual types like Angel. Ironically, during his life he was one himself, which possibly explains why.
* RichesToRags: Angelus never had trouble maintaining a nice pad, expensive clothes, or box theater seats. ("I just ate the people who had 'em.") Once cursed and jilted by Darla, he spent years as a homeless bum living on [[ReducedToRatburgers rats]].
* RunningGag: His hair, his lousy singing, his "caveman brow", the leather pants he wore [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer when he was evil]] and his occasional pettiness despite his advanced age.
* SplitPersonality: The heroic Angel and the sociopathic Angelus. While ''Buffy'' initially just depicted Angelus as Angel with his RestrainingBolt removed, ''Angel'' establishes that the two are totally separate personas, and Angelus exists in an AndIMustScream state while Angel is ensouled. They even have a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind in "Orpheus."
* SplitPersonalityTakeover: Whenever Angelus is unleashed.
* StalkingIsLove: Played With. He has the behaviour, in both his evil and not-evil incarnations - he saw and fell in love with Buffy when she was 15, stalked her for a year before revealing himself, and he's still up it on the fifth season of ''Angel'', despite being burdened with a desk job! (He has "a source" keeping tabs on her in Italy.) However, later seasons depict this more as a problem than as love (though not as seriously as it would be now), one that dates back to before he became Angelus, with Angel himself at one point remarking that the man inside him is as much of a problem as the demon, in his own way. Spike thinks it's pathetic.
* TortureTechnician: Angelus more so, but if pushed far enough, Angel can become one as well, likely a holdover from his days without a soul.
%%* TragicMonster
* VampiresAreSexGods: "[[FinishDialogueInUnison Mmm, Angel!]] ♥" Though [[SexGod the Immortal]] ended up out-performing in this regard, as usual.
* WellDoneSonGuy: As a human, Liam was held in contempt by his father, who believed that his son would never amount to anything but being a lazy, promiscuous drunk. When he became Angelus, he sat out to prove his father wrong by making a name for himself, namely by becoming the most flamboyantly sadistic vampire ever recorded in human history.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes related to Angel]]

* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Buffy and Cordelia, his two major love interests, are former cheerleaders.
* AMFMCharacterization: He's a huge Music/BarryManilow fan and has been known to sing "Mandy".
* AntiHero: Angel is a genuinely good person but he has made some morally questionable choices such as leaving Wolfram & Hart employees to be killed by Darla and Drusilla and then later joining the law firm in Season 5.
* TheAntiNihilist: Angel's defining moment is the revelation that life has no purpose or meaning, thus making even the tiniest act of kindness an end in itself. He carries this philosophy throughout the rest of the show, and it plays heavily into all of his actions.
-->"If nothing we do matters... then [[{{Koan}} all that matters is what we do]]."
* AscendedDemon: He's a vampire with a human soul, and TheChosenOne of the PowersThatBe.
* TheAtoner: Everything he does is to atone for his past crimes as Angelus. He starts out as Buffy's MysteriousProtector, and later becomes an AtonementDetective.
* BackForTheFinale: Delivering a HeyYouHaymaker to Caleb in "End of Days." Unfortunately for Angel, he's back on the ''Buffy'' set now, which means Caleb lunges right back up and knocks him flat in "Chosen." [[TheWorfEffect Tradition, y'know]].
* BadassBoast: Gives one to Lindsey in Season Five. As he had also regained his self-confidence as a hero and champion, it also counts as a HesBack moment:
-->"All those tattoos, all those new tricks you've learned just don't matter. Doesn't matter what you try. Doesn't matter where I am or how badass you think you've become. 'Cause you know what? I'm Angel. [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin I beat the bad guys]]."
* BadassInDistress: Frequently. Kendra nearly incinerated him in the cellar of Willie's bar, and he later spent an entire season hiatus in this state. ("Deep Down").
-->"So... how was ''[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall your]]'' summer? Mine was fun. Saw some fish. [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Went mad with hunger]]. Hallucinated a whole bunch."
* BadassLongcoat: Often wears a black leather duster.
* BatmanGambit: Near the end of ''After the Fall'', [[spoiler: Angel, realizing that the Senior Partners [[IWantThemAlive need him alive]] for their plans, provokes Gunn into killing him, forcing the Partners to hit the ResetButton so that the Fall of Los Angeles never happened and bringing back everyone who died since then in the process, which is exactly what Angel expected them to do.]]
* BeastAndBeauty: With Buffy and Cordelia, in that order, because he's a vampire and they're cute human girls.
* BeAllMySinsRemembered: While he fights for good and to atone for his various crimes as Angelus, at least once Angel admits his belief that no matter how much good he does and how sorry he is for his crimes, he's irreversibly tainted by his centuries of evil and he'll most likely go to Hell when he dies.
* BeingGoodSucks: Atonement's a bitch.
* BerserkButton:
** Do ''not'' mention coffins -- or vampires sleeping in said coffins. It is an [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad offensive stereotype]] popularized by [[YourVampiresSuck hack writers and ignorant media]].
** Being called a eunuch is also a big one for him.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Even (or ''especially'') when he's ''not'' Angelus, it is ''not'' smart to piss him off. And God help you should you manage to genuinely enrage him. It particularly comes out whenever someone has put a person he cares about in harm's way.
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Serves as TheHeavy in Season 8 as Twilight]].
* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim:
** What he does to Buffy at the end of Season 3. Conversations with both the Mayor and Joyce force Angel to confront the fact that, for as much as the two love each other, Buffy would age through some of the most formative years of her life with someone who would remain ageless, potentially robbing her of some crucial experiences (particularly since Angel cannot go out in the daylight and would be unable to ever bear children with her). Buffy is heartbroken but comes to understand his reasoning. Nevertheless, since their break-up comes more from external factors than either falling out of love with the other, it leads to some awkward tension between the two (as shown in "Pangs" and "I Will Remember You") that lasts until the end of Season 4, when they reunite again after Buffy has officially started up a relationship with Riley.
** When he fires his staff and severs ties with them in ''Angel'' Season 2. In "Happy Anniversary," he explains to Lorne that he did that to keep them away from that kind of dark territory and his revenge plot against Wolfram & Hart, as it would do more damage to them than being fired, like getting darker themselves despite their best attempts to prevent Angel from doing such terrible things. Since he didn't believe he'd be coming back, he had no plans to reveal these to them and continued to stay away from them.
* BreakoutCharacter: Went from a weird, brooding guy who wasn't even supposed to be there originally, to one of the most important characters in the 'verse and getting his own SpinOff.
* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: While she's abrasive and snippy, his dynamic with Cordelia still fits this. He's the brooding loner, she's TheHeart and encourages him to come out of his emotional shell. He even tells her he was "lost without you" in Season 5.
* BroughtDownToBadass: Is turned human by the Senior Partners in the ''After the Fall'' comics in order to hinder him. Using various charms and spells, he's still in the game and kicking ass.
* BruiserWithASoftCenter: Ah, Angel. Brooding, angsty vampire trying to fight the good fight, within LA and himself. Who'd ever think that he dug ''Mandy'' and Barry Manilow, or had a fear of dancing (yet a secret desire to, despite how awful he is at it) or go on about how much he loves [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] when pretending to be drunk?
* BuyThemOff: In "Disharmony," after spending most of the episode trying to win back Cordelia's friendship to little avail, he does so easily by buying her a whole new wardrobe. Ironically, this is ''after'' Wesley stated Angel couldn't just buy Cordy's friendship back.
* ByronicHero: While he has all of the strengths of a vampire, his true power lies in his intimate understanding of evil.
* CantTakeCriticism: He's particularly sensitive to criticism, usually trivial, such as ones about his looks or nit-picky comments about himself.
* CelibateHero: Played with. He's had intimate moments (kissing or otherwise) with many women on-screen, including Buffy, Darla, Drusilla, Faith, Gwen, Jheira, Eve, Nina, and Cordelia, and it's implied he and Spike once had a night together. However, he can't share those moments with anyone who makes him truly happy (namely, Buffy and Cordelia), lest he release Angelus. So most of the people we see him involved with are those he can share good times or "acceptable happiness" with, but not ''true'' happiness.
-->'''Connor:''' Do you spend all your time making out with other vampires, like in Creator/AnneRice novels?\\
'''Angel:''' Uh, no. I used to, but...\\
'''Connor:''' You have a girlfriend at least?\\
'''Angel:''' Can't afford to.\\
'''Connor:''' Must be lonely.\\
'''Angel:''' ''(defensively)'' I keep busy!
* CantHaveSexEver: Played with. A common misconception of his CurseEscapeClause is that having ''any'' kind of sexual intercourse will cause Angel to lose his soul; in "Guise Will Be Guise," Magnus Bryce refers to him as a eunuch for this reason, and in "Enemies," Faith outright tries to seduce him with the intent of breaking the curse. Of course, Angel ''does'' have sex in episodes like "Reprise"[[note]]With Darla, which was "[[DespairEventHorizon perfect despair]]"[[/note]], "Life of the Party"[[note]]With Eve, which was due to [[ItMakesSenseInContext a sleep-deprived Lorne's mind control]][[/note]], and "Power Play"[[note]]With Nina[[/note]]. As Wesley points out, the escape clause is "''perfect'' happiness," so it's not that he can't have sex period; he just can't have it with the women he regards as his true loves (and the ones he truly wanted to be with): Buffy and Cordelia.
* TheChampion: He appointed himself as Buffy's guardian shortly after she was called as a Slayer.
* CharacterDevelopment: Over the course of both ''Buffy'' and his own show. Angel starts out as a MysteriousProtector, simply warning Buffy of an upcoming threat and departing. Over the course of both shows, he evolves into a badass ActionHero who actively seeks to [[TheAtoner atone for his sins]].
