Angel/WMG

Angel has ordinary Dissociative Identity Disorder.
I know this just sounds like an ordinary Angel and Angelus are two different people but there not if you look at Dissociative Identity Disorder it usally comes about when the person has experienced something so bad they can't redeem themselves for it this is what happens with Angelus except he creates Angel as a way of distancing himself from what he's done. This is why Spike is so similar before and after he has a soul because he was already somewhat a good guy when he gets it so he has less to distance himself from.

Wolfram and Hart founded the Rossum Corporation.
Hey, both are pretty nasty organisations that bring about the end of the world.

The Demon Research Initiative was formed in response to Torchwood
The Whoniverse was confirmed as part of the Buffyverse (see the below WMG on Jack as the Immortal) and the DRI acts more than a little like Torchwood 1.

Jasmine is Zoe Washburne.
See the Firefly WMG for details.

The Angel seen from the end of S4 onwards has only half a soul and half a demon in him, so both have half of the control.
This would explain his un-Angellike behavior, even before the whole Thorn thing. He wipes his friends memories (Hmm, where in a work in the Buffyverse did we see that before?), he blows a human being's head off with a shotgun (this is the guy who had a bunch of chances to kill Lilah and never did), he puts a man in an And I Must Scream situation and makes him immortal, he fights Spike over the cup when he knows lives are at stake, and he never even warns his friends about his plan that will also cause the death of hundreds of innocents (he could have at least warned Spike and told him that he'd need to pick up the slack).

Gwen went to an early version The Academy, before it was government funded.
This is most likely before it went government funded, as well as evil, as it didn't seem evil. However, it did take interest in children with special abilities, and it WAS named The Academy. So, less of a WMG and more of a sane assumption.

The Wolf, Ram and Hart aren't really demons
The mysterious Senior Partners in Angel aren't actually demons at all rather they are probably humans. The only incidences that suggest that they might be demonic is in Epiphany when one of them manifested as a Kleynach demon and in Your Welcome when Illyria recalls that vampires and the Wolf, Ram Hart existed during the time of her rule. In the first incidence, the Kleynach demon was explained in that episode as a means for dark entities in general to manifest on Earth meaning the body was that of a demon, but the person in the driver's seat might not have been. Meanwhile Illyria's comparison of them with vampires doesn't suggest at all that they were human or demon, but rather they were weak much like the vampires who had just come fourth. Further evidence for the partners being human is the revealation that their Home Office is on Earth and not some hell dimension, their "children", Hamilton and Eve, are both humans and Holland having WRH taking responsibility from everything to the first murder to the Inquisition and Khmer Rouge. I think more likely the Wolf Ram Hart are sorcerers like the ones who created the first slayer except dedicated towards corruption and evil.
 * Kindof sortof Jossed by the fact that Illyria knew of them as demons and said so.
 * On the other hand, Pyleans seem to know about them, and Illyria's statement was somewhat vague. Perhaps the Wolf, Ram and Hart are just a name. Think of brand names like Kodak, Xerox or Macintosh. They're just names that symbolize something. Wolf Ram and Hart is just that - a name or symbol for something even more terrible than any demon or sorcerer could be: the inherent darkness of humanity.
 * Also, vampires were created when one of The Old Ones mixed their blood with a human's, indicating that humans predate vampires.

LA's Wolfram and Hart division headquarters was restored only because Angel accepted the deal.
Angel "won" as the last one standing after Jasmine was destroyed, creating a mystic "hole" for Good or Evil to fill. Angel had first dibs. Wolfram and Hart's deal for him to own LA's division recreated the entire building and business franchise the instant he entered the Limo. Yes, Lila lied. Shocker.
 * Angel and company toured the restored building and staff before Angel accepted the deal.
 * A Wizard Did It. Or Wolfram & Hart pulled a Batman Gambit.
 * The instant he entered the limo, since it was a mystical symbolization of good versus evil, even entering the limo showed they where considering the deal.

Angel never "signed away" his Shanshu at the end of S5.
Wolfram & Hart is not involved in whether Angel ultimately becomes human again (we hope), and so they have no power to draw up a contract which would affect that event. The contract is a meaningless piece of paper. The important thing to them was that Angel THOUGHT he was giving up his Shanshu, thereby proving he was serious about joining the Black Thorn.
 * It would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy; had Angel committed himself to serving the Black Thorn, it would have taken him so far off the path of righteousness that Shanshu would no longer be possible for him. Of course, that was never his intention.
 * In the canonical (that is, plotted by Joss) Angel: After The Fall comic book,.
 * He signed it Angel. His name is Liam.
 * Better yet. He NEVER signed it away because his Shanshu was already fulfilled. Remember when Angel turned human in 'I Will Remember You'? The prophecy occurred already, and he already gave it up. He's just the only one who remembers it happened.
 * Jossed in the season six comic books.
 * What's more,
 * Buffy Season 8 has what is almost certainly him turning it down by refusing to create the next universe with Buffy (due to her not wanting to), which would end this one.
 * Maybe it already came to pass in '98, but the whole gut stabbing and adverting it prevented it from being fulfilled.
 * And anyway, who ever heard of a prophecy you can sign away? What kind of cheap-ass clairvoyance did that prophet have?
 * Whoever heard of a demonic law firm?
 * It's a Deal With the Devil. You can sign away lots of things with those.

The Immortal is Captain Jack Harkness.

 * He has all the right attributes: immortal, suave, interested in sex, and competent.
 * Have fun!
 * All of these reasons are awesome. And Angel and Spike's mouths would hang open when they saw him. And then he'd kiss and then punch Spike, who would be completely confused.
 * The two times when we know for sure that the Immortal is in Rome are also times when Jack's whereabouts are more or less undefined (the 19th-century one would be sometime after he jumped back at the end of series 1 Doctor Who, the 21st-century one is slightly before series 1 of Torchwood.
 * Possibly he took the name "The Immortal" because it sounds like a Time-Lord-ish name and he's trying to attract the Doctor's attention.
 * The Immortal is said to dislike magic, which corresponds well with Jack's technophilia.
 * Jack was fond of Italy in his days as a rogue Time Agent. The Immortal loves Italy but was gone for 350 years. Interesting...
 * The CEO of Wolfram & Hart's Roman branch claimed that she had many dealings with him in the past, which would make sense, since Jack would have to have liaisons with such offices if he had to grab alien technology from other countries while running Torchwood Three.
 * Much about the Immortal is a lie crafted by the good guy Slayers. And the info conveyed by Wolfram and Hart? Heck, they lie as a matter of course.
 * What are you talking about? Angel and Spike knew about him personally.
 * In the season eight comics Buffy says there are a few look alikes of hers running about and doing stuff to try to fool her enemies about her whereabouts. One of them is in Italy and is apparently getting very close to some Immortal guy. Buffy doesn't know why Andrew suggested this or why he finds it funny. However just because it's not Buffy dating the immortal doesn't mean a) The Immortal isn't real and b) that the Immortal isn't Jack.
 * True. Also, Andrew finds it funny because he's a fan of Doctor Who (he said that in BtVS season 6).
 * It's confirmed in the Season 8 Buffy comic or Season 6 Angel comic (I can't remember which) that the Doctor is a part of this world. He can be seen in his 10th incarnation running with Rose or Martha (again, can't remember which) through the streets in the background of one issue.
 * [[http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/2835/413361-Buffy
 * As a complimentary theory, Spike is Captain John Hart.

The Immortal was going to be shown in another season.
Joss Whedon had to have a part for Alan Tudyk somewhere in one of the two shows, and you just know it's him.
 * Without the mustache, or he'd never get laid, Willing Suspension of Disbelief or not.
 * Perhaps it would have been Sean Maher. Just sayin'. He'd have to fit in as a high class guy in 1800s Rome, and I can't think of Tudyk that dressed up.
 * Makes sense.

