Faith VS Angelus....

[holypotatoes]

Okay so I was just going through caps of my favorite episode Enemies and this thought came to mind. So we saw that Faith "turned" Angel into Angelus and then he is automatically able to push her to the floor and start kicking the crap out of her. Well do you think Faith would've even lasted at all if she was in Buffy's place when Angel was really turned into Angelus? (And I don't mean that Faith was the one who slept with him and turned him I mean like she was just the slayer at that time and had to deal with him.) Do you think she would have gotten killed off right away since Angelus wouldn't really feel like screwing with her as much as he enjoyed screwing with Buffy? Or do you think Faith would have gotten on his good side somehow, you know join the dark side along with him and become one of his lackies? I personally think she would've gotten taken out pretty fast. As soon as Angelus would find out there was a slayer in town I'm pretty sure he would've killed her and from what little we see in that scene in Enemies, probably very easily as well. This isn't a debate on whether or not Buffy is better than Faith or vice versa so don't turn it into that! I'm serious! *points to all of you for effect* I'm just wondering, do you think Faith would have even come close to beating Angelus or even beat him for that matter?

[KingofCretins]

Faith was a much different girl in the Season 2/Season 3 period than she was in Angel Season 4 when she eventually *did* battle and defeat Angelus.

She was a wild and erratic fighter, which I think would have been to Angelus' advantage. Worse still, we saw from her history with Kakistos that she was very easily psyched out and manipulated by fear in those days. Whereas years later, the "Welcome Faith" sign didn't throw her at all, Angelus could have played her like a fiddle when Faith was still a new Slayer.

She'd have had a shot -- she still has the built-in advantages as a Slayer, not the least of which is she's *stronger*, and maybe faster. But I think that if it had come to a fight back then (or had they really removed his soul in "Enemies"), he'd have killed her. *Especially* in "Enemies" when she appeared to be all about seducing and collaborating him. The true Angelus never would have played ball with her or the Mayor.

[skinless]

No matter if she was a New Slayer or an Experienced one, Angelus wouldve won as he was just so good at playing with People's mind and getting inside your head and screwing your gameplan Up.

[vampmogs]

Hard to say.

I don't think Ats season 4 is much to go on because it's very unclear who defeated who. On the one hand you could say that Faith let herself be bit because she put the drug Orpheus in her, on the other you could say she stuck it in there so if she did get bit she could take him out. It's unclear wether or not Faith intentionally allowed herself to be caught by Angelus or if she wasn't expecting to be swept off her feet and actually would have been killed if not for taking the earlier precaution.

Not to mention it's all over the place regarding these two and how they battle with each other. Faith kicks Angel's ass in 'Five By Five' but he was never really in the game, and then Faith isn't really in the game against Angelus in s4 when he's more dominant, because she doesn't want to loose Angel in the process.

It really does come down to Angelus' manipulation really. I still think it could work against Faith, she still has some problems. In ?No Future For You' she looses it a little bit, I still don't think she's entirely stable at all. Angelus could work with that.

[KingofCretins]

Faith won in "Release" -- the fight, for purpose of bragging rights, ended on her line. The leg-sweep and bite is broken up by dialogue. She let off. Had it been a kill and not a capture, she'd have ended it right then.

I do not think that Orpheus was "the plan", but rather the failsafe. I assume that had they gotten him tranked and back to the hotel, without being bitten, the drug would have passed through her system with no ill effects. So the failsafe came into play because Faith let her guard down *after* she'd beaten him.

[Nina]

But isn't that one of the powers of Angelus. People never kill him, they want to torture him, capture him, giving him a soul etc. They never kill him, always let their guard down somewhere and he escapes, kills or whatever he does after that?

Holtz could kill him years ago, but he didn't. Buffy could kill him, but she didn't and the same for Faith.

[vampmogs]

But isn't that one of the powers of Angelus. People never kill him, they want to torture him, capture him, giving him a soul etc. They never kill him, always let their guard down somewhere and he escapes, kills or whatever he does after that?

Holtz could kill him years ago, but he didn't. Buffy could kill him, but she didn't and the same for Faith.

Yeah but in this case I think Angelus got lucky because it was Angel who saved him, not his own mental capacity to make Faith slip up. Faith didn't want to loose Angel and that was the only reason she didn't go for the kill.

In saying that though I'm still a little unsure if Faith could have, in this moment, finished him off. I get what King in saying and I'd probably agree, but Angelus seemed to trick her, appearing more hurt than he actually was. Yeah it was broken up by dialogue but only for a few moments, seeing that she had no stake on her anyway he'd have had those moments to fight back whilst she's looking for something to dust him with anyway.

