Suffice it to say that the presumption that the measure of moral goodness is the altruism/selfishness ratio is due to the widespread influence of one moral philosopher (Kant), but there are other possible understandings of moral life which would deny that sort of dichotomy. It might have been inadvertent, but Buffy's trajectory really is a pretty good critique of Kant. Spike's moral progress really does fit this alternative paradigm (some mix of Plato and Aristotle, which is quite compatible with Thomas). And the third major paradigm, consequentialism, is represented by Giles. So either intuitively or deliberately, Joss has set up a pretty good laboratory for thinking about the competing paradigms.
I don't think I argued that the soul doesn't matter. My complaint is that to say the soul matters because without it good is not possible is to really really stretch our credulity about what Spike was up to from Intervention through, say, Flooded. So there has to be a more complex reason for why the soul matters. Preferably one that does not make it an "ironic irrelevance" because like you, I think the getting of the soul is a triumphant and heroic part of Spike's arc.
I just deleted a long reflection on all of this. It didn't fit the space. But the upshot is that I'm not sure you can reconcile the way the soul works in Angel's story with the way the soul work's in Spike's story without doing violence to at least one of their stories. That's either just a reflection of how two moral paradigms play out in a way that is at odds with one another. Spike follows this path that I'm labelling Thomistic; Angel is more neatly explained in a Kantian paradigm. The paradigms are incompatible so the way the soul works is incompatible. Or it's a reflection of the fact that what really matters to Joss is not the details of how Angel and Spike's story can be reconciled, but how their stories mesh with Buffy's.
The big story I think that's being told is pretty simple. Buffy needs to reconcile with her shadow self, the source of her power and exuberance in life, but also quite dangerous. The souled vampire represents a mirror of the hybrid of goodness and strength that the slayer has naturally, but still needs to reconcile. So her internal reconiliation is traced out in her two affairs with vampires and their status vis a vis that "soul". In her first relationship she attempted a union with that darker self by sleeping with Angel, which had the unhappy effect of costing Angel his soul, and rendering him an unfit companion for her. Also quite traumatic. Buffy pulls back from her darker self and tries to fit in with the human world (Riley), but that ultimately doesn't address the deep issues she needs to work with. So in Into the Woods, she begins her necessary journey into the dark which points her straight at Spike. Spike is at that point quite dark, but he's got that weird love thing going plus the chip and that makes it possible for her to enter into a relationship with her. It goes badly, of course, because without a soul he's not a fit companion cause (again) you need a souled vampire to mirror the light/dark of the slayer. Ah -- but this time Buffy's sexual affair with a vampire does not cost him his soul. On the contrary the result of the sexual affair is that the vampire goes out to get a soul. Buffy and her newly ensouled vampire spend a year working on trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation (so that the badness in Spuffy prior to season 7 becomes a vehicle for really working out all the angst of Bangel) and voila -- we have a slayer who is at peace with the shadow self which is the source of her power and also necessary to her if she is to be fully alive. Now she has something worth sharing with others, and onto the slayer empowerment spell, using the scythe that she explicitly says she would not have had were it not for Spike. That's the poetry of it. And for Joss I think poetry trumps everything else.
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Date: 2009-01-27 09:46 pm (UTC)I don't think I argued that the soul doesn't matter. My complaint is that to say the soul matters because without it good is not possible is to really really stretch our credulity about what Spike was up to from Intervention through, say, Flooded. So there has to be a more complex reason for why the soul matters. Preferably one that does not make it an "ironic irrelevance" because like you, I think the getting of the soul is a triumphant and heroic part of Spike's arc.
I just deleted a long reflection on all of this. It didn't fit the space. But the upshot is that I'm not sure you can reconcile the way the soul works in Angel's story with the way the soul work's in Spike's story without doing violence to at least one of their stories. That's either just a reflection of how two moral paradigms play out in a way that is at odds with one another. Spike follows this path that I'm labelling Thomistic; Angel is more neatly explained in a Kantian paradigm. The paradigms are incompatible so the way the soul works is incompatible. Or it's a reflection of the fact that what really matters to Joss is not the details of how Angel and Spike's story can be reconciled, but how their stories mesh with Buffy's.
The big story I think that's being told is pretty simple. Buffy needs to reconcile with her shadow self, the source of her power and exuberance in life, but also quite dangerous. The souled vampire represents a mirror of the hybrid of goodness and strength that the slayer has naturally, but still needs to reconcile. So her internal reconiliation is traced out in her two affairs with vampires and their status vis a vis that "soul". In her first relationship she attempted a union with that darker self by sleeping with Angel, which had the unhappy effect of costing Angel his soul, and rendering him an unfit companion for her. Also quite traumatic. Buffy pulls back from her darker self and tries to fit in with the human world (Riley), but that ultimately doesn't address the deep issues she needs to work with. So in Into the Woods, she begins her necessary journey into the dark which points her straight at Spike. Spike is at that point quite dark, but he's got that weird love thing going plus the chip and that makes it possible for her to enter into a relationship with her. It goes badly, of course, because without a soul he's not a fit companion cause (again) you need a souled vampire to mirror the light/dark of the slayer. Ah -- but this time Buffy's sexual affair with a vampire does not cost him his soul. On the contrary the result of the sexual affair is that the vampire goes out to get a soul. Buffy and her newly ensouled vampire spend a year working on trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation (so that the badness in Spuffy prior to season 7 becomes a vehicle for really working out all the angst of Bangel) and voila -- we have a slayer who is at peace with the shadow self which is the source of her power and also necessary to her if she is to be fully alive. Now she has something worth sharing with others, and onto the slayer empowerment spell, using the scythe that she explicitly says she would not have had were it not for Spike. That's the poetry of it. And for Joss I think poetry trumps everything else.