This conversation comes out of what (to me) is one of Joss's great storytelling mistakes in the Buffyverse. Filmic universes run on McGuffins, but I think making the nature of the soul a McGuffin is a big freakin mistake - not a moral mistake but a literary one. In any character driven story -the state of the characters soul is important - not the state in theological sense but that state in a broader sense. A character who murders and tortures is different than one who doesnt' to take a really crude example (at least if the character is important to your story-telling; admittedly there are stories that are not character driven.)
The problem is that Joss confused something really is suitable for the McGuffin role - whether there is a ghost in the machine, whether spirit can seperated from flesh, and mixed with the question of the nature of an individual characters soul - whether immortal or not, whether a phantom captain or not.
I don't know if I'd call that a mistake or a dodge.
Narratively, Joss
always
withholds commitment to a canonical reading until it yields maximum narrative payoff. In short, he will dick you around trying to figure out the worldbuilding rules, but will Joss you when it's convenient for him. The soul is one example.
The flipside is that he seeds the narrative for all kinds of payoffs which may or may not come. The foremost example is that he seeded both Xander and Willow as Gay until he had had to make a narrative choice.
This approach causes other problems, but worldbuilding is not his focus - character is. And he'll leave options ambiguous until he needs to leverage choice A or choice B.
In a Christian universe, Anya ...
This is either too limited or not limited enough. The Bible doesn't really deal a whole lot with heaven and hell, and I don't believe that purgatory shows up in it at all. So really, most of what Christians of various groups think of their possible afterlives is based on later theological theory, denominations' dogma (and really, quite often your own religious leader's) and personal belief. For example, I don't know if the Episcopal Church "believes" in purgatory or not, but I have had priests on both sides of the issue. Plus, purgatory can be defined in different ways. It can be a miserable place where you sweat out petty sins until you've done enough penance that you can go to heaven, a place that is neither good nor bad that you go to if you're basically a good person but haven't been baptized, a decent place where you go to learn and grow until you reach the level of true communion with God (enlightenment, for want of a better word) or something else altogether. And accepting Christ as your personal saviour is critical for some, NSM for others.
Personally, I believe that Anya went to a good place for her, whether it's called Valhalla, heaven, hell, or the universe with no shrimp.
On the other hand, I sometimes think that posting tired is about as bad as posting drunk. So please ignore all of this if it is either incoherent or offensive.
ION, I used to be a naturally gifted speller. Apparently, this is something that I am losing in the aging process, along with my wonderful sense of direction. But, I'm a pretty good searcher, know how to use a dictionary, and have recently started not hating beer, so I guess that getting older is not altogether bad.
Personally, I believe that Anya went to a good place for her, whether it's called Valhalla, heaven, hell, or the universe with no shrimp.
By Buffyverse rules, this is what I think would have happened, too.
Not to sidetrack the heaven or hell conversation, but does Buffy ever have a prophetic dream after WttH? I mean, it's supposed to be part of the Slayer package: Movie!Buffy had it, TV! Buffy has it in WttH and Fray
not having it is a major plot point
so I'm wondering why it was more or less dropped. (Other than oddly morphing, in Fray and Buffy 7 to some kind of subconcious link to the past Slayers).
She had several. There was one in Hush.
And I feel like a dolt for forgetting about the one in Hush. Nevermind, then.
She had prophetic dreams all the time, and they were fairly major plot points in "Nightmares"/"Prophecy Girl," "When She was Bad," "Surprise," "Graduation Day," and "Restless."
They had dropped off considerably by Hush, and I can't think of many after that..
Hmm. Did she have one about Dracula specifically? I don't think she ever dreamed about Glory. And I'm pretty sure there were none in Season 6, though I thought at the time that must be a consequence of her resurrection.
