History Main / OurSoulsAreDifferent

* ''Film/ShortCircuit'': Number Five gets struck by lightning, there is a glitch in the programming and he gains a soul. In the {{sequel|itis}}, he foils the bad guys, is legally recognized as a person and swears the oath of citizenship.

** A soul, along with the body and spirit, is a component of a person, depending on the species. Humans have all three, animals have body and possibly a spirit, demons and fae have body and spirit, angels are all soul, and ghosts and spirits are, well, all spirit; and there are many other beings who have different configurations. The relationship between the soul and the spirit is complex and never fully explained, but most think that, on the death of the body, the soul will go on to an afterlife, and what happens to the spirit isn't entirely clear, but it appears to either disperse or carry on as a ghost if there's "unfinished business". A ghost is widely accepted to be a discreet and separate entity from the person that they were, even though they have the name, memories, and personality of the person that they were/came from.

** ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'': The idea of body and souls is tackled in the resurrection of Oliver Queen. When he returns from the dead, it's discovered that he only remembers about as far as UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}} (thus having no knowledge of Parallax, Arsenal, etc.), and has none of the character development he experienced since. After some digging around, Ollie finds out that when he was resurrected [[CameBackWrong his soul didn't come back,]] so he's really just an empty shell (his "quiver"). It appears the soulless body still possesses free will but can't grow or change emotionally and is stuck in whatever period he remembers, like a projection, and it's alluded that when it dies, the consciousness inside will just cease existing. As for Ollie's soul, it decided to stay in heaven even when being offered outright a chance to come back to life by reuniting with his body, deciding it preferred heavenly bliss and using it as an excuse to duck his lingering problems back on Earth. [[spoiler: Turns out that not having a soul made Ollie's body an easy target for possession by any demon who stumbled on him or even an Earthly sorcerer, and he winds up almost being taken over by a Satanist warlock who wanted immortality. At the end of the story, Ollie reunites with his soul, bringing with him all the memories of what's happened since his death and foiling the warlock's plans.]]

** Souls are reincarnated countless times throughout history. What happens between incarnations isn't discussed. The souls of Heroes get a slightly different treatment-they spend their time between lives in [[DreamLand Tel'aranh'rhiod]], but lose their memories between the time they are reborn and their next death. [[spoiler: Birgitte]] proves a soul ''can'' be forced into the real world before its time, but the full effects are far from certain.

How does the mind work? Is it contained entirely in the brain, or is there something more? Whichever it is, the "something more" is generally referred to as a soul. However, as something that is by definition intangible, there hasn't been much agreement on what it is that a soul actually ''does''. Is it essential for life, or can a person live on without it? What exactly does it give you - life, or wisdom, or will, or morality? Does it have weight? What happens if it's [[YourSoulIsMine stolen]] or [[DealWithTheDevil sold]]? Is it an {{Energy Being|s}}? [[IsItSomethingYouEat Does it taste like strawberries or chocolate]]?

* You become one of TheHeartless- a monster born out of your negative emotions.
* You become one of TheSoulless- a monster motivated by regaining said soul.

* In ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'' children with apsychia are born without a soul and apparently simply stop existing after death -- no afterlife, no nothing. It is seen as horrendously tragic. An experimental medical treatment is being investigated, in which tiny pieces of many souls are fused into, essentially, a synthetic soul which can then be implanted in the apsychic child. Whether this can actually work is unclear.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'': Each person has three souls, with different functions - and losing each soul has different effects. The world-soul connects the person to the rest of the world, [[spoiler: losing it causes you to become a [[AndIMustScream Lost]] [[FateWorseThanDeath one]]; the clan-soul is responsible for morality (explained as a sense of belonging to temper the strength of the world-soul) and losing it causes you to become a [[FaceMonsterTurn demon]]; if you lose the name-soul you become a ghost, losing your memories - the name-soul is also your reflection, but we don't see if [[MissingReflection the reflection is lost too.]] Soul-sickness happens when one of the souls is corrupted - even though you stay you, the effects are the same]].
* In P.C. Hodgell's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' series, a person's soul is what casts a shadow (in many respects it IS the shadow) and thus someone whose soul is missing doesn't cast one. Members of the Kencyr races can give their soul to another who has the ability to accept it; this makes the giver very hard to kill, and makes it so that dishonorable acts that must be done do not stain the soul, since it isn't there. Souls may also be stolen or consumed, and heroine Jame and her mother are able to reap souls, drawing them from the body and taking them.

* In Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Literature/CthulhuMythos'', souls and consciousness are the result of "angled space" intersecting with the consciousnesses of the various unknowable "archetypes" or [[EldritchAbomination outer gods]], at least according to "Through the Gates of the Silver Key". However, the outer gods and [[TopGod Azathoth]] also have their ''own'' shared soul, Nyarlathotep, who seems to have his own consciousness independent from theirs.
* Meredith Ann Pierce's ''Literature/TheDarkangelTrilogy'': when you die, your soul ascends to the sky ("deep heaven"). Once there, it is possible for it to return to earth temporarily to speak to living people, though this happens rarely. However, the soul can be removed from the body and stored in a vial. When this happens, the soul's owner becomes a wraith which retains the power of speech but very little memory. Souls can also be consumed by demons like darkangels and lorelei, in which case the owner's consciousness is completely obliterated. Soulless beings are always hideous to look at.

* Dante played with the idea of separating the soul from the body before death in the ''Inferno,'' where in Hell, he ran into one of the more notorious historical figures of his time who was in fact still alive while he was writing, the idea being his sin had been so bad he had fallen to Hell immediately, while a demon had come up to Earth to mind his body until it died.

* Creator/CharlesStross's ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' is couched in mathematical and scientific language, based as it is off the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. The word "soul" refers to the electrical impulses that make up a human being's brain: thinking, feeling, calculating; some of that information remains as "echoes" when a person dies, but there are ways--and [[EldritchAbomination creatures]]--capable of erasing those echoes entirely. Certain beings feed by increasing entropy, and erasing information generates a lot of it.

* In Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Literature/TheMonsterMen'', it is taken for granted that the humans that Professor Maxon creates have no souls. At one point, Number 13 goes to murder him and stops because it would be the act of a soulless creature. Von Horn becomes quite [[GreenEyedMonster envious]] of him because a soulless creature acts better than he does.

* In Creator/JRRTolkien's Middle-earth mythos, the precise nature of the soul (''fëa'', in Quenya), and its fate after death varies depending on race: the souls of Elves are bound to this universe, and when they die they go to hang out in the Halls of Mandos, eventually to be reincarnated (unless they've committed acts of irredeemable evil in life) in a body identical to the old one. The souls of Men, on the other hand, are only meant to stay in this world for a limited time; after death they make a brief stop in the Halls of Mandos and then depart from the universe for an unknown destination. Disembodied Elvish souls are capable of refusing the summons to the Halls of Mandos, in which case they will drift around wherever they like-but such souls are then susceptible to being captured and controlled by black magic (remember how Sauron was sometimes called the "Necromancer"? Yeah...).
** It's uncertain what happens to dwarves, not being part of the original divine plan for the world, but they believe that Aulë their maker (who they call Mahal) has prepared some sort of afterlife for them. Tolkien speculates in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' that Aulë made some sort of arrangement with Mandos to get his creatures a space in his Halls. Hobbits, as a kind of sub-species of Men, are probably subject to the same fate as them.

* Souls are inextricably tied to magic in the ''Literature/{{Chalion}}'' series, as a living soul is literally the interface between the spiritual realm and the material. Even the gods, as wholly spiritual beings, are unable to perform miracles without a willing soul through which to channel their powers. All other forms of magic have something to do with souls as well, usually binding something else to a human's soul to make them a shaman or sorcerer.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' offers [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Spark sparks]]. Note that ''only'' transformers have sparks. Humans do not. And at least in [[spoiler: ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'']] it is possible for a Transformer to still live and function without their personal spark.

* ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'': Soul, mind, data, it's all the same. [[ArcWords We Are All Connected]]...
* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'': The central premise, in pretty much all its iterations, is the exploration of the true nature of souls and minds. People believe that even when almost the entire body and brain is replaced by implants, cybernetics do ''not'' [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul eat your soul]] and that some unique part of a person always remains. The main evidence is that cybernetically-enhanced humans all have a special region visible online, called a "Ghost", that is strongly tied to personal identities. Ghosts can be hacked to implant FakeMemories or perform brainwashing, and it's even possible to perform a destructive copy of a human's Ghost to create more convincing artifcial intelligences, but only human beings have Ghosts. [[spoiler:In various incarnations of the series, it's shown that highly advanced AI such as [[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 the Puppetmaster]] can create rudimentary Ghosts on their own. This causes a philosophical crisis for the heroine Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg with only her organic brain and her Ghost to call her own.]]

* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': In one arc, the protagonists encountered a character who had the power to capture a person's soul if the person spoke a certain taboo word. Characters whose souls were taken were frozen in place and glowed with something resembling electricity until the only character who ''didn't'' break the taboo won their souls back.
* ''Manga/VenusVersusVirus'': TheVirus preys on [[{{Muggles}} civilians]], eating their souls.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'', obviously enough. Weapons are designed to eat souls, but there's a moral code that only the souls of those on Lord Death's list about to become ''kishin'' are allowed; otherwise, eating human souls is a very bad thing. Also, if weapons and meisters have their souls in sync -- Soul Resonance -- massive fighting power can be unlocked. The size of one's soul wavelength reflects their potential strength (physical and otherwise), and Lord Death (the leader of the good guys) has a soul large enough to contain an entire city. Potentially, the souls of gods can cover the ''entire planet'' (which, if one in-universe god is Death, is actually quite appropriate).
* Souls in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' are [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic a known physical phenomena]] that can be affected by alchemy:
** Philosopher's Stones are made of condensed masses of human souls, and the homunculi are created with special Philosopher's Stones extracted from the body of their Father, who's basically a living Philosopher's Stone.
** The act of removing one's soul and attaching it to another person corrodes the soul and renders it incapable of sustaining a body. Barry the Chopper's original body is revealed to actually still be around, moving because an animal's soul is inside it, causing it to decay, though 'his' current body is okay. [[spoiler:Alphonse realizes the same is happening to his own suit of armor, different in that it causes him to black out occasionally and will lead to a violent explosion at an unpredictable point in time.]] Seems that souls are indeed paired up with one body and one mind in this series.
** Interestingly, souls do not appear be immortal ''at all''. A person dying normally causes their souls to [[CessationOfExistence disintegrate]] while releasing its spiritual energy, just as their body will eventually decompose and have its components reintegrate into nature. Putting souls into Philosopher's Stones simply [[AndIMustScream delays]] this until their energy is used up.
** In ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'', [[spoiler:souls are what power alchemy. In turn, people actually have a smaller version of the Gate of Alchemy within their own souls, which pulls souls of the dead from a parallel world (read: our real world, circa WWI) to power alchemy. The [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Philosopher's Stone]] is in turn made from condensing a metric ton of souls into one object. This is also why attempts at human transmutation fail and produce homunculi: equivalent exchange can account for the physical elements that make up a body, but not for the soul. Homunculi are thus soulless abominations, though it's shown that what truly makes them a homunculus in the end (and gives them their overall life and power) is eating red stones, which are lower-power versions of Philosopher's Stones]]. The element of a soul and body requiring one another is also touched upon in this version, as [[spoiler:Hohenheim]] reveals to [[spoiler:Dante]] towards the end of the series.
* ''Manga/{{Mushishi}}'': A story features a Mushishi who had his soul replaced with a Mushi (essentially making him [[SealedGoodInACan "the can"]]) because he couldn't see mushi, which would have made him useless in protecting [[SealedEvilInACan another "can"]]. Most of the time he's merely TheStoic, but occasionally the Mushi-soul leaves and he becomes TheSpock.
* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'': The rule is ''apparently'' that if you think you have a soul, you do. Details on this are fuzzy, but it appears to only be necessary for certain aspects of magic such as forming pactios and dark magic. Plus the whole 'Am I a real person and not just a robot?' thing. Chachamaru's sisters presumably do not have one while she herself does. This is likely because Chachamaru is part robot part magic puppet. Note that Chachazero also has her own distinct personality.
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Brook's Devil Fruit power is that after he died, his soul returned to his body (though not until after it had rotted to a skeleton [[spoiler:because he got lost in the fog and took a year to find it).]] Later on, during the TimeSkip, he figures out how to force his soul out of his body have it fly around.
* In ''Franchise/SailorMoon'', souls are represented by Star Seeds, which can be readily stolen by Sailor Galaxia and her minions. When a normal human loses their Star Seed, they become a [[TheHeartless phage]], when a Sailor Soldier loses hers, she dies.
* In ''Manga/KarakuridoujiUltimo'', Dr. Dunstan said that he [[FridgeHorror successfully broke down]] human souls and put them in robots known as the karakuri doji. The only way a doji truly dies is if you crush their soul sphere.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' [[spoiler: the Soul Gem is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. The souls get transformed into one as a part of a contract with Kyubey. The girls' emotions seem to appear as magic energy, so while a girl's wish gives her positive magic, the despair equal to the wishes the girl creates darkens the Soul Gem and turns it into a Grief Seed, turning the girl into a witch]]. In addition, [[spoiler: being too far away from your gem causes you to enter an EmptyShell state until it's returned, and if it's ever destroyed, you die. In one route of the spinoff visual novel, Sayaka is away from her Soul Gem for a few days, and by the time she gets it back her body has started decomposing. Right in front of Kyousuke. Poor girl]].
* ''Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}'': Souls are eternal, indestructible "concepts", but require a physical body to tether them to the world. The soul is linked to the body, and when the body dies, it returns to [[TheLifestream Akasha]], to await reincarnation. Ordinarily when a soul is reincarnated, it retains no memories from any of its previous lives, but there are ways around this, as seen with [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Roa]]. If a person does manage to preserve their soul beyond the death of their original body, usually by [[GrandTheftMe transferring it directly into a new body]] or by [[OurVampiresAreDifferent becoming a vampire]], then the soul will decay. The Third True Magic, as explained in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', can overcome this problem. Also, [[spoiler:[[Literature/TheGardenOfSinners Aozaki Touko]] has a method of [[CloningGambit transferring her consciousness and soul into an identical artificial body]] with no apparent negative effects]]. Souls in the Nasuverse are normally indestructible, but someone with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, such as both of the Shikis, can [[DeaderThanDead kill the soul itself]].
* ''Anime/{{Windaria}}'': When people die they turn into red light shaped like birds and fly to this airship in the sky over the ocean. What this ship ''is'' never gets explained, at least not in the movie.
* ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'': A member of a [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien technologically superior alien race]] tries to prove the main characters that human life has no worth by bringing some of their loved ones back to life and then [[LudicrousGibs blowing them to a pulp]]. It also tells them that [[ReligionIsWrong there is no God]]. When they ask it if there is no soul either it responds: Apparently, this data keeps on migrating from individual to individual after their deaths. Also, the souls that have shared a "relation" in life keep close to each other even after they die and reincarnate into the living world.
-->"When humans die, approximately 21 grams of data detaches and migrates to a separate dimension. Is this data what you refer to?"
* ''Manga/UndertakerRiddle'': People's souls take the form of butterflies and they're fuel to evil spirits.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': A Digimon's [=DigiCore=] is their soul in everything but name, housing their primary data. If a Digimon loses its [=DigiCore=], it just stops functioning. Most Digimon only have one [=DigiCore=] each, usually hidden deep inside their body. However, most undead Digimon such as [[DemBones SkullGreymon]] have their [=DigiCores=] exposed due to their bodies rotting away. And then there are the Digimon Sovereigns, who each have ''twelve'' [=DigiCores=] floating around their bodies.

* ''Comicbook/{{Spawn}}'' had soul-negating demons, who could cause angels and demons to become DeaderThanDead. It was later revealed that the title character had several thousand souls in his body.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Lucifer}}'', demons don't have souls. Lucifer demonstrates his power by creating a soul for one just so he can sentence it to eternal suffering.
** That may refer only to some demons, since many are angels who originally fell with him, and presumably retain the souls that they had. The demons that came from ''elsewhere'' may be soulless.
** It's also explained that souls are absolutely indestructible, but can be "unraveled" into a broken state that takes millennia to come back together into a conscious entity.

* In ''ComicBook/XFactor'', Layla Miller's ''true'' power is revealed as the ability to resurrect dead people, albeit without souls. Trevor Fitzroy's role as a longstanding Bishop villain is thus explaining as Layla [[CameBackWrong restoring the once good Trevor, but without a soul]]. Sometime later, she does the same thing to [[spoiler: Guido Carosella]]. While [[spoiler: Guido]] apparently doesn't feel anything wrong about himself, he's shown acting more erratically and less restrained than usual, with Layla utterly distraught at his condition.

* ''ComicBook/{{Revival}}'': When a Passenger is split from its body, the resulting reviver gains a HealingFactor and limited {{Telepathy}} but loses emotional connections. If they are reunited they combust, leaving nothing.

* ''Fanfic/ACrownOfStars'': In this setting, souls have different colours or sizes depending on the nature or power of the owner. They may be removed from a body and placed into another, split or mended. A person may transfer part of his or her soul into another person’s to heal it (Daniel’s soul has many scars due to this). If someone loses a portion of her or his soul (like Asuka’s mother), she can keep functioning but the trauma may drive her crazy.

