Buffy and Angel 1: BUFFYNANGLE4EVA!!!!!1!
Is it better the second time around? Or the third? Or tenth? This is the place to come when you have a burning desire to talk about an old episode that was just re-run.
I think that we don't know exactly why Buffy was in heaven.
This is what I hate about the (post?) modern age. Of course we know. She died to save the world, and prior to that, she lived a pretty self-sacrificial life, putting her own life, and the lives of her loved ones in jeopardy, to save people.
Darla was cursing God or denying God or something similar right before she was turned (the first time), tat could have doomed her to hell.
Or being a vampire could have done it, I suppose.
Of course it did.
Do we think the spirit-Darla was evidence of her being in heaven after staking herself?
I'd have to rewatch, but I imagine that since her final act was to stake herself to save the baby, she was either rewarded or at least her punishment was mitigated.
But, the verse didn't have all this theology. So all that's really needed is that she died a hero's death.
That's the issue, in the end. Too much unmixy things. I don't buy that deciding not be a demon anymore satisfies enough requirements to get her into a Christian heaven. Valhalla, I can accept no problem, but that wasn't the question. Joss played fast and loose enough with the theology to make it difficult to make a real call.
which tends to indicate she didn't have any sort of religious understanding.
Too wanky for me. She's very curious, and isn't a blank slate entire. She lives as an adult for years in a modern-California analogue, not in the wilds of Borneo. She knows enough to know that religion exists and that she doesn't get the Innocent pass, IMO. I think she's damned enough from her demonic activity to be barred the Pearlies without some kind of overt indication of repentance or acceptance.
Now, hero's death, valhalla, Slayer sidekick "heaven", whatever. Sure.
Too wanky for me. She's very curious, and isn't a blank slate entire. She lives as an adult for years in a modern-California analogue, not in the wilds of Borneo. She knows enough to know that religion exists and that she doesn't get the Innocent pass, IMO. I think she's damned enough from her demonic activity to be barred the Pearlies without some kind of overt indication of repentance or acceptance.
I'm with JS on this one. Not only that, but her demon days involved a lot of cursing and 'venging in post-Christianity Europe, so she'd know from Jesus.
I don't buy that deciding not be a demon anymore satisfies enough requirements to get her into a Christian heaven.
I never took Perkins question as a theologically deep questioning of it, but a sort of analogous use of it. It wouldn't just be that she stopped being bad, but that she started being good, and died doing so--the combination.
It's not an unorthodox idea in Christendom that someone who hasn't heard of Jesus in a way in which he is able to believe in him will not be damned. It's isn't just "never heard the words". It goes deeper than that.
I think she's damned enough from her demonic activity to be barred the Pearlies without some kind of overt indication of repentance or acceptance.
And dying by fighting The First Evil wouldn't be that overt indication? C'mon. Talk is cheap.
This is what I hate about the (post?) modern age. Of course we know. She died to save the world, and prior to that, she lived a pretty self-sacrificial life, putting her own life, and the lives of her loved ones in jeopardy, to save people
What I'm not getting, and I haven't made this clear, I realize, is what can we apply from Buffy's being in heaven to judging the after death experiences of other characters. Do you have to die saving the world to get into heaven? If you save the world and live, do you go to heaven when you eventually die? If youre basically good? If you aren't really really bad? If you aren't a demon? I'm trying to figure this out within the context of the Buffyverse mythology, not my personal morality, and that's kind of hard.
Darla was cursing God or denying God or something similar right before she was turned (the first time), tat could have doomed her to hell.
Or being a vampire could have done it, I suppose. Of course it did.
See, I don't get this. If I were turned into a vampire today, wouldn't my actions as a human be what determined heaven or hell for me, and not what happened to/with my body after I died?
See, I don't get this. If I were turned into a vampire today, wouldn't my actions as a human be what determined heaven or hell for me, and not what happened to/with my body after I died?
Yeah - isn't it canon that the human soul goes away and the demon replaces said soul? Or am I remembering fanfic instead?
If I were turned into a vampire today, wouldn't my actions as a human be what determined heaven or hell for me, and not what happened to/with my body after I died?
Well, yeah, but I think Darla's a special case, given that she did die cursing God and actively choosing to be vamped; The Master didn't jump her in a dark alley and do it to her before she knew what she was choosing, she listened to his pitch, seemed to see his eviltude pretty clearly, and signed on anyhow.
Yet oddly remembered nothing of her time in Hell, although Vocah did make it very clear that that's where he was calling her up from.
See, I don't get this. If I were turned into a vampire today, wouldn't my actions as a human be what determined heaven or hell for me, and not what happened to/with my body after I died?
This was always a place where I was dissatisfied, that is, where I thought 'verse mythology could have used additional clarification and fleshing out. There's this idea that you can accidentally become a vampire, but that wasn't even consistently shown in the verse. I think it would have made for a cleaner canon, if the victim had to choose to suck back. I say this, because to my mind, you don't suck a vampire's blood by accident, but canon indicates you kinda/sorta can, except for when it doesn't.
