Vampires and Souls

[neodragon]

Here's a question, do you really buy into the notion that when a human is turned, they die and the vampire is nothing but the creature that killed them and is wearing their face?

First, let's consider Spike. Pre-soul Spike with the chip and post-soul Spike don't actually act very differently. Certainly not as differently as Angel/Angelus (more on that later). At first it was his obsession with Buffy as well as the fact that he could only harm demons that caused him to fight evil, but it's difficult to reconcile his protectiveness of Dawn and genuine grief when Buffy died with the previously stated notion that soulless vampires are supposed to be incapable of actual love or compassion. There's also Spike's reaction to his own attempted rape of Buffy. How can a being that is supposed to be literally without conscious be appalled by his own amoral actions and voluntarily seek redemption?

Think about that for a moment. According to what had previously been established about vampires, when a person is turned they die, their soul (their very being) is gone, and their body is taken over by a new entity, a demon. The demon has their memories and basically a corrupted version of their personality, but it isn't the actual person. If that's the case, the demon version of Spike actually chose to give up its control of William's body and perhaps its very consciousness for all eternity to restore the body to the human it killed. Even if this pleased Buffy, it wouldn't be the demon that gets to be with her, but rather William.

My personal theory is that the distinction between the demon and human isn't as clear-cut and absolute as people like the Watchers would have us believe. I'm not saying that soulless vampires can be redeemed, but I think that more of a person's "self" remains behind in the vampire body than the whole "you die, and a demon sets up shop in your body" mentality suggests.

I'd go so far as to say that perhaps Spike isn't as much a special case as Angel is. We've seen both Angel and Spike pre and post soul. We've also seen Harmony with and without a soul (as a human compared to as a vampire) as well as Darla, and even Willow. Angel/Angelus shows the most pronounced difference in personality by far. Angel and Angelus literally act like different people whereas the other examples above act very much the same with or without a soul, with the only real difference being a lack of conscience and no regard for human life while in the latter state.

I suspect that the more noticeable distinction between Angel and Angelus has as much if not more to do with psychological issues than metaphysical ones. Recall the first season episode of Angel where he temporarily reverts to Angelus because a drug gives him simulated bliss. The thing is, it's not bliss that's supposed to make him revert to Angelus. Bliss is just the trigger that causes him to lose his soul, and that leaves Angelus in control. But in this case it is explicitly stated that his soul never left him. His reversion to Angelus was entirely psychological.

All of this suggests to me that the soul isn't an individual's entire being, but rather just a part of their being which includes basic morality and inhibitions. Thus Angelus is just a repressed part of Angel's (that is, Liam's) human personality, albeit certainly more murderous than he would be with a conscience.

 

[Robb Stark]

I have to run out shortly so I'll post at length on this a bit later (it's a topic I can always talk about), but I do not hold Angel and Spike responsible for what transpired when they didn't have souls. They are separate, to the point of having different memory sets. And while I DO feel that the vampire is influenced, in a twisted manner, by the person who inhabited the body before the demon, that does not mean that Angel or Spike are "responsible" for the actions of the demon. If the President gives a speech that sets off some psycho who goes out and kills someone, is that the President's fault? Of course note. That's the best correlation I can make.

 

[neodragon]

I look forward to hearing more of your insights later.

I didn't discuss the question of responsibility in my original post, but I will now. I also agree that an ensouled vampire is not responsible for their actions when soulless. That may seem to conflict with my statements above that I don't believe that the soulless vamp is necessarily an entirely different being, but it's sort of like how a mentally ill individual may not be held legally responsible for their actions.

To be honest, I think the whole separate memory set thing, which only came up as a plot device to bring back Angelus, doesn't make much sense. For the most part, memories are common. When a vampire's soul is restored he/she has first hand recollection of everything that happened while they were soulless (except for in that one plot device occurrence). It's also worth noting that both Angel and Spike express guilt for their soulless actions, and never use the excuse "it was the demon, not me". When confronted by Wood, Spike never even tries to deny that he killed Wood's mother. Angel has even reflected on how good some of his soulless actions felt.