* In ''FanFic/TheJewelleryBox'', the main characters have been in a form of spiritual stasis and are awakened when their dragon friend "invokes" their element. They also forgot everything about their past lives while in stasis.
* ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'': A being's soul is composed of two parts -- a Light of Existence (the heart) and a Shadow of Existence (the appearance), both containing parts of the being's personality. If erased from existence, the Shadow ends up in [[EldritchAbomination Entropy]]'s Realm (the Light, according to WordOfGod, returns to Fauna Luster from whom all souls spring, or in the case of some of the G3 ponies, entered the afterlife, or was reborn as a new individual). What's more, it's stated that there's not a "Law of Conservation of Mass" when it comes to souls, meaning [[spoiler: the same person can have ''multiple'' {{reincarnation}}s ([[BadFuture Dark World]]!Twilight being the reincarnation of G3 Minty's Light and Minty Pie being the reincarnation of her shadow, for example), but the soul will still exist independently of the reincarnation]].
* ''FanFic/BlackQueenRedKing'': Rex gains the ability to see souls. He describes them as brilliant, flaming figures that glow an impossible color. His own soul is described [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination as a horrifying monstrosity]] that damages the eyes of those who look at it and that it ''"glowed with a blindingly bright darkness."'']] This world is of the "Lose your soul, you die" variety, and soul eaters do exist.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6878267/10/Puella-Magi-Lyra-Magica Puella Magi Lyra Magica]]'': A girl from the ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' universe [[spoiler:who had undergone intercision]] tried to regain her daemon by [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica contracting]] and forming a Soul Gem. The plan ''kind of'' worked...
* In ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', George's ring proves to have soul-bonded to him, which he finds out when someone takes it forcibly from him. He describes it as having his soul's arm ripped off, and he is left badly shaken and despairing, though his sanity is saved because he can feel the missing piece out there. Later, when faced with the prospect of going home without the ring—having his soul transferred into his original body (the four are in cloned bodies)—he panics. Varx does some tests and discovers that George's soul “kind of overlaps” the ring, and that the transfer process should send his entire soul over. Given that neither epilogue mentions anything wrong with George after he goes home, one must assume the process worked.
* ''Blog/BloomingDreemurr'', being a fanwork of ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', has this going. Particular attention is brought to it beyond Undertale due to the blog directly having characters preforming experiments to try and figure out any way to create an artificial soul for Flowey.
* ''Fanfic/TheMansionverse'': Souls are "sentient ectoplasmic constructs". Living beings naturally develop a soul, their mind shaping their shell of magic into a copy of itself, that can then materialize separate from the body after death — that's ghosts. Souls can be created in other ways as well. While their ectoplasmic form can be harmed or even destroyed, demon [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Ammit the Devourer]] is the only known force in the universe who can permanently destroy a soul.

* In ''Fanfic/TheConfectionaryChronicles'', Gabriel confirms that humans are the only beings on Earth to have souls, with even near-human creatures having something different, although part-humans such as Fleur do have souls, [[spoiler:allowing Fleur to pledge her devotion to Loki despite being part-Veela rather than a pure human]]. Nephilim conceived with non-humans, such as pagan gods, also lack souls of their own, but have greater power than most of their other parent’s kind.
* In ''[[https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-122/JohnnySnowball+Buffy+meets+Star+Trek.htm Buffy meets Star Trek]]'', Data is possessed by an ancient evil known only as 'Darkness', which is so powerful that it would eventually poison any organic body it possessed. However, Giles notes that Darkness can only possess an entity that has a soul, which leads to a powerful moment when Captain Picard and Commander Riker consider this evidence that Data truly is alive, even though they both already saw Data as such. After [[spoiler:Data is freed from Darkness]], Willow admits that she can't explain how Data has a soul or when he might have gotten it, but affirms that he can be truly considered ''alive'' even if he started out as a machine.
* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2516242/1/A-Slayer-Transformed A Slayer Transformed]]" opens with Faith suffering serious injuries after she saves Optimus Prime from a demon attack. The subsequent medical treatment is so traumatic that Arcee volunteers to bond her spark to Faith's soul to give Faith the strength to survive the treatment, giving Arcee a link to Faith on a spiritual level. After arriving in Sunnydale, Arcee is able to quickly confirm that Angel is different from other vampires as the Autobots have identified the wavelength of a human spark, Arcee able to confirm that Angel is generating that wavelength.

* In the ''Fanfic/ThereWasOnceAnAvengerFromKrypton'' universe, human souls are apparently functionally ''eternal'', so CessationOfExistence isn't a possibility. Atheists that end up in the Underworld, since Hades takes in the souls that don't qualify for the afterlife they grew up with, are given the choice of a DeathOfPersonality via a drink of Lethe water, but that's the closest it can get. Ghost Zone ghosts are formed when souls with UnfinishedBusiness binding them to Earth are infused with massive amounts of ectoplasm.

* In ''Fanfic/TowerOfBabel'' souls are intrinsically tied to mind and magic. If someone’s magical matrix is damaged, their soul eventually destabilizes and their mind is destroyed. AI can only be created through magic and if their minds are sufficiently complex, they can gain a soul.

* ''Film/ShortCircuit'': Number Five gets struck by lightning, there is a glitch in the programming and he gains a soul. In the {{sequel|itis}}, he foils the bad guys, is legally recognized as a person and swears the oath of citizenship.
* ''Film/GhostRider2007'': An interesting variation occurs, where Johnny Blaze seems to lose his free will as a consequence of selling his soul to Mephisto, as he is unable to refuse to become the Ghost Rider, or even to get off his bike when Mephisto doesn't want him to. Once his big mission is complete and his soul restored, though, Blaze has no trouble [[FaustianRebellion refusing the Devil's offer to free him of the Rider or in using the powers of the Rider against Mephisto's plans on Earth.]]
* ''Film/ColdSouls'': Extracting your soul is as common as, say, wiping away bad memories. CreativeSterility happens to Paul Giamatti (as himself) when his "chickpea-sized" soul is removed to prevent anxiety, and he later gets involved in ''Russian soul-smuggling''.
* In ''Film/TheSerpentAndTheRainbow'', a movie that deals with [[HollywoodVoodoo Haitian voodoo]], shows rainbow-colored souls being stored away in ceramic pots.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'': Losing your soul robs you of all willpower and memory, you simply "exist" as an EmptyShell, conscious but unable to think or act; while acts such as murder breaks the soul apart makes you less human ([[SoulJar and immortal, if you know how to work it the right way]]). It appears that the mind is a semi-separate entity that remains with the largest piece of a split soul. In addition, [[spoiler:ripping it apart and dying with your soul not in one piece will condemn you to eternity in agony, as the act is a "horrible crime against nature"]]. [[MrExposition Hermione]] implies that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone repentance]] can potentially put a torn soul back together, but it hurts a lot.
* Creator/PeterFHamilton loves this subject so much that he wrote ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'', a whole SpaceOpera series about possession in the 2600s. The soul is basically sentience (that is, YOU), but in a form that retains cohesion after death, without physical support (like the brain). This is linked to a theory of strata-less computing, which says that computation (read 'thought') can be accomplished without energy consumption and support if there is no input or output. A dead guy loses his "input" (senses), and, so Hamilton says, the Universe is wired so that sentience survives and is either transported to the 'beyond' (an input-less hell where souls pass the time by raping each other for memories), or is transported to the end of time, to contribute with its memories to the creation of a new universe. Also, for some reason, if a soul is given the chance to take over a living human body (after suppressing the occupant), its remaining part which is still in the beyond dimension can serve as a massive source of energy for all sorts of evil powers.
* In ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'' children with apsychia are born without a soul and apparently simply stop existing after death -- no afterlife, no nothing. It is seen as horrendously tragic. An experimental medical treatment is being investigated, in which tiny pieces of many souls are fused into, essentially, a synthetic soul which can then be implanted in the apsychic child. Whether this can actually work is unclear.
* ''Literature/PumpSixAndOtherStories'': In ''Pocketful of Dharma'', your soul is the same as your consciousness, and consciousness can be digitalized and stored in data cubes, cheap, throw-away pendrives of the future. This is but a premise to a story involving a young beggar accidently getting his hands on a data cube with [[spoiler: consciousness of Naed Delhi, the 19th Dalai Lama. And there will be no 20th one, ever, as long as his soul remains trapped in the electronic medium, thus being unable to reincarnate]]. Only the destruction of the cube can release him free.

* ''Literature/TheLittleMermaid'': In Creator/HansChristianAndersen's original version, mermaids do not have souls but can gain them, giving them access to the Christian afterlife; without one, they'd "dissolve like the sea foam" upon death.
* Creator/PiersAnthony's works:
** ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'': Characters without souls are less introspective and less capable of empathy than those with souls, but can earn souls through self-exploration and consciously trying to think of others more. Souls can be taken apart, and regenerate; babies' souls are grown from bits of the soul of their mother and father.
** In ''Literature/IncarnationsOfImmortality'', it's eventually revealed that the entire universe is essentially a soul-sorting machine. The titular incarnations represent the various important aspects of it - the Fates collect raw soul-stuff and weave into people, while Death is ultimately the one who has to figure out which bits are evil and which are good, only showing up in person for those which are extremely finely balanced. Unfortunately the system has broken down because the current God isn't paying attention and a line of Evil incarnations have been genuinely evil. Satan, the latest one, comes to realise that his job is actually supposed to be to reveal evil and purify it from souls as the end part of the whole process; he ultimately convinces the other incarnations of this and works with them to replace God because he's upset at being sent so many souls that should be going to heaven.

