Daddy's Girl
shapinglight
It's almost like a game they play between them, with Darla and Spike a little on the outside looking on, and you could really say like father, like daughter, although Dru is not just a daughter to Angelus but also a consort and even a sibling at times.
Spoilers through the final season of Angel
Of course, there are as many views of Angelus as there are fanfic writers who write him, but the canon facts are largely that he was 'the most vicious creature' that the Master had ever met - which has to tell you something - that by his own admission, he loved torture, of whatever kind, and practised it as if it were some kind of art form. Also, though he could be diabolically clever (see all the Angelus in a cage episodes from AtS season 4), he could also be a complete prat at times (see The Girl in Question) and a bully (see Destiny) and obviously had an on-off allergy to combs, if the flashbacks in which Darla doesn't figure are anything to go by.
Basically, in many ways, he's a playful character, a hedonist; just like Liam only in a rather more destructive way, what with being a vampire. Where Liam might think that getting pissed down at the local tavern and having it away with the barmaid in a back alley was a lot of fun, Angelus got his kicks from torture and rape and murder. Also, just as Liam was a bit of a dreamer, wanting to escape from the provincial backwater in which his sheer laziness seems to have condemned him to pass his days, as he says to Darla in the alley just before she kills him, and just as he clearly had artistic skills only waiting to be discovered, Angelus expressed that same dreamer's artistry through the inventiveness of his kills. For him, seems to me, what he did to his victims was obviously not just a game but an aesthetic statement. No doubt Darla encouraged him in this view, because I'm sure she realised that men need a hobby to keep them occupied and happy - like sending your bored husband out on a Sunday afternoon to paint watercolours or something.
This playful quality of Angelus's and its attendant artistic pretentiousness nowhere expresses itself better than in his finest creation, Drusilla. Angelus really went to town with her, what with murdering her entire family, driving her mad and then indulging his whole killing nuns fetish with her looking on. It's with her, too, that he finally outdoes himself in nastiness. He tells Darla, who is clearly appalled to start with (not in a That's Far Too Evil, Even For Vampires way but in a That's Far Too Evil, Even For Vampires, But Isn't He Clever? way) that his reason for siring Drusilla is so that she will suffer eternal torment; as if he thinks that somewhere inside her, the remnant of the good, virginal Dru is still trapped, screaming and mad and desperate for the escape of death. And maybe she is?
That Angelus and Darla keep her around afterwards is a bit of mystery. I don't think ME ever meant us to see vampires as really having families (which is why Angel says he has none, even though Spike and Dru are still alive - for him, Connor is his only family) yet the Fanged Four definitely have this family vibe going on, coming across as far more than just two vampire couples who are hunting together for a while. A lot of this is down to Drusilla calling Angel/Angelus 'daddy' in season 2 of BtVS, although of course she also calls him 'my Angel' in Lie To Me and 'Angelus' in Destiny. She also calls Darla 'grandmama' in FFL but Darla plainly doesn't like it, and elsewhere (Destiny again) Dru simply calls her by name. However, I can't help feeling that a lot of the family vibe actually orginates with Dru. Angelus didn't sire her because he wanted a daughter but because he wanted to torture her forever. She, however, seems to have turned this round in a way and has recreated her lost family through her vampire family, and they - especially Angelus (no doubt it amused him) - seem to be quite happy to fulfill the roles she assigns to them.
It's almost like a game they play between them, with Darla and Spike a little on the outside looking on, and you could really say like father, like daughter, although Dru is not just a daughter to Angelus but also a consort and even a sibling at times.
It seems to me that there's a completely different vibe between Angelus and Dru when Darla's not around. I'm not a subscriber to the view that BtVS season 2 Angelus was deranged, mainly because I think Angelus is nuts anyway and in a very similar way to Dru. He may not have the visions but I think he sees things in a similar way, as if in the process of making her, she's become part of himself - his whole aesthetic made flesh. They like to play the same games. In their scenes together without Darla, including the ones in Destiny, they have an odd brother/sister kind of feel to me; like the only children in the playground who are in on the joke and are busy sniggering at everyone else.
Of course, it's vastly more complicated that that, and Darla and Spike bring lots of other things to the mix, and writing the whole vampire family thing is lots of fun even if I can't quite see it in canon, but it's not much of a stretch for me to think of Angelus and Dru - non-soul mates - up on the roof at night looking at the stars and planning the prettiest/most spectacular way to end the world while Darla and Spike roll their eyes and then go inside, leaving the dreamers to it, to have a drink and a smoke together and talk about practical things.
Anyway, that's my confused twopennorth.
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