The other night on CSI, Gus Grissom ended the show with a very interesting line. . .

"A moral compass can only show you the way.  It can't make you go there."

I thought that was a wonderful thought and wondered how come no one on BtVS or AtS ever thought of that. . .  and also -- why they thought souls were the be all and end all of morality or ethics was beyond me.  And I know I'm not the only one to think so.  . but I wondered just how many of us didn't buy the whole lie Angel perpetuated throughout the show. . . .

Yes I completely don't buy what Angel said.  I don't buy that Angel and Angelus are two different beings.  When Spike got a soul, if he'd lost it he wouldn't have gone all Spikelus on us.  I find it odd that for all Angel's pontificating about the importance of a soul that no one else questioned the source.  HELLO of course Angel wants to separate himself from his actions as Angelus.  DUHUH.

I don't think souls in the buffyverse are all that important. (I say in the buffyverse, because in reality a soul is believed to be the immaterial part of you that survives death, for those who believe in an afterlife...not a conscience.  A conscience isn't a soul...but somehow on Buffy and well, in the vampire mythology in general souls are touted as the same thing as a conscience.)

But taking the soul argument...i.e. in the buffyverse humans have souls and are therefore good, demons don't and are therefore evil.  Well serial killers are human, they have souls (I think even Dawn brought this up in season seven.), And Clem was a demon, so he shouldn't have had a soul, but other than the kitten poker, he wasn't hurting anything.  (and many of us eat meat too, we shouldn't get all upset just cause kittens are cute.)

Also, not every vampire that gets turned in the buffyverse is gonna rape and pillage, torture, and try to destroy the world.  Many of them will just feed.  Because that's what they eat.  Vampires aren't humans and sorry but I dont' think "eating dinner" is evil.  I think people just don't like the concept that they aren't at the top of the food chain anymore.  Very few of us believes we are evil because we eat hamburgers. (having said that...if I decide to eat a steak, but torture the poor cow first, then I'm evil.  But just eating a cow? not so much.)

I think the soul thing was completely blown up and overrated, and I also think that Buffy the character didn't have THAT big of an issue with souls (considering that she understood what she was becoming even with one, knew what willow had done, and what other of her friends had done with souls, and she liked clem just fine.)  I'm thinking the REAL people with the soul hangup were the writers.  Although they weren't super consistent in applying it across the board.

Something else I'd like to address though is the concept that the person is gone once they are turned into a vampire, the person is gone and the demon sets up shop in an empty shell.  It has access to memories, walks and talks like the person, but isn't the person...AT ALL.

Really?  Then how come when Cordelia got elevated and became part demon, she was still Cordelia?  Nobody thought that was just a cordelia shaped Shell. (I know it's from Angel not Buffy, but it's the same universe. So the rules should be the same for both shows.)  

Anyway I'm not buying that crap either.  Just like Angel almost let slip in season three...The vampire is influenced by the person. (which is another argument against the dead shell theorum.  How can the person in any way influence if it's just a body and nothing more?) Angel was a whoring layabout as a human, and was that much more evil as a vampire.

Spike was a poet, and was a much less horrific vampire.  Willow as a vampire was really evil and "kinda gay" ;)  and season six willow very closely mirrored that.  (which that's a whole other can of worms for me.  Willow was not a lesbian, she was a bisexual.  Your sexuality doesn't DEVELOP for the first time that late.  She was physically attracted to boys and later discovered she was ALSO physically attracted to women.)

The vampire Buffy had the conversation with before slaying him, still had so much of his personality from when he was a psych major.  He even, as an evil vampire, helped her to figure out some stuff about her relationship issues.

Buffy was a vampire for a brief period of time in "Nightmares" and she was still very much Buffy.

Harmony became a vampire and completely sucked at being evil.  She still liked her unicorns and girly clothes and stuff.

