History Main / OurSoulsAreDifferent

** 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 [[EldritchAbomination the Sun]] 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]].

* ''Film/GhostRider'': 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.]]

* ''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/GhostInTheShell 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.]]

* ''Website/GoodbyeStrangers'': The equivalent of a soul in this setting is called a thoughtform. Humans and animals both have thoughtforms, but gain their thoughtforms through different processes. Animals naturally develop their own thoughtforms, while most humans bond with a free thoughtform during fetal development. A human who develops their own thoughtform is called a blank. While blanks are not able to see strangers, they can sense other things that normal humans can't. Oddly though, animals apparently can see strangers, but are mostly immune to the effects that strangers have. A ghost is a thoughtform that does not have a body. While ghosts are intelligent, they cannot gain new memories. Strangers do not have a thoughtform, and because of this they don't appear to actually have a proper mind even though they display emotions. The nature of ghost strangers is unclear. Entities from the Fade, such as gosdragons, do not have a thoughtform, but instead have a nurenform, which have very different abilities than a thoughtform. Nurenforms gain power to affect reality as they transcend from the limitations of their body, while thoughtforms mainly expand their awareness of reality as they transcend and don't gain significant power. What other sorts of entities have for a soul has not been well described yet, although the Alphabetarians can assimilate thoughtforms into themselves and the Probotaxazatonians can also steal thoughtforms and use them as drugs. A human who loses their thoughtform becomes an empty.

** The Taxxons' anchors are the Living Hive, a telepathic super-organism that grows in soil and helps regulate their hunger. The Empire's Taxxons are also spiritually starving because they're far away from it. [[spoiler:A group of rebel Taxxons smuggled a Living Hive to Earth, and helped Aftran & Eva to smuggle another one onto a space station.]]

* ''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. It's even hinted that highly advanced machines could possibly create rudimentary ghosts.

* ''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."

-->-'''Foxx Travis:''' Can you prove that was a lie? Let's see yours. Draw-SOUL! Inspection-SOUL!

*** "Black" souls are those of intelligent, fully sapient creatures (with the exception of Dragons and presumably other Aedric beings, more on that below). Black souls are those of the humanoid mortal races (Men, [[OurElvesAreDifferent Mer]], {{Beast |Man}}Folk) as well as the greater of the lesser Daedra, like the Dremora, Auriel, and Mazken.

* ''[[TabletopGame/ProseDescriptiveQualities Dead Inside]]'' is based almost entirely around the loss, gain, and expenditure of souls and soul energies. In most games, new characters start off as someone who's had his/her innate spiritual "shell" cracked open, and their soul scooped out, leaving nothing but the last few dregs of soul power to them. The overarching objective for anyone in such a position is to either grow (through doing good deeds or engaging in character building) or steal a new soul. Soul energy powers magic is the basis of trade, and is the basis of self-improvement: you perform rituals at various stages to "lock" your soul energy into a fully-developed soul. Once you have your soul back, you become known as a Sensitive, and if you cull another soul's worth of energy and perform the proper ritual, you become a Mage. The more developed your soul, the easier magic is to perform, and what happens to you when you die is different depending on whether you're Dead Inside, Sensitive, or Mage.

* ''Literature/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''.

** As mentioned, all souls have SoulPower which can be used in the [[ItemCrafting enchanting]] process to create items imbued with magical power. "White" souls can be trapped in the standard [[CrystalPrison soul gems]], which range in size. The more powerful the soul, the larger the soul gem needs to be in order to capture it. In order to trap a "Black" soul, a special black soul gem is required. The creation of black soul gems involves putting standard "Grand" soul gems through a [[TheDarkArts dark ritual]]. When a Black soul is trapped, the energy part remains in the gem and is used to enchant/recharge an item. The "consciousness" part goes to the aforementioned Soul Cairn. There is currently no known way to utilize a dragon soul in this process, though there is historical evidence of a divine soul being trapped and used in a similar fashion. When [[FounderOfTheKingdom Tiber Septim]] needed a power source for the newly acquired [[HumongousMecha Numidium]], his [[CourtMage Imperial Battlemage]], Zurin Arctus, crafted the Mantella. Said to be an "unimaginably powerful" soul gem, Arctus, according to some of [[WrittenByTheWinners the more heretical tales]], successfully soul-trapped and slew (with the help of a large group of [[BadassArmy Imperial Legionaries]]) Wulfharth Ash-King, a former ally of Septim's who is believed to be a [[EternalHero Shezarrine]], a [[GodInHumanForm mortal incarnation]] of the soul of the [[GodIsDead "dead" creator god]], Lorkhan (known as Shezarr to the Imperials). Arctus successfully trapped Wulfharth's soul in the Mantella, but not before Wulfharth was able to kill Arctus "with his dying breath". This act is believed to have [[MergerOfSouls merged the two individuals]] into the being known as the "Underking", who was then tied to the Mantella. For additional information on these individuals and the events surrounding them, see their entries on the series' [[Characters/TheElderScrollsHistorialFigures Historical Figures]] page.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'', obviously enough. Weapons are designed to eat souls, but there's a moral code that only the souls of those about to become ''kishin'' are allowed. 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 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).

* 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.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' has Jovani, who lost his soul (and his mobility) to greed. To restore it, you must collect the sixty pieces of his soul from Poes scattered around the land.
* ''[[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.
* Continuing the above trend is ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks'', where the BigBad removes Zelda's soul so he can use her body for his own purposes. Her soul then possesses a suit of armor. Yes, really.

* 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.

** Hourai elixir renders one immortal: the soul gains the ability to materialize the physical body, which is no longer tightly coupled to the soul. A Hourai immortal can be blown to bits and the soul will regenerate the body; this is a painful process that strains the soul. (This gory dismemberment has happened to Mokou multiple times.)

* 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]].

* ''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.

->'''The Iron Giant''': I die?\\
'''Hogarth Hughes''': I don't know. You're made of metal, but you have feelings, and you think about things, and that means you have a soul. And souls don't die.\\
'''Giant''': Soul?\\
'''Hogarth''': Mom says it's something inside of all good things, and that it goes on forever and ever.

* Creator/PeterFHamilton loves the subject so much that he wrote a whole SF trilogy 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 (correct me if I'm wrong) 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.

* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'': [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2006-11-26 The Devil uses souls as cooking ingredients.]]

* ''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.]]

-->--''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant''

** The Eldar are stated to have particularly strong souls that retain consciousness after death, which is particularly horrifying as their souls are promptly torn apart and devoured by an Eldritch Abomination of their own creation unless they make use of special methods (ie, a SoulJar) to avoid such a fate.

* In ''Nerh�n'', as stated in the preface, 'Soul' is treated like a form of energy like heat or light, that can be transferred and controlled, and that is the basis for the series' magic system.

* ''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 "[[FinalDeath unexistalize]]" and 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."