Buffyverse: Angel Investigations / Characters

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In General

"Angel Investigations. We help the helpless."

-Cordelia Chase

The main characters of Angel.

Badass Crew: The best example of this trope in any Whedon show. Anyone who joins is guaranteed to develop into a badass within one season.
Badass Family: Not a blood-related family, but Angel has stated on more than one occasion that he considers them as such.
Badass Normal: Gunn, Fred and Wesley^note start working with Angel on his baddie-busting without similar powers to his own. This changes over time as they all learn how to fight against the (often superpowered) baddies they face, and Angel straight up acknowledges that by the end of the series, Gunn and Cordelia are almost as good as he and Spike are in a hands on fight.
Better as Friends: Cordelia and Wesley, whose smoldering UST when they met in Buffy the Vampire Slayer came to a head with their first kiss — which quickly became their very awkward and physically uncomfortable last kiss. Their friendship continued to grow in Angel, but they aren't above playfully making fun of each other over which one's the worse kisser when recounting the story for others.
Breaking the Fellowship:
- The team has more or less dissolved following Angel's actions as Twilight and subsequent relocation to London, with Gunn continuing to fight demons in LA as a solo act, Connor returning to college, Spike returning to the Scoobies, Nina marrying and leaving LA, Kate returning to the LAPD, and following Illyria's Heroic Sacrifice, a newly-revived Fred joining Angel and Faith in London.
- The Season 3 finale invokes this when Connor traps Angel at the bottom of the ocean, Cordelia is asked to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, Lorne heads out to Las Vegas to pursue a singing career, Groo leaves for parts unknown after realizing Cordelia is in love with Angel, and Wesley remains estranged from the group after his betrayal earlier in the season. By the end, Fred and Gunn are left alone, wondering where everyone is. This is gradually rectified over the course of Season 4.
Cultured Badass: Angel and Wes. Gunn starts dipping into this territory from "Waiting in the Wings" onwards.
Family of Choice: Angel refers to Cordelia was 'family' half-way through the first season; Cordelia was left behind by her own family after they were accused of tax evasion, Wesley was estranged from his parents for his failure as a Watcher, Gunn was an orphan living on the streets who had to kill his sister when she was turned into a vampire, Lorne was never close to his family in his original dimension, and Connor's problems are too numerous to list.
- Fred had a fairly normal home life before spending five years in another dimension, but she still bonded with the team.
Fire-Forged Friends: Pretty standard for the heroes, but Wesley and Gunn deserve special mention.
Gunn: Come on, English! You know you my man!
Angel: So, ah, I see you guys have bonded.
Gunn: Happens when you fight shoulder to shoulder.
Wesley: Or rather hip to shoulder these days.
Gunn: This man took a bullet for me!
Wesley: Ah, it was nothing!
Hardboiled Detective: They are certainly hardboiled, but it's lampshaded several times that they lack the skill set of real private detectives.
Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: This comes up 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 (but only to clients who can afford to pay; Angel Investigations is free for the homeless and really poor).
Heterosexual Life-Partners: Angelus and Spike were close friends at one point. When Angelus got a soul and became Angel they didn't see each other much for about a hundred years. Their mutual hatred of each other (and subsequent Ho Yay) was only escalated because they used to be this trope.
- Angel and Wesley, who bond immediately while trying to save Cordelia in Season 1. Even after Wesley dies at the end of Season 5, Wolfram & Heart try and use Wes to get to Angel because they recognize that he is Angel's "closest friend." It helps that Wesley is the greatest Badass Normal in the Buffyverse, and is thus quite capable of fighting beside Angel as an equal, like Spike, and is seen by Angelus as a genuine threat especially when allied with Faith in Season 4.
Knight in Sour Armor: All of the guys in the group express doubts about whether the world's worth fighting for (Angel, Wesley, and Spike most of all), but they all keep fighting regardless.
Like Brother and Sister:
- Cordelia and Wesley bicker and taunt each other mercilessly, but they are good friends, and are always there to defend each other in times of danger. If it weren't for the accent difference, they could almost be brother and sister.
- Cordelia and Angel were also like this for the first two seasons, which led to some viewers being displeased when their relationship changed to a romantic one from partway through the third.
Occult Detective: They're more occult vigilantes masquerading as a private detective agency.
Platonic Life-Partners: Wesley and Cordelia in the first few seasons. While initially attracted to each other when they first met in Sunnydale, they quickly discovered that they had no real romantic chemistry, agreed that they were better as friends, and parted on good terms. When they reconnect in LA and both start working for Angel, they develop a very strong but completely platonic bond. They bicker like siblings, but they always have each other backs in a fight, and they clearly adore each other.
Pop-Cultured Badass: Cordy is fond of pop-culture-related quips, Doyle was a fan of Angela's Ashes and The Flintstones (combining the two in a tragically off-screen drunken ramble), Wesley and Gunn trade movie-related quips (facing an army of demons, they share a moment over which action hero they're trying to think of themselves as), Lorne and Spike both spit out pop-culture references like it's going out of style, and even Angel is a big fan of Charlton Heston and Barry Manilow, and has seen enough vampire movies to judge the performances (Frank Langella's Dracula is apparently his favourite).
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The team consists of a brooding vampire, an upbeat California girl, a sardonic Irish demon, an English ex-watcher turned rogue demon hunter, an ex-gangbanger, a talkative Texas girl who spent five years imprisoned in another dimension and a green-skinned demon who loves showtunes. And that's just the core group, as others have acted as GuestStarPartyMembers, like Darla, Harmony, Willow, Faith, and Connor, among others.
Sole Survivor: Angel's the only member of the original group still alive (well, undead).
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The entire fourth season, with one exception — that brief period when they were all mind controlled into working together. The depths of distrust, resentment, and betrayal spread through the team meant that imminent apocalypse was pretty much the only thing that could get them in the same room, save for a few select pairings between them, such as Angel and Fred. This was especially noticeable between Gunn and Wesley, due to the latter's betrayal over the Connor affair and his interest in Fred. Furthermore, when pressed, Gunn confesses he can never be friends with Angel, his natural enemy. In Season 5 this happens between Angel and Spike, usually Played for Laughs.
The Team Normal: The series had a rather interesting relationship with this trope. At the beginning, the main cast are a trio consisting of: Angel, a centuries-old vampire; Doyle, a half demon with precognition; and Cordelia, who initially doesn't have powers or combat training. Midway through season 1, Doyle passes on his precognitive powers to Cordelia before making a Heroic Sacrifice, and the role of team normal is filled by Wesley, a Watcher from Buffy's show. Later on, Gunn, a demon hunter with no powers, and Fred, a physicist and inventor, are added to the group raising the number of normal humans on the good guys side to three. By the end of the series, Cordelia, Wesley, and Fred are dead, and Spike (another vampire) and Illyria (an Old One) have joined the team leaving Gunn as the only normal human among the main cast.
True Companions: Angel even describes them as family more than once.
Vitriolic Best Buds:
- Wes and Cordy spend their time snarking at each other in a very sibling-esque manner.
- Angel and Spike have very strong elements of this throughout their complicated hundred year old shared history. They are constantly fighting, whether it be over the smallest of things to the more serious issues, and are shown to find a lot of delight in watching the other experience (non-serious) injury. Yet by the end of Season 5, it's very clear that they care about each other a lot: They reminisce fondly over some of the better memories from their past, Angel reacts with horror when he watches Spike die (and "sacrifices" himself without thinking when the scene plays out again), a telepathic demon reveals that Spike thinks of Angel as an older brother, and they show mutual respect for each other during their final days. Angel has also been shown to feel a lot of remorse and responsibility for making Spike a monster.

Current Members

Angel

Charles Gunn

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0fcb3ff3ddf5bf571ec611ef807e465c.jpg

"Notice no matter how uptown we go we always wind up at some stanky hole in the middle of the night?"

"The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you grease, that last shot always comes up a question mark. But here's the thing, you never know when you're takin' it. It could be when your duking it out with the legion of doom, or just crossin' the street deciding where to have brunch. So you just treat it all like it was up to you, with the world in the balance, cause you never know when it is."

Orphaned at a young age, Gunn finds himself living on the streets of LA and fighting vampires to survive, eventually forming his own crew of youths from similar backgrounds. After Angel helps the crew out in a turf war against a gang of vampires, Gunn in turn helps Angel and co. in a number of situations, slowly moving away from the streets and becoming a part of Angel Investigations. Street-wise and an accomplished fighter, Gunn nevertheless harbours insecurities that he is nothing more than 'dumb muscle.'

And Then John Was a Zombie: Transformed into a vampire sometime between the TV series finale and After the Fall. A Reset Button Ending restores Gunn to human form - but he retains the memories of the murders he committed as a vampire.
"Angry Black Man" Stereotype: Played straight and subverted. While he can have his angry moments there is a fantastic scene when he helps Angel break into Wolfram and Hart:
Gunn: Whoo-whoo! My god! They told me it was true, but I didn't believe them. Damn, here it is! Evil white folks really do have a Mecca. [holds up a hand to the security guards stepping out from behind their desk] [...] OW! Did you just step on my foot? [the nearest guard is still at least 8 feet away from him] Is that my foot you just stepped on? Are you assaulting me - up in this haven of justice? Somebody get me a lawyer - because my civil rights have seriously been violated. - Oh, I get it, I get it. You all can cater to the demon, cater to the dead man, but what about the black man?
- Gets turned up to eleven in "Spin the Bottle". Teen!Gunn was REALLY militant.
- Most of the time, he's more concerned with fighting vamps than sticking it to the man.
Awesome McCoolname: Even Faith agrees that he's got an awesome name.
Badass Normal: He's a normal human with no supernatural abilities, but he had strength and street fighting expertise due to his years as a vampire hunter, often being described as "the muscle" of Angel Investigations; Angel has even stated once that Gunn could conceivably defeat him in a fight if he was angry enough (Although even when Angel was human and Gunn a vampire Gunn still only managed to defeat Angel in a straight fight — discounting when Gunn sabotaged the charms Angel was using to heal his injuries as he had an unfair advantage — when Angel wanted to lose).
Bald of Authority: Is bald and was the leader of his own gang before joining Angel Investigations. This is later subverted when he grows his hair out further along in the show, though this doesn't stick, transforming into a Bald of Evil when he goes bald after becoming an evil vampire in the comics.
"Heh, what'd you think, I was prematurely bald? (beat) I wasn't."
The Big Guy: Both he and Fred refer to himself as "the muscle" in a few episodes.
Black and Nerdy: He references Daredevil #181 as part of a Perp Sweating and later name-drops several versions of The Flash. He has also been seen playing on a Game Boy Color on occasion.
Child Soldier: He mentions that he's been fighting vampires since he was twelve. That's three years younger than Buffy when she became the Slayer.
Clothing Reflects Personality: He originally dressed casually, usually in hooded coats. Following his mental upgrade, he shed his street look for the sleek, professional suits of a legal powerhouse. Following Fred's demise, he came full circle, returning to his roots, taking back his street clothes, and reawakening his purpose as a soldier in the fight against evil. As a vampire and leader of his own crew, he took credit for coordinating the team's outfits.
Deal with the Devil:
- Sold his soul for a truck. Yep. And there were still strings attached.
- Repeated with his brain upgrade.
Defends Against Their Own Kind: After joining Angel's investigative team, Gunn finds himself having to defend vampire Angel and demon Lorne against his former Vampire Hunting team.
Despair Event Horizon: Crossed it at age 17, to the extent that he sold his soul to the demon Jenoff for a truck, believing that he had nothing to live for; at that time, Gunn was maybe a notch above homeless, in a city where the homeless are basically a vampire buffet:
Jenoff: You will sell your future in exchange for present happiness?
Gunn: What future?
Dumb Muscle: Fears being this, but it's mostly unfounded. Gunn's insecurity about his intelligence ends up having dire consequences in Season 5.
The Everyman: Like Xander, he stood out as the normal, grounded member of his team amidst the immortal and super-powered people.
Expository Hairstyle Change: Originally bald, he grew a short layer of hair once he got his lawyer smarts. It was not mentioned by a character until more than halfway through the season (shortly after which, ironically, Gunn returned to his original cut after the cost of keeping his new knowledge resulted in him unwittingly taking part in a conspiracy that led to the death of Fred).
Face Death with Dignity: In Season 3's "Double or Nothing", he willingly goes to Jenoff to pay back his end of the Deal with the Devil of his own free will; Jenoff even lampshades this, remarking that most of the other people who owe him have to be forcibly dragged back by his mooks.
Fantastic Racism: At first, he's biased against vampires and demons alike, though that dies down over time. Even then, some of it remains. He states in "That Old Gang of Mine" that he can't just change his black-and-white views on the supernatural just like that, and he doesn't truly trust Angel or consider himself Angel's friend because he's a vampire; despite this, he knows and accepts that he and Angel are on the same side.
"Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: In the last season.
Genius Bruiser: Even before his "brain-boost", Gunn showed himself to be extremely cunning, savvy and perceptive, sometimes bordering analytical. Perhaps the best example is in "Dear Boy" where he is the first to deduce that the only way Angel could have gotten into the house to kill Darla's "husband" would be if the original owners were already dead or if she invited him in.
Good is Not Nice: He's a hero and a good guy at heart, but he isn't very friendly or affable especially to strangers.
He Cleans Up Nicely: As part of his legal upgrade, he wears a smart suit. Joss Whedon claimed that this was partly because J. August Richards looked good in a suit.
He's Back!: In Season 5, he spends most of the season as the head of Wolfram & Hart's legal division. By the time of "Underneath", he goes back to his roots, wearing his street clothes and shaving his head again.
Hero of Another Story: Before he joined the cast proper.
Hot-Blooded: Gunn is passionate, reckless and easily riled up at times.
I Just Want to Be Special: Angel suspects that Gunn's neural implant is corrupting him. He's half-right; it's not the implant that destroys Gunn, but the fear of losing it.
If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: In "Supersymmetry", he argues against Fred killing Professor Seidel even after finding out he was responsible for banishing her to Pylea in the first place for this reason, believing that such a brutal act would ultimately destroy her. In the end, Gunn does it himself, snapping Seidel's neck before dropping him into a portal to a hell dimension Fred had opened up as poetic justice.
Ineffectual Loner: Although he liked to give the impression of a gruff loner, he valued his friendships and showed a sensitive side in his relationship with Fred. However, he was also plagued with insecurities regarding his role in the team, and began to resent being considered "the muscle".
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gunn is fairly brusque, rude, and harsh but he is a friendly, nice guy to his friends and is always willing to help others.
Justified Criminal: Before the show begins, Gunn has formulated a gang of homeless youths who swipe food and defend their ghetto from intruding vampires.
Last-Name Basis: Only Fred calls him "Charles." Others address him by that name during serious moments. Though Spike does call him "Charlie boy" once or twice.
Let Me Get This Straight...: As befitting him being a Deadpan Snarker, he does this a lot.
Men Are Uncultured: Gets dragged kicking and screaming to the ballet...then discovers he absolutely adores it. Meanwhile, Cordelia is snoring.
- As part of his legal upgrade, Gunn has complete mastery of Gilbert and Sullivan (to help with diction).
  (grumpily) "I was cool before I met y'all."
Mundane Wish: As revealed in "Double or Nothing," he sold his soul to Jenoff in exchange for the pickup truck he uses to fight vampires; as established, Gunn was young and thought he had no future.
My God, What Have I Done?: When he realizes that the form he signed in exchange for the return of his brain upgrade gave entry to Illyria's sarcophagus, which ultimately killed Fred.
Neural Implanting: In Season 5, Wolfram & Hart implants him with absolute knowledge of human and demon legal codes and fluency in some demon languages, as well as knowledge of golf techniques and complete mastery of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In exchange for the return of his legal upgrade, he signs a Customs release form to have an object shipped to Wolfram & Hart. Said object turns out to be Illyria's sarcophagus, which tragically leads to Fred's death.
Non-Indicative Name: Uses a gun maybe once in the entire run of the series (pistols were more Wesley's thing).
Pop-Cultured Badass: Like Xander, he often displayed a detailed knowledge regarding comic books.
Promotion to Parent: He took care of his little sister from a very young age.
Put on a Bus: He remained in LA after Angel departed for London, and has consequently not joined the cast of the Angel & Faith comic, aside from a brief reappearance in Season 9.
Scars Are Forever: Gunn from the Skipverse has a prominent facial scar.
Scary Black Man: The leader of a Vampire-killing street gang, who turns into someone even his Vampire boss considers "The Big Guy", though most of the time he's friendly and loveable.
Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum!: Instantly upgraded to über-lawyer thanks for Wolfram & Hart's surgeon. The procedure makes him an expert on human and demonic law within a few hours.
Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: At first he's the Manly Man to Wesley's Sensitive Guy but as the show goes on this is played with. Gunn turns out to have Hidden Depths and later gets a brain upgrade to become smarter, while Wesley takes a level in badass and soon becomes every bit the formidable fighter that Gunn is.
Sharp-Dressed Man: After getting his brain upgrade — he stops wearing the suit after discovering what the upgrade cost him.
Street Smart: Due to literally growing up on the streets.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When pressed, Gunn confesses he can never be friends with Angel, his natural enemy. Also with Wesley in Season 4, due to Wesley's betrayal over the Connor affair and his interest in Fred.
Token Minority: The only black person in Angel's team and the most prominent non-white character in either show.
Took a Level in Badass: The reverse of Wesley. While Wesley becomes a tougher and more capable combatant, Gunn, already a Badass Normal, takes the reverse; thanks to a Wolfram & Hart brain operation his head is filled with the knowledge of all laws, demonic and human (and the complete works of Gilbert and Sullivan). He becomes a point man in a tense demonic negotiation, not to mention heightened deductive abilities.
Took a Level in Idealism: He was so convinced that he had nothing to live for that he sold his soul for a truck and believed that he would die young. Joining Angel Investigations gave him something worth living and fighting for
Vigilante Man: In his youth, he acted as a kind of urban Robin Hood to keep the streets in his neighborhood safe. In his teens, Gunn rose through the ranks to become the leader of a gang of street-fighters who protect their turf from vampires using guerrilla tactics.
The Watson: Gunn and Fred juggle between this role, with Gunn showing irritation whenever he meets another vampire he's not allowed to kill.
What a Piece of Junk: His pickup truck. "Don't you be dissin' my girl!"
Fred: Oh, Charles. Your soul wasn't worth air conditioning?
What Measure Is a Mook?: In Season 5, Gunn, losing his legal upgrade, makes a deal with Dr. Sparrow to permanently improve it in exchange for improving it, by signing a Customs release form to get something out of it. That something turns out to be Illyria's sarcophagus; her essence escapes and infects Fred, killing her and turning her body into Illyria's avatar. In the next episode, when he's found out by Wesley, Gunn confesses that he was fully prepared for something terrible to happen in exchange for Sparrow fixing the upgrade... as long as it wasn't to anyone he knew.
Gunn: I didn't think it'd be one of us. I didn't think it'd be Fred.
Where da White Women At?: Has a brief (but very satisfactory) dalliance with Gwen Raiden, who's been known to refer to him as "Denzel".
Working-Class Hero: Unlike his colleagues, he has a poor background. He was born in the Badlands, a section of inner-city Los Angeles where the police would not go and led a gang of vampire hunters.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Why Did It Have To Be Rats?