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: He was originally mysterious and kinda chipper (especially in his first appearance) and shows very little of his alleged badassness in early ''Buffy'' episodes. Mostly he's [[TheWorfEffect knocked around by whatever Big Bad they're fighting to show how much stronger Buffy is than he]]. After his FaceHeelTurn he does actually become [[TookALevelInBadAss majorly badass]], then is stuck somewhere in between badass and {{Wimpification}} post-resurrection. He finally is shown as the [[TookALevelInBadAss Badass Anti-Hero he's meant to be]] when he gets his [[Series/{{Angel}} own show]].
* ChickMagnet: Women are ''very'' attracted to Angel's [[TallDarkAndHandsome various]] [[TroubledButCute charming]] [[MrFanservice points]]. Over the course of two series, he's earned the affections (or at least interest) of, among others, Buffy, Cordelia, Fred, Darla, Drusilla, Faith, and Nina. Unfortunately, Angel himself has a rather bad track record when it comes to romance.
* ChronicallyCrashedCar: The Plymouth got totaled in the pilot, and later wound up in Lorne's basement club (via a wormhole), making it somewhat resemble a [[Film/PulpFiction Jackrabbit Slim's]]. (They never do explain how they removed the car.)
* ClosetGeek: ''Angel & Faith'' teaches us that Angel is a die-hard fan of Creator/DouglasAdams. It helped him through a [[NoodleIncident difficult period]] in TheEighties...
* CluelessDetective: While he's by no means stupid, a RunningGag is that he's better at fighting demons than he is at genuine detective work. On one occasion, he had to hire another detective agency with a FriendOnTheForce for help on a case.
* TheComicallySerious: The fact that he's periodically-evil while his companions are all Happy Meals with legs might have something to do with all the jokes at his expense, to keep him grounded.
* ContrastingSequelProtagonist: ''Angel'' is a spin-off of ''Buffy'', not a sequel, but Angel fits the mold. Unlike the blonde, teenaged, very human Buffy, Angel is an adult ([[Really700YearsOld and then some]]), dark-haired vampire. Buffy's past is slightly shady due to masquerade-related behavior problems, but Angel's is soaked in innocent blood and a century of guilt. Buffy is sociable and mostly cheerful, while Angel is a brooding loner by nature.
* CoolCar:
** A black Plymouth convertible, mirroring Spike's muscle car. The only difference is, Angel's roof is detachable... in sunny LA. (He purchased it on the cheap.)
--->"Why not a [[VanityPlate personalized license plate]] that says "IRONY"?"
** A whole fleet of luxury cars (with necrotempered windows™) after he becomes Wolfram & Hart's CEO. [[spoiler:Also, a helicopter]].
* TheCowl: At one point, he leapt heroically into the wrong car. ("City Of...")
* CrazyJealousGuy: He was prone to unattractive and very obvious bouts of jealousy and possessiveness. He was very aware of this (though he rarely admitted it), but made little effort to hide it. The most frequent cases of him showing this side of himself stem from Buffy's other romantic relationships, most notably Riley Finn and Spike to a greater extent.
* CunningLinguist: He can speak English, Korean, Tibetan, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Belarusian, Romanian, and German, and attempted to learn the language of the Vinji and Sahrvin demons via an instruction tape.
* CurseEscapeClause: Angel is cursed with a soul [[CantHaveSexEver until he has a moment of perfect happiness]]. Buffy unwittingly helps break the curse (though the gypsies believed this was fated it happen), and then needs to find a way to repair it.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Just very, very broody.
* DeadpanSnarker: At times, though he's usually TheComicallySerious. Angelus is a lot snarkier.
* DeathSeeker: He shows such tendencies, though mostly during his time on ''Buffy''. He seems to be trying to get Buffy to kill him in "Angel", tries to get Spike to kill him in "What's My Line, Part 2", and is insistent on sacrificing his life in "The Zeppo". On his own show, when told he was going to die in "To Shanshu in L.A.", he's unfazed by hearing he was apparently going to die in the future.
* DefendsAgainstTheirOwnKind: A vampire who protects humans from other vampires.
* DefusingTheTykeBomb: He spends all of season 4 trying to do this for Connor, with some success. However, Connor quickly develops other reasons for them not to get along, and in any case never fully gets over his prejudice against Angel.
** At least, not until the Season 4 finale when Angel retcons everyone's memories to give Connor a life with a normal, loving family. Even in Season 5, when his original memories are restored, the experience has given him a much greater sense of stability and grounding, so by the end of the series he's patched things up with his real father.
* DespairEventHorizon: Hits it in Season 2; after firing his staff and descending into a KnightTemplar phase to stop Wolfram & Hart, Angel tries to break into their Home Office and kill them once and for all... only to discover said Home Office is Earth itself and Wolfram & Hart's power comes not from demons, but from [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil from the evil within humanity itself]]. With his spirit broken and his resolve exhausted, he tries to shed his soul by having sex with Darla, an encounter he outright describes as "perfect despair." However, thanks to an [[EpiphanyTherapy epiphany]], Angel manages to bounce back, realizing [[TheAntiNihilist his purpose was still to do all the good he could, even if he couldn't do all the good he wanted to]].
* DeterminedDefeatist: Though there is the occasional reprieve, at heart, Angel suspects that he will [[DeusAngstMachina never stop paying]] for his crimes. He and Spike share a grumpy exchange about how they're both going to Hell, and thus will never be rid of each other.
* DeusAngstMachina: Mr. Whedon, don't make him happy. You wouldn't like him when he's happy.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: In the second season of ''Buffy''.
* DoNotGoGentle: In the series finale of ''Angel'', his plan is to take out the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners' main instruments of evil on Earth, and go out in a blaze of glory.
* DoWithHimAsYouWill:
** In season 2's "Reunion," Holland Manners, having had Drusilla re-sire a resurrected Darla, gives them full backing for whatever massacre they intend to carry out and organizes a wine tasting at his house for Wolfram & Hart employees to celebrate his success, only for Drusilla and Darla to crash the party, intending to kill Holland and the W&H employees there as revenge for being used as pawns. Angel shows up, apparently planning to SaveTheVillain... but instead, Angel also wants them dead and locks them all in the wine cellar with Darla and Drusilla before leaving them to die.
** In season 3's "Double or Nothing," Jenoff, a paranormal crime boss/casino owner, comes to collect Gunn's soul in accordance with a DealWithTheDevil Gunn made years ago. In the climax, Angel chops off Jenoff's head. It quickly becomes apparent that this will only temporarily incapacitate him, so Angel asks who else in the casino owes him, and takes the opportunity to sneak out with his crew as the entire casino descends on Jenoff en masse.
* DyingAsYourself: His death in the ''Buffy'' Season 2 finale. Willow has successfully re-ensouled Angelus... but unfortunately, Acathla has already begun to awaken, and Buffy has no choice but to kill Angel, not Angelus, to save the world.
* DynamicCharacter: In the beginning, he was content to watch Buffy kill baddies with an occasional cryptic message. Then he gets his own show, becomes a brooding HurtingHero, almost falls to the dark side several times and prevents a few apocalypses.
* EpiphanyTherapy: Having exhausted his resolve fighting Wolfram and Hart, Angel attempts to shed his soul by having sex with Darla, but instead of a moment of perfect happiness, he found perfect despair. An epiphany follows, and Angel realized that his purpose was still to do all the good he could, even if he couldn't do all the good he wanted to.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Doyle confesses that "maybe [he's] a little attracted" to Angel, much to his embarrassment.
* EveryoneCanSeeIt: On Season 3 of his show, everyone in Angel Investigations is aware he loves Cordelia--except Cordelia. "Kyrumption" and "moira", anyone?
* EverythingButTheGirl:
** The Immortal called dibs.
--->'''Angel:''' [[ItMakesSenseInContext But she's not finished baking yet!]] I gotta wait till she's done baking! [[MotorMouth You know, till she finds herself, 'cause that's the drill, fine, I'm waitin' patiently and meanwhile]], '''THE IMMORTAL'S EATING COOKIE DOUGH'''!\\
'''Andrew''': Uhhh, Spike, is Angel crying?\\
'''Spike:''' No! ''(in the same defiant tone)'' [[OnSecondThought Not yet!]]
** He was slow on the draw with Cordelia. She packed off and left with the Groosalugg, another superhuman warrior who ''isn't'' allergic to sunlight.
* ExaltedTorturer: While certainly not as [[ColdBloodedTorture Angelus]], Angel fits the bill otherwise; when push comes to shove, he's perfectly willing to resort to the JackBauerInterrogationTechnique. There's also this gem from "Supersymmetry," when Fred is plotting a fatal revenge on her former physics professor for sending her to Pylea and grabs a whip:
-->'''Fred:''' How 'bout a flail-whipping? Would that take a nice long time?\\
'''Angel:''' Hours, if you do it right. Not that you should do it at all. (''takes whip from her'') Ever.
* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: As a human and Angelus, he often sported either long, shoulder-length hair, either down or in a loose ponytail. After regaining his soul, he cut his hair shorter by the 1920s, occasionally slicked with a side part. In the next five decades, he kept his hair that way until the 1970s where had grew out his hair again. Since the late 1990s during his tenure in Sunnydale, his hair was consistently spiked upward at the front with styling product (a fact that he was apparently unaware of, due to his reaction upon seeing his reflection in a mirror during a trip to Pylea). The length seemed to be slighter shorter around 2002 and while CEO of Wolfram & Hart, he sometimes had his hair combed over. Around the fall of Los Angeles, Angel returned to his notable spiked look.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: He has even caught the attraction of males. Xander, though in anguish, commented that Angel was "buff" and a very attractive man when first seeing him, Lorne had a tendency to affectionately call him "angelcakes", Oliver Simon openly stated Angel was a "beautiful man" without even being properly acquainted, while a rude television commercial director assumed he was a male-model.