The Immortal is using the Superstar spell.
Where else in the Buffyverse have we seen a character show these symptoms? Implausibly uber-cool beyond belief, unable to fail at anything, having women who ordinarily wouldn't go near them falling all over themselves, reducing formerly powerful and capable characters to stumbling nitwits as soon as they get near his personal storyline of awesome? Jonathan. It's a pity that Spike was never clued in to the denouement of 'Superstar' by the Scooby Gang and thus didn't recognize the signs; if he had, he could have suggested to Angel that they track down the Immortal's "opposite monster" in Rome and kill it.
 * It would have to be an immortal being who used the Superstar spell since he lived 350 years at least.
 * Life extension magic exists in the Buffyverse (just look at Mayor Wilkins and his 100 years of youth), and I'm pretty sure a guy under a spell to succeed at everything he does would be, y'know, successful if he went out looking for some.
 * The Mayor sold his soul (he mentioned it once or twice).
 * Unlikely since, in the canonical Buffy: Season Eight comics,

The Immortal is Joss Whedon.
After writing the character of Buffy Summers for 7 years, he fell in love with her a little and finally couldn't resist curiosity, jumping into the verse to date her (Yes, Joss Whedon can do that). Naturally, he made himself a little of a Marty Stu.
 * This would explain the Fray comic showing up, he just brought it with him on his way in.

The Immortal is The Most Interesting Man in The World
Search your heart...you know it's true.

The Powers That Be are a front for God.
Assuming God exists in the Buffyverse, He would hardly have allowed anyone else to take the job of leading the forces of good. He uses the Powers That Be as a front so He can avoid religious issues or demands by mortals that He intervene personally. On the other hand, maybe...
 * Being Joss an atheist and an absurdist, it seems unlikely. But then again, since he refers to God as "the sky bully", and given, maybe you got it right.

The Powers That Be aren't good guys at all.
They rarely help when it would count. They won't take action directly; they just afflict mortals with painful visions. In the later seasons, when things are getting worse than ever, they can't be bothered to do even that. They make no attempt to warn Angel that their messenger has been co-opted by Jasmine. In fact, it's starting to sound like...


 * The Powers That Be are Joss Whedon. They think that True Art Is Angsty, and the world is their artwork.


 * Remember that Jasmine IS a Power That Be. There IS an unspoken implication by all the contrived coincidences that have to align in order for Jasmine to be borne into the world, brought together by Doyle's/Cordelia's visions, that the PTB guiding the protagonists throughout the first three seasons is, and has always been, Jasmine.
 * This troper thought that Jasmine was an ex-PTB that was cast out for being too extreme. Note that that doesn't undermine the WMG... maybe they thought she was too nice.

The Powers That Be ARE the Senior Partners.
No matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough. The Powers and the Partners are supernatural forces that don't take direct action, working through mortals instead. Why assume two when one will do? One evil intelligence that loves chaos, and encourages it by nudging both sides of the conflict on Earth. It doesn't matter who you fight for -- he wins.
 * The season 5 episode "You're Welcome" makes this verrry unlikely. The Powers That Be sent Cordelia back temporarily in that episode to stop Wolfram & Hart from breaking his spirit when that was exactly what the Senior Partners wanted to happen. Also, Cordelia's visions (which come from the Powers That Be) set Angel on the path to finding and destroying the Black Thorn, which the Senior Partners absolutely did not want Angel doing.
 * Yeah, that's what they say. C'mon, these are immortal god-like beings; you don't think they're above a little Xanatos Gambit? Angel's destruction of the Order of the Black Thorn and the events of Season 6 could all be part of the plan...
 * What plan? What on Earth could they possibly be achieving that even begins to make up for all the losses your theory claims were self-inflicted wounds? Saying Xanatos Gambit alone doesn't explain it; you have to at least suggest what the gambit's objective is.
 * If the PTB and the Sneior Partners were the same force that just enjoyed watching destruction, then it would have made more sense for them to have let the Circle of Black Thorns fulfill their plan and then let Angel & Co. deal with it later. By having Angel stop the event ahead of time, the ultimate apocalyptic battle became a (relatively) small fight with maybe 2000 total participants (including the army at the end) and no innocent bystander deaths.

Unless...

The Powers That Be are Tzeentch
Or his/its servants, at the very least. A Gambit Roulette with no ultimate goal in sight, simply manipulating and scheming for the sake of it, is very much the Lord of Change's style.
 * The PTB and the Senior Partners are all Tzeentch. Even more his style.

The Slayer Dana was called when Buffy died the second time.
When the Council discovered that Buffy's second successor was in a mental asylum, they did what they did with Buffy - they sent a Watcher to infiltrate the asylum. This Watcher reported back that Dana was incurably insane and releasing her would endanger everyone around her.
 * This one's contradicted in the episode: the hospital staff say that Dana was always insane, but her super strength and speed only appeared a few months ago (when Willow awakened all the potential slayers at once).
 * Seconded. You even ignored the fact that Buffy and the Watchers themselves have mentioned that her death technically removed her from the slayer line.

Angel never became Angelus during the fight with the Beast
He never did anything evil. He smacked his friends around and was mean to them...but heck, he was more dangerous to them when he was supposed to be Angel.
 * Yeah, he was tame compared to last time. But how do you explain his trying to turn Faith, or the mental journey in "Orpheus" where he met Angel?
 * Jasmine-possessed Cordelia addressed Angelus as "Angelus" when talking to him mentally. There is no way that a renegade Power That Be who was telepathically communicating with Angelus would be mistaken in that identification.
 * Maybe Jasmine is just that dumb. Let's take a look at how that might go down:
 * "Angelus why are you thinking such happy and pleasant thoughts about raising a family with this blonde girl?" "Oh, uh I, uh, I wanna rape her?" "Truly you are the greatest evil in the world Angelus!"
 * Angelus always seems to talk a bigger game than he plays. He killed Jenny Calender and some nameless students in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that's the extent of his successful crimes in his first appearance. He makes lots of threats while he's in a cage (including one threat toward Fred that the writers probably wouldn't have dared state so bluntly back in S2 Buffy); but once he's out, he doesn't do any permanent damage. This is probably more the result of Status Quo Is God than a reflection on Angelus, but it does make his onscreen rampages tame compared to his reputation.
 * Angelus wanted to torture Angel's friends as is his M.O. and tried to find carnage in the meantime but had trouble making any because of all the demons and whatnot already killing and all. He was only free for a short time.

Had the Powers That Be ever appeared in person, they would have been played by Joss Whedon
Because Joss has that big an ego.
 * Would they also have danced the dance of joy?
 * If this happened around the time of Firefly, it's more likely they would be dancing the dance of shame. Numfar, do the dance of shame.
 * Maybe you mean the dance of AWESOMENESS...
 * I think they meant for its cancellation...

Sahjan's rewriting the Nyazian Scrolls was foretold in the Nyazian Scrolls
Think about it. The Nyazian Scrolls foretold of the Tro-clon, the confluence of events to bring Jasmine into the world, thus both purifying it and ruining it. Originally part of the prophecy was that Sahjan would be killed by an adult Connor, but what if that was included to cause him to write in the false part of the prophecy saying "The Father will Kill the Son." If that hadn't happened, Wesley wouldn't have kidnapped Connor, Connor wouldn't have been sent into Quor'toth and none of it would have happened. Therefore, Sahjan's rewrite must have been a part of the Tro-clon.
 * I don't buy it. The thing with prophesies is that they always come to pass. If Wesley hadn't kidnapped Connor then Connor would have grown up in Angel's world training from the time he could walk. Sure his skill set would be different but he'd still be an accomplished fighter. Even if he wasn't Sahjan would either stumble into Connor's path accidently (remember he didn't recognize Connor so he didn't know WHAT human he needed to be avoiding) and get himself killed or it would happen entirely accidently. He'd end up getting in a car accident and killing Sahjan. The best thing Sahjan could have done for his health was endear himself to Angel, treat the child like his own son and live a nice healthy life until Connor was forced to put down his beloved Uncle to end his pain. (Or you know he kills his uncle in a car accident).

Angel's signing away the Shanshu prophecy was possible because of Spike's soul.
The universe is spinning off its axis in the first half of season 5 because two Shanshu candidates exist, Angel and Spike. They're making destiny go haywire. Eve says the Senior Partners have patched the problem for the time being, but they're working on a permanent solution. She and Lindsey purposely caused the mess, but there's no reason to think she's lying about the result.