Fred

Winifred "Fred" Burkle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9035a295f8014df82d00fce1df81255e.jpg

"Can I say somethin' about destiny? Screw destiny!"

Played By: Amy Acker

"Handsome man saved me from the monsters."

Fred was attending college in Los Angeles when she was sucked into a portal and ended up in a demon dimension where humans are slaves. She's there for five years and rather insane before Angel and crew rescue her. Staying with them, she slowly re-adapts to life and becomes a valued member of the team, her incredible intelligence causing her to serve as the brains of the outfit.

Action Girl: She gradually becomes this, proving herself time and time again in combat situations with all kinds of weaponry. She's also skilled in unarmed combat and is good enough to take down trained security guards and even military personnel.
A-Cup Angst: Fred is mildly annoyed that she doesn't have much in the way of boobage, as seen when the gang regress to their teenage selves.
Cordelia: I kind of have filled out even more.
Fred: And I [looks down, disappointed] apparently ain't gonna.
All-Loving Hero: Caring and compassionate, most notably her interactions with Spike. When he confided in her that he was being slowly dragged into Hell, Fred worked tirelessly to build a machine that would restore his corporeal body. She was the first to believe that Spike was "worth saving" and though her efforts ultimately failed, she nonetheless earned Spike's perpetual gratitude.
Ambiguously Bi: She gushes over Willow to the point where Willow feels the need to tell her she's already seeing someone.
AM/FM Characterization: Being a Texas native, she's a fan of the Dixie Chicks. She has a poster in her lab and invites Harmony to catch a show.
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: "I swear I don't know how you all put up with me. I practically need flashcards to understand my-pretty crystals. Oh, look. They're everywhere".
Back from the Dead: In the Angel and Faith comic. It's explained as a side effect of Illyria's resurrection, with the two of them now co-inhibating Fred's body.
Badass Adorable: Fred is cute as a button. She's also capable of taking down super-powered teenagers, frying demon eggs with a flamethrower, and single-handedly breaking Jasmine's hold on Angel and setting off the chain of events that ends her regime.
Badass Bookworm: Her scientific genius is a big part of what makes Fred an asset to Team Angel.
Badass Normal: She acquired some moderate fighting skills, mainly using a crossbow as a weapon, but even sword and gun. Later, when Jasmine took over Los Angeles, she was forced to face down all of Los Angeles on her own and was also able to hold her own unarmed, taking out a few armed Jasmaniacs, including one armed SWAT member.
Because You Were Nice to Me: She's loyal to Angel because he saved her life and was kind to her when she returned to her home dimension.
Beware the Nice Ones: Just as she was willing to help others, she was also fairly vengeful against those who threatened her or her friends. When she and Gunn realized that Connor was responsible for Angel's three month disappearance, Fred berated him while repeatedly hitting him with a stun gun. Another example was when Fred pursued revenge against Professor Seidel, an act which nearly came to fruition, if not for Gunn's intervention.
Beware the Quiet Ones: Cordelia lampshades this in "That Old Gang of Mine", when Fred wrests control of a hostage situation from a violent killer with aid of a crossbow.
Big Eater: Fred is perfectly capable of eating her own body weight in waffles without gaining a single pound.
Bored with Insanity: She spends most of early Season 3 crazy and a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander, though she eventually recovers.
Brainy Brunette: Fred has long, wavy brown hair, was a physics student, and is The Smart Guy of Angel Investigations. She also becomes the head of Wolfram & Hart's Science Division.
Came Back Strong: In a sense: when she is revived in Season 10, she brings Illyria with her, who can take over her body when Fred is under stress and is a Physical God. She also is implied to now be immortal, as she carries the very immortal Illyria in her.
Cloudcuckoolander: When she first returns from Pylea, her sanity is not in the best condition due to the years of trauma she's endured.
Cordelia: What's not to like? She's sweet and adorable and seems to be laughing at something that shrub said.
Cool Big Sis: Tries to act as one to Connor. It works when he's in a good mood and she's not torturing him for going after Angel.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Hollowed out and turned into a shell for a gestating demon. All of her internal organs slowly and painfully liquify, including her brain.
Cunning Linguist: During her time in the demon dimension Pylea, Fred managed to learn their native language, and could speak to Lorne in his native language with remarkable fluency, although Lorne remarked that she was still not completely fluent.
Cute and Psycho: These tendencies are never completely gone — just dormant.
Curiosity Killed the Cast: If she hadn't gotten so curious over Illyria's sarcophagus, she'd still be alive.
Deader than Dead: In "Shells," it's stated that Fred's soul was consumed by "the fires of resurrection" when Illyria possessed her body, meaning she's not only dead, but denied Heaven. Subverted come the Season 10 comics, where the new Seed of Wonder also resurrects her.
Dude Magnet: She's had at least a little Ship Tease with Angel, Spike, Connor, and Knox, in addition to her official love interests Gunn and Wes; in other words, almost every male cast member plus one (and also Willow). Only Lorne seems to be immune to her charms.
Face Death with Dignity: Subverted with her death in "A Hole in the World." She tries to do this, as Illyria's infection progresses through her body, but it's obvious she's terrified and in pain as she goes.
Former Teen Rebel: When the gang reverts to their teen selves, she repeatedly mentions wanting to score some weed.
Geeky Turn-On: You have no idea.
Fred: My family used to go to The Nutcracker every Christmas, and I had my first sexual dream about the Mouse King!
Gibbering Genius: Though she's good-natured enough to backpedal a bit in her speeches. Even when describing how she's about to kill someone!
Girl with Psycho Weapon: The writers seemed to be competing with each other to see what loony item Fred holds next. Crossbow? Automatic scythe trap? Sniper rifle? Flamethrower?
Fred: The halberd could work. Acting like I'm all addle-brained talking about other dimensions. (mocking) Pylea? Never heard of it! (angry) Right. 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.
Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Feigenbaum, the "Master of Chaos"!
Good Parents: Who doesn't love Roger and Trish? She herself also acts as one to Connor while Angel and Cordy are imprisoned by him and become a Higher Power, respectively.
Good with Numbers: Which once almost resulted in her brain being stolen.
The Heart: Especially after Cordelia is put in a coma, Fred holds the crew together emotionally. It... eventually breaks her Stepford Smiler facade.
Hot Librarian: She has this look down pat, particularly when she dons the glasses. It helps that she was an actual librarian.
Iconic Sequel Character: One of the main characters, but doesn't appear until the last four episodes of season 2.
Improbable Aiming Skills: Downplayed, but her shooting skills were enough that she was able to shoot Angel through Jasmine. She's also been pretty handy with a crossbow in other appearances, but this takes the cake.
The Ingenue: At least initially once she returns to Earth, she hides out in her bedroom and seems to process Los Angeles with a sense of a child seeing things for the first time. She eventually gets better.
Kill the Cutie: The sweetest, most innocent member of Team Angel meets a horrifying end as she's hollowed out and possessed by an ancient god-king.
Like Brother and Sister: She and Angel notably have this dynamic, which is unique to everyone else in the Fang Gang - Fred looks at Angel as being like a protective, physically strong older brother, while Angel sees Fred as a reliable younger sister who he knows he can count on in both research and a fight.
Living Bodysuit: When she's taken over by an inter-dimensional slug in "The Price" and later when Illyria takes her body.
Minored in Ass-Kicking: She's an Omnidisciplinary Scientist first and foremost, but she can kick ass in a fight if she needs to.
Mr. Fixit: She's skilled at building and rigging up machines - this skill has saved her life more than once.
Naughty by Night: According to Angelus, anyway.
Angelus: Ah, Fred. You look all fresh and sweet, but I hear you at night in your room with Gunn. The things you say. I'm lying there, listening, hands under the covers... I can't help myself. It's so... gripping.
Never Gets Fat: She has a huge appetite for junk food while always remaining a tiny skinny waif.
Nice Girl: A fairly kindhearted and sweet individual, perfectly willing to help others. Best shown in Season 3; after Wesley kidnaps Connor and loses him to Holtz, Fred is the only member of the team who offers him sympathy or is willing to understand his side of the story.
No Social Skills: At least when we first meet her. She did live in Pylea for a few years, after all.
Omnidisciplinary Scientist: She's a physicist by trade; she just happens to also be good at anything else. In Season 5, she is elevated to The Coroner, because why not?
Robinsonade: "I've been trying to make an enchilada out of tree bark."
Room Full of Crazy: The astrophysics formulas on her cave wall, and later hotel room. Lampshaded ever-after by Gunn and Wes, who never quite let Fred live it down.
Sanity Strengthening: When she first comes back from Pylea, she's a bit of an unhinged Cloudcuckoolander. Over the course of Season 3, she recovered, though she still has some Cute and Psycho tendencies.
Ship Tease: She had a schoolgirl-crush on Angel when he first rescued her, but that faded as her sanity readjusted itself. There were some sparks between her and Spike as well, but nothing came of it.
Shrinking Violet: Initially, thanks to living in Pylea and still finding her footing in the human world. She gets over it after reuniting with her parents.
The Smart Guy: As Wesley put it, she's smarter than all of Team Angel put together.
Southern-Fried Genius: An Omnidisciplinary Scientist from Texas, complete with the occasional Southern twang when she starts talking science.
Stepford Smiler: Cheery is her default mode, but after 5 years in Hell, her friends falling apart and all the responsibilities falling on her... she starts to break apart until she snaps in "Ground State" when Gunn almost dies and again in "Supersymmetry" when she finds the one responsible for her 5 years in Hell. She decides as soon as she finds out that he has to die.
The Stoner: When she's reverted to her teenage years in "Spin the Bottle", she spends most of her time trying to find weed. Joss Whedon refers to her teenage self in the DVD commentary as a "low-key D&D stoner".
Team Mom: After Cordelia and Angel go missing. She more or less stays in this role until she dies. She later reclaims it when she's resurrected in Magic Town in Season 9.
Token Good Teammate: Team Angel are all good guys, but Fred stands out as the nicest and least anti-heroic of the group.
Tomboyish Name: Her given name is Winifred, but mostly everyone just calls her Fred.
Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Aside from Cordelia and Lorne, she's easily the most gentle and purest member of Team Angel. It makes it doubly hurtful when she dies only a few episodes after Cordelia does.
Trademark Favorite Food: Tacos. (One notable difference about Pylea is its conspicuous absence of Tex-Mex.)
Fred: Are - are you sure about that?
Cordelia: Trust me. Tacos everywhere. ...And soap.
Unkempt Beauty: It takes her a while to rediscover civilization, but her natural beauty shines through regardless.
Unstoppable Rage: When she found out who was responsible for five year stay in hell, she was out for blood.
Weak, but Skilled: Happens only rarely, but when Fred pulls a fast one, her ingenuity will leave you dizzy.

