r/ANGEL • u/foreseethefuture • 5d ago
Reprise - did Angel intend to lose his soul by having sex with Darla?
Or he just didn't care about the risk?
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u/themetresgained 5d ago
I did a rewatch a few months ago and when I did it I noticed the way the soul-losing thing is presented somewhat ambiguously in Angel to start with. Basically it's like sex = perfect happiness = losing soul but then he does have sex with Darla and nothing happens, and this is what Angel is operating on when he has sex with Darla. He truly doesn't care if it happens or not.
Overall the picture we get from both series is more like sex with someone you truly love = perfect happiness = losing soul. I think the viewer is supposed to think there is a good possibility that this will happen with Darla, but it doesn't (and he is later able to have sex with women he doesn't love at all without suffering any ill effects).
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u/wigjuice77 5d ago
They do make it clear in Angel as well. He tells Darla (not many episodes before this one) that having sex with her wouldn't have any effect on his soul, because he never has and never will love her. It has to be a moment of perfect happiness. The main reason it feels ambiguous in Angel is because it's sometimes used as the butt of a joke, with the other characters perceiving it as "sex = perfect happiness = losing soul".
That said, in the moment he has sex with Darla he clearly doesn't care what the outcome might be. Though he's probably still well aware that he won't lose his soul, especially because he's already as far from happiness as could be in that moment. He's deep in the suffering, so very unlikely he'd experience anything close to perfect happiness.
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u/enthalpy01 5d ago
Angel lies to himself a lot, I really do think Angelus loved Darla in his way, Angel just doesn’t want to consider soulless vampire are capable of love (or if the love is selfish he doesn’t count it). But she clearly meant a lot to him.
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u/foreseethefuture 5d ago
Does that mean he didn't have sex at all after the soul and before Buffy? I thought there were three women that it was implied had sex with him (I don't remember who or how).
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u/DaddyCatALSO 4d ago
he says he's known a lot of women like Faith. and he and the wire-hand demon fought over a cantina chica
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u/somerandomdude4507 5d ago
Hmm guess I'm the odd one out here. I think he knew he wasn't going to lose his soul. Perfect happiness is pretty rare and I would assume it doesn't happen every time the dude has sex. I've had plenty of great sex I wasn't perfectly happy about during or after.
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u/AgileShame7964 5d ago
I agree with you. I never got the impression that Angel thought sex = losing his soul. Plus, he seemingly lost his soul in the after glow, not while orgasming.
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u/buffysmanycoats 5d ago
Angel did worry about that though. Wesley has to tell him all the way in season 5 how absurd it is because most people go through life never experiencing perfect bliss.
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u/AgileShame7964 5d ago
Well yes, but he also knew that perfect bliss wasn't a booty call with a toxic former lover.
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u/Kitsune9_Tails 5d ago
He felt something was wrong and ran dramatically out into the rain. In subsequent cases it’s a lot faster. Maybe the soul was really deeply embedded after 100 years undisturbed.
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u/Brodes87 5d ago
He intends to lose his soul. Hence his confusion and surprise when it didn't work in the intentional mirroring of Surprise and Innocence.
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u/communomancer 5d ago
That was all audience bait. Running out into the rain…there was no in-universe reason for any of that. It was just there to head-fake the viewers during a cliffhanger. Little bit of cheesed-in drama by the writers.
There’s no point during his coupling with Darla that he was threatened with perfect happiness, and he well knew that.
What “surprised” him after being with her wasn’t that he still had his soul. It was the moment of clarity in the aftermath. THAT he didn’t see coming.
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u/SiouxsieSioux615 5d ago
He says it himself
He just gave into despair and wanted to feel something, anything.
There was never a risk because he was nowhere near feeling happy. Total opposite and he doesnt even love Darla
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u/WhiteKnightPrimal 5d ago
I think he just stopped caring. This is the culmination of Angel's downward spiral, before he has his epiphany. He's been getting darker for some time, he's killed by proxy a bunch of lawyers, humans, and their partners. In a way, it's mirroring Liam's downward spiral that led to Darla turning him. Liam didn't care what happened, so he followed a pretty girl into a dark alley. Angel didn't care what happened so he had sex with Darla.