Near the end of the series, the Circle presents Angel with a contract to remove himself from the prophecy. Surely that is the solution to the "two champions" problem? Perhaps the only reason Angel could sign away the prophecy is that Spike gave the prophecy a "backup" Shanshu candidate. If Angel signs his destiny away, then it no longer makes the Shanshu prophecy untrue. Spike is now the only one prophesied to become human after the apocalypse; this also fixes the whole cosmic balance situation.


 * Pff, Spike IS the vampire with a soul foretold in the Shanshu prophecy. He died in Chosen, then returned to life in Angel.
 * It gets better. For a brief while in Angel, Spike was a ghost vampire. Surely you know why that should normally be impossible. Of course, he couldn't fulfill the prophecy unless he was, um, no longer dead...
 * Jossed. In canonical Angel After the Fall (the comic book), Angel is told that he was always the subject of the prophecy and that it has only ever referred to him. Additionally, the world spinning off its axis was a trick by Lindsey and Eve, who hoped that Spike would kill Angel (Lindsey's archenemy). If the world were falling apart because of the two ensouled vampires, then how did it return to normal at the end despite nothing being accomplished and the supposed cup that would fix everything being a fake?
 * Additionally, Spike got his soul roughly the time Angel started its fourth season. The world didn't go all screwy then, it waited for Spike to come back after his Heroic Sacrifice. While Eve attempts to Hand Wave this with her bit about him not being a champion then, remember that she and Lindsey are making the whole thing up. Prophecies aren't a roulette table that you spin and see who it lands on, what occurs in the prophecy occurs exactly as it was meant to, in precisely the way it was meant to, to precisely who it was meant to. Whether it means Angel or Spike, it is, has always, and will always be specifically for that one individual and nobody else.
 * Anybody else getting sick of Jossed getting thrown around like it's some unbeatable trump card? The comic book did not "joss" anything, and prophecies work however writers want them to work. At one point, Eve claimed Angel and Spike were both in the running. Later, the Circle claimed that they could waive Angel's role in the prophecy. Still later, the Senior Partners claimed that it was always Angel alone. That's nice. Now everyone who actually believes that, raise your hands. That's what I thought. As for how the world got back on track, Eve claimed that the Senior Partner found a temporary fix for the situation. Was she telling the truth? Was the Circle telling the truth? Were the Senior Partners telling the truth? Until the Apocalypse happens and we see it for ourselves,  that's what Wild Mass Guessing is for.
 * Even though you're throwing your "anything can happen in fiction" like an unbeatable trump card yourself, still it fails to explain why both the PTB and the Senior Partners are focusing so much on Angel (6 seasons + bringing him back at the beginning of BtVS season 3... mentioning all the single interferences would be an almost impossible task), and they never focus on Spike. The only time Spike was marginally included in this was in season 5, but in that case it was both because of Eve's and Lindsey's plot to turn him against Angel (again, the focus is on Angel) and because he was in that condition for wearing a magic amulet that was meant for (guess who?) Angel in the first place. It ended there. So, if Word of God happens to confirm something that logic suggests, it makes Angel a better candidate for the Shanshu prophecy than "you never know... it could be someone else". Of course everybody also believes that Angel will say "Screw Destiny!" and Take a Third Option, but that has nothing to do with Spike being at the center of any prophecy (a surpassed theory, by the end of Season 5). Spike still hangs around just because he's a cool character.
 * About BtVS S3, well, if the Powers can see all possible futures and saw one where Mayor Snake owned Sunnydale, Glory destroyed the universe and The First took over, and then saw the main universe, which would you select?
 * But it's still his alone, the Shanshu prophecy that is. Also there's only one logical outcome. Angel will play on the part of good because A) if Angel becomes Angelus and end the whole universe then there will be nothing left and it would be hard to claim a reward in a universe that doesn't exist. B) if Angelus participates in the apocalypse and the universe isn't completely destroyed, then he will be turned human and killed practically instantly and Angelus is definitely smart enough to figure that out. So the only logical answer left is C) Angel or Angelus works for the side of good and stops the apocalypse.
 * So the Senior Partners were lying about Angel's role in the prophecy, but at the same time telling the truth about Angel being the subject of the prophecy? That isn't jossing, that's just picking and choosing which particular elements of the chronically lying villains' claims to believe. Angel's role in the Shanshu prophecy is hardly set in stone just because Wolfram & Hart gave Wesley a vision. Even ascended-to-a-higher-plane Cordelia didn't buy it. It just seems to me like fans who should know by now that Joss Whedon loves messing with people's expectations are falling hook, line and sinker for another bait and switch plot twist. Remember "the father will kill the son"? Or heck, the first Shanshu interpretation, as in "Angel will die during the apocalypse"? Until it actually happens, we don't know what the prophecy means, except that, because it's Whedon, it'll deliberately subvert whatever seemed like the obvious answer. Which makes me think that, both because it looks so clearly like it was always Angel, and because the only source we really have for that is the Senior Partners, that's going to turn out to be a red herring.
 * It helps none of this that we never get to see the prophecy directly (justified by it being in an arcane tongue); all we get are paraphrased excerpts which, given how well Wesley starts out, is likely a Blind Idiot Translation

Wolfram and Hart's LA division is newly staffed by off-worlders in Season 5.
Ever notice how, throughout most of the series, Wolfram and Hart is presented as a serious, believable law firm with its supernatural nature apparently hidden under the radar of most of the people working there? Notice how that totally changes during season 5, when the place practically turns into the LA branch of Hogwarts with supernatural creatures of every sort dressed in business suits and cheerfully mingling with the human workers? There's a possible in-universe rationale for this.

The Beast slaughtered every single employee of Wolfram & Hart, even the ones who were absent that day, during Season 4. So how did the Senior Partners manage to repopulate the office so quickly? Well, we know Wolfram & Hart has a ton of branches set up in other dimensions. It makes sense that, to get the LA branch up and running immediately for Team Angel, they had to transfer most of the staff in from some of those off-world branches. That would go a long way toward explaining why the majority of the lawyers walking around Season 6's Wolfram & Hart are demons.
 * Except that everybody at W&H knew from the start what kind of place you were working for. Even ordinary security guards know that they have vampire detectors (namely demons sitting in the security office crying out whenever a vampire enters the building), and know what to do when they go off. And the lawyers keep making dark jokes about the people who get "fired" or "sacked" all the time. The new staff still seems to be mostly human, apart from a few exceptions most of the demons in the building seem to be clients. The chances are that the new employees were simply transferred from other Earth offices - they seem to have them in numerous major cities around the globe.

Darla was a Slayer when she was alive
Vampires tend to be the inverse of the people they were in life. Drusilla was innocent and completely tormented as a human, but devious but happy as a vampire. William was weak and timid as human; Spike is brash and headstrong. Liam was full of human weaknesses, and Angelus had no humanity in him. Harmony was petty and cruel as a human, and nice as a vampire.

One thing we notice about Darla is that she rarely uses violence to secure her victims, preferring to lure them - completely opposite to how Slayers go after vampires.

In the flashback of her turning in Darla, she doesn't seem shocked in the least to see The Master in full vamp face. He seems to have sought her out just to turn her into a vampire, which he would only do if there was something special about her. Making a Slayer a vampire seems like a good recipe to make a powerful vampire.

She has no memory of her human life or name despite being young by vampire standards - only 300 or so. She may have repressed those memories because of the dissonance between her lives or because she's trying to get rid of leftover instincts telling her to destroy vampires - including herself. Her breakdown when returning to human is odd, since it isn't motivated by guilt or anything else one would expect to come with a soul; but this is the return of all those Slayer instincts telling her to destroy vampires, which still includes her by her way of thinking.

She didn't seem to lose much strength on her return to human form; vampire strength was replaced by Slayer strength.

She is the first vampire we ever see on BtVS, which should mean something.
 * As a matter of fact, the first time I saw Buffy, (blonde, in a weird place at night, 'normal' girl) I thought Darla WAS Buffy! (Y'know, until she sprouted her vamp face.)

In the end, both times she dies, she is killed by a vampire, not by the Slayer or any human: She's killed by Angel in Angel and by herself in Lullaby.

Plus, it would be cool.


