#Lullabye | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

girl4music · 2 years ago

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An episode that was really good of ‘AtS’ and that had a really frustrating but compelling ending was ‘Lullabye’.

I really didn’t understand why Darla believed that - if she had the baby even while soulless and could love him while he was inside her because he had a soul - she couldn’t love him when he wasn’t. She had learned to love that baby. Developed a love for him. The explanation for it being because the baby had a soul and so she had a proxy soul for the meanwhile she was pregnant. So it was the baby’s soulful influence on her that allowed her to love him as long as that baby was inside her. This essentially meant that she would be completely soulless again when he wasn’t and so she would no longer be able to love him as his mother.

But the thing is that the baby was human and therefore would always have a soul and would always have a soulful influence. Why would that no longer have any influence on Darla’s love for him? It should because she developed into having that love for him even while she was a soulless being herself. It shouldn’t make a difference that baby being in her or not. That influence would still be there because maternal instincts don’t just disappear like that. Darla made the ultimate declaration of motherly love for her baby in sacrificing herself while pregnant with him. If her love for him was that strong then, why wouldn’t it be when he was born? I don’t understand. Well,… I do but I just think it’s completely flawed logic. It’s as if the soul isn’t just the conscience in the lore but also the determination and this just isn’t how it works. Having an internal moral compass doesn’t determine anything being good or evil. It just makes it easier to choose good over evil because it weighs against you. But surely Darla’s love for her baby should eclipse a change of perspective on morality could do to her. You don’t just suddenly stop feeling love for something or someone because you no longer understand right from wrong or good from evil. It shouldn’t determine what your feelings are or aren’t. It’s just a conscience. A way of understanding right from wrong or good from evil. It doesn’t dictate that you actually do one from the other. I mean what?! 😖

Darla should have been capable of feeling love for that baby regardless whether it was inside her or not because she ultimately had developed that love for him. It should have changed her completely. Turned her away from evil and darkness even when soulless. Having her baby should have developed her character. She shouldn’t have had to kill herself for her son’s life. Sure it was a tragically devastating and compelling end but, to me, it made absolutely no sense at all that she wouldn’t have been able to love him the same way.

If the soul in the Buffyverse represents a conscience - an internal moral compass (and I certainly would hope this is the case otherwise the entire synopsis to ‘Angel the Series’ falls completely flat if it doesn’t) then Darla should have still been able to love Connor even when she’s a vampire that doesn’t have a soul because her being soulless shouldn’t determine her personhood.

It’s extremely flawed logic and an inconsistent narrative and biased ideology to make it out that a soulless vampire or demon cannot grow or develop when they’ve had experiences that have made it possible or cannot have feelings or emotions a human or animal can. Yes, they can’t understand right from wrong because they don’t possess an internal moral compass, but that shouldn’t determine and dictate their actions or choices while as soulless. It should make it harder for them to act or choose in the service of good over evil. But not make them do only evil. It shouldn’t compel or control their nature completely.

Now I know Darla is a particularly more evil and sadistic vampire than most soulless vampires. But again - that’s external influence. It’s all she knows based on her experiences both in her years as a human and as a vampire. She LEARNED to BECOME that way. As did Angelus, as did Druscilla, as did Spike. It wasn’t just because their soul from when human was removed because if that was the case then the soul isn’t just a conscience. It’s your entire being. Your nature and your identity. Your personhood. Your “self”. Who and all that you are or can ever be at all.

This isn’t what a conscience is or does. This is an extremely misconstrued understanding of it. And if this is the case - now I understand why Whedon went with the demonic possession interpretation instead of demonic corruption. To him - the human and the demon are not the same entity despite being fundamentally influenced by both the human and the demon. Proxy ensouled Darla isn’t the same entity as soulless Darla despite being informed by her. She’s just being possessed by the same demon as before she was pregnant with an ensouled vampire’s baby. Which means that her love for the baby just disappears because it’s not the same entity anymore.

I don’t know how to wrap my head around this because to me Darla is Darla no matter what. I don’t think of it as demonic possession at all because it doesn’t look like demonic possession at all. Demonic possession is an entirely different thing that requires so much more than just losing an internal moral compass. Losing/gaining a conscience doesn’t make you an entirely different entity from what you were before. It just changes your perspective on morality. But if you have learned and developed through experience and external influence - then it shouldn’t just automatically change what you do, how you act or the way you feel. That’s not how a conscience works.

It’s just completely flawed logic. I’m sorry. It just is.

