View Full Version : what is the after life of soulless beings ?

Richard Wilkins
21-11-14, 06:56 PM
Hello. Normally ,the souls of creatures go to the heaven or any dimensions after the dead of the body .So what happen to soulless vampires or demons after their deaths ,do they disapear?

24-11-14, 12:27 PM
That's a very complicated thing to answer.

It's safe to assume they just disappear. If we look at creatures like Vampires, though, we know that it is possible to retrieve their soul and even when you dust them, they can be resurrected human form (Darla). So are they really just gone? That's not conclusive. Spike was brought back in his incorporeal form as vampire, Darla was brought back as human and angel got sucked into hell but never really died. They were brought back.

So maybe there is some sort of afterlife for the demonic and the undead beings? Again, a complicated question. Because when we look at logic the explanation is that in the Buffyverse, when a person dies his soul moves on. It may linger in the ether or it moves to a heaven-type dimension, and it is possible to retrieve it. But the body, once gone, is gone for good. That's where it's more complicated.

25-11-14, 04:18 AM
Spike certainly feared being pulled into Hell in Hellbound and he and Angel discussed being damned to Hell no matter what. So I think that could support a general truth of evil beings being presumed to go to hell, but they were both souled at that point. For one point of view Joss said (stealing Cil's transcript here from the 26 Dec 13 BBC radio Front Row programme)... "For me, the soul is a convenient way of saying, 'Is this person trying to be better. Is this person someone of substance or are they not?' [...] Eventually we stand up to be counted. We either make the world better, we make it worse, or we just sort of make it run in place (which makes it worse). And the idea that we have this thing in ourselves that we cannot define has always fascinated me and I have no problem calling it a soul. It is what makes us human beings and not excellent clocks." Which to me is a separate thing about a depth in humanity rather than being a separate part that could/should live on distinctly. Perhaps it is a sentient creature thing and can be separate to the soul, more the consciousness of the being (part of which you could call the soul where there is one)?

26-11-14, 12:20 AM
Yes, I always thought there are basically two kinds of bad guys turned good guys:

1. The ones that were struck really hard by some random (most probably) exogenous factor (or well, a mighty spiritual awakening could work too) that suddenly showed them the wrongness of their ways, and was powerful enough to motivate them to stay in the straight an narrow.

2. The ones that gradually find out the wrongness of their ways, and gradually decide that one can always be better, and even though they knows it's not going to be easy, they work hard to find a satisfactory level of moral improvement.

The soul would be the representation of a profound moral change, and the subject of what losing it would mean to the character is what makes Joss's idea such an awesome and wicked tangle of possible roads to explore, IMHO.

Speaking of Hellbound, I always found disturbing that the soul of a souled vamp would go to Hell when he dies, but a souless vamp would be spared of eternal suffering after its demise. I wonder if this is also supposed to be a sort of metaphor of how the fact of "not doing bad anymore", and even "doing good" would probably make the world better, but won't fix the wrong of the past, and the former monster will never be free of the punishment (guilt?) for the damage they caused.

26-11-14, 03:05 AM
Yeah, I assume that there was an aspect of never being free of their pasts. But it was a conversation they had at a time when Angel had very much lost his hope of redemption/his path and Spike was feeling very inconsequential after sacrificing himself and being pulled painfully back but trapped etc. S5 was very kamikaze/negative and bleak in its tone for me so I think this fits that rather than is an inescapable truth for the two souled vampires personally. I don't think they would be damned irrespective of everything they do. I can't remember the ins and outs of it, but I think there was implication that Darla's afterlife was affected by her sacrifice/love of her child when the Powers tried to use her to reach Connor in S4 (was that who you meant by a soulless vamp being spared??). I think feeling like our actions in life are relative to the peace you experience afterwards, if you are assuming there is any level of awareness of continued existence for any sentient being, is a straightforward enough assumption. It leaves an echo trace of the person that scans for me in an almost logical way. Not that logic plays a strong part in considerations of spiritual existence, ha!

26-11-14, 05:28 PM
Yes, I don't think it was supposed to be definitive (what in the Buffiverse is?). I don't remember that well (maybe it is time for some Angel rewatch!), but I remember getting the impression that Spike jumping back and forth between Hell and W&H in Hellbound had to do something with the amulet, and was not necessarily caused by his unavoidable (yet probable) destiny in Hell. If I recall well, Angel rationalized it as if it was an unavoidable truth, probably because he was in a way having a preview to his worst fears. Still, it was sort of made clear that sacrificing his life and suffering to save the world, and stop a great evil is not enough to be "forgiven"... like, implying that the journey to redemption had still a long way to go (or maybe would never end), for both vamps.

When I said that souless vamps were "spared" from Hell, I didn't mean Darla in particular... in fact I wasn't thinking of her. I meant that, for what I understand, the soul of a person that is killed and turned a vampire would leave the body, and we would be led to assume (based on Buffy's experience in "Heaven") that said soul would "go to a place" o enter a state of something that could be very pleasant (as happened to Buffy) or not so pleasant, probably depending on how they behaved during their lifetime. Meanwhile, the demon inhabiting their bodies would be breaking havoc in the mortal world until something or someone turns it into dust. Then, the "demon soul" would just disappear or whatnot (I don't really know if there's any indication in any of the series of the nature of this "demon", if it's an equivalent of a soul that would always will be trying to find a new host, or if it's just the equivalent to an infection and just will be dissolved along with its host... And this is sort of the subject of this thread, I guess?).
In the other hand, we have two former serial killers that now are devoting their lives to help others, and had in fact saved humanity from annihilation, many times. Their souls, before being summoned back to their bodies, were probably having a great time. Or maybe were in a kind of purgatory specially made for souls of people who were turned? Since the souls didn't seem to bring with them any memories of the afterlife and all... But now that they had been reunited with their bodies, the souls had also inherited the "karma" earned with all the atrocities the "demon" that inhabits their body did.

I don't know if I'm making any sense... this whole thing is a little confusing.:p