 * Vampires aren't the opposite of their human form, they're actually mostly the same with some fairly standard changes. Willow was bisexual and so was vampire-Willow, Harmony was extremely susceptible to peer pressure as a human and a vampire, Darla was a prostitute as a human and as a vampire lured victims by seduction, Drusilla was insane both as a human and as a vampire, Liam was a reckless party guy and so was Angelus, etc. The big difference is that vampires: a) lack empathy and enjoy killing, and b) have reduced inhibitions. Very often vampires express traits that they were repressing as humans, for example with vampire-Willow being openly bisexual while Willow spent quite awhile expressing as straight and then shifted to lesbian. The only exception is Spike.
 * He's an exception? Not so much. Spike showed William he didn't have to be the meek little bookworm that he'd made of himself. Both personas were full of passion, all the time. Spike's lack of empathy meant that he didn't care anymore about what others thought of his passions and acted on them, rather than writing bad poetry the way his human self had. Also, he had the Waspinator reaction to his change: damn, the new me is cool.
 * "She is the first vampire we ever see on BtVS, which should mean something." Of course it does! It means two things: 1) It means that, in a vampire show, someone had to be the first vampire shown. 2) It means that probably (but not necessarily) that particular vampire was going to have an important role in the plot of that episode and/or the entire season (she was both... kinda). It doesn't imply anything else, really. Also, as stated above, not only vampire-selves share all the traits of the human-selves (except compassion, etc.)... we also do know what Darla was in life. She was a prostitute. Ouch!
 * So, where is the WMG that Inara descended from her?

The Shanshu Prophecy does not refer to Angel OR Spike
Within 200 years, circumstances arose twice that led to there being two vampires with a soul at once. Even before Spike got his soul back, there was a period when Darla had a soul as a vampire, even though it wasn't hers. This kind of circumstance will show up again, given enough time; at least one more vampire with a soul will exist, and that will be who the Shanshu Prophecy refers to.
 * In the Angel After the Fall comics, Angel is told flat out that he is the only vampire who could be the subject of the prophecy. And it would be stupid to have the main character not be the one entitled to the prophecy introduced specifically for him.
 * Then again, it's stupid to say the Shanshu will happen after the last apocalypse and then declare that evil will always be there and there will never be a last apocalypse, meaning there will never be a time when the Shanshu can happen. Having the big plan to show the forces of evil you'll never stop fighting be... to engage in a massive battle that you can't survive, which will force you to stop fighting because you're DEAD -- that isn't so bright, either...
 * Buffy Season 8 shows that there really should have been a last Apocalypse, but

Jasmine is an Old One
When she is 'born,' she seems tentacled, as is Illyria. She's ancient and powerful, and she had to go through a lot of trouble to appear in this world.
 * Jasmine is a PTB as evidenced by the facts that she takes over Cordelia while Cordelia is a higher being and it is unlikely that a demonic old one could traverse their way up to the Heavenly plain without raising suspicion. Additionally, Jasmine sent Cordelia fake visions to manipulate the team and only PTB have the ability to send visions. Lastly, her ultimate goal was world peace which is probably not the ultimate goal of an ancient demon.
 * If you listen to the speech by Jasmine as the end of "Shiny Happy People" we learn that the Old Ones and the PTB were originally more or less the same thing with the Old Ones being the "malevolent" among them. This is not necessarily reliable of course. Here's the full quote:

"In the beginning, before the time of man, great beings walked the earth. Untold power emanated from all quarters â€” the seeds of what would come to be known as good and evil. But the shadows stretched and became darkness, and the malevolent among us grew stronger. The earth became a demon realm. Those of us who had the will to resist left this place, but we remained ever-watchful."

The Masquerade was broken some time at late season 4
It would take one hell of a Sunnydale Syndrome for people to ignore all that... Plus, there was that ad about the changes Angel made to Wolfram&Hart, if it wasn't an internal circulation or a joke.
 * In "Conviction" a lawyer mentions that the DA office employs its own shamans.
 * That just means that the government knows about and practices magic. Remember Mayor Wilkins' administration in Buffy, and remember the government coming to take away the invisible girl.
 * Wilkins was special, and for the whole invisible insane girl thing (more like BLAM), well, I'd like to point you to the Buffy WMG that that is a VERY Early Academy.

Cordelia was a potential Slayer
She's tough, brave, and attracted to supernatural weirdness. She has been mistaken for Faith before. She feels a conecction with Buffy despite not liking her, at least to start with. She breaks The Masquerade fairly quickly on "Buffy." Angel and Xander fall for her, and they both have a thing for Slayers. She was in a coma when Buffy did her everyone-who-could-be-a-slayer-is-one thing, so nobody noticed; but that influx of Slayer power allowed her to break the rules, come back as a spirit or whatever, and give that vision to Angel.

The prophecy from season 3 was not false, but worded in a way to be incorrectly interpreted.
"The father will kill the son."

Well, he did, after a fashion, at the end of season 4.

Wesley was told that Angel would "devour" his son and that the portents would be an earthquake followed by fire and blood. Then an earthquake happens that causes a fire in Angel's room and causes him to bleed all over Conner, and that was supposedly it.

But in season 4, an earthquake accompanies the arrival of the Beast, who causes fire to rain down on the city; then Connor uses innocent blood to bring Jasmine into the world. This all precedes Angel using his new-found powers at Wolfram and Heart to "devour" Connor's memories, in essence killing all that Connor used to be. (No soul, no memories - what's left?)

That Sahjhan is one clever bastard.


 * Wait, why doesn't Connor have a soul?
 * Setting that aside, the memories? He got better.

Well he still has his soul so WTF. But other than that the original post makes sense. No matter how much better Connor's life is now, the memory wipe means that the original version him from season 4 doesn't exist anymore. He is for all intents and purposes, dead (even if his memories live on in the new Connor now). Just like many of The Nameless One's previous incarnations.


 * Don't forget Angel did symbolically "kill" Conner in "Home." Right before the spell took effect, Angel took a knife and slashed at Conner's throat. The DVD Commentary even states that this was done as an allusion to "The Father Will Kill The Son."

The Shanshu Prophecy doesn't refer to anyone in particular.
We're never given the exact words, but the gist is that "A vampire with a soul will play a major role in the Apocalypse and become human as a result." It's been established that there are multiple ways to give a Vampire a soul. We've also seen a vampire with a soul become human by accident, and a destroyed vampire return to life as a real human. The "prophecy" just states another way that a vampire with a soul can regain his humanity. Any vampire with a soul can be rewarded with life for his part in the Apocalypse. It's not the only way a vampire can return to being human.
 * Jossed. Angel After the Fall makes it clear that Angel is the subject of the prophecy, and the comic book is considered canon.
 * It's clear unless and until Whedon decides to reveal that information was false. Come one, this is a universe where prophecies get misinterpreted FAR more often than they're read correctly. All it takes is a new revelation to override the old revelation.
 * I'd like to point out that, in-canon, a vampire with a soul has already played a part in the Apocalypse, and then shanshued. Due to this word being flexible, plus the fact that there was only 1 VWAS at the time of translation, this whole thing could have been talking about a certain Bleach Blonde Brit.

Skip killed Billy Blum's original guardian.
We know Skip is a member of a cult devoted to bringing Jasmine to Earth and that he deliberately allowed Angel to beat him on his first appearance. He later appears as a mentor to Cordelia, manipulating her into accepting Jasmine's essence. It's a bit suspicious that he would go from simple guardian to subtle mentor, but it's not beyond possibility.

But it makes more sense if Blum was originally guarded by someone or something else. Wolfram & Hart threatened Cordelia's life to make Angel rescue the guy. To ensure that Cordelia would be rescued, Jasmine's cult eliminated the original guardian and installed Skip in his place to ensure that Angel would succeed; thus Cordelia would not be rescued.
 * Ouch.

Codelia wasn't pregnant with Jasmine until a few minutes before Jasmine was born.
Evil! Cordelia's methods seem curiously at odds with those of Jasmine - summoning The Beast, manipulating Angel into becoming evil again, having the sun blocked out, and trying to kill everybody. Jasmine seems to sincerely desire world peace, and sees loss of free will and the occasional murder of a dozen people an acceptable price.