[lee]

Personally i think if it came down to it Faith would beat angelus.
Shes the best slayer there is except from buffy. Shes killed a master, and Angelus needed the beast to try and beat Faith.

[holypotatoes]

Personally i think if it came down to it Faith would beat angelus.
Shes the best slayer there is except from buffy. Shes killed a master, and Angelus needed the beast to try and beat Faith.

See this is my problem with Ats just because Angelus is so different in both. I mean in Buffy he didn't need the Beast to beat anyone. He was able to destroy people like they were nothing which is why many of us agree that Angelus was the best big bad. I just don't accept that Angelus would need the Beast to beat Faith. There's just no way. Especially if we only pay attention to Angelus from Buffy. I'm not sure Faith has the skillz to beat him.

[lee]

See this is my problem with Ats just because Angelus is so different in both. I mean in Buffy he didn't need the Beast to beat anyone. He was able to destroy people like they were nothing which is why many of us agree that Angelus was the best big bad. I just don't accept that Angelus would need the Beast to beat Faith. There's just no way. Especially if we only pay attention to Angelus from Buffy. I'm not sure Faith has the skillz to beat him.

Angelus is my favorite Big Bad. But 'inBtvs he was able to destroy people'? Who?
I dont remember Angel/us destroying anyone(except Jenny)
I do remember Buffy destroying him though. And Faith kicked his ass in Revelations.

[holypotatoes]

Angelus is my favorite Big Bad. But 'inBtvs he was able to destroy people'? Who?
I dont remember Angel/us destroying anyone(except Jenny)
I do remember Buffy destroying him though. And Faith kicked his ass in Revelations.

Well maybe he didn't destroy anyone in Btvs, bad choice of words on my part but there is no doubt in my mind he would be able to destroy anyone if he wanted to but he was so wrapped up in screwing with people he didn't. Although he was going to destroy the world and nearly did if it weren't for Willow's spell so I guess I could use that as an example. As for Buffy destroying him, NO. She didn't actually. The only reason Buffy won that fight was because Willow changed Angelus back to Angel. We don't know what would have happened with the rest of that fight. Yes Buffy was starting to make a come back there at the end but who knows if she would've killed him or not since it didn't look like she had hurt him that badly at that point. As for Revelations, you're missing my point of this ENTIRE thread, it's about Angelus, not Angel.

[KingofCretins]

Holypotatoes, you may wish to rewatch one of your favorite episodes

When the curse took hold, Angelus had been disarmed, was on his knees, and about to be decapitated. Buffy's victory was absolute.

I never really thought of Angelus as being a great Big Bad because of the physical threat -- far nastier than an ordinary vampire, but still a vampire, after all.

[holypotatoes]

Holypotatoes, you may wish to rewatch one of your favorite episodes

When the curse took hold, Angelus had been disarmed, was on his knees, and about to be decapitated. Buffy's victory was absolute.

I never really thought of Angelus as being a great Big Bad because of the physical threat -- far nastier than an ordinary vampire, but still a vampire, after all.

Why? Did I just screw something up in my rebuttle? Or do you just want me to rewatch it?

Yeah but as we've seen in many fights, there's always some sort of block that they do that will turn the fight around. It's like me saying that Angelus won when he had the sword in Buffy's face in Becoming. If we didn't look at anything after that moment I could say he won but the fact that Buffy then grabbed the sword, turned the fight in her advantage. Who's to say that Angelus wouldn't have done the same. *shrugs*

[Michael]

When Buffy finally puts the sword through Angel in Becoming Part Two , it is the third time they have fought.

Buffy had him at her mercy in the first fight but could not bring herself to finish him off. "You can't do it," crowed Angel. "You can't kill me."

The next time, in the factory, Buffy could not kill Angelus because she had to save the unconscious Giles from the fire.

With very rare exceptions Buffy was always a disciplined and relentless fighter. This is why she could beat vampires and demons who were bigger and stronger. And never underrate her intelligence. She is so much smarter than nearly all these guys.

[Anon]

If Faith had been a slayer in season 2 would she have been able to beat Angelus? I'd say probably not. Faith has been, at best, Buffy's equal and in some ways Buffy has always outclassed her. If you simply swap Buffy for Faith, I think that she would probably have lost although admittedly it could have gone either way.

If you do a more realistic example and eliminate Buffy's friends performing the curse (because, let's face it, there is no way Faith would have made friends with them without Buffy being there) then she would almost certainly have been killed.

