Darla, she made him into Angelus. As Angel, everything he did was to try and undo what Darla had done, even if he did say it was Buffy who inspired him.

Tough call. Angel started trying to do good in the world because he was smitten with Buffy and wanted to be worthy of her. So she had a major impact on his life even before she met him or fell in love with him. But just look at what he did to be worthy of Darla - he tried really hard to be evil for her after he got ensouled; he just didn't have the heart for it anymore. He was no more capable of being evil for her than he had been of being good for his father. Everything Angelus did, I'm convinced, was at least in part to be worthy of her, to be evil enough to please her. In a sense, both women created him; Darla created Angelus out of Liam (who wasn't going to create anything of himself but a pretty corpse) and Buffy (her influence) created the hero Angel out of the rat-eating gutter-living creature that was finally left when the ensouled vampire had no more purpose - no one else's needs or opinions to shape him. Angel has never been self-directed; he's always molded himself into whatever the person most important in his life wanted him to be.

I say Buffy was most important to him, because she instilled the conscience (it's pretty clear from AYNOHYEB that the conscience wasn't a gift-with-purchase with the soul) that lead to the choices that lead to his ultimate fate (if indeed he died and was redeemed, which I kinda think was the point of the ending of the show).

I can't believe I'm still putting this much thought into a tv show that's over. Even if I did love it.

I say Buffy. Because Darla was someone Liam met rather accidentally, and the events that followed from that weren't really anything that Angel himself chose, personally, because it was important to him. He was evil, and he wanted to be the most evil guy there was. Then Darla brought him the gypsy, and again, his life was completely changed, and again, it was something that was more done to him, than chosen by him. When he met Buffy, his change was more personal, and was something that he worked hard for, and wanted. I would say that Buffy's impact upon him was more direct, and that's why she is more important to him. Darla is also an important person in Angel's life, but all her contributions were rather incidental, in a way, and could have been made by anybody. His bond with Buffy could not have happened with just anybody, or even any Slayer. It was something specific that could only have happened with her.

So, that's why I say Buffy.

Darla.

When she was human and dying, he went to extraordinary lengths to save her. He was going to put everything aside to take care of when it turned out she couldn't be cured. I don't think it was just a redemption thing, either. The soul let him express a kinder version of the passion Angelus had for her, and was going to do his damnedest to make things right for the woman who had meant so much to him for so long.

Buffy was a young man's dream, for all that Angel had had the soul for a century by then.

That pretty much sums up how I feel, connie. Angel's love for Buffy was very much an "adolescent" love, as was hers for him. They were on an emotional level when they first met. By the time Darla came back into his life, he'd started to realize that there was more to unlife than "twu wuv."

Darla gave birth to his baby. Really, how can any woman compete?

Well, Darla was definitely closer to the earth. Especially after Drusilla put her in it.

And then she was dust!

Talk about the one who got away. No one recovers from that.

Changed my mind. It's Darla.