darcygall
Watcher/Pearl
Head of Tourism
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Post by darcygall on Jan 13, 2019 5:01:43 GMT -8
OK so as we all know my beloved Anya started out as a human and was elevated to a Vengeance Demon by D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn claimed that to reverse a wish was possible but only at the cost of a Vengeance Demon's soul. Right? Those are the facts, as presented in canon.
So here are my questions:
Did Anya lose her human soul when she became a demon?
When her amulet was broken did she revert to a full on human OR was she just stuck in the human shaped body that she was using at the time? And if she did revert to human did she regain her original human soul?
And how would that work? Because presumably her original human soul had been in either Heaven or Hell or Limbo or whatever for 1100 years or so. Did the human soul just magically return to her once her amulet was broken? She still acted like a demon. Well, demonish. She did everything she could to regain her amulet. She showed absolutely no regret for her years as a demon. She was quite proud of her work.
What happened to her demon soul? When she lost her powers did her demon soul just magically go away? When she became a Vengeance Demon again in season six did she get the same demon soul she had before?
Man, the Buffyverse is really fecked up!
I don't think she was fully human. I think she just lost her powers and was stuck in her original human form that she used to fit in while granting wishes. I don't think she had a human soul. I think, from the moment she was elevated by D'Hoffryn to the moment she died in the Hellmouth, she had a demon soul.
But that's just me. What do you all think?
Discuss!
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Post by Zab Jade on Jan 13, 2019 6:16:31 GMT -8
My personal thoughts on it are that Anya still had a human soul all throughout. The reason vampires don't have human souls is because the human dies in the process. That releases the soul to go wherever (my thought is that they go to a sort of holding place until the body dies. They aren't judged based on what their demon possessed corpse did, but the body ties them closer to earth). It is always possible that in the process of being elevated to a vengeance demon, the human soul is replaced with a demon soul, but I'm not sure why that would be. Maybe the soul remains but is somewhat transformed from human to vengeance demon? It's an interesting thing to think about.
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darcygall
Watcher/Pearl
Head of Tourism
Posts: 28
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Post by darcygall on Jan 13, 2019 6:27:13 GMT -8
The reason vampires don't have human souls is because the human dies in the process.... Yes, Vengeance Demons are just elevated from humans. So does she have both? A human soul and a demon soul? hmmmm. I wish I could decide! I have given this so much thought over the years! I can't even tell you! |
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Post by petitpalmier on Jan 13, 2019 9:21:18 GMT -8
You could also view the process of being elevated as akin to some sort of deal with the devil. And the traditional price for that would be your soul, right?
So D'Hoffryn could be keeping the human souls of all his vengeance demons where they don't have access to them and destroying them would result in the death of the vengeance demon like we see with Hallfrek (we never do find out how to kill them, just depower them). So loosing the amulet wouldn't give you back your soul, D'Hoffryn would still have it, and you'd be stuck as a helpless human body to boot. The Mayor proves you don't need a soul to survive in a mostly human body. And it would really work for D'Hoffryn as a character, to have this way of controlling his vengeance demons. Anya herself would never mention anything to the Scoobies, since they have very narrow views on the importance of souls. It could also work as a way to bring Anya back Post-Chosen, if you're so inclined - rescue her soul from D'Hoffryn or something.
Then again the most likely explanation is simply that vengeance demons keep their human souls.
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Post by kailom on Feb 3, 2019 13:14:31 GMT -8
I think she had never really lost her soul. In Christianity, every living being has a soul. In fact, souls are generally defined as God's breath of life:
The way I see it is, because Anya's powers are stored in an amulet D'Hoffryn bestows her, the amulet functions as a contract between her now master and her. When Giles destroys Anyanka's amulet, she loses both her powers to grant wishes *and* her immortality, therefore losing the two things that made her a demon in the first place. This, however, doesn't mean she didn't have a soul or that she regained it after her contract with D'Hoffryn was broken.
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Post by blackoberst on Feb 16, 2019 3:29:36 GMT -8
I usually believe that Vengeance demons have their original human souls, just 'tainted' like the demons from Supernatural, for example. They're imbued with demon essence (not unlike the Slayer, only voluntarily) and the power is centred/controlled through the amulet. Losing the amulet means losing access to the powers, but the soul is the same 'tainted' one. The shift in perspective from 'human' to 'demon' would remain, and she still wouldn't see humans as her 'people,' since for 1100 years they were 'other.' As for the reversed wish costing the demon's soul, I guess it's more a matter of semantics. It would cost the demon access to it's power and nature, therefore it would be as if it was removed.
But, yes, I believe all 'animated' things possess a soul of some sort (be it human, demonic, or a combination thereof). It is also possible (also in a way similar to Supernatural) that human souls that become vampires (and/or other types of demons) go to a sort of Purgatory, I guess they could swap when one switches (as in that's where either Angel's or Spike's demons would go in the event of a Shanshu), and it could be where Anya's demon went if, in fact, she does have different demon and human souls. That would also mean that the possible reason for Anya not regretting anything she did as a demon is because her soul doesn't recognize those actions as 'its' so no need for any remorse. Whereas Angel and Spike being driven almost insane with guilt could also be because they are housing both the demon AND the human souls, so the simple logistics are that much more complicated.
I hope I make even the smallest bit of sense here.
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