Angel

Birthday: Born sometime in 1727 in Ireland

Age: 247 years

Siblings: Younger sister when he was human (deceased)

Character History: Angel's human name was Liam. He used to be a bit of a drinker, and didn't get along with his father. One night in 1753, while Liam was out drinking, he spotted a beautiful blonde woman--Darla--who turned out to be a vampire, and was the particular vampire turned him into one as well. She renamed him Angelus ("the one with the Angelic face"). Angelus went back to his house, and killed his parents and younger sister and terrorized his entire village before moving on.

Angelus and Darla roamed Europe as lovers and brutally killed and tortured a great deal of people. In 1860, Angelus had his first encounter with a young seer named Drusilla. He found himself fascinated with her; he killed her entire family, drove her insane, and then turned her into a vampire as well. For 20 years, Angelus, Darla and Dru roamed and killed, and in 1880, Dru turned a young man by the name of William (now he goes by Spike) into a vampire. Angelus and Spike had their problems and seemingly never got along too well. In 1898, Darla brought Angelus a gift: a beautiful young gypsy girl, whom he killed slowly. As a result, the girl's tribe cursed him with a human soul. Darla refused to have anything to do with him after that because his soul made him "dirty." He shortened his name to Angel to distinguish himself from his "demon" within. Angel felt extremely guilty about all the terrible things he had done.

Two years later, Angel sought out Darla in China and begged for another chance. She was reluctant, but he convinced her anyway. He fed on rapists, thieves and murderers, unable to take the life of an innocent person. Darla caught on to his game and confronted him about it, and then showed him an infant that she had kidnapped and told him to kill the baby to prove his worth. When he wouldn't do it, he grabbed the child before Darla could hurt it and jumped out the window.

He somehow made his way to the United States (most likely by boat), and was in New York when a demon by the name of Whistler found him in an alley, living off mice and vermin. Whistler pointed out that he could spend the rest of eternity feeding off vermin and living on the streets or he could do something to redeem his sins. Whistler took him to L.A. where he showed him a girl who had just been called as a Vampire Slayer. Her name was Buffy Summers. He realized that he did want redemption and vowed to help the young Slayer. So, when Buffy and her mother moved to Sunnydale, CA, two hours north of L.A., Angel followed, occasionally giving her hints and warnings about new evil things going on. He also ran back into Darla, who was working for her Sire, the Master. She attempted to manipulate him into killing Buffy and nearly succeeded. When Angel couldn't do it, however, she tried to. In the end, Angel staked her in the back to save Buffy's life.

Eventually the two of them fell in love, and on Buffy's 17th birthday they made love, causing Angel to lose his soul, and revert back to his evil self, Angelus. We later learned that the one clause to Angel's curse was that should he ever have one moment of true happiness and have one moment where he wasn't suffering from his sins, he would turn evil again. After Angelus returned, he caught back up with Spike and Dru, who had been hiding out in Sunnydale in an old warehouse. He tormented Buffy and her friends, killed Giles' girlfriend, Jenny Calender, and almost had the world sucked into hell via a demon called Acathla. Buffy's best friend Willow succeeded with the spell to give Angel his soul back, but since he had awakened Acathla and the only way to stop him was for Angel to die, Buffy was forced to kill him anyway.

A few months later, Angel was returned from Hell, sent back because the Powers That Be needed him to fight the good fight here on Earth. He and Buffy eventually ended up back together, but with a little push from Buffy's mother, realized that they could never have what she wanted or needed. Angel broke up with her and without saying a real goodbye, left town to return to L.A.

Angel was living alone in the basement apartment of an office building when Doyle informed him that he was a messenger sent from the Powers That Be (PTB) and that Angel was to be a warrior against evil. Doyle got head-splitting visions that offered a name or a location of someone Angel was supposed to help. Angel accepted his fate, still wanting to atone for his past. While protecting a woman named Tina, he ran into Cordelia Chase at a party and was surprised to hear she was now living in L.A. Tina found out Angel was a vampire and ran from him, only to be caught and killed by the person Angel had been protecting her from, Russell Winters. Russell was a vampire (though no one knew it at the time) who had a lot of money and was famous in L.A. When seeking revenge for Tina's death, Angel wound up saving Cordelia, whom had also nearly fallen victim to Winters. Cordelia informed him that she was going to help him with his "mission" and together, Angel, Cordelia and Doyle opened a detective agency called Angel Investigations. The team repeatedly came up against a law firm called Wolfram and Hart, who defended demons and were involved in a great many evil doings.

Soon after the opening, he met a young female detective with the LAPD, Kate Lockley. They became allies and often helped each other out on cases.

Doyle sacrificed his life to save a group of half-demons so that Angel wouldn't do it. Angel was devestated and felt terribly guilty about his death. He even appealed to the Oracles (unearthly beings that work for the PTB) to bring Doyle back, that he was his friend and besides, it was Doyle's visions that allowed him to help people. They told him that all would be revealed in time. As it turned out, Doyle had passed his "gift" on to Cordelia when they shared a brief kiss before he died. Cordelia became Angel's link to the PTB.

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce came to L.A. as a rogue demon hunter, who wound up helping Angel with a case, and lingered around until Angel finally offered him a job at Angel Investigations. Not long after that, Kate's father was killed by a couple of vampires and she no longer wanted anything to do with Angel since "his kind" was responsible for her father's death.

Angel wound up feeling extremely depressed towards the end of season one, feeling like nothing ever changes and that there was nothing in the world that he really wanted. However, when Cordelia and Wesley were both nearly killed by a demon sent by Wolfram and Hart, Angel realized what he did want: for his two best friends to be all right. In a very touching moment while Cordelia was in a vision-induced coma, he admitted that he needed her and that he was going to do whatever it took to get her back. And though he was forced to cut off Wolfram and Hart lawyer (and junior partner) Lindsey McDonald's hand to do it, he retrieved the scroll that would bring Cordy out of her coma, thus saving her life.

At the end of season one, Wesley re-translated the scroll and Angel learned that one day after a great deal of battles and after he had truly redeemed himself, he was to "shanshu," or, become human.

Picture: Cordelia and Angel Promo for Season 1 of "Angel."

Some of my Favorite Angel Quotes:

"Cordelia, I'm gonna fix this. I promise. I'm gonna get you back. I *need* you back." -Angel to Cordelia, "Shanshu in L.A."

"These people mean a lot to me." -Angel to Gunn about Cordy and Wesley, "Shanshu in L.A."

Angel/Angelus is played by the extremely talented David Boreanaz.

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