Ramifications of the soul

I think the biggest implication is that without a soul, he would not experience any kind of life-after-death. Instead of going to heaven, joining his ancestors in the sky, or whatever kind of afterlife you have set up, he would be faced with total oblivion. That in turn might make him a total coward in battle, terrified of facing his mortality, while the soldiers around him eagerly await the fields of Elysium (or whatever).

ClareGreen said:

So, my MC has no soul. It occurs to me that this should probably have some ramifications for him, but I'm coming up a bit short. This is what I've got so far:

Can't fall in love.
Can't appreciate music.

Any more suggestions?

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I don't have a soul, and I had no trouble falling in love with two different women (not at the same time, of course). Nor do I have any trouble appreciating music. I don't think you need a soul for that.

However, what if the lack of a soul not only denied your MC access to an afterlife, but made it impossible for him to use magic or have magic used upon him?

IMHO your soul is the very essences of who you are. It includes your mind and the mortality part of who you are. IMHO....

If that is the case, then your MC is a zombie? That's the only thing I know of that would be that way. Again, IMHO. (Not wanting to start a spiritual war here.)

The origins of the word 'soul' are thus (according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which I swear by):

Soul
Old English sawol "spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence," from P.Gmc. *saiwalo (cf. Old Saxon seola, Old Norse sala, Old Frisian sele, Middle Dutch siele, Dutch ziel, Old High German seula, German Seele, Gothic saiwala), of uncertain origin. Sometimes said to mean originally "coming from or belonging to the sea," because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death. Hence, from P.Gmc. *saiwaz (see sea). Meaning "spirit of a deceased person" is attested in O.E. from 971.

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Don't know if that helps, but it's interesting.

You might consider whether his lack of soul affects his sense of morality or not. Even the ability to feel true emotion. Can he feel guilt over a death? Is he a picture of objectivity?

Of course whether his lack of soul can be recognised by others may factor into his relationship with the rest of the world. Also whether a soul is needed to constitute 'life' (apparently not) or 'humanity' (possibility). And how he came to exist without a soul and whether that has an effect on his psyche or not.

Good luck!

I just started reading "Soulless" by Gail Carriger, which is about what the title implies. MC has no soul, so she can neutralize the supernatural abilities of werewolves, vamps, and ghosts by touching them. She also worried that she wouldn't have any natural means of knowing how to behave well, so she studies morals and philosophy from an academic standpoint so that she won't be evil.

Beyond that...traditional religion may not work for him. Maybe his soulless pals will have devised another suitable religion. See also various fictional robots. See also Silicon heaven.

ClareGreen said:

So, my MC has no soul. It occurs to me that this should probably have some ramifications for him, but I'm coming up a bit short. This is what I've got so far:

Can't fall in love.
Can't appreciate music.

Any more suggestions?

Click to expand...

Not quite sure what you're asking. Without a soul, your MC obviously can't do whatever a souls i necessary for in your world. Which means only you would know what souls are needed for in your world. So pick whatever you want.
Or are you asking for examples from human cultures what they thought/think a souls is needed for? The answer to that would also be pretty much anything, from just breathing to reincarnation.

What if a soul is required to die? Raises a whole new idea regarding animals and plants... Or maybe it's just humans who need a soul to die. If you've got god/s, use 'em.

Can't fall in love.
Can't appreciate music.

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If that's the route you're going down, I would make him emotionally and creatively stunted. If he can't appreciate music, he probably wouldn't be able to create art, or appreciate fiction either. (The android protagonist of A. Lee Martinez's "Automatic Detective" doesn't appreciate either)

He would most likely be slow to detect sarcasm or get jokes, too. We take these things for granted, but they rely on creative word play and detecting nuances of the emotion of the speaker. If I was reading a book where a character had no soul and couldn't love or appreciate music, but he was cracking jokes and making sarcastic remarks, I'd cry foul.

But then, a hero who's emotionally stunted and uncreative sounds pretty dull and unlikable to me. I tend to associate these traits with being poorly socialized, perhaps juvenile, and probably the sort of person I'd likely avoid. I grew tired of brooding angst in lieu of personality back in my teen years.

