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Date Posted: 09:55:22 10/18/05 Tue
Author: manwitch
Subject: explicitly stated mythology of the soul
In reply to: Sunshine 's message, "Do any demons have souls?" on 14:42:51 10/17/05 Mon

" the explicitly stated mythology of the Buffyverse was no soul = no good. "

I know this is said frequently, but I don't agree or see it in the text. This is the attitude towards the soul that is believed by Angel and by a childish Buffy, or in season 5 a dysfunctional Buffy. I think the show offers other possibilities for its attitude towards the soul in contrast to this simplistic one and the show ultimately concludes with Buffy embracing a different one.

Some further thoughts on the soul:

In the first episodes, the Master, while anointing Luke says "My soul is your soul." And Giles, in explaining the real history of the world says "The soul of the vampire infected a human..." etc. Later we learn from Angel that when a vampire gets you, he doesn't get your soul, that's gone. The human soul is gone. A Demon takes up residence. It is never clear, at least through the first couple of seasons, that the Demon is inherently soulless.

The soul is a social construction, a belief system. If someone came to us asking what a soul was, what would we tell them? Would we all tell them the same thing? Doubtful. Where would we direct them to look? Aquinas? Foucault? Very different souls there. I'm sure each has its followers. We want the Buffy series to be consistent about this, but there is no consistency about it in life. You are free to change your mind about it. I think Buffy incorporates different views on this.

I elaborated on the differences between the souls of Angel and Spike here in the archives My HTML skills really suck, so don't expect this link to take you anywhere. I think this piece, if you can get to it, at least offers the possibility that there is not a single consistent mythology of the soul at work in the Buffyverse.

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