With the vampires of the Buffyverse, what we are dealing with is a heightening of the original personality as well as a new sense of power and an ability to do whatever you want without consequences or guilt. (which comes to a question of humanity...how much of our guilt is about real guilt and how much is about fear of getting caught or consequences?  Even if the consequence is something more abstract like 'hell' or the person we've wronged will find out and do something about it.)

Sorry that was long and rambly and about a million different tangents.

All very good thoughts, though, ZG.

Yeah, the show people really had a warped view about souls....and the double standards were such crap! Being an atheist, though, I bet Joss never put much thought into the subject until they started writing the character of Angel. Because the idea of a "soul" is worthless to someone who doesn't believe in some kind of afterlife. Just say "conscience", if you want to refer to human moralities.

When you go to the writer's panels to hear talks, you can really get a sense that a lot of the work they did was in a bubble, you know? Like - all of us fans could see the dumb-ass part of what the show was doing/saying, but they were too close, too wrapped up in it to see that. They really do get confused sometimes by how most of us ended up seeing things. Which, if I was doing that job, I would definitely try to be aware of in the future...to look at my writing from a 3rd party view and see how I'm being perceived.

Perception is in the eye of the beholder, or beer holder....LOL.

As for Willow, I'd even go so far as to say she was attracted to certain personalities, not even the gender. I think she would have fallen for a male Tara, too. Kennedy we won't discuss cuz that was just rebound. Gack!

I probably had more...but I got disrupted while i was thinking, so I'll have to come back to this later.

Caro Mio

I don't think they realized, in the beginning what a phenom the BtVS world would become.  After all, the movie had tanked and there wasn't much buzz, industry-wise about the show. 

That being said, someone should have been paying attention to the whole soul v. non-soul argument Joss started, and obviously couldn't properly finish.

There is much irony in the show, when in season 5, Willow, Tara and Buffy are discussing The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the comments range from "he lacked a moral compass, so how could he really love" or some such to "when the hero is all bumpy it can't have a happy ending", when the truth of the matter was, only two of the participants in that scene had a moral compass.

Willow, while totally souled, lacked anything resembling a moral compass.  She was selfishly motivated and never thought out the consequences of her actions.  She lacked empathy, kindness and consideration of those around her and reacted like a chastised five year old whenever she didn't get what she wanted.  The fiasco of every single one of her magical acts -- save the last one -- could be explained by her piss-poor planning and lack of proper intentions.  Every spell she cast, save the one to form the Slayer army, was done to make things better or easier for her.  Something Blue was a wonderful case in point -- she wanted everything to be done with, to feel no more pain -- regardless of the price others paid for her request.

Her actions, in season 6 are even more horrible. No doubt, though the show doesn't portray it, no doubt the other three relied upon Willow to do the brunt of the research and find out where exactly they were pulling Buffy from and what rituals they were using -- and she either didn't bother to tell them or just didn't care.  Nor did she care about her girlfriend -- the one she was supposed to love -- because she raped her mind.  Played on her trust and stomped it into the ground.  Those are not the actions of a person with a moral compass.

And in the earlier seasons, the seeds were already there -- in season 1, when she unleashes Morlock was the earliest example.  And her use of black magic in season 2 while not at her strongest physically, was just inviting trouble.  She'd already been told not to make a second attempt and she went ahead and did it anyway. 

I was thinking the same thing watching CSI, nummy Grissom. Ok but back to topic. The whole soul issue always bugged me, I'm not going to go on a rant since Zoe covered it all,lol. But Angel was Angelus. Liam (sp?) was a drunk, womanizing man whore, who stole from his father. I mean little was left in his life but turning to petty crime and raping women. So after being turned he only became what he would have become later in life anyway, and the soul, please, only got it as a curse. So for them to try and feed us that the soul makes a person how come he was so quike to jump back in bed with Darla when she was brought back and you know he wanted to jump Dru when she and Spike blew into town. The soul didn't stop him from having Darla.

