What Spike's Soul Means to Me
This week IDW’s Spike #6, written by Brian Lynch, caused another, unexpected round of fandom ‘What fresh hell’ on my f-list, the likes of which I wasn’t expecting to see until S9 began and which has apparently caused quite a furor on certain forums similar to the commotion after S6. I can’t speak to that since I eschew non-Spuffy fansites and didn’t watch BtVS when it aired, but after reading some of my f-list’s posts, I was inspired to write about what the soul means to me.
A brief background on the commotion, as I understand it from moscow_watcher ’s excellent post: A villain steals Spike’s soul, and Spike’s reaction is:
"Before it was official. Before the goddamned voodoo. I was GOOD. That glowy ball. That thing you've had a hard-on to tear from me? Hang it on your wall. Bronze it. I don't need it."
Spike then gives his soul to Drusilla to stop her from killing one of his friends, as all other physical or magical means of stopping her are exhausted by that point. Apparently the S8 writers have stated unequivocally that Spike has his soul in the last arc, which means he somehow gets it back in the last two issues of IDW’s Spike arc.
Spike’s decision and ability to be good without his soul have not only excited Spike haters but also divided Spike lovers through several arguments:
a) If Spike can be good without a soul then he is more responsible for his crimes than Angel is for Angelus’s and is extra evil.
b) If Spike can be good without a soul, his redemption in S7 is invalidated.
I don’t believe either of these viewpoints, but as a Spuffy fan, it’s the second one that most saddens me because it seems like Spike’s soul has become a (very unnecessary) dividing line in the sand. I don’t think Spike losing his soul invalidates his redemption. I also don’t think that Spike’s S7 souled redemption arc invalidates his ability to be good unsouled. I’ve been confused in the past about why some people regard it as an either/or situation, and I’ve come to conclusion that it must depend on your personal definition of what a soul means in the Buffyverse.
The writers never cohesively nor consistently defined what a soul means, so I understand that canon supports many different interpretations of the soul, some of which probably would invalidate one character arc or another. I choose to base my interpretation of the soul on Spike and other vampires’ actions, rather than on the various verbal definitions that Buffy, Angel, and the Council provide. Even though I use statement language in the following essay rather than ‘I feel’ or ‘I think,’ I am not trying to convince anyone of what the ‘right’ definition of a soul is. I am going to explain my interpretation of the soul and why I don’t think it invalidates any character arcs.
What a soul means to me:
a) (Increased) Ability to empathize
b) Increased ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Note here that the ‘increased’ is not in parentheses as it is above.
c) Patience/maturity/impulse-control/willpower/insert-vaguely-synonmyous-word here to resist vampiric instincts
Empathy: According to Dictionary.com, empathy is the “intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” I’m going to dumb this down a bit and say that empathy is the ability to feel compassion and thus remorse; to understand why something is wrong as opposed to simply knowing it’s wrong. Here are some examples of where I see empathy missing or at work while Spike is soulless:
Missing:
-Thinking that starving African children are funny in “Pangs”
-Not understanding why Buffy thinking she killed Katrina would tear her up inside in “Dead Things”
At work:
-Comforting Buffy in “Fool for Love”
-Knowing and caring how much Dawn’s death would hurt Buffy in “Intervention”
-Taking care of Dawn while Buffy is dead
-Understanding how to care for Drusilla when she is having a crazy spell
Clearly Spike is capable of feeling empathy even without his soul. Arguably, other vampires are, too, though I don’t think the lines between empathy and self-interest are as distinct (Harmony trying to be Cordelia’s friend in “Disharmony”; Holden talking to Buffy in “Conversations with Dead People”). The soul increases Spike’s ability to empathize with two important results:
a) He feels guilt for his crimes, as evidenced in “Beneath You,” “Never Leave Me,” “Damage,” etc.
b) He feels compassion for people other than those he loves. Most of Spike’s soulless empathy is directed toward Buffy, Drusilla, and Dawn, the women he loves. Souled, he eventually cares for friends (Fred; Gunn in “Underneath”; Harmony in “In Harm’s Way”) and for humanity overall (unwilling to infect thousands for Fred’s sake in “Shells”).