* EveryoneLovesBlondes: A recurring joke was that he seemed to have a preference for small, blonde women, as the majority of his love interests were blondes, with the exceptions of Cordelia (who had blonde highlights at one point) and Rebecca Lowell. Spike was hinted at as well. When Angel is the victim of a GrandTheftMe in "[[Recap/AngelS03E04CarpeNoctem Carpe Noctem]]", Cordelia agrees he's NotHimself when Angel is caught making out with a brunette.
* EvilMeScaresMe: Angel is horrified of Angelus and the atrocities he's committed, to the extent he regularly encourages his teammates in Angel Investigations to [[StakingTheLovedOne kill]] [[MercyKillArrangement him]] should he lose his soul again.
* FamedInStory: By the time of "Supersymmetry," Angel's acts of heroism have made him an urban legend; there are entire forums dedicated to him and his exploits in online chat rooms.
* TheFogOfAges: By the time of "Not Fade Away", Angel has forgotten what it's like to be human.
* ForGreatJustice: He initially thinks that he does what he does in order to redeem himself and avoid going to Hell, but eventually realizes that he helps people simply because doing the right thing is an inherent part of his identity.
-->'''Angel:''' We live as though the world is as it should be, in order to show it what it can be.
* ForcedToWatch: After putting himself through hell to redeem Darla's soul, Lindsey shows up with Drusilla and an army of thugs, tasers Angel, and makes him watch as Drusilla turns Darla into a vampire again. This pushes Angel into complete HeWhoFightsMonsters territory for the next few episodes.
* FreudianExcuse: Wesley, of all people, chastises Angel for hiding behind his gypsy curse so he doesn't have to face having serious relationships with women. Angel acknowledges he is ''completely right''.
* FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire: TropeCodifier. Spike's actually the TropeNamer.
* GibberishOfLove: His bumbling attempts to make a love confession to Cordelia qualify.
--> '''Angel''': I was just thinking about things. People. You know, how they relate. Take you and me, for instance. We're very different. Very different. Obviously. ''[points at Cordy]'' Human, ''[points at self]'' vampire. ''[points at Cordy]'' Woman, ''[points at self]'' [[BuffySpeak man... pire]].
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: "Birthday" depicts an alternate reality in which Cordelia never joined Angel Investigations. Doyle passed his visions on to Angel prior to his HeroicSacrifice, and Angel retreated into himself in his grief, [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity with the visions only making things worse]]. Before long, Angel went completely insane from his own loneliness and his visions, to the extent that he would have visions of his victims. The worst of it all is that what Cordelia sees of that version of Angel, a babbling, incoherent mess who starts pounding his head on the wall while talking to her, is, according to that world's Wesley and Gunn, him on a good day.
* GoalInLife: To protect Buffy as she assumes the Slayer mantle and, later, to fulfill the Shanshu Prophecy and become human. Angel sometimes [[ZigZaggingTrope deviates from this]], for various reasons, among them a belief that his mission is being clouded by self-interest. By the fifth season, his faith wavers to the point of dismissing the Prophecy entirely. In the Series Finale, [[spoiler:Angel is forced to literally sign away his chances in the human sweepstakes, nullifying the prophecy]] with a signature in blood. In the comic continuation, the Senior Partners finally give him a glimpse of the Shanshu Prophecy: Himself [[BadFuture standing in an apocalyptic wasteland]], [[FutureMeScaresMe grinning like a maniac]]. Now, Angel's goal is to keep improving the world ''in spite'' of the Prophecy; with luck, the future can be altered. (Unless the Partners were just dicking with him again.)
* GoodIsNotNice: He was this from the beginning, especially as he got "older". A Retired Monster who preferred to solve problems with non-violent tactics, he was also accepting of the fact that, sometimes, a lot of people must die before positive change will happen.
** One of the main themes of ''Angel'' is his character struggling AGAINST this trope. Throughout the show, Angel is clearly a hero, doing good and rescuing those in need. But from the very start of the pilot episode we see him wanting to cut himself off from people, because he worries about hurting those that gets too close. In the pilot he is told quite clearly that if he doesn't learn to be more empathetic, then not only will he fail to truly save people, it's also only a matter of time until he himself becomes corrupted. This becomes a reoccurring conflict for Angel's character, in the following five seasons. Season 2 in particular had a major arc about this, with Angel deciding to become more ruthless and cold in order to be a more "effective" champion for good, and this temptation was a major part of his character throughout the series. Ultimately he would always come around to the realization that just punching the bad guy in the face was not enough and that "being nice" was actually the more important factor in being able to save people. This is summed up nicely with his so called "epiphany speech" in season 2, which ends with him saying: "the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world."
** This is actually referenced in an episode. When Lilah says “I’ve seen Angel’s dark side” Cordelia, a notorious deadpan snarker, drops any and all pretenses of joking and snark, looks her dead in the eye, and replies “No. you haven’t.” The look of sheer terror on Lilah’s face says it all.
* GoodIsNotSoft: He ''is'' a nice guy most of the time, but he can switch to ruthless at the drop of a hat and he has a hundred and fifty years of doing extremely horrible things to people for giggles to draw on. It is also not a good idea to go after people he cares about.
* GrapplingHookGun: Uses one twice in ''Angel'' season 1, once in "[[Recap/AngelS01E02LonelyHearts Lonely Hearts]]" and once in "[[Recap/AngelS01E13She She]]". The first time, his attempt caused the wooden beam he latched onto to collapse under his weight.
* GypsyCurse: Gypsies are responsible for returning his soul so he would be overwhelmed by 200 years of guilt. It's also the reason he can never be perfectly happy, because he would lose his soul.
* HasAType: Angel loves heroes. He spends his time on Buffy in love with the eponymous heroine. Then on his own show he falls for Cordelia following her CharacterDevelopment into one of the biggest damn heroes of the Buffyverse. Then he gets a girlfriend named Nina who he's very fond of, but who doesn't give him that moment of true happiness.
* TheHero: In his [[Series/{{Angel}} own spin-off show]], where his journey for redemption at times involves him actively taking on the aspect of the Hero.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: After the end of magic. Due in part to the various atrocities he committed as Twilight, he's even more loathed and feared by the magical community than Buffy, the one who ''caused'' the end of magic.
* HerosClassicCar: Noted for his '67 Plymouth GTX, which Spike dubbed the Angelmobile.
* HeroesLoveDogs: Lampshaded by Angelus, who offers to send Angel "to that big puppy pound in the sky" as revenge for all those puppies he's saved. PlayedForLaughs when Gunn assures him that he'll get along fine with The Conduit -- as long as he likes cats. Whoops.
* HeroicBSOD: Sometimes caused by remorse over his own actions, other times brought on by a century-long stay in Hell which leaves him [[ThousandYardStare a trembling mute]]. Lampshaded on ''Angel'', when Spike joins the cast.
-->"I spent ''a hundred years'' trying to come to terms with infinite remorse! You spent three weeks [[BasementDweller moaning in a basement]], '''AND THEN YOU WERE FINE'''! What's fair about that?!"
* HeroismWontPayTheBills: Becomes a theme in the first season. Angel is in the business of saving souls. After pointing out the awkward truth that they need to make money, Cordelia starts sending out bills for being saved.
* HiddenAgendaHero: Introduced with unknown motives, though the truth is shortly revealed with him being a vampire.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his usual all-black attire, he has surprisingly good taste in clothing: when buying off Cordelia in ''Disharmony'', she notes, ecstatic, that he 'has a gay man's taste' in clothes.
* HollywoodToneDeaf: On his own show, which displays his more private foibles in a way the original show doesn't. Music/WangChung will never recover.
* HopelessWithTech: He's competent, but uncomfortable, with modern technology; he frequently struggled to understand cellphones (once claiming that they must have been invented by a "bored warlock") and confused computer terminology such as "chatty rooms.".
--> "They talk about me in the chatty rooms?"
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: In the past, he was ''the'' most evil and brutal vampire in recorded history... until his soul was restored by a GypsyCurse. From there, he began a downward spiral while WalkingTheEarth, until Whistler finds him on the streets of New York, living in the gutters and [[ReducedToRatburgers feeding on rats]]. Seeing Buffy and [[ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne her struggles as the Slayer]] inspires Angel to claw his way back up and make something of himself again.
* HunterOfHisOwnKind: The vampire community still can't believe their most revered hero is now gutting them in the shadows, for ''money''.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** He breaks up with Buffy because he wants her to be with a normal guy, but then the minute she is with one (aka Riley), behaves resentfully and practically provokes his fight with Riley by insinuating he "lost his soul again" (translation: "slept with Buffy") and then acts like he's entirely blameless.
** When Angel visits Sunnydale to protect Buffy, he keeps his a presence a secret from everyone but her, able to see her but she can't see him. This hypocrisy is called out by Giles and later Buffy herself, although Angel justifies it in both cases as "protecting her."
** Angel tries to kill Wesley and alienates him from the team for being responsible for Connor in Quor'toth and raised by Holtz even though it was a "mistake for the greater good" ... Something Angel continually does himself, which he does eventually acknowledge.
** He constantly makes decisions that affect others without consulting them first, such as his break-up with Buffy, wiping everyone's memories of Connor, rewinding his one human day with Buffy that only he remembers, and [[spoiler: his choice to become Twilight and the Twilight prophecy, which involved Buffy in a deep and intimate way.]]
** Angel gets jealous and pissy with Buffy over Spike, even though at this point in the series he had also fallen for Cordelia and even had a kid with Darla he may or may not have told her about...
* HypocriticalHeartwarming: Makes his irritation for Spike well-known, but saves him from being dust more than once, even from Buffy.