Xander had a soul, and he was a flat out one sided bigot when it came to anything about demons. Willow, well we know her.

No one ever made mention of Spike, he fought for his soul went out and got it. He got Buffy what he felt she desereved. That took balls, for a vampire to turn his back on everything he is and to get the one thing that was taken from him upon creation, says alot about himself. I know that really burned Angel in teh end, that Spike got his soul not only for Buffy but for himself. Whereas Angel had hsi soul forced upon him. And it wasn't even the correct soul, just some soul floating in ether.

We have some truly sick ppl in the world which I'm quite sure still have their souls. So even though I understadn the Buffyverse was only fiction, it still mirrored RL and therefore should have made it clear that a soul dosn't mean anything. When they wrote Spike they should have remembered that.

JM stated once in an interview that he'd almost wished he hadn't played Spike so well, so human, because it left him almost no place to go when he'd gotten the soul.

Well I'm glad he did. I still would have liked Spike if he was more evil, but I think he became love-able due to what JM put into him. So I'll give him a cookie.

hehe niamh...but I think that's good...because it showed that spike didn't really NEED the soul.  Souled vs. unsouled spike isn't really all that different...a little more crazy in the basement, a little more guilt...not much different overall.

I didn't particularly care for souled spike...not because the character was all that much different, but because I felt like Spike didn't really need the soul, and going and getting on, gave Buffy permission to not treat him well until then.  It was like she was absolved of all the horrible things she'd done to him before he had the soul.

And I hated that.  I hated that she could just get away with all her bad behavior like that.  And that suddenly, now that Spike has a soul, it's different.  Now she can show him some small amount of regard.  She didn't grow or become a better person, she was allowed to get away with her previous behavior without ever having to truly take responsibility for it or understand how wrong it was.

I've never written a souled Spike and probably never will.  He doesn't need the soul and most of the time I prefer him without the chip as well.  He can be the man she needs without the soul, and possibly without the chip because he isn't Angel.

Yeah, that's why I like seeing post-Chosen/NFA Spike really put Buffy to task for her previous treatment of him...clear the air so she knows he's not going to take any of that crap, and get her to admit everything. I'd love to see them have a conversation where they say out loud that in hindsight, his soul wasn't necessary....Spike to realize he wasn't worthless without one, and Buffy to realize that he could be a great guy for her because love is his guide.

Angel has Liam's soul. It was clearly stated in "City Of..." by Doyle that he was cursed with <i>his own soul</i>. I had been wondering if it had been deliberately stated in canon, and the WB aired that ep., clearing it up for me. (Don't have the DVDs)

I have a Spike/OC series where he's never needed to get the soul. Written one souled Spike fic, and am working on another....I like jumping off from canon, so if he has a soul in the time I got the idea in, then so be it. And another fic where he's gonna be pre-chip Spike, which I haven't tried, yet....should be an interesting experiment, LOL!

Caro Mio

Agree with most of what was said here, souls are crap and the "shell" thing was so stupid, I'll never understand how the writers didn't notice they were making themselves look silly.

Got something to say about the moral-compass we humans are supposed to have, though. We don't - have a moral-compass that is. At least not in the sense that we have it because we're human. That's something you have to learn. A child doesn't know stealing/taking from others is bad, or that you shouldn't just hurt someone because you feel like it. In different cultures the concepts of good and evil have different meaning, or why do you think the western nations have been trying to get the rest of the world to accept their human-rights code for decades now? And let's be honest, the reason we have those rules we like to think of a "morals" is not because we're such fantastic and selfless creatures. We have it because there are so many of us and without those rules it'd be damn near impossible to live with each other. Which is why over time society came up with more and more of those rules. In times past, there was nothing wrong with stealing from/hurting someone as long as that person didn't belong to your clan/social class/nation/... Only when the wrold started growing closer together did that start to cause problems and new rules had to be enforced.

