Ethics of soul ownership
Feb. 3rd, 2010 03:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYou know, I tried to go to sleep, then there was some thumping and swearing I paid no never mind to, because, usual, but then there were police type noises and I had to get up and check, and yes, indeed, one my neighbours called police again for cause (I think to do with a door? They were being quiet and discreet but you can hear everything around here.) And now I'm not sleepy. So.
I was thinking about the ethics of owning souls. In Angel there were a bunch of times people sold their soul, and that never ended well, but the buying side remained an NPC gig. Demons want souls, including demon lawyers, and they'll give you what you think you want for swaps. But is it only bad guys who get into that? Do the good guys effectively own souls? Are the Powers that Be powered by recruiting, and is that analogous to the ownership the other dudes use? No answers in Angel, but interesting conundrum. Is there ever a good way to own someone?
... and phrased like that there isn't, but, well, in a 'verse where people can sell their souls to some really bad guys, if you start out with people who have already sold in bad deals, how about if you could buy them back? Not in a one for one soul swap because bad idea. But if you could pay for their truck or buy their employment contract for money or resources. Gunn and Lilah and Lindsey and by the end of season five Wesley and all the rest. If you could buy them back... is there ever a good way?
Or would the only way to be to buy them free? Give them back to themselves straight away?
There's a little niggly voice that says "but then they could go and sell it again". You know, that pesky free will thing, where they could choose to do the obviously wrong thing.
It's kind of like, if someone you know is an addict, and you could for certain sure get them clean, but then you'd own them... and have to keep on owning them to keep it true...
That one's still a free will issue, but addiction fraks with your free will too. So there's this even louder niggly voice. (And the practical thing where, no, it never actually works like that.)
And it still comes down to Free Will > everything else. Free Will is the important bit and the thing that makes it all mean something.
But there's stories to spin where it's neither simple nor obvious.
And then there's the flip side, the I'm not a saint side... if you could own your very own Lindsey or Wesley or...
... yeah, evil. Temptation. Reasons Dollhouse makes me feel like a creep, because I can so understand the customers.
Reasons I can understand the Master, just a little, because clearly were I in charge it would work so much better.
... I still don't get the killing people thing. I mean if it means they're bound to your hell dimension or your undead army, yeah, there's some logic there, albeit creepy. But when he's trying to be the boss of everyone and then he starts killing them? That's like getting an all time high score and then just throwing ten percent of it out for the LOLs. I don't get it.
Um, also, it's evil. I get that. It's just, it's not a form of evil I can even see working within his own priorities. Unless killing people messy is in fact his priority. Which would be depressing.
There's rules in GURPS Religion about playing gods. iirc It's pretty close to the usual magic system, actually, where spells are powered by fatigue and other people can donate some fatigue. So if you have a whole hell of a lot of other people, coven, congregation, Catholic church, you have a whole lot of spell power to throw around.
The demon way with signing up souls means someone handing over for once and all all of their power in exchange for some one thing that seemed like a good idea at the time.
The good guy way would leave free will involved, so taking part in a ritual would be a conscious choice to donate, each and every time.
Big difference.
Under those rules BTW setting yourself up as a god is kind of like getting votes. Which has nifty cool potential.
Or there's the computer hacker Matrix analogy, where programs need people to run in, but you could either ask nicely first, or only set up in your own head, or hack other people's heads and drain them without their permission. Zombie botnets with bodies. Would be bad, and definitely different from just rubbish working conditions jobs.
The idea of putting a few limits on someone for their own good is everso everso tempting, and sometimes it has to be necessary. Danger to themselves and others times. Putting the soul owning metaphor in there or using the Blakes 7 drugs and reprogramming bit or going the Matrix route of full on code wars is just different ways of looking at it. Freedom versus... safety, power, desire.
Not being evil has some big clear definites, but it has some tempting dodgy grey bits too.
Which would be where the story lives.
I was thinking about the ethics of owning souls. In Angel there were a bunch of times people sold their soul, and that never ended well, but the buying side remained an NPC gig. Demons want souls, including demon lawyers, and they'll give you what you think you want for swaps. But is it only bad guys who get into that? Do the good guys effectively own souls? Are the Powers that Be powered by recruiting, and is that analogous to the ownership the other dudes use? No answers in Angel, but interesting conundrum. Is there ever a good way to own someone?