Illyria (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Illyria

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4974b960d06d963f475ff321d82f8d93.JPG

"I play this game. It's pointless, and annoys me. And yet I'm compelled to play on."

Played By: Amy Acker

"I lived seven lives at once. I was power in the ecstasy of death. I was god to a god. Now... I'm trapped on a roof... just one roof, in this time and this place with an unstable human who drinks too much whiskey and called me a Smurf."

Illyria is an Old One, one of the ancient demons that walked the earth before the coming of man. Killed millions of years ago, she is reincarnated in Fred's body and intends to rule once again... only to find her army long dead and her temple turned to dust. With nowhere else to go, she remains with the group, seeking to learn how to live in this strange, new world. Still incredibly powerful even in her diminished form, Illyria is a mighty ally to have; but she sees human affairs as beneath her and the crew can never be quite sure that she's on their side.

Action Girl: Even after being de-powered, Illyria is an incredibly powerful fighter. She can steamroll over most opponents with a minimum of effort and before being de-powered she was no less than a Physical God.
Aloof Ally: One can never predict when she'll assist Team Angel, or why. At one point, Illyria rescues Gunn from a torture dimension just so she can throttle him in front of Wesley, apparently to play the You Owe Me card.
Bait-and-Switch: She's initially set up as a huge threat, destroying one of the main characters to such a degree that she can never be resurrected, and may possibly be an Omnicidal Maniac who will use her legions to wipe out mankind. When it turns out her army and empire had turned to dust aeons ago, she's completely lost and without purpose, eventually settling for becoming an Aloof Ally to Angel & co.
Becoming the Mask: In the final episode she expresses attraction to Gunn, and comforts Wesley in his dying moments by taking Fred's form, plus the grief she experiences afterwards; all raise questions as to what extent she's influenced by Fred's memories.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: The "blue" part is semi-literal. Illyria was an Eldritch Abomination who experienced reality in ways that humans cannot imagine, and as such she holds zero value for human life, empathy or social conventions. But she is incredibly rigidly honorable - though even her code of honour is hard to grasp. It's also debatable as to whether she was ever genuinely evil, just apathetic and operating on an entirely different level. Even Fred's death isn't malicious on her part; Wesley likens it to a viral infection.
Blood Knight: She's extremely fond of fighting and violence in general.
"I enjoy hurting you."
"I've been hitting the half-breed. He makes noise."
"Wesley's dead. I'm feeling grief for him. I can't seem to control it. I wish to do more violence."
Brought Down to Badass: After being drained of the bulk of her power by Wesley's Mutari generator, she can no longer manipulate time, talk to plants or experience the world as she once did. It doesn't mean she isn't an intensely powerful warrior who is stronger than the rest of Team Angel.
Brought Down to Normal: As of Buffy Season 9, she has been completely drained of all her powers by Severin.
Curiosity Causes Conversion: One example being to take up Spike's offer to play Crash Bandicoot and her watching Drogyn play leads to her complain it's not galactic conquest, and how she would have, and did, back in the day.
Defrosting Ice Queen: She becomes less of a Straw Vulcan as she acclimates to her new humanity.
Demonic Possession: She not only took over Fred's body, but consumed her soul, too.
Depower: She's less powerful than she was in her original form. When Fred's body proves unable to contain her power, she gets depowered even further, and even after that she's still quite powerful.
Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: "Take your best shot, little girl."
Doomy Dooms of Doom: Armies of Doom. She used to have them.
Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: Subverted. Wesley becomes the closest person to Illyria out of dedication to Fred's memory, but he explicitly rejects her when she tries to seduce him in Fred's form. When Wesley is later killed and dies in Illyria's arms, she turns into Fred one last time.
Double Consciousness: Fred's personality and memories (which, in a very real sense, is what humans are) are part of Illyria's "shell" as Illyria comments several times.
Drives Like Crazy: Referenced in the comic continuation; During her road trip with Gunn, Illyria asks for another turn at the wheel. Gunn flatly refuses, saying that the last time Illyria attempted to drive, she sent twelve cars flying off the freeway. Illyria states that if she can rule the Earth, she can learn to master driving.
Eldritch Abomination: One of the few (non-parodic) sympathetic unspeakable horrors from the beyond in fiction, along with Rei Ayanami.
- Humanoid Abomination: As we see her in the series, due to her possession of Fred's body.
The Empath: Can sense (and is disgusted by) Wesley's grief. In later episodes she also senses his desire for her when she takes Fred's form, and calls him on it when he rejects the idea of sleeping with Fred!Illyria.
Expy: May possibly be coincidental, but she has some significant visual, backstory and personality similarities to Eldrad from the Doctor Who story "The Hand of Fear".
Fish out of Temporal Water: By a few hundred thousand years.
Flight, Strength, Heart: She has Super-Strength, can manipulate time, and can talk to plants.
Foil: To Glory; both are Physical Gods, but while Glory is a Dumb Blonde Psychopathic Manchild willing to endanger the universe to get home and out of a human body, Illyria is a dark-haired Noble Demon willing to accept her time is gone and who is at peace with being in a shell.
Gamer Chick: Really, she is. She gets quite addicted to Crash Bandicoot while hanging out at Spike's apartment with Drogyn.
Ghost Memory: She has Fred's memories, but not her soul.
Glacier Waif: Fast enough to use Waif-Fu despite her size.
Glory Days: Illyria often talked about the world of her time and how everyone was afraid of her and her kind.
A God Am I: She's prone to making grand proclamations of her former Godhood.
"I am Illyria, God-King of the Primordium!"
God-Emperor: Her role before the creation of the world. Coming down to blue-haired Waif-Fu wielder was an adjustment, to say the least.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Her inhuman stoicism makes it hard to see the explosive, homicidal rage in time to steer clear.
Heel–Face Turn: Though deeply, deeply unhappy about it.
Hero with an F in Good: In the comics, her road to heroism hits a few roadblocks. To prevent a demon from leeching off of Jeremy's energy, she dutifully punches a hole clean through Jeremy's chest. Ouch. In the climax of After the Fall, she reverts to her primordial demon form due to the machinations of Gunn and starts wrecking Los Angeles. The Senior Partners fix her so she returns to 'normal'.
Hot in Human Form: When Connor sees Illyria in human form, he comments that she is hot.
Angel: They were so supposed to fix that.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: How she sees herself when she first comes back, when to the others she's still terrifyingly powerful. Then she gets depowered again, to the degree that she can be defeated by Hamilton, a minion of entities she once considered barely worth noticing.
Humanity Is Infectious: She begins to show signs of embracing her role as one of humanity's protectors due to the influence of the rest of the team, not to mention the memories of Fred inside of her. The series culminates in her grieving for Wesley's death, and the comics expand on her growing human emotions further by her wanting to do things like get to know Fred's parents, learn to drive, and even adopt a cat.
Intercontinuity Crossover: In Fallen Angel: Reborn.
The Juggernaut: Before having her powers sapped by Wesley's black hole gun.
Kick Chick: Her fighting style as a human involves a lot of legwork.
Lack of Empathy: Wesley gets roped into becoming her instructor in this regard. In an ironic twist, Illyria discovers her sense of empathy all too well — with Wesley's death.
Living Relic: She's a goddess who has outlived her worshipers.
The Magnificent: "I am Illyria, God-King of the Primordium, Shaper of Things!"
Marionette Motion: When she first takes control of her new body.
Meaningless Villain Victory: At the end of "Shells," despite Angel and co.'s best efforts, Illyria successfully manages to enter the dimension where her temple and army reside... only to discover that in the intervening time, the temple collapsed and her army turned to nothing but dust.
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Ever since infecting Fred's body, Illyria finds herself repeatedly hounded by Fred's memories and emotions.
Muscles Are Meaningless: Downplayed she can hold her own against weaker baddies, but on a level playing field, a bruiser like Hamilton spells trouble.
My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Revealed in the Angel comic series to have a once-in-a-millenium mating cycle, signaled by Illyria going 'into heat'.
My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: She is able to detect Connor's attraction to her and Wesley's attraction to the form of Fred.
No Social Skills: Can't talk to me during your meeting? Then I'll kill everyone at the meeting.
Noble Demon: This is what makes her the Token Evil Teammate rather than a Big Bad; if she makes a promise, she will keep it, and more than that she absolutely refuses to hurt more than she needs to in order to get what she wants.
Physical God: Technically an archdemon, but "God-King" is a perfectly valid descrption of her.
Pitiful Worms: An Old One from when demons ruled the earth, used to being worshiped by millions or billions of beings, she was not especially impressed with the twenty-first century. Insects, vermin, and muck were all ways she described humanity.
Power Incontinence: Her physical form proves to unstable to contain her essence. She's forced to power down permanently, or else explode.
Puny Earthlings: Her habit of likening people to vermin, apes, plankton, amoebas, slime...
Quizzical Tilt: It usually means you're in for a beating.
Replacement Goldfish: Wesley is drawn to Illyria as she's all he has left of Fred.
Relationship Upgrade: With Angel in the Season 11 comics.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Well, a coffin.
Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can:
Illyria: This fate is worse than death. Condemned to live out existence in a vessel incapable of sustaining my true glory. How am I to function with such limitation?
Lorne: Have you ever tried a Sea Breeze?
Sensei for Scoundrels: Can't believe Angel is wangsting over being the head of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Illyria sets him straight with this speech.
Illyria: So much power here! And you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your own ambition.
Small Role, Big Impact: Illyria only appears in the final 8 episodes of the show's run (out of 110 total), and in one of those, it's only in the final scene. Yet she's one of the most significant characters in the series, and her entrance is one of the most infamous Tear Jerker moments in the Buffyverse.
- She ends up consuming Fred's soul and taking over her body, thereby removing one of Team Angel's most good-hearted members and their top scientific expert.
- Several of the final episodes become centered around dealing with the transformation, including the team's attempts to get Illyria to become an ally to them as she is eventually Brought Down to Normal.
- Additionally, Illyria's presence proves to have an enormous effect on Wesley for the final slate of episodes. Following Fred's death, he reverts permanently back to a morose and cynical state that he had only just escaped from over the first half of Season 5 (due to having his memories of Connor erased and engaging in a relationship with Fred). With Fred gone, he realizes that he has little else to live for and spends the remainder of his time fixated on advising Illyria while she acclimates to her surroundings, largely because she was all that remained of his significant other.
Soul Jar: Her sarcophagus, although closer to a Magic Jar.
Sour Supporter: "The intricacies of your fates are meaningless."
Spy Catsuit: With an impressive range of movement. Maybe it's the bootlegs.
Straw Vulcan: Before she warmed up a bit, not having human emotions.
Super Power Lottery: Before she got depowered, she was probably the single strongest character in the entire Buffyverse. And even afterwards, she was still way more powerful than any of the heroes and most of the villains.
Superpower Meltdown: Fred's body is unable to contain all of Illyria's powers, and by "Time Bomb," she begins to break down, nearly leading to a self-destruct that would have destroyed all of North America... had Wesley not used a special device to drain most of her power so she could handle it.
Take Over the World: Wes predicts that Illyria will never quit her pursuit of this.
Thou Shalt Not Kill: In exchange for helping her navigate present-day Earth, Wesley makes her swear an oath not to kill people. The rest of Team Angel has a hard time digesting this, mostly assuming that she is somehow plotting instead of keeping her promise.
Time Master: Shares Sahjan's ability to traverse other dimensions. In "Time Bomb", she starts tripping through our timestream, though it turns out to be a side-effect of her exploding in the near future. After the Fall shows her warping time erratically every so often.
Token Evil Teammate: Oh, the irony.
Took a Level in Kindness: By the time the comic continuity occurs, Illyria has become one of humanity's defenders and is largely at peace with her current situation, and is especially close to Gunn as a friend.
Villainesses Want Heroes: Exploits her ability to morph into Fred to make failed advances at Wesley, who ironically replaced Knox as her right-hand man. It is kept vague whether she is purely interested in probing Wesley's brain, or if the remnants of Fred's psyche are manipulating her feelings toward Wes — or both?
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Able to alter her physical appearance at will (she is capable of mimicking Fred's persona closely enough to fool Fred's parents, right down to the clothing she wears).
Waif-Fu: Downplayed as Illyria certainly doesn't look like she should hit hard, but her fighting style is mostly Mighty Glacier as opposed to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Walking Spoiler: Illyria's role in the series is nearly impossible to discuss without spoiling Fred's death.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Illyria pushes the outer bounds of why immortality might not be all that great. Nearly every Required Secondary Power imaginable including reincarnation — and her main reward was outliving even her presumably immortal army and pocket dimension temple.
The Worf Effect: Subjected to this in "Power Play," showcasing how much she's been weakened by Wesley's Mutari generator. Marcus Hamilton, a minion of the Senior Partners, beings she once considered barely above vampires, easily overpowers her and beats her to a bloody pulp.
Worf Had the Flu: Hamilton curb-stomping her in "Power Play" happened only after she had been massively depowered, and it's probably telling that Hamilton didn't go anywhere near her until this had happened, and in fact gave Wesley a hint that led him to discover how to drain her powers. He even goes into an exaggerated Smug Snake routine to Illyria's face as he ponders why she can't beat him to a pulp.
You Can't Go Home Again: She debates the idea of traveling to her home dimension, or any world besides this one. In her human form, however, her old buddies would eat her alive.

Former Members

Cordelia

Cordelia Chase

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/97de62b53caf0730f46e1d3191f8e476.JPG

"Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass."

Played By: Charisma Carpenter

Appearances: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Angel

"I'm from Sunnydale — we had our own Hellmouth!"