And yes, I know that's a pretty bleak view of humanity I have there, but you know what? I don't care. I think not romaticising our background only makes how far we managed to come all the more impressive.

I've actually been waiting for someone to ask Buffy if she really thought kitten-poker was evil - and if so, when she was planning to travel to Asia and slay everyone there, seeing how they eat dogs (Well, not everyone, but you know what I mean.).

heh Caro Mio I usually write Pre-chip Spike.  I like him bad. ;)

As for Angel's soul...I don't know what specifically you are talking about as far as them specifying that it was his own soul he was cursed with (I don't recall them ever saying that.)  But it's practically become fanon that he was cursed with some random soul, and some have written that he was cursed with the soul of the gypsy whose life he took.  

There is a part of me that doesn't buy he was cursed with his own soul, but then again...he spent the better part of a century after he got the soul not doing any good whatsoever...he didn't start trying to atone until after he saw a 15 year old child sucking on a lollipop and decided he was in love with her heart. EWWW.  

You know there are people who think Spuffy is sick, because Spike was evil blah blah blah and used to kill people blah blah blah...but come ON...BANGEL? She was a CHILD.  Bangel is all kinds of nasty.

Actually, if he was cursed with his own soul, that explains why he was still a prick afterwards.

Angel was a pedophile.  There, I said it. 

I've been calling the poof a blood predatory pedophile for years.  And as I recall.... I may be wrong... but wasn't Liam (pre-angelus) chasing the INNOCENT girls in his hometown?

The whole idea seemed to come from Jesse- "It's not your friend you're seeing, it's the thing that killed him"- the main reason why Xander despises all vampires- especially those pre-soul. It was the only way for him to deal with killing his best friend.

Spike felt that he needed a soul to protect Buffy, and Buffy needed the soul to justify to herself and her friends that it was OK to be with Spike. And although there are definite differences between pre- and post-soul Spike, they are still the same person. You can recognise post-soul Spike as the one from before. And in Angel s5 (destiny), you can also see definite similarities between good human Spike, and bad-ass vampire Spike. They both share a somewhat poetic nature (believing Dru was his destiny), and it was only through his experiences that he turns really bad (as we see in s2 Buffy).

So maybe Angel's experiences without the soul changed him as a person- all the murder he did could damge the strongest of souls. But you can definitley see the likeness in Liam and Angelus- both b*stards really. While Spike wore his soul with much more ease- took at as a part of himself in under a year- wheras Angel took over one hundred years to deal with it, and even then manages to lose it damn quickly.

Besides, Spike never really saw himself as evil until he regained his soul- those truly evil only see power, and those without it, such as in Wolfram and Hart. They believe in power first, and the good v evil fight second.

And yes. Angel is a nonce(paeodophile).

Zoe, I was referring to the first episode of "Angel". Doyle is reciting Angel's story, and he puts clear emphasis on Angel being cursed with his own soul - Liam's. That's canon.

Caro Mio

Ah I see. I wonder if that was in response to fans thinking it wasn't his soul.  I just don't remember any specific emphasis on it being his specific soul.  I'll have to rewatch that ep.  

... OK I just looked at the transcript and it says he was cursed with his human soul.  I'm still on the fence about it though.  I mean while I CAN at times see echos of Liam in Angel.  I really have a hard time believing that Liam would give two craps about redemption.  Of course he didn't until he saw a 15 year old child and fell in love...so yeah...maybe it's all in keeping with Liam...and he didn't seem to work that hard to help buffy or really protect her.  He was all with the cryptic and showing up and mysteriously disappearing...as her protector, he fails time after time.  He didn't bother to find out anythign about his curse...blah blah blah.

So yeah OK I can buy that that was his soul. 

Had to talk yourself into that one?

