All you need is Buffy the Vampire Slayer

originally posted by Thor:

He also did an aggressive ice shake, whatever that's worth.
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Are you saying that Dylan is back drinking again? Is he hanging out in the same pool hall?

I thought he gave it up for good after the car accident.
 
I give up on all the rest of the stuff because we are arguing in circles. Two things:

All I am maintaining about the killing of entities with souls is that the issue doesn't require much explanation. Buffy is able to kill entities with souls, just as you and I are, but she ought not, just as you and I ought not. At times, people on the show have to discuss this rule, just as human beings at times do, because there are occasions that seem to allow for the rule's transgression and Buffy may face more of those occasions than do most people. But nothing special is going on here and this discussion was only started by your original claim that Buffy "can't" kill ensouled entities, which was silly as worded, but was misworded.

You of course must believe in the Buffy world that unsouled beings nevertheless have essences, as Keith clearly does. If you weren't so interested in refuting for the sake of refuting you would see that claiming they have common personalities with their unensouled counterparts is to claim that they have essences. I was here in fact conceding to Keith part of his point, though only part. Sometimes you need to take yes for an answer.

What authors say about what they do and what they do are two different things. The show is better than Whedon's intentions, to the extent that you take a theological position about souls as seriously part of the show's intentions, which I do not, because the characters he writes pretty clearly display the kinds of differences you deny are there. I do not have scripts before me or a running memory of each episode, but I never read the Liam flashback episodes as you do, nor do I think you are reading them very well, but without their texts, and I don't have them, the argument can't go forward. I also agree with everybody else that arguments about Joss Whedon's beliefs are really not all that interesting, though I have certainly done more than my share of extending this thread.
 
Can we talk about Gilmore Girls instead?

My St. Olaf education only qualifies me to discuss the second tier WB network programming.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Once again, an entity with no moral agency may have the memories of the prior entity with that agency, but that is not the same thing as being that person merely happening not to have moral agency. Moral agency, if one believes we have it, isn't like arms, legs or even sight or hearing. It does go to who one is. Imagining a self without it (assuming you think that selves have it) is like imagining an automaton version of yourself able to access your memories, able even (far better than Angelus can imitate Angel) to imitate your mannerisms. That automaton won't be you. It's true that vampires aren't automatons. Keith is right about one thing. They don't lack essences. They have different essences.
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Can we agree on this much - they have different essences which are BASED ON, AND DERIVED FROM, THEIR ORIGINAL ESSENCES?
 
No, you can't "agree" on anything. This was a TV show, not a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life, a dialogue on the mind-body problem, a monograph on the components of the soul, nor even is it a mystic guide to the spirit realm. It's crap-a-tainment meant to burden your mind with commercials and fill your hours so you don't actually do something productive with them.

Go watch some "Adult Swim" and chill. Or, read something significant and come tell us about it.

Sheesh.
 
Jonathan, you seem to have taken this a lot more personally than I did. I thought we were having a mostly entertaining (to three of us) discussion about a mostly entertaining show. Since we're apparently not, based on the tone of your last message, I'll bow out.
 
originally posted by Thor:
Jonathan, you seem to have taken this a lot more personally than I did. I thought we were having a mostly entertaining (to three of us) discussion about a mostly entertaining show. Since we're apparently not, based on the tone of your last message, I'll bow out.
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I lost my intellectual though not my emotional temper in responding about different essences, and I apologize. As I expect, Keith caught that it was an admission. I would have thought you did too.

I'm happy to bow out as well, though. I'm happy to argue about the mind body problem, but I have less ability to argue about the reading of texts when I can't see them.

Keith,

I don't know if would admit that as I would have to chart characters much more carefully than I do normally. In saying this, do you also think Dracula had a different essence based on his original one? I'm talking about Stoker's. There I think the answer is "no," that while he isn't an automaton, he isn't quite fully a person either (in which person is taken in its constitutional definition of possessing sufficient human beingness to warrant being granted constitutional protections, in distinction not only to fetuses but to animals). And to be more clear, Hitler alas was a person so the question isn't if he is too evil to have that status. If you think it isn't true of Dracula, how is it true of Spike?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Please, make it go away.Hey, I could actually change the subject of this thread to spare the people of the future.
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Good move.

I am rating this thread a DNPIE.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
OMG - you guys recently become unemployed? Certainly have way too much time on your hands.
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No, it is only the Perry that is recently unemployed. Fortunately he has not yet encountered this train wreck as he is too busy seeking gainful employment.
 
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