Mar 26
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i cracked the soul lore.
I have talked a bit here in a reblog yesterday about how I think that the btvs lore is not as confusing as it is about souls if you question the idea than a soul is "everything that makes a human who they are except their physical body".
Let me elaborate: I read often discourse about souls in btvs that start with "Why X character was in love with Y if he had no soul" "Z blorbo meow meow was supposed to be soulless and yet he had FEELINGS" "Why Glippo is so similar to her human self if she has no SOUL no" and I can't help but thinking there is a very simple answer for that, without contraddicting the soul lore or just choosing to say "the writers didn't know what they were doing" (which is legit, but also a boring way to make sense of the world-building of media. It's like a chils trying to engage for a bit with the rules of a game and saying immediately "these rules don't make sense, fuck them" the first time that the rules are not what they previously thought. Sometimes the rules really don't make sense, but you need to at least trying playing until the end before decinding that. )
The way to make sense of the btvs soul lore is to accept that, while we are used to consider in popolar culture a "soul" something that everything about us that isn't flesh (so personality, feelings, emotions, etc)... there are literally no indications that a soul mean that in Buffyverse/Ats.
In fact, there are many indications of the opposite.
Vampires change from the humans they were when they lose their souls, this is sure. They became more evil, hedonistic, and less concerned with the well-being of others, especially nameless human ones. And they loose ALL their previous morals, even when they retain most of the personality or feelings from before.
Still, the lack of morality and concern for others (especially potential victims) IS a big shift in personality itself. But others traits of personality remain.
If, in btvs lore, everything that was left of a human other than a soul was an empty shell, then no vampires would have had similarities with their human self. Not even negative ones!
But we know it can't be that because all the vampires (yes, even Angel/Angelus) mantains most of their personality traits and the same obsession they had in life, only more... evil.
So we have to get ride of the idea that personality and obsession in buffyverse soul are stored in the soul- we know, because Buffy and Giles said it and because we sees it happening on screen with many characters, that vampires retain the memories they had as humans into their trasformation. Demons (or at least the vampiric demon) are a parassitic species, they don't have a personality or memories (a mind, you can say) of their own, just a evil essence, so they absorb and make theirs the mind of the body they killed.
So we can say that in buffyverse lore, most (if not all) of personality and feelings are stored in the mind ("memories") and not in the soul. The division (body/mind/soul) in three-partitic, like it is in certain esotheric philosophies, not two-partitic (body/soul, with all the material stored in the body and all the immatterial stored in the soul), like in the Christian credo. Once you accept this, the soul lore seems way less "contraddictoire".
Of course, I have my own personal bias because I am an atheist who don't believe in the concept of souls, and so when watching fantasy or horror or any other genre that involve the supernatural I can just buy into whatever the writer's concept of soul is like I can buy into whatever lore of vampires and witches they have. (No difference for me about how real and unreal those things are. Indeed, I believe in witches, or in certain type of witches, more than I believe in the exhistence of souls and afterlife lmao.)
The assumption that many people, even not actively Christian people raised Christian, that soul means literally "everything about a person that isn't their physical body" doesn't 100% work on btvs, or in any vampire story that wants to be a bit interesting.
And not only because Spike loves Dru or Buffy or some other romantic bullshit; but from a story-telling prespective.
If the soul is literally EVERYTHING that makes a character who they are except their physical body, if there no connection at all between the soulless and souled version of the same vampire, why should I CARE that Amgel has turned into Angelus and is trying to kill Buffy? I mean, I should care, but in the way I would care if Angel's twin (homozigote twin) was trying to kill Buffy. Or why should I care about Spike in season seven? This is not a better, souled version of Spike, this is just another character with Spike's body, if we follow this road of thinking. Hell, why either of them ever feel guilty with what they had done? It was theirs twins, not them. And why should I care? Their guilt feel very self-serving if, I am not saying their souls, but at least theirs EGO wasn't involved in their crimes.
…but in fact, we know that theirs ego were involved in who they become, because even if they did not chose to become evil (but were naturally forced to find evil appealling by the lack of soul, I will speak later about this and about how this fits with the exhistential philosophy of the show) they DO choose to be evil, each of them, in a precise ways that appeal to their ego. And in particular to the bruises and the offence that their ego went through in life.
Liam was a good for nothing young man with no other purpose or ability than sleeping around and drinking, and so Angelus had to simply become the best and most feared and respected of all vampires.He searched the approvation of Darla and the fear of everyone else because he never got the approvation of his father in life, and the desire to be exceptional and prove his dad wrong rested with him forever, souled ot not souled. Just like William Pratt was meek and mocked and crushed by not being appreciated by his social class, so Spike chose to become the rebel, loud, carefree killer who doesn't care about what others think of him or what rules he was breaking, as long as he was having fun and his name was baked in glory. (He also was rejected by women in life and had issues in his relationship with his mother so as a soulless he developed toxic and obsessive but intense relationship with women in which he tended to make the woman he was in a relationship with his entire personality and reason for being, and then lashed out because he still didn't take well rejection.)
So we can guess that the trauma and the ego bruises that one endures too, are not stored in the soul because they stay there, in the mind of the vampire, even after there is no soul.
Another apparent "immaterial" thing that by what we observe in btvs, should not considered stored in the soul, but in the mind/body.
So what is a soul on Btvs? It is both more and less than "everything that is not the flesh of the body"...
Less, because in btvs losing your soul doesn't really mean losing all your personality traits and obsession.