* IAmAMonster: Shouted in Romanian while being dragged off into an alley to be beaten. This was in 1898, shortly after Angel was cursed.
* ICantDance: He proved quite adept at slow dancing in Sunnydale. But when invited to a party for hip twentysomethings, he [[ImagineSpot imagines]] himself [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8fcH8I4bp0 flailing about like a spaz]].
* ILoveYouVampireSon:
** With Darla; Angel definitely holds some animosity toward her, yet maintains an almost filial devotion.
** With Connor, who is, ironically, human. (Mostly.)
** Spike has a cathartic moment when he confronts Angel for fashioning him into the monster he is; Drusilla was his sire but Angelus was his ''[[EvilMentor Yoda]]''. On another note, they were never intimate, "Except for that one time..."
* InASingleBound: When he wants to get up high, he can jump very, very high.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy:
** As of Season 10, he's trying to do this for Buffy, who's now dating Spike... but privately admits to Willow that he's still carrying a torch for her, and part of him is actually hoping that they break up.
** In Season 3 of his show, he didn't put up a fight for Cordelia against the Groosalug, even ''paying for their romantic vacation together'', because he wanted her to be happy.
* IWasQuiteAFashionVictim: Angel in the [[TheSeventies '70s]]. There's a positive side to not being able to see your reflection sometimes.
* ImmortalImmaturity: Despite being over two-centuries old, he wasn't the most mature individual. Buffy even compared his maturity to that of a twelve-year-old during one of their reunions. He could be childish, petty and utterly proud. For example, he was annoyed and pretended to be unimpressed when he heard Lindsey singing at Caritas and showed intense displeasure at Spike for regaining his soul, as it caused him to feel less unique.[ He also expressed a childish distaste of riding on the back of a motorcycle with other men on two occasions: first, with Wesley, who tried to make him wear a pink helmet and later, with Spike, who also called Angel a "DramaQueen" and Cordelia once noted that he was melodramatic.
-->'''Angel''': You know, ''I'' started it. The whole "having a soul". Before it was all the cool new thing.\\
'''Buffy:''' Oh, my God. Are you ''twelve''?
* ImmortalLifeIsCheap: Spike doesn't bother aiming ''around'' Angel to hit a target; Spike just [[ShootTheHostage stabs right through him]]. In all fairness, that ''was'' Spike...
-->'''Spike:''' [[BlatantLies Heat of battle. Wasn't time]].\\
'''Angel:''' You just like stabbing me.\\
'''Spike:''' I'm shocked that you'd say that! [[DistinctionWithoutADifference I much prefer hitting you with blunt instruments.]]
* ImmortalityHurts: Try spending it at the bottom of the Pacific. Gives you some perspective. Kind of an M. C. Escher perspective.
* ImportantHaircut: He cut his hair short after gaining his soul.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Angel has been prone to doing this, such as his KnightTemplar phase in Season 2 and his actions as Twilight in the Season 8 comics. He even admits as such, which is why he asks Faith to act as his MoralityPet in ''Angel & Faith''.
* KindRestraints: Voluntarily chained up or thrown behind bars whenever he feels the bad side coming on, similar to Oz. Although Cordelia seemed to enjoy it a little too much.
* KnightTemplar: Turns against his friends for a few months as he goes on a crusade of punishing the guilty (Wolfram & Hart), rather than helping the helpless.
-->"Let them fight 'the good fight'. Someone's gotta fight the war."
* KnightInSourArmor: Even if the world sucks and the fight will never end in his favor, someone has to keep it going. He even states at least once that he doesn't really believe that he'll ''ever'' be redeemed for his crimes, but keeps trying anyway.
* LargeAndInCharge: Angel's a pretty big guy and TheLeader of Angel Investigations.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: In Season 1, the revelation that Angel is a vampire was supposed to be a twist back in the day. If you were to tell that to someone with even a tiny amount of knowledge about the series now they would probably laugh at you. This is also the case with his first FaceHeelTurn.
* TheLeader: Of Angel Investigations, until he splits from them during his KnightTemplar phase in Season 2. When he comes back, he works ''for'' them, with Wesley being the leader now; of course, Angel is often still in charge and leads several of their missions over him regardless. He takes over as the official leader once again in mid-Season 3, after Wesley, fooled by a fake prophecy, loses Connor to a hell dimension and is subsequently kicked out.
* {{Leitmotif}}: A heroic sounding anthem, later phased out in the third season. Brought back intentionally for a moment in Season 5 when Angel is in desperate need to rediscover his original mission statement of helping the helpless.
* LighterAndSofter: Angel is very much this as a character: around Buffy, the love of his life, she makes him very jittery and on edge causing him to act off kilter. When she's away from him Angel is still taciturn, at first, but quickly grows more personable and can joke, even at himself.
* LimitedWardrobe: He traditionally wears full-length, black wool dusters, a light brown trench coat, or a shorter leather jacket, black trousers and black dress shoes. Although his dress shirts tend to vary in color, they are often in gem tones and other dark colors. While he initially wore untucked white button down shirts with black dress jackets and a black leather bomber jacket (which he gave to Buffy), he began wearing white undershirts, white and black wife beaters, a red velvet shirt, gray and black soft pullovers and long-sleeved dress shirts in colors such as blue and red. The notable exceptions to this rule were when Angel wore a Hawaiian shirt while undercover, a cream pullover identical to his darker ones to make a customer more comfortable, an uncharacteristic white and yellow striped dress shirt while under Jasmine's thrall and a loud Italian sports jacket (although this last was only because his usual clothes were damaged by a bomb planted by the Immortal and there was nothing else available for him to wear). In 1998, as Angelus, his style somewhat changed, noticeably the black leather pants he wore throughout his this period (something that both Cordelia and Lorne have referenced). As well as the leather pants, his shirts were generally silk button shirts in black and red, as well as paisley button shirt, though his full length black wool duster remained.
* LoveInterest: He is one for Buffy, starting out as her MysteriousProtector and the moving into a StarCrossedLovers thing.
* LoveMakesYouEvil: Literally; "perfect happiness" turns him into Angelus.
* {{Manchild}}: Despite being over two-centuries old, he's not the most mature individual. Buffy even compared his maturity to that of a twelve-year-old during one of their reunions. He could be childish, petty and utterly proud. For example, he was annoyed and pretended to be unimpressed when he heard Lindsey singing at Caritas, and showed intense displeasure at Spike for regaining his soul, as it caused him to feel less unique. He also expressed a childish distaste of riding on the back of a motorcycle with other men on two occasions: first, with Wesley, who tried to make him wear a pink helmet, and later, with Spike.
* MartyrWithoutACause: If there's no evil around to throw himself in front of protecting innocents, he will either run out and find some more or he will wind up defending ''lesser'' evils while tormenting himself for doing so. It's a complex.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: Part of the reason he leaves Buffy, the other, of course, being his CurseEscapeClause.
* MercyKillArrangement: When Angelus is intentionally summoned to get information about the Beast, Angel makes his team promise to kill him if Angelus gets out of his cage. He does cause more trouble than they thought, but they don't have to do it.
* TheMourningAfter: After moving to LA, Angel continues to pine after Buffy. Even after trying to move on with Cordelia, he still carries a torch for her and, by the time of ''Angel'' season 5, is having her followed by Wolfram & Hart spies, which Spike finds pathetic. In ''Angel & Faith'', Spike vents to Angel that he's always been jealous of Angel for his ability to seemingly move on from Buffy and demands to know how he got over her... only for Angel to reveal that he never has.
-->'''Angel:''' When I do, I'll let you know.
* TheMovieBuff: A fan of Creator/CharltonHeston movies, particularly ''Film/TheOmegaMan''. What a surprise. He's also seen enough vampire flicks to formulate opinions on which ones are more accurate. [[spoiler:(Creator/FrankLangella nailed it.)]]
* MundaneSolution: In "Double or Nothing," he attempts this with Jenoff, who seeks to collect Gunn's soul in accordance with a DealWithTheDevil he made years later. After failing a game for his own soul, he has Cordelia [[ImpaledPalm stake Jenoff's hand to the table]] and lops off his head. It's then subverted, as Jenoff [[LosingYourHead simply grows a new head]]; Gunn even points out to Angel that if killing Jenoff were that easy, he would have done it himself.
* MrFanservice: Shirtless often. The man likes his tai chi. He really is something to look at, and he's often chained up and tortured. He's even been bound by a vampire dominatrix more than once.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Thanks to his gypsy curse, Angel is in a perpetual state of horror, shame, and remorse over the century of carnage he wrought as Angelus. It was especially pronounced immediately after the curse was first inflicted; he spent quite some time afterwards lurking in the shadows, muttering about how horrible the things he did were.
* MysteriousProtector: [[BuffySpeak Cryptic Guy]] -- in the first season he'd turn up, warn Buffy of some danger, then vanish. It takes a while for Angel to evolve into the badass hero he is now.
* NeverMyFault: In the comics, both Xander and Nadira outright accuse him of always having an excuse for why something isn't his fault, from [[spoiler: killing Giles at the end of Season 8]] to Drusilla killing one of Nadira's fellow Slayers after Angel let her escape:
-->'''Nadira:''' You kill demons and monsters and elder gods like you're swatting bloody flies, but one vampire keeps getting away from you. One vampire you "sired," isn't that what you leeches call it? One vampire you shagged. One vampire you spent a hundred years slaughtering people with. Now another girl's dead. One more body on the pile. And here you are, full of excuses, reasons why it's not your damn fault.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:Creating the Twilight dimension by screwing Buffy, which let thousands of demons invade Earth, which resulted in the destruction of the Seed of Wonder and removed all magic from the world]].
* NotGoodWithPeople:
-->"I have two modes with people: Bite and avoid."