So the human informs the vampire. . . .too bad Xander didn't see his vampire self in The Wish, because maybe then he would have gotten some sense. . . .  He's the type that needs to have it beaten into his thick head.  And I'm sorry all you Xander fans, but he totally lost any respect he might have gotten from me with two actions.  His attempted rape of Buffy in The Pack -- and his blatant discussion of things he knew nothing about -- spilling the beans to Dawn. 

Had to talk yourself into that one?

So the human informs the vampire. . . .too bad Xander didn't see his vampire self in The Wish, because maybe then he would have gotten some sense. . . .  He's the type that needs to have it beaten into his thick head.  And I'm sorry all you Xander fans, but he totally lost any respect he might have gotten from me with two actions.  His attempted rape of Buffy in The Pack -- and his blatant discussion of things he knew nothing about -- spilling the beans to Dawn. 

LOL Nia I agree on Xander,  the thing that started it for me though, besides the Pack episode,  was him lying to Buffy about the whole soul thing in Becoming 2 then having the balls to act like such a complete wanker when she came back from LA in the beginning of season three.  Basically Buffy had to live like he said caus brain dead Xander knows best. :P 

Yeah, well, she got different advise in the Originsverse. . .

Well if it's canon then I can't fight it, lol! But as for him beining a pedophile, you have to look at the times. back when he was alvive it was normal thata  girl was married off around the age of 12. So him chasing them so not a big thing, and him falling for Buffy, yes it may be sick but in reality girls at 15 date older men all the time. When I was in 6th grade my bgf at the time was dating this dude who wasa 29 and she was 13, so ewww, but it happens.

Angel/Angelus/Liam I do see how they are the same person, jsut different names. And that brings another thought to mind. If Angel was so different from Angelus, why change his name to Angel minus the ul? Why not a whole other name like John or Orlando? Just a thought *shrugs*

Originverse ROCKS!!!!! Ok, fangirl shrill for Nia, lol.

Of course you can fight it.  We change canon everyday by writing fanfic.  You can make it some random soul and not his original human soul if you want to.  Just like you can give Spike and Dru a different history or make the marriage spell not end. etc. etc. etc.  

I agree that it happens but it doesn't make it right.  a 13 year old dating a 29 year old is statutory rape.  And I'm quite sure the same holds true for a 15 or 16 year old dating a two hundred and forty something year old.  Plain and simple, Angel was a sick F*** who liked girls of an inappropriate age.  WAY inappropriate for his human age, and even more so for his vampire age.  It's gross and not OK no matter what "the times" used to be like.  It was gross back when it was normal.

 If souls are such a big deal and vampire's are simply shells with demons, then what about Lawson? (the sailor Angel turned during WWII) He said that he killed because that was what he was supposed to do. It seemed like he was stuck between worlds, not truely evil but not good either.

I think it is entirely possible that the writer's knew that the whole soul=good, no soul=evil thing was bogus, but the point was that BUFFY, especially young Buffy, did not, and the council (who knew better) made no effort to teach her differently. Otherwise, how could she have done her job? 

Same for Xander.  If he admits that Spike is still William, and can be a good man, then he murdered his friend Jesse.  That's where Xander's perpetual animosity and blindness come from.  

 I mean, if it were really a different person, why shouild Angel feel guilty about Angelus's actions?  That part of it never made sense to me. 

Also, there is a difference between being evil, and not knowing the difference between right and wrong.  Hence the insanity plea. Being evil like Angelus is a choice, not just following your nature.  Spike doesn't feel so badly about what he did before the soul, because as someone put it "he was just eating hamburgers." 

LadyY, do you think he kept his soul because a souled vampire turned him?

Good point.  It IS rather odd that Angel feels guilty for the actions of Angelus...If they are different people he shouldn't feel guilty because his body was simply hijacked.

Just like Buffy wouldn't feel guilty for the actions of Faith while in her body during the body swap.