Others than the example I made about Spike and Angel, there is Harmony that goes from frivolous mean girl to frivolous serial killer without changing anything about her personality or quirks, there is Darla who was a prostitute and a survivor and she's a pragmatist who value her own survival more than everything else; there is Drusilla was in the middle of a psychotic break-down when she was forcefully made into a vampire, and she remained "mad" for all her vampiric exhistence. There is Jesse was obsessed with Cordelia in life, and resented not being "cool", and as a vampire he is finally happy of being "cool" and damgerous and still obsessed with Cordelia.
And obviously, the more clear example, there is similar Vampire Willow of season 3 from the Alternative Universe, who is SO similar to Dark Willow of season six.And we know Dark Willow is still Willow, but a Willow due to addiction, inability to deal with grief and her own power trip has forget about her morals, her inhibitions and her virtues.
And that's why I said that the soul in btvs is "more" than just past memories and personality traits, it is more than the ability to feel feelings (we know vampires have those, but we know the way to experience them soulless or souled is very different, because souled vampires who had exoerienced both said so). It's something more frail and powerful and impalpable than personality's traits and love for unicorn and your crush or youe fear of disapproving your father or mommy's issues. It means something more ethereal and abstract.
It is innate moral compass, your coscience. It is the ability to feel bad for others and especially for the people you as a vampire eat, kill and hurt, in a genuine way. It is the freedom to choose your actions considering the moral implications of them and the way they affect others, and not to "live" only following hedonistic pleasures, survival and basic istincts likes some sort of predator animal who is just a bit smarter than others animals.
The soul, differently than the chip, does not physically stop a vampire from committing an evil act or killing anyone.
What the souls DID, to all three vampires of the franchise that managed to get a soul in some ways (Angel, Darla, Darla again in a different way, then Spike), is give them the CHOICE to act in the right way, rather than forcing them to do it by physical pain and restrictions. Having a soul in btvs doesn't mean that you are necessarily good, human can be bad people too, but the soul (the coscience) it give the ability to reflect on your actions and choose to change them.
It gives even vampires ability to feel guilty for the things they have done in the past. To see theirs victims as... I wanted to write as humans but I understand it would being a joke, given that vampires do kill humans by definition, so I'll just say that it gives them the emotional empathy and ability necessary to see theirs victims- potentially all of them- as being worthy to live.
How any ensouled vampire react to this new ability is a personal thing: Angel initially tried to "fit in" with Darla and the others vampires, couldn't do it, ate rats for a century and then decide to start a rocky path toward redemption. (We'll leave out, for the sake of brevity and decency, how this path involved initially stalking a fifteen years old and seeing her as her next romantic obsession.) Darla, both times ( when she was resurrected as a human with all her vampire memories and when she was affected by Connor's soul) tried to ignore the guilt that her soul caused until her very last moments on the verge of death. Spike first succumbed under the angst and pain of his new found soul to the point of almost madness, then decided to stop drowning in guilt and join Buffy in her fight. But still his redemption is not "perfect" (in my eyes) because he refuses to apologize to Robin about killing his mother, which objectively should have done but the fact that he didn't make somewhat sense with his character's attitude of "I've changed, I am going to do good from now, there is no sense or advantage for me or anyone else if I keep crying about all the bad I did in the past." (Still doesn't mean that the episode isn't extremely racist tho. It makes SENSE for Spike's character to act this way, even with a soul- because we know that a soul doesn't mean moral perfection!- but it doesn't make sense that the writing and the tone of the episode present Spike as being in the Right.)
In short, in btvs the soul is no personality, is not the place where all the feelings live, but it's the freedom of having your own interior moral compass, and understand and choosing the long-term consequences of your actions.The idea that the soul is something similar to free will, and especially to the free will of doing something that you consider good (and so to develop your own sense of what is good and what is wrong, to learn by your experience and apply them in real life- that's what I say when I meants moral compass) fits perfectly well with the exhistential themes behind the serie.
Without souls, vampire are always drawn to an hedonistic life of pleasure and killing with no guilt or sense of moral responsabilities, even when they might choose to act good they do this for their own personal reward or because they are following someone's else moral compass, often to gain something or someone’s affection back in exchange, since they innately lacks their own. (Like Spike did with Buffy for a while. Or Harmony at later W&H.)
This is like someone (and there are people like this in real life, unfortunately) that doesn't have developed the ability to distinguish right or wrong on theirs own in every, different situation, so they have to either follow a strict set of rules/doctrine made by someone else or be a total jackass without emphaty or kindness.
So yeah, lots of soul discourse about btvs could be simplified if fan would stop talking about souls in a Christian way (in a show where the creators did not necessarily all considered themselves actively Christian) but accept to find a way to talk about a soul in a way that would make sense with both the show's world-building and the main philosophy behind the narrative.
BUFFTOBER DAY 15 - “Vampire Willow”
Bored now Xx
I might have a type.
what would happen if late S3 Faith met vamp!Willow? i think Faith wouldn't be interested but then she catches Buffy's reaction to vamp!Willow. (a oooga) then Faith would get aggressive, but can't decide if she would (a) try to kill vamp!Willow, (b) try to kiss vamp!Willow to make Buffy jealous, or (c) get over protective towards Buffy around vamp!Willow, or (d) try to kiss Buffy around vamp!Willow.
also vamp! Willow is not interested in Faith, not like THAT. but vamp!Willow def makes an offhand comment to Faith, similar to Faith's quick observation in 4x16 about Willow and Tara. prob more fun if Buffy is there. she'll be confused and repeat her "did Angel call me a dyke?" face. and then pretend she didn't hear it and repress it.
someone pls write this i would read the shit outta it. free fic prompt.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Depressing Fridge Poems
Can't relate to Willow if evil, sexy doppelgang me wanted to make out i would say yes immediately