Cordelia was the rich and popular queen of Sunnydale High, until her parents were busted for tax evasion, subsequently losing everything. She moves to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and joins up with Angel, encouraging him to set up a detective agency as a way to make ends meet (for her). Cordelia undergoes a huge amount of Character Development during the series, going from a spoiled, selfish brat to a kind-hearted, selfless individual.

Academic Alpha Bitch: She scores well on standardised tests as a gag. She also did well enough academically to get into top schools.
"What? I can't have layers?"
Action Fashionista: She's able to kick plenty of ass and look damn good doing it. Her love of clothes (and Angel gifting her clothes that he picks out with what she calls "a gay man's taste") becomes a Running Gag.
Action Girl: Becomes an effective one in Angel for the vampire's detective biz, and is able to fight shoulder to shoulder with Angel and Spike (two One-Man Army vampires) in the final season. In Buffy, she is not one, leaning more towards Action Survivor.
Alliterative Name: Both character and actress alike.
All Women Love Shoes: Her passion for footwear is noted on several occasions.
Alpha Bitch: Was definitely this while at Sunnydale during the first season. She eventually became the Lovable Alpha Bitch.
Always with You: What she effectively promises Angel in "You're Welcome". Fall of Los Angeles shows she's still watching over him from on high, summoning slight breezes to announce her presence and appearing to Angel when he's dying.
Amicable Exes: Towards Xander at the end of her tenure on Buffy, after he makes amends with her and pays for her prom dress.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "Disharmony", when she's explaining exactly why she's been so harsh with Angel:
Cordy: And you know, you didn't just betray me, Angel. You didn't just hurt me. You gave away my clothes.
Angel: To the needy.
Cordy: I am the needy!
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Cordelia ascends to becomes a higher being, but was only chosen for the job because she had proved that the power wouldn't go to her head, and not once does she call herself a god. However, she is promptly fired when she uses her powers to help the gang. It's worth noting that all of this may have been a plot orchestrated by the season's Big Bad.
Skip: Cordelia was chosen to become a higher being because she's such a pure, radiant saint. (scoffs) PLEASE!
- Despite Jasmine's manipulations, however, Cordelia's service was to the Powers was genuine and when she dies in Season 5, The Powers That Be make Cordelia a legitimate higher being in service to them.
Back for the Dead: She returns for a single appearance in Season 5 of Angel and is revealed to have been Dead All Along.
Backhanded Compliment: Any time Cordy tries to be relatively nice, this is the result.
Bad "Bad Acting": Enough to make Angel nostalgic for Hell, especially in a risible performance in A Doll's House, but improves markedly. Strangely, although she was shown as being a poor actress at first, she was always an excellent liar; capable of fooling even Angelus. Later, Cordelia evolves into a capable actress; unfortunately, her read-throughs are invariably spoiled by a vision.
Bad Actor, Good Liar: "Eternity" opens with Angel and Wesley being forced to sit through Cordelia's horrible performance in A Doll's House. In the episode's climax, she is able to distract Angelus by tricking him into thinking she has a bottle of holy water. In a later episode, she successfully impersonates a cop.
Bad Liar: It's just as well that Cordy doesn't sugarcoat the truth, because she can't lie to save her life. The exceptions are "Homecoming", when she convinced a vampire she was Faith the Vampire Slayer and fooling Angelus. Presumably on those occasions she doesn't 'think' about acting, and therefore seems more natural.
Be Careful What You Wish For: The entire plot of the episode "The Wish." Cordelia, blaming Buffy for everything that was wrong with her life, wishes that she never came to Sunnydale... and ends up in an Alternate Universe where, without Buffy, the Master and his vampires control the town. In a subversion of the usual formula, Cordelia end up dying before she can recant her wish, leaving the few human survivors in the "Wishverse" to work out what she did and undo it — at which point everything reverts back to normal and Cordelia, who remembers none of this, learns absolutely nothing.
Better as Friends: She has a mutual crush on Wesley during Buffy season 3, but after an unbearably awkward kiss, they realize the chemistry isn't there and settle into being close friends throughout Angel.
Big-Breast Pride: She's rightly proud of her physical attributes, and frequently wears clothing and jewelry that emphasizes them.
A Birthday, Not a Break: The Angel Season 3 episode, aptly titled "Birthday," depicted her having a vision that, combined with her accumulated brain damage, left her on the brink of death and on a spiritual journey that ultimately led her to become a half-demon in order to survive and keep the visions.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: During her time on Buffy. In "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Cordelia's nice to Buffy and looks out for her on the first day, but when she cruelly insults Willow's outfit, Buffy quickly sees her for the Alpha Bitch she really is. She gets better over the course of both shows, but as seen in "Rm w/a Vu", she can still pull out the bitch card when she has to.
Blessed with Suck: The visions which show people in trouble at the cost of extreme migraines that will eventually kill her.
Bound and Gagged: Happens to Cordy quite a bit, unsurprisingly, does not keep her quiet.
Brainless Beauty: Was originally led to be this, but then she showed Hidden Depths. It was Lampshaded early in Season 3 when discussing the SAT:
"Actually, I'm looking forward to it. I do well on standardized tests." (Beat) "What? I can't have layers?"
Break the Haughty: A process that began on BtVS, and continues from there.
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: While she's abrasive and snippy, her dynamic with Angel still fits this. He's the brooding loner, she's The Heart and encourages him to come out of his emotional shell. He even tells her he was "lost without you" in Season 5.
Brutal Honesty: She does not mince her words, ever. In "Earshot," when Buffy gains telepathic powers, she (and the audience) find out that Cordelia does in fact say exactly what she thinks.
Cordelia: "Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass."
The Bully: In high school, she was a spoiled, stuck-up brat who enjoyed ridiculing those she saw as inferior. Buffy sees her true colours when she cruelly insults Willow's outfit. Several seasons and Character Development later and she's a Reformed Bully.
Bullying a Dragon: Throughout the first season, she took every possible opportunity to pick on and insult Buffy despite full knowledge that she burned her last high school's gym down.
Buxom Beauty Standard: Her well-endowed figure certainly stood out on Angel alongside the more petite Fred, and many characters took notice.
Cast from Lifespan: After she took on Doyle's visions. Humans aren't strong enough to handle the visions, and they began to cause her extensive brain damage to the extent that she chose to become a half-demon to survive and keep them.
Character Development: Between the two series she goes from a shallow Alpha Bitch to someone who can realistically be said to be deserving of becoming one of The Powers That Be ( Gambit Roulette by Jasmine or not, she's proven herself time and time again) and it happened so gradually no one really noticed.
Closet Geek: While working for Angel, she often made references to Star Wars and Star Trek. This could qualify as Hidden Depths, considering her treatment of outspoken nerds in high school.
Clothing Reflects Personality:
- During high school, she dressed very femininely, not so different from Buffy's style of clothing but rather more chic and high class opposed to some of the more natural clothes Buffy wore. Her wardrobe usually consisted of expensive dresses, short skirts, high heels, pumps and various designer hand bags. According to Cordelia: black, silk, chiffon and spandex were her "trademarks".
- A good example was the outfit she wore when returning to school after her injury, a burgundy skirt with a matching top, leather jacket and high heels along with a black Prada bag, symbolizing her confidence in trying to regain her popularity.
- After moving to Los Angeles, she put less significance on clothing, preferring simpler outfits with jeans along with frosted eyeshadow, probably due to her money situations. A few years later, Cordelia began wearing more mature clothing including grey suits. During her possession, she had a higher preference for comfy sweaters and long dark colored coats.
The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right: Cordelia might be a bit shallow (to begin with at least), but this means she sees things that others don't:
- She spotted the door to the basement dungeon in the house of Joyce's boyfriend in one episode of Buffy, simply because of a rug that was out of place
- She is the first to make the connection between wearing a tuxedo and being savaged by beasts, in an episode of Buffy where prom dates were being slaughtered
- She instantly spots that she is in the home of a vampire in Angel when she notices the heavy drapes and no mirrors. The vampire is somewhat taken aback
Comically Missing the Point: All too often, someone will make a remark and Cordelia will agree in some shallow, appearance-related fashion.
Xander: You're talking about messing with powerful magic, and you're weak.
Willow: I'm okay.
Xander: You don't look okay. (to Cordelia) Does she?
Cordelia: You should listen to him. The hair, it's so flat.
Commuting on a Bus: She stops regularly appearing from Season 3, episode 14 of Angel to her final episode in Season 5. First she's on vacation with Groo, then she becomes a higher power, then she spends most of a season controlled by Jasmine until she gives "birth" to her, and then remains in a coma until she passes before the end of the series.
Composite Character: Cordelia embodies several qualities of Buffy's Girl Posse cronies Kimberly and Nicki from the original movie. Like Kimberly, she can be the most catty, vapid, and over-the-top Valley Girl in the room. And like Nicki, Cordelia is the sole person of color in Buffy's high school circle, a cheerleader, and shows some Hidden Depths by being willing to fight vampires after learning of their existence, even while clearly being terrified by the experience.
Cool Big Sis: She acted as a sisterly figure towards Fred, having listened and helped her to reinvest in the human world after her exile in Pylea. Encouraged by Angel, Cordelia decided to spend time with Fred and get her to out in the real world, describing her as "sweet and adorable," but nonetheless admitting she did not quite understand her.
Damsel in Distress: Starts off needing to be saved by Buffy and co., before she Took a Level in Badass in Angel.
Deadpan Snarker: In a World of Snark, Cordelia stands out for always packing a witty remark up her sleeve. She started out as the caustic, cruel type, but through Character Development became friendlier.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Towards Xander and Doyle on their respective shows.
Depending on the Writer: On Buffy, her intelligence varies from episode to episode. Sometimes she's smarter than she appears and sometimes she's as dumb as a bag of hammers.
The Drag-Along: In the earlier bits. Eventually, after moving to LA, she starts working for Angel and realizes that she likes fighting demons, and even more interestingly, that she's not that bad at it.
The Eponymous Show: Cordy!, her sitcom in the Skipverse. Also an In-Joke at Charisma Carpenter's resemblance to Mary Tyler Moore.
Everyone Can See It: With Angel by Season 3 of their show; Lorne and Fred particularly like reminding them of their "kyrumption" and "moira" (Pylean terms for destined lovers).
Evil All Along: During Season 4 of Angel, sort of. Jasmine hitched a ride in her body before Cordelia returned from a higher plane and was controlling Cordelia for most of the season to set the stage for her to enter our world. The rest of Team Angel didn't find out until it was too late.
Expository Hairstyle Change: In high school, she kept long, medium brown hair and had a notable fringe in the eleventh grade. In Los Angeles, Cordelia continued with the same hair length, though it appeared darker. She eventually cut her hair down to shoulder length. She then cut her hair further down into a graduated bob cut with blonde highlights after being fired. Months later, she then had short, brown chin-length hair but then changed to a blonde, layered bob cut up around the time of her ascension as higher being, but then changed brown again and short length when she was possessed. After her coma, she had a shoulder length, brown perm. As a spirit, her hair returned to its early stages as long, straight and brown.
The Face: Played with. She's the secretary for Angel's detective biz but she can't even use the phone properly. On the other hand, she's the only link to the people he really needs to be in touch with.
Fallen Princess: By the end of Season 3 of Buffy, her family's wealth has been seized by tax fraud, leaving her nearly penniless. In early Season 1 of Angel, she's seen living in a crappy, roach-infested apartment.
Fainting Seer: Her visions are something akin to "having my skull cracked open and hot lava poured in." In fact, she's probably better described as a Shrieking, Twitching, Convulsing And Then Fainting Seer.
Fantastic Racism: Early on, she believes all demons barring Angel are bad. She starts moving past this in "Hero", especially after finding out that Doyle is a half-demon himself.
The Fashionista: She has a love of fine clothes, best displayed in "Disharmony." She spends most of the episode scorning Angel for his Knight Templar phase and betraying the team, telling him point-blank that she doesn't trust them and they're not friends. However, Cordy later admits that her main beef with him isn't because he betrayed and hurt her, but because he gave away all her clothes. By the end of the episode, she happily reconciles with him when he buys her a whole new wardrobe as an apology.
Feminine Women Can Cook: Inverted Trope. Her brownies could qualify as nuclear waste.
Finding Judas: Unwittingly becomes Jasmine's corporeal agent on the Earth, gradually losing her entire personality in the process. It was so subtle that no one in Angel Investigations noticed until she was too far gone to save.
The Friend Nobody Likes: She qualifies as this in the second and third seasons of Buffy, hanging around only because she's "in the know" and because she's dating Xander at certain points.
Friends with Benefits: She may or may not have had something casual going on with Dennis. He was seen helping her bathe, and she joked that the only action she got was with a ghost who was good with the loofa.
Gang of Bullies: The Cordettes. Angel would later liken them to the KGB, but with nicer shoes. Cordelia's "friends" give her a taste of her own medicine when she starts to date Xander.
Genius Ditz: Is initially portrayed as a dippy moron in Buffy. And then it's revealed that she was accepted at Ivy League schools and had very high marks on her SAT. Cordelia herself defends herself when the other Scoobies are shocked:
Cordy: "...what, I can't have layers?"
Girl Friday: Though initially confined to the office, Cordelia becomes more proactive in cases after receiving the visions, which are often vague and require her to examine clues to make sense of it. She's also an awful secretary,
Gold Digger:
- Thwarted by Doyle's gallantry, which starts making her dating pool look rather pathetic. Her date (a stock broker) cannonballs into his Beamer and races off at first sight of a vamp without the slightest hesitation in leaving Cordy behind to be eaten.
"All I could think about was: if this wimp ever saw a monster he'd probably throw a shoe at it and run like a weasel! Turns out the shoe part was giving him too much credit."
- Cordelia contemplates marrying incredibly rich and lonely geek David Nabbit, but accepts that even she has limits.
Gold and White Are Divine: After ascending she wears a angelic white ensemble.
Good is Not Nice: Not quite as tactless and rude as she was in her Buffy debut, but she can still be very sharp-tongued. She also makes it clear that she wouldn't hesitate to stake Angel if he ever lost his soul again, admits that she has no problem with Angel killing Holtz after the latter kidnapped Connor, and even suggests that Angel torture an uncooperative Eve for information.
Gratuitous Princess: She ascends the throne of Pylea within 48 hours. "Off with their heads", indeed.