** Ironically, as is seen in later episodes, Angel [[GoMadFromTheIsolation does not cope well under solitude]].
* NotSoStoic: He has his moments, such as his UnstoppableRage moment at the end of "Forgiving," and his angry rant at Buffy at the end of "Sanctuary." He even lampshades it in the latter:
-->'''Angel:''' For a taciturn, shadowy guy, I've got a big mouth.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Angel is fond of playing this role, often as a HawaiianShirtedTourist. On set, the shorthand for this became "Herb Saunders" (Angel's alias in "Sense & Sensitivity").
* OffingTheOffspring: An ancient scroll prophesied that Angel is doomed to do this. [[spoiler:It's half-correct; Angel slays Connor in one timeline, but he survives in another reality.]]
* {{Omniglot}}: Although he's not a professional scholar, he's heavily multilingual, well versed in both human and demonic tongues. As a vampire born in 1727 and having lived in most of Europe and the U.S., he presumably has had plenty of time to learn.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: He is rarely called Liam. Lilah once called it a "wussy name".
* OnlyOneName: Fred had to lie and say "Angel" is Connor's last name, with Angel using the alias "Geraldo Angel." His original surname has also never been revealed.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Usually it's a sign of Angelus returning. [[spoiler: It can also be a sign of TranquilFury, as Wesley finds out.]]
* OpenHeartDentistry: Angel has shown himself able to dig bullets out of his own body when pressed for time.
* OpenSaysMe: Angel fights the good fight -- against doors.
* PapaWolf: Towards Connor. It took an entire episode before anybody was allowed to even ''approach'' him. He also specifically promises Linwood that he'll inflict upon him any pain Connor experiences, even when Wolfram & Hart couldn't have possibly had anything to do with it, and forces Lilah to do a little errand to him in exchange for ignoring that she's "within fifty yards" of his son. The trope is shown in its full glory in "Forgiving", after Wesley kidnapped Connor, lost him to Holtz, and both were lost to a Hell dimension soon after; even after discovering Wesley did so after being tricked by a [[PropheticFallacy fake prophecy]] that Angel would kill the baby, Angel [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil is beyond caring]] and nearly smothers him to death with a pillow.
-->'''Lorne''': Wow. I'm sensing a serious mama bear vibe.
* PatrickStewartSpeech:
** Often lampooned. Jasmine keeps turning his own ultimatums against him (like ''you've'' never eaten people!), and Lindsey confesses he just zones out when the yapping starts.
** In Season 5, while he's in full flow of preaching to Illyria about the sanctity of all human life, including her flunky Knox despite the fact that Knox was the one who brought Illyria back and killed Fred, Wesley promptly cuts him short by gunning Knox down right then and there. Angel's response:
--->'''Angel:''' Were you even listening?
** Even [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Angelus]] has a turn mocking them.
--->'''Angelus:''' Oh, don't tell me; the "rousing-stiff-upper-lip speech". [[BlahBlahBlah Rah-Rah]], good over evil, do what must be done, hang in there it's almost Friday!
* PerversePuppet: Briefly becomes one in "Smile Time".
* PowerLossMakesYouStrong: The Senior Partners, upon sending L.A. to Hell (''After the Fall''), simultaneously [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor turn Angel human at the least convenient time possible]].
* ThePunishment: Two hundred years of guilt and a prohibition against perfect happiness... man, can those gypsies hold a grudge.
* PutOnABus: In ''Buffy''. At the end of "Graduation Day, Part 2," Angel, forced to accept that his relationship with Buffy is doomed, makes the decision to leave Sunnydale for good, becoming the protagonist of [[Series/{{Angel}} his own spin-off show in Los Angeles]]. However, he [[TheBusCameBack returns to Sunnydale]] at least OnceASeason, with the exception of ''Buffy'' Season 6.
* RealMenCook: According to Cordelia, he possessed remarkable cooking skills "for someone who's on a liquid diet".
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Just as he casts off the Angelus persona, Buffy runs him through with a sword and he gets pulled into {{Hell}} by Acathla. He comes back later.]]
* ReducedToRatburgers: By the time Whistler found him, Angel was homeless and scrounging off of rat blood. (To add insult to injury, he has difficulty catching one.)
* ReformedButRejected: Throughout ''Buffy'' Season 3. After the events of Angel's FaceHeelTurn in the previous season, his relations with the Scoobies are now heavily strained. It doesn't matter that all his actions during that phase were from the Hyde part of his JekyllAndHyde personality and he now has his soul back; after all the torment Angel's evil personality put them through, they've lost any and all trust they previously had for him. Even after he proves he's one of the good guys again by saving Willow's life, that doesn't automatically dispel all the distrust; Giles, for example, now keeps a crossbow nearby whenever Angel shows up just in case anything goes wrong.
* RelationshipUpgrade: With Illyria in the Season 11 comics and throughout ''Buffy'' Season 12.
* RescueRomance: Strikes one up with Buffy, their romance kicking into gear when he intervened to help her against the Three.
* RevengeMyopia: In Season 3, when Wesley kidnaps Connor; it turns out he was tricked by a [[PropheticFallacy fake prophecy]] claiming that Angel would [[OffingTheOffspring kill his son]]. Angel acknowledges this, accepts it, and tells Wesley as such... but considering that Wesley's actions led to Connor being taken to a Hell dimension, he still refuses to forgive him for it and tries to kill him.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: An exhaustive display in ''Angel'' season 2, in reaction to Darla being resurrected, tormented and then re-vamped by Wolfram and Hart suits. This culminated with Angel tossing the firm's entire senior staff to the wolves in the form of Drusilla and Darla.
* RomanceAndSexualitySeparation: {{Enforced|Trope}} in [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Angel]]'s case, since having sex with someone he actually loves will cause him to experience a moment of happiness and lose his soul. (He originally believed it to be a case of CantHaveSexEver, but an empty night spent with his ex, Darla, proved that wasn't true.) In the fifth season of his solo show, he sleeps with his assistant Eve while they're both [[KissingUnderTheInfluence under a spell]], and later has a brief relationship with [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Nina]], but avoids growing too emotionally attached to her.
* ScarilyCompetentTracker: Not only can Angel [[TheNoseKnows sniff the air]] and tell if the soil beneath him has been disturbed, he can glance at a spot of blood and immediately determine ''who and what it belongs to''. This sort of blood hyper-analysis appears to be common to vamps. Spike mentions that you can tell if someone's evil by [[SniffSniffNom tasting their blood]] (it tastes like pennies).
* ScrewDestiny: States something to this effect in the Season 12 comics, when told that nothing can stop the Reckoning.
-->'''Angel:''' Nothing’s final! Not fate, not prophecies, not what's in history books.
* SidekickGraduationsStick: He started off as Buffy's boyfriend on her own show before headlining the spin-off.
* SoleSurvivor: With [[spoiler:the deaths of Doyle, Cordelia, and Wesley]], Angel is the last (un)living member of the first iteration of Angel Investigations, which operated in the offices that got blown up by Vocah in the Season 1 finale.
* SpikyHair: Lampshaded on more than one occasion. Angel seems shocked when he views his reflection for the first time in Pylea, implying that his hairstyle is some sort of tragic accident.
-->''(examining head)'' "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?"
* StagesOfMonsterGrief: ''Buffy'' previously flashed back to Angelus getting re-ensouled; ''Angel'' covers everything that happened before and after. It should be noted that this is [[InvertedTrope an inversion]] of the trope as well, since Angel identifies more with Angelus than with with his original self, Liam - who, by the end of the show, he barely remembers being. It could be said that his grief was more over losing his freedom as a vampire by regaining his humanity than having been a human who was turned into a vampire. With his stages being:
** Denial: His attempts to continue his life as a vampire despite his re-ensoulment.
** Defiance: Angel never got to properly experience this stage, since Darla killed all the gypsies who re-ensouled him. He instead took it out on himself during his self-imposed 100 year exile from humanity and vampirekind. Angelus, however, did get to kill Jenny Calendar and an older male relative, both descendants of the gypsies who re-ensouled him.
** Acceptance: After he met Whistler and Buffy.
** Betrayal: Either after making love to Buffy and losing his soul, or.... [[FutureMeScaresMe stay tuned]]...
* StarCrossedLovers:
** Angel, vampire. Buffy, slayer thereof. Add that to his curse and its consequences if broken, and we have two crazy kids who aren't ever sorting it out.
** Also with Cordelia. The Powers themselves seem to enjoy interfering (literally, in one case) and stopping them from having a relationship. [[{{Recap/AngelS05E12YoureWelcome}} Their final episode together]] has them comment on this.
--->'''Cordelia:''' Do you ever wonder...do you ever think about [[{{Recap/AngelS03E22Tomorrow}} if we'd met up that night]] and had a chance to --\\
'''Angel:''' All the time.\\
'''Cordelia:''' Guess we missed our moment, huh?\\
'''Angel:''' Maybe we were meant to. Maybe people like us just don't get to...have that.\\
'''Cordelia:''' Angel, there ''are'' no people like us.
* StealthHiBye: He was fond of doing this in the first season, when he was simply the MysteriousProtector. He kept this power throughout ''Buffy'', and into [[Series/{{Angel}} his own series]], on one occasion vanishing out of the [[DangerTakesABackSeat back seat of a car]] with closed doors without seeming to open one. As such, [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] with increasing ferocity as the series went on. Hell the lampshade practically hung itself for a while there.
--->'''Xander:''' ''[referring to Angel, who has just exited stealthily]'' One of these days I'm going to put a ''bell'' on that guy!
-->'''Xander:''' Okay, that's ''it''. I'm putting a collar with a little bell around that guy.