Spike is empathetic without a soul, but a soul clearly increases his understanding of and caring for others. Souled!Spike would understand why Buffy’s heroism wouldn’t excuse her murder of Katrina, just as he finally understands in “Never Leave Me” how she was using him and why it hurt her.
Increased Ability to Discern Right From Wrong: Unlike empathy, which some vampires don’t possess at all (ex: Angelus), every vampire can differentiate between right and wrong to some degree. If you can’t differentiate, you’re not evil. For example, a shark killing a human is not evil; it is fulfilling a natural instinct to feed. Arguably, vampires are fulfilling the same instinct and cannot tell the difference either. However, the vampires that aren’t red shirts all* exhibit signs of knowing the difference:
-Spike knows that trying to rape Buffy was wrong
-Angelus delights in committing evil acts
-Darla actively seeks to turn Angel back into Angelus
-Harmony knows not to kill Cordelia in “Disharmony” and understands that she has betrayed Angel in “Not Fade Away”
*Dru is tricky because she’s so rarely lucid; I don’t know how to separate her insanity from her morality.
Based on our vampire leads and the fact that enough red shirts seem gleeful about killing, I’m willing to extrapolate that all vampires know a little bit about the difference between right and wrong. They might not be able to understand why, say, eating kittens is wrong, but they know that killing humans is wrong on a fundamental level. The degree to how much they can discern between morality and immorality varies, and the problem is, of course, that even if they know they usually don’t care (which is where empathy comes in above).
Spike undergoes enormous personal growth in S5 and S6 without his soul and definitely develops a more nuanced view of right and wrong while leashed by the chip. He expresses shame for creating the robot in “Intervention” when Buffy calls it disgusting, indicating he knew it was wrong; he has to talk himself into trying to attack the woman in “Smashed”; most importantly, he realizes immediately that what he did in the bathroom was attempted rape and it was as wrong as wrong could be.
However, there are also examples that show the limits of unsouled Spike’s evolution. It’s not that he doesn’t care- it’s that he literally can’t understand why something is wrong and it would offend an ensouled person. I’ve already mentioned one glaring example, his inability to understand why fully exonerating Buffy’s “murder” of Katrina is wrong. The other biggie is his behavior in “Crush.” Spike shows no sign of understanding just how awful his treatment of Buffy is; he honestly thinks that physical force and coercion are valid and viable ways of forming relationships (in this respect “Crush” both echoes “Lovers Walk” and foreshadows “Seeing Red”). Considering that “Dead Things” occurs far into S6, it’s safe to say that Spike does not attain a perfect moral compass as a soulless being, even withstanding his recognition that the AR was wrong.
It’s difficult to pinpoint examples of Spike clearly discerning the difference between right and wrong in S7, partly because some examples conflate gained empathy and gained morality (such as his admissions in “Never Leave Me”) and partly because as a souled being Spike doesn’t demonstrate the moral quandaries he faces in S6 (such as in “Smashed”). In S7 he inherently recognizes and does the right thing. I am confident that souled!Spike would never have tied up and threatened Buffy as he did in “Crush.”
Ability to resist vampiric instincts: As a Spuffy fan, this aspect of the soul is most important to me as it is Spike’s downfall in “Seeing Red.” The AR is not a result of lack of empathy or the inability to discern right from wrong but Spike’s failure to control himself. Since rape is unfortunately a human crime rather than a vampire depravity, it’s not right to chalk the AR all up the fact that Spike is a vampire. However, vampires are more prone to violence; they can’t control impulses the same way a souled being might. Examples of soulless!Spike losing control and giving into particularly violent, psychotic impulses include:
-Staking Harmony in “The Harsh Light of Day”
-Attacking the Buffy dummy in “Triangle”
-Kidnapping and threatening Buffy in “Crush’
And there are examples of souled!Spike being able to restrain his violent instincts:
-Not killing Wood in “Lies My Parents Told Me”
-Stopping the fight with Faith in “Touched”
Spike’s soul doesn’t erase his violent instincts or his love of a good brawl; instead it gives him the maturity/patience/self-control/call-it-what-you-want to temper and resist certain impulses; the soul increases his inhibitions. With his soul, Spike would never give into a violent impulse to force himself on Buffy. Whether or not he would ever feel such an instinct is a different matter and not one on which I care to opine, but even if he did, he would never act on it.
