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My thoughts are all a-flame over a conversation on the IDW Forum about souls in the Buffyverse. Can souls be involuntarily taken away? We saw Buffy get half of hers involuntarily sucked out in S4, and we know that the Mayor voluntarily sold his, but can the average Jane-or-Joe on the street have their soul taken away against their will in the 'verse?
How do you feel about Season One of BtVS? Do you ignore it? Is it okay to ignore it because of writer/director interviews? Because some stuff gets retconned later, do you pretend that those earlier instances didn't happen or do you find your own personal explanation? Do you have an explanation from a writer, actor, or director that you point to as how you explain particular retcons? Do you have a explanation from another fan (a fansplanation, if you will) that you use? Is it fair to argue that because a writer/director/actor says one thing that flies in the context of the show that one's explanation is somehow more correct than someone only using the show as a basis for their side of the discussion?
Is there really a concrete mythology of the Buffyverse? Or do you believe it can change when the writers/directors decide that it needs to change or it's convenient to change?
F**king magnets. How do they work?
Talk to me. Tell me what you think. :D
How do you feel about Season One of BtVS? Do you ignore it? Is it okay to ignore it because of writer/director interviews? Because some stuff gets retconned later, do you pretend that those earlier instances didn't happen or do you find your own personal explanation? Do you have an explanation from a writer, actor, or director that you point to as how you explain particular retcons? Do you have a explanation from another fan (a fansplanation, if you will) that you use? Is it fair to argue that because a writer/director/actor says one thing that flies in the context of the show that one's explanation is somehow more correct than someone only using the show as a basis for their side of the discussion?
Is there really a concrete mythology of the Buffyverse? Or do you believe it can change when the writers/directors decide that it needs to change or it's convenient to change?
F**king magnets. How do they work?
Talk to me. Tell me what you think. :D
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One person said she thought Joss doesn't really have a coherent mythology. He just changes it all the time to suit the demands of the plot. I agree with that. I think it's bad writing, but there it is.
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If the actors and other writers felt like things could be changed on a whim to fit the story's needs, then I have to sort of believe that one could believe everything and nothing as possibilities. Vampires age but they don't if the writers need them to stay pretty. Vampires don't breath but they can be drowned yet they can't. Vampires don't sweat unless Joss gets frustrated with how long the constant reapplication of make-up was taking. Vampires were the result of the last Old One leaving this reality, yet not all the Old Ones left this reality... some are in the Deeper Well and some can be called forth into a human vessel through Ascension. At first, it seems like Slayers were part of the nature order of things, but then you find out that they were just engineered from demon dust by a bunch of people too scared to fight on their own so they pick a young girl. And then there's the Guardians that do absolutely nothing. Oh, my head is starting to hurt. Is it really so hard to pick a mythology and go with it?
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It's no wonder Firefly is so crap.
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ROFL. Agree that very little of it makes sense, but I think the Guardian in End of Days is the most egregious example of inventing mythology on the hoof. That character really is dreadful. Plus, why does she look like she escaped from an amateur production of Gotterdammerung?
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*snorfle* XD
I can almost (almost but not really) forgive the scythe because it was in Fray first, but the Guardian being there to do nothing but get killed by Caleb is just like, "What was the point of that? Couldn't Buffy just find a scroll or something that tells her the exact same thing and then Caleb shows up to fight?" Speaking of, what's with Spike and Andrew going to that weird monastery just to find the carving "It is for she alone to wield" and all that? It was a waste of time to get Spike out of the house so that Buffy could be isolated, but they learned nothing really from that that I could remember.
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True, and beyond that even in our own reality, we only have theories of how life was lived ions ago, so I don't necessarily have a problem with Giles or anyone really being wrong unintentionally within the 'verse either because the information they had was flawed or because someone, like the Watchers, intentionally skewed information in their favor. I guess the problem comes in in that the contradictions are never addressed and sometimes characters flatly deny that the contradictions exist. I suppose my brain just would not leave me alone today about this. I've never thought of the mythology of the show as shown on screen as concrete because it was routinely trounced, so I guess it weirds me out when I see people so hotly pointing out one instance as being proof-positive of something when there are two or three examples of the opposite being true. It's like each scene does not exist in a bubble; there are over twelve seasons total of episodes to deal with, not to mention that some people include interviews from the writers, directors, etc. into their personal views of the show, and some people consider the comics and novelizations as part of their POV as well, which I find really fascinating. :D
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It is, afterall a illusory universe and the writer can do whatever he pleases. I'd absolutely agree that the fundamentals deserve respect, but in most cases 'tweaking' doesn't strike me as much of a sin.
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My favourite bit of fluctuating vampire power: Angel not being able to open a flimsy security cage door that's got a small padlock on it in Becoming, Part 1 or 2. I love it! XD
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The arguments regarding canon that drive me nuts are those which blatantly ignore everything else that the show has put forward. In particular (and I mention it because it is relevant to the IDW thread) is the absolute belief that the only true representation of souled/unsouled is Angel/Angelus. The more I watched, the more obvious it seemed that Angel was the exception not the rule. Spike is different. Anya is different, Human Darla, Connor-ensouled Darla - all different and offering all manor of perspectives. I love that so many pointed out that you can't pin things down that easily. These things made the story all that more interesting.