** In the ''Angel'' episode "[[Recap/AngelS01E11Somnambulist Somnambulist]]", it's hinted that Angel doesn't teleport or use super speed, as it shows Kate looking around dumbfounded while the audience sees Angel is just walking away at a normal pace. There are many other examples on his own show where the audience can see Angel has just walked away while other characters clearly seem to think he's vanished. Angel and Connor have some sort of obfuscation, and they have much better reflexes than a normal human, but neither can cover significant distances faster than the human eye can see. Illyria and Glory had super-speed. (Technically, [[spoiler:Illyria slowed the world down, but since time is relative, depending on your point if view it's the same thing when they're moving quickly or you're moving slowly]].)
** In "[[Recap/AngelS02E16Epiphany Epiphany]]", Lyndsey runs Angel over with his car, then gets out and beats on him with a sledgehammer. He then retrieves a stake from his car... only for Angel to be right behind him and beat him up.
* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: PhotographicMemory, SuperReflexes, ultra-sensitive hearing and sense of smell in the later seasons. When you re-watch the earlier seasons, you can't help but notice countless situations where, in retrospect, they inexplicably fail to help him. Angel mentioned that he can't control his photographic memory; it just [[HandWave "kicks in on instinct"]].
* SuicideBySunlight: Attempted in "Amends", but he gets saved by a ChristmasMiracle.
* SympathyForTheDevil: He has the utmost respect for Daniel Holtz and feels genuine remorse for what he did, never condemning Holtz for what he does. That being said, Angel doesn't let that stop him from fighting Holtz when he begins targeting Angel's loved ones and friends for vengeance.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Despite some initial belligerence, Buffy can't help noting this after their first meeting. Though he's often dubbed Tall, Dark and Broody instead.
* TallDarkAndSnarky: He possessed a sense of humor despite his serious personality, usually in the form of dark sarcasm.
* TeamDad: Lampshaded early on, in which Angel addresses a bickering Cordelia and Wesley as "children."
* TeamKiller: Comes close to this in "Forgiving," nearly smothering Wesley in his hospital bed.
* TheTeetotaler: After a fashion. WordOfGod states that Angel's abstinence from human blood is a metaphor for this.
* ThickerThanWater: Like it or not, Darla is the closest thing to family he has. Even his team comes second. In the Season Four finale, Angel agrees to [[LaserGuidedAmnesia mind wipe]] his team (and, in fact, the world) [[spoiler:in exchange for saving Connor's life]]. Wesley is rightly steamed when he uncovers this.
* ThinkNothingOfIt: Much-ridiculed by Spike, who sees it as a cheap act to impress women.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: In Season 3, Wesley's actions lead to baby Connor being sent to a hell dimension with Holtz, albeit because Sahjhan had tricked him with a fake prophecy that claimed Angel would eventually kill Connor. Regardless, Angel is ''not'' happy with Wesley and tries to smother him with a pillow at the hospital, only to be stopped by Gunn and some orderlies and dragged away. All the while, Angel is screaming like a lunatic, angrily ranting that, regardless of Wesley's reasons for taking Connor, he will ''never'' forgive him for doing it.
-->'''Angel:''' You'd think I'd forgive you?! ''[[BigNever NEVER]]!!''
* ThisMeansWar: Throughout Season 1 of his own show, Kate Lockley, initially his FriendOnTheForce, finds herself unable to cope with discovering the existence of vampires and demons, and this spirals into hatred of all supernatural creatures, especially vampires, when her father is killed by them, taking her anger and inability to cope with the BrokenMasquerade on Angel. This climaxes in "To Shanshu in L.A.", when she stops him after Wolfram & Hart blow up his office and land Wesley in the hospital, and starts sniping at him again when he refuses to remain behind for questioning. With both Cordelia and Wesley in the hospital, Angel is in absolutely no mood to put up with Kate's bitchiness and informs her as such, telling her that if she ''really'' wants to be his enemy, he's happy to oblige.
* ToHellAndBack: Not only did he get paroled from Hell, he was willing to travel ''back'' into it and take out the Senior Partners.
* TokenHeroicOrc: Until Spike's HeelFaceTurn, he's the only real heroic vampire in existence; all other vampires are explicitly described as AlwaysChaoticEvil.
* TookALevelInCheerfulness: On ''Buffy'', he was brooding, enigmatic and intense, though like the rest of the cast he had a snarky side. On ''Angel'', he mellowed out considerably and became a lot more chipper, though his seriousness still came through.
* TookALevelInIdealism: He became a lot more upbeat and humorous in his own show, especially when he became a father.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In ''Angel'' Season 2. He gets over it in the appropriately titled "Epiphany."
* TranquilFury: Uses it quite a bit. In "Forgiving", Angel calmly talks to Wesley, explaining that he knows why he took Connor, but wants Wesley to understand that he would never harm Connor, and asking him to understand that he's talking to Angel, not Angelus. Wesley nods in understanding, and Angel says, "Good"... before completely dropping said TranquilFury in favor of UnstoppableRage, nearly killing Wes with a VorpalPillow while screaming that he'll never forgive Wesley for taking Connor.
* TroubledButCute: He's MrFanservice and his default status is angst.
* UndeadTaxExemption: He has a driver's license, and successfully rents property in L.A. It's been lampshaded more than once; Kate Lockley points out to him that ''real'' detectives have licenses and surnames, and Gavin Park realizes at one point that they can shut Angel Investigations down by simply informing the government of Angel's ID issues (of course, soon after he does so, Lilah gives Angel all the documents he needs just to spite him).
* UnexplainedRecovery: It's never officially explained ''how'' he managed to escape from Acathla's hell dimension in ''Buffy'' season 3; even years later, by the time of ''Angel'' season 5, Angel himself doesn't know. While the First Evil claims to have been the one who busted him out, knowing [[{{Troll}} its personality]], it may very well have been lying.
* UniquenessDecay: His famed status as the singular "Vampire with a Soul" gets hit with this when Spike is re-ensouled at the end of Season 6 of ''Buffy''. It's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] several times afterwards, with Angel whining that ''he'' started the whole "having a soul" thing in the ''Buffy'' series finale and Spike (upon first showing up in Season 5 of ''Angel'') rubbing it in that Angel didn't share the news of Spike's accomplishment with his team because it made him feel less special. It's to the point where people start questioning if Angel is even the actual subject of the Shanshu Prophecy, since the text described a "Vampire with a Soul" without labeling Angel by name.
-->'''Wesley''': Did you just say...Spike has a soul? You never said.
-->'''Angel''': Didn't seem worth mentioning.
-->'''Gunn''': Seems to be a lot of that.
-->'''Spike''': Or maybe [[TheNicknamer Captain Forehead]] was feeling a little less special. Didn't like me crashing his exclusive club. Another vampire with a soul in the world!
* UptightLovesWild: His blossoming feelings toward Cordy - Cordy's relatively wild, Angel is exceptionally tightly wound.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Wolfram & Hart's stated mission of bringing Angel to their side. Sound pretty far-fetched? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...
* VampireDetective: Once he starts up Angel Investigations, he is a vampire taking cases.
* VampireRefugee: It's pointed out to him early on that he must do this out of necessity. Even if you're a fighter against evil, you can't afford to isolate yourself from the people you're trying to protect as you'll eventually stop caring and revert back to a monster. Angel thus gathers his RagtagBunchOfMisfits so he'll have some FireForgedFriends keeping him grounded.
* VegetarianVampire: Exclusively drinks [[MessyPig pig's blood]], which turns off some people. [[note]]Especially if you do the whole kosher thing.[[/note]] As Wolfram and Hart's CEO, he can afford to keep himself in otter blood.
* VillainousBSOD: Angel's curse was designed to invoked this by returning his soul and crushing him with guilt.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Spike. They constantly bicker and state on more than one occasion that they hate each other, but are shown on other occasions to have some kind of affection for each other. In "School Hard," Spike seems genuinely happy to see Angel (posing as Angelus) and even ''hugs'' him. In Season 5 of ''Angel'', the two bicker near-constantly but do end up fighting alongside each other throughout the year to the point where Spike joins Angel's plan for the last stand against Wolfram & Hart in the series finale. It continues in the comics, where the two often get on each other's nerves (especially where Buffy is involved) but also always support each other when it comes time to face evil.
* WarriorPoet: Angel gives Buffy a copy of ''Literature/SonnetsFromThePortuguese'' for her eighteenth birthday. The moment highlights their MayflyDecemberRomance, as PopCulturedBadass Buffy has trouble appreciating the gift.
* WeCanRuleTogether: The protracted war between Angel Investigations and Wolfram & Hart LLC comes to an apparent close in [=A4=], when the firm suffers huge losses at the hands of Jasmine and her pet Beast. The firm magically rematerialized with a new office building, but with a worker shortage: Impressed by Angel's ingenuity and ideas, they offer him an ever-increasing suitcase of money -- essentially corporate head-hunting -- until he finally caves and unilaterally merges his agency into the firm (admittedly to save his son). This leads us into [=S5=] where most of Angel's ideas for reform end up in the conference room wastebasket.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Everything he did as Twilight was apparently to prevent anything like the Fall of Los Angeles from ever happening again.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Unlike Buffy, who flatly refuses to kill humans as she believes they're out of the Slayer's jurisdiction except in the most dire of circumstances, Angel is perfectly capable of and willing to take a human life if he feels the need arises. Case in point: he kills Vanessa Brewer, an AxCrazy PsychoForHire with a DisabilitySuperpower who, thanks to Wolfram & Hart, constantly got off [[KarmaHoudini totally scot-free]] before then.
* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler:After he gets exposed as Twilight, everybody has this reaction to him, especially after it is revealed he was an UnwittingPawn to a evil dimension trying to end the world. After he gets possessed by the real Twilight and kills Giles and Buffy is forced to destroy the Seed of Wonder to stop the destruction of the world, the only ones willing to associate with Angel and not try to kill him are Buffy and Faith, and Buffy can't even ''look'' at him. Willow, however, has grown past this somewhat, but she still states that she hasn't forgiven him for his actions yet.]]
