Buffy, Angel, Vampires, Souls

[Knorf]

I’ve started this thread to prevent a further hijack of this one.

@Knorf

People are always forgetting that in the Buffyverse, the vampire is really just a human meatsack with a demon living inside. The demon has access to the memories and more or less the personality of the original person, but that person is dead, dead, dead; their soul is gone. Even some of the characters in Buffy seem to forget this. So, when you dust a vampire, you are killing the demon that inhabited the meat puppet.

@Chrisk

Personally, I think a lot of characters on both shows didn’t seem to understand or care that Angel’s soul was a different entity than his vampire self, and I’d put the gypsies in that category. They didn’t care who was inside, or if they were adding another ‘who’ to the equation by giving Angelus a soul… they cared about the body. Shove this mysterious thing called a ‘soul’ into the body, and the body starts to suffer. Simple as that.

@Fabulous Creature

Continuing the hijack:
I didn’t forget that fact; I’m simply saying that saying Buffyverse vampires are dead seems silly given that the characters speak of killing them all the time. The confusion arises mainly because so many vamps use the same names as humans and as vampires. I agree that Human-Harmony is dead, f’instance, but Vamp Harmony clearly is not. It’s clearer with Angelus, who had the good grace to adopt a new name and thus avoid those niggling identity problems.

Spike, too. It seems odd that vampires usually keep their human names: I’d think that the demon inside would rather put some distance, so to speak, on what about them was once human.

Yeah, a lot of the characters in Buffy, not just the gypsies, seem to disregard what is actually in the body: soul and/or demon. There are people who treat Angel like that, and later Spike as well. Principal Wood doesn’t seem to care that, in killing the demon that killed his mom, he’d be killing William’s soul as well. But if in the Buffyverse humans have immortal souls, who knows maybe that would be doing William’s soul a favor. Nevertheless, Mr. Wood doesn’t seem to even consider that: he’s too obsessed with vengeance.

[DianaG]

Wood was far too obsessed with vengeance to make the distinction. William’s soul is of no worth to Wood (and why would it be?), so it’s of small consequence as compared to his desire for revenge on the demon.

@Knorf

It seems odd that vampires usually keep their human names: I’d think that the demon inside would rather put some distance, so to speak, on what about them was once human.

I think that a vampire, especially a new one, ususally sees themselves as not so much “inhuman” as “new and improved”, since they retain human memories and much of their previous personality. After all, how different is Vamp Harmony from Human Harmony?

I’m currently reading Why Buffy Matters, and it’s excellent, but there was something early in it that drove me nuts. The author implied that while Angel has his soul, the demon is absent. This clearly isn’t true, since 1. He’s still a vampire while ensouled, and 2., the *demon * is what animates his long-dead body. The demon is supressed while he has a soul, but without the demon, he’s dust.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Knorf

It seems odd that vampires usually keep their human names: I’d think that the demon inside would rather put some distance, so to speak, on what about them was once human.

It’s not a total personality switch out though - for example, in the same universe it’s not the same thing as when Faith and Buffy switched bodies - the demon soul doesn’t completely take over with none of the human, because there’s still most of the personality there. I think it’s more like a change in driving force - the personality and characteristics mostly remain, as do memories, and vampires are likely to still act in the way they did while human - but their motivations change. It’s like changing the director of a sequel film; they have the same tools, the same crew, the same prequels to tell the story, but a different idea of what should happen, and more importantly a different vision of how that should come about.

Yeah, a lot of the characters in Buffy, not just the gypsies, seem to disregard what is actually in the body: soul and/or demon. There are people who treat Angel like that, and later Spike as well. Principal Wood doesn’t seem to care that, in killing the demon that killed his mom, he’d be killing William’s soul as well. But if in the Buffyverse humans have immortal souls, who knows maybe that would be doing William’s soul a favor. Nevertheless, Mr. Wood doesn’t seem to even consider that: he’s too obsessed with vengeance.

Yeah, Wood’s too vengeance-wanting to care about William. But if you think about it, there’s not much point in caring about the human part because (as far as we know) in the entire history of vampires only two have had their souls restored - and that didn’t restore the human part. IF there’s no chance to bring that “human” part back, why should anyone care about killing them as well?

[Captain_Amazing]

I think the first question is, in the Buffyverse, what is a soul? How do you detect it? We know a soul isn’t the person’s personality, and we know the soul isn’t the person’s memories, so what is it? His conscience? The moral sense that lets him tell right from wrong?