The Heart: Increasingly so as time passes, especially after the first-season finale "To Shanshu in L.A." Fred explicitly calls her this at one point.
Heroic Fatigue: As a human, Cordelia was not meant to shoulder the responsibility of Doyle's visions ("a big cosmic whoops", as Skip calls it). She secretly takes powerful painkillers and undergoes CAT scans that indicate the slow deterioration of her brain. Yet when presented with the opportunity to pass her visions onto someone else (the gallant Groosalugg, and later Angel in an alternate reality), Cordelia refuses, stating that the visions are a part of her and make her who she is.
Hidden Depths: Even prior to Character Development, Cordelia was much more than the stereotypical Alpha Bitch she appeared to be. She frequently showed herself to be an intelligent and begrudgingly compassionate person.
"You think I'm never lonely because I'm so cute and popular? I can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. It's not like any of them really know me. I don't even know if they like me half the time. People just want to be in a popular zone. Sometimes when I talk, everyone's so busy agreeing with me, they don't hear a word I say."
Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Cordelia's singing is as bad as her acting. It goes back to the talent show, where she tried to sing "Memories".
Holy Backlight: Whilst twiddling her thumbs in the afterlife.
Horrible Judge of Character: Two examples while working with Angel:
- When Harmony comes to town, Cordelia continues to trust her and demand that her friends give her a fair chance even after discovering she is a vampire, dismissing Angel's warnings that vampires are Always Chaotic Evil and can't be trusted. He's proven right when she sides with the vampire cult she was supposed to be helping A.I. investigate.
- Then, when Darla shows up pregnant with Angel's child, Cordelia readily defends her from Angel and tries to keep her comfortable, which comes back to bite her (literally) when Darla attacks her. After Angel comes in and saves her, Cordelia even acknowledges that she blew it.
How Do I Shot Web?: When she gains supplementary powers from the Powers That Be, she has some issues actually controlling them at will - she can use light magic, but can't really do it at will, for example.
Important Haircut: Several. The most notable one is her blonde makeover, which remains even after her return from the afterlife (possibly a Call-Back to Buffy's return from heaven on BtVS) — soon to darken back to its original color when Jasmine possesses her.
Intimate Marks: She has a tattoo on her back, right directly above her rear. It's the actress's real tattoo, but we've seen it onscreen on the shows a few times.
It's All About Me: This is her whole schtick throughout her appearances on Buffy, whether she's complaining about the trauma of hitting a cyclist with her car (and the cyclist wanting it to be all about their leg), shushing her companion as a motormouth for almost getting a word in edgewise, or (as above) realizing that the Monster of the Week is targeting her. (All this is even funnier when considering what happens to her on the spinoff.) Even as late as Buffy's third season, there are shades of this. When Buffy temporarily gains the ability to read minds, Cordelia's first thought, which she immediately says out loud, is, "I don't see what this has to do with me."
Jerkass to One: While she was an Alpha Bitch in general during Season 1 of Buffy, she was especially a bitch to the titular character, doing everything she could to make her a social outcast at Sunnydale High. To be fair, Buffy did mistake her for a vampire in the pilot and nearly stake her.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She started out a a classic Ice Queen and Alpha Bitch, picking on nerds and being an all around bully. After Buffy saves her, she starts to hang out with them and even help them with demons, but was even then mostly a complete bitch. Eventually, on Angel, Cordelia gets a severe dose of character development and leaves this trope behind in favor of being all nice rather than a Jerkass.
Lady of War: Following a few lessons in swordsmanship by Angel.
Light 'em Up: With a side of Light Is Good as she's Vision Girl. When she becomes part demon to inherit the visions, she becomes able to use light energy to purify demons. We say "use" and not "manipulate," because she doesn't really have control over these powers.
Like Brother and Sister: With Wesley. At one point, Angel tries (and fails) to intervene in an argument between them by taking the role of a beleaguered dad, addressing them as "children".
Living Bodysuit: Revealed in Season 4 to be acting under the control of Jasmine.
Living Emotional Crutch: Becomes this to Angel over the course of the series. In "Birthday", it's shown in an Alternate Timeline that he would lose his freaking mind without Cordy's humanizing influence, and in "You're Welcome," Angel comes right out and admits he's lost without her.
Lovable Alpha Bitch: She starts as a regular Alpha Bitch but becomes this through Character Development and Hidden Depths. Eventually, she also becomes a Fallen Princess, but even when she becomes a regular on the Spinoff, Angel, she still retains some of the Alpha Bitchy qualities she had to begin with.
Mandatory Line: On Buffy, most of the time her role in Seasons One & Three was just to appear, act bitchy, then leave.
Mirror Character:
- Like Buffy, she matured after being put in a position of being a hero. Similarly, while Buffy matured after caring for her sister Dawn, Cordelia became more nurturing while caring for the infant Connor. In actuality, despite never being very close to Buffy, Cordelia was actually a lot like her in personality (which may have been partly the reason Angel loved her as well).
- Of Lilah Morgan, to the point that she knew exactly which buttons to push to get Lilah to help her against Billy Blim. She even coolly lampshades it in their argument when she calls Lilah a "vicious bitch":
Lilah: So you know me.
Cordelia: Please, I was you, with better shoes.
Money Fetish:
- She can smell money. "Hide some in the office sometime, and watch her. It's uncanny."
- She feels herself getting warm by a software geek peddling financial advice.
Morality Chain:
- A peek into an alternate timeline shows what would happen to Angel if he didn't have Cordy around. He goes insane.
- It's lampshaded when The Bus Came Back in Season 5, to give Angel a What the Hell, Hero? speech over being corrupted by Wolfram & Hart.
Cordelia: I knew you'd be lost without me but—
Angel: I am lost without you.
Most Common Super Power: She certainly stands out among her more petite female co-stars like Buffy, Willow and Fred. This is frequently commented on. Even Amy Acker's screen test has Fred refer to her as "your friend with the giganimous boobs."
Ms. Fanservice: And she knows it. When Angel gives her a necklace, she proudly talks of how it emphasizes her breasts.
Cordelia: You know you were all thinking it.
No Badass to His Valet: The only person Angel can't intimidate is his secretary.
Odd Friendship: Despite how different they are, she gets along quite well with Oz on Buffy, and the two are often roped together when the core four Scoobies are otherwise occupied.
Parental Substitute: She generally served as a mother figure to Connor while he was a baby and when he returned from Quor'toth as a teenager. Shortly after, she accepted Skip's offer to become a higher being, leaving Earth for another plane. She and Connor bonded after she returned to Earth with amnesia, as he was the only one who didn't lie to her. He developed romantic feelings for her, but she was reluctant to pursue any such avenues until her memories were restored. After being possessed by Jasmine, it used Cordelia's body to seduce Connor. Later in the series, Connor noted their relationship was fundamentally oedipal.
Pet the Dog: During her Alpha Bitch phase on Buffy, particularly during Season 3.
- In "Dead Man's Party", Cordelia is the only Scooby who actually sympathizes with Buffy over why she ran away to mourn Angel, whereas the other Scoobies only focused on the worry and misery she caused her for running out on them, and tries to defend her against Xander's criticism. Of course, she does so with her usual Brutal Honesty, leading Buffy to snap at her to stop helping.
- In "Helpless", she defends Buffy while Brought Down to Normal, and even agrees to give Buffy a ride home without question.
Pom-Pom Girl: She joined the Sunnydale High cheerleader squad in "The Witch" and remained a cheerleader until she graduated.
Proud Beauty: She is extremely proud of her good looks, and she takes every opportunity to flaunt them to other people, especially her boobs.
Put on a Bus: To L.A.! She then gets put on a bus several times over the course of Angel.
Replacement Flat Character: In a slightly meta sense, she was this for Buffy in the earliest episodes. The shallow, fashion obsessed, airheaded (at least on the surface) Cordelia as first introduced closely resembles Buffy as she was in the movie and in a couple of flashbacks to her Hemry high days in the show proper.
Buffy: Before I was the Slayer, I was... Well, I, I don't wanna say shallow, but... Let's say a certain person, who will remain nameless—we'll just call her Spordelia—looked like a classical philosopher next to me.
Rich Bitch: Until her parents go down for tax evasion. She starts the spin-off series as an impoverished wannabe actress.
Riches to Rags: When her father loses all his money to the IRS. Come the first season of Angel, she's nearly penniless, renting a dilapidated apartment and stealing food from Hollywood parties.
The Rival: She competes with Buffy over boys and the Homecoming Dance. This develops into a Friendly Rivalry of sorts - they'll argue and insult each other, but they've occasionally helped each other out.
Romantic False Lead: Angel immediately ends up in her crosshairs. Luckily, Angel later confesses that he always found the noblewomen of his era (for whom Cordelia is the modern avatar) to be a horrific bore. Subverted when the two actually do become attracted to each other years later during their time working in Los Angeles.
Sarcastic Devotee: Cordelia's unshakable loyalty to Angel doesn't stop her from snarking at him.
Sassy Secretary: She appointed herself as secretary for Angel Enterprises. She wasn't qualified to do the monster hunting (at first anyway) but was more than able to sit behind the desk and dish out wisecracks.
Second Love: Ironically, despite Cordelia initially being presented as the exact type of person whom Angel finds boring, she becomes this to him after Buffy. By Season 3 of Angel, the two become extremely protective of each other and form a genuine romantic connection. It's hobbled by Jasmine's machinations in Season 4, but reaches its culmination in Cordelia's final appearance in "You're Welcome".
Secretly Dying: Since the visions were intended for demons, they begin to physically damage her brain. She hides this from the rest of Team Angel until "Birthday", where her latest vision leaves her comatose, and it's made clear the next one she has will kill her. Skip circumvents this by turning her half-demon.
Servile Snarker: She'd give you a tongue-lashing if you ever called her servile, but she is initially working for Angel as his secretary, and later as his seer. This does not stop her from dishing out the snark to him in the slightest.
Ship Tease: With Wesley, which ends abruptly and hilariously upon their first kiss, when they realize their complete lack of sexual chemistry. And with Angel in the spin-off series. Tragically their first kiss (that can't be put down to magical influence) is their last one.
Shipper on Deck: She was the most conscious of Fred's strong crush on Angel, and frequently encouraged him to address the issue despite his belief it would blow over by itself.
Sitcom Archnemesis: To Buffy, who used to have the Alpha Bitch role before she became the Slayer and was forced to develop some character. Sometimes however (e.g. "Homecoming") their rivalry in this area comes out into the open.
Skewed Priorities: Though they become less skewed over the years.
Spicy Latina: Her actress is actually of European Spanish descent but she still fits the trope almost perfectly. She certainly has the look and attitude down.
Star-Crossed Lovers: With Angel. The Powers literally intervene to separate them at one point.
Cordelia: Do you ever wonder...do you ever think about 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.
Team Mom: In a far cry from her Sunnydale days, she becomes this for Angel Investigations being the emotional anchor and glue that keeps the guys together, and she even becomes a surrogate mother for baby Connor in Season 3. Her absence is also certainly a factor in causing everything to go wrong in the third season.
The Thing That Would Not Leave: In "Rm w/a Vu". Within a few hours, Angel's basement is covered wall-to-wall with Cordelia's trophies, there's peanut butter on his bed, his leather chair is ruined, and Cordelia is busily cutting up his linoleum floor to examine the hardwood. By morning, Angel is begging Doyle to help find Cordy a place to stay.
Threshold Guardians: Provides an example of a non-adversarial Threshold Guardian; when she invites Buffy to join the popular girls' clique, she forces Buffy to choose between her calling as the Slayer and her desire to be a popular girl.
Took a Level in Badass: Being involved in the supernatural for years will do this to you: when she started out on Buffy, she was an athletic but untrained human, and remained relatively on the sidelines for those first three seasons and in her first on Angel. By the time the second season of Angel rolled around, she was competent enough in a battle for Angel, Wes, and Gunn to have no problem with her coming along for fights. By the end of her life, she was able to fight alongside Angel and Spike with no issues.
Took a Level in Kindness: Zig Zagged in Season 3 of Buffy when Xander cheats on her. Cordelia attempts to return to her old ways before she dated Xander, but Harmony has usurped her position and shut the door. Despite losing her social circle, she tries to return to being a cruel Alpha Bitch towards Buffy, Willow, and especially Xander, but consistently finds herself back with the group time and time again. She eventually forgives Xander after he goes out of his way to pay for her prom dress as a sign of friendship and apology, and as of the finale she's firmly with the inner circle of the Scoobies again as a faithful member, having chosen to do good. Her move to Angel further cements her growth as a caring person.
Took a Level in Smartass: While "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" revealed Cordelia wasn't quite the airhead she seemed, she still seemed of relatively average intelligence. It was only in season three that she was officially established (or retconned) as being very bright (see the quote under Brainless Beauty above.)
Transplant: She's a main character in the first three seasons of Buffy. After the series switched from high school-setting to college, she disappeared from the series completly from season 4 onwards, instead appearing as a main character of Angel till her death.
Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Venerable Monarch of Pylea, General of the Ravenous Legions, Eater of Our Enemy's Flesh, Prelate of the Sacrificial Blood Rites, and Sovereign Proconsul of Death.
Uptown Girl: She kept her torrid love affair with Xander secret out of fear of what her peers would think.
Ultimate Job Security: You can't fire her. She's Vision Girl. *sticks out tongue*. Angel is rudely awakened to this fact after he does fire her.
Angel: Well, I know she can't type or file. Until today, I had some hope regarding the phone.
Ungrateful Bitch: When Buffy mistakenly attacked her with a stake, Cordelia made it her mission to make her as much of an outcast as possible, despite the fact that Buffy later saved her life on several occasions.
Vanity License Plate: Cordelia's car has "QUEEN C" for its plates.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Wesley after he joins Angel Investigations. Not unlike a brother/sister pair, they bicker and snark at each other, but have a strong bond of trust and friendship.
Waiting for a Break: In the first and second seasons of Angel.
Doyle: I think it's refreshing to see a woman living like this, you know. It means you're not so uptight, you live for the moment— (steps in a bowl of oatmeal) You're disgusting.
Weakness Turns Her On: The possibility of intimacy with Angel doesn't comes up until Cordelia glimpses a world in which she never joined the agency. This resulted in Angel inheriting Doyle's visions instead, causing him to go mad.
Weirdness Magnet: Possibly caught the condition living in Sunnydale.
Women Prefer Strong Men: Hanging around Angel and Doyle has ruined her for preening, rich day trader types. (No comment on Wesley.)
You Are Worth Hell: Literally, and on multiple occasions.