As I said, this aspect of the soul trifecta is most important to me because my favorite vampire is Spike and this is the aspect he lacks most without his soul. Soulless!Spike can functionally empathize and differentiate between right and wrong, but he can’t always control himself. If Angel were my favorite, though, the empathy aspect would probably be most important to me. Angelus knows the difference between right and wrong and from all his speechifying in S2 about destroying Buffy rather than simply killing her, he is able to resist his impulses; the aspect that makes Angel Angel instead of Angelus is empathy.
So how does my interpretation of the soul affect Spike’s arc? Going back to the (probably dumbed down) main issues:
a) If Spike can be good without a soul then he is more responsible for his crimes than Angel is for Angelus’s and is extra evil.
This argument doesn’t even make sense to me, and since this is a Spike hater comment and to my knowledge no Spike haters read my journal (don’t know if any Spike lovers are reading this either given how long it’s gotten), I’ll keep this brief:
-Spike’s ability to do good without a soul does not make him evil. It does not mean he should have known better for the first 120 years he was a vampire. It does not make him worse than Angel. It means he has evolved. Being able to be good is good. Not extra evil. Duh.
b) If Spike can be good without a soul, his redemption in S7 is invalidated.
False. We already know that Spike can be good without a soul. We saw plenty of examples in S5 and S6, and if choosing to fight for a soul to be a better person isn’t an example of goodness, I don’t know what is.
Spike’s S7 redemption would only be invalidated if S7 had been the beginning of his ‘goodness.’ However, S7 is only a continuation of an evolution that began in S5. The soul represents a different kind of goodness. Spike was good in S5 and S6 mainly because he loved Buffy and wanted to make her happy and/or, depending on your level of cynicism, get in her pants (I say ‘mainly’ because he obviously is good for Dawn’s sake as well when Buffy is dead). S7 and the soul are about being good for good’s sake; it’s about redemption; it’s about doing the right thing; and yes, it’s about getting back into Buffy’s good graces.
Spike’s S7 arc is hugely important because it’s a different, more selfless kind of goodness and because of what it means for Spuffy. His redemption in S7 is also for a very specific crime- the AR. Losing his soul in Spike #6 does not invalidate his journey because we saw that he could be good before his soul. We also know what he gained with his soul- impulse control. He doesn’t lose his empathy and moral compass in #6 but quite possibly he does lose that self-control. It’s also possible that having had his soul has improved said control and widened his moral compass beyond what-makes-Buffy-and-Dawn-happy, in which case his S7 arc becomes even more crucial and puts a post-NFA soulless!Spike one more step up the evolutionary ladder of goodness.
Lastly, even if you think the soul was unnecessary for Spike’s goodness, it is absolutely crucial for Spuffy. I don’t see how Spuffy could have happened after the AR if Spike hadn’t gotten his soul, and frankly, I would be offended if it had. Even if comics!soulless!Spike turns out to have empathy, an infallible moral compass, and learned impulse control, there is absolutely no way it invalidates Spike’s S7 arc because after the AR Spuffy couldn’t have been possible without the soul.
Just as being good without his soul post-NFA doesn’t invalidate S7, S7 also doesn’t invalidate his ability to be good in S5 and S6. Again, it’s a different kind of good.
Soulless!Spike is good in terms of being able to empathize and judge right from wrong.
Souled!Spike is good in terms of being able to empathize, judge right from wrong, and control his violent impulses.
Having a soul allows Spike to recognize more opportunities for doing good, and it keeps him from screwing up situations that his vampiric instincts might otherwise derail. Not having a soul makes it more difficult to be good and limits the scope of what he accomplishes, but it does not preclude him from being good.
I understand why fans who champion Spike’s soulless goodness get frustrated by S7 for how inflexibly the arc hinges on the soul. I believe this really is a product of the situation rather than the mythology, though. S7 is under the shadow of the AR, and that was the result of the one aspect of the soul that Spike lacked- impulse control. Ideally the show would have eventually explored what a soul meant and what aspects of it Spike already acted upon in S6; perhaps the comics are a chance to rectify that wasted potential.
In conclusion, if you assume that a soul equals empathy, increased ability to discern right from wrong, and impulse control, Spike’s ability to be good isn’t an either/or situation. Rather, his souled and unsouled states have a different mix of attributes that elevate him to different levels of goodness. Though fans may naturally prefer him one way or another, his goodness in one state does not invalidate his goodness in another state. The soul is yet one more stage in an evolution that began in S5, and I for one look forward to seeing how having had and lost the soul will affect his future evolution in the forthcoming comics.