* Creator/CSLewis:
** In ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'', it is implied that the souls of those in Hell are devoured by demons, and this is in fact the fate of all the damned, including the demons themselves minus whoever's last. (Theologically, this can be seen as a parody/inversion of the Christian belief in Heaven as eternal communion with God, where the Devil's version of that communion is an eternal domination and violation of all lesser souls.)
** In ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce'', on the other hand, souls in Hell (which looks like [[spoiler:an English industrial town on a perpetually cold and rainy evening]]), isolate themselves there out of refusal to give up some single vital facet of their self, becoming a twisted, damaged version of their former personality. ''Divorce'' plays with the idea that souls can leave Hell of their own will (in which case it will merely have been Purgatory), if they have not placed themselves beyond redemption -- it can be difficult to tell if a person has crossed the line. (A "Solid Person" who has made it to heaven questions whether a woman whose fate is up for grabs is still a grumbler, or merely a grumble going on and on mechanically.)

* Handled interestingly in Creator/OscarWilde's ''Literature/TheFishermanAndHisSoul'', where the titular Fisherman gives up his soul in order to be with the mermaid he loves. His soul is shown as being intellectually completely different from himself. In fact, his life only changes for the worse once his soul returns. The spell the Fisherman performs to separate himself from his soul involves cutting his shadow free from his body, whereupon it is animated by the soul and goes about getting into misadventures. The soul, left on its own, is apparently [[TheHeartless Heartless]].
* Meredith Ann Pierce's ''Literature/TheDarkangelTrilogy'': when you die, your soul ascends to the sky ("deep heaven"). Once there, it is possible for it to return to earth temporarily to speak to living people, though this happens rarely. However, the soul can be removed from the body and stored in a vial. When this happens, the soul's owner becomes a wraith which retains the power of speech but very little memory. Souls can also be consumed by demons like darkangels and lorelei, in which case the owner's consciousness is completely obliterated. Soulless beings are always hideous to look at.
* In "The Boy Who Couldn't Die", removing the soul from a living thing's body makes them immortal. The soul can only be retrieved from the recently deceased or dying; it requires some voodoo crap to pull out, and the proper container to keep it in. Damaging the soul is instant death.
* In P.C. Hodgell's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'' series, a person's soul is what casts a shadow (in many respects it IS the shadow) and thus someone whose soul is missing doesn't cast one. Members of the Kencyr races can give their soul to another who has the ability to accept it; this makes the giver very hard to kill, and makes it so that dishonorable acts that must be done do not stain the soul, since it isn't there. Souls may also be stolen or consumed, and heroine Jame and her mother are able to reap souls, drawing them from the body and taking them.

* Souls in ''Literature/TheHollows'' novels are a nebulous thing that is referenced often but ill-defined. The souls of living vampires are destroyed [[spoiler:maybe]] when they die and reanimate and they seem to lose their conscience and the ability to feel emotion. Souls of living beings can be temporarily removed by demon magic without appreciable harm to the person though what change this makes in the person is never explored. BlackMagic creates 'smut' on the soul that is visible to magical creatures. This is considered a bad thing though the negative consequences of having this smut is never explained. This smut can be transferred to another person's soul. Finally the existence of souls is an established fact and its loss and destruction can be detected by an unexplained process. To add more confusion a person's aura is linked yet separate from their soul in an unexplained manner.

* In Creator/JRRTolkien's Middle-earth mythos, the precise nature of the soul (''fëa'', in Quenya), and its fate after death varies depending on race: the souls of Elves are bound to this universe, and when they die they go to hang out in the Halls of Mandos, eventually to be reincarnated (unless they've committed acts of irredeemable evil in life) in a body identical to the old one. The souls of Men, on the other hand, are only meant to stay in this world for a limited time; after death they make a brief stop in the Halls of Mandos and then depart from the universe for an unknown destination. Disembodied Elvish souls are capable of refusing the summons to the Halls of Mandos, in which case they will drift around wherever they like-but such souls are then susceptible to being captured and controlled by black magic (remember how Sauron was sometimes called the "Necromancer"? Yeah...).
** It's uncertain what happens to dwarves, not being part of the original divine plan for the world, but they believe that Aulë their maker (who they call Mahal) has prepared some sort of afterlife for them. Tolkien speculates in ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' that Aulë made some sort of arrangement with Mandos to get his creatures a space in his Halls. Hobbits, as a kind of sub-species of Men, are probably subject to the same fate as them.

* Creator/MichaelSwanwick wrote a short story in which dead souls fall up to the heavens to be absorbed into creation. However, power lines and cold iron would stop this (if for example, you died in a building with reinforced concrete ceilings) so ghosts could avoid that undiscovered country and stay themselves while they navigated an upside-down otherwise intangible world constantly holding on to iron or powerlines. There was also a soul eating monster.
* In the ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'', Luke loses his soul. He's comatose, but he can now possess his nephew Jacen.

* In Creator/LordDunsany's short story "The Kith of the Elf-Folk", a little Wild Thing from the marshes longs to have a soul so it can worship God and know the meaning of music. It has none, but the other Wild Things make a soul for it out of what is around them, although the Oldest of the Wild Things warns that "if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow, and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die".
* In Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Literature/TheMonsterMen'', it is taken for granted that the humans that Professor Maxon creates have no souls. At one point, Number 13 goes to murder him and stops because it would be the act of a soulless creature. Von Horn becomes quite [[GreenEyedMonster envious]] of him because a soulless creature acts better than he does.
* Creator/CharlesStross's ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' is couched in mathematical and scientific language, based as it is off the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. The word "soul" refers to the electrical impulses that make up a human being's brain: thinking, feeling, calculating; some of that information remains as "echoes" when a person dies, but there are ways--and [[EldritchAbomination creatures]]--capable of erasing those echoes entirely. Certain beings feed by increasing entropy, and erasing information generates a lot of it.

* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''Literature/ProsperosDaughter'', a soul is an aspect that allows you to resist transformations; TheMindIsThePlaythingOfTheBody applies only to the soulless. Humans have them naturally; other beings, apparently, can acquire them.
* In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/ThreeHeartsAndThreeLions'', TheFairFolk have no souls. They cannot venture on holy ground. And a nixie is explaining that certain barbarians offer her HumanSacrifice, and her reaction is a light observation that she's not, as they think, a cannibal, but the sacrifices do wear nice clothes -- and [[ObliviouslyEvil gives Holger an innocent look because she has no soul]].
* Souls in ''Literature/TheParasolProtectorate'' are discussed as a quantifiable substance. Those with excess soul can be turned into a vampire or werewolf, or become a ghost upon death. Others, such as the protagonist, [[TheSoulless have no soul at all]], and are capable of turning such beings mortal (or dead, in a ghost's case) through physical contact. However, it's hinted that these phenomena have much more to do with how an individual interacts with the aether. Whether actual 'souls' are involved is left ambiguous.
* In Creator/RuthFrancesLong's ''Literature/TheTreacheryOfBeautifulThings'', the nix stole Jenny's soul. This not only put her body into FauxDeath, it meant that she did not have to go to the Fairy Queen voluntarily; the nix could hand over the soul, and the queen takes the body.
* In Creator/PoulAnderson's ''Literature/OperationChaos'', they discuss the soul while talking of their planned trip to {{Hell}}.
* In Creator/JulieKagawa's ''Literature/TheIronFey'', the fey have no souls. This means they do not survive their bodily deaths but melt back into the Nevernever. One also says they are conscienceless because of it.
* In ''Literature/TheTygrineCat'', a cat's spirit/consciousness is called the second self and can exit the body to traverse [[SpiritWorld Fiåney]]. It is possible for the second self to get lost and for the body to eventually die, trapping the second self in Fiåney permanently.
* Souls in ''Literature/CoilingDragon'' are tied to the type of [[EnlightenmentSuperpowers magical abilities]] that a deity can use. When someone becomes a [[PhysicalGod demigod]], they bond their soul to a [[PiecesOfGod divine spark]] of a certain [[ElementalPowers type of magic]] and can then use only that type of magic. [[spoiler:Unless they split their soul and create a new body for the divine spark.]]
* Souls are inextricably tied to magic in the ''Literature/{{Chalion}}'' series, as a living soul is literally the interface between the spiritual realm and the material. Even the gods, as wholly spiritual beings, are unable to perform miracles without a willing soul through which to channel their powers. All other forms of magic have something to do with souls as well, usually binding something else to a human's soul to make them a shaman or sorcerer.
* ''Literature/TalionRevenant'': Souls can be drawn out of the body by a Talion Justice. This kills the person, but some souls retain their vitality, although not memories, and are called ''rhasas''. Talion Justices must be cleansed of these souls in a special ritual. A ''rhasa'' soul can be placed into a corpse and this reanimates it, along with this leaving the undead being stronger, quicker, and easier to train. A person can also use them to enhance or heal themselves. Souls appear as colored lights, ''rhasas'' being white.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAncientDarkness'': Each person has three souls, with different functions - and losing each soul has different effects. The world-soul connects the person to the rest of the world, [[spoiler: losing it causes you to become a [[AndIMustScream Lost]] [[FateWorseThanDeath one]]; the clan-soul is responsible for morality (explained as a sense of belonging to temper the strength of the world-soul) and losing it causes you to become a [[FaceMonsterTurn demon]]; if you lose the name-soul you become a ghost, losing your memories - the name-soul is also your reflection, but we don't see if [[MissingReflection the reflection is lost too.]] Soul-sickness happens when one of the souls is corrupted - even though you stay you, the effects are the same]].
* ''Literature/TheCosmere'''s universe comprises Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual realms; the latter contains the "spiritweb" of every living thing, which represents their identity, passes into the afterlife upon their death, and houses the "spiritual DNA" that accesses the setting's various FunctionalMagic systems.
* ''Literature/IAmMordred'': Mordred eventually decides to cope with his prophesied fate by [[spoiler: removing his soul from his body. He plans to give his soul to Arthur for safe-keeping, but it is stolen by a raven sent by Merlin. The soulless Mordred is unable to feel emotion (which was Mordred's purpose for the procedure, he was tired of the pain) and has no sense of morality. It is this soulless Mordred that kills Arthur, while Mordred's soul becomes trapped in the raven (in fact raven!Mordred is the book's narrator). It is possible that raven Mordred has some connection to his body still as parts of the book are told from the perspective of the soulless Mordred. Also, apparently putting a human soul in a raven makes said raven immortal and sentient.]]
* ''Literature/ISitBehindTheEyes'': Just as the mind controls the body, the soul controls the mind. The mind stores memories and handles thought processes (both conscious and unconscious), but the soul decides what the mind consciously thinks about. The study of the soul is referred to as 'Psychology-ology'. The titular Entity is essentially an alien soul possessing the mind and body of a little girl and reveals itself as such when it starts discussing Psychologyology, as its soul controls minds in a different way to humans. When this happens, [[spoiler: the suppressed soul is able to regain partial control over the mind]]. Psychopaths have souls that are damaged, usually as a result of having a diseased mind. It is never made clear what happens when a soul is destroyed, but it is presumed that they either die or [[CessationOfExistence cease to exist]].
* ''Literature/SDGundamTheLastWorld'' has G-Souls. G-Souls are the souls of SD Gundams, and they can absorb other G-Souls to acquire powerful weapons or turn into [[HumongousMecha giant forms more reminiscent of traditional fullscale Gundams]]. [[spoiler:Later on in the story it's revealed that they're actually copies of characters throughout the ''SD Gundam'' multiverse, with similar skills, personalities, and even memories to match. So in a way they're a weird combination of souls, clones, and data.]]