Let's face it - for series 4 to make any sense at all, Cordelia must have been pregnant with an evil being, only for Jasmine to hijack the situation at the last minute and come into the world instead of some (more) monstrous evil.

"JASMINE: Why do you hate me so much?
 * Jasmine admits to causing all that chaos in "Peace Out." "I murdered thousands... to save billions!" According to the commentary, all of Jasmine's actions while in charge of Cordy's body were to put Team Angel off guard so they wouldn't notice her coming until it was too late to do anything about it. In fact, Team Angel themselves probably realized it was all a distraction in "Inside Out." She wanted Angelus to be her champion; when that fell through, she had to settle for Connor. That's the real reason Connor never felt the happiness everyone else did; somehow, he knew it was a lie.
 * Perhaps the commentary is wrong?
 * So David Fury and Joss Whedon are both wrong about the motives of a character one wrote and the other created? Death of the Author indeed. Plus Jasmine admitted to being responsible.

ANGEL: Let's run down the list, huh? Rain of fire, blotting out the sun, enslaving mankind, and, yeah, oh, yeah, hey, you eat people! ... Thousands of people are dead because of what you've done.

JASMINE: And how many will die because of you? I could've stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty. How many precious, beautiful lives would've been saved in a handful of years? Yes, I murdered thousands to save billions."


 * Compromise theory: Jasmine decided to change her tactics shortly before she was born. Not Heel Face Turn, but Heel - Less-obvious-heel Turn.
 * About Angelus being her champion - she was just keeping Angel, the champion of the Powers That Be and a huge threat to her plan, out of the way long enough for everything to go through; she used Angelus in the meantime because he was available. She didn't destroy Angel's soul, and so she might have been planning on releasing it once she was born. She certainly has no love for vampires in general: one of the first things she did as ruler of Los Angeles was to begin a purge of vampires and demons.
 * Jasmine didn't have her handy dandy "everyone loves me" effect while she was inside Cordelia, so she couldn't just charm her way through things. Her attitude towards Lilah probably reflects Jasmine's true feelings: she hates Wolfram & Hart, and so stabbing Lilah and calling her names may have been genuine fury on Jasmine's part. Her frustration with Willow might also have been real. She's a Power that Be who's being challenged by a mortal witch; it's not surprising that she sees it as a personal insult. As for the rest - she manipulated everyone the way she wanted, and when they caught her, she played up the villain role to keep Team Angel and Conner on opposite sides. If Jasmine had genuine compassion for humans (debatable but possible), then she probably kept telling herself that she'll make it all up to them once she's herself.

Jasmine didn't take control of Cordelia immediately after her memory was restored.
After all, in "Apocalypse Nowish," Cordelia was having bad dreams about being connected to the Beast, which doesn't seem like something Jasmine would normally do. Cordelia was increasingly tending towards evil and creating chaos as time went on because Jasmine is evil and crazy; but Cordelia's actions were modeled after her own personality, like a vampire's would be, until Jasmine was almost ready to be born.

Angel is hiding who he really is.
As a human, Angel was an irresponsible party guy who couldn't stand authority figures. When he became a vampire, he had the fairly standard kind of changes, where he showed basically a vampire version of his original human personality - Angelus was also the life of the party, often risked his own and his teammates' safety for a thrill, and had no respect for the Master's authority. But when he got a soul, he turned into the standard Vampire Detective personality - Chronic Hero Syndrome, very awkward at parties, etc. Shouldn't a vampire with a soul be more like their human self, instead of less?

However, trauma can make you feel like you need to hide who you are. Maybe Angel was aware that Angelus's behavior was related to a number of inherent personality traits he had even as Liam, and decided to try to remake himself as a different person. That would support what the First Evil told him, that he was only ever good at being bad. (Since the First Evil is a master at picking at whatever is already an issue for a person.) So Angel wasn't a hero because of an inherent concern for humanity, but because he was so scared of being Angelus that he was trying to act the opposite.
 * I'm not sure this take is wrong, but I feel like it's incomplete. Our choices define our identity. Angel, based on his experience, chose to become the hero, chose to have concern for humanity. He decided to change his identity and grow as a person. At what point do you stop calling it hiding and start calling it actual change, especially given the focus on the importance of free will in the series? So, while the analysis of Angel/Liam's motivation makes sense, I'm not sure, ultimately, that the conclusion really matters.
 * There is also Angel's curse that has to be taken into account. Liam could party because he was carefree and felt he deserved to have fun. Angel is constantly tormented by the guilt of all the horrors and atrocities he committed as a vampire. He is punishing himself because he does not believe he deserves happiness. Becoming a hero is the only way he can feel he is redeeming himself by balancing the scales. He hopes that saving the world can equal the number of people he killed.
 * There's all that, and the fact that Angel lived (vampirically) for a hundred years with a soul after the Gypsies cursed him. During that time, he changed as a person -- repreatedly. When he was first re-ensouled, he was full of weaknesses and self-loathing, just like Liam was, and was desperate to go back to belonging somewhere, to the point of actually rejoining with Darla and Co. Basically, he's back to being Liam. However, Liam may have been hedonistic and full of self-loathing, but he was never evil, which is why he could only go as far as becoming a Serial Killer Killer and flunking Darla's If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten test. After that, he retreats into seclusion for some decades, holing himself up and isolating himself from society at large. This works for a while, and he even tries his hand at hero work a few times. Then he feeds of a gunshot victim, is filled with even more self-loathing, and retreats to teh streets and starts living off rats. It's only after he meets Buffy that he actually does anything heroic -- she was a big influence on him. Angel is a different person than Liam, in that he's had decades to grow as a person.

When Conner has a vision of his mother in Angel "Inside Out", it was actually the First.
In this episode, the "Ghost" of Darla shows up to convince Conner not to shed innocent blood, thus hastening the birth of Jasmine, who would attempt to bring her own brand of world peace. It fits The First's MO perfectly: Appearance of a dead person, intangible, seen only by the intended target, trying to manipulate them into doing what it wants. The time line matches up; The First was fixing to unleash its own apocalypse, and Jasmine's plan for world domination was obviously going to be a problem in the long run. And Darla claims to be sent by the Powers? Please. That would be a complete 180 on the PTB's stance on Darla up until then.
 * Ironically, this meant that stopping Jasmine was both the good thing to do and the evil thing to do. If the First hadn't been busy trying to start its own apocalypse in Sunnydale, it might have sought to aid Angel more openly.
 * Wasn't that the entire point of the arc; that Jasmine wasn't Unambiguously Evil or Unambiguously Good, she was a Knight Templar upholding a principle of Utopia Justifies The Means, and very well could have actually brought about that utopia, with absolute peace, love, and prosperity for the entire world, at the cost of free will? Destroying her wasn't necessarily the Right, Just, Heroic course of action that leaves everyone feeling good for having beaten the bad guy, because she may well have been right. When Angel lists her crimes, "enslaving humanity" is the one to take note of; when he says that her paradise isn't worth the price, he's not talking about the fact that she eats people from time to time, he's talking about the fact that the loss of free will, for everyone to become a mindless automaton, is too much of a price to pay, even for world peace. So yes, The First may well have been trying to stop Jasmine just as much as the Fang Gang was; even Wolfram and Hart salutes them for ending world peace after Jasmine is destroyed.
 * It's a very interesting concept when you consider the Big Bads from season 4 of Angel and season 7 of BTVS thrive off completely opposite principles, Jasmine wants to rule over a Utopia of peace and love with no free will whatsoever while The First Evil exists solely because there is bad in the world. Thus if Jasmine succeeded The First would cease to exist.
 * Interesting idea, but Jossed by the DVD commentary.

The Senior Partners are actually the Powers That Be.
The Powers don't seem that interested in the day-to-day fight against evil. They only see the big picture. By creating Wolfram & Hart, they have an entity that can control evil, and use the resources of evil to stop anyone else from bringing about an apocalypse. When they talk about their apocalypse, they mean Armageddon - when they will send forth the armies of good.
 * Angel getting control of the Los Angeles branch was a response to the imminent awakening of the Slayer Line. Had everything gone according to plan, the good guys would have ended up in control of Wolfram & Hart. However, two events changed their plans - the schism with the Slayers, and the return of Illyria. The Powers' current priority is to bring Illyria over to their side. In the end, an Old One is far more valuable than a Champion, especially one who is at odds with the dominant force for good on Earth.

