History Main / OurSoulsAreDifferent

* Handled interestingly in Creator/OscarWilde's ''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.
** Note that the spell the Fisherman performs to separate himself from his soul involves cutting his shadow free from his body, and that the soul, left on its own, is apparently [[TheHeartless Heartless]].
** Creator/OscarWilde's other work, ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'' is a lot darker. The protagonist makes a DealWithTheDevil in order to have his portrait age instead of him. He then proceeds to live a life of debauchery and decadence which can be seen on his portrait, but he himself remains unharmed for the most part.

However does the mind work? Is it contained entirely in the brain, or is there something more there? 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]]?

* In ''The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump'' 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 will actually work is still unclear.)

* In the world of ''Cold Souls'', extracting your soul is as common as, say, [[EternalSunshineOfTheSpotlessMind 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''.

* If you are a host for [[SevenDeadlySins The Sins]] in ''Webcomic/{{Sins}}'' then your soul is destroyed, no matter what you do or have done. Just ''picking up'' their SoulJar is enough. This doesn't seem to impact daily life, but WordOfGod states that when you die, it is nought but oblivion for you. Which sucks.

->''[[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20040925.html This soul thing. . . can I get one]] by eating someone else's?''
--> -- ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''

->Won't somebody tell me, answer if you can!
->Want somebody tell me, what is the soul of a man...
-->-- '''Blind Willie Johnson'''

* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendofZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' features the ability to extract the last regrets and thoughts of a dying soul into a mask... which you can promptly don and gain whatever wicked cool abilities the deceased may have possessed.
** It is also implied that the masks allow the soul to possess the wearer - and according to certain EpilepticTrees, even preserve the soul for resurrection at the end of the game.

* In ''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.

** ''His Dark Materials'' also holds that the mind and the soul ''are'' separate, though intrinsically connected, and that a person's mind (ghost) retains its composition upon death, while a soul (Dæmon) dissolves upon death. The mind feels incomplete however. On the bright side, a dead-but-still-intact ghost is [[LikeABadAssOutOfHell the perfect fighter]] against the aforementioned soul-eating Specters.

* In ''TheSalvationWar'', people's souls become tangible (with all attendant sensation) as corporeal bodies in another dimension, immortal, and gain a HealingFactor upon the person's death. Unfortunately, that's the better to let demons abuse you forever, since ''everyone'' goes to FireAndBrimstoneHell when they die. Despite the fact that in this series, human race invades and occupies [[spoiler: Hell and eventually even Heaven and kills God]], where souls come from is still a RiddleForTheAges by the end.

* In ''{{Warbreaker}}'', everyone has a single Breath, which is the equivalent of the soul, but can be transferred willingly to others and used to animate objects. Those who lose their Breath can function normally, but they and their clothes appear drained of color, and they are more irritable and angry.

* In Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer's ''{{Riverworld}}'' series, the soul is an ''artificial construct'' implanted by AppliedPhlebotinum, recording one's life, memories, and existence to allow people to reincarnate on the eponymous Riverworld, eons later, and work their way to some kind of Redemption/Ascension/Crystal Dragon Nirvana. One striking scene shows a holding vat holding thousands of souls: this is metaphysics meeting brutally mass manufacture. Imagine: machinery handling souls like a billion ghostly coke bottles on a production line. In a supreme irony there is no ''proof'' for the final afterlife: the spirit engineers are profoundly religious.

* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''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.

* PiersAnthony's ''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.

* The idea of body and souls was tackled in the resurrection of Oliver Queen, the GreenArrow. 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.]]

* Hector Hall in ''ComicBook/InfinityInc'', 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 DoctorFate. The idea of someone without a soul being reincarnated, when reincarnation by definition involves a soul, was never explained.

-->-- Blind Willie Johnson

* The central premise of ''GhostInTheShell'', and its sequels, 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. It's even hinted that highly advanced machines could possibly create rudimentary ghosts.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' has a lot of this; die in the real world, your spirit goes to Soul Society, or you become a Hollow. Get killed after you go to Soul Society or the Hollow world, you're reincarnated back in the real world. Screw up ''way'' too badly in life, and you leave the loop - you go to Hell. Acorrding to one of {{The Movie}}s, if you die in Hell, you regenerate in Hell; no escape.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* Hector Hall in ''InfinityInc'', 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 DoctorFate. The idea of someone without a soul being reincarnated, when reincarnation by definition involves a soul, was never explained.

* Whether a soul can be "[[DealWiththeDevil sold]]" for power, and who would benefit from this.

* Souls in ''TheHollows'' novels are a nebulous thing that is referenced often but ill-defined. The souls of living vampires are destroyed [[spoiler:maybe]] when the 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.

* In the {{Nasuverse}}, souls are eternal, 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 it's previous lives, but there are ways around this, as seen with [[{{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:[[KaraNoKyoukai Aozaki Touko]] has a method of [[CloningGambit transferring her consciousness and soul into an identical artificial body]] with no apparent negative effects.]]

* ''{{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: