I was wondering this: In the Buffyverse, vampires and demons perpretrate eeevil, which is all well and bad. We got a bit of explanation that states that a vampire is not the same person as he/she was, although s/he has all (dammit, assuming male vampire) his memories of his life. This is to explain why perfectly normal people go nuts when vampyric.
But, for all the nastiness that demons and vampires make, humans with all-important souls (presumably) do more of.
So, in the Buffyverse, is the soul just one’s conscience? If you get turned into a vamp, does your soul go to heaven? Would that not be majorly schizophenic?
Interesting question.
I think you would get a partial answer by watching the S3 episode where the Hansel and Gretel demon leaves a couple of unidentified kiddie corpses with wicca symbols on their hands in order to stir up a witch scare (Buffy and Willow nearly get burned at the stake, and Amy escapes by changing into a rat.)
Once Giles ascertains that the “killings” were the work of humans, and not demons, Buffy says “Someone with a soul did this?”
Doesn’t quite address the serial killer question, but it does establishes that in the Buffyverse, a human being with a soul can be evil.
As what happens to your soul when you get turned into a vampire, well, keep watching the current season. I’m sure that sooner or later, someone will get around to asking Spike that very question. I’m actually surprised nobody asked Angel.
Joss Whedon once explained in an interview that the soul is your “guiding star” so to speak. If you have one, your naturally inclined to do good. If you don’t, you’re naturally inclined to be evil. Or, in other words, beings w/o souls are pointed 180* away from the guiding star of good.
Also, from what I understand, in the Buffyverse, a person’s soul kinda goes to a no-man’s land, ether. Not heaven, not hell, just hanging out in limbo waiting for the body to die. Ah, yes, here’s the reference. From Season 2 Passion:
Angelus: I heard. You went shopping at the local boogedy-boogedy store.
(sees the Orb on her desk and picks it up) The Orb of Thesulah. If
memory serves, this is supposed to summon a person’s soul… from the
ether… store it until it can be transferred.
Of course, in the episode Thea references, a person did not kill the kids, because no children were killed. The kids was the demon responsible for the mess.
Warren is an obvious expample of what humans with souls can do…attempt to rape and then murder his ex-gf, attempt to murder Johnathon, attempt to murder Buffy, murder Tara, show a distinct lack of regard towards anybody who gets in the way of what he wants, (namely, ruling Sunnydale and killing the Slayer).
Beings without souls may be evil, but this does not mean that evil beings have no souls. That fallacy is known as affirming the consequent. (Look it up.)
Plus, I’m not quite sure how lacking a “guiding star” relegates you to evildoing and nothing more.
If someone with a soul can choose evil, someone without one should be able to choose good.
You’d think so, huh? But for some reason, ME is absolutely married to the concept that vampires must have souls to be non-evil.
Of course, I personally think that we might learn something different this season. What if Spike didn’t get a soul because he needed one to be good? What if he got the soul to affirm that he could be good without one? Like, the curse was the beginning of Angel’s journey towards redemption, but Spike seeking out his soul is part of the journey he’s been on for 3 years, not the beginning. Maybe closer to the end. I guess the chip would be the beginning of Spike’s journey—or maybe his alliance with Buffy at the end of season 2?
Remember, when someone is vamped, they don’t just lose their soul. A demon spirit is put into the body to replace the missing human soul. It’s this spirit which is irredeemably evil. Remember the episode from Season two, when a spirit Giles summoned in his misspent youth possesed Jenny Calender, then was forced into Angel? At the end of the episode, it was explained that the demon spirit inside Angel destroyed the demon spirit Giles summoned.
So with Angel, and I assume with Spike, we have a person with two spirits inside of them: the demon spirit that made them a vampire, and their original human soul. In Angel’s case, his human soul is stronger than the demon spirit, and so he’s a good guy. I would guess that a weaker-willed vampire (think Harmony) who got it’s soul back would probably be unable to control this spirit, and would continue to kill people and do generally evil things.
So, is a demon spirit just an urge to kill/maim/drink blood, and a soul just an urge to do good?
Did the Buffyverse ever have a character with no soul/demon spirit?
Uh, I’m not sure. I don’t watch AtS, but I thought I heard on one board or another that the lawyers of W&H sold their souls. Would that make them beings without demons or souls?
Nah. It just makes them lawyers.
I think Spike is unliving proof that a being w/o a soul can choose to do good. However, his motivation to do good iwas external- he still has William’s personality, and William being the hopeless romantic that he was…
he fell besottedly in love with Buffy. So, he had (or at least he hoped he had) something to gain. He did good in an effort to gain the love of his beloved. Noble enough, to be sure, but still basically selfish.
I think now that he has his soul again, we’ll see him doing good purely out of a desire to do good.
I don’t understand why peopel get hung up over the motivation. Soul, love, who cares? Well, I don’t. But it’s obvious from the varioius discussions all over the internet that people do.
Interestingly, there was an episode where Buffy’s fist college roommate was sucking Buffy’s soul out while she slept. The slow loss of soul made Buffy a much less nice person. So in that case, no soul = bad pms.