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Exactly. There's a rich tapestry to work from and expand. I love Darla and all her twists and turns. While pregnant, she's adamant that she and Angelus never loved another yet in S1 she says that she still loves Angel even if he doesn't love her (situations like that are the saddest thing in the world, according her) and she makes no distinction between Angel and Angelus (Drusilla, on the other hand, does sometimes make a distinction). I can explain these as she just said what she was feeling at the time or whatever would have the maximum effect, and it also could be explained that the love she talked about in S1 was a perverse kind of love, not the hearts and flowers "true" kind, but sometimes I wonder if the writers remembered her earlier appearances in the show.
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You and me both, sweetie. Yowza! |
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As far as a lot of the Buffyverse mythology is concerned, I know that a lot of things factually contradict each other, but I tend to treat it as, well, mythology, especially when it's said by someone. So there are several competing ideas/stories of how things work (especially for things like the Old Ones), without any real substantial 'proof'. Some people are more reliable than others - and I tend to build the vague chronology in my head around things like Illyria knowing what vampires are - but otherwise just take it as subjective opinion. When the Master talks about his soul, I just wonder whether I should believe him (even though we don't hear his reasons for re-labelling himself, that doesn't mean he didn't decide to rebel against humanocentric terminology in 1836 - nor that Darla doesn't think it's daft and only humours him as much as she needs to, while still thinking Angel is disgusting). Naturally vampires like to tell stories about themselves to make them seem like more than reanimated corpses, though why Angel (perhaps) didn't want to get the way of the prophecy saying Buffy would die - and so used not breathing to excuse himself from being the actual one to save her - is one of the more sinister questions of our times. And FFL doesn't have to be anything more than Spike's subjective memory, which he's been reasserting in his mind for so long it feels like the truth (though he forgets to stop calling Angelus his sire). Maybe Dru completely forgot the whole 'feeding him her own blood' bit and Angelus had to save the day...
Obviously, most of that's crap, because the real answer is that Joss couldn't be arsed. I tend to distinguish that sort of writerly stuff from my 'reading' the show, though, because I don't think there's any reason why the show has to be doing anything other than presenting all the contradictions and leaving you to sort it out - I don't think it has to be clear what's intentional contradiction and what's unintentional. And I don't think I have to listen to Joss. ;)
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I blame Season Eight for all of this. I used to be able to let things go, to ignore inconsistencies, but now... I just can't. I mean, in S8, Giles admits that he knew in S7 there was a prophecy (a big frickin' prophecy that all the Watchers knew about, for that matter) that pretty much spelled out what would happen if Buffy had Willow do her Potential-to-Slayer spell and just never said anything at the time because he thought the spell was their only choice... which would be okay if every other instance of "This is the only way!" has found another better way. It pains me. ^_~
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Well, yes. I say that because I don't believe that Kathy knew that Buffy was the slayer or planned for the slayer to be her roommate. I think she would have slowly sucked the soul out of anyone who she bunked with, and that any human soul "would do."
Also, (and I have yet to read the other comments, so as to not taint my answer), that while it's true Gunn bargained his away to a demon casino owner to get the flatbed truck to hunt vampires and protect his group, when it came time to collect, it wasn't something he wanted to do (he didn't think the day would come or whatever). It was his soul and not his destiny, right?
I don't ignore s1 of BtVS. I don't think there was anything given that truly contradicts what's given later. I'd need to know specifically what was retconned...perhaps I have forgotten.
As for the "concrete mythology," s7 proves that's not true with the scythe and the guardian who happened to hang out in the crypt in Sunnydale...among other things (like Baljox's eye which made NO sense...). Also, not a fan of Maudlin's Noxious' thoughts. Nope.
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I don't think there was anything given that truly contradicts what's given later. I'd need to know specifically what was retconned...perhaps I have forgotten.
The two biggies for me (excluding anything S8 did) are that the Master said that he and other vampires apparently have souls that can bond with one another, and that the basic original Creation story of the world changed as seasons continued. The Creation story shifting can be easily explained away, but it always bothered me because what Giles says in the first two episodes is what the audience has to believe to be true and we don't find out any differently until Illyria shows up seven years later. And the Master could have been speaking metaphorically about the souls thing, but that wouldn't make sense in the context of what he's also saying about sharing of their blood, which was supposed to be literal in the episode. Darla looks ecstatically happy as he talks about his and Luke's souls being bound together, but then she talks about Angel's soul with disgust a few seasons later, so why the happy before? A soul just doesn't seem to be a thing that a vampire like the Master would claim to have in retrospect.
I don't believe that BtVS or Ats has a concrete mythology. If it did, it all went out the window by S7. I think there's some general principles that they tried to work around, but even they got broken by the end.
