Okay, so yes, if you’re a follower of any number of belief
systems, a soul is very important. But for the purpose of this entry, I’m more
concerned with how the very concept of a soul is portrayed in various fictions.
In fiction the soul is a tangible object that can be contained and felt and
used as a commodity. But why? In order for something to be traded and used it
must have value. So what is the value of a soul?
According to a couple of TV shows, a soul is where we get our
capacity to feel emotions. Both the shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer (and its
spinoff Angel) and the TV show Supernatural featured characters that had a soul
and then had that soul removed. With a soul the characters were able to feel
remorse and restraint with their actions. The character Angel, a vampire who
was cursed with a soul, is portrayed as a constant brooder feeling centuries of
guilt for all the murders he committed before his soul was returned to him. In
season two of Buffy, Angel’s soul is removed after he breaks the curse by
enjoying a moment of “true happiness” with Buffy (apparently having sex with
Sarah Michelle Geller really is that awesome). Afterwards he becomes a complete
psychopath and the main villain of that season of the series. So according to
Buffy, a soul is where one gets their morality.
Similarly in the show Supernatural. At the end of season 5
of the series, Sam Winchester is possessed by Lucifer and in order to defeat
him, sacrifices himself and hurls himself into a doorway to Hell. At the
beginning of the following season Dean and Sam are reunited, but Dean notices
that Sam is different. He’s more focused on hunting and doesn’t feel the same
moral quandaries about the life he leads. Basically he becomes a complete
sociopath. It turns out that while Sam’s body was rescued from Hell, his soul
is still trapped there. This slightly differs from Angel because Angel without
a soul could still feel joy, although it was just evil joy. Sam seems to be numb to any emotion at all
without his soul.
Supernatural also seems to place a higher value on souls
than Buffy does. In the Supernatural universe, souls can be used as a power
source by several supernatural beings like angels and/or demons. At the
beginning of Season 7 of Supernatural, Castiel, the long time angel ally of the
Winchester brothers, absorbs the souls of all the creatures in Purgatory (which
according to the show is where monsters go when they die) and essentially
declares himself God because he is so overpowered. This adds a new value to the
concept of the soul. Some shows have treated souls as currency (G vs. E), others
consider it a life force (Little Nicky), and still others just consider it to
be our thoughts and feelings.
So the crux of the arguments seems to be that the soul has
SOME sort of value, though no one can agree what that value necessarily is. But
the value seems artificial due to what people are willing to place on it. In
many ways, a soul is like a collectable. It is only valuable if you can find
someone collecting them and even then the value only exists based on the lack
of that individual possessing them. Rarity and quality also enter the
arrangement. Like in Supernatural, when Sam’s soul is returned to him, it is
severally damaged.
This is where the entire concept of a soul becomes hard to
understand. Religions have been trying to define the soul for generations and
have still yet to come up with a consensus for precisely what it is. That
perhaps could explain why there are so many religions. But if entire conclaves
of brilliant philosophers cannot explain it, then what luck do Television
writers have? Perhaps it is better that the true worth of a soul is never
concretely determined or else it will ruin the many fictional worlds which
decide to make use of such a concept.
No comments:
Post a Comment