[Sam] Thanks, Sam. It just- it means a lot that you're listening to all of this, and trying to see and understand, even if it's hard or impossible.
And you're right. You didn't do the kind of horrific things that got you named the Scourge of Europe, you didn't know that the road you were walking was leading to the Apocalypse and you've never been a demon like Angelus was/is a demon when that body is a soulless vampire, and you've never taken a human life.
But maybe in other points of view, you've done things on that same level, because to someone with this other point of view, the "not evil" demons have the same life value as humans do. You'll never see the demons of this world that way, but other people do, which means that anyone who feels they're responsible for this city will take harm to those demons as personally as they do harm to humans.
I'll be honest - in your place, I'd be offended too, Sam, because it's insulting to think that people can compare you to someone you think is so horrible. I think Angel is a danger, not because I think Angel is a bad person, but because he has no control over having some perfect moment of happiness (other than to avoid anything that makes him even slightly happy) or having Wolfram and Hart turn him into Angelus again (which they've proven they wanted before, so he's at more of a risk that any one of us who could possibly be evil with the right spell). It's Angelus that's the kind of pure evil that, even if he doesn't come close to what Alastair was capable of doing physically, mentally and emotionally, still scares the fuck out of me. I don't want to be close to Angel because I don't really want to have it someday turn those connected to me into targets, and it worries me knowing that people I care about are once again in a hotel with someone who, as nice as he may be now, has the potential to snap at a moment's notice and kill them all. I know you didn't agree with me about Gabriel when I left the hotel, but it's the same thing to me as when Gabriel was there.
But Angel, to these people who know him/know of him/have this opinion, has done a lot of good, good that won't ever make up for Angelus' evil, but he keeps on trying. So I think if some people are making that a similarity too, they're not trying to insult you. I don't think they're trying to put you up or down anywhere the same as Angel, or trying to say that you're capable of being as horrible as Angelus, as much as they're maybe just trying to reconcile how they feel about you and about Angel, how they can love the man but see what isn't the man in a completely different way. For Faith, maybe part of it is that you, while hopped up on blood, and a version of Angelus, both hurt her badly. In very different ways, definitely, but it's still hurt she carries around and maybe that's maybe another similarity to her that doesn't seem as similar to you because, again, you're both coming at it from two different angles.
And I know you're trying really hard to see past the parts that upset you the most, like trying to see Angel as not being that Angelus, and I think you're doing a better job of it than some might. In the end, I'm not telling you to feel the other sides' ways about any of this, just show you the other sides and hope you can come back from being angry and be in the middle area again. Not everyone will meet you there, but those who care about you will try just as hard as you're trying to meet you halfway.
No, I don't think the Hyperion is the best of ideas, so maybe getting a new bed would be a big improvement. The plus? Bed shopping is actually really fun.