A brief background on the commotion, as I understand it from moscow_watcher ’s excellent post: A villain steals Spike’s soul, and Spike’s reaction is:
"Before it was official. Before the goddamned voodoo. I was GOOD. That glowy ball. That thing you've had a hard-on to tear from me? Hang it on your wall. Bronze it. I don't need it."
Spike then gives his soul to Drusilla to stop her from killing one of his friends, as all other physical or magical means of stopping her are exhausted by that point. Apparently the S8 writers have stated unequivocally that Spike has his soul in the last arc, which means he somehow gets it back in the last two issues of IDW’s Spike arc.
Spike’s decision and ability to be good without his soul have not only excited Spike haters but also divided Spike lovers through several arguments:
a) If Spike can be good without a soul then he is more responsible for his crimes than Angel is for Angelus’s and is extra evil.
b) If Spike can be good without a soul, his redemption in S7 is invalidated.
I don’t believe either of these viewpoints, but as a Spuffy fan, it’s the second one that most saddens me because it seems like Spike’s soul has become a (very unnecessary) dividing line in the sand. I don’t think Spike losing his soul invalidates his redemption. I also don’t think that Spike’s S7 souled redemption arc invalidates his ability to be good unsouled. I’ve been confused in the past about why some people regard it as an either/or situation, and I’ve come to conclusion that it must depend on your personal definition of what a soul means in the Buffyverse.
The writers never cohesively nor consistently defined what a soul means, so I understand that canon supports many different interpretations of the soul, some of which probably would invalidate one character arc or another. I choose to base my interpretation of the soul on Spike and other vampires’ actions, rather than on the various verbal definitions that Buffy, Angel, and the Council provide. Even though I use statement language in the following essay rather than ‘I feel’ or ‘I think,’ I am not trying to convince anyone of what the ‘right’ definition of a soul is. I am going to explain my interpretation of the soul and why I don’t think it invalidates any character arcs.
What a soul means to me:
a) (Increased) Ability to empathize
b) Increased ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Note here that the ‘increased’ is not in parentheses as it is above.
c) Patience/maturity/impulse-control/willpower/insert-vaguely-synonmyous-word here to resist vampiric instincts
Empathy: According to Dictionary.com, empathy is the “intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” I’m going to dumb this down a bit and say that empathy is the ability to feel compassion and thus remorse; to understand why something is wrong as opposed to simply knowing it’s wrong. Here are some examples of where I see empathy missing or at work while Spike is soulless:
Missing:
-Thinking that starving African children are funny in “Pangs”
-Not understanding why Buffy thinking she killed Katrina would tear her up inside in “Dead Things”
At work:
-Comforting Buffy in “Fool for Love”
-Knowing and caring how much Dawn’s death would hurt Buffy in “Intervention”
-Taking care of Dawn while Buffy is dead
-Understanding how to care for Drusilla when she is having a crazy spell
Clearly Spike is capable of feeling empathy even without his soul. Arguably, other vampires are, too, though I don’t think the lines between empathy and self-interest are as distinct (Harmony trying to be Cordelia’s friend in “Disharmony”; Holden talking to Buffy in “Conversations with Dead People”). The soul increases Spike’s ability to empathize with two important results:
a) He feels guilt for his crimes, as evidenced in “Beneath You,” “Never Leave Me,” “Damage,” etc.
b) He feels compassion for people other than those he loves. Most of Spike’s soulless empathy is directed toward Buffy, Drusilla, and Dawn, the women he loves. Souled, he eventually cares for friends (Fred; Gunn in “Underneath”; Harmony in “In Harm’s Way”) and for humanity overall (unwilling to infect thousands for Fred’s sake in “Shells”).
Spike is empathetic without a soul, but a soul clearly increases his understanding of and caring for others. Souled!Spike would understand why Buffy’s heroism wouldn’t excuse her murder of Katrina, just as he finally understands in “Never Leave Me” how she was using him and why it hurt her.