So, to reiterate, I think the situation is more complicated than the human soul and the demon being two entirely different beings, but I wouldn't hold Angel or Spike responsible for their soulless actions any more than a would someone who has a psychotic episode while forcibly taken off their meds.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

How would you regard a drunk driver killing a person in a crash? Would you let the non-drunk person go free?
Take a vampire, a human's body inhabited by a demon. Give it a soul and what does the soul do, absolutely nothing.
The prisons of the world have loads of people who killed while they had a soul.
I think that makes the vampires of Spike and Angel responsible for their actions before they got a soul.
A soul 'might' make a vampire want to seek redemption, I doubt a vampire demon would.

 

[Blaze]

Can I just repost what I've posted in previous threads 😛 I'm just joking, this is a very interesting subject, but I'll also post more extensively later (aka, I'll answer to some of the stuff in your first post). The way I see it, the soul is a bit like the moral compass and judgement, not only that, but vampires by nature are suppose to feed, so they're not just evil, it's in their nature. Angel and Spike (souled) both still have that nature when they get the soul back (they still have to feed), so they aren't human again, so the soul is not the only thing that makes someone human or not (just like human can be serial killers and what not). The difference is that the soul enables the vamp to know that their instincts are wrong, which makes the vamp able to tell if they should do something or not, or at least enables them to understand that they shouldn't feed and that it is an awful thing to kill and torture.

Now, up to this point, I've only talked about what the soul does, now what it doesn't do is change the personality, the mannerism, the way the vamp look and present themselves etc. The best quote to describe this is from Buffy:

You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.

Basicly, she says exactly the way I see vamps, vamps ARE you, but they aren't you at the same time. It's complicated because everything remains the same, except that they can't be you because "you" would never murder someone or torture them.

A few examples of how they remain "the same" (as in personality is the same), which is what I take by walk and talk like you in the quote, are:

-Liam was a drunken delinquent boy that had issues with his family, Angelus brought over a lot of those qualities and resembled Liam quite a bit, he always carries over his strong sense of emotions, like when he turned back to Angelus in s2, he immediately went for Buffy, that's what he cared most for as Angel, same as Angelus. We saw a very similar person in s2 of AtS in regards or Angel/Angelus comparison. Angel and Angelus really aren't that different, they are both so passionate, but one used that for destruction, the other for redemption, doesn't change that in the end, they use the same qualities to get to their ends. There's a whole bunch of other examples but I'll stop here for now.

-Harmony was basically the same as human and as a vamp, just with added killing

-William had a very strong sense of love (for his mother) and was a poet, he carries that over when he becomes a vamp. He's not about destroying the world like Angel is, he's not full of revenge/redemption (I link those because I believe they stem from the same emotion, but one to make good the other evil) like Angel, because that's not who William was, he was a man focused on beauty and love, which translate into how he kills and love the fanged four. He than carries that to his love for Buffy, and it remains the same when re-souled. Spike's love transfers over whether souled or unsouled, as shown for his love with his mom, his love for Buffy, and to an extend smaller relationship like with Dawn and Angel.

My point, Spike isn't really special when we say he stays pretty similar, I believe they all do because the soul, although it varies in extent, doesn't erase the traits of the person, sometimes they are just used for completely different reasons because of the nature and lack of soul. I agree that this is harder to see with Angelus than Spike, but it's still there to some extent. Of course, I'm sure a lot of it depends on the vamp, but they don't just change over night when they are turned. Another example is the guy from highschool that Buffy talks to in s7 and then slays.

Now where am I going with all this, basicly, I agree with both of you that I can't possibly blame an unsouled vamp for his actions because a demon takes over by nature. The role of a vamp is to be evil, it is its soul purpose (haha see what I did there, ok bad pun). When they get their moral judgement back, their soul, not only are they able to do good again, but they are able to fight the beast within them (that is shown to kind of go dormant, because they can lose their soul and go back to being a regular vamp).