I sometimes get the feeling, when watching Buffy and Angel, that the “vampires have no souls” thing is an attempt by the slayers/watchers to justify their vampire slaying.

[clairobscur]

Ahem…Last night, at a very late hour, I watched some laughable serie with a ludicrous plot (something about a pyramid scheme for vampires). Never having seen an episode of “Buffy”, I thought : ho! this must be a parody or a cheap copycat of this famous serie.
I was about to ask in this thread, but reading the posts… It seems I’ve watched the real thing :eek:
No doubt I’m going to be crucified for this comment, but…but… how such a thing can have met any success??? :dubious: I rarely have seen anything that ludicrous.
Now, flamme away, but I had to share my total puzzlement…

[silenus]

Actually, what you saw was an episode of Angel, and not one of their better ones (Disharmony). Better luck next time.

[DianaG]

@clairobscur

No doubt I’m going to be crucified for this comment, but…but… how such a thing can have met any success??? :dubious: I rarely have seen anything that ludicrous.

You caught one of the lesser episodes of Angel (Disharmony), which, while adequately entertaining to a fan, loses a lot by not being familiar with the characters.

I’m not one of those people who thinks that anyone who doesn’t like Buffy is lacking in either intelligence or taste, but I also would encourage anyone to watch more than one episode before they decide it’s silly. On the whole, but Buffy and Angel are, IMO, incredibly smart, emotionally true shows, but with absolutely no aversion to sillyness for it’s own sake, occasionally.

Captain Amazing, I don’t think there’s ever been a really satisfactory answer to the “what is a soul?” question, either within the text, or from Joss. But then, it’s certainly never been satisfactorily answered anywhere in any context, has it? But I think that in the Buffyverse, it’s (for practical purposes) the moral compass, and the ability to choose right for it’s own sake. More ephemerally, I think it’s meant to be the difference between beings that are connected to the larger good, and beings that are not, but that’s conjecture on my part, and not consistent within the show. Apparently vengeance demons have souls, but Clem doesn’t, and he appears to be dangerous only to kittens.

[Raguleader]

I would imagine that it could meet success for the same reason that a show about a Canadian Mountie and his companion, a selectively deaf wolf, living in a slum apartment in Chicago and helping a CPD detective solve crimes and correct social injustices while being pestered by the ghost of his murdered (and might I add quite annoying and goofy) father (who was also a Mountie) could be successful (Due South was on TV for 4 years)

If you write it well, and if it’s acted well, people can get past the fact that the premise (in the case of Buffy, a blonde valley girl who fights evil with the help of a librarian, a (hawt redheaded) Jewish computer nerd, and an all around deadbeat) is rather goofy. Joss Whedon has a flair for taking obviously stuipid ideas and making them work well.

[Knorf]

@DianaG

But I think that in the Buffyverse, it’s (for practical purposes) the moral compass, and the ability to choose right for it’s own sake. More ephemerally, I think it’s meant to be the difference between beings that are connected to the larger good, and beings that are not, but that’s conjecture on my part, and not consistent within the show. Apparently vengeance demons have souls, but Clem doesn’t, and he appears to be dangerous only to kittens.

Clem cut back on kittens, you know. Waaaay back.

I think you’re on to something, about what having a soul means in the Buffyverse. For example, Spike can team up with Buffy in Season 2, but for entirely selfish reasons, but Buffy can accept an alliance with a soulless demon for the sake of the greater good (and also for selfish reasons.) She also refuses to stake Spike in Season 4 because his chip renders him impotent as a killer, although he is more than capable of mischief.

Still, though, soul-possession is big in what prevents Buffy from killing; inability (or lack of desire) to do harm is second.

It’s not clear to me that vengeance demons have souls–I was never convinced that Anya ever regained her soul, even after she was caught in her 20th century high school female persona. But, it’s not clear, is it? She became mortal, but did she get her soul back? Or did she never lose it? The latter is hard for me to accept, consider what montrosities she was capable of, and did not repent of even when she was stuck as a mortal human. (I suppose she sort of did repent when she lost her demon powers again in Season 7, however; tough call.)

I think the vampire takes on certain aspects of the personality of the dead person, mainly because they take possession of all those memories. They twist them, etc., but it is clear to me that the personality is essentially borrowed. Consider how different Angel is from Angelus.