* Souls, as far as ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'' is concerned, are [[MerchandiseDriven highly marketable]]. The team's mecha sidekicks need to have them placed into their bodies to return to their normal size, but only for ten minutes, as a side effect of being in the Human World. Even the human souls in the series work like this, as proven when Sousuke shoots his soul at his own body to reverse a FreakyFridayFlip.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E07OnceMoreUntoTheBreach Once More Unto the Breach]]", Kor is sent on a suicide mission and promises to convey Worf's greetings to Jadzia in [[WarriorHeaven Sto'Vo'Kor]]. While Ezri is back at Deep Space 9 chatting in Quark's Bar. Which makes one wonder. What does happen to the souls of a Trill's previous hosts?
** Jadzia even (re)introduced herself to some old friends of a previous host with the phrase "Don't mistake a new face with a new soul...", clouding the issue a bit. The symbiont which carries the memories to new hosts might be counted as having its own soul, mingled with but distinct from the soul of the individual host.
* The ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "[[Recap/TalesFromTheCryptS6E12DoctorOfHorror Doctor of Horror]]" features a scientist who theorizes that the human soul can be physically found, in the form of a pinprick of light, at the base of one's spine.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', the soul is a combination of the positive energy that animates a living being and their mind. Spells like ''magic jar'' and ''astral projection'' allow one to separate their soul from their body but leaving their body comatose in the process or instantly killing it should the spell fail while the soul is outside of the body. After death, the soul becomes an entity known as a [[AllAreEqualInDeath petitioner]] that moves on to the afterlife, where they will eventually transmute into an outsider, which will in turn eventually be destroyed and have their energy subsumed into their home plane.
** The supplement ''The First World: Realm of the Fey'' reveals the purpose for the existence of souls in the ''Pathfinder'' cosmology: none of the gods could trust the others to divide the divine energy that welled up in the Positive Energy Plain fairly, so they divided it into discrete packets, gave those packets free will, and allowed them to choose - by dedication to a god or CharacterAlignment - which outer realm they would end up in.

* ''Sorcerer'' leaves it up to the individual gaming group to decide what a sorcerer's Humanity attribute (which can be damaged by too much [[DealWithTheDevil consorting with demons]]) represents in concrete terms; one possible option is that Humanity measures how much of the sorcerer's soul still remains intact.

* In ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' the "Limit of the Soul" is one of the Limits of Magic and prevents wizards from affecting human souls with their magic. This means it is impossible for most magicians to perform resurrections, or create living people via their magics.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'', souls just kind of plop onto the ground when their owners die and are usually taken by whatever killed them. They can be absorbed to increase the power of the one who took it, which is how this game's leveling works, and particularly powerful souls can be used to make powerful weapons.
* Done to a head-scratching degree in the ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series.
** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'', the souls of defeated demons turn into Devil Arms/combat Styles for use by whoever gets them, but it's never known what exactly happens to a human soul once their bodies are destroyed.
** In [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry1 the first game]], devils are pretty much referred to as having no souls at all to speak of, and the same is said about humans that "become devils" in ''Devil May Cry 3'' and ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4''.
** Anyone expecting ''Devil May Cry 4'' to be consistent with the concept of devil souls presented in ''Devil May Cry 3'' is going to get very confused at Echidna, Bael, Dagon, and Berial ''not'' turning into Devil Arms after being beaten.
** In ''VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry'', the Lost Souls are human souls who are trapped in Limbo. They are found stuck on walls and wail in agony when Dante gets close. "Collecting" or attacking them releases Red Orbs.

* The ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series largely revolves around the various effects of souls and the corruption thereof. Losing your soul will kill you while returning a soul into its dead body will apparently create a vampire. A corruption of the soul leads to a creeping physical corruption - Kain's vampire lieutenants grew into increasingly inhuman monsters instead of just stronger. Also very importantly, souls are food for various beings, almost all of them tied into the biggest soul-devourer of them all, [[spoiler:the Elder God. A purified soul, on the other hand, will enable a being to see said god]]. There's a lot more, but these are the most noteworthy points.

* In ''Videogame/FinalFantasyX'', when a person dies, their soul must be sent on to the Farplane by a summoner's Sending. If not one of two things will happen: Either the soul will form with other souls and become a Fiend, which is the major source of monsters all game or a strong-willed soul will give itself a physical form by pulling together a type of supernatural matter called pyreflies, becoming an Unsent. Several major characters are Unsent (including [[spoiler:Auron]]). An Unsent can voluntarily leave for the Farplane (as happens to [[spoiler:Belgemine]] in ''X'' and [[spoiler:Maechen]] in ''X-2'') or be Sent against their will. There are anomalies, however: in X-2 [[spoiler: Shuyin’s immense hatred and despair render him unable to be Sent until after you defeat him]].

* It turns out that if you're [[spoiler:the child of a god, you can keep going without your soul]] in ''Videogame/BaldursGateII''. And it has some other interesting effects.
* Darwinians in ''VideoGame/{{Darwinia}}'' have digital souls. When a Darwinian dies, its soul floats off to a soul repository in the middle of Darwinia. Soon it'll float back and its intelligence is processed after being sent to spawning grounds to be reborn again. However, soul destroyers and in Multiwinia, dark forest can [[DeaderThanDead destroy their souls]].
* In ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'', the soul is one of a person's three aspects, the other two are the body and the mind. The soul is described as the entity that dreams and hopes, and are therefore regarded as a symbol of the future. A soul can feel pain if someone or something very dear to the person it belongs to is killed and/or destroyed, but since this permanently cripples the soul, it can only be done once. A soul can be completely destroyed if it is [[SoulJar bound to an object]] and that object is destroyed. Furthermore: A mind separated from its soul will go insane and lose its perception of reality, an effect that increases the further away the soul is.
* In ''Videogame/SaGaFrontier2'', the ability to use magic, or 'Anima', is considered the physical manifestation of one's soul. The stronger your Anima, the stronger your soul. Occasionally, someone is born ''without'' the ability to use Anima; these few are scorned and looked down upon, and even rumored to be 'soulless'. Naturally, one of the main characters, Gustave XIII, can't use Anima and has to cope with this prejudice and hatred on top of all his other problems.
%% Played with in ''VideoGame/Afterlife1996'' and its [=SOULs=] (Stuff Of Unending Life).
* ''VideoGame/{{Albion}}'' has two different versions. 'Soul' in a traditional sense is an abstract concept used by Terrans to make a distinction between sentient and non-sentient beings. The closest thing the game has to actual souls is called Ens, which is defined as life-force.
* In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', "Soul" is a form of matter that comprises everything in the UG.