* WhenHeSmiles: [[{{Series/Firefly}} He makes everything]] [[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0zu6nxQOS1qaimf2o4_250.gif shiny]]. Cordelia even lampshades it:
-->'''Cordelia:''' And you ought to do that more often.\\
'''Angel:''' Buy you food?\\
'''Cordelia:''' Smile.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Angel would rather be mortal again.
* TheWorfEffect: If someone's going to get punched across the room by the latest big nasty, it will be the immortal, super-powered vampire.
* WorfHadTheFlu: His loss to Spike in Angel Season 5, despite besting him in all their other fights, could be attributed to his self doubt over working with Wolfram and Hart and thus not fighting as hard as Spike, who wasthe {{Determinator}} in trying to prove himself worthy of the Shanshu Prophecy.
* YouNeedToGetLaid: Constantly told to do so while constantly reminded that he can't, or rather, shouldn't. He's not an eunuch, but it would have worse results. In "Reprise", however, he crosses the DespairEventHorizon and tries to shed his soul by having sex with Darla, only to have an [[EpiphanyTheory epiphany]].
* YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry: Inverted. You really wouldn't like Angel when he's happy.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes related to Angelus]]

* AndIMustScream:
** This is implied to be his existence whenever Angel is in charge:
-->'''Beastmaster''': This isn't the way, my sweet. We should be friends, you and I.
-->'''Angelus''': No, and I'll tell you why. One, because, you know, I'm evil, so the friends thing, that's out. And two, if I did have any friends, they sure as hell wouldn't be living inside my head.
-->'''Beastmaster''': Like you're forced to live inside Angel's? Because you're the voice in there, aren't you? Just beneath the surface, buried under all that goodness, fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on your desires. So thirsty, so helpless...it must be agony.
** This is expanded upon in "Orpheus" in which he and Faith tour through his and Angel's memories and expresses how much Angel's good deeds disgust him and how angry he feels at not being able to exert control over their shared body.
* AndYourLittleDogToo:
** He meant ''real'' dogs.
--->'''Buffy:''' Skip it. I don't have a puppy, so skip it.
** Giles' profile on Angelus suggests that he will lash out at everything that made him feel human. Buffy tops the list.
* AppropriatedAppellation: He took his vampire name from his sister, who mistook her resurrected older brother for an angel.
* AxCrazy: Angelus' first thought when told he could kill anyone he wanted was that he wanted to kill everyone in his hometown, and in the Season 2 final of ''Buffy'', he decides to try and suck the entire world into a hell dimension [[{{Pun}} just for the hell of it]].
* BeyondRedemption: In Season 2, when Angel loses his soul and becomes [[JekyllAndHyde Angelus]], Buffy and the Scoobies are initially focused on finding a way to restore said soul. Then comes "Passion", when Angelus [[DeadSerious kills Jenny Calendar]]; Xander cites this as evidence that Angelus is a monster who needs to be staked, and Buffy agrees, remarking that she's finally ready to slay him after the fact.
-->'''Buffy''': I can't hold onto the past anymore. Angel is gone. [[DramaticIrony Nothing's ever gonna bring him back]].
* BigBad: For Season 2 of ''Buffy''. He also took over the role for a short while in Angel's fourth season after [[KlingonPromotion killing The Beast]], until he was re-ensouled again by Willow.
* BlasphemousBoast: Part of Angelus's M.O. at one point was to carve the image of a crucifix into his victims' left cheek so as to spite God.
* BondVillainStupidity:
** Angelus prefers toying with his victims psychologically and tormenting them as opposed to actually killing them; throughout Season 2, [[PragmaticVillainy Spike]] repeatedly criticizes him for this and constantly urges him to just kill Buffy and be done with it before he does something to ''really'' piss her off. Spike proves right when Angelus kills Jenny Calendar, sending Giles on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that leads to their hideout being burned down and Angelus beaten senseless with a flaming baseball bat. It is also what convinces Buffy that Angelus must be stopped permanently.
** In his fight with Wesley and Faith in "Release", Angelus spends more time toying with them and when he finally decides to kill Faith, he does so by biting her and drinking her blood... which is exactly what she wanted him to since she had injected herself with the Orpheus drug which put her and Angelus in a comatose state.
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Notably averted, especially in comparison to Spike; while Spike wasn't interested in his victims and thus doesn't remember most of them, Angelus lived for the suffering he could inflict and remembers all of his victims. [[InvertedTrope It's shown to be just as bad as the inverse would be]], since he only remembers his victims because he enjoys their torture ''that much''.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Angelus' M.O. A perfect example: near the end of Season 2 of Buffy, he captures Giles for information on how to awaken the demon Acathla and destroy the world, and openly admits that he hopes that Giles ''won't'' tell him what he needs to know willingly because he doesn't want to be deprived of the opportunity to torture someone.
* TheCorrupter: Spike specifically cites Angelus as his 'Yoda'. While Drusilla turned him, Angelus turned him into, arguably, the second most feared vampire in the West after Angelus himself.
* TheDreaded: Everyone's scared of Angelus, and for good reason; he's one of, if not ''the'' most dangerous vampires in the Buffyverse. Those around Angel have to live with the fact that, if just a few things go wrong, they might be facing "The Scourge of Europe", whose mere ''voice'' turns Cordelia into a whimpering, shaking mess. It's to the extent that Angel considers a willingness to kill him a very good quality in his allies and friends, should Angelus ever resurface.
* EnemyWithin: He is the vampire-without-a-soul aspect of Angel's personality. In the ''Angel & Faith'' comics, Drusilla remarks that Angelus is always there, whispering at the back of Angel's mind and tempting him to give in to his vampiric instincts.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Angelus is completely unable to understand why Angel does what he does or the "human condition," firmly believing that humans only exist to suffer and die. Similarly, in "Innocence," he boasts to Spike and Drusilla that he'll [[BreakTheCutie break Buffy overnight]]. He's wrong; after a brief HeroicBSOD, Buffy manages to pull herself together and stop his plan.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: In ''Buffy'' season 2, Angelus constantly wears [[EvilWearsBlack black]] [[HellBentForLeather leather pants]].
* EvilGloating: Angelus' FatalFlaw is this; he's constantly prone to bragging and excessive talking, often letting his opponents use the opportunity to either escape or fight back. Lampshaded:
-->'''Spike:''' You bloody well talk them to death before you kill them!
* EvilIsHammy: He uses those vampire teeth to chew all the scenery he can find. Particularly in his second appearance. Good lord, man, switch to decaf.
-->''"[[IncomingHam Uh-ohhh!]] [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter Vampire with a gun!]]"''
* EvilIsPetty: Angelus' primary motivation in ''Buffy'' season 2 is just to cause Buffy and her friends as much grief as possible because he's disgusted that Buffy made him feel human ("That's not the kinda thing you just forgive."). It isn't until Acathla enters the picture that he finally finds a concrete goal to work towards, and even ''that'' is centered around making people suffer just for the hell of it.
* FaceHeelTurn: Causes special problems during his tenure as BigBad, considering his intimate knowledge of all the Scoobies, not to mention [[ParanoiaFuel standing invitations to most of their homes]].
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: Angelus, "the demon with the angelic face". Not just a soulless killer, but one who takes a sadistic pleasure in the psychological torment of his victims.
* FameThroughInfamy: A big part of the reason Angelus does what he does. Motivated by his human self's [[WellDoneSonGuy daddy issues]], he's determined to prove his father wrong and that he ''can'' be something great: in this case, the most sadistic, brutal vampire in history.
* FatalFlaw: His narcissism and ego: he was prone to excessive talking, and his constant need to taunt his opponents or brag about his accomplishments when he had them on the ropes was often used against him by his victims, either to try to escape or fight back. Spike once remarked that Angelus "bloody well talk[ed] them to death before [he] kill[ed] them." For example, in his final battle with Buffy, Angelus defeated the slayer, but his excessive talking allowed her to regain herself and fight back, ultimately beating him. Similarly, when fighting Faith, he was shown to be superior in combat, but his taunts sent her into a rage that allowed her to beat him back, although he still managed to beat her when she let her guard down.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He can occasionally be shown with a seemingly friendly and understanding approach (much like as Angel). The fact that most of it isn't really genuine at all, not to mention that later on it could also be using people's memories of Angel to his advantage makes it all the more terrifying.
* {{Flanderization}}: As both shows progressed, he went from being Angel without a soul to an entirely separate entity Angel shared a body with. An evil split personality, one capable of having knowledge Angel didn't even though they were supposed to be a single mind, one whose actions depended on whether or not it had a conscience at the time. It often came off like Angelus was considerably smarter than Angel as well, despite sharing a brain.
* ForTheEvulz: ''Everything'' Angelus does is for the sake of sheer sadism and cruelty. He tortured Drusilla relentlessly, making her life a living hell and killing her family and then a church full of nuns the day she took her holy orders, and when he finally succeeded in driving her batshit insane, he turned her into a vampire so her suffering and madness would go on forever. In "Billy," Angel speculates that he was not affected by Billy Blim's power because, even as Angelus, he never hated his victims... he did everything for pure enjoyment.
* GollumMadeMeDoIt: On ''Angel'', Angelus is shown as a distinct personality, self-image, and memories of his own - though the latter was the result of a spell that affected Angel's memory of Angelus's experiences with the Beast. This is a slight departure from ''Buffy'', in which Angelus was just Angel with his RestrainingBolt removed.
* TheHedonist: A horrifying example - since Liam was a drunken hedonist in life and Vampires are by nature sadists, Angelus revels in the torture of his prey, both physical and mental.
