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 '

Comments

[quinara]

(*pops in via Petzi* Hello!)

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. ;)

[fenderlove]

I can believe that someone, Giles for example, explaining aspects of the way the world has worked in regards to demons might be some aspects unintentionally wrong due to misinformation. In our own reality, we have barely begun to have a grasp about how life began ions ago, and even what we do "know" are only theories, so Giles saying that all the Old Ones were leaving when the first vampire was created and Illyria contradicting that by saying that vampires and humans were milling about at the same time she was living up the God-King lifestyle, I can understand. Giles has secondary and tertiary sources, but Illyria has a firsthand account. I expect that even most or all vampires in the 'verse don't know where they came from; I think Spike probably only half-believes Illyria because s/he's being so dismissive of vampires. The problem I guess with instances like that there is no clarity as to what is truth, and it seems like it can all just change on a whim when the writer wants it to.

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. ^_~

[quinara]

Oh yeah, S8 screws up a lot of things... I suppose my position is a lot easier to hold because I'm actively trying to forget S8 existed (and it's getting hazier every day). :D

[fenderlove]

I'm definitely trying to forget S8 and all that it entails, but I still have to blame it for awakening more questions about different aspects of the series that were unclear or left gaps. I hope to one day be able to just forget all about it, like I tried to do with some of the Buffy novelizations. XD