... and phrased like that there isn't, but, well, in a 'verse where people can sell their souls to some really bad guys, if you start out with people who have already sold in bad deals, how about if you could buy them back? Not in a one for one soul swap because bad idea. But if you could pay for their truck or buy their employment contract for money or resources. Gunn and Lilah and Lindsey and by the end of season five Wesley and all the rest. If you could buy them back... is there ever a good way?
Or would the only way to be to buy them free? Give them back to themselves straight away?
There's a little niggly voice that says "but then they could go and sell it again". You know, that pesky free will thing, where they could choose to do the obviously wrong thing.
It's kind of like, if someone you know is an addict, and you could for certain sure get them clean, but then you'd own them... and have to keep on owning them to keep it true...
That one's still a free will issue, but addiction fraks with your free will too. So there's this even louder niggly voice. (And the practical thing where, no, it never actually works like that.)
And it still comes down to Free Will > everything else. Free Will is the important bit and the thing that makes it all mean something.
But there's stories to spin where it's neither simple nor obvious.
And then there's the flip side, the I'm not a saint side... if you could own your very own Lindsey or Wesley or...
... yeah, evil. Temptation. Reasons Dollhouse makes me feel like a creep, because I can so understand the customers.
Reasons I can understand the Master, just a little, because clearly were I in charge it would work so much better.
... I still don't get the killing people thing. I mean if it means they're bound to your hell dimension or your undead army, yeah, there's some logic there, albeit creepy. But when he's trying to be the boss of everyone and then he starts killing them? That's like getting an all time high score and then just throwing ten percent of it out for the LOLs. I don't get it.
Um, also, it's evil. I get that. It's just, it's not a form of evil I can even see working within his own priorities. Unless killing people messy is in fact his priority. Which would be depressing.
There's rules in GURPS Religion about playing gods. iirc It's pretty close to the usual magic system, actually, where spells are powered by fatigue and other people can donate some fatigue. So if you have a whole hell of a lot of other people, coven, congregation, Catholic church, you have a whole lot of spell power to throw around.
The demon way with signing up souls means someone handing over for once and all all of their power in exchange for some one thing that seemed like a good idea at the time.
The good guy way would leave free will involved, so taking part in a ritual would be a conscious choice to donate, each and every time.
Big difference.
Under those rules BTW setting yourself up as a god is kind of like getting votes. Which has nifty cool potential.
Or there's the computer hacker Matrix analogy, where programs need people to run in, but you could either ask nicely first, or only set up in your own head, or hack other people's heads and drain them without their permission. Zombie botnets with bodies. Would be bad, and definitely different from just rubbish working conditions jobs.
The idea of putting a few limits on someone for their own good is everso everso tempting, and sometimes it has to be necessary. Danger to themselves and others times. Putting the soul owning metaphor in there or using the Blakes 7 drugs and reprogramming bit or going the Matrix route of full on code wars is just different ways of looking at it. Freedom versus... safety, power, desire.
Not being evil has some big clear definites, but it has some tempting dodgy grey bits too.
Which would be where the story lives.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 04:22 am (UTC)Seriously, I like reading your musings, be. They make me look at things in new and interesting ways.
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Date: 2010-02-03 03:44 pm (UTC)I like having musings, so that works out :-)
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Date: 2010-02-03 03:54 pm (UTC)I was thinking more of that - moms have to make those decisions all the time. Being responsible for others is a lot of work. *eyeroll*
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Date: 2010-02-04 08:15 am (UTC)*sends cookies*
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Date: 2010-02-03 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 10:29 am (UTC)That's because you aren't evil :D
We don't really know what the Master was trying to do but he didn't seem to have much direct use for humans other than his immediate staff and the few slaves he needed for his missiles, so he wasn't losing anything by killing some. His main enjoyment seemed to be in proving that he could do anything he wanted, and one of the biggest proofs was that he had absolute power over people including the ability to kill them. He was a boy squashing flies - they were there and he could, so he did. That's what makes him evil rather than just amoral.
I think the reason we don't see much about soul purchase from the purchaser's POV is because the metaphor doesn't work as strongly from that side. 'Selling your soul' normally means sacrificing your ethical values for material gain. 'Buying a soul' just means bribing someone to do what you want and that is a fairly boring exchange from that angle - they either will or they won't. It also has all the connotations of grubby meanness that go with bribery, and the implication that actually the briber isn't all that powerful after all since if they had real power they could coerce and command rather than having to bribe.
Are you watching Being Human? Mitchell's current storyline could be said to be about seeing soul purchase from the other side of the coin since he is having to bribe various officials to get done what needs to be done.