---------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 PM ----------

How would you regard a drunk driver killing a person in a crash? Would you let the non-drunk person go free?

A drunk driver can take the decision of drinking, and can take the decision of driving. A vampire doesn't decide to become a vampire. Only a man like Buffy's friend in s3 (I think, maybe it was 2) would be responsible for that.

Take a vampire, a human's body inhabited by a demon. Give it a soul and what does the soul do, absolutely nothing.

Giving a soul to a vampire does do something?

The prisons of the world have loads of people who killed while they had a soul.
I think that makes the vampires of Spike and Angel responsible for their actions before they got a soul.

But those people do have a soul, so it's against their nature to kill other humans, so yes they are responsible. A vampire had the opposite nature and no soul to give them morality.

A soul 'might' make a vampire want to seek redemption, I doubt a vampire demon would. Giving a soul to a vampire does do something.

Agreed, I'm confused as to what you think? Do you think it does or doesn't make a difference?

 

[neodragon]

Blaze, I agree with just about everything that you're saying, but I'm still unclear on if you think that that the vampire and the human soul are in fact two separate entities.

Another point to consider, especially with Robb Stark's remark about separate memory sets, is that prior to taking over the human body, the demon does not appear to have any memory or consciousness, and upon re-ensoulment, the human soul doesn't appear to have any memories other than of the vampire's existence. That is to say, neither Angel or Spike show any recollection of being in heaven, hell, or anywhere else during the time when their souls were absent, but they do remember everything they did as vampires. So aside from that one case of Angelus remembering the Beast, neither the demon nor the human have separate memories even for times when they existed apart from each other. I've also heard fans wonder why if Angel didn't remember the beast, how is it that Angelus remembers Dawn even though he wasn't around when she was written into reality.

 

[Blaze]

Blaze, I agree with just about everything that you're saying, but I'm still unclear on if you think that that the vampire and the human soul are in fact two separate entities.

Another point to consider, especially with Robb Stark's remark about separate memory sets, is that prior to taking over the human body, the demon does not appear to have any memory or consciousness, and upon re-ensoulment, the human soul doesn't appear to have any memories other than of the vampire's existence. That is to say, neither Angel or Spike show any recollection of being in heaven, hell, or anywhere else during the time when their souls were absent, but they do remember everything they did as vampires. So aside from that one case of Angelus remembering the Beast, neither the demon nor the human have separate memories even for times when they existed apart from each other. I've also heard fans wonder why if Angel didn't remember the beast, how is it that Angelus remembers Dawn even though he wasn't around when she was written into reality.

Sorry, I totally didn't answer this question, yes in short I do believe the soul and the vampire are two distinct entities, in fact, they are not suppose to exhist together, which is why we only have two vamps with souls. Now, where it gets complicated is that the vampire and human body are linked, and because the soul is linked to the human part, the soul may leave but I don't think it would ascend to heaven/hell or whatever. Essentially, I believe it would be stuck in some sort of limbo. So although the soul and the vamp are seperate, they are linked by a common denominator which is what makes it possible for a vampire to regain his human soul. So they are kind of attached, but different entities entirely (does that make sense?). I don't think the soul has anything to do with memory essentially, that is all about the brain. So if the vampire, the souled vampire, and the human share a brain, they will each share memories. Anyhow that is my theory, I don't think there is any memory at all attached to the soul counterpart.

 

[neodragon]

That makes a lot of sense. You're saying that they are two separate entities, but at all times linked through the body and mind. That kind of goes with what I'm saying about the soul not being the entirety of a human's self. The body and mind do account for something.

 

[Kana]

The concept of a vampire's identity is certainly a very interesting one.

