Buffyverse Metathon entry
Metaphysics of the soul in the buffyverse: Self-inflicted Soul
Special thanks to
ana_christina for very fast editing
The Buffyverse has a long love-hate relationship with the concept of soul. My first association in regards to the verse is -gasp- that of WORTH. Yes, from the first episode, we are fed the notion that ensouled entities are valuable, worth fighting for, redeemable, human. While unsouled and de-souled ones are to be killed, detested, despised and thought of as animals or things.
By an untold agreement all human beings are born with a soul, consequently, good by nature. Demons, vampires included, on the other side are the enemy, if not by their depredatory nature, then because of their lack of soul.
But as we know, there are really no vampires or demons we can study in real life. So any metaphysical study of them is slightly superfluous if we don’t also try to find a deeper meaning as a whole for their fictional existence, as they are painted, within the Buffyverse.
As Joss Whedon explained, the Buffyverse is a metaphor. And a very well done too. Vampires represent teenager rebellion.
And in the case of the two main heroes (or antiheros, you choose) of the show, Angel and Spike, they also represent a lost function of the collective unconscious, an archetype.
But first a very short explanation before I start on this particular analysis for the metaphysics of soul in the Buffy verse.
As we know, metaphysics is a part of philosophy that tries to analyse and define the existence (ontology) of material things. One of its branches is Science.
But as the reality of the Buffyverse depends largely, if not exclusively, on the psyche of its creators and writers, it is indeed there where we can try to find any meaning to their strange journey of the soul.
- Existentialism vs Fate or The paradox of Spike
The BtVS series relied from its beginnings on the notion of predetermination of destiny. Starting with the curse of Buffy being the Chosen One, to the fact that she had a prophecy to fulfil.
Apparently this leaves little to free will. If this is the case for every creature of evil or darkness, then we can safely say that Buffy is doing the only possible thing when killing all of soulless creatures, as they have no free will and if the first concepts we got in Season 1 of demons and vampires were correct, then there wasn’t anything resembling humanity in them. When there was no soul, there was no humanity.
But as the years went by and we were introduced closer to the reality of vampires and other demons, we found out very puzzling and diverse experiences that told us otherwise.
Some demons weren’t bad by nature. There were Clem and Whistler and Lorne and others.
As Joss Whedon said, and I agree totally here, in the Buffyverse, the soul was the moral compass. A souled individual was naturally compelled towards goodness and a soulless one compelled towards evil by their very nature.
A vampire, would be something more complex that either humans or demons, because of its mix of both. When the vampire was born, the human soul of the individual left its body and was replaced by a very ancient and simple entity that lived for its bloodlust.
The vampire is still the person it was in the way that it has its memory, personality, physical appearance. And what are we but our memories, I ask?
All that package that we are is still there, the so called spirit, the essence of their human psyche is still within their reach, but totally surpassed by the power of the demonic soul. (1)
And there was Spike, who against his alleged predestination, found free choice and built back a morality for him, in fact, he made a soul for himself in every relevant aspect.
Apparently, Spike is living an existentialist kind of life, where he is not guided by any law regarding predestination. He can choose his own soul status although as a vampire he shouldn’t be able to. Therein lies the paradox.
So different from Angel or Angelus, who are in fact the same person despite all the efforts to divide him in two. Angelus is incapable of desiring back his soul. So is he a lesser individual? A liar, pretending to be two people to look innocent both to himself and to his beloved Buffy? Or simply does the Buffyverse have no logic at all since there is not such a thing as Spikelus?
And is the show existentialist or not? I think the answer is not. There is a whole intrinsic logic and more than four or five different interpretations to why a demon can choose to be moral even without a soul, and even build a soul for itself, turning the soul in the Buffyverse merely a prize for redemption and not the basis of humanity. Off the top of my head:
a. One would be a Christian reason d’etre for a vampire wanting back his soul, or merely getting back the power of sacrificing for others, as we saw Darla do for her son. It’s called the gift of grace, it is given by God to his chosen ones, and I explained it more in my essay here.
b. The second would be Joss Whedon's answer in a conference where he was asked about this. He answered that William was a more developed individual than Angel, consequently free to live an existentialist life within a predetermined universe.
c. A third one is a logical conclusion. Simply, Giles was wrong. The counsel of watchers, the books they had, they all lied. Vampires are all individuals with humanity despite their lack of soul. They are redeemable and worthy because of their understanding and human memory and personality. And in this case, the soul is merely a painful switch that turns on the pangs of conscience. The lie we are fed, is given to Buffy and all slayers to stop them from becoming the “vampire murderers”. In my opinion this would be the most challenging explanation and the logical one to the problem of the soul in non humans in the Buffyverse.