Doyle

Allen Francis Doyle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7b1de0d914f177a4bc6c95fa642e723f.jpg

"The good fight, yeah? You never know until you've been tested."

Played By: Glenn Quinn

"One of us has been drinking, and I'm sorry to say it's not me."

A human-demon hybrid, Doyle is chosen as the messenger of the Powers That Be, and sent to help Angel in LA. Doyle receives "visions" from the Powers, described as splitting great migraines with pictures that warn of people in trouble. Doyle has a shady past and is seemingly a coward, but the visions and his numerous underworld sources make him a valuable asset, and he becomes good friends with Angel. Together with Cordelia, the three of them form the nucleus of Angel Investigations.

All Genes Are Codominant: He didn't even know about his father's demonic lineage until he turned twenty — presumably because of the spikes ejecting from his face. He prefers to pass as human, something pure-blood Brachen demons can't do.
Ambiguously Bi: Confesses half-jokingly to being "a little attracted" to Angel. And in the alternate reality of "Birthday", he passed the visions to Angel instead of Cordelia (which is done by kissing).
The Atoner: Prior to meeting Angel, he largely lived as a hustler and con artist as a means to cover up his guilt over failing to save Lucas and his clan from the Scourge.
Blessed with Suck: The visions Doyle gets include severe headaches.
The Chooser of the One: While complaining that the Chosen One doesn't stock beer in the fridge.
The Chosen One: Turns out he's The Promised One, saving a group of Lister Demons from The Scourge.
Contagious Heroism: In the first episode, he is reluctant to help Angel in any way other than getting the visions and passing on the message; after Angel forces him to come along to Russel's place, Doyle almost bails when he hears gun shots. Fast forward to "Hero", where he decides to make a Heroic Sacrifice instead of Angel.
Cowardly Lion: He's not a warrior, but he rises to the occasion when his friends are in danger.
Deadpan Snarker: He's always quick with a witty remark.
Disappeared Dad: He never knew his Brachean demon father or anyone on that side of his family, and his own demonic genes didn't physically manifest themselves until he was 21 years old.
Dreaming of Things to Come: He received prophetic visions from The Powers That Be, which includes images of people in peril, names, places in which evil was present or threats the Powers wanted to be dealt with. These visions also caused him great pain, though his half-demon physiology prevented his brain from suffering any long-term physical damage.
Fainting Seer: Due to the extreme pain the visions cause.
Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Inverted; Doyle finally comes around to blessing the new union, only for Harry's fiancé to try to eat his brains.
Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted. He dies early on in the series, but is fondly remembered by Angel and Cordelia as a hero who set them on their own heroic paths. When a later episode has someone using his name to do evil acts, Angel and Cordy absolutely go berserk and vow to bring him down.
Freak Out: He didn't take the news of his demonic heritage well, and ended up boarding himself up in an apartment and chain-smoking all day.
Glamour Failure: He tends to involuntarily morph to his demon form when he sneezes.
Half-Human Hybrid: "As it happens, I'm very much human... (sneezes and turns green with spikes) ...on my mother's side."
Heroic Sacrifice: In "Hero", he sacrifices himself to stop a mystical WMD from wiping out everything in L.A.
Hidden Depths: He used to be a school teacher and volunteer at a soup kitchen. Lampshaded by Cordelia.
Hypocritical Humor: Preaches the importance of reaching people on a personal level and inspiring moral good to Angel just before telling a homeless woman asking for change to "Get a job, you lazy sow".
Iconic Item: A brown (or black) leather jacket.
Im Dying Please Take My Macguffin: Transfers his visions to Cordelia via their Last Kiss.
- Echoed in Season Five, when Cordelia's visions pass on to Angel.
Last-Name Basis: To the extent that Angel and Cordelia are surprised to learn his name is Allen.
Lineage Comes from the Father: In his case because his father was a Brachen demon.
My Greatest Failure: Refusing to lend aid to a group of pacifist Brachen demons who were trying to escape The Scourge. Later that night, Doyle experienced his very first vision — that of the entire Brachen clan being slaughtered.
Nice Guy: Doyle is a very friendly and good-natured, albeit flawed, individual.
Obi-Wan Moment: Just before he sacrifices himself. "'You never know until you're tested.' I get that now."
Oireland: Averted. Unlike Angel, Glenn Quinn's accent is genuinely and refreshingly Irish.
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Though Doyle's Irish accent was the genuine article, Glenn Quinn had to "Americanize" his accent every once in a while so the audience could understand him.
Oops! I Forgot I Was Married: To Harriet Doyle, a demonologist. They eventually parted ways amicably, though Harry called off her new engagement, probably because her Ano-Movic demon fiancé's family would only approve of their marriage if he performed an obscure ritual that involved eating her ex-husband's brain.
Percussive Prevention: When he knocked Angel off a platform so that Angel wouldn't have to sacrifice himself to disarm The Scourge's weapon.
Plucky Comic Relief: To contrast Angel's more serious "straight" guy.
Present Absence: spoiler:Despite his early death, Doyle remains a presence in Angel's life through both the impact he himself left on Angel (convincing him to rejoin the world) and the visions that he passed on to Cordelia before his death.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Doyle was killed after just nine episodes due to Quinn's drug addiction.
Redemption Equals Death: He sacrifices himself to stop the Scourge's weapon and atone for the My Greatest Failure tragedy listed above.
Sacrificial Lion: As pointed out by Cordelia, he was Angel Investigations' "first soldier down."
Sad Clown: Beneath his humor lies a deeply sensitive man haunted by the suffering he's witnessed through his visions, and that denying help to a group of fellow Brachen led to their deaths.
The So-Called Coward: Turns out he can be quite brave when he must protect his friends.
Stages of Monster Grief: Doyle coped poorly with the revelation of his demon side, and his marriage to Harriet soon crumbled. However, the point is made that his demonic heritage probably wasn't the only reason their marriage broke up. Upon learning about demons, Harriet found the thought of studying an entirely new set of cultures and pastimes intriguing, whereas Doyle just wanted to pretend his demonic side didn't exist.
Stupid Sexy Flanders: Remarks in one episode that he may be "a little attracted" to Angel.
Super Mode: Brachen demon mode.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He was in the cast from the beginning, but was originally intended to be the demon Whistler; the character Doyle was created with very similar traits when Max Perlich, who played Whistler on Buffy, turned out to be unavailable. In "City Of", Doyle even wears a hat similar to Whistler's.
That Man Is Dead: "It's Doyle now. Just Doyle."
We Hardly Knew Ye: Doyle was written out after 9 episodes, as Joss had always wanted to have a Sacrificial Lion, though Real Life Writes the Plot was also in play due to Glenn Quinn's drug addiction. Whedon wanted to bring him back later, but Quinn died of a drug overdose in 2002.
Willfully Weak: He hardly ever used his demon form because of his discomfort with it.

Wesley

See here

Lorne

Krevlornswath "Lorne" of the Deathwok Clan, also known as The Host

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a8c1cce350d44e8324f2e50b40ac813f.jpg

"Always leave 'em wanting more, kiddo. That's the rule."

Played By: Andy Hallett

"So I am covered in cherries. The police are just pounding on the door, and Judi Dench starts screaming, "Oh, that's way too much to pay for a pair of pants!""

Demonic nightclub owner with the face of Quentin Tarantino, and the dress sense of Liberace. Born in another dimension, Lorne rejected its Proud Warrior Race Guy culture, becoming a pariah. He was overjoyed, then, when he fell into a portal and found himself in Los Angeles. Setting up a karaoke bar on the spot, he brands it a sanctuary, where violence between demons is impossible. Lorne is an empath, who can read people's destinies when they bare their souls — that is, when they sing. He uses this to help people by setting them on their true path. Lorne tries to maintain a neutral stance, but finds himself being drawn into Angel Investigations and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the team.

Actual Pacifist: To the extent that killing Lindsey McDonald under Angel's orders, an act the complete opposite of his pacifistic nature, is one of the implied reasons he developed cancer in the comics.
Alien Arts Are Appreciated: In his home dimension Pylea the concept of music and singing is unknown. Once he entered Earth dimension he took such a liking in human music he decided to open a karaoke bar. He's also able to read people's future when they're singing.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Green skin with red horns. He is from another dimension.
Ambiguously Bi: He flirts shamelessly with guys and girls alike; is fond of the thought of Angel in leather pants; freely refers to Angel as "lover", "sweetie" and scores of other romantic endearments; is interested in fashion, culture, art, music, Elton John; and also has a somewhat flamboyantly, stereotypically gay personality. That said, he never appears to have a genuine romantic or sexual attraction to anyone, and Andy Hallett considered the character asexual.
And There Was Much Rejoicing: When he disappeared from Pylea, everyone feasted for weeks because they assumed he had committed ritual suicide.
Landok: Your mother's burden is terrible.
Lorne: Misses her little green boo, does she?
Landok: She rips your images into tiny pieces, feeds them to the swine, butchers the pigs and has their remains scattered for the dogs.
Lorne: (disheartened) Sounds like ma.
The Bard: Sings all the time, has a bit of magic to help guide others and acts as moral support
Beware the Nice Ones: He may be a Nice Guy and prefer not to fight, but Lorne can be scary when he wants to be. In "A Hole in the World," with Fred infected by Illyria's essence and dying, Lorne personally punches Eve out, tells her to sing so she can determine whether or not she's guilty, warning her with a bright smile and a very calm voice that if she had any involvement whatsoever, he'll kill her before Angel and Spike get a chance to.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Mentions that his heart is located in his rear.
Brown Note: His impressive vocal cords provide this Non-Action Guy with an ability that is useful in fights: in the music-less Pylea, he can incapacitate his enemies by singing normally; on Earth, he resorts to loud ear-piercingly high-pitched vocalizations to the same effect. The latter is also great for breaking glass or making lightbulbs explode.
The Confidant: Especially in Season 2, when as Host of Caritas he used his empath powers to The Confidant to the entire demon underworld of Los Angeles, both good and evil, as well as giving advice to Angel.
The Dandy: To paraphrase Mayor Wilkins on Buffy: That is one exciting suit!
A Day in the Limelight: "Life of the Party" focuses on the consequences of him having his sleep surgically removed so he can work all the time. He had mostly been Out of Focus in Season 5, but this episode focuses a lot on his character and how difficult he finds working for Wolfram and Hart.
Dark Is Not Evil: He's a green-skinned, red-eyed interdimensional demon from a Proud Warrior Race... and the White Sheep of his clan.
Deadpan Snarker: Lorne always has a snarky comment.
[to Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn]: I was *very* impressed with your musical recitation of pain earlier. And when I say pain, I mean mine.
[to Angel]: Between you and me, if it had taken you much longer to hit your bottom, I was gonna kick it.
I think your friend should reconsider the name Harmony.
De Fictionalization: Lorne headlines a Las Vegas show in one episode. This was done by having Hallett headline a show in Las Vegas in full costume and makeup, and filming it.
Embarrassing First Name: His full name is "Krevlornswath" in his native dimension, and even he isn't too fond of the shortened nickname. (He has green skin, which apparently made some people think of Lorne Greene from Bonanza, though out of the members of Angel Investigations, only Angel gets the reference).
The Empath: His powers allow him to sense people's feelings, secrets, and glimpses of their futures when they sing. Exactly how much he can predict varies: his empathy seems to be stronger than his precognition. He can also occasionally sense things when people aren't singing, if their emotions are strong enough or he knows them very well.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He was originally just called "The Host," stating that he preferred not to go by Lorne because his green skin would cause people to crack Lorne Greene jokes.
Everyone Has Standards: While Caritas was open to everyone, good, evil, or morally ambiguous, Lorne still had his limits. He mentions in one episode that he banned a group of demons because they were selling the mystical drug Orpheus, the only time he ever felt obligated to ban anyone.
Fake Guest Star: He becomes the team's unofficial Sixth Ranger by the end of Season 2 and appears in almost every episode in Seasons 3 and 4 before finally being Promoted to Opening Titles.
Fun Personified: Starts out as this, having a lot of funny lines, a flamboyant personality, being a Nice Guy and happy most of the time in an otherwise dark and serious setting. He ran a karaoke bar and wasn't a fighter, instead spending most of his time making pop culture references, singing, and generally being fun. However, by Season 5, Fred's death completely breaks him and he becomes a Sad Clown and, if not quite The Alcoholic, at least Drowning His Sorrows far too much.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: He tends to throw random foreign words into his sentences, including French, Spanish, Italian, and on one occasion German.
Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: Inverted. As head of the W&H Entertainment Division, Lorne is bogged down with so much work that he has to surgically remove his sleep — and even then he still can't catch up. It becomes clear that it's Lorne's way of assuming his old Caritas role and bringing people together, even at great self-sacrifice.
Have I Mentioned I Am a Dwarf Today?: Averted; Lorne doesn't mind it at all if people mistake his green skin for makeup. Especially if it gets him into Caesar's Palace. The first time this happens, he accidentally runs into a librarian who stammers, "You're—...you're—!!" before sighing, "...from the children's reading program!" At this, Lorne considers dropping by and reading some Harry Potter.
Healing Factor: When his horns were damaged or removed, they regenerated back within a matter of days. Additionally, he seemed to heal faster than humans, and could also reattach detached body parts without any surgical assistance.
Heroic Sacrifice: Sacrifices his corporeal body by leaping into the Music of the Spheres, thereby restoring balance to the universe. At least he went out singing.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Our Lady of the Perpetual Sea Breeze.
Iconic Sequel Character: Is introduced in season 2 and isn't promoted to the main cast until halfway through season 4, even though he appears in nearly every episode since his debut.
Immigrant Patriotism: As soon as he heard Aretha Franklin's voice, he knew he was home.
Incredibly Long Note: Once claimed he can hold a note literally forever.
Innocence Lost: He, a Nice Guy and Actual Pacifist, is ordered by Angel to assassinate Lindsey in the series finale. Lorne goes through with it, but bows out of Angel Investigations after doing so; his last scene in the episode, and thus the show, is of him dropping the gun he used to kill Lindsey and walking into the night, disgusted and broken.
Lorne: Goodnight, folks.
Like a Duck Takes to Water: He seems to never have any trouble or problems adapting his new life on Earth once he accidently stranded there. Than again, it's later revealed he was an outcast in Pylea and never fit in there, fitting much more into Earth with their music and pop culture.
Losing Your Head: He can survive decapitation and being cut apart, but only if his body parts aren't then mutilated. Lorne keeps this small detail about himself secret, apparently so as to gauge his friends' grief-stricken reactions to his 'death'. (He isn't impressed with any of them.)
Lounge Lizard: Subverted. The karaoke bar he performs in, his colourful clothes, and his choice of music make him seem like this trope, but he's not a Dreadful Musician at all, getting a lot of fans in Las Vegas and releasing at least one album. He's also a Nice Guy, not remotely sleazy, and more intelligent than first impressions might suggest.
Meaningful Name: On Lorne's homeworld, they drink "Flib liquor," humans are "cows", and they clean out "flehegna" stables. Maybe his nickname was apt.
Musical Assassin: He can make stuff explode by hitting just the right note.
"Slays 'em every time."
My Species Doth Protest Too Much: As a whole, his species are warriors. Lorne is an Actual Pacifist who hates violence.
Never Gets Drunk: Like the rest of his species, he was immune to the intoxicating effects of normal alcohol, but could be affected by certain magical brews. Nonetheless, he regularly consumed alcohol to the point of being an alcoholic, favoring Sea Breeze cocktails.
Nice Guy: Lorne is, almost without fail, friendly, helpful, and fun to be around.
The Nicknamer: Habitually. Angel arguably gets the most.
Angel: Stop naming me pastries.
Noble Demon: There's plenty of benign demons in the Buffyverse, but Lorne goes above and beyond the call of duty. His club, Caritas (Latin for "sanctuary") was specifically designed to bring human and demonkind together peacefully.
Non-Action Guy: In direct contrast to his Deathwok brethren, he was a peaceful being and preferred to simply relax and enjoy life rather than fight.
Oh, Crap!: In "A Hole in the World", he cheerfully starts singing "You Are My Sunshine" as he walks away from Fred and Wesley; all of a sudden, she sings a little bit, and Lorne turns around with the most terrified look we've ever seen from him as he realizes she's going to die.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Lorne's the smiling, happy, carefree member of the team. When he begins to crack in Season 5, it's a sign that everything's about to fall apart. He never really recovers.
Opt Out: In the series finale; after being told his part in Angel's take-down-the-Black-Thorns plan, he tells Angel that he would do it for the sake of their friendship, but after that, he was done and they would most likely never see him again.
'Lorne: I'll do this last thing for you, for us... but then I'm out, and you won't find me in the alley afterwards. Hell, you won't find me at all. Do me a favor. Don't try.
Out of Focus: In Season 5, Andy Hallett probably spent more time in the makeup chair than he did in front of the camera. On the upside, Lorne did get his own episode (see above) and is featured prominently in the final stretch.
The Paladin: Of all the characters in either Buffy or Angel, it is Lorne who is the most morally pure, and the most morally inspirational.
Paper-Thin Disguise: An overcoat and a trilby, which looks dashing in a Humphrey Bogart-sort of way, but about as inconspicuous as a Ninja Turtle. A baseball cap and sunglasses are enough to disguise him in broad daylight.
Person as Verb: Originally known simply as "The Host."
Plucky Comic Relief: As befitting him being a Non-Action Guy, Lorne is quick to provide humor in even the most dire situations. At least until Fred dies.
The Power of Rock: Karaoke is the only way to put things right!
Promotion to Opening Titles: At long last partway into Season 4.
Psychic Powers: He can read people's futures. Allegedly only when they sing, but there have been plenty of occasions when he's read people who aren't singing. Each time he brushes it off as them broadcasting unusually strongly because of their emotional state. It happens frequently. He can also mystically sense when Cordelia is about to receive a vision and has the ability to surf her connection to the Powers That Be and tap into her visions as a result. He needs to be touching Cordelia to do this latter but he's even able to tell when Cordelia's being sent fake visions from an earth-based psychic and indicates that it requires genuine skill to be able to work that out as the fakes were very convincing.
Red Baron: Ends up becoming one the more benign demon "lords" of L.A. after it is banished to Hell. Lorne is elected the Lord of Silver Lake, and does his very best to make his territory "a Heaven in Hell". (After the Fall)
Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's got red eyes because he's a demon, but he's a gentle soul who's pretty sweet and fun company.
Sad Clown: His perpetual comic persona starts turning into this in Season Five, mostly after Fred dies. He even gets a whole scene talking about this in "Underneath."
Shipper on Deck: Leads the movement to pair off Angel and Cordelia. You can't fight love, Cinnamon Buns!
Some Call Me "Tim": Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan. Lorne for short.
Spiky Hair: the degree of spikiness varies, but at times it's even spikier than Angel's. Especially noticeable here.◊ Even more noticeable since it's partly reddish-brown and partly black, with the exact quantity of each also quite variable: it looks dyed, but it's natural if the rest of his species are anything to go by. It doesn't get commented on as much as Angel's hair, though. Probably because it's the most normal aspect of his appearance.
Super-Hearing: He had excellent hearing, and could hear outside the normal human range, going as far as to tune into transmission frequencies.
Took a Level in Badass: He learns to fight when he must, but is still an Action Survivor at best. In his last scene, he pulls a Bodyguard Betrayal and kills Lindsey with two shots to the chest, but is so disgusted by the act that he walks out on the team without so much as a goodbye.
Trademark Favorite Drink: Seabreeze, a mixture of cranberry and grapefruit juices with vodka. He insisted that the ones sold in Caritas always be made with freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice rather than canned.
The Unfavorite: His cousins use their empathic powers to hunt. Lorne used his to read peoples' destinies, and was considered a freak. He preferred music over hunting, even though music doesn't really exist in his dimension.
Verbal Tic: Whenever Lorne finishes a sentence he refers to the person he's talking to as some kind of endearment, often a foodstuff: Pumpkin, Angel-cakes, Kiwi, Sweet potato, Muffin.
- "And stop calling me pastries!
- This extends to curses, as well. "Aw, fudgesicle!"
- Back on Pylea they used to call him "fragrant tuber".
- Backfires when Lorne telephones a coded message for help ("Say 'hi' to Fluffy for me!"), which Fred interprets as just another nickname for someone in Angel's group.
  (to Gunn) Who's Fluffy? Are you Fluffy?
- Or Harmonica/Harmonita, in Harmony's case.
White Sheep: To the rest of his clan, on Pylea, for not wanting to be a warrior.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: While running Caritas, he firmly believed that anyone, human or demon, could turn their lives around if given sufficient guidance, and thus allowed everyone, even baby-eating demons, entry.
You Can't Go Home Again: Parodied when Angel drags him kicking and screaming to Pylea. Learns nothing, accomplishes nothing, goes back home. The end.
"I had to come back here to find out I didn't have to come back here. I don't belong here, I hate it here! You know where I belong? L.A. You know why? Nobody belongs there. It's the perfect place for guys like us."