* HellBentForLeather: Famous for his Leather Pants of Evil, which he never lived down.
* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler:Twice, in ''Angel'' season 4 and ''Buffy'' Season 8 as Twilight.]]
* InstantFanClub: His groupies in "Salvage", Karl and Paco.
* {{Jerkass}}: Angelus isn't just a pure evil psychopath, he's a major dick to boot. Special mention goes to his gleeful torment of Buffy immediately after losing his soul and flaunting his sexual relationship with Drusilla in front of Spike (along with his endless stream of [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain wheelchair-related gibes]] at Spike).
* KnightOfCerebus: The previous villains certainly weren't harmless, but ''[[Series/{{BuffyTheVampireSlayer}} Buffy]]'' became much darker once Angelus was unleashed.
* MadArtist: Angelus was very protective of his 'work', considering it art. Drusilla was what you might call an extended performance piece. This was a major contrasting (and contentious) point between Angelus and Spike; Angelus was a SerialKiller who revelled in the "artistry" of his kills, while Spike was just a BloodKnight who loved violence as an end in and of itself.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Angelus was always coiffed in the old days.
* ManipulativeBastard: He displayed considerable skill in manipulating others' emotional states, using psychological tactics to attack both the Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations both times when Angel lost his soul, though the most notable example was his driving Drusilla insane.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Any idiot can eat somebody. Angelus likes to make artistic statements with the bodies afterward. He infamously posed Jenny Calendar like a doll in Giles' bed (staging the scene to resemble a romantic interlude), and tricked a man into thinking his slain sons were still "asleep".
* OmnicidalManiac: Angelus' endgame in Season 2 of ''Buffy''. After spending most of the season just screwing with Buffy's head, when Acathla shows up, he decides to revive the demon in order to suck the entire world into Hell ForTheEvulz.
-->My friends, we're about to make history. End.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: It's hard for Boreanaz to maintain Angelus' Irish accent for more than half a minute. In fact, when Angel was mentally reverted to a teenager in "Spin the Bottle," they opted not to use the accent at all because there was no way Boreanaz could maintain it for an entire episode. They lampshaded this in the episode when Angel was confused by his Irish dialect not having an Irish accent.
* OpportunisticBastard: Angelus in Season 2 has no real plan beyond "screw with Buffy". It isn't until the last few episodes that Acathla arrives and gives him an actual goal to work towards, and even that falls into his general attitude of "[[ForTheEvulz I will be as big a dick as I can]]."
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain:
** His constant jibes at the wheelchair-bound Spike. He's got a million of 'em, ladies and gentlemen.
** When Angelus appears in Season 4 of Series/{{Angel}}, he uses the word "retarded" often.
* PowerPerversionPotential: Angelus mentions his superhearing picking up on Fred and Gunn having sex in an adjacent hotel room, and indulging in {{A Date with Rosie Palms}}.
* PsychoticSmirk: Angelus always wears one because he's basically Psycho!Angel.
* PureIsNotGood: In ''Buffy'' season 2, Spike and Drusilla unleash the Judge, a demon sent to destroy everyone that isn't pure evil. It's a pretty demanding requirement -- Spike and Drusilla themselves were vulnerable because of their love for each other, and their minion Dalton died because of his love for ''learning.'' The only one confirmed to be immune was the newly released Angelus.
-->'''The Judge:''' This one cannot be burned. He is clean.\\
'''Spike:''' "Clean"? You mean, he's...\\
'''The Judge:''' There's no humanity in him.\\
'''Angelus:''' I couldn't have said it better myself.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Among his many, many other crimes, Angelus also has a number of rapes to his name. During his re-emergence in Season 4 of ''Angel'', he explicitly threatens to rape Cordelia and Fred. To ''death''.
* {{Sadist}}: Angelus is renowned for being ''incredibly'' sadistic in his killings.
-->'''Angelus:''' I mean, the last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even ''have'' chainsaws!
* SelfMadeOrphan: "My parents were great. [[BaitAndSwitchComment Tasted a lot like chicken]]."
* SenseiForScoundrels: Angelus served as such for Spike. Spike even states that while Drusilla was the one who sired him, Angel was the one who ''actually'' made him a monster.
* SerialKiller: Unlike most vampires, Angelus didn't just kill for food or to raise other vampires, he went above and beyond, elaborately staging death scenes for both entertainment and [[MadArtist artistic]] value.
* TheSociopath: Angelus fits the criteria: he's brutally sadistic, violent, highly intelligent, manipulative, ruthless, and ''only'' cares about making people suffer. In the very episode where he first returns, "Innocence," the Judge, a demon with the power to incinerate any being who has humanity (more specifically human emotions) tried to fry him, only for Angelus to NoSell it; as stated by Giles, only "true creatures of evil" could survive the Judge's TouchOfDeath.
* StrawNihilist: Angelus, unlike [[TheAntiNihilist Angel]] considers humans to only exist so that they can suffer and die. [[{{Sadist}} Not that Angelus minds, of course]].
* StupidEvil: He can be guilty of some really moronic acts. Lashing out at allies and preferring torture ForTheEvulz instead of just killing those in his way is Tuesday for him. Killing the demon that would have allowed him to win for keeps, on the other hand, is just ChaoticStupid. A big part of ''Buffy'' Season 2 essentially centers on him going above and beyond to antagonize and torture Buffy and the Scoobies, blowing off multiple chances at killing them in favor of MindRape; Spike repeatedly [[PragmaticVillainy criticizes him]] for this, insisting that he just kill Buffy already before his BondVillainStupidity pisses her off and gives her ''real'' cause to come after them.
* SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum: Near the end of ''Buffy'' Season 2, he decides to awaken Acathla and destroy the world, with him in it. Why exactly is unclear.
* ThemeSerialKiller: As Angelus he was fond of making twisted little "valentines" for his victims, and was famous for his Valentine's Day "pranks". In Season 2, he does by [[spoiler: setting up a romantic getaway for Giles, supposedly from his love interest Jenny... whose dead body Rupert discovers waiting for him in the upstairs bedroom]].
* TermsOfEndangerment: Angelus calls Buffy "lover" and "Buff" numerous times, just to remind her how it happened.
* TortureForFunAndInformation: Why he captures Giles in "Becoming." Angelus brought him in to torture him for information on how to resurrect Acathla, but freely admits he ''hopes'' Giles resists because he doesn't want to be deprived of an opportunity to torture someone.
-->'''Angelus''': I wanna torture you. I used to love it, and it's been such a long time. I mean, the last time I tortured someone, they didn't even have chainsaws! [...] Acathla. He's an even harder guy to wake up than you are. I mean, I performed the rituals, said all the right phrases, blood on my hand. Got nothing. Big doughnut hole for my troubles. I figure you know the ritual. You're pretty up on these things. You could probably tell me what I'm doing wrong. But honestly, I sorta hope you don't...'Cause I '''really''' wanna torture you.
* UnholyMatrimony: With Darla. Cordelia compares them to an undead UsefulNotes/BonnieAndClyde.
* VilerNewVillain:
** Spike started as BigBad of ''Buffy'' Season 2, but by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil the standards of vampires]], he was not very evil. Although he was a real opponent for Buffy, and killed some humans, Angelus was worse. He showed from the outset a very cruel and sadistic behavior, and plotted to resurrect a demon that would suck the entire world into Hell for his own amusement.
** Discussed in ''Angel'' Season 4, when Angel's crew plan to remove Angel's soul and question Angelus about the Beast. While the Beast has already slaughtered all of Wolfram & Hart's L.A. branch and cast a spell to block out the sun, some of Angel's friends are against removing his soul, arguing that as bad as the Beast is, Angelus could very well be much worse.
* VillainCred: Even the Master held Angelus in high regard, intending to appoint him [[TheDragon Dragon]]. The Mayor was keen to have Angelus on his team, as well.
-->'''Nostoyev:''' Used to be quite the terror back in the day. Haven't heard much of you lately, though.\\
'''Angel:''' Haven't heard much of you, ''ever''.
* WeakButSkilled: As far as credible villains go, Angelus is not on the same scale as the ascended Mayor but he's a Master Vampire who has been in the game for over two hundred years and is powerful enough to stalemate Buffy, an unusually strong Slayer. His greatest asset, however, (aside from a meticulous brand of viciousness that would make ComicBook/TheJoker proud) is his inside knowledge of the Scoobies, which he uses to full effect.
* WhereIWasBornAndRazed: "I thought I'd take the village."
* WickedCultured: Angelus considers himself an [[MadArtist artist]], and declares destroying people physically and mentally to be artwork. He also has a liking for ballet, and Angel freely admits in "Waiting in the Wings" that when he first saw the ballet ''Giselle'' in 1890, it moved him to tears.
-->'''Angel:''' I cried like a baby. And I was ''evil''!

[[/folder]]
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* OohMeAccentsSlipping: It's hard for Boreanaz to maintain Angelus' Irish accent for more than half a minute. In fact, when Angel was mentally reverted to a teenager in "Spin the Bottle," they opted not to use the accent at all because there was no way Boreanaz could maintain it for an entire episode.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Among his many, many other crimes, Angelus also has a number of rapes to his name. During his re-emergence in Season 4 of ''Angel'', he explicitly threatens to rape Cordelia and Fred.

-->'''Spike''': Or maybe [TheNicknamer Captain Forehead] was feeling a little less special. Didn't like me crashing his exclusive club. Another vampire with a soul in the world!

* AMFMCharacterization: He's a huge Music/BarryManilow fan and has been known to sing "Mandy".

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' | ''Series/{{Angel}}''

-->''"For a hundred years, I offered an ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart."''

->'''Played By:''' Creator/DavidBoreanaz