Even if she beat Angel, Jasmine would have lost.
So she takes control of the humans of the world. Whoop di do. But we know her power doesn't work on evil demons. So a certain Slayer and her friends run to L.A. to serve Jasmine, the First goes unopposed and Jasmine's shiny, happy world comes to a rather abrupt end as a rabid horde of ubervamps wipes out humanity and the First has Jasmine for lunch.
 * One problem: The First was powered by evil. Jasmine's mind control removed your evil. Perhaps Jasmine was the PTB's attempt at stopping The First.
 * The thing is, Jasmine was growing stronger as more people began worshiping her. Even when Angel depowered her, she still seemed confident that she could single handedly wipe out humanity (though whether she really could or not is debatable) so it's entirely possible that at fully strength she could have taken out all the ubervamps herself. Plus she did have demonic minions in the past (the Beast and Skip), so she could have more of those to throw at the First and she had an entire world full of spider demon thingies she could import if she really needed an army. And if her influence had spread far enough, she would have had control of vast military resources. A nuke or two on top of the Hellmouth would pretty much have taken out the entirety of the First's forces.
 * I suppose it would depend who got their army ready first (and if jasmine even knew about the First). If I was the first, I'd storm the Hyperion with a horde of 'Bringers and Uber Vamps.
 * While it isn't stated it's unlikely that two global level threats arrived at the same time, arrived physically near each other, had plans that were set to climax at nearly the same time and were mutually unaware of each other. It's likely that one of them was reacting to the other. If the First had suceeded and taken corporeal form it's safe to assume he would have been powerful, quite probably the most powerful being we've seen to date. Any time after this point Jasmine's arrival wouldn't have helped anything. On the other hand had Jasmine taken over the globe and solved all of our problems (albeit by taking away our free will and replacing it with happy feelings of love and togetherness)the First's plans would have been solved in short order. Uber Vamps are bad ass yes, but a Jasmine operated military would have slapped them down without trying. It's also important to note that the electricity (and thus the televisions and for an unknown reason the radios as well) in Sunnydale got cut at a VERY strategic moment. That moment being when Jasmine functionally ruled California and probably a good deal of the world since radio and television get around pretty fast and her hypnosis effect appears to be instant.
 * There's also Willow. She's powerful enough that she might be immune to Jasmine's mind control.
 * And if she wasn't, well, The First would be fucked. Think for a moment: Jasmine can make you do anything. Tell Willow to go full power and have her vaporize the ubervamps.

Cordy remained Ascended until the end of the series.

 * After Ascending, Cordelia never returned. Instead, it was entirely Jasmine who came back to Earth. Because she couldn't take on her own form yet, she instead took a real human's form in order to give birth to herself. However, it was just Jasmine controlling Cordy until the end. This is why Cordy was in a coma after Jasmine's death: she was really just a body, and everything that made her function was gone into another body now. The only time we saw Cordelia again after the end of season 3 was when she appeared briefly in You're Welcome as a spirit, to say goodbye to her friends. She killed the body that Jasmine had created to come to Earth in on her way out, so that her identity could never be used again. It's up to you whether she Ascended or died after this.
 * Didn't she say that she was going to die? I don't remember the exact quote, but I think I remember something about that.
 * Alternatively, Cordelia did come back to Earth, but as soon as she got her memories back at the end of Spin the Bottle, she was killed by Jasmine hijacking her body. She Ascended again.

The visions always came from Jasmine, with the exception of the Final Vision

 * The idea is that from the very beginning of the series or even earlier, Jasmine's been the PTB that the team has been getting the visions from. Jasmine used the visions as a means to guide Angel into all the little hoops she needed him to jump through in order to bring about her birth four years later, as well as doing various Good Deeds to pass the time from one hoop to the next.
 * Angel is a "champion of the Powers That Be" but the PTB in general don't have any issue letting him go. For all the importance and all the value that he's been told he has, when he became human in season one, the Oracles pretty much just told him, "Hey, you're off the hook, enjoy it." This is because he's important to only one specific Power That Be...and it was a vision, from her to Doyle, that prompted him to convince the Oracles to undo his humanity and get back on the rails.
 * When WRH hijacked the visions and Angel beat the crap out of Skip, who we know works for Jasmine, to set Billy free, Jasmine wasn't about to just let that go. It wasn't long before Cordelia was getting visions crammed down her throat that essentially said "Undo it".
 * After Cordelia was possessed by Jasmine, she continued having the visions - because Jasmine is the one in control of them, after all, so she can give herself visions. Either that or she already knew what was happening and faked them.
 * Once Jasmine was killed, Cordelia appeared one last time, post-mortem, to pass the visions on to Angel. This was the Final Vision; but instead of striking right then and there, in his office, the vision waited until he was in bed that night, giving Cordelia time to get settled into her Higher Power status and send a vision. Note that after Jasmine's death and after this one vision from Cordelia, no one ever had a vision again.
 * This may even date back to before Buffy began. Angel got his start on the hero path from Whistler, an ambiguous entity sent to him to help him find his path, just like Doyle. When Buffy asks Whistler if he's some kind of demon sent down to help maintain the balance between good and evil, he responds, "Wow, good guess." suggesting that he, like Doyle, works for the Powers That Be (in this case, Jasmine). Word of God even has it that Doyle's role was originally supposed to be Whistler.
 * During Angel's fight with Jasmine, she Motive Rants, "Because I cared. The other Powers don't. Never really did. You know that's true in your heart." A particularly odd line given that the Powers have been bestowing visions on Cordelia all this time, unless we assume that it's always been Jasmine; in which case, this line gains particular emphasis; Jasmine WAS the only Power that ever really cared about Angel's whole little campaign. The Others, as evidenced by the Oracles, were more than happy to just let him go.

Gunn's Grandmother was either a Slayer or former Watcher

 * In the Canonical spinoff Only Human we learn that Gunn's grandmother ended up staking an old former friend and had a part of Gunn's training. Looks like she had experience dealing with vampires. Possible a former Slayer which could explain Gunn's aptitude for fighting the Supernatural. But then again a former Watcher could also count. Combining both experience with fighting vampires and the ability to teach it to others ie her grandson.
 * "Former slayer"? You don't get to be a "former" slayer, you keep being the slayer until you die and stay dead, which is usually only a few years at most. However, we know that some potentials start training with a Watcher before they have any chance to become the slayer, and that there are enough potentials that, until Willow made all of them slayers anyway, most of them never would have been chosen. It's possible that Gunn's grandmother was a potential who never became a slayer.
 * Then again Buffy 'died' twice and two other slayers where activated. Lets say she died, found out that another Slayer got activated and kept her mouth shut . Instead of leaping up and yelling out ' I got better' stayed under the radar with the aim of reaching old age...and having grandkids.
 * That makes no sense. The First's plan with respect to the slayers in season 7 was explicitly only possible because there was an ex-slayer walking around; if Faith and all the potentials died, and then Buffy, there wouldn't be any more slayers. (Apparently, if Buffy didn't die last, the slayer line could continue through a less-potential...)
 * Good point, then again Potential's get trained . So..it is possible she was a possible that she was a trained Poetential thant never got called..

The Wolf, Ram and Hart are pretty absent post LA because...

 * They are dealing with a war in the Lower Dimensions. The big Bad fighting on their home turf? A certain hardened and badass Wesley Pryce who decided that enough is enough. I mean due to the contract W and H gave to their employees. They have the souls of Lilah Morgan, Lindsey and Pryce in one place . All that smarts, intellect and willpower. You know there's going to be a fight.

Angel has a split personality.

 * Angel and Angelus are very different beings. Not just in terms of their actions but their personalities are wildly different as well. No other vampire is that different from their human personality. Character development excepted, Dru, Darla and Spike are all pretty much the same as the were as humans (apart from loss of inhibitions and conscience). Harmony is virtually identical except even more petty. Likewise Gunn in After The Fall. When Spike gets his soul back even, there's no noticeable shift in personality apart from the reinserted inhibitions and conscience. Angel and Angelus are so different in personality, speech pattern, attitudes, etc, that the only way it makes sense is to assume that they are actually two entirely seperate personalities. Maybe Liam already had a minor mental problem as a human (not farfetched, considering his background). The trauma of being sired turns that into a full fracture. All his nastier thoughts and desires become the new personality that Darla names "Angelus" while Liam goes into hibernation within his psyche. When he's cursed with a soul, those nasty thoughts and desires are stuffed back into their box, allowing Liam to surface again and he takes the name "Angel".