Kate

See Buffyverse: Los Angeles Residents

Spike

See Buffyverse: Spike

Groosalugg

The Groosalugg

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/40727ab67c04186960d50f87ad69bac9.jpg

"Hail to you potential client!"

Played By: Mark Lutz

"Angel, you and I have fought side by side on more than one occasion. Fellow warriors, shoulder to shoulder. By now, my counsel must assuredly hold weight, so I beseech you to heed my words: Pomegranate Mist is the wrong color for this room."

A battle-hardened champion of Pylea and other-world equivalent of Angel. Though technically of Lorne's species, his mixed bloodline has manifested in "Cow" (read: humanoid) traits, making him an outcast among his kind. Once Cordelia ascends the throne, the Groosalugg (or "Groo" for short) is assigned as her mate. However, Cordelia does not want to consummate their relationship because she fears losing her visions, which Groo would immediately inherit. At Cordy's urging, rulership of Pylea passes to Groo, who installs a set of sweeping reforms. He is soon dethroned, however, and ends up in Los Angeles — unknowingly edging out Angel as the city's hero.

The Ace: Aside from being a bit dim, he really is Just That Good. That's how he got the title of Groosalugg ("brave and undefeated.")
Actually, That's My Assistant: After Cordelia is told that her mate has arrived, a hunchback horrible creature enters the throne room, a few moments later the handsome actual Groosalugg enteres the room telling the creature he can put his luggage anywhere
Always Someone Better: Can do everything Angel can, and in the daylight.
All Genes Are Codominant: He's basically a pink-skinned variant of Lorne's species, with navy blue eyes.
All of the Other Reindeer: His "cow blood" ensured a lifetime of loathing.
Bash Brothers: With Angel, and once with Gunn.
Beware the Nice Ones: Probably the nicest guy after Doyle, yet just as badass as Angel.
Bungled Suicide: Shunned by his people, Groo left to fight monsters until one would inevitably kill him. He laments that he couldn't even do that right, as he won every time.
The Bus Came Back: He returns in After the Fall, long hair and all.
The Cape: Angel grumps about how he's better at being one than Angel himself.
Costume Copycat: Cordelia giving him an L.A.-style makeover, right down to the...spiky hair... — Hey, wait a minute...!
Angel: He's wearing my clothes!
Death Seeker: Played for laughs, after a lifetime of being ostracized by his people he fought the greatest warriors and fiercest beasts in hopes of them ending his miserable existence, but was so skillful that he defeated them all.
Deathbringer the Adorable: Cordelia is initially horrified that she's expected to mate with a "Groosalugg."
Dumb Is Good: He eventually wises up to this and lets the rest of the team do the planning.
Fish out of Temporal Water: Upon following Cordy to Los Angeles.
Hopeless Suitor: As madly as Groo is in love with Cordelia, her heart ultimately belongs to Angel, which Groo takes quite well.
I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Summoned from "the Scum Pits of Ur."
I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After realizing that Cordelia truly loved Angel and not him, he chivalrously stepped aside to let Cordelia pursue him.
Leeroy Jenkins: At first. He realizes it and gets better.
Lightning Bruiser: He's much stronger and faster than a vampire of Angel's age.
Made of Iron:
Angel: (Watching the Groosalugg stick his hand in open flame to prepare for battle) This guy - he doesn't feel pain?
Fred: Oh, he feels it, but - he's the Groosalugg. He overcomes all things. Good luck!
Nice Guy: Impossibly nice and polite to everyone, almost to a fault.
Occult Blue Eyes: His only obvious non-human trait, a pair of unnaturally dark blue eyes that seem to lack pupils.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Groosalugg is a title that means "brave and undefeated" his actual name is never revealed.
Reluctant Ruler: About the only thing Groo fails at is running a country; he became bored with the committees, and was deposed pretty quick.
Shout-Out: A mighty, good-hearted and rather dumb warrior nicknamed Groo?
Spell My Name with a "The": He's known as "The Groosalugg", although he's eventually given the nickname of "Groo".
Spock Speak: "Hail, potential client!"
- This is subverted in one (cut) scene, where he's trying to record a message for the team's answering machine.
Groosalugg: Hello. We welcome your telephonic — (hangs up, picks up) Hello. Many thanks for telephoning — (hangs up, looks around, picks up) Hi. This is Groo. I can't make it to the phone right now, but if you'll leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. (shakes his head, hangs up again) Their speaking path is so odd.
The Worf Effect: Built up as an absolute badass, rivaling even Angel. Sure enough, he actually does back up most of it, but Connor ends up tossing him around like a rag doll.

Connor

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/42c48df33cb8a59ad9ccc19f22bb1f31.jpg

"You gotta do what you can to protect your family. I learned that from my father."

Played By: Vincent Kartheiser

Against all laws of the universe, Angel and his sire Darla conceive a son and the result is Connor, who is super-strong, agile, has enhanced senses and healing and is, by all appearances, human. Taken away to another dimension, the Quor-Toth, as a baby, Connor returns a few months later. Due to time flowing differently there, he is now seventeen years old, and an incredible fighter. Harboring a deep hatred for Angel's true nature, Connor is at odds with Angel Investigation just as often as he is fighting alongside them.