[Knorf]

I was going to add one more thing, that the human soul in the Buffyverse is clearly immortal–some crucial part of what makes humans human that survives after death.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Knorf

I think the vampire takes on certain aspects of the personality of the dead person, mainly because they take possession of all those memories. They twist them, etc., but it is clear to me that the personality is essentially borrowed. Consider how different Angel is from Angelus.

But Angel and Angelus aren’t all that different.

Sure Angelus has a certain, let’s say zeal, for killing and torture. But, after coming to terms with being resouled, Angel has that same zeal when it comes to protecting the innocent.

As Revenant Threshold said, it’s the same drive, just different goals.

[chrisk]

@Knorf

I was going to add one more thing, that the human soul in the Buffyverse is clearly immortal–some crucial part of what makes humans human that survives after death.

Hmm… are they absolutely immortal, though?? What about Fred, then… was her soul really ‘consumed’ by Illyria? Can there be such a thing as soul eaters generally… as a literal description rather than a colorful name for a creepie bugger.
That part of the Illyria sequence always bothered me… if you have souls that survive after death, then to kill a favorite character and THEN damn or annihilate his/her soul seems like nearly three times the tragedy of killing them off. (I generally stick to my denial position that the consuming soul bit was braggadocio from the crazy doctor, not truth. But still.)

[Captain_Amazing]

@Justin_Bailey

But Angel and Angelus aren’t all that different.

And Angelus isn’t all that different from the guy he was before he was turned into a vampire. Before he became a vampire, he was impulsive, inconsiderate, and cruel.

[Dubious_Weasle]

I always thought the shows [Both Buffy and Angel] missed a golden opportunity by never delving into a frank debate about the nature of souls [in the context of the show] and Vampires. To me it always seemedlike the elephant in the room that no one talked about, and while I did enjoy both shows to varying degrees despite their flaws, this failure of omission always seemed particularly striking.

Personally, I’ve never bought the “Vampires, demons, etc” have no soul line. It works for a quick ‘on-off’ but it makes no sense in the context of a consistent created world.

Therefore, I came up with my own rationalization so I would stop being annoyed and just enjoy the show for what it’s worth.
First off, Demons:
Demons have a soul. And just like humans and demons are different physically so are their souls, and thus, their properties and characteristics are sufficiently different to be unrecognizable to human scholars who don’t believe demons have souls in the first place and so don’t look very hard.
The fact that demons don’t reference their souls in the context of the show is immaterial. First, we don’t spend a lot of time following the lives and struggles of demons so we don’t know if the issue ever comes up. Second, given that demons cultures are all different from human [as well as from each other] it’s certainly possible that the concept of what a soul -is- may be separate. And third, it may be that demon souls are typically fused closer to their physical forms then their human counterparts and thus they feel no need to generally make a distinction. This last one would make demon to demon possession difficult which might be why we don’t see a lot of demon body swaps/soul transfers in the show.
Nextf, Vampires:
Vampires have a soul. Or, more correctly, they are a soul. A a nasty vicious demon Soul. Back in the day maybe they had more but that was stripped away when all the big capital D Demons left. They had a will to stay and managed to somehow skip the exodus by separating out their physical forms and their souls, possessing humans to replace the form physical form they lost and more or less fooling whomever organized the big ‘bye-bye’ [all the big demons and gods leaving is referenced but never really made clear in the show, which works fine for me].
Thus, the first vampire[s] was born, a new sort of demon. These demons, known as vampires, reproduce by ripping out a bit of their own soul and inserting it into a new form like a virus or parasite. The little bit of vampire soul then enters/infects the human host and like a parasite, drains power [will, soulstuff whatever] from the human’s soul to build itself. Thus, the demon soul becomes stronger by taking from the human soul and eventually takes over. Generally the human soul is not completely consumed but there is so little left that it unrecognizable and so little strength that it has little influence. Whereas human souls seem to sit idly in their bodies like cookies in a jar, being a demon soul it fuses itself into the physical form [possibly as an anchor to maintain its hold] binding the two together, which is why vampires turn to dust when they die.
The fact that Vampires don’t seem to suffer any long term ill-effects would tend to indicate that over time their souls are capable of replenishing themselves somewhat, possibly through feeding.

 Now, when Angel gets his soul back, all of a sudden there is a fully formed human soul in the body along with the demon.  However, at this point the demon is no longer in its pupae or parasite stage but fully incorporated with the body and can't pull the same trick before.  This allows the human soul to seize control of the physical form, demon fused bits and all.  The demon never goes away of course, but unless something comes along to shake things up, the demon won't be able to take control back.  This, "shaking things up" can be anything from a spell, another demon, curse, whatever.  Anything to jar or weaken the human soul sufficiently.

