Soulful musings.

[elisi]

It's funny, but the recent storyline in the Spike comics (both moscow_watcher and rahirah have posts on it) has had precisely zero impact on my view of the 'verse. And not just because I don't see the comics as canon. Thing is - I've been there, done that, and written both an essay and a fic on that very topic, and from what I can tell, the comic does not contradict anything I've said. (This is what comes of having been around for ages. I've got nothing new to say...)

Links for this interested:

Essay: Souls and redemption in the Buffy verse. (tl;dr in the extreme. No really. It's the longest essay I've ever written.)

Fic: Lost Soul. (Written for the second summer_of_spike. Spike loses his soul, AtS S5. Some wackiness ensues...)

Either of these will explain my views perfectly (although the fic is shorter). Very briefly, however, then yes, of course a soulless vampire can choose to do good (see S5-6). But... a soulless creature doesn't really understand good and evil. It's like life is one of those 3D pictures, and without a soul you can't see the hidden picture. (Or something. I know exactly what I believe, but I can't explain it succinctly. Hence the lengthy writing.)

Comments

[ubi4soft.livejournal.com]

Just To Prove A Point.

Ah, but I think this is what actually Lynch is doing with so much pro-Buffy talk: soulless Spike can "do" good only if he had Buffy on his brains.