This episode is great. But it’s just completely wrong. Having a baby that has a soul should change Darla but not just while the baby is inside her. But - for good or at least for awhile. I’m sure eventually because of the loss of an internal moral compass her actions and choices would become selfish and malevolent again but it wouldn’t just be a switch on/switch off situation. It only works that way with Angel/Angelus because he was cursed by a gypsy spell. He was forced to have a conscience to remind him of all the evil he has done and to feel as much guilt and regret as possible over it. This is not the same situation or circumstance at all but it’s treated that way because “demon possession”. Nope. A conscience on its own is not a lights off/lights on situation. A conscience just helps you understand right from wrong. It does not compel you to do either.

Great episode and ending to watch but - it’s all wrong. As beautiful as it is that Darla made the sacrifice she did for Connor - she should never have had to because it should have never made a difference to her feelings. If anything - Connor being born should have made her fall even more in love with him and made her extremely protective over his well being because - soulless vampire or not - she’s still his fucking mother! She - and Angel - really thought that her love for him would suddenly just disappear just because her proxy soul did? But this negates all the positive influence the experience had on her. It erases all her positive development. It essentially just makes her an empty vessel again with a random demon taking her identity, removing her personhood and autonomy completely.

No. Jiminy Cricket going bye-bye shouldn’t do that. I am adamantly against this demonic possession interpretation because this makes no fucking sense. Humans and ensouled vampires still do evil, wrong, selfish and malevolent things despite having a soul. Them having a soul determines nothing about the way they act or choose. It’s just easier because they understand right from wrong and good from evil better than an entity that doesn’t possess a soul. On the flip side - again, it doesn’t determine that a soulless entity will do only evil. It just makes it easier.

A conscience doesn’t compel you to do anything because it’s the experience of free will it cultivates. The only thing it can possibly determine is that you have more of a chance to do good over evil on your own - without any external influence at all. That’s it. Your actual actions and choices may vary depending on what that experience and external influence is. And I would say having a fucking baby would be HUGE! Falling in love in any capacity would easily eclipse being suddenly racked with the urge to do some evil.

The soul is obviously not just a conscience to Whedon. It’s either that or he just doesn’t know what one is and that checks out when you see the way he views Spike.

I’m sorry but this canon soul lore in the Buffyverse doesn’t work for me. The writers are telling us one thing through the writing one moment but then showing us something completely different in the visuals next. And then they refer to it as a “loss/gain of conscience” which muddies the apparent message we’re supposed to get and learn from it even more. They’re telling us that having a conscience is the same thing as having humanity or being capable of experiencing and feeling like a human. But then they’ll put those characters that don’t have a conscience in situations where they’ll attempt to test the waters of this being true and then immediately undermine the attempt by removing the possibility of it completely.

Well, the thing is that you’re not proving anything by doing that. You’re just expecting people just to accept the belief that it’s not possible because they’re not human or ensouled. You’re not even allowing the opportunity to prove you in the right or wrong about that belief and therefore the audience cannot learn that for themselves either. Then you give us human characters that are just as bad as any soulless supernatural entity (one of which is a main core protagonist) and tell us that because they have the capacity to understand right from wrong and good from evil fundamentally that they should be given chances to redeem themselves because all it is for them is corruption and they’re not fundamentally evil like an actual soulless supernatural entity would be.

What’s the difference? It can’t be just a “loss/gain of conscience” because having/not having a conscience cannot determine actions and choices being on either side of good or evil. All it can determine is that it’s much more likely that good happens with a conscience and evil happens without a conscience. But it can only determine that to be much more likely when factors and conditions of huge life-changing experiences and heavy external influences don’t come into play. Otherwise it’s just rudimentary rhetoric that’s based off of your own misinformed sources. But the human (and I would presume non-human) condition is far more complicated and layered than that. There are situations and circumstances that make or break the basic thematic narrative of good vs evil or right vs wrong or peace vs war. It’s not simple. Things get messy and blurry in morality and I prefer it that way because that’s more realistic and compelling. If you remove this messiness and blurriness, you remove nuance and depth that has a lasting impact on the heart, mind and soul of your HUMAN audience.

I think I’m going to stop watching ‘AtS’ - at least for a little while - because I am getting very frustrated with what it’s trying to tell me through its soul lore. And a great character and actress has just been killed off for no legitimate reason as far as I’m concerned all to appease Whedon’s very flawed logic and ideology. 🙁

The episode was written and directed by Tim Minear but I’m not stupid. That ending had Whedon all over it.

#angel the series #lullabye #darla #julie benz #soul lore #vampire #demon #soulless #ensouled #good #evil #right #wrong #conscience #flawed logic #joss whedon

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