* One of the few coherent and understandable portions of ''VideoGame/LimboOfTheLost'' involves souls. Those who end up in Limbo receive their souls in a vial and are responsible for keeping it safe. There's a legend, however, that someone who can claim seven souls by any means can escape Limbo, which causes a bit of havoc. Briggs is unusual as, being a living person thrown into Limbo by outside intervention, his soul is ''inside his body''.
* In ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'', souls, depicted as glowing orbs, are collected by defeating enemies, breaking open fountains, [[CrateExpectations crates]], and other containers, doing the absolution minigame, and completing the challenges in the circles of fraud and deceit before their time limits are up. They are used as currency for purchasing moves, upgrading existing ones, and purchasing relic slots, and upgrades to the health and mana bars. Also, after the final boss, [[spoiler:they help seal away Lucifer again. Sort of]].
* In the ''VideoGame/InfinityBlade'' series, souls are called Quantum Identity Patterns or QIP. The Deathless are immortal because they can transfer their QIP to [[BodyBackupDrive specially prepared clone bodies]] upon death. The fully charged Infinity Blade [[spoiler:along with the other Infinity Weapons forged by the Worker of Secrets, the being who created the Deathless]] can disrupt the Deathless' QIP, permanently killing them [[spoiler:or in Ausar's case, erasing his memory.]] When describing the latter event in the opening of the third game, the Worker even says that the Infinity Blade's light burned Ausar's very soul.
* ''VideoGame/RingRunnerFlightOfTheSages'' calls souls threads. All living things (even bacteria and fungi) have them, and they can be used to generate power. A ship with a threaded core made from something as small as a fungus thread can have essentially unlimited power.
* This is pretty much the central theme of ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity'', where {{reincarnation}} is known as a fact and animacy, the scientific exploration and experimentation on the exact nature and properties of souls, is becoming a powerful but extremely controversial political and cultural force. Pretty much every form of magic interacts with souls in some way, and there are a disconcerting number of ways a soul can be contorted, annihilated, imprisoned, or otherwise screwed with horribly.

* ''VideoGame/PonyIsland'': Try not to have an existential crisis as you read this. [[spoiler: But apparently, Theodore's soul is both simultaneously inside ''and outside'' the arcade cabinet machine. He's trapped in not just Limbo, an empty arcade, but also in the [[TailorMadePrison Devil's game machine]]. He can't move, until he either surrenders his soul, or tears down the prison itself. Not just him, but thousands of other damned souls too. Each in their own empty arcades, [[AndIMustScream stuck in their own profiles]].]]
* In the Franchise/SuperMarioBros fangame ''VideoGame/MarioTheMusicBox'': Spirits are said to mostly lack corporeal forms (even though most if not all spirits in the haunted house have a physical body), and angels are even mentioned once. Spirits that do have corporeal forms also tend to be hostile with few exceptions. Entities are mentioned (though they aren't given much explanation) and only two of them exist: [[spoiler:Alice]] and [[spoiler:Anna]]. The circumstances that allowed said characters to become entities are also different in nature.
* The ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' series has its interpretation of souls usually as the {{Final Boss}}es of their games--the antagonists after being defeated once unleashing all their power at one final attempt. Left up for interpretation in most of the games, but given a chilling light in ''[[VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot Planet Robobot]]'', by having [[spoiler:Haltmann]]'s soul [[spoiler:absorbed into his powerful machine Star Dream before]] getting [[DeaderThanDead erased from existence]].
** ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'' shows that souls can be shattered into fragments [[spoiler:which Leongar suffers at the hands of Fecto Forgo]] leaving the body as an empty, comatose shell, ready to be taken over as an appropriate vessel. If all the soul fragments are collected though, the soul can be repaired and the body revived with no ill-lasting effects.
** The mysterious Morpho Knight takes the form of a "butterfly of paradise" and appears to be a {{Psychopomp}} capable of crossing dimensions. It is believed to appear on days of judgement and is drawn to those with powerful souls that it then proceeds to [[YourSoulIsMine feast upon]], granting it the ability to use whatever powers the soul possesses in battle. [[spoiler:It is implied that this same butterfly has been following Kirby for some time but for whatever reason, is unable to absorb Kirby's soul. In ''Forgotten Land'', Kirby can evolve his Sword Ability into that of the Morpho Knight Sword and for Kirby, wielding it is a breeze.]]
* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'': Souls are a fairly easily tradable commodity, being one of the base-level items a player can buy in the Bazaar. They're usually collected exclusively by spirifers using their spirifing forks and devils with their inborn abilities, [[spoiler: but even groups like the Ratticus Fabers and Urchins manage to get their hands on souls, and it's implied they don't exactly purchase them]] but they can be held and used as a resource by pretty much anyone. Losing your soul can have a variety of effects, sidebar text stating "In simpler times, Hell would take a soul on the death of the body. Death is more complicated in Fallen London, though not unknown. So it's not terribly uncommon to meet someone who's short a soul. Some of them become mumbling, dead-eyed husks: some of them simply turn to occupations where soullessness is a professional advantage".
** In ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'', set in the same world, you don't really face serious penalties when you lose your soul, either to a Devil or to the Pentecost apes of the Empire of Hands. That said, given [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential some of the stuff your captain can pull]], it could easily be argued that zeefaring is one of those occupations where a certain measure of soullessness is advantageous! London has also set up certain controls on the soul trade, with you facing customs duties for failing to successfully smuggle unstamped crates of souls past the Revenue Men; picking up some stamped crates at Dearly Departed is a decent way to squeeze a little extra profit out of a trip to Khan's Shadow.
** It turns out that souls [[spoiler: are effectively parasites that collect the owner's experiences and, upon death, float into space and are eaten by [[SentientStars the Judgements]] who then gains the previous owners' memories, making it even more omnipotent. The more valuable and intense the memories it has (unpleasant or otherwise), the stronger the individual soul, and particularly powerful ones can become suns themselves]].
* In ''VideoGame/TinkerQuarry'', each [[LivingToys toy]] has their own specialized soul, called an Essence. It takes the form of a floating object that is visible in the toy's chest in battle. WordOfGod states that each toy actually ''is'' their Essence, with their bodies being simply vessels. If needed, a toy's Essence can be placed in the body of another toy, and they can continue on as if nothing happened.
* In ''VideoGame/NieR'' human souls can be removed from their bodies. [[spoiler:They are colored black and gold, look somewhat translucent, talk in BlackSpeech and bleed red.]] [[AwfulTruth Go figure.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SaltAndSanctuary,'' mortals (two subspecies of humans and two subspecies of orcs) are said to have souls made of salt. To that end, you can offer salt to the gods, who turn it into pearls of soul stuff, which are then used to increase your mind, body, and magic prowess, depending on where those pearls are inserted in the TechTree. The god's souls are said to be made of light, and the BigBad [[spoiler: is a mortal who is desperately trying to turn his salty soul into light so he can be a god too, [[ScamReligion using the prayers dedicated to the newest three to do it with]].]] It doesn't work (whether because the myth is untrue or because it's not possible to turn salt into light isn't stated), leaving him with a desiccated (and mouthy) scarecrow for a body and a giant suit of AnimatedArmor containing his soul.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'' has "Spiria", which, keeping in line with the game's heavy RockThemeNaming, manifests as a metaphysical flower-shaped crystal. If handled improperly, it can be shattered, which results in the person either becoming an EmptyShell or going into coma, and eventually dying, if it's not restored. Each such Spiria shard represents an aspect of personality, like kindness, cowardice, or courage. They can latch onto other people, influencing them in accordance with the aspect of the shard. The power of Spirias powers "Somas", the setting's EmpathicWeapon, which in turn can be used to handle Spirias. Spiria Core (the crystal itself) is surrounded by Spiria Nexus - a labyrinth that protects the Core. Sometimes, the Nexus can be infested with parasites known as "[[TheHeartless xerom]]", requiring a Soma user to [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind go into the Nexus]] and clear it out.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls,'' souls represent both the lifeforce of a living being and are a currency and source of power - the more 'souls' an enemy drops upon death, the more powerful they were. Undeads can absorb these souls (usually with the help of a MysteriousWaif) to augment their bodies. Souls are able to crystallize, forming the preserved chunks that players collect around the place, and certain powerful beings (read: bosses) have unique, twisted souls that can be turned into unique weapons and items by people trained in the art of soul transposition and/or using a tool called a transposing kiln. In the lore, all souls originate from the [[CosmicKeystone First Flame]], with the Gods having obtained the largest parts of the Flame and thus the greatest souls - there's also the titular Dark Soul, which acts as the AntiGod of the world and the exact opposite of the First Flame. [[spoiler:All humans have a splinter of the Dark Soul alongside their normal souls.]]
* ''Videogame/{{ULTRAKILL}}:'' Hell handles souls by way of manifesting Husks to contain them in, which are basically fleshy forms whose completeness, size and power depend on both how well-remembered the soul is by others alive and dead and the subject's own willpower. Unremarkable people end up as mutilated, outright incomplete Filth and Strays, among others, but those with greater impact and will can have more complete, more intelligent and more powerful forms; King Minos' husk was outright {{Kaiju}}-sized and smart enough to turn Lust into a paradise. [[spoiler:And for the epitomes of importance and willpower, they can become Prime Souls, which don't even ''need'' a Husk to manifest physically and are so devastatingly powerful Heaven is genuinely afraid of any coming to exist]]. Notably, souls and Husks can be separated, [[spoiler:going by King Minos' example again: His Corpse was left to ruin Lust's cities, while his soul was imprisoned in Gluttony before it could go Prime (which it does as soon as you break it out)]].

