darla's love for connor
i was re-watching "lullaby" the other day, and when i came to the rooftop scene, where angel finds darla again after she runs down and scatters the grapplar demons with his car and drives off, something stood out for me. as darla tries to explain why she is reluctant to allow herself to give birth, she says: "angel, i don't have a soul. it does, and right now that soul is inside of me, but soon, it won't be and then... i won't be able to love it. i won't even be able to remember that i loved it. and i want to remember."
this struck me as strange. in the whedonverse, losing or gaining a soul has no effect on one's capacity to remember a particular event from the past, or, for that matter, an emotion; it is one's perspective on them that may change (well, perhaps not in the case of vamp!harmony). after being sired, one does not rise from the grave with global amnesia. it has often been pointed out that a vampire has the same memories as the human whose dead body serves as its host, especially when somebody mentioned how easy it was to be deceived upon seeing a demon with the face of a loved one. when angel was first cursed with a soul, he could still recall every single one of his victims and what he had done to them. when he lost his soul again at the end of "surprise", he remembered his feelings for buffy, which was a major reason behind his animosity toward her - in his opinion, he had become unclean, polluted by that memory of love, and couldn't forgive buffy for having made him feel like a human being. so, by all accounts, if darla had successfully given birth and become soulless once more, she should have been able to remember that she used to love connor, even if her ability to feel love were gone.
i wondered what you all thought about this. what was darla referring to? did she mean that
a) she would actually forget she used to love connor (this makes no sense if one takes into account the internal rules of the universe);
b) she would retain the memory of what she felt for connor, but it would no longer mean the same - considering that she never really loved anybody before, it could lose any significance for her, or she could have begun to hate connor much as angelus had hated buffy;
c) any option could be true, this is one of the in-universe consistencies the authors had overlooked or didn't care to sort out?
this struck me as strange. in the whedonverse, losing or gaining a soul has no effect on one's capacity to remember a particular event from the past, or, for that matter, an emotion; it is one's perspective on them that may change (well, perhaps not in the case of vamp!harmony). after being sired, one does not rise from the grave with global amnesia. it has often been pointed out that a vampire has the same memories as the human whose dead body serves as its host, especially when somebody mentioned how easy it was to be deceived upon seeing a demon with the face of a loved one. when angel was first cursed with a soul, he could still recall every single one of his victims and what he had done to them. when he lost his soul again at the end of "surprise", he remembered his feelings for buffy, which was a major reason behind his animosity toward her - in his opinion, he had become unclean, polluted by that memory of love, and couldn't forgive buffy for having made him feel like a human being. so, by all accounts, if darla had successfully given birth and become soulless once more, she should have been able to remember that she used to love connor, even if her ability to feel love were gone.
i wondered what you all thought about this. what was darla referring to? did she mean that
a) she would actually forget she used to love connor (this makes no sense if one takes into account the internal rules of the universe);
b) she would retain the memory of what she felt for connor, but it would no longer mean the same - considering that she never really loved anybody before, it could lose any significance for her, or she could have begun to hate connor much as angelus had hated buffy;
c) any option could be true, this is one of the in-universe consistencies the authors had overlooked or didn't care to sort out?