 * Or Angelus was cursed with "a" soul... rather than "Liam's" soul. If that's the case, it could explain why it took Spike much less time to adjust, because he actually received "William's" soul.

The Files and Records Lady and Flo the Progressive Insurance Lady are the same person.
All those commercials take place in the White Room, which she converted to an insurance outlet to make some money on the side. That's why she's able to compare prices so easily. She's files and records. It's her job to know these things.

Fred wasn't actually in Pylea for five years.
When she was rescued, Fred appeared to be in about her mid-twenties. If we assume she was 25, that would put her at 20 when she was sent there. Except she was said to be an accomplished grad student already, so she was clearly far too young. However there is an easy explanation, Pylean time moves differently than this dimension's just like Quor'toth, except this dimension's moves faster. So five years here is actually just a couple months in Pylea. Which understandably is still enough to drive someone as insane as she was.
 * Fred doesn't seem like the type to exaggerate about that, although it's possible she simply lost track of time when she was on the run in Pylea, and assumed it had been five years when she found that five years had passed on earth, since I could certainly imagine any amount of time living like she was feeling like years. It also doesn't seem unreasonable to think that she might have started doing college or grad school work a bit early, which, combined with being slightly older than she looks, would account for the missing time.

The Beast that appeared in season 4 was the same Beast that The Doctor fought.
The Beast in Doctor Who calls himself the bringer of darkness; the first thing The Beast does in Angel is put out the sun. They're both ugly as sin, and are both covered in armor and have horns. They don't look exactly the same, but certainly close enough to notice the resemblance. The slight difference in appearance can be explained by saying that The Beast manifests differently on different planets. Oh, and they're both called "The Beast."
 * Rather unlikely. The Doctor's Beast claims to have been trapped since before time and has power and ambition to rival The First, while the other Beast is a lowly servant of Jasmine. "...Crafted from my unworthy bone" doesn't sound that diabolical.
 * More likely, The Doctor's Beast was the First, made more powerful by the evil given off by trillions of humans as well as all the alien species in the universe (including the Daleks). The Beast seen in Angel was based off him (in universe).

The "hot pokers" used by the priests of Pylea
So Cordelia tells her friends that the priests of Pylea recently jabbed her with hot pokers. And she says this while wearing an outfit that shows off most of her skin, but none of her visible skin has any sign of being damaged. The resolution of these pieces of information is as obvious as it is kinky: Clearly the hot pokers were specifically targeted at some body part which is covered by her barely-more-than a bikini outfit.
 * Ouch.
 * She also seems to have no trouble sitting. Ouch indeed.

Spike avoided Angelus’ punishment.
Angelus was cursed with a soul and now exists “''Just beneath the surface, buried under all that goodness, fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on your desires. So thirsty, so helpless... it must be agony.''” while Angel is in control. But Spike was already showing signs of redemption before he was rewarded with a soul through a different form of magic. It can be assumed that Spike’s demonic essence, undead persona and human soul have found an equilibrium. In other words, far from the whole Angel/Angelus business, Spike is Spike.

Cordelia was suffering from an eating disorder in the first season
Specifically the pilot episode, although realistically her recovery would take a long time. She repeatedly complains about how hungry she is, although she's far from too poor to buy food and never gets anything to eat. She's aspiring to a career that focuses heavily on personal beauty. BtVS implies that she's deeply self-loathing despite her outward confidence.
 * She actually was too poor to buy food. She had to sneak sandwiches from the party she met Angel at just so she could get something to eat.
 * Her family pretty much lost it all halfway through season 3 of Buffy because her father hadn't paid his taxes in "like, forever."

Sahjahn is Connor's son
It sounds like a crazy theory, but it's surprisingly easy to justify. Since Sahjahn is all about the time travel, there's no reason why his date of birth couldn't be some years in the future. And remember, Connor's very purpose was to the the father of an otherworldly demonic entity, so why shouldn't there be others in the future, besides Jasmine.

The attraction of this theory, of course, is that it lends a whole new meaning to the prophecy that "The father will kill the son." There's stil the oddity that according to this theory, Sahjahn's plan runs into severe Grandfather Paradox problems. But Sahjahn's plans were supposed to be a rebellion against the natural necessities of prophecy, anyway.

Or, here's another interpretation, maybe "The father will kill the son" refers to Connor killing Jasmine. Surely, with a prophecy this ambiguous, this can't be dismissed merely because the English translation refers to a "son" rather than a "daughter"--especially since Jasmine's true self is no doubt beyond our concepts of gender.

The amulet which Spike used inside the hellmouth was meant to go to Dawn.
No higher beings ever say that Dawn is no longer the Key, it is simply assumed by Dawn and the Scoobies that that aspect of her existence was used up in Glory's attempt to return home (even though the monks believed that the key's energies would not be consumed until all dimensions were one). When Willow goes insane, she threatens to turn Dawn back into a ball of energy. The First, known for tormenting people with harsh truths, tells Dawn that Buffy will not choose her. As Angel understands it, the amulet should go to "someone ensouled, but stronger than a human" which he takes to mean another Champion like himself. But, Dawn frequently feels remorse for her oft selfish actions, and is readily able (with only Xander at her side) to defend one of the exits of Sunnydale High, and even takes out several turok-hans herself during the fight.

Drogan is a Holder
It would explain why he freaks out whenever he thinks anyone is about to him a question.

Although it begins with WMG in the source, it's fact. Angel could kill the True Blood vampires if they foufgt the way he fights, or if he fought the way they fight.
Angel is a GOD, with his many, many, many flaws.

Lindsey's role in Season 5 was originally meant for Doyle.
With the reveal that Joss had possible plans to bring Doyle back in a possible Big Bad role until Glenn Quinn's tragic passing, it wouldn't be difficult to guess that Lindsey's return in Season 5 was possibly the role (with some changes) that Doyle was intended to serve, the fact that Lindsey actually uses "Doyle" as an alias for a brief time lends some evidence to the idea.

Jesus was one of the Powers That Be, who are in fact Aeons. Also, some or all of the Cthulu Mythos is real.
As mentioned on the Headscratchers page, Jasmine bears a striking similarity to Jesus - both are gods that descend to Earth in human form from usual births, gather a group of disciples, preach utopia, and are ultimately betrayed by one of their closest apostles, leading to their death.

Based on this, and assuming that Jesus did some or all of the things he is recorded as having done, it makes sense that some time around 0 AD, a more benevolent PTB came down to Earth and tried to teach humans how to cast of their mortal coils and enter a Heaven dimension.

This, interestingly, bears some striking similarities to Gnosticism, and also dovetails with Joss Whedon's views on religion in an interesting, and surprisingly Lovecraftian, manner. In Gnosticism, there exists a cosmos of pure light in which everything is a Platonic ideal. This cosmos is inhabited by entities called aeons, which are sentient embodiments of ideas and concepts.

The lowest Aeon, Sophia (Wisdom) attempted to create something by herself; the result was Ialdaboath, a blind idiot god, also called the Demiurge and Rex Mundi. The other aeons were so disgusted with Ialdaboath that they cast it out of Heaven into another cosmos of empty darkness. However, when they did so, some sparks of light were cast out with it.

Ialdaboath, finding itself alone in the cosmos, believed itself to be the creator of all existence, and went and made a bunch of servants for itself. It then shaped the primordial chaos of the dark cosmos into Earth, and created bodies made of meat to trap the sparks of light in. Those sparks are actually human souls, and by being trapped on Earth, Ialdaboath tortures them for shits and giggles. Oh yeah, according to the Gnostics, this evil Ialdaboath is the God (of the Old Testament at least).

In many branches of Gnosticism, Jesus is not the son of God (ie Ialdaboath), but rather is an Aeon, who took human form to teach humans how to escape from Ialdaboath's clutches.