*giggles* Ok, here is something that always surprises me. This whole thing started out with you guys saying how what the Buffyverse calls a soul is in truth nothing but a concidience, how it clearly has nothing to do with someones personality (see Harmony who didn't change at all despite loosing it) and how it really doesn't mean all that much.

Then you turn around and discuss whether Angel had Liam's soul or someone else's. Like what? A better soul? Didn't you just agree that the only thing that changed about him when he was cursed was that he grew a cocidience?

So what is it? Is a soul this huge thing that comes with its own personality, or does it merely make you feel bad if you do something bad?

Btw, my take on this is that a soul does neither. To me it is what makes you feel human, makes you consider other humans your equal. I think that explains Angel, Liam, Angelus and Spike very nicely. Liam may have been on his way to become a murderer and rapist, but he wasn't there yet; he was still just a bully revolting against his fathers rules. So when Angelus got the soul and had to look at his actions over the last century while considering the humans he killed his equal, not worthless food, he felt guilty. It's quite possible that would have been different if he had already been a crazed mass-murderer before he was turned... Spike on the other hand had already started to see humans as equals (at least some of them), so getting the stupid soul didn't make that much of a difference.

LMAO Dia...good point.  I can't speak for other people, but I speak for myself when I say...this argument over who's soul it is is based in the buffyverse mythology.  Like I acknowledge a soul isn't a conscience or even a personality...but at the same time, within the context of the buffyverse, that's what it seems to be.  So I'm arguing from the context of the buffyverse.

But seriously, this whole thread has just gotten me all kinds of confused on where I stand on the soul thing, and I just had to write another chapter of P&F that directly addressed the soul, lmao. gah!  

And your views on the soul on the show...VERY great points and very much helps to clarify a lot of things for me.  I wish the writers on the show had had the same grasp on it because then we wouldn't have had as much mistreatment of soulless spike because he was soulless.

"LadyY, do you think he kept his soul because a souled vampire turned him?"

ZoeGrace, I honestly do not know. In the context of the show it could be:

A: He kept his soul because Angel had his when he turn Lawson. This would then back the no soul equals evil and having a soul equals good. Lawson admitted to doing bad things because that was what vampires were supposed to do. It made me think that none of that would have happened had Angel kept the poor guy with him and taught him the he did not have to be evil. Lawson simply did not seem to know any better.

Or

B: It throws the whole souls is good and no soul is bad out the window. If Lawson did not have his soul then why did he not take pleasure in being evil? The killing and torture made him feel empty. He went to Angel as a confused and desperate man. He wanted answers and instead of getting them Angel killed him off. I really wish he could have been on the show longer.

In my opinion, a soul is our spiritual being. It is what leaves the body when it dies. It is a part of what makes us who we are. Does it give us a conscience? In my beliefs, no it doesn't. As people have pointed out that there are plenty of people with souls who are truly evil. We are all different and were raised differently. Some things we agree on and others we do not. This I believe defines how we perceive the world. The more we learn the more that view evolves. What we see as simple right and wrong as children changes the older we get.

This, however, falls under the nature versus nurture argument and while psychology and philosophy were interesting, I did not major in either of them. I can only state what I believe. Now I'll step away from the soap box and let someone else have it. =)

 The whole Angel feeling guilt thing was why I always assumed that it wasn't his soul, but now I guess I have to fall back to plan B,  and think that the curse itself was the reason.  Because honestly??  I always saw Angel as a wee bit to self involved to actualy regret anything he had done for long.

He doesn't.  Remember the whole "It wasn't me, it was Angelus" routine after getting back from hell...

Not to mention the way he treated people in AtS...

 Diabola wrote:

Btw, my take on this is that a soul does neither. To me it is what makes you feel human, makes you consider other humans your equal. I think that explains Angel, Liam, Angelus and Spike very nicely."

My perspective on what the "having a soul" is much the same - to me the issue of possession of Soul was the metaphor for "what does it mean to be human, what separates humans or allows humans to develop beyond the primal instincts and move on to a higher level of intellectual and spiritual powers." 