* ''Webcomic/ZebraGirl'': At the end of the Magi-Net arc, after the wizards lose their souls, most of them die, and the few that are left lose their magical talents and become permanently insane.
* ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'': Destroying a soul causes a huge explosion. Now ''that's'' metaphysics!
* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': According to Nioi, people created by the Dewitchery Diamond have completely new souls, rather than being reincarnations. Because [[spoiler: she believed that being a new soul in an older body could lead to madness, she cast a spell on Kaolin and Ellen which made them have dreams in which they re-lived the lives of AlternateUniverse versions of themselves up past their current age]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Sins}}'': If you are a host for [[SevenDeadlySins the Sins]] -- and just ''picking up'' their SoulJar is enough to become their host -- then your soul is shattered into pieces, costing you access to any afterlife. This doesn't seem to impact daily life beyond making [[AnimalsHateHim animals hate you]], but WordOfGod states that when you die, it is naught but the NothingAfterDeath for you. Which sucks.
* ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}'' doesn't say where your soul goes when you die, but wherever it is, you go there [[OutOfClothesExperience naked]].

* ''Webcomic/AModestDestiny'': Gilbert had his soul stolen as an infant. He says that he can't feel emotions and that when he dies he will cease to exist because of this.]] Also, it makes it so that after Deo Deo temporarily inhabits his body, he can't get it back. Ironically, Gilbert was only working for Deo Deo so he'd be immortal and wouldn't have to cease to exist. Deo Deo "forgot" to tell him the problem. However, it's later revealed that Gilbert didn't lose his soul, he lost his [[spoiler:''destiny'']], as in the part of him that was supposed to make him a righteous hero of justice, to Maxim.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': A person's consciousness and personality go where their soul goes. If their soul is sold or stolen, their body is left in a coma. It is apparently possible to "kill" a soul/spirit, but whether this leaves them DeaderThanDead or just sends them somewhere else is unknown. Souls also take on the same appearance as the body they used to inhabit (with a few ghostly attributes added); the exception being Aylee, who, due to being a {{shapeshift|ing}}er, has a far more amorphous soul. Soul "bodies" are also material if they enter a spirit world. Ghosts seem to be souls left behind in the normal material dimension, where their bodies are incorporeal. (Yes, incorporeal bodies. This kind of thing is why notions of a soul can be so confusing.)
* ''Webcomic/{{DDG}}'': The principal characters are all disembodied souls, this leads to a certain amount of both {{voluntary|Shapeshifting}} and [[GenderBender involuntary]] shapeshifting
* ''Webcomic/{{Archipelago}}'': Souls play an important part in the plot. The BigBad seeks to [[SealedEvilInACan free himself]] with the souls of the descendants of the six heroes who imprisoned him. TheDragon collects the souls by tearing them out of bodies with his [[{{Magitek}} magic mechanical arm.]] When a soul is removed, the body remains alive, although it loses its personality and becomes an EmptyShell that obeys simple orders but mostly sits around. The souls themselves remain in the physical world, wrapped in a layer of protective magic. They are small, weightless, retain the individual's magic capabilities, and are [[{{Moe}} extremely cute.]]

* ''Webcomic/LsEmpire'': [[AllThereInTheManual Souls apparently develop along with the mind while the body is still a fetus]]. The only difference is that the soul develops backward in comparison to the mind (the mind develops selfishness then compassion, and the soul develops compassion then selfishness.)
* ''Webcomic/TheDragonslayers'': [[AllThereintheManual According to the character pages and story material]], Soul (AKA Mecha) an immortal [[MixAndMatchCritters lycan-fae]], joined the other Daemonslayers when demon prince Lord Saragon (whom Blackjack had dissed earlier by killing his lover and torturer, Aster when he tried to recruit him back into his armies by holding his comrade and lycanthrope, Shade, hostage) tore out part of her soul to return to his lost demon lover. Still alive, she was saved by Blackjack and Shade before the prince could kill her and now looks forward to the day she can kill Aster and reclaim what was hers.
* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'': They aren't specifically identified as souls, but people have some sort of spiritual presence that endures after death and needs to be led into the Aether by a {{Psychopomp}}. [[spoiler:Mort]] is a person who decided to stay around for a while before passing on. This might also be the part that temporarily exits the body through AstralProjection.
* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'' doesn't have "souls" per se, but the thing that makes a person a person is a "[[http://www.bogleech.com/awfulhospital/458.html concept core]]". It "doesn't exist and is not real", but makes itself exist nonetheless through one or more bodies in [[TheMultiverse the Perception Range]], (called "perceptoids") perpetuating itself by perceiving and being perceived as any abstract idea. Humans are seen as pitiably limited by having their cores tethered to individual, transient bodies, rather than to an arbitrary number of alternate-universe manifestations like most perceptoids. The practical issue with this is that, once a human dies, their core dies as well and their entire personal history is lost, while other perceptoids are able to endure in some non-specified way through their other iterations across the multiverse. Worms (any sort except for maggots, who are actually baby flies) are said to be able to destroy concept cores when they eat something whole, causing them to "unexistalize" and [[KilledOffForReal die for realsies]]. WordOfGod summarized this in layman's terms by saying that in this universe; "Everyone is pretty much the arm of a starfish."
* ''Webcomic/WeAreTheWyrecats'': Discussed. The characters try to determine what the digital size of the human soul is and whether it can be [[BrainUploading saved on different hardware]].
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': The soul is a quantifiable metaphysical interface between a human and the BackgroundMagicField of the Khert that lets humans use FunctionalMagic, backs up memories, and delivers those memories to the Khert upon death. Scripture holds that the ''self'' is refined, freed of mortal memories, and {{Reincarnat|ion}}ed until it's ready to join the Gods, but there's no empirical evidence that any sort of individual identity survives the process.

* ''Literature/ChronoHustle'': In #9, [[spoiler:the original]] Jack makes a deal with Merlin in the Middle Ages, agreeing to give him a Demi-God's soul in exchange for some information. He tells him it'll take some time to get the information and to meet him in the year 3007, where the exchange will take place. So in the year 3007, [[spoiler: Merlin takes Agent Jack's soul in exchange for that information when he and Melinda show up]]. It's yet to be revealed what exactly a soul is, or what losing it even means as [[spoiler: Agent Jack]] doesn't seem to be any different afterward.
* ''Literature/MagicalGirlPolicy'': The Spirit Guard are revealed to be reincarnations of ancient warriors from another civilization, and their souls carry "investiture" from their past lives.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': All living beings have a soul except the Grimm. Souls create Aura, which can be locked, trained, or manifested passively. Aura can create effects such as a {{Deflector Shield|s}} or [[KiManipulation Ki Attacks]], and fuel Semblances, an ability unique to its user. Aura can also be channeled into inanimate objects, empowering weapons and armor; science has even created an Aura-using robot [[spoiler:though this was actually done by taking part of the creator's aura]]. Rare, secret events can cause soul and Aura mergers that risk the loss of the original, independent selves. [[spoiler:Thanks to the God of Light, Ozpin -originally Ozma- has been doing this for millennia and his current host is a farm boy named Oscar]]. Additionally, anything Grimm is always soulless, even parts used as prosthetics will remain that way, and are thus impossible to protect with Aura.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' souls exist and are reincarnated seemingly forever but with different minds and identities. The most interesting example is that of the titular Avatar: which is a human soul twinned with a powerful light spirit. The previous lives of the Avatar also stay in the spirit world in order to lend the current Avatar their power in the [[SuperMode Avatar State.]]

* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'': In the multiparter "Bright Lights", several ponies and other beings have had their shadows stolen. They start becoming sick and tired, with no explanation or cure. The long-term victims are half-alive and zombie-like. Galaxy, TheEmpath, even states that it's not just the patch of obstructed light that's missing.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "Scaredy Pants":
-->'''Mr Krabs:''' Like I was saying, the Flying Dutchman swoops down and starts stealing people’s souls. (holds up a pickle)\\
'''[=SpongeBob=]:''' Do souls look like pickles?\\
'''Mr Krabs:''' Aye, as a matter of fact, they do. And he puts them where you can never get them... in his soul bag. (drops the pickle into a bag that has the words "Krusty Krab" crossed out and the word "soul" written above it. Mr. Krabs laughs evilly as Squidward appears behind [=SpongeBob=] in a pirate suit)\\
'''Squidward:''' I've come for your pickle! ([=SpongeBob=] jumps up screaming)
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': A variation occurs concerning Steven's gem. [[spoiler:In the season five finale, the BigBad forcibly separates Steven's human and Gem halves. Since his gem is literally half his soul, if not a container for the whole thing, the human half becomes sickly, pale, and unable to stand without help because of the pain. His gem, meanwhile, manifests a HardLight body like any other Gem, but it’s a glowing pink version of Steven that demonstrates barely any sentience, a frightening degree of power, and a mechanical fixation on reuniting with him.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls,'' souls don't actually represent one living being. A person's soul is actually comprised of about 50 or so motes of soulstuff, and those motes can be sent to the Afterlife through a Bonfire. They grant the player character their physical attributes in gratitude, though, justifying how leveling up works. However, only undead and demons can collect these motes, and both use them as a sort of ersatz currency. Souls are able to crystallize, forming the preserved chunks that players collect around the place, and certain powerful beings (read: bosses) have unique, twisted souls that can be turned into unique weapons and items by people trained in the art of soul transposition and/or using a tool called a transposing kiln. ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' repeatedly has [=NPCs=] tell you that holding onto a lot of souls will stop you from going Hollow and losing your identity; this is GameplayAndStorySegregation, since the actual mechanic that reduces Hollowing in ''II'' is the use of human effigies to restore humanity and souls have nothing to do with it.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': A soul, along with the body and spirit, is a component of a person, depending on the species. Humans have all three, animals have body and possibly a spirit, demons and fae have body and spirit, angels are all soul, and ghosts and spirits are, well, all spirit; and there are many other beings who have different configurations. The relationship between the soul and the spirit is complex and never fully explained, but most think that, on the death of the body, the soul will go on to an afterlife, and what happens to the spirit isn't entirely clear, but it appears to either disperse or carry on as a ghost if there's "unfinished business". A ghost is widely accepted to be a discreet and separate entity from the person that they were, even though they have the name, memories, and personality of the person that they were/came from.\\
\\
Although its existence is taken for granted, the soul remains far more mysterious than the spirit, and it appears to be even more noncorporeal and metaphysical. Even Harry, Chicago's resident wizard, isn't entirely certain that the soul exists as, and continues on as, most religions describe. [[SpiritAdvisor Bob]] describes "the soul" as equivalent to "life force" or "chi": "the part of you that is more than merely physical." He also notes (to Harry's dismay) that you can lose a significant chunk of it. Bob isn't worried about it, as lovers exchange parts of their souls regularly and you still remain "you" when you simply lose a part (small sections can grow back in about a week, and the process can be accelerated by "lifting one's spirit," perhaps almost literally in this case).
** In ''Literature/SmallFavor'', Harry gains [[spoiler:"soulfire", a form of magic strengthened with soul energy in much the same way that concrete is strengthened with rebar. Archangels use soulfire, but they have a lot more soul to work with.]] Using it does, however, [[spoiler:damage the soul by using it up a little at a time. Bob complains that humans get too upset over phrases like that, though he acknowledges using Soulfire too much could be fatal, up to leaving no soul behind.]]
** In ''Literature/GhostStory'', the concept of a soul is finally settled by one line [[spoiler: from Archangel Uriel]].
---> [[spoiler: Uriel's smile blossomed again. "You've got it backward, Harry," he said. "You ''are'' a soul. You ''have'' a body.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}'', souls essentially act as a life source, and their forcible removal can be...nasty. It would also appear that [[spoiler:they can be split into parts, each functioning as a separate entity, with their own personality (which is speculated to be) based on a particular part/trait of the original soul owner's personality]].

* The ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'' episode "Doctor of Horror" featured a scientist who theorized that the human soul could be physically found, in the form of a pinprick of light, at the base of one's spine.

** ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' souls can also be eaten (by Famine,) turned into demons via torture in Hell and used as an incredibly potent power source by various beings. Interestingly, while humans, monsters, and demons all have souls or ''are'' souls, angels apparently don't have them, although apparently, they're like batteries, and touching one can recharge a wounded or winded angel back to full strength.

** Humans ''don't need'' Sparks. A Transformer's spark physically functions as their heart as well as a soul. We don't need them, we have hearts. Only Transformers have sparks, meaning their souls can be transferred into a different functional body, by dint of being manifest. But by the same token, they can also be directly attacked, while a human's spirit cannot by dint of being an intangible force. See, a Transformer's Spark is a combination of soul and heart. If a Transformer's spark is extinguished, then without divine or MacGuffin intervention they're doomed.

** In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version]], [[spoiler:souls are what power alchemy. In turn, people actually have a smaller version of the Gate of Alchemy within their own souls, which pulls souls of the dead from a parallel world (read: our real world, circa WWI) to power alchemy. The [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Philosopher's Stone]] is in turn made from condensing a metric ton of souls into one object. This is also why attempts at human transmutation fail and produce homunculi: equivalent exchange can account for the physical elements that make up a body, but not for the soul. Homunculi are thus soulless abominations, though it's shown that what truly makes them a homunculus in the end (and gives them their overall life and power) is eating red stones, which are lower-power versions of Philosopher's Stones]]. The element of a soul and body requiring one another is also touched upon in this version, as [[spoiler:Hohenheim]] reveals to [[spoiler:Dante]] towards the end of the series.

* ''Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}'': Souls are eternal, indestructible "concepts", but require a physical body to tether them to the world. The soul is linked to the body, and when the body dies, it returns to [[TheLifestream Akasha]], to await reincarnation. Ordinarily when a soul is reincarnated, it retains no memories from any of its previous lives, but there are ways around this, as seen with [[VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}} Roa]]. If a person does manage to preserve their soul beyond the death of their original body, usually by [[GrandTheftMe transferring it directly into a new body]] or by [[OurVampiresAreDifferent becoming a vampire]], then the soul will decay. The Third True Magic, as explained in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', can overcome this problem. Also, [[spoiler:[[LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners Aozaki Touko]] has a method of [[CloningGambit transferring her consciousness and soul into an identical artificial body]] with no apparent negative effects]]. Souls in the Nasuverse are normally indestructible, but someone with the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, such as both of the Shikis, can [[DeaderThanDead kill the soul itself]].

** ''ComicBook/InfinityInc'': Hector Hall, later used in ''Comicbook/TheSandman'', is a weird case. He was born without a soul. The major effect of this was that it let him be taken over by Hath-Set later, and was eventually reincarnated as a version of ComicBook/DoctorFate. The idea of someone without a soul being reincarnated, when reincarnation by definition involves a soul, was never explained. One also notes that he ended up trapped in Dream's realm after his death, though it's never explained what part of him this is, and Hector's not quite right.

* ''Film/ShortCircuit''. Number Five gets struck by lightning, there is a glitch in the programming and he gains a soul. In the {{sequel|itis}}, he foils the bad guys, is legally recognized as a person and swears the oath of citizenship.

* ''LightNovel/SDGundamTheLastWorld'' has G-Souls. G-Souls are the souls of SD Gundams, and they can absorb other G-Souls to acquire powerful weapons or turn into [[HumongousMecha giant forms more reminiscent of traditional fullscale Gundams]]. [[spoiler:Later on in the story it's revealed that they're actually copies of characters throughout the ''SD Gundam'' multiverse, with similar skills, personalities, and even memories to match. So in a way they're a weird combination of souls, clones, and data.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. When the android Data has to stand in court to prove himself a sentient being (with the right to refuse to be dismantled by a less than competent scientist) the judge's final verdict deals with something to this effect.
--> '''Phillipa''': We've all been dancing around the basic issue... Does Data have a soul?

* In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space 9]]'': "Once More Unto The Breach" Kor is sent on a suicide mission and promises to convey Worf's greetings to Jadzia in [[WarriorHeaven Sto'Vo'Kor]]. While Ezri is back at Deep Space 9 chatting in Quark's Bar. Which makes one wonder. What does happen to the souls of a Trill's previous hosts?
** Jadzia even (re)introduced herself to some old friends of a previous host with the phrase "Don't mistake a new face with a new soul…" clouding the issue a bit. The symbiont which carries the memories to new hosts might be counted as having its own soul, mingled with but distinct from the soul of the individual host.

* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2516242/1/A-Slayer-Transformed A Slayer Transformed]]" opens with Faith suffering serious injuries after she saves Optimus Prime from a demon attack. The subsequent medical treatment is so traumatic that Arcee volunteers to bond her spark to Faith's soul to give Faith the strength to survive the treatment, giving Arcee a link to Faith on a spiritual level. After arriving in Sunnydale, Arcee is able to quickly confirm that Angel is the only vampire who has the equivalent of a spark, basically confirming that sparks and souls are essentially the same thing even if they look different.

* Souls (or [=SOULs=], as the game often calls them for no stated reason) and the effects of lacking them play a huge role in ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}''. Monsters and humans have souls, but a human soul is far stronger than a monster soul in power and the ability to linger after death whereas monster souls fade away nearly instantly after death and boss monster souls linger after death just for a brief moment. Monsters have the ability to absorb human souls to gain more power and gaining seven or more human souls can make a monster almost godlike, which is what humans feared and was their motivation to go to war against the monsters according to the backstory. Part of the reason why human souls can exist after death is due to humans having "determination" which is an actual spiritual substance that allows humans to keep going against all odds. Monsters can't make determination naturally (or at least not a lot) since their bodies ''melt'' if they have too much of the stuff. Now, what happens if a being has no soul? [[spoiler: Flowey is the result of someone who was once dead and brought back to life with an injection of determination. However, because Flowey lost his soul in his previous life, coming back to life without a soul rendered him unable to feel empathy no matter how hard he tried to feel and this would eventually drive him mad.]]