As other posters have stated, it really comes down to how you define a soul in your world. From an athiestic point of view, people have been soulless forever (at least in any metaphysical sense) and have been doing just fine as human beings. That perspective changes with a religious worldview, and likely depends on how that religion views the soul.

If you're going to make souls a canonical part of your world, you'll need to establish what they do and what they ARE for a person. In my own fantasy setting, souls aren't the essence of a person so much as an imprint that they leave behind (switching around the typical cause and effect) while still having important physical and mental implications, in particular the ability to wield magic. Disrupting or damaging someone's soul in my setting has harsh biological ramifications and inhibits magic use... at least until it reforms.

If you set up souls such that they're the driving force of the human mind (classic dualism) then you've basically just turned your MC into a vegetable. Not so interesting.

You could go with the idea that the soul represents Ego versus the material Id of the physical brain... in which case, not having a soul would make one very instinctual, very emotional, and not particularily inclined to forethought, inhibition or rationality. In this case, they'd be perhaps even MORE inclined to love, enjoy sensual experiences like music, etc.

However, from what you've got so far it seems like you might even want to flip that around, and have the soul represent a person's ID instead. A soulless person would then be extremely detached from all the parts of their mind that they share with the animal kingdom... they would be cold, rational, and indifferent to base pleasures and emotions. Robots, basically.

Yet another possible approach would be to discard the idea that it has to affect those fundamentals, and turn the soul into the part of the mind which connects with supernatural forces in your world. Especially if supernatural influence is ever-present or important somehow, this could manifest as a feeling of loss or emptiness, possibly making the character depressed or apathetic.

Ultimately, it rests on how you define a "soul" and what it does. Nobody in the real world has ever really described that in detail, so you've got a great deal of freedom in making it your own. In fact, you can make it correspond to whatever topic you wish to explore... it's a great way to ask the question "what would happen if the human mind lacked x, y, and z?"

From my perspective, which is of course colored by my religious views, a human being without a soul would have no appreciation or understanding of art (in fact would fail to see the point of it), no ability to think from outside his/her own perspective, limited empathy, inability to dream about the impossible or reflect on the meaning of existence. Above all I think the person would lack the ability to aspire, to picture something greater than him/herself and strive toward it. He would basically focus on survival above all else. Not necessarily 100% selfish, because if he's smart he'd be aware that cooperating with others increases the chance of survival, and even without a soul you can appreciate the company of others and crave physical closeness.

A soul can be all kinds of things, but you probably want its absence to be sympathetic, conflicted and tortured. My suggestion:

Take the character's conscience away, and remove its empathy and joy. Have it live its life by memories of what's right and wrong, but having no intuition for how someone feels unless they're being loud about it (crying or yelling etc...) Let it recognise beauty or kindness, but take no pleasure from that. Let it care nothing for its reputation, have no pride, no impulses and forget hurts quickly.

Or something like that.

Yeah, everyone else has already covered the problem with this question: since we don't know what "souls" do in the real world (and many of us don't believe there is such a thing), it sounds like your real question is: what properties should a soul have in my fictional universe?

So if your MC is soulless, you need to design your soul around the needs of the story.

Inability to fall in love or appreciate music sounds like you're equating soullessness with a lack of empathy, bonding, or aesthetic sensibility. It's going to be hard to make such a character not come off as either completely unemotional, or a sociopath.

Unless those things are very particular quirks associated with the soul -- i.e., someone with no soul can enjoy food, sex, reading a book, etc., but just can't fall in love, and for some mystical reason, music is also flat and unmoving without a soul. The more subtle and nuanced you make it, the more interesting, but also the harder it will be to stay consistent.

A few ideas:

He wouldn't recognize truth.

The soul knows everything there is to know, it is the culmination of all experiences. If he does not have one, he would be lost and feel his life is worth nothing.

He would have no purpose or not understand what his purpose is. No soul/sole purpose.

The soul recognizes feelings. People don't generally listen to feelings. If he didn't have a soul, he would seem highly unemotional.

He wouldn't be sensitve to the things around him. Unable to pick up vibrations or energies.

to be honest, I think the idea of no soul actually making you more animalistic is an intriguing play on what we tend to see as 'soulless' or 'heartless'. after all, a lot of relgions decree animals have no souls, so this does make sense. maybe the soul is actually the source of purely human qualities like rationality and restraint.

of course, this still means he could feel no love or art, as I would regard these as also very human. but his emotions being heightened or maybe just more unpredictable is an interesting twist.