It would also account for the fact that there are humans who despite their souls choose to act against their conscience. We are all free. Willow, an established goody-two-shoes, comes to mind in her murdering Warren and then trying to destroy the world to boot. We haven’t see that much meanness since Angelus' return in Season 2.
This gives the series its entire array of shadows of grey and in fact, a whole palette of colour that made it an icon for this and hopefully for next generations of fans.
The Anima, or the final frontier of the soul in the Buffyverse
Here my fourth explanation and the one I believe in most.
For those of you new to the theory of archetypes, C.G.Jung made the most revolutionary analysis of humankind psyche that changed psychology as much as Einstein changed Physics.
He discovered certain models that exist in the unconscious of all the members of humankind; those are psychic forces that interact and change and try to make individuals and societies a whole, a unity. It is the ultimate searched for illumination.
Those are the archetypes. Hundreds of books have given psychological interpretation to many aspects of human activity in politics, sociology, history, and especially, in literature.
Since Christipher Vogler’s book, “a writer’s journey” most screenwriters have understood and even included consciously archetypes and Campbell’s hero’s journey in their works.
This is the case too with BtVS. The archetype figures were included both consciously and unconsciously, in my opinion. I have heard interviews where the words hero’s journey were applied by the writers both to Spike and Buffy.
This gives me full conviction that the concept of soul in the Buffyverse is intimately linked to that of the archetype of the Anima.
The lack of soul is in fact, the absence of the Anima. (Soul in Latin and Italian is translated literarily as anima).
Anima would be the feminine side of a masculine psyche. If lacking, his Self is not complete, there is not unity or health. A whole journey should be undertaken until that missing part is found and correctly accepted, assimilated and loved.
The usual road to find the Anima is romantic love, as in a numinous experience, or in the words of a very bad poet, an effulgent experience.
In fact, the lack of anima, shown as a lack of soul in vampires would be a great reference to our modern American society, so empty of feminine principles, dominated by selfish interest, the rational conscience has lost its soul as values have become anti-values. Evil has replaced Good in a subtle way.
The road to become a healthy individual or society again lies in change. The actors of the change are the archetypes and they need representations in characters. Transformation needs something to start, something that will put things upside down, a sacred event, and that can only be love, the kind of love that happens once in a lifetime. A syzygy. Then love is the transforming event, and Buffy is the representation of the Anima.
We have two different cases of men who strive to find their anima.
First, we have Angel. He has been imposed a soul, it is a curse because he is not ready for it and doesn’t embrace it. There hasn’t been the transforming event that may unify him with it. The rational constraint in him is very strong and when in contact with Buffy, as we see in “Innocence” he loses his soul. And rejects Buffy at the same time. He hates his love. He hates his Anima. Yes he obsesses with her, with Buffy.
A deep problem in his psyche should be resolved before he can take the road to illumination.
In the end we find Angel is incapable of finding love in any woman. I find it impossible from this interpretation for Angel to be shanshued unless he comes to terms with Buffy as his anima. You will see that when that time arrives, it won’t be a problem if some new enemy comes and steals his soul. He won’t need it to be a moral individual anymore.
The second case is Spike. As we all know, he has gone through a different road. His problem with the anima starts with Cecily's rejection. Something inside himself is desperate for the unity and finds none. He takes the vampire life with a woman who has no anima to offer, another unsouled and damned vampire he tries to love, although every quality of feminine in her is corrupted and perverse.
Upon living with Buffy and seeing her, he find himself called to his own journey (as interesting discussed in the dream interpretation essay posted earlier in this Methathon). It is for him, through the love experience that he makes his transformation and reaches for his soul, while looking desperately for his Anima in Buffy.
He finally finds it, (2) and is liberated to death after doing his self sacrifice for a noble cause, something that is for once not about Buffy, but about saving the world.
He can do it because the Self is complete now.
Conclusion
BtVS use the soul has many different possible interpretations, such as existencialism, determinism, and others; all possibly valid, despite some apparently contradictory events and characters. Starting a study of the soul metaphysics can entail many difficulties that only can be surmounted by determining the nature of the philosophy and psychological relations and facts governing its use.
As a work of fiction, it is necesary to figure out an intuitive and overall tying-up approach which may be provided by the analysis of archetypes as the source of the metaphysic problem in the series.
Footnotes:
(1) It is interesting to note that when a vampire is resouled, the human soul takes complete control of the demoniac soul. So it is much stronger.
(2) From a canonical point of view, this could only have happened the night before the final battle. I assume this as Joss Whedom mentioned it as the most important moment of the whole show.
Some sources:
Wikipedia
Le paradoxe de l’ame, by Diane Couisineu
All things philosophical in BtVS http://www.atpobtvs.com/index.html
The interpretation of Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise Von Franz