I also am an atheist and the moral questions and Good vs Evil theme in the Buffyverse was that surrounded the issue of Souls were questions about the
quality and attributes of humanity not of a supreme being but more of personal choice and creation of our own Good Man or Monster.

Pfeifferpack here...

I'll keep this short cause you have all said much of what I think.  A lot has to do with the definition of soul.  To me a soul is a life force (and therefore all living things have one, even animals....not a normal baptist here by any stretch!).  I don't think the writers/creators at ME thought through a lot of things that wound up onscreen.  Often Joss was said to have said things like, "just have some magic emvelope or something," like with making SPike corporeal again...Plot devices were used throughout without lots and lots of thought put into it.  The magic is that so much more came from the show than they even anticipated!

Take the whole losing the soul thing.  I have read that the whole idea was to do a metaphor of how sometimes you can go to bed with someone you love and wake up with a monster (the original bad boyfriend story).  But, they had to explain why Angel changed and the whole Perfect Happiness crapola was written....then it snowballed!  Why wasn't he happy when Connor was born?  Just what made it perfect happiness with Buffy?, etc.

The whole vampire mythology was done on the fly as they went along.  Spike and Dru had human traits left (even the Judge said it).  We also saw it in varying degrees elsewhere on both shows in characters like James and Elizabeth on Angel and Harmony for that matter.  Angelus and Darla appear more the exception than the rule.  Harmony had no soul ever as a vampire nor did she have a  chip but (because the ME casting people wanted her on Angel because they liked her and she was a cutie) they had her able to forgo human diet and the hunt/kill "instinct"!!!!!  As brilliant as the shows were they weren't as well thought out as we have credited them (peoples exhibit A is Joss still insisting that Buffy and Angel were eternal soulmates!  and that Spike was evil until his soul was restored!!!!!)

Anyhoo...I just take it as another of Angel's less than honest bits of malarkey that you had to have a soul (ie BE Angel) to have worth, value or any positive traits.

Hum.....got wordy after all *G*.

Kathleen

As for how I think it worked (not based on their intent)...the "soul" made knowing and chosing the "right thing" easier.  the lack of a "soul" made it easier to act with no regard to consequence and no guilt over it uinless it was guilt over how it hurt you in the long run.  I also don't buy that the demon "REPLACED" the human....bull!  More like symbiosis IMHO as they kinda showed on Angel when Faith did that mind trip in Angel's head.  Angelus was there as was Angel/Liam and Angelus spoke of being locked up when the soul was in place.   Okay, I'll shut up now.

I think that in the Buffyverse the soul is a very real thing.  I've had this discussion before and I'm also continually working it in my stories (and it might have come up here before too).  I think the biggest reason there's so much difference between Spike and Angel is that we don't meet Angel until he's had a soul for 100 years.  There's going to make a huge difference, and for Angel to not just walk into sunlight he has to hold in his head the conflicting concepts that a) it wasn't really him and b) he has to atone for it.  The part of him that <i>cares</i> what Angelus did wasn't around when Angelus did it.

I think you get a three-part thing here.  There's the host, the demon, and the soul.  If all vampires did was just clone their demon, you'd have a bunch of Masters instead of Darla, Angel, Dru, Spike, etc.  The host's brain is still there, so a lot of personality, memory, etc remain and effect the expression of the demon.  The demon is usually the driving force (id) and it wants some pretty nasty things.  And with no consequences (no soul means no hell, etc), vampires are free to do evil without worrying about much but fiesty girls with pointy wooden sticks.

My take on the Buffyverse vamps is that the vampire becomes a 'twist' on the host.  And what is William?  He's <i>devoted</i>, to his mom, to the vapid Cicely.   So his demon takes that devotion to obsesso levels.  He's devoted to Dru, and then to Buffy.  Had he fixated on, say, Faith instead, things might have gone very differently.