Hmm... I like the idea of the soul being a protective coating that prevents us from succumbing to all our animal instincts. Without that, the character would be more reckless, more of a risk-taker, he'd use any means necessary to achieve his goals. He'd give in more easily to his lust, anger, and hunger. He'd be one to take what he wanted to satiate those needs and desires.

I think he'd still be able to feel, but it would be a kind of hyper-feeling: everything in extremes with no real ability to dial it down.

But really, you can make it anything you want it to be within the confines of your story, as long as you make your audience believe.

My female MC doesn't have a soul, therefore, as Dane Cook would say, "nothing happens when she dies." I think that's a big one. But she still loves and has feelings...I wonder if that's bad....

kaitiepaige17 said:

My female MC doesn't have a soul, therefore, as Dane Cook would say, "nothing happens when she dies." I think that's a big one. But she still loves and has feelings...I wonder if that's bad....

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So all souls are in your world is your ticket to the afterlife? You could still do interesting things with that... if it's not an essential part of YOU, but rather your only way of connecting with the paranormal, that has an interesting dynamic in any paranormal situations you concoct!

ClareGreen said:

So, my MC has no soul. It occurs to me that this should probably have some ramifications for him, but I'm coming up a bit short. This is what I've got so far:

Can't fall in love.
Can't appreciate music.

Any more suggestions?

Click to expand...

No empathy for other people. Can't understand why they laugh, cry, or feel pain.
No sense of humor, for that matter.
Can't get lost in his senses. No enjoyment of music, or food, or textures, or warmth.
Poetry might read like an alien language to him.
And last but definitely not least, animals and children might instinctively not like him.

ClareGreen said:

So, my MC has no soul. It occurs to me that this should probably have some ramifications for him, but I'm coming up a bit short. This is what I've got so far:

Can't fall in love.
Can't appreciate music.

Any more suggestions?

Click to expand...

Soul loss is something that used to be diagnosed by shamanistic specialists in animistic societies. It caused fairly serious illness, but the shamanistic specialist could chase the lost soul down (to the bottom of the sea or other edgy place) and bring it back.

So that's always an option. Just so you know.

Mishell said:

From my perspective, which is of course colored by my religious views, a human being without a soul would have no appreciation or understanding of art (in fact would fail to see the point of it), no ability to think from outside his/her own perspective, limited empathy, inability to dream about the impossible or reflect on the meaning of existence. Above all I think the person would lack the ability to aspire, to picture something greater than him/herself and strive toward it. He would basically focus on survival above all else. Not necessarily 100% selfish, because if he's smart he'd be aware that cooperating with others increases the chance of survival, and even without a soul you can appreciate the company of others and crave physical closeness.

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Those are all functions of the brain. He didn't say this person has had a labotomy.


In my novel I have a character who does not understand human emotions or interactions very well. He can study them from an academic standpoint, and learn that he should respond a certain way to certain behaviours, so he sort of fudges his way through social situations. He has no appreciation of art or music and has no real creativity himself. But none of this is because he lacks a soul (although, technically, I don't consider anyone in my WIP to have a soul). I based him on someone with aspurgess and then took it to the extreme.

I think an MC who is soulless but is sentient might have some concerns:

If he is intelligent and understands the concept of a soul and wonders what will become of him/herself, the MC might become very interested in some or all religions, out of fear of destruction at the end of life. This opens up interesting story ideas.

Or, perhaps the MC will want to undergo a test or quest to determine if this is really true? Is this something the character can know with certainty? After all, even in this thread, the defining points of a soul are unclear. In fact, science and philosophy have both come up empty on the subject since the beginning. How would one KNOW if one has no soul? I think a person concerned about this would go to great lengths to find out one way or another. If it were me, and I truly had no soul, I would then try to figure out if I could get one, and how to do so. The end of self seems a pretty big motivation.

Reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons when Bart sells his soul to Millhouse.

I actually just posted a question about souls (though my question deals more with established philosophy/theology.)

Looks like there's a lot of soul-searching going on! (GROAN!)

I have nothing very useful to add, except to say that I LOVE the title of this post. You should totally use it for your novel, or some story.