I think part of the Buffy/Angel-verse problem came when they started writing in-story differences between demons that were supernatural evil guys hybridized with humans (vamps, D'hoffryn, dudes like that) and demons that were just sentient beings from other universes (Lorne, whatzername the princess played by Bai Ling, dudes like that), but never actually said what the difference was. For a while, the main difference seemed to be that Angel and crew treated non-harmful demons like people and Buffy just kinda stabbed anything non-human (unless it was cute), but that broke down towards the end of the series. But then there's Doyle, earth-born hybrid demon, but I'm pretty sure he had a soul.

Hunh. I dunno.

TB, are you assuming that any monster/demon that didn't have to be evil the way vampires did had a soul? So, Oz and Merle are equivalent? What explains the fact that vampires seem to be a minority--we haven't explicitly been shown any other sort of monster/demon who had no choice, right?

No just that Oz, being a human, had a soul before he was bitten/scratched/whatever, and there is no reason to assume he lost it. Plus his behavior did not change except during the full moon. So not Merle equivalent. Just not without a soul.

From what I understand, all demons were without souls, just some of them did not have to be evil. And no the soul thing never made sense, in part because how having a soul or not interacted with eviltude changed. When did we first see a non-evil demon (other than Angel who explicitly had a soul added)? As I remember, and my memory is not reliable, we did not see one during the first season.

But the Pylea episode showed that the particular kind of Demon who possessed dead human bodies to create vampires was not only a predator, but an animal predator (the "blood beast"). So basically vampires were dead bodies possessed by an evil animal spirit - why they retained so much of humanity (the intelligence came from the human brain, not the demon) but were pretty much over the top evil (the demon part was pretty much purely present oriented and not very rational.)

Other demons were evil or not depending. I guess the ones who could live on big gulps had no particular reason to be evil. So what the soul did exactly I'm not sure. Added guilt? Demons who chose not to be evil seemed not be guilt motivated. In the case of vampires, even those who wanted to stop drinking human blood needed a soul to have a chance to overcome their desire. Also, even Spike got a case of the guilts for a while once he got a soul. Drove him mad for a while.

Even though he appeared to get over it, there are hints he still felt some guilt (some of his conversations with Angel) Just unlike Angel, once he recovered his mental footing, he did not brood and dwell on what could not be changed.

Now that Korra can restore people's bending (fan comic): [link]

My favorite bit of proposed fanon I've seen is that Zuko was responsible for the giant Aang statue, just to irritate Aang.

Who is responsible for Aang's incredibly stupid beard?

My favorite bit of proposed fanon I've seen is that Zuko was responsible for the giant Aang statue, just to irritate Aang.

That's awesome. And would explain why it's a statue of Young Aang, not an older Aang a memorial statue would more likely be.

Who is responsible for Aang's incredibly stupid beard?

Aang's beard doesn't bother me. The goofy enlongated Shaggy thing that middle-aged Sokka is sporting, on the other hand...

It took me too long to get this, but it's hilarious.

Okay, the absurdity of this makes me laugh: [link]

I'm stuck in a Tumblr loop. Help me...

ETA: Similiar theme to P-C's: [link]

You know, I really did like Amon as a villain, but he's generated some hilarious Internet memes.