The first thing to establish is basic premise, which is Btvs and Ats are dualist shows. What I mean by that is the dichotomy between body and spirit. Now we have plenty of evidence for this. For one, we know that Buffy was in heaven while her body rotted in the ground. We have a possessed dummy and most prominently, we have ghosts. So certainly with humans we know that when we talk about an individual's identity, we are talking about the spirit.
Now, if we equate the word spirit, to the word soul, then it means the original theory with which we are presented about vampirism is true: that when a human is turned, the soul (i.e. spirit) leaves the body to the Ether and the body is taken over by a demon. This means that the person themselves go to the Ether and something else is controlling their body.
In Angel's case this means that Liam was killed by Darla. His spirit went to the Ether and the demon took over his body and for some reason his memories, but it wasn't Liam. He was in the Ether in the same way Buffy was in heaven. The difference is instead of his body rotting in the ground like Buffy's; it was controlled by a demon and went on a killing spree.
When Angelus was re-ensoulled, the soul was ripped into the Ether and placed back into Angelus' vamped body and for some reason he remembers Angelus' deeds as if he did them.

Now why would we adopt this theory?

a) This is the first explantion we are given about vampirism and no other theory has been explicitly shown.

"A vampire ...may have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but it's still a demon at the core"
b) Wesley echoes this in Disharmony.

"That's not your friend. That thing may have your friend's memories, her appearance... But it's just a filthy demon, an unholy monster"
c) Theory 1 rests on the concept of what the soul is. We have references in canon that state the soul is the spirit.

"But her soul ... her essence ... I mean, that could be somewhere else."

In this context the soul has to mean the spirit. I wouldn't make sense to talk about Buffy's "˜something else' being in a hell dimension.

Angel: "He dies, the very instant his soul leaves his body, I'm through this door and I'll kill you both!"

Again, in this context if you replace the word 'soul' with anything else, it's not going to make sense.

Now all of these are all well and good but this is the one that really takes the biscuit.

WESLEY
I watched it gut her from the inside out. Everything she was is gone. There is nothing left but a shell.

ANGEL
Then we'll figure out a way to fill it back up.

SPIKE
The thing only took over her body. Just a tip of the theological.

ANGEL
It's the soul that matters.

SPIKE
Trust us. We're kind of experts.

In context of the episode, they are clearly talking about Fred the person. And Spike, Spike of all people seems to be supporting this. We can't argue that's it's a figure of speech or not coming from the vampire with souls in question nor can we say it's a rationalization. The soul can only mean one thing right? So seen as it's more explicitly used as the spirit that must be what it is.

Problems, inconsistencies and how to deal with them

a) Ryan Anderson, the boy without a soul: Under this theory it's problematic because he'd be dead or a zombie with soul, unless he has a vampiric demon animating his body. However it's likely the demon wasn't being literal. He meant it in the way that someone might call another 'soulless' without believing in the soul. He basically meant the kid was a class A jerk, but he did have a metaphysical soul.

b) Carpe Noctem: For some reason Liam remembers Angelus' acts even though he didn't do them, but when Marcus' soul possesses his body, he doesn't. Although this is never totally explained, it's likely it's to do with the right soul and the right body. Think this is speculation? See Buffy and Faith's body switch. Tara states that if the wrong soul is in the wrong body, it fragments. Liam and William's souls have a natural synergy with their original bodies despite the fact that they are vamped.
The second theory is that the soul is something other than the spirit which would give Angel and Spike for example a real sense of continuity when it came to their identity. In means that when Angel and Spike talk about their past, it actually makes sense when they say "I did this" or "I was evil". Under the other theory it doesn't really make sense.

Typically I would refer to it as a conscience under this theory, but upon reflection I felt this may be overly simplistic. However for the sake of argument, I'm going to refer to it as conscience under this theory for the time being until the discussion becomes more involved.

Now, why would we subscribe to this theory?

a) Spike and Angel's apparent continued consciousness. They more consistently say "I did this" or "I did that".

b) The curse would make no sense. Who are they trying to make suffer? Who are they talking about when they say "He must suffer as all his victims have suffered"? Under theory 1 it simply doesn't make sense.

b) In Living Conditions, it wouldn't make sense either. It makes more sense that she'd be stealing her conscience, rather than well, Buffy's entire immaterial being.

c) In Carpe Noctem, under theory 1 why doesn't Marcus have Angel's memories? If they are a physical part of his brain then surely he'd be able to remember, like Liam somehow remembers. It seems more likely that the spirit and the soul are two different things

d) If the Ethros demon is being literal, this is the only theory that make sense.

