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That said, I think Cordelia was gone completely in Season 4.   The most we saw of the real her all season was in the majority of SPIN THE BOTTLE, but even that wasn't the real Cordelia because she had regressed into a past version of herself before becoming the person she was meant to be. |
Not true.
Don't forget 'The House Always Wins' in which she helped Angel in Vagas from the higher plane or at least tried to and not only became frustrated with her limitations but just flat out got bored and missed her manpire. So wants to go back.
That's not much though, overall, yeah, she was lost to us until 'You're Welcome' and then was lost to us AGAIN!
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I don't ever recall David making negative statements on Cordy/Angel  All I do remember is seeing him on the Season 3 special features discussing how Cordy's ascension paralleled Angel's descent as a symbolic gesture of star cross'd lovers (or in his words, "love lost").   |
That is so profoundly and heartbreakingly beautiful. How poetic.
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David was always much less chatty about Angel's relationships. You could see when Sarah Michelle Gellar was asked about Buffy's feelings for Angel and Spike at the 20th anniversary reunion, both David and James had an "Oh no, here we go" stressed look about it  David always preferred to talk about Angel himself. I think he associated the romantic aspect with Buffy's show too much, and I don't blame him for wanting to focus on anything else because the shipper stuff is always difficult for actors to be objective about. |
To be fair, that's not inaccurate.
At least half of BtVS was romantic tragedies because it centered around adolescents searching for societal self-fulfillment in spite of an obligation while AtS was more responsibility/consequence heavy as an experienced adult narrative in which the cause
was the self-fulfillment.
I can understand how it could be uncomfortable for him to discuss ships subjectively; an actor's career does depend largely on how liked they are and ships are too controversial not to mention sensitive a subject to allow one to please as many fans as possible.
At the same, time, however, if he can be openly honest in response to the reboot backlash, why not the ships?
(
https://www.cinemablend.com/televisi...eboot-backlash).
I'm thinking it's more that he's a man and men aren't into romance. So it's just a bleh topic for him hehe.
Think about it, the women pretty openly ship, Charisma Cangel and SMG Bangel (each also with support for Cander and Spuffy, their characters' other popular ships) and you've made an example of James, another male cast member echoing David's sentiment.
I'll bet that in addition, the depths of Angel as an individual and his character growth is more of a topic he can understand and not just because it doesn't involve romance period.
Bangel, in particular, was probably below his maturity level even when he was a part of it on the screen because with the exception of Anthony Stewart Head and probably Kristine Sutherland, he and ironically Charisma were the oldest of the core cast in their late 20's. Plus I'm sure David was never into statutory rape (Sorry, I tried but I couldn't resist)
.