Increased Ability to Discern Right From Wrong: Unlike empathy, which some vampires don’t possess at all (ex: Angelus), every vampire can differentiate between right and wrong to some degree. If you can’t differentiate, you’re not evil. For example, a shark killing a human is not evil; it is fulfilling a natural instinct to feed. Arguably, vampires are fulfilling the same instinct and cannot tell the difference either. However, the vampires that aren’t red shirts all* exhibit signs of knowing the difference:
-Spike knows that trying to rape Buffy was wrong
-Angelus delights in committing evil acts
-Darla actively seeks to turn Angel back into Angelus
-Harmony knows not to kill Cordelia in “Disharmony” and understands that she has betrayed Angel in “Not Fade Away”
*Dru is tricky because she’s so rarely lucid; I don’t know how to separate her insanity from her morality.
Based on our vampire leads and the fact that enough red shirts seem gleeful about killing, I’m willing to extrapolate that all vampires know a little bit about the difference between right and wrong. They might not be able to understand why, say, eating kittens is wrong, but they know that killing humans is wrong on a fundamental level. The degree to how much they can discern between morality and immorality varies, and the problem is, of course, that even if they know they usually don’t care (which is where empathy comes in above).
Spike undergoes enormous personal growth in S5 and S6 without his soul and definitely develops a more nuanced view of right and wrong while leashed by the chip. He expresses shame for creating the robot in “Intervention” when Buffy calls it disgusting, indicating he knew it was wrong; he has to talk himself into trying to attack the woman in “Smashed”; most importantly, he realizes immediately that what he did in the bathroom was attempted rape and it was as wrong as wrong could be.
However, there are also examples that show the limits of unsouled Spike’s evolution. It’s not that he doesn’t care- it’s that he literally can’t understand why something is wrong and it would offend an ensouled person. I’ve already mentioned one glaring example, his inability to understand why fully exonerating Buffy’s “murder” of Katrina is wrong. The other biggie is his behavior in “Crush.” Spike shows no sign of understanding just how awful his treatment of Buffy is; he honestly thinks that physical force and coercion are valid and viable ways of forming relationships (in this respect “Crush” both echoes “Lovers Walk” and foreshadows “Seeing Red”). Considering that “Dead Things” occurs far into S6, it’s safe to say that Spike does not attain a perfect moral compass as a soulless being, even withstanding his recognition that the AR was wrong.
It’s difficult to pinpoint examples of Spike clearly discerning the difference between right and wrong in S7, partly because some examples conflate gained empathy and gained morality (such as his admissions in “Never Leave Me”) and partly because as a souled being Spike doesn’t demonstrate the moral quandaries he faces in S6 (such as in “Smashed”). In S7 he inherently recognizes and does the right thing. I am confident that souled!Spike would never have tied up and threatened Buffy as he did in “Crush.”
Ability to resist vampiric instincts: As a Spuffy fan, this aspect of the soul is most important to me as it is Spike’s downfall in “Seeing Red.” The AR is not a result of lack of empathy or the inability to discern right from wrong but Spike’s failure to control himself. Since rape is unfortunately a human crime rather than a vampire depravity, it’s not right to chalk the AR all up the fact that Spike is a vampire. However, vampires are more prone to violence; they can’t control impulses the same way a souled being might. Examples of soulless!Spike losing control and giving into particularly violent, psychotic impulses include:
-Staking Harmony in “The Harsh Light of Day”
-Attacking the Buffy dummy in “Triangle”
-Kidnapping and threatening Buffy in “Crush’
And there are examples of souled!Spike being able to restrain his violent instincts:
-Not killing Wood in “Lies My Parents Told Me”
-Stopping the fight with Faith in “Touched”
Spike’s soul doesn’t erase his violent instincts or his love of a good brawl; instead it gives him the maturity/patience/self-control/call-it-what-you-want to temper and resist certain impulses; the soul increases his inhibitions. With his soul, Spike would never give into a violent impulse to force himself on Buffy. Whether or not he would ever feel such an instinct is a different matter and not one on which I care to opine, but even if he did, he would never act on it.
As I said, this aspect of the soul trifecta is most important to me because my favorite vampire is Spike and this is the aspect he lacks most without his soul. Soulless!Spike can functionally empathize and differentiate between right and wrong, but he can’t always control himself. If Angel were my favorite, though, the empathy aspect would probably be most important to me. Angelus knows the difference between right and wrong and from all his speechifying in S2 about destroying Buffy rather than simply killing her, he is able to resist his impulses; the aspect that makes Angel Angel instead of Angelus is empathy.