Factor in the fact that Faith at that time let her emotions get the better of her very easily and she's lost before the fight even begins.

[dinamo]

I'm nto sure. I don't know what kind of Slayer Faith would have been in Season 2 before her watcher got killed. Kakistos I always thought was able to get to her because of the Watcher killing, not anything else. She was much more easily riled than Buffy, but I don't know if he would have been able to go at Faith like Buffy because he wouldn't have known her as closely as he did Buffy. He'd have had to use different methods just as Faith would have been different to Buffy when taking on Angelus. Buffy couldn't kill Angelus at the beginning she still saw Angel in one way or another. Without any emotional connection there if Faith got her chance I believe she'd have staked him when Buffy couldn't.

[icecreamkiller]

I realize this is something of an old thread, but I didn't find anything in the posting rules against reviving old threads, and I wanted to pitch in.

In a one-on-one physical fight, I believe Faith would be able to beat Angelus. Maybe not in season 3 when, like KingofCretins said, she was a wild and erratic fighter (though she was still able to kick Angel's ass, and would've staked him had Buffy not held her arms when her stake was inches from Angel's heart). We saw him bite her in Release, but let's remember something about this fight: Faith was drugged. According to Lorne, Orpheus was a mystical variant of an opioid. Wesley says shooting up and being bitten by a vampire gives the user a particularly powerful high, but no one denied that the drug takes (an admittedly weaker) effect without the vampire bite. So even with a potent drug running through her system, Faith proved to be at least Angelus's equal in a fight - while he did bite her, the fact that she intoxicated herself before entering a life-or-death situation and the fact that she did nothing to throw him off of her before he bit her, when he spent more than enough time talking for her to at the very least headbutt him away, make me strongly believe that using Orpheus to knock him out was the plan all along, not the failsafe. I imagine she thought that drugging him would first knock him out and leave him high and disoriented once he woke up; she'd seen what the drug did to people but she didn't know how strong the tranquilizer they had in the tranq guns was, so she went with what she thought was the stronger drug.

During the fight, the advantage alternated between the both of them - there were moments where Angelus pummeled Faith, but then she'd go into a flurry of punches and kicks and he wouldn't even be able to get a good blow in.

Speaking in broader terms, such as having her deal with him for a whole season, I'm going to have to side with dinamo. Kakistos was able to rile Faith only because he killed her Watcher - he wasn't shown to be a particularly agile fighter (though granted, he could be since we never saw that much of him fighting), and she was at least strong enough to take on his "at least 12-foot long" alligators. If Angelus went up against her, he wouldn't really know how to psychologically torture her, since he wouldn't know her personality and the only person who meant anything to her who he could kill would be her Watcher. None of Angelus's murders on the show were particularly gruesome, while Faith claims "they don't have a word for what [Kakistos] did to [her Watcher]". I'm sure the level of gore employed in the murder played a big part in unsettling Faith.

Not to say that she would win at that point in her life, being very young, very unstable and a relatively inexperienced Slayer. But I wouldn't be so quick to give the fight up to Angelus.

[Michael]

I think Faith would have a good chance. Angelus never killed a slayer so far as we know, and since he is still alive we can infer that he avoids them. Moreover he talks a better fight than he puts on. I suspect that Angelus is a frustrated actor and hams it up quite a lot like a villain in a Victorian melodrama.

Faith is a bonny fighter with plenty of heart. She does not quite match Buffy's disciplined skill, but she would have no emotional complications with regard to driving the stake into Angelus. She would not need more than one opportunity.

[vampmogs]

Faith is a bonny fighter with plenty of heart. She does not quite match Buffy's disciplined skill, but she would have no emotional complications with regard to driving the stake into Angelus. She would not need more than one opportunity.

Actually, Faith did have emotional complications with regard to driving the stake into Angelus, which is why she refused to try and kill him in 'Angel season four.'

As she states to Wes;

FAITH: I'm not going to kill him Wes, Angel's the only person in my life who hasn't given up on me, there's no way I'm about to give up on him

Faith didn't want to kill Angelus because she didn't want to loose Angel, she tells them all "this is a salvage mission, not search and destroy" when going on the hunt for Angelus. It's why Angel's friends got Faith in the first place, because as Wes states they need their champion (Angel) to fight evil and need someone strong enough to capture Angelus.

[KingofCretins]

I recognize Faith didn't want to kill him, but I didn't sense in her the... ambivalence Buffy had in Season 2. Didn't she even say to Connor at one point that if anyone was going to kill him, it would be her? I never doubted in that arc that she was willing to do the necessary if it became necessary.