maggie2

In response to your series of comments, I think that Angel as daddy does get some fairly obvious play throughout the show; Buffy wants Angel to take her ice skating (like her father did), in "Helpless" Angel's description of himself wanting to protect her heart and warm it with his (cold body) seems to be connected with the episode's themes of parents failing their children. I tend to agree it's less about Buffy wanting to be a damsel as wanting to be a child, but it seems like the two are closely intertwined.

It is interesting that Buffy has a caretaking role for Angel. Certainly Angel wants Buffy to play mother/Darla in some key ways (though not as much as Spike wants her to play mother), and Buffy feels responsible for Angel as a parent does at several key points ("I Only Have Eyes For You," for example, and "Beauty and the Beasts" as you mention) but I don't think the two readings--Buffy as protector and as desiring protection--are remotely mutually exclusive.

And older bad boy and daddy figures also seem not mutually exclusive to me, especially when it turns out that daddy was a bad man himself. (This isn't a gendered argument, incidentally: Drusilla was totally a bad girl and a mommy to Spike, and similar for Darla to Angel.)