Season One, Retcons, and Souls. A Ponderment by Fender.

[fenderlove]

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

Comments

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

The arguments on IDW seemed to circulate about how detachable was a regular human soul. Angel's soul is obviously detachable, but what about the average person, etc. etc. Anyways, this stemmed from Spike's soul being separated from him in the latest IDW comic (not to make him evil or anything, and he doesn't go evil from it), but a few posters seemed to take offense to the fact that Spike's soul was just as detachable as Angel's. I thought after the whole Kathy the Soul Sucker incident in S4 that it was pretty easy to detach just about anyone's soul from their person, but other posters thought differently. I pointed out the Mayor sold his soul (I forgot about Gunn selling his soul for his truck), but that apparently that didn't count because he sold it instead of having it involuntarily removed. Basically, the crux of their argument is that the average Buffyverse soul should be impossible to detach unless whatever demon Kathy is is involved, and that if anyone besides Angel loses their soul, it's bad storytelling and completely destroys the mythology of the show. While my side of the argument was that if souls can be taken from anyone, then they can be put back by similar means (I mean, why would Orbs of Thessulah be readily available if they were only meant to house Angel's soul only?).

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.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. I haven't been following the comics but...

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.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Most fans rejected this idea when I posted it and thought it lessened Spike's story...but I thought it would have enhanced it.

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!

[kerry-220.livejournal.com]

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.

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 :)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I think once the "You didn't watch the show correctly" comments enter a debate it's all over from there.

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