So how does my interpretation of the soul affect Spike’s arc? Going back to the (probably dumbed down) main issues:
a) If Spike can be good without a soul then he is more responsible for his crimes than Angel is for Angelus’s and is extra evil.
This argument doesn’t even make sense to me, and since this is a Spike hater comment and to my knowledge no Spike haters read my journal (don’t know if any Spike lovers are reading this either given how long it’s gotten), I’ll keep this brief:
-Spike’s ability to do good without a soul does not make him evil. It does not mean he should have known better for the first 120 years he was a vampire. It does not make him worse than Angel. It means he has evolved. Being able to be good is good. Not extra evil. Duh.
b) If Spike can be good without a soul, his redemption in S7 is invalidated.
False. We already know that Spike can be good without a soul. We saw plenty of examples in S5 and S6, and if choosing to fight for a soul to be a better person isn’t an example of goodness, I don’t know what is.
Spike’s S7 redemption would only be invalidated if S7 had been the beginning of his ‘goodness.’ However, S7 is only a continuation of an evolution that began in S5. The soul represents a different kind of goodness. Spike was good in S5 and S6 mainly because he loved Buffy and wanted to make her happy and/or, depending on your level of cynicism, get in her pants (I say ‘mainly’ because he obviously is good for Dawn’s sake as well when Buffy is dead). S7 and the soul are about being good for good’s sake; it’s about redemption; it’s about doing the right thing; and yes, it’s about getting back into Buffy’s good graces.
Spike’s S7 arc is hugely important because it’s a different, more selfless kind of goodness and because of what it means for Spuffy. His redemption in S7 is also for a very specific crime- the AR. Losing his soul in Spike #6 does not invalidate his journey because we saw that he could be good before his soul. We also know what he gained with his soul- impulse control. He doesn’t lose his empathy and moral compass in #6 but quite possibly he does lose that self-control. It’s also possible that having had his soul has improved said control and widened his moral compass beyond what-makes-Buffy-and-Dawn-happy, in which case his S7 arc becomes even more crucial and puts a post-NFA soulless!Spike one more step up the evolutionary ladder of goodness.
Lastly, even if you think the soul was unnecessary for Spike’s goodness, it is absolutely crucial for Spuffy. I don’t see how Spuffy could have happened after the AR if Spike hadn’t gotten his soul, and frankly, I would be offended if it had. Even if comics!soulless!Spike turns out to have empathy, an infallible moral compass, and learned impulse control, there is absolutely no way it invalidates Spike’s S7 arc because after the AR Spuffy couldn’t have been possible without the soul.
Just as being good without his soul post-NFA doesn’t invalidate S7, S7 also doesn’t invalidate his ability to be good in S5 and S6. Again, it’s a different kind of good.
Soulless!Spike is good in terms of being able to empathize and judge right from wrong.
Souled!Spike is good in terms of being able to empathize, judge right from wrong, and control his violent impulses.
Having a soul allows Spike to recognize more opportunities for doing good, and it keeps him from screwing up situations that his vampiric instincts might otherwise derail. Not having a soul makes it more difficult to be good and limits the scope of what he accomplishes, but it does not preclude him from being good.
I understand why fans who champion Spike’s soulless goodness get frustrated by S7 for how inflexibly the arc hinges on the soul. I believe this really is a product of the situation rather than the mythology, though. S7 is under the shadow of the AR, and that was the result of the one aspect of the soul that Spike lacked- impulse control. Ideally the show would have eventually explored what a soul meant and what aspects of it Spike already acted upon in S6; perhaps the comics are a chance to rectify that wasted potential.
In conclusion, if you assume that a soul equals empathy, increased ability to discern right from wrong, and impulse control, Spike’s ability to be good isn’t an either/or situation. Rather, his souled and unsouled states have a different mix of attributes that elevate him to different levels of goodness. Though fans may naturally prefer him one way or another, his goodness in one state does not invalidate his goodness in another state. The soul is yet one more stage in an evolution that began in S5, and I for one look forward to seeing how having had and lost the soul will affect his future evolution in the forthcoming comics.