Abusive Parents: It wouldn't be a stretch to say Holtz wasn't sweet and gentle while fashioning Connor into a weapon. And when it looked like Connor might have a happy life with Angel, Holtz killed himself to set Connor against his real father, thus abandoning him in a world he knew nothing about with nothing left to live for except revenge.
Antagonistic Offspring: Towards Angel and especially Angelus. Being raised by Holtz will do that to a guy. Even after his Heel–Face Turn in season 4, he had some traits of this; when they had to bring Angelus back to take down the Beast, Connor openly supported dusting Angelus over re-ensouling him, even going so far as to try and stake him while Willow was in the middle of cursing Angelus again.
Anti-Anti-Christ: It was touch and go there for a while. But he ultimately rebels against Jasmine. The only problem is that doing so leaves the poor kid mired in nihilistic, homicidal despair.
Avenging the Villain: When Holtz kills himself in such a way as to implicate Angel.
Ax-Crazy: Was there ever any doubt it would come to this?
Babies Make Everything Better: For a bit.
Back for the Finale: "You stop by for a cup of coffee and the world's not ending? Please."
Backstory Invader: Connor inverts the trope by being given fake memories of a normal life, so that no one except Angel, Cordelia, and Cyrus Vail (the demon who made the new reality to begin with) remembered his true identity.
Badass Adorable: As Connor Reilly. A polite, good-natured and boyishly handsome young man, but shy, innocent and somewhat awkward. And also he could pull your spine out through your mouth.
The Berserker: He tries to commit Suicide by Cop after Jasmine's defeat, and doesn't care if the Cop has to be Angel.
Black-and-White Insanity: The sad fact is that Connor never really adjusts to our world. Angel is a killer; therefore, he should die. The world is harsh and cruel; Jasmine made it a paradise, so she must be good.
- He considers himself above Angel Investigations in this respect, accusing them of fighting empty battles and helping to maintain the status quo.
Brainwashing for the Greater Good: The Senior Partners offer to do this when he becomes too crazed to control. It comes at a price: Angel has to go join Wolfram & Hart.
Bratty Half-Pint: He's like Dawn only even more Wangsty and with super-powers.
Creepy Souvenir: His starter outfit is a patchwork of animal hides, or as he elegantly put it, "Things I've killed." And then there was that time he ripped a drug dealer's ear off.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He may have picked up the condition from Holtz.
Conditioned to Accept Horror: Having spent most of his life in a Death World and put through Training from Hell by Holtz, Connor is so used to horrible things that the sight of Jasmine's true face doesn't even faze him.
Cute Bruiser: All the strength of a vampire, packed into a skinny-ass teen.
Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Holtz is perfectly plain about Connor's origins — almost sinisterly so. Although Connor has been drilled to think of his parents as monsters, he is, at heart, angry at them for abandoning him. Angel is obviously torn up about it, and makes a final attempt to reason with him, but Connor is too far gone to hear it.
Deadpan Snarker: Not as much as his parents, but he does have a few great one-liners. He ups it after he regains his memories in the final episodes and combines being the son of Angel and Darla with being academically brilliant.
Connor: Have you ever written a résumé before? Ever?
Angel: ...no. But I have very nice handwriting.
Connor: You girl.
Deus Angst Machina
Dhampyr: Though he was born to two vampires. He's only mostly human, whatever he is. A good description would be, he has all the strengths of a vampire and all the weaknesses of a human.
- They get to play around with the implications of a vampire with a human son. Connor isn't averse to many uniquely vampiric weaknesses, and so can go places and do things that Angel can't, but he can die from things that won't kill a vampire, like suffocation or loss of blood. In one of his first episodes back from Quor'toth, Angel loses Connor when he can't follow him into the sunlight, and later has to shield him from a hail of gunfire.
The Dragon: To the Beastmaster (AKA Cordelia) and later Jasmine.
- Dragon Ascendant: Bitterly played with. After all, he's the one who iced Jasmine, and there's no longer any pod people to rule. He acts as an extension of Jasmine's Motive Rant, claiming that the human race was undeserving of her love.
Does Not Like Magic: He considers it a crutch, and one that he hardly ever sees work as advertised.
Connor: I've pretty much concluded that magic sucks.
Double Consciousness: After Wesley inadvertently restores his old memories.
The Dreaded: The demons of Quor-Toth were terrified of him. They called him things like "the Destroyer" and "the bringer of torment".
Easily Forgiven: Let's count the number of times this happened shall we?
Emo Teen: Gets accused of this often. To be fair, the only happy moments in his life were the two weeks after his birth and the reunion with his father that Holtz destroyed.
Escaped from Hell: He terrifies the beasts of Quor-toth so much, they flee to Earth just to be rid of him. After that, it's as easy as following the bread crumbs...
Fake Memories: Angel has Wolfram & Hart change his memories and give him a new life to make him better adjusted. Even once his original memories are restored, he's a lot more grounded.
Fantastic Racism: Being raised by Holtz has caused him to be prejudiced against demons. At one point, he openly referred to Lorne as a "filthy demon". Kartheiser even likened him to a kid who was raised by a racist. This includes half-demons as well, which also gives him a dash of Boomerang Bigot: he attacked Cordelia with a knife when he discovered she was half demon. Later, he discovered he was also part demon because the sanctuary spell worked against him (and logically he would be, since he's the child of two vampires and vampires are half demon).
Final Boss: Of Season 4.
Flash Step: Appears to have inherited this from his father when he is seen suddenly moving in and out of frame.
From Bad to Worse: If there's anything you don't want to happen to your child, it's happened to Connor: Before he was even born he was wanted by an assortment of evil people, kidnappers, and a very angry demon. When he was only a few months old he was kidnapped and taken into the worst of all hell dimensions; he returned a few weeks later (in Angel's time) all grown up and wanting to kill his father; he was seduced and manipulated by a eldritch entity possessing Cordelia's body; and he eventually went fairly insane and murderous, forcing Angel to cut his throat. He was saved by a timey-wimey Deal With The Evil Law Firm and given a normal life in which he had no memory of Angel, and just when Angel was coming to terms with that, he returned to Angel's life with no idea who Angel was, and then was forced to fight an extremely powerful demon while having no idea how to fight. That's just the big things.
Give Him a Normal Life: Connor at the end of season four. (Jesus, they ran the gamut with baby tropes and this kid, didn't they?)
Good Is Dumb: As a conflicted character, he was constantly switching sides; when fighting at his father's side, he was a bit slower than Angel and not as agile, but when he fought against the good guys, he was like Spider-Man with a cause, decking multiple foes with each blow and always one step ahead.
Healing Factor: Due to his vampiric heritage, he possess a vampire's regenerative healing factor. After his first encounter with the Beast, the Jasmine-possessed Cordelia discovered a large bruise on his upper torso and assumed it to be broken ribs, to which Connor remarked that he had never broken a bone before and didn't even know he could, and he healed from such injuries at a rapid pace.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: And around and around and around he goes.
Heroic Bastard: Angel and Darla certainly weren't married when Connor was conceived. Connor himself bounces back and forth between ally and antagonist like a Ping-Pong ball, but at the end of the day, he's on the side of the angels.
I Have Many Names: Connor Angel (name given him by Team Angel at the hospital as a baby), Steven Franklin Thomas Holtz (by Holtz), Connor Reilly (with his new family).
I Just Want to Be Loved: Angel? Gave him up and let him be sucked into a Hell portal. Darla? Staked herself because she couldn't give birth. Holtz? Raving maniac who used him as a tool to punish Angel. Cordelia? Completely and utterly mind-screws him into committing betrayals, patricide, and murder. Jasmine? Was the one possessing Cordelia to do that. ...You get the picture.
It Runs in the Family: "A weakness for Slayers. You're definitely his son."
Jumped at the Call: Wheter his usual or alternate self, he seems pretty enthusiastic about being a superhuman.
The Lancer
Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Jasmine, who requires a paradox of sorts to birth herself into our world, is responsible for Darla's pregnancy and Connor's later romantic interlude with Cordelia.
Leeroy Jenkins: Good luck trying to control him.
Lightning Bruiser: In his first appearance alone, he was practically running circles around Angel, Gunn and the Groosalugg.
Likes Older Women: Self-confessed. Targets of his Longing Look include Cordelia, Faith, and Illyria.
Connor: Sorry, I guess I've just always had this thing for older women.
Angel: [under his breath] They were supposed to fix that.
Loss of Identity: Not only does Angel wipe Connor's memory, but he changes reality so that he's happy and well-adjusted.
Made of Iron: He is able to shrug off getting hit by a van and slammed into a building with little to no problem.
Muggle Born of Mages: Zigzagged as he's the human son of two vampires but he still possesses a number of
Muscles Are Meaningless: Looking at the picture, you'd be forgiven for not thinking he could kick your ass. You're wrong; he could kick your ass and then hand it to you on a silver platter with a singing telegram.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In Quor-Toth, he was called "the Destroyer."
Noble Bigot: Connor was brought up to hate demons and magic by the Obliviously Evil Holtz, but has no intention of hurting humans (at first). Wesley even uses this as an excuse in "Deep Down" for not having clued Fred and Gunn, who worked with him over the summer, in on the fact he was responsible for Angel's disappearance, since they would be safe around him that way.
No Man of Woman Born: The prophecy said, "There will be no birth." What it meant was that Darla can't deliver a baby, so the only alternative is to stake herself and turn to ash. Hence, no birth.
The Nose Knows: He either has a better version than the average vampire or was given a lot more incentive to practice.
Not Brainwashed: Due to their blood relation, Jasmine's powers never worked on him. He was just so jaded and messed up by that point that her "peace at the cost of free will" plan seemed like a good deal, even if he never felt the same bliss everyone else did.
"I knew she was a lie. Jasmine. My whole life's been built on them. I just - I guess I thought this one was better than the others."
Offing the Offspring: Connor is eventually driven to kill Jasmine after an entire season's worth of Sanity Slippage.
One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: He possesses many of the powers vampires have and while they're not all to the same extent (he can still be killed by knives and bullets, for example, while vampires heal from such injuries almost instantly and he ages like a human although it's unknown if he always will), he makes up for it by lacking the weaknesses, being completely unaffected by sunlight and holy items and not needing to consume blood.
Only I Can Kill Him: Which is why Sahjhan is so anxious to be rid of him.
The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The reason he defended Angel from Linwood's commandos in "Tomorrow".
Papa Wolf: A rather twisted take on this trope. Connor is fiercely devoted to his daughter Jasmine's cause, to the point that he willingly serves her even after he learns that she is eating people, and what her true appearance is. even his murder of her arguably falls into this, as he claims he did so because the earth didn't deserve the love she offered them.
Plot-Relevant Age-Up: He goes into the hell dimension as a baby and comes back as a sixteen-year-old.
Psycho Supporter: To the Jasmaniacs.
Sanity Slippage: With every emotional disaster dumped on him, his stability goes down a tick.
Sanity Strengthening: He starts out a warped Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb raised in a hell dimension by a vengeful Knight Templar and gets worse. Angel then uses a Deal with the Devil to rewrite reality to give Connor a happy life and fake memories. Even after Connor regains his true memories, the knowledge of what Angel did for him keeps him stable.
Scarily Competent Tracker: You can thank Holtz for tying Connor to a tree in the middle of nowhere, then leaving him to escape his ropes and find his way home all on his own. "One time, it only took me five days."
Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: After already getting a Plot-Relevant Age-Up, Connor was later also a victim of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome when they changed his age from sixteen to eighteen to make his relationship with 22-year-old Cordelia less squicky. It didn't help much, considering she views herself as his mother.
- This is especially amusing considering that, due to the circumstances of Connor's rapid aging, nobody, including Connor himself, can really be sure of exactly how old he is. That doesn't stop several characters from explicitly stating that he's "eighteen", for the first time, in that very same episode, all apparently just to keep the media watchdogs at bay.
- Given that he's stated to be sixteen the previous season they could simply have made Connor seventeen, the same age Buffy was when she lost her virginity with 243-year old Angel, but, well...
Son of a Whore: His mother was one before being sired.
Straw Nihilist: He's not overly fond of human reality. Considering he grew up in a hell dimension, that's really something.
Super-Senses: Due to his vampiric heritage, he possessed acute senses superior to humans. He noted that he can track people by scent, and was able to hear Cordelia whispering from a distance of several meters. sitting by a window still several meters away a few seconds ago.
Super-Strength: He possessed strength far superior to that of an average human. He had been bested in battle by both Faith and Angel, but he was still stronger than most vampires and many kinds of demons, even those from Quor'toth. An example of his strength was when he was able to land a hit on Marcus Hamilton that momentarily stunned him, albeit after he caught him off-guard when Hamilton was shown to be very hard to injure in any way. However, Connor was no match for him when he was expecting his attacks even with his strength. Furthermore, he shattered Jasmine's head with a single punch whereas Angel was unable to cause her any long-term damage, though it is likely that his connection to Jasmine enabled him to do so. Connor killed a powerful demon by effortlessly ripping its heart out of its stomach. Shortly after he returned from Quor'toth, he managed to easily lift a snack machine and smash it to the ground with great force, breaking it.
Super-Toughness: Though stab and gunshot wounds could prove life-threatening, he was still notably resistant to blunt force trauma. Later, when the Beast threw him out of a sixth-story window while the sun was being blocked out by the Ra-Tet eclipse spell, Connor asked Cordelia if things were supposed to go dark when someone loses consciousness, implying that he had never done so before. (At least not gradually, anyway).
Super-Speed: Like all vampires, he possessed superhuman speed and reflexes. He saved Fred from a thrown axe by showing up out of nowhere and catching it, He also surprised Cordelia by handing her a towel despitees consciousness, implying that he had never done so before. (At least not gradually, anyway).
Tangled Family Tree: Like a ball of rubber bands. Angel conceived him with Darla, who was able to carry him to term with Jasmine's influence. Connor was kidnapped and "adopted" by Holtz. Connor then impregnated Cordelia so she could give birth to Jasmine. And if you include members of his parents' vampire bloodline, then it's even more convoluted (not least because Darla was both Drusilla's "grandmother" and her "daughter", which means that Connor and Spike are each the other's uncle).
Teen Genius: Being Angel's kid will do that to you. He doesn't really have a chance to show it before his False Memories get implanted, but after, he's mentioned to pretty much have his choice for any college in the country and is able to snark with the best of them.
Took a Level in Cheerfulness: After his False Memories are implanted (and even after his true ones are subsequently restored and blend with those), he becomes a dorky and sweet teenager who's remarkably well adjusted and is thankful to have three great parents in his life (his implanted ones and Angel).
Took a Level in Idealism/Took a Level in Kindness: Having his memories rewritten of living a far more normal, healtheir life ends up being one of the best things to ever happen to him. By the time he returns in the fifth season he's shown to be much happier and nicer, and even after he recovers his original memories he realizes just how much Angel sacrificed for him now and subseqently continues to have a far better relationship with him than he did before.
Training from Hell: A rather literal case. Angel is horrified to hear him casually explain what Holtz put him through, which included tying him, then only five or six, to a tree and then leaving him to free himself and search for him in the wilderness of a demon dimension with a very bad reputation.
Tyke-Bomb: Angel spends the end of season three and all of season four trying in vain to defuse him.
Unexplained Accent: Having been raised in Quor'toth by Holtz since he was a baby, you would expect him to have an English accent. Yet he sounds American.
Ungrateful Bastard: No matter how many times Angel saves him or shows him kindness, he'll throw it back in his face and lash out at the people who cared for him. It took erasing his mind to make him grow out of this.
Unskilled, but Strong: In contrast to Buffy and Angel's more technical approach to fighting, Connor is shown relying more on brute force, hitting hard and fast and beating his opponents into submission. On one occasion, he lost to Angel when the latter had amnesia and was mentally a teenager fighting purely on instinct.
Unwitting Pawn: For both Holtz (who ends up taking his own life to turn Connor against Angel) and Jasmine (who exploits Connor to bring herself into the world).
Walking Spoiler: Even a vague description of Connor stands the risk of spoiling a great deal of Seasons 3 and 4.
"Well Done, Son" Guy: With Holtz, not Angel.
Welcome Back, Traitor

Nina

Characters / Buffyverse: Angel Investigations
aka: Angel Investigations

Current Members

See Angel

Charles Gunn

Played By: J. August Richards

Winifred "Fred" Burkle

Played By: Amy Acker

Illyria

Played By: Amy Acker

Former Members

Cordelia Chase

Played By: Charisma Carpenter

Appearances: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Angel

Allen Francis Doyle

Played By: Glenn Quinn

See here

Krevlornswath "Lorne" of the Deathwok Clan, also known as The Host

Played By: Andy Hallett

See Buffyverse: Los Angeles Residents

See Buffyverse: Spike

The Groosalugg

Played By: Mark Lutz

Connor

Played By: Vincent Kartheiser

See Buffyverse: Los Angeles Residents

Alternative Title(s): Angel Investigations

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Index

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Characters / Buffyverse: Angel Investigations aka: Angel Investigations

Edit Locked

Current Members

See Angel

Charles Gunn

Played By: J. August Richards

Winifred "Fred" Burkle

Played By: Amy Acker

Illyria

Played By: Amy Acker

Former Members

Cordelia Chase

Played By: Charisma Carpenter

Appearances: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Angel

Allen Francis Doyle

Played By: Glenn Quinn

See here

Krevlornswath "Lorne" of the Deathwok Clan, also known as The Host

Played By: Andy Hallett

See Buffyverse: Los Angeles Residents

See Buffyverse: Spike

The Groosalugg

Played By: Mark Lutz

Connor

Played By: Vincent Kartheiser

See Buffyverse: Los Angeles Residents

Alternative Title(s): Angel Investigations

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / Buffyverse: Angel Investigations
aka: Angel Investigations