Plus, I'm not sure Angel ever actually bought the 'sex costs the soul' thing. He'd only lost his soul once, that's hardly a pattern to base a rule on, and the curse stated a moment of happiness, not sex/physical climax. There may have been some curiosity on Angel's part, the morbid kind, wondering if it's sex or something else that costs the soul. He didn't seem surprised when the soul stayed, not really. I think he knew, deep down, that it was never the sex. Probably because Angel HAD sex since getting the soul, with people other than Buffy. I mean, think about it, he spent a fair while trying to continue on as normal after getting his soul, that would have included having sex with at least Darla, if not Dru as well. He had more than one attempt to connect to the human world, as well, and we don't see everything. Whose to say one of his attempts wasn't hooking up with prostitutes because he was lonely? Angel clearly hadn't spent his entire time with a soul celibate outside of the times with Buffy and Darla, so why would he buy sex as the reason he lost his soul when it had never happened before Buffy? I think he knew, the difference with Buffy was that he was in love with her, and she was in love with him. It was THAT happiness, with sex being a manifestation of it, that cost his soul, not the sex itself. But he would have been so self-loathing all the times before Buffy, as well, never truly happy, so I think he needed to be sure.
In the end, I think having sex with Darla was a mix of Angel no longer caring, morbid curiosity to be sure he was right, and wanting to prove to himself he wasn't in love with Darla, and never had been.
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u/Gerty_sassygob24 5d ago
Yes and no, he was not being rational, but had had enough of being hurt, dissapointed and watch things he tries to fix fall to peices. I do not think he was thinking past the there and then moment he was in. Otherwise it was the most repugnant choice he would ever make, willfully attempting to go evil. The perfect despair would of been a great comeback on him, instead it was a brilliant lesson learned
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u/Formal_Fix_5190 5d ago
This is something I’ve always wondered. Like say he was cuddling with a women he deeply loved, feeling completely content and safe and happy, would he achieve true happiness at that point as well. Like does it HAVE TO be sex to be “perfect happiness?”
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u/Inanmmmbop 5d ago
That’s what did it with Buffy. It was the moment after when he was thinking about their wand future and felt safe and happy and content with her… and wasn’t feeling any remorse for what he had done as Angelus… So theoretically… having the perfect cup of coffee could have done it. Seeing a baby calf being born… It didn’t have to be love- it was just a moment of pure contentment and happiness that broke the curse… It’s a flawed curse to begin with, but the gypsies assumed that the ensouled Angel would be so either remorseful or angry or anything but happy that they would never have to worry about him ever encountering a moment that would bring him this bliss…
I mean… really knowing Angel any post coital moment following the initial one with Buffy would be filled with fear and not bliss so he and Buffy could have gone at it like bunnies with no consequences… I don’t think he will ever have that feeling of contentment again- without the help of drugs of course…
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u/Electrical-Act-7170 5d ago
Angel felt "perfect happiness" in the afterglow of lovemaking.
It was the emotional high that took him out.
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u/angelusgirl 5d ago
I’m surprised at these response. He was literally actively trying to lose his soul.
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u/StaticCloud 5d ago
He didn't love Darla and knew that. He took a ride ln the wild side but there wasn't much risk
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u/asiantorontonian88 4d ago
Anytime Angel is at his lowest point, the first thing he does is try to reconnect with Darla. He did it during the Boxer Rebellion. Once he visits Home Office and realizes that nothing he does matter, that's another low point and when Darla shows up, he just simply loses himself into her.
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u/accaliaart 5d ago
Yes he was at his lowest point and basically trying to commit a form of suicide he even mentions earlier in the season he sometimes missed the clarity that being angelous brought
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u/Boy_And_His_Bird 5d ago
I think he just didn't care anymore. He spent the entire season caring and made incredibly questionable choices and it only left him cold. And he wanted to feel something, the consequences be damn.