darcygall
Watcher/Pearl
Head of Tourism
Posts: 28
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Post by darcygall on Jan 13, 2019 6:17:12 GMT -8
As a companion thread to my Anya post...
As I don't consider the comics canon, and also don't even remotely understand how the key essence could count as a soul, I ask you this:
Does Dawn have a human soul? She wasn't born of human parents, she was created by magic. Can one just magic up a human soul?
Did they create her as a 14 year old girl? Or did they magic up Buffy's DNA (and also a sample of a male's DNA because clearly Dawn is not a Buffy clone) and somehow magically test tube Dawn and speed up her growth somehow?
If they took two human samples of DNA and science'd them together then OK, I could buy that she's a human with a human soul. But if they created her as a fully grown 14 year old girl then...no, I don't buy it.
What do you all think?
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Post by Zab Jade on Jan 13, 2019 6:30:32 GMT -8
I've read a lot of stuff where Dawn's human form was created using the DNA of Buffy and Spike. It's a pretty interesting idea that I do enjoy in fanfic (especially in Stuff's stuff), but I've never really used it as a personal head canon. Something I do have though, is that Dawn's memories of before she was inserted into Buffy's life are sort of hazy and have an emotional distance to them. I also think there's a reason they went with making Dawn a human instead of a grain of sand.... Or a loofah.  Spike sums my thoughts on it up pretty well in Thursday's Child: “Gotta wonder why they made you human. Why not a tree, or grains of sand? The crazy bint don’t seem able to sense or track you…. So, why human? Only two reasons spring to mind. Human’s closest to what you were, or.... Well, could be that these monks wanted you loved, cherished, and protected. Could be either or both, really.” |
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Post by petitpalmier on Jan 13, 2019 9:43:13 GMT -8
I agree with Zab on this - it makes no sense for the monks to make the Key into a human, unless a human is the only thing they could turn her into. So the Key had to have some sort of essence that could be turned into a conciousness. Is that somehow like a soul? I don't know.
I'm not really sure I understand what a soul is supposed to be, honestly. It's a nebulous concept at best in the show, so anything could be it, even a key essence.
Does a soul tell right from wrong? Not really, otherwise vampires would keep wandering around, helping old ladies cross the streets before eating the next person over, trying to be evil but not knowing how. And humans with a soul like the Scoobies wouldn't consistently do very wrong things without even understanding that they are doing something wrong.
Does a soul give you feelings? Obviously not. I mean, Spike. And honestly, every unsouled vampire we get to know. Even Angelus has a lot of feelings - more than Angel sometimes.
Does it make you feel guilt? Is it a conscience? We see Spike feel guilty for hurting people he cares about - his mother, Buffy. Meanwhile, Anya, if she has a soul, doesn't seem to feel any guilt for all the evil she's done.
Is it empathy? There are people in the world who don't feel empathy, because their brains are not wired as such. They can still understand ethics and be perfectly nice people.
Is it a magnifying glass for all of the above? That's the theory I think makes the most sense.
So does Dawn have a soul? Maybe. I can see it both ways.
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Post by Zab Jade on Jan 13, 2019 11:03:59 GMT -8
In regards to the soul and empathy, I don't think it effects that, really. Spike is actually very empathic. Look at how he treats Willow when he finds out that he can't bite? He puts aside his own pain and confusion to reassure her. That's definitely empathy. I always describe the soul as being like a pair of glasses for someone who is near sighted. Unsouled Spike, for example, can "see" the people he cares about. They're near to him and in focus. Other people are far away and blurry. They aren't in focus and don't matter to him. When he has his soul, though, those other people suddenly come into focus.
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Post by spindlekitten on Jan 18, 2019 11:16:42 GMT -8
I think the soul is the thing that makes the change from knowing right from wrong to understanding the impact of your actions on the world around you and caring whether people are hurt or not. Because a human serial killer cares about hurting people but still understands that it is an inherently evil action, whereas soulless Spike knows that his actions are evil but doesn't really care unless the person that gets hurt is someone that he likes enough to feel empathy towards.
That being said, is Dawn's soul human? I don't know. I am inclined to agree that there must be a reason for her to have been human, which means that the key-energy must need something human-like to contain it. In Niamh's Origins (I believe) the explanation is that the monks needed something human-but-stronger to contain the immense power of the key, hence they created her as a Slayer-Vamp hybrid - magically more than human, but still essentially human on a genetic level since both parents are magically/demonically enhanced but originally human.
As Darcy says, if she is created from (super)human dna and simply grown extra-fast to a 14 year old then I would think the soul must be human. Maybe? Unless the key fits itself where a human soul would go, much like a vampire's demon takes the place of their human soul...
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Spike sums my thoughts on it up pretty well in Thursday's Child: “Gotta wonder why they made you human. Why not a tree, or grains of sand? The crazy bint don’t seem able to sense or track you…. So, why human? Only two reasons spring to mind. Human’s closest to what you were, or.... Well, could be that these monks wanted you loved, cherished, and protected. Could be either or both, really.”
