BSV Forum - General - The Bloodshedpub

Where do souls go?

Oct 14 2007 08:25 pm   #1slaymesoftly

We've debated the importance of soul vs no soul, and who needed one and so forth.  Here's something that just struck me the other day. Spike and Angel are always going on about going to hell when they're gone; many fics make an assumption that without redemption of some sort, that is what will happen to them. But, to what part of them will that happen?  Why would their re-established souls, which have helped them to try to atone for their demon's behavior, be consigned to Hell upon their deaths (dusting)?

We  know that Buffy's soul went to Heaven when she died.  Why would the original souls of both Spike and Angel not have done the same thing?  Okay, not so much Angel - Liam was a drunk and a wastrel; but William was a good man.  When he was killed, wouldn't his soul have gone to Heaven?  Exactly what or who is expected to be going to Hell when a vampire is slain?

If it's the demon now inhabiting the body, that should be like going home, shouldn't it?  Hardly a punishment for something that is on the top of the food chain in Hell.  So, other than the usual they-didn't-think-this-through-very-well stuff that we've found throughout BtVS and AtS, what could explain all the "I'm sending you to hell" and "Buffy will never see Spike once he's gone because he will be in Hell" stuff that we get both on the shows and in fan fic?

Much is made of the fact that without some sort of devine intervention, they are both fated to be consigned to Hell for all eternity.  Why?  Seems to me that those souls would have already been safely in Heaven all this time, and without some sort of bad behavior once they were reinstalled, would go right back there as soon as they were released from the long-dead bodies.

Now, there are a few writers who have addressed this in a sensible way - Lizerrbeathan being one of them. She's big on souls and their place in the scheme of things, and has written several fics in which we get to see William's soul and Buffy's soul come together in Heaven.  So have a few other authors, although I couldn't tell you who they are, of course. *le sigh*

But as a rule, if we talk about souls at all, we all go on the assumption that a) vampires don't have them, and b) when they're dusted they go to Hell.  Exactly who or what is being sent to Hell? Given the established mythology that the soul goes right to Heaven when someone dies (leaving out Warren and his human ilk), shouldn't William's soul have been happily living there since 1880? 

Arguments and explanations?

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