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Personally, I always thought that if Ats had gotten the season six it so very much deserved and earned (rat exec bastards), that we would have learned that the whole "cleansing bubbles" purpose of the Liz Taylor necklace was to strip one of their soul, and that Spike, all that time after his resurrection, was operating without a soul, though believing that he had one. Think of it--the whole thing of W&H was to make Angel evil, dark, lose his soul, whatever. So they give him an amulet for the good fight, and it does help in the good fight, but it also takes his soul. Then they make him attached to the building--can't leave the city...a brilliant plan, but goes to the wrong vamp, and with Spike, it's unnoticed, doesn't matter, and proves something about choice in a way that doesn't conflict with Angel and his personality disorder. Most fans rejected this idea when I posted it and thought it lessened Spike's story...but I thought it would have enhanced it.
Anyway.
I always thought the Master wasn't referring to a human soul, but the demon that makes a vampire a vampire. To refer to it as a (demon) soul makes it sound more holy, and they were a religious bunch in their own way, weren't they?
As for Giles--he and the Council and Buffy...what they say in the beginning they believe to be true, yes, but that doesn't mean that we the viewer has to accept it as truth, and I for one didn't. Particularly in the early years and then in s6 especially, the characters keep insisting that one can't love with a soul, and yet Darla says right in s1 about being betrayed by the one she loved--Angel. Spike clearly loves Buffy and has changed, and we see many a human capable of deeds much more evil or just as evil as any vampire or demon...but the main characters hold onto their unwavering belief of "soul good; no soul bad!" To me, it's not the mythology, for the most part, that was problematic--but with the audience choosing to be blind right along with the leads, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
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I remember when the spoilers leaked about Spike's soul, and I was brassed off about it. I didn't really want him to have it 'cause he didn't need it, and it was hard to basically be told how wrong I was, day in and day out, and that I was a horrible person for not seeing that this was the only way Spike could be a "real hero." *shakes head* Sigh, I don't miss the "good old days" of fandom, no way.
To refer to it as a (demon) soul makes it sound more holy, and they were a religious bunch in their own way, weren't they?
Well, they were a heretical bunch towards the Catholics predominantly. It's the word "soul" that bothers me. They were speaking so reverently of the word, and then to basically spit and vomit it out later just seems out of place. Instead of "My soul is your soul" why not "my demon is your demon" or even "my spirit is your spirit?" It just really bothers me when I hear it.
As I mentioned in some of the other comments above, Darla has another S1-related semi-retcon. She very eloquently says how she feels about Angel in S1, but then later says that she never could have loved him. Maybe she meant that she could never have the true love hearts and flowers kind of feelings for him or that their love, when soulless, is not pure love or more of a perverted love. I like to believe that they did love one another. And it's easy to say different things when you're in different states of temperament or situations even if one feels the opposite way, so both her statements about loving Angel and not being able to love might be true in those moments to her. That's my interpretation, of course. Spike, ironically, adamantly said that demons cannot change, yet it's obvious that a lot of demons evolved to fit within the "normal" world and Spike himself evolved constantly.
I think one problem I see is that people are quick to say, "Well, obviously you didn't watch the same show I did" or "What show were you watching?" when they hear a different or weird opinion about the show. Lord knows I've heard it enough times from people (mostly because I don't have a favorable opinion of Chosen). I think I saw too much on IDW's forum of arguments being made, evidence being presented to the contrary, and instead of both sides just admitting that there's room for more than one interpretation (especially when people can't decide if sources outside the show can be used in a debate instead of what was contextual shown on screen), it just devolves into locked threads and madness, which is why I posted the questions on here from the arguments other posters were making- I wanted to see if they truly were how other people felt. It's been an interesting read thus far!
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Sorry, just jumping into your argument here. I don't believe that your opinion is at all unusual. Comments like that are just arrogant and intimidating and dead annoying. If I've read correctly, fans left the show when Spike got the soul. Was it the Redemptionistas (?) who avidly believed Spike was redeemable without the soul. I've read well thought out pieces that show how and believe that Spike was only given a soul in the end as an easy 'out' - giving their investment in Angel's story validity and allowing Spike to love and be loved. I think it was Barb who said that it was ironic that the soul was exactly the reason that this couldn't happen.
I think souled!Spike has been around so long now, that arguments against it are seen as contradictory to the mythology (and leading to such "What were you watching" comments.) I say hooray to Lynch and others for giving it a go - even if it isn't for long.
By the by, Mariah's "Spike is unique and his journey is not about Angel's" made me say "Oh Yeah!" It was a little embarrassing, but no-one saw :)
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If I've read correctly, fans left the show when Spike got the soul. Was it the Redemptionistas (?) who avidly believed Spike was redeemable without the soul.
I can't remember a lot of fans leaving about the soul at the time, but a lot of people left after Seeing Red. As far as Redemptionistas, there were a lot of different kinds, if I remember correctly- those that just wanted Spike redeemed no matter what, those that wanted him redeemed while unsouled, those that wanted him to have a soul, etc.
After Spike got souled, there were those who felt conflicted about it. For me, it was like once he had it, I didn't want him to lose it because it was what the Spike-haters wanted because they could use it as an excuse to dismiss every good thing he did, and yet I didn't want him to have the soul in the first place. I was so conflicted! XD
I'm glad that Mariah can recognize that both Angel and Spike have their own journeys that are unique to each fella. :D