Anyway, that’s my explanation for demons, vampires and souls in the buffyverse. I think it covers most eventualities fairly well along with explaining most of what occurs in the canon.

[Raguleader]

Re: the subject of souls and vampires: I recall a Season 2 ep of Buffy with some demon that was going about possessing people. Basically, the human body couldn’t sustain itself with the demon inside of it, and would die not long after, usually transfering itself to another host soon before the death of the original host. When the demon possessed Ms. Calendar (the computer teacher, not to mention the librarian’s main squeeze) Angel saved her by strangling her, forcing the demon to flee lest he die with Ms. Calendar. The demon of course goes into the nearest host, which happens to be Angel (seeing as how he was strangling Ms. Calendar and all) only to find that he couldn’t possess Angel due to the fact that another demon was already camped out there. I wasn’t clear on the dialogue after that, but I think Angel basically said that his human soul and his inner demon (soul, whatever) took a break from going at it with eachother and ganged up on the new demon, destroying it after a few seconds of Angel spazzing around and smashing into things.

[DianaG]

@Knorf

Clem cut back on kittens, you know. Waaaay back.

Yeah, I know. Cholesterol. Morals! I mean morals!

@Knorf

It’s not clear to me that vengeance demons have souls–I was never convinced that Anya ever regained her soul, even after she was caught in her 20th century high school female persona. But, it’s not clear, is it? She became mortal, but did she get her soul back? Or did she never lose it? The latter is hard for me to accept, consider what montrosities she was capable of, and did not repent of even when she was stuck as a mortal human. (I suppose she sort of did repent when she lost her demon powers again in Season 7, however; tough call.)

I’m going strictly by the fact that in Selfless, before Halfrek was killed, D’Hoffryn said that he was taking the life *and soul * of a vengeance demon. For what it’s worth though, I don’t think Anya ever acted unselfishly in any instance before S7.

@Dubious Weasle

I always thought the shows [Both Buffy and Angel] missed a golden opportunity by never delving into a frank debate about the nature of souls [in the context of the show] and Vampires. To me it always seemedlike the elephant in the room that no one talked about, and while I did enjoy both shows to varying degrees despite their flaws, this failure of omission always seemed particularly striking.

I would have liked to see a more exploration of the issue as well, but at the same time, I can’t fault them for keeping it vague. That’s a lot to take on, and while the show was already pretty ambitious, they do have to leave time for the fightin’ and the kissin’.

[Ephemera]

@DianaG

I don’t think Anya ever acted unselfishly in any instance before S7.

She pushed Xander out of the way of falling debris and took the full brunt of its impact at the end of The Gift.

[DianaG]

@Aesiron

She pushed Xander out of the way of falling debris and took the full brunt of its impact at the end of The Gift.

She’d done several things to save Xander before that, going back to season 3, when she wanted him to leave Sunnydale with her before graduation. But she was in love with Xander. That’s not acting unselfishly.

[Ephemera]

She took the full brunt of a pile of steel and concrete that fell from scaffolding fifty-plus feet in the air. True, she’s in love with him so she didn’t act *selflessly *but by putting her own life at risk, she definitely acted unselfishly.

[Knorf]

@DianaG

I’m going strictly by the fact that in Selfless, before Halfrek was killed, D’Hoffryn said that he was taking the life and soul of a vengeance demon.

Ah, yes. I forgot about that. Maybe it was hyperbole, to increase the pain on Anya.

Anyway, one gets the impressions that human souls, at least, are not destroyable in any permanent sense.

For what it’s worth though, I don’t think Anya ever acted unselfishly in any instance before S7.

Certainly one must stretch to find examples!

I dunno about demons having souls, but it would help explain better the possibility of reviving the Master, for example. Or maybe that is a soulless process of some sort.

The shows never suggest that demons have souls, as far as I can remember; for me that is the bottom line.

Angelus carries with him aspects of Angel’s real personality–since after all the demon is in possession of Angel’s memories–but I have always felt that David Boreanaz did a respectable job of making them seem quite different. It was clear something was very wrong with Angelus in those few moments when he interacting with Buffy, before she figured out that Angel’s soul was gone, and just because of the mean stuff he was saying.

They are certainly both rather obsessive, nonetheless.