Are souls the same for everyone?

[AndrewCrossett]

Vikings conquered and enslaved about a millennium ago, yes. but the modern countries, not so much. In the B-verse revenge and mass murder are wrong. How can anyone complain about any of the Fanged Four and accept Anya? Anya had an informed choice - Anya kept her soul - Anya tortured, murdered, and helped destroy entire countries. Anya has no remorse. No, this does not fit any of the B-verse doctrine

Well, Anya did express remorse in "Selfless"... enough to give up her demonhood and put herself on D'Hoffryn's hit list. She didn't spend the rest of her life brooding about it like Angel has done.... she more followed Spike's attitude of "what's done is done, let's do better in the future."

Of course, you don't have to be a psycho/sociopath to subscribe to the belief that revenge = justice. Plenty of people do, including the writers of the Old Testament ("an eye for an eye"). You could argue that Anyanka's punishments were usually much worse than the offenses that triggered them. But she could also rationalize that the real responsibility was with the wisher... she herself was just a tool, and no more guilty of murder than a gun or a knife would be.

I suspect Anya was created as a parody of Ayn Rand and her philosophies (Ayn/Anya). Rand argued that people are solely responsible for their own actions, and for the consequences those actions bring. Anya's capitalist and libertarian attitudes bear that out.

 

[Kana]

Ah, the question of what the soul is...This has plagued me at every turn. I was mostly of the opinion that the soul is something other than the 'spirit'; something distinct from the immaterial "I" that resides inside Buffyverse individuals.

I use this indistinctive "other" purposefully, as I've previously used the soul the mean 'conscience'. Now, sometimes I use the term conscience as a matter of convenience but as many of you have already pointed out, this may be an oversimplification. While I do the believe the soul is something tangible in the verse, I think simply describing it as an understanding of right and wrong can cause problems.

For example, how do we account for differing social norms, active moral reasoning. So I came the (non) conclusion that the soul merely acts as an agent that can often affect behaviour. Now like with many different agents that affect behaviour, there will be people who respond to it differently but there will often be some trends that are prevalent and observable among the many. It seems that the soul mainly affects what many of us will describe as moral behaviour but it doesn't mean that someone without a soul cannot have their behaviour conform that the human social norms, they may just find they lack the instincts (or the inclination) to do so.

 

[Kana]

Oh yeah, as for where vampires souls go when they are turned: they go to the Ether. This was mentioned by Angelus twice. One in Passion and the other time in Orpheus.