Now, if you compare Gnostic and Buffyverse cosmology, certain similarities emerge. The Powers that Be / 'higher beings' strongly resemble the Aeons. Holland Manners' comment that Earth is all evil and stuff bears similarities to Earth being an imperfect creation made by Ialdaboath to torture the sparks of light. Ialdaboath being a bastard gels well with Whedon's opinion of God being a sky-bully. (As an aside, Ialdaboath also resembles Azathoth to an extent. Buffy and Angel have both made mention of the Necronomicon. Draw your own conclusions.)

We know that the PTB aren't necessarily good, but then we mere mortals can't expect to comprehend the thought process of Aeons, either.

So, based on this cosmology, here's the history of the universe. In the beginning, there are the Powers that Be, who sometimes quarrel among themselves. At some point, one of them creates Ialdaboath, and they chuck it out into the cold, dark space and time of our own cosmos, creating the Big Band. Due to the influence of Ialdaboath, ripples in space and time form elementary particles, which form hydrogen atoms, which form stars, which form heavier elements, which form planets and moons. One of these lumps of rock becomes Earth. This happens trillions of times, creating all the universes and Hell dimensions we have seen.

Meanwhile, some of the PTBs decide to see what Ialdaboath is up to. Ialdaboath, along with a whole bunch of Aeons, create more monstrous beings, some of which come to Earth around 300,000 BC and begin to make war, covering the planet with demons.

Eventually, humans arose in Africa and began to resist the remaining demons. The Shadow Men imbued Sineya with the power of a demon, creating the first Slayer, and sent her to kill all the demons; when she fell, another girl was called, a chain which continued up to the 21st century. At some point, the Shadow Men encountered a time-travelling Buffy Summers, and were surprised when she stood up to them and refused to accept the power of another demon. Many of the demons were driven off Earth, though some, such as Illyria, were imprisoned in the Deeper Well. A few of the last demons infected humans with their own blood, creating the demons that still walked the Earth and which Sineya and the Slayers had to kill; the most notable of these were the Turok-Han and the vampires. Also, a few places on Earth had Hellmouths.

Time passed, Slayers fought demons, and the descendants of the Shadow Men formed the Watchers' Council. In 4 BC by human reckoning, a PTB decided that humanity was worth helping, and so got a young Hebrew woman pregnant before she had consummated her marriage to her carpenter husband. This woman gave birth to a PTB in human form, and named him Jesus. Jesus travelled around Israel, preaching his gospel, until he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot (though that might have been at Jesus' request, for whatever reason.)

Jesus' followers founded a religion based on his teachings, and also carried out a particularly devout campaign against vampires; so effective was this that the Christians' symbols, the cross and holy water, were imbued with the power to repel and harm vampires respectfully simply by their very natures.

While all this was going on, one PTB came across a universe populated by insectoid beings, and incarnated among them so that she might establish a Utopia. Due to her inexperience, she failed.

Approximately 2,007 years after the birth of Jesus (year 2003 by human measurement), the god of the insectoids decided to try again on Earth, and the events of Angel season 4 happened. It was called Jasmine at this time.

If all this is true, it means that Joss has the potential for a truly spectacular Grand Finale - the characters go on a mission to kill God.

The insects weren't the first, nor would humanity have been the last, species that Jasmine "saved" and then abandoned.
This speech never made sense to me:

Jasmine: Well, as much of a paradise as one could with a bunch of insects to work with. ... It was a trial run, an early experiment to work out the bugs, so to speak.

So she's a transdimensional being, full of benevolence, but she's prejudiced against one particular type of sentient species over another? No. There are two possibilities: either Jasmine really believed this at the time, or she was telling the humans what they wanted to hear. Either seems plausible, as Jasmine has been seen to be both emotionally unstable and manipulative. But either way, what she really does is go from dimensions to dimension, making the sentient species worship her, and then gets bored after a while and leaves them, still under her spell, and therefore in despair. (And, of course, she eats a good portion of them.) She would have done it to humanity eventually too if the spell had not been broken.
 * Further speculation: if the insect race is as old as the minion said it was, then we have no way of really knowing if there were races between them and us that she tried this on. They're just the ones who caught up with her.
 * Even further speculation: perhaps that's why there are so many hellish dimensions around. Jasmine has gotten around, showing everyone paradise and then abandoning them. Perhaps that's what happened to Quor'toth, wherever Angel went, and maybe even Pylea; the latter may be a case from so long ago that the people have begun to recover.


 * While it's not impossible, or even improbable that Jasmine has tried this on mulitiple dimensions/planets it's unlikely she went to Quar'thoth or Pylea. Quor'toth is described by everybody as the most fucked up dimension in existance. It doesn't seem that a society worthy of Jasmine's attention has formed there. Though I doubt the world is half as bad as we're told. I mean an old man survived there with an infant. I know he's a bad ass but he's not THAT bad ass. Pylea for starters is a world controlled by Wolfram & Hart and aside from I wouldn't want to be a human in Pylea it doesn't really seem to be at all a terrible place. Hell judging by the reception Angel got (and the fact that he LOOKS Human) you could probably get along there as a human if someone vouched you were a bad ass.

Wolfram & Hart are not evil.
Whatever the senior partners are their morals are sufficiently different from mortals that they don't really understand that they aren't actually evil. Lets take a look at the facts here for a moment. On earth they run a law firm. Unless the year Angel took over was just an absurdly weird year they seem to be keeping the lid on a great deal of evil and chaos both demonic and human in origin. I imagine those warring tribes had an agreement to keep from going to war that was probably bartered through Wolfram & Hart. Same thing with the Head in Italy. They are clearly helping keep the Masquarade up which seems to be something the Watcher's Council, Scoobies, Initiative and Angel Inc all agree on. Both against the Beast/Jasmine and the First Evil they did what they could to assist the heros. According to Knox they've contained more plagues than they've created and unless they were behind AIDS or the Black Plague it doesn't seem they've unleashed any plagues. We learn enough about demons over the coarse of Angel to know that demons aren't all evil certainly not in a lets eradicate the humans sort of way.

More we should look at the one world they do rule, Pylea, we don't see much to convince me these are evil rulers. Sure they speciests or whatever you call a demon for hating humans and treating them as animals. They seem to be roughly in the mideval period and mankind acted similarly at the time. If we take the Groosalug and Angel into account it seems that if your a warrior it doesn't much matter if you are human or not. Connor or any Slayer would likely be allowed to walk the streets completely unmolested after one or two fights. Where is the rampant sadism and strict dictatorship? Where is the starving population or anything to show that Wolfram and Hart are anything remotely as evil as they are not only are seen, but as they present themselves? Frankly I'd paint myself green, glue on some horns and purchase some vacation land out in Pylea if I could.

It also tracks with why the Beast went so far out of its way to eliminate Wolfram and Hart. Jasmine tells us that all the death and terror before her birth was a necessary evil for her to come into the world. Either she's telling the truth and the people at Wolfram and Hart are sufficiently good that their deaths were worthy of being hunted down to the last man, well woman in the end, or she's lying and Wolfram & Hearts extirmination had to do with them being a large organized group that could thwart her plans to take over. Which leads to the was Jasmine evil headscratcher.

Finally we know that they have plans for the Apocalypse and that they involve Angel (or possibly Spike) specifically. You'd think a group of evil demons would want Angelus not Angel however dark but it mentions a vampire WITH a soul so Angelus is out of the picture in their ideal plan. Given that Jasmine is the only "good" entity we've encountered its possible that Wolfram & Hart aren't evil, they just think of good as Jasmine's zombie squad. So we don't even know for sure that the "Apocalypse" they have planned is a bad thing for humanity. Everything is going to be different after that point but different isn't by definition bad it's just change.

The only problem we have left is the Circle of the Black Thorn and they may not be in on the grand plan or we don't know them very well to know how evil they actually are.
 * There's also the minor issue of the fact that they keep *saying* they're evil. Lila says "I'm still evil. I don't do errands unless they're evil errands." And Hauser even says "I believe in evil." But perhaps they don't really mean "evil", perhaps they really mean that the ends justify the means, or they believe in order. Or maybe this is just some mantra that the lower ranks are given but which don't mean anything at the top levels.