Problems, inconsistencies and how to deal with them

a) As it's been said, it's likely the WC said that vampires are not the same quantitative
people as their human counterparts because it would be counterproductive for their slayer to think they are dealing with say family members who kind of are the same but different"¦That or they are simply wrong.

b) Why do people say "soul" when they are clearly referring to the spirit? The reason being is that they are either mistaken or like in the real world, people can use the same words that refer to two different things. In this case the soul can refer to both the spirit and the conscience.

c) What about Spike and Angel's comments in Shells?: We'll admit that it makes more sense that Angel and Spike were referring the soul as spirits but I will say one thing, Angel and Spike may be a lot of things, brave champions, skilled warriors but renowned metaphysicians they ain't.

d) The existence of the spirit doesn't deny the existence of a mystical ball of conscience

Well Theory 1 or Theory 2

Well I'd choose theory 2 with option theory 1 as a possibility. Why? Because it's mildly more satisfying than theory 1. I'd still state that under either theory there are no apparent metaphysical differences between Angel and Spike aside from Angel's happiness clause. The differences appear to be psychological in their nature.

Problems, inconsistencies and how to deal with them

From an outside the show perspective simple inconsistency, which Joss more or less admitted. From the inside the show perspective, it's simply that some people are wrong and some are right. Under either teory we have explain the certain inconsistencies, so it really depends on which one you like the best and how you can justify it.

What about Season 4 of Ats? Well this is problematic for several reasons. Now many people use Season 4 as proof that Angel and Angelus are separate individuals. Why? Because of this infamous scene:

GUNN
That's why Angel didn't remember the Beast.

WESLEY
His memory's been wiped clean, just like the book's.

CONNOR
Why does Angelus remember?

FRED
Because his mind wasn't here when the spell or whatever was cast, right?

I'm sorry, what? When has Angelus mind not been around when Angel was present? Even under our first theory, it would mean that Angelus mind was elsewhere, he's the one consistent in this equation. Then you have this:

JASMINE:Like you're forced to live inside Angel's? (chuckles) Because you're the voice in there, aren't you? Just beneath the surface, buried under all that goodness, fully conscious, fully aware, but trapped. Unable to move or speak, powerless to act on your desires. So thirsty, so helpless...it must be agony.

This totally contradicts what Fred said. So what's going on here? The simplistic thing to do first of all is disregard what Fred said for the time being. If we assume theory 1 first all, we can fanwank that Jasmine wiped clean all references to the Beast in the same way someone might wipe a specific file out of every computer drive. If you think of Angelus and Angel's minds as two drives in the same computer that always back each other up, then it's possible that Jasmine cleared Angel's drive of that file but not Angelus'. Angel cannot access this file from Angelus because he can only access files from his own drive which normally is automatically backed up with Angelus' files when he returns to his shared body.

What if Angel and Angelus are the same individual though? This isn't as easy to explain. My personal fanwank for it, is that Angelus never met the Beast and the memory was implanted either by Jasmine or the Mr Pang (who could have been working for Jasmine) when he lost his soul. Hmmm, definitely a noodle scratcher.

 

[neodragon]

Wow, thanks for such an insightful and comprehensive reply.

Really, the whole Angelus remembering the Beast thing is the biggest inconsistently of all, and I think it was just a sloppily conceived plot device to have Angel lose his soul again. Like I mentioned above, by that logic Angelus wasn't present when Dawn was inserted into existence, and therefore he shouldn't remember her, but there's there's that one scene (sorry, I'm no good with episode names or numbers) in Angel season 4 where Angelus calls Sunnydale and recognizes Dawn's voice when she answers.

I think the bottom line for me is that I have doubts that nothing of the original person's "being" remains in the vampire. It seems to me that the only people who take an absolute stance on this are watchers, or people taught by watchers. Given that their job is to